Faceoff Show

Episode 54: Code Review

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 10:00:08 +0000

Code review will decrease your bugs, but is it worth the cost?

Geek Tool

00:46 - Logitech Internet Chat Headset

Webapps

02:17 - LogMeIn Express – Free NAT traversing remote support tool
05:57 – FriendPaste - Past things to friends and comment on specific lines
- Submitted by Cedric Weatherly

Topic

09:06 – Code Review
Why?
- Memory Leaks
- Security vulnerabilities
- Usability (DSL)
Programmers tend to not like code review
- Give your own code out for review to encourage others to do the same
- Tempt the programmers ego by saying, “I dare you to find a fault in this code”
- Try to convince them that code review is not personal.
13:43 – Two main types
- Formal Code Review
  - Formal Inspections catch 60% of bugs – Hewlett Packard
  - Inspections improve programmer productivity by 20% and typically decrease overall project cost – Wiegers 2002
- Lightweight Code Review
  - Over the shoulder or “Walk-Throughs” – One developer explains his code to one of his peers, 20-40%
  - Email pass around – Automatic email when code is checked in
  - Pair Programming – Two developers working together on one computer, 40-60%
  - Tool-assisted Code review
    - Episode 21: Clean Code
18:26 – Pair Programming (Episode 5)
- Keys to success
  - Support pair programming with coding standards
  - Don’t let it turn in to watching
  - Don’t force pair programming of the easy stuff
  - Rotate pairs and work assignments regularly
  - Encourage pairs to match each other’s pace
  - Don’t force people who don’t get along to pair program
  - Avoid pairing people together that are new a pair programming

Episode 53: Evidence Based Web Development

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 10:00:24 +0000

Knowing what works on your website is critical. Here are some tools to help you find evidence of what works best.

Geek Tool

02:15 – Gorillapod - Flexible camera tripod

Webapps

04:47 – Posterous – Create a place for your “stuff” with only an email.
- Tip from Ryan Heimbuch
08:33 - FollowBase – Listing of companies that provide support via twitter

Topic

11:26 – Evidence Based Web Development
- Split (A/B) Testing
- Tools
  - Google Website Optimizer
  - PHP Script
  - Django plugin for split testing
- Tests to get you started
  - Headline
  - Sub-headline
  - Opening paragraph
  - Call to action
  - Submit buttons
  - Colors
  - Check similar sites in your industry and try similar elements
- Knowing when you are finished
  - If the result of page A was 20 conversions, and the result of page B was 30 conversions, then the difference between the two is 10.
  - The sum of the two results is 50
  - The square root of that sum is 7 (rounded down)
  - The difference (10) is greater than the square root of the sum (7), so the result is statistically significant.
- Companies that primarily use split testing
  - Amazon.com
  - Google
  - Intuit
  - Microsoft
  - Ebay
  - Yahoo
- Analysis of Amazons add to cart button over the years
- Top Google designer shows criticism of the amount of engineering Google puts into its designs

Episode 52: Web Tips for Small Businesses

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 10:00:22 +0000

As a small business it’s important not to shoot yourself in the foot when it comes to the web.

Geek Tool

01:54 - E-Myth – Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It

Webapps

04:06 - ShowMeWhatsWrong.com – Quick way to have family and friends show you what is wrong so you can help them fix it
08:43 - http://cacoo.com/ – Collaborative web-based diagram software
- Mindmeister – Online collaborative brain mapping
- OmniGraffle – Mac based diagram software

Topic

11:53 – Creating a web presence for small businesses
Do’s
- Do your homework
- Look at your peers
- User studies
  - Anyone can do Usability
- Hallway Testing
- Spend some money
  - Hire a freelancer - http://jobs.freelanceswitch.com/
- Stick with useful content
  - Get rid of useless widgets
  - Stick with content that provides real value
What does your audience want?
- Just your hours?
- Content about your field (blog)
- If you don’t need it, don’t do it
Use your domain name in your email address
Don’ts
- Do not do your own web development
- Overuse Flash and other “flashy” technologies
- Don’t use email addresses like: bussiness@gmail.com
- Social Media
  - Facebook Fan page
  - Twitter
  - Youtube
  - Setup search queries through Twitter

Episode 51: CES Recap

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 10:00:18 +0000

Faceoff goes to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas!

Topic

00:41 – First Conference
- Badges
- Transportation
- People
- Different Rooms
- Keynotes
- Parties
07:43 – Trends
- 3D
- Thin Televisions
- Netbooks
- Small/All-In-Ones
17:36 – Booths
- Microsoft
  - Surface
  - 360
- Intel
  - Cube Display
  - Netbooks Galore
- MSI / ASUS
  - All-in-one form factor
- Motorola
  - Droid
  - Blur
- LG
- Powermat
- Nvidia / Boxee
- Eyefi
- Other Interesting Products
  - Underwater TV
  - Airdrone
  - USB flip power
  - Putty cleaner
  - Otter box
  - Tellysense
  - i2stream

Pictures of CES

Check out our pictures of CES.

Episode 50: A Year in Reflection

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 10:00:25 +0000

Faceoff is excited to celebrate our 50th episode! Thank you to all who listened and all who helped!

News/Follow-Ups

00:37 – CES and Faceoff’s 50th Episode

Geek Tool

02:09 – Code Complete – Complete guide to programming any language.

Webapps

04:03 – Our Favorite Webapps
- Mint
- Ping.fm
- Dropbox
- Latitude
- Twitter
- Github
- Bitbucket
- Google Docs

Topic

16:13 – Year in Review
- Red Bull Cola
- Super Mario Galaxy & Modern Warefare 2
- Ruby and Rails
- Git
- REST
- MVC
- TDD and Unit tests
- Distributed SCM
- Python, Perl, Ruby and OO PHP
31:28 – Resolutions
- Focus on existing projects
- Faceoff promotion

Special Thanks to:

Eric Wendelin
Rob Lund
David Walsh
Pol Lovett
HM2k
Tyhge Vallard
Dave De Vos from Antwerp Belgium
Vasily

Call to action!

