Dear Open Source Software (0)

Journal entry December 18, 2011

Dear Open Source Software I don’t think I have ever written you before, but there is something I wanted to get off my chest. I just wanted to let you know, that you rock! Just the other day, you saved…

Software , 0 comments

Challenge the deadline (4)

Journal entry November 30, 2011

There are basically two kinds of deadlines: Real, and Arbitrary. Real deadlines are those necessitated by some external, unchangeable event. For example legislation, the company running out of money, the CEO having to get up in front of the world…

Read the full entry, Business, Software , 4 comments

How to export CSV data from PostgreSQL (0)

Journal entry November 7, 2011

Just because I can never remember how to do this: psql my_database -c "COPY (SELECT stuff FROM my_table) TO STDOUT CSV" > my_file.csv Works in at least PostgreSQL 8.4….

Software, Technology , 0 comments

Routing requests to local development environment (1)

Journal entry October 19, 2011

Some third party systems needs to send requests to your web application in order to work. Facebook fetches the actual application, Chargify notifies you of subscription changes, payment gateways tell you the transaction has been accepted. That’s fine in production…

Read the full entry, Software, Technology , 1 comments

Import MTS video clips to iMovie (1)

Journal entry September 12, 2011

My parents have a digital camcorder. A week long vacation with said camcorder, my parents, and their only grandchild produces a fair amount of raw footage. Before we headed back home after the vacation I wisely snapped up all the…

Read the full entry, Life, Movies, Software, Technology , 1 comments

Announcing r-conomic (1)

Journal entry August 2, 2011

If you have ever tried to integrate with e-conomic you’ll likely recognize that their API comes out pretty high on the How to make a crappy API checklist. Luckily, if you’re using Ruby, you can now use the r-conomic gem…

Read the full entry, Programming, Projects, Software , 1 comments