Please call in or comment below your suggestions of things we need to cover at CES.

Episode 49: Best Practices Part 2

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 10:00:52 +0000

Getting a hunch, eating late, and more software development best practices.

News/Follow-Ups

00:37 – CES and Faceoff’s 50th Episode

Geek Tool

01:04 - P3 International Killawatt

Webapps

03:32 - Hunch – Answer questions and this app will give you it’s best “hunches” at an answer.
06:02 – Nocturnl – Find places to eat late at night!

Topic

Software Development Best Practices
- 09:55 - Unit testing
- 14:46 – Integration testing
- 16:34 – One step build process
- 19:08 – Bug tracking/database
- 21:54 – Fixing bugs before writing new code
- 22:36 – Development Schedule
- 24:49 – Program specification
- 27:08 – Hallway testing
  - Jakob Nielsen Study

Episode 48: Best Practices

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 10:00:13 +0000

Faceoff’s 50th episode is coming up fast, are you ready? We also talk fast coffee and best practices for web developers.

News/Follow-Ups

00:25 – CES and Faceoff’s 50th Episode
04:02 – Evernote released an Android App
07:39 – Etherpad bought by Google, opens it’s source code

Geek Tool

10:40 – Keurig B30 Mini Brewer
- Keurig K-Cup Reusable Coffee Filter

Webapps

14:22 – TweetCall – Call in your Tweets
- Donate your Voicemails to Google Voice
15:58 – Instant Jury – Let strangers settle your disputes

Topic

19:04 – Development Workflow and Best Practices (requested by mhendersonco)
- Version control
  - Subversion
  - Git
  - Mercurial
- Documentation
- Commenting code

Episode 47: CMS Showdown Part 2

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 10:00:13 +0000

Part two of our CMS showdown. After hashing through the popular CMSs, we now dive into the lesser-known (but equally useful) products.

Webapps

00:54 - Themeleon – Theme your twitter profile.
03:06 – Movieclips.com – Search for your favorite movie clips.

Topics

05:48 – The Alternative CMSs
- CushyCMS – Super simple CMS
- Concrete5 – Like cushy but local, in place editing
- typolight – Follows the wordpress model of pages and sub-pages
- Modx – Framework and CMS focused on Ajax
- ExpressionEngine – Nice CMS with option of paid support
- Magento - CMS Especially built for ecommerce sites
- Siteleaf – Someone please send us an invite!

Episode 46: CMS Showdown Part 1

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 10:00:00 +0000

Managing content can be a daunting task, but luckily there are great content management systems out there to help you do it.

Webapps

01:04 – Freemypdf.com – Remove PDF printing and other restrictions
03:33 – List of Mnemonics

Topics

05:56 – CMSs
- The Big Three
  - Wordpress
    - By far the most used CMS
      - 202 Million websites worldwide
      - Extremely large plugin database
    - Big Names
      - TechCrunch
      - Yahoo’s Corporate blog
      - Ebay’s Blog
      - Mozilla
      - CNN
      - Faceoff Show
  - Drupal
    - MVC based
    - Big Names
      - Whitehouse.gov
      - economist.com
      - Ubuntu.com
  - Joomla
    - MVC based
    - Big names
      - laweekly.com

Episode 45: Christmas List for Geeks

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 10:00:36 +0000

Looking for gifts for your fellow geek friends or ideas to implant in your spouse/parents heads, look no further.

News and Follow-Ups

01:22 – Another Time Tracker – http://colorhat.com/home

Webapps

05:17 – Load2all – Upload to a bunch of file sharing websites

Topics

07:46 – Christmas Geek Gifts

What do YOU want for Christmas? Leave us a comment or voice mail at: 31-WEB-2-TECH (319-322-8324)

Episode 44: Grid CSS Frameworks

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:00:58 +0000

A comparison of the three major grid based CSS frameworks.

News and Follow-Ups

01:14 – Thanks to all of our great listeners
- Tyhge Vallard
- Dave De Vos from Antwerp Belgium

Webapps

02:54 – Yast – Track your time.
05:23 – LocaFollow – Find Tweeters in your area.

Topics

CSS Frameworks
- 13:03 – Blueprint
- 19:33 – 960 Grid System
- 23:58 – YUI CSS

Episode 43: Optimize Those Images!

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 10:00:02 +0000

Vimperator, Memes, and a great guide to image optimization.

News and Follow-Ups

00:35 – Vimperator – make Firefox act like VIM

Webapps

08:08 – Know Your Meme – Discover information about internet Memes.
11:03 – Readability Bookmarklet – Make those annoying sites easier to read.

Topics

15:41- Image Optimization
- Tools
  - Imagemagick – http://www.imagemagick.org/
  - Pngcrush - http://pmt.sourceforge.net/pngcrush/
    - Discussed in Episode 15
  - Jpegtran
    - Discussed in Episode 15
  - Smush.it -http://smush.it
    - Discussed in Episode 10
  - Punypng - http://www.gracepointafterfive.com/punypng
  - RIOT (Radical Image Optimization Tool) – http://luci.criosweb.ro/riot/
- Correct
  - Pick the right format type: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Fireworks/9.0/help.html?content=frw_optimize_export_oe_08.html
  - You can check the GIFs and see if they are using a palette size corresponding to the number of colors in the image. Using imagemagick it’s easy to check using
    identify -verbose image.gif
    When you see an image useing 4 colors and a 256 color “slots” in the palette, there is room for improvement.
  - Try converting gifs to PNGs. Often times PNGs are smaller.
    - anything a GIF can do, a palette PNG (PNG8) can do too (except for animations).
    - convert image.gif image.png
    - pngcrush image.png -rem alla -reduce -brute result.png
  - Optimize your Jpegs
    - jpegtran -copy none -optimize -perfect src.jpg dest.jpg
- CSS Sprites
  - Arranging the images in the sprite horizontally as opposed to vertically usually results in a smaller file size.
  - “Be mobile-friendly” and don’t leave big gaps between the images in a sprite. This doesn’t affect the file size as much but requires less memory for the user agent to decompress the image into a pixel map. 100×100 image is 10 thousand pixels, where 1000×1000 is 1 million pixels
  - Spriteme.org – Webapp to help you out with sprites
- Don’ts
  - Don’t scale images with HTML
    - ```
    img width="100" height="100" src="mycat.jpg" alt="My Cat"
```
- Don’t use gif/png for photographs
- Don’t use Jpeg for images with limited colors

Episode 42: Ridin’ the Wave

Faceoff Staff — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:52:47 +0000

Droids, video chat, and Google’s hottest new product.

News and Follow-Ups

00:34 – Droid Phones
06:34 – There is one big source code hosting provider missing:
- https://launchpad.net/
- It uses bazaar and had some great feature.
- You can find the tour on https://launchpa d.net/+tour/index

Webapps

10:21 – Tinychat – Web conference with up to 12 people for free
13:56 – Fill Any PDF – Upload and fill out any PDF online for free

Topics

19:47 – Google Wave – Mix between email, IM and forum chat

Episode 41: Source Code Hosting

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:00:48 +0000

There are tons of source code hosting sites out there but which one is right for you?

News and Follow-Ups

0:38 – Spreeder is like ZapReader – via Robert Lund

Webapps

4:42 – Muttr – Vent about things
8:00 – F My Life – Sad/Funny stories about people’s misfortune.

Topics

10:38 – SCM Host Comparison
- Github – http://github.com
  - Supports git only
  - Community messaging
  - One of the most popular distributed source control community websites
  - Forking and pull requests from the site
  - Gravatar style icons pulled by users email address
  - A revision controlled “pastebin” like system called gists
  - Bare bones issue submission
  - Big names include
    - Ruby on Rails
    - Scriptaculous
    - Lots of ruby projects
  - They have a free account for public but not a private repo
- Kenai – http://kenai.com/projects/help/pages/KenaiOverview
  - Netbeans integration
  - Support for git, mercurial, and svn
  - Has a build system for code that is compiled
  - Support for Google Analytics
  - Couldn’t find the option to have private projects
  - Mailing list support
  - Big names include
    - JRuby
    - Sun, OpenSolaris
    - Cheqlist
- bitbucket – http://bitbucket.org/
  - A very similar design and methodology to github
  - Similar plans and pricing to github
  - Mercurial only hosting
  - Unlimited public repos, 150mb 1 private repo for free
  - Gravatar icons based on email address
  - Message between different users
  - OpenID support, github does not.
  - Big names include
    - Django
    - MailChimp
    - Linden Lab
- codebasehq – http://codebasehq.com
  - 20mb free
  - Supports Git, Mercurial, and SVN
  - Private repos
  - Project manager oriented
  - Microblogging integration
  - Big names include
    - Uservoice
- Source Forge
  - The largest community of hosted projects
  - Supports cvs, svn, bzr, git, and mercurial
  - Open source, public only
  - Mailing list support
  - Forums
  - Supports OpenId
  - Big names include
    - phpmyadmin
    - filezilla
    - audacity
    - jedit
- Google Code
  - Supports svn and mercurial. Not Git
  - No private repos
  - Nice front project page with featured downloads
  - Clunky issue tracker
  - 1gb of source space and 2 gb of download space
  - Project members and permissions
  - Google Analytics integration
  - Big names incude
    - Android
    - Google Wave
    - Chrome
  - Home grown
  - Gitorious – http://gitorious.org/

Episode 40: Source Code Management Blowout!

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:00:48 +0000

This week’s Faceoff is the differences between Source Code Management (SCM) software.

Topics

Source Code Management
- 3:39 – Centralized
  - Subversion
- 11:05 – Distributed
  - Git
    - The new SCM
    - Digg uses git!
  - 18:35 – Mercurial
    - Easy to learn
    - Almost identical commands as git, very interchanged
    - Revision numbers as well as hash
    - .hgignore works the same as .gitignore
    - hg serve
    - localhost:8000
    - http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/ConvertExtension

Episode 39: Make us a double!

Faceoff Staff — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 01:22:28 +0000

Usability testing and some Web Do’s and Don’ts!

Webapps

01:32 – Five Second Test - Create and take quick usability tests
04:44 – Concept Feedback - More in-depth reputation based design critiques

Topics

11:26 – Web Do’s and Don’ts
- Don’t do form resets
- Don’t use CSS expressions
- Don’t forget about caching
- Don’t use H1 for site title exclusively
- Don’t put blocks in in-line elements
- Do put the article title in the page tille
- Use a fieldset
- Do use diagnostic styling
- Make your urls friendly

Episode 38: E-Commerce Done Right

Mark Sanborn — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 09:00:18 +0000

New Twitter feature in the works, a way to find your cellphone, and some great e-commerce site tips.

News and Follow-Ups

00:22 – Twitter about to launch “Lists”

Webapps

07:12 – CeeVee – An easy to use online resume maker and display
12:00 – Where’s my cell phone – Ring your cellphone from the internet

Topics

13:55 – 15 common mistakes in e-commerce design and how to avoid them

Episode 37: Quick Website Tune-up

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 09:00:03 +0000

GIF making webapp, find out how many people are in space right now, and some great tips to incrementally improve your website.

Webapps

01:58 – GifSoup – Create animated GIFs from YouTube videos
04:36 – How Many People Are In Space Right Now? – Ever wonder how many people are in space right now?

Topics

07:09 – 101 Five-minute fixes to incrementally improve your website:)
- Copywriting
- Usability
- Search Engine Optimization
- Accessibility
- Design
- Legal

Episode 36: Usability

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:00:17 +0000

News from Mint, a tool for grid designs, and 10 awesome usability findings.

News and Follow-Ups

01:40 – Intuit buys Mint
05:29 – Compress with gzip backward compatible? mobile browser compatable?
- Check your device
08:20 – Google lets you tell them what url parameters to ignore
11:27 – Digsby sees the light!

Webapps

13:47 – ReCSS – Bookmarklet that refreshes just the css on a page. via qasim

16:37 – Gridinator -http://gridin ator.com – Create website grids easily, then download them as html/css or an image! via quasim

Topics

20:00 – 10 Useful usability findings
- Labels go above the form
- Users focus on faces
- Quality design = credibility
- Users scan content and scroll fast
- Blue is the best color for links
- White space improves comprehension
- User testing doesn’t need to be extensive
- Make your search boxes wide enough
- Informative product pages help you stand out
- Most users are blind to advertising

Episode 35: Over Buffer Flow Run

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 09:00:23 +0000

Making sure you aren’t a bad programmer, and formal names for specific computer bugs.

News and Follow-Ups

01:08 – Podshifter – iPhone update 3.0 added podcast shifting speed.

Webapps

06:03 – Wishpot - Universal wishlist app
10:23 – TwitterSnooze – Snooze someone on twitter for a set period of time
13:34 – inumbr – Get a disposable phone number

Topics

16:37 – Signs that you’re a bad programmer
- Inability to reason about code
- Poor understanding of the language’s programming model
- Deficient research skills / Chronically poor knowledge of the platform’s features
- Inability to comprehend pointers
- Difficulty seeing through recursion
Signs you are a mediocre programmer
- Inability to think in sets
- Lack of critical thinking – Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Professional and Personal Life
- Pinball Programming
- Unfamiliar with the principles of security
- Code is a mess
41:05 – Types of computer bugs – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unusual_software_bug#Bohrbug
- Heisenbug
- Bohrbug
- Mandelbug
- Schroendinbug
- Phase of the Moon bug
- Statistical bug

Episode 34: Nice Orticle

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 09:00:21 +0000

More bug talk, simple weather webapps, and great tips for wrangling your htaccess file.

News and Follow-Ups

03:35 – No you are not crazy, you cant print on Tuesdays
06:03 – Estimix - Another way to get information about a site, specifically it’s estimated value.
- Thanks Aline S

Webapps

10:53 – Umbrella Today – World’s simplest weather report. Simply tells you if you need an umbrella today.
14:40 – Got Sleeves – What kinda sleeves do you need?
19:22 – Iconfinder – Find sweet icons for your site
22:17 – Rollgator – Public RSS display on your wall

Topics

27:03 – The Definitive Guide to htaccess Techniques: Do’s and Don’ts
- Dos
  - Create custom error pages
  - Prevent directory browsing
  - Set the default page for each directory
  - Setup 301 redirects
  - Compress files with gzip
  - Redirect to a secure https
  - Block script execution
  - Restirct file upload limits in PHP
  - Enable file caching
  - Protect your site from hot linking
  - Disguise your file types
- Don’ts
  - Make spelling mistakes
  - Take caching for granted
  - Forget to test your site
  - Forget to backup your htaccess file

Episode 33: Ultimate Guide to Web Optimization

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 09:00:14 +0000

A look at the “Overflow” family of web applications and the ultimate guide to web optimization.

Webapps

02:47 – Stackoverflow – Social programming questions/answers
06:52 – Serverfault – All things servers
08:06 – Superuser – Power user questions / answers
12:59 – VapURL – A URL that “evaporates” after a certain number of visits or after a certain period of time
14:52 – Mibew Messenger – Open source customer service chat program.

Topics

19:33 – 5 Things that will kill your website
- Change
- Unexpected load
- Slow death
- Time related issues
- Hardware failure
35:23 - Ultimate guide to web optimization

Episode 32: Screencasting Showdown

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 09:00:59 +0000

Fixed Xboxes and the good, bad and the ugly of screencasting webapps.

News and Follow-Ups

00:42 – Jade is getting his Xbox fixed!

Webapps

01:27 - ReTweet – Social news done through twitter.
04:48 – Screen Capture Showdown
- Screenr – Public only recording, really easy to use, no full screen
- ScreenToaster – Easy to use, download your screencasts in other formats
- ScreenJelly – Private recording, easy to use, only fullscreen

Topics

14:31 - Web dos and don’ts
- Avoid issues on handling getElementById
- Use negative CSS margins
- Use CSS shorthand
- Optimise Jpegs
- Do proofread
- Don’t put block elements in the in-lines
- Don’t forget keyboard navigation
- Don’t fix, prevent!
- Don’t allow hotlinking
30:06 – The 10 Commandments of Social Media
- 1. Thou shalt blog (like crazy) commandments
- 2. Thou shalt create profiles (everywhere) commandments
- 3. Thou shalt upload photos (lots of them) commandments
- 4. Thou shalt upload videos (all you can find) commandments
- 5. Thou shalt podcast (often) commandments
- 6. Thou shalt set alerts (immediately) commandments
- 7. Thou shalt comment (on a multitude of blogs) commandments
- 8. Thou shalt get connected (with everyone) commandments
- 9. Thou shalt explore social media (30 minutes per week) commandments
- 10. Thou shalt be creative (go forth and create creatively)
42:56 - 6 Simple Ways For Freelancers To Increase Productivity
- Set a schedule
- Make a plan
- Get focused
- Get organized
- Set up your office properly
- Get Help

Episode 31: XXX-ish

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 09:00:37 +0000

Huzzah! It’s the official celebration of Faceoff’s 30th episode (although, a week late due to technical “difficulties”). We also talk about PHP Best practices and a way to rasturbate all day long!

News and Follow-Ups

00:39 – Faceoff’s 30th-ish Episode!
03:58 – Mint receives $14 million in new funding
- Faceoff Episode 3: Minty Fresh Finances
06:55 – Digsby drops the ball
13:43 – Fitzgerald – Sinatra clone in PHP

Webapps

16:49 – ThoughtAudio – Free public domain audio books
18:37 – The Rasterbator -Make huge posters with regular images and paper
23:28 – SnailMailr – Too hip for snail mail? Let the cloud do it for you.

Topics

27:58 – PHP Best Practices (Redux)
- Turn on error reporting
- (maybe) Try an IDE
- Try a PHP framework
- Don’t repeat yourself
- Indent code for readability
- Tier your code
- Use the full <?php
- Use a consistent naming convention
- Comment comment comment
- Develop on Linux if you can, otherwise use xamp
- Give your script limits
- Google Ajax libraries
- Use Object Oriented Programming (OOP)
- Know what ” and ‘ do
- Don’t make phpinfo() public

Episode 30: Back to School Webapp Extravaganza

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 09:00:21 +0000

Time to go back to school! This time, Faceoff makes sure you do it RIGHT.

News and Follow-Ups

00:49 – Jade’s Xbox 360 died

Webapps

02:43 – Blind Search App – Get search results from 3 major search engines without knowing which is which.
05:20 – Speepo – Easily record and leave messages to an email or private URL.
07:37 – OCR Terminal – OCR documents through the web!
12:16 – Privacy policy generator – Easy simple privacy and terms of use generator

Topics

15:37 – 22 Things you can do right now to make your website more credible
39:47 – Back to School Special

Episode 29: Smokey Joe’s Big Blue Album

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 09:00:50 +0000

Tips to stop your new venture from failing and a web application hosting breakdown.

News and Follow-Ups

00:38 – Company recieves patent for podcasting -

Webapps

03:34 – Hobnox Audio Tool – Online beat studio
07:53 – Zenbe Shareflow – Flexible communication flow.
11:43 – TagCow – Crowdsource your image tagging.

Topics

19:29 – 10 lessons from a failed startup
- Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In
36:00 – Web Hosting Options
- Hosted Service
- WYSIWYG
  - Google Sites
  - Squarespace
- Shared Hosting
  - Dreamhost
  - Godaddy
- Economy grade Virtual Private Server
  - Slicehost
- Commercial grade Virtual Private Server
  - Amazon EC2
- Co-location

Episode 28: OAuth

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 14:49:43 +0000

This week we look at the Yahoo/Bing search news, an open source Google Analytics project, and OAuth.

News and Follow-Ups

00:50 – Yahoo to use Bing
14:28 – Protovis – Advanced graphing library in Javascript

Webapps

18:37 – Google Wonder Wheel
22:43 – Piwik – Open Source Google Analytics Clone
28:04 – Vischeck – See your website from the eyes of the color blind
31:44 – Browsershots – Screenshots of your website from tons of browsers

Topics

35:18 - OAuth – Valet Key for Web Apps

Episode 27: 31-Web-2-Tech

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 09:00:30 +0000

This week we follow up on quite a few things, convert PDFs, and talk about how to become a freelance web designer.

News and Follow-Ups

01:14 – Faceoff has a phone number! – 31 Web 2 Tech (319-322-8324)
- Stop the listening right now and give us feedback!
03:16 – New Multi-Factor Authentication tool
10:08 – RSS/Articles to Newspaper format – FiveFilters
12:08 – Check your Username Followup – Friendscall.me

Webapps

15:41 – MyBoneYard – Recycle your old electronics and get paid for it!
- Darik’s Boot And Nuke – Government level data eraser
21:15 – PDFtoWord – An amazing PDF to Word converter. Seriously, try it.
25:19 – Card.ly – Your online business card
- Jade’s Card.ly
- Mark’s Card.ly

Topics

29:32 – Roadmap to becoming a professional freelance web designer
- Do the necessary research
- Become a brand
  - Elevator Pitch Essentials: How to Get Your Point Across in Two Minutes or Less
- Create a portfolio Site
- Build legal documents
- Find a starting wage/budget
- Create a resume
- Find “portfolio building” clients
- Create and stick to a schedule
- Create a business plan
  - Business Plans Kit For Dummies

Episode 26: Sinatra Takes the Stage

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 09:00:09 +0000

Sinatra and more Web Do’s and Don’ts,

Webapps

00:58 – Chegg.com – Rent textbooks online
08:53 – Yahoo Search Pad – Keep track of your searches and leave notes
15:28 – CoTweet - Manage your company’s twitter account.

Topics

25:52 – Sinatra - Micro web-framework in Ruby
- Smaller, less learning curve, designed around the URL using routes
- Sinatra makes url routes really easy
- Web.py – Micro web-framework in Python
- - basically the same concept as Sinatra for Python
  - Reddit use(s/d) web.py
48:00 – Web dos and don’ts
- Use a favicon
- Specify encoding type
- Improve typography
- Don’t overuse ajax
- Keep users updated during loaded
- Don’t use xml declaration for IE6
- Have a contact page
- Don’t use CSS hacks
- Optimize web graphics
- Don’t use justify exclusively

Episode 25: Finding Your Taco Market

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 09:00:32 +0000

This week’s episode focuses on understanding what a target market is, how to find it, and why it’s important.

Webapps

01:42 – Google Keyword Tool – Find search volume and alternative keywords and more
- Google Search-based keyword tool
11:36 – Compete.com – Look at your competitor’s stats
17:13 – Dataopedia – All sorts of data about a URL
- Find out if Wikipedia or other social media sites link to that URL
24:51 – Quantcast - Demographics and other information in your industry

Topics

31:49 – What is a target market? – “A specific group of consumers at which a company aims its products and services”
- What good it?
- The Marketing Mix (4 Ps)
  - Product
  - Price
  - Place (Distribution)
  - Promotion
- The Reasons People Buy
  - to satisfy basic needs
  - to solve problems
  - to make themselves feel better
- How do I find my target market?
  - Personal Finanance Webapps
  - Swot Analysis
  - Census Data for general information
  - Government Data RSS feeds
  - Fact finder
  - Consumer expenditure reports

This week’s episode focuses on understanding what a target market is, how to find it, and why it’s important.

Episode 24: Steps to Becoming a Successful Entrepreneur

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 09:00:37 +0000

Check your credit score and sure-fire steps to becoming a successful entrepreneur.

Webapps

00:37 – CreditKarma - Free credit scores that don’t hurt your credit score.
15:38 – Su.pr – Stumbleupon bring itself into the URL shortener/analytics business.
- Su.pr recommends the best time to tweet based on other submissions
22:32 – Netalyzr – Analyze your internet service provider.
- Tests and aggregates data about your ISP
- Find out what services your ISP is blocking
- Find out if your ISP is throttling certain packets
28:09 – Knowem – Thwart social media identity theft

Topics

33:26 - 25 Common Characteristics of a Successful Entrepreneur

Episode 23: David Walsh

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:00:28 +0000

David Walsh talks about Mootools and blogging, plus a follow up with the 411 on Google Voice.

News and Follow-Ups

00:29 – Google Voice is here! (Invites are going out)
- Faceoff Google Voice number coming soon!
- Transcriptions fairly accurate

Webapps

19:30 – VocabGrabber – Analyzes your writing to show you what you are REALLY writing about.
25:48 – Podshifter – Speed up podcasts so you can listen faster!
33:35 – ZapReader – Read faster by pasting your test in to Zap Reader.

Topics

39:52 – Faceoff talks with blogger and JavaScript programmer, David Walsh.
- David Walsh Blog – Become a complete programmer with PHP, CSS, MooTools, jQuery, and everything else.
- Follow David on Twitter
- Script and Style – Links to help you grow as a designer and developer
- Mootools JavaScript Framework

Episode 22: Smart Web Contracts

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:00:45 +0000

Word information, a password backpack, stock documents, and good ideas for web contracts are the topics for this week’s Faceoff.

Webapps

00:50 – Wordnik – Find out all kinds of things about words
08:26 – Passpack – Very secure way to store and share passwords for all those webapps you use (and other things)
- Disposable one-time passwords – Mark’s Favorite feature
- Lots of innovative anti-phishing features
24:55 – Docstoc – Download and upload stock legal documents and more

Topics

35:19 - Things you need in a Web Contract
- Pricing terms
- Project Workflow
- Maintenance
- Timeline expectations
- Limited liability clause
- Arbitration
- Additional expenses
- Cross-browser compatibility
- Client content
- Referral programs

Episode 21: Clean Code

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 09:00:01 +0000

This week the Faceoff boys try to help you clean up your act. Your programming act, that is.

News and Follow-Ups

00:39 – Arts and Crafts
- Create your own pop screen
02:07 – NiceTranslator – Active translation similar to the Google Wave translation bot

Webapps

03:56 – Wishmirror – Created to let people build their wish lists, exchange perfect gifts, and always enjoy unforgettable celebrations.
09:01 – BackupURL – Creates instant, cache’d backups of websites
- Team Fortress 2 Pyro
13:00 – ccBetty – Creates a web space that tracks your email, all you have to do is CC Betty.
- betty@ccbetty.com

Topics

20:21 – Refactoring Code – “refactoring” source code means improving it without changing its overall results
- Code Smells
- The Boy Scout Rule
- Mark Fowler – Wrote the book on refactoring
32:27 – Code Metrics – analytical tools that look at your code and give you detailed information about it’s characteristics
- SourceMonitor – Measures metrics for source code written in C++, C, C#, VB.NET, Java, Delphi, Visual Basic (VB6) or HTML.
  - Ciske’s Blog
- Metric-fu – a collection of Ruby code metric tools wrapped up into one package.
- Heckle

Episode 20: Blogging Mistakes

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 09:00:06 +0000

This week the Faceoff boys talk about the guys at LessEverything and go through some big blogging mistakes.

News and Follow-Ups

00:36 – Clicktale – Watch video and heat maps of users on your site
- 100 free recordings each week

Webapps

08:50 – Files over Miles – Peer to peer file transfer through your current browser
13:56 – LessEverything – Awesome apps from the makers of LessAccounting
- LessProjects
- LessTime Spent
- LessMemories
- LessFriends

Topics

25:07 – 21 Blogging Mistakes – Find out what the faceoff boys think about ProBlogger’s 21 Blogging Mistakes

Episode 19: We’re Compiling!

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 09:00:02 +0000

This week the Faceoff boys talk about programmer pet peeves and some interface design thoughts.

News and Follow-Ups

00 :50 – Google Wave-Google – The missing link between email and IM?

Webapps

07:41 – RunPee – Find out when to take breaks during movies
11:51 – Tabbloid – Mashup rss feeds into a newspaper layout that you can print
17:22 – Repper – Make great backgrounds out of pictures

Topics

19:21 – Top 10 Things That Annoy Programmers
48:00 – 8 rules to Interface Design

Episode 18: Essential Wordpress Plugins

Faceoff Staff — Wed, 27 May 2009 02:13:05 +0000

This week the Faceoff boys talk about 13 Wordpress plugins as well as alternatives to using a CAPTCHA to detect nasty robots.

News and Follow-Ups

00:39 – Feedstitch – Ep 16 we talked about feed stitch, Patrick Reagan Says: find the list at the bottom of a group page

Webapps

01:30 – Online Font Converter – Convert to other font formats
03:02 – Nest Unclutterer – Goes through your followers and clears out the cruft
06:55 – Print Friendly – Put in a URL and get a smart print friendly view
11:40 – Clixpy – Record user actions including: moving the mouse, typing clicking and scrolling

Topics

17:28 – 13 Most Esential Wordpress Plugins -
47:57 – Captcha Alternatives

Episode 17: Divitis

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 19 May 2009 09:00:49 +0000

In episode 17 the guys thank Red Bull Cola, talk website statistics, the Dos and Don’ts of web media, and much more.

News and Follow-Ups

00:45 – Special thanks to Catherine from RedBull!
02:28 – Woopra – Analytics in real time
- Logstalgia – Apache visualizer

Webapps

13:18 – Instapaper – A fast, easy, free tool to save web pages for reading later.
24:00 – UI Patterns – UI design library
- Patterntap
28:08 – Pixlr – Online image editing

Topics

33:29 – Google Ad Planner - Connect with specific advertisers
41:39 – WebDosandDonts.com
- Don’t use tables for layouts
- Don’t use negative letter spacing
- Don’t think valid html is good html
- Autoplay is not best practice
- Don’t use @import
- Do use semantic markup for tag clouds
- Cure your divitis
- Microformats
- Use an asterisk to indicate required fields
- Use better font stacks

Episode 16: Green To The Selenium Scene

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 12 May 2009 09:00:47 +0000

The Faceoff boys welcome Eric Wendelin to talk about selenium, as well as some essential tools for developers and tools to start up your side business.

Webapps

00:42 – Feedstitch – Stitch together multiple RSS feeds.
04:19 – Less Accounting – Stress free accounting
08:58 – PDF Me Not – View PDFs in a web browser

Topics

12:20 – Interview with Eric Wendelin about Selenium
- Eric Wendelin on Twitter
- Eric’s Blog – Programming productively with open-source tools
29:09 – Essential tools for starting up your side business
- Mechanical Turk
40:58 – 10 skills developers will need in the next five years

Episode 15: Making a List, Checking It Twice

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 05 May 2009 09:01:08 +0000

This week the Faceoff boys go through the ultimate website launch checklist and talk about their experiences with the Problogger 31 Days To Build A Better Blog challenge.

News and Follow-Ups

02:13 – Gogle analytics has an API – Thank you Google!

Webapps

07:40 – What the Font – Find out what font a graphic uses
- Identifont
11:36 – Dropbox – Free cross compatible online storage solution
- Off Site Encrypted Backups using Rsync and AES
18:19 – Logmein – Control your computer remotely for free
23:46 – Gliffy – Online diagram software

Topics

30:37 – The Ultimate Website Launch Checklist
- Google Webmaster Tools
- Pngcrush
- Jpegtran
- Episode 10: Test driven development with Pol Llovet
54:70 – Problogger 31 day blog challenge

Episode 14: The Great Debate

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 09:00:23 +0000

Dell adds encrypted hard drives, stream your 3D games, and we faceoff over a problogger list.

News and Follow-Ups

00:59 – Dell Adds Encrypted HDs to their Laptops
05:55 – Diggbar update – Digg is giving the control to the user
- Official Post by Digg

Webapps

08:02 – Procaster – One click broadcasting for 3D apps, like games
13:33 – Road Sharing – Find other commuters in your area
17:08 – Tipjoy – Lowering the barriers to giving money
- Should a business model rely on twitter?
26:43 – DoInk – Create animated videos

Topics

33:59 – Web Topics Debate on Problogger
- Full feeds vs Partial
- Comments vs No comments
- Post frequency
- Domain names
- Hosted or Self-hosted
- Titles
- Linked Content
- Social 1media vs Own our Content
- Niche or Broad topics
- Dating posts
- Writing for SEO vs Human
- Getting personal

Episode 13: Diggbar Blunder

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 09:00:23 +0000

In this episode the Faceoff boys talk about uservoice alternatives, a Tweetree Follow up, and we chime in on the DiggBar uprising on the internet.

News and Follow-Ups

02:00 – Gimp has layer effects
05:45 – Not just uservoice! Get Satisfaction does social user feedback
08:05 – Zamzar does text-to-speech
10:45 – Multi-factor authentication through iPhone
- Yubikey – An elegant way of doing multi-factor authentication
17:07 – Tweetree is even more useful than we thought!
22:13 – Digg introduces the diggbar
- Endgadget blocks diggbar

Webapps

43:34 – Meeting24 – Create a web based meeting with multiple people for free
52:52 – Alternative To – Social site to find alternatives to software

Episode 12: S3, Flex, and Django

Faceoff Staff — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 05:23:06 +0000

This week the Faceoff boys talk about Amazon’s Simple Storage Service, Adobe Flex, and the Python web framework Django.

News and Follow-Ups

00:36 – Redbull Simply Cola and Brain Toniq
02:37 – Whitehouse is using Google Apps specifically, Google Moderator
06:22 – Meebo has a new perspective on advertising
- Facebook chat

Webapps

13:41 – Moo.com – Color front and back business cards
- 16:44 – Colourlovers – Integrated color selection for Moo.com
21:14 – 3 Buck Bites – Food under three dollars. Cheap food in the nude?

Topics

27:06 – Amazon S3 – Online scalable storage solution for anyone
37:40 – Flex – Scripting language for Flash
46:41 – Django – Python MVC framework
- Google making Python fast as an Unladen Swallow
- Vim – Automatically detects and tabs properly in Python

Episode 11: Turrable

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 09:00:26 +0000

In episode 11 we celebrate our 10th episode (one episode late), make sure your site has correct spelling, and Mark’s computer tries to give us a free Nintendo Wii.

News and Follow-Ups

00:39 – We made it past episode 10!
03:05 – Watershed – Branded reliable Ustream for professionals.
- Pay by viewer hour
- 08:06 – Win a Nintento Wii!
10:19 – IE8 has been hacked – Go figure?
- OSVDB – The Open Source Vulnerability Database
- BugTraq - Up to date security flaw alerts.
17:49 – IE8 has automatic content filtering

Webapps

23:19 – spellr.us – Spell check your entire site
- @hm2k
28:38 – Wiki Rank – Rank Wiki pages
33:09 – WeFollow – Pick three tags and index your twitter profile
40:08 – Zamzar – Online file converter

Topics

45:45 – 10 Advanced Tip To Improve Your PHP

Note: the show title and image is from Frank Caliendo’s impersonation of Charles Barkley which Mark and I have been giggling about lately (you will also recognize Mark’s use of the word “Turrible” when his computer tries to give us a free Nintendo Wii).

Episode 10: Test Driven Development

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 09:00:51 +0000

In this episode we have a guest and talk quite a bit about software as a service and test driven development.

News and Follow-Ups

01:12 – Pol Llovet
- Follow Pol on Twitter

Webapps

01:55 – Smush.it
05:52 – Openwith.org – Stop wondering which programs to use to open something.
10:39 – Sumopaint – Web based image editor to give photoshop a run for its money (free)
- Software as a service
- Auditorium

Topics

25:56 – Google Graph API – Ridiculously easy to use chart API from our favorite search company.
- Google and Gmail is awesome, what will they come up with next?
- Relevant ads vs sneaky ones
40:21 – 20 Great PHP Libraries You Need to Know – Furthering your PHP development library.
45:32 – Test Driven Development
- Generate specification list
- Writing the tests
- Rspec
- Test Unit Development changes the way you program
- Peepcode podcast
- Test quality of tests with Heckle

Episode 9: Big Blue E Blues

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 09:00:16 +0000

The Big Blue E of Internet Explorer gives the Faceoff boys some heartburn as they catch up on their follow-ups and lament over the Internet’s most popular browser.

News and Follow-Ups

00:42 – SocialThing – Thank you for the invites!
- Uservoice – Get feedback on your sites web 2.0 style
07:46 – Tweetree – Doesn’t have ads, it will show the link to the tinyurl.
- Tweetdeck
11:03 – Tr.im - Clicking analytics – not just cli.gs
- Pic.im – Upload images
15:55 – Git: Mark Sanborn Approved!
18:31 – Google Voice is announced, the one phone number that controls them all
29:18 – IE8 is out!, but fails acid 3 test

Webapps

48:23 – http://embedit.in/ – Embed media inside your pages
51:20 – Tweet Later – Schedule a tweet or automate multiple twitter accounts
- Schedule a tweet with the command line on MarkSanborn.net

Episode 8: Bl.og Mon.et/ize

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 10:00:59 +0000

In episode 8 the Faceoff boys talk about some the different ways to monetize your sites and all about version control

Webapps

00:42 – Domai.nr – Give your domain a happy ending!
07:35 – Pingvine -Tweet your feeds
12:05 – Tweetree – Thread your tweets
18:13 – Uservoice – Get feedback for your sites
24:48 – Cli.gs – Tinyurl with analytics!

Topics

28:54 – How to Monetize your Web Apps
- Google Checkout
43:07 – Version Control
- Subversion
- CVS
- Git

Episode 7: OpenID Multi-Factor Authentication

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 10:00:50 +0000

This week’s episode is full of a couple free image sites, a cool survey app, some awesome tips about using multi-factor authentication with OpenID, canonical tags for SEO, some harsh truths about corporate websites, and the BEST SEO TIP OF ALL TIME!

Webapps

00:43 – Morguefile
06:22 – wufoo
- SurveyMonkey
14:26 – IconBuffet

Topics

19:17 – Multi-Factor Authentication through OpenID
- Verisign Secure Key for $5.00 through Paypal
- Multi-factor Authentication on Wikipedia
- openID
- Verisign labs openID provider
- Yubikey
- Security Now Podcast
35:09 – Duplicate content, and Canonical links
- Video by Matt Cutts
41:09 – Google Webmaster Tools
52:06 – 10 Harsh Truths of Corporate Websites
- Quote via webdav
1:02:50 – Best SEO tip of all

Episode 6: Web App Fu

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 10:00:19 +0000

News/Follow Ups

00:56 – Hulu pulls itself from Boxee and TV.com
06:58 – Netflix is planning a streaming only plan

Webapps

16:10 – Commandline-fu - The best UNIX commands on the web via Eric Wendelin
22:23 – Etherpad – Google docs on speed via Ryan Heimbuch
30:58 – Cl1p – Online Clipboard for text, images, and files.
38:18 – Coffeenatic – The best way to express your love for coffee
41:09 – LinkBlip – Send a link to someone, get an email when they click it

Topics

45:46 – 21 Reasons Readers Don’t Like Your Blog
- YSlow helps you figure out why your blog is slow
- MontanaMushrooms.com

Episode 5: Scaling to Hit it Big

Faceoff Staff — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 10:00:31 +0000

News/Follow Ups

00:43 – Doodle doesn’t send out emails, it gives you the link to send out yourself
02:50 – Snipt you can actually send a link to someone and embed it on your site. Thanks to Nick Sergeant and Pete Karl from Lion Burger for straightening us out!

Webapps

05:43 – Socialthing - Aggregates friends information from various social web sited
- Hulu – Online television streaming
- Boxee – Social media center
13:73 – notify.me – Notification’s across different mediums supporting any RSS feed
19:54 – OSVDB - Open Source Vulnerability Database recommended by Ryan Heimbuch
27:30 – Freesound.org – Free Creative Commons sound clip library
- Podsafe Audio – Creative Commons music database

Topics

30:22 – Twitter Search helps close the corporate gap
36:51 - Scaling Web Applications by Digg’s Chief Architect
- YSlow – Recommended by Eric Wendelin
43:21 – Web user behavior study helps you create user-friendly content
49:32 – Tagging for search results
54:53 - Pair Programming: What is it and is it useful?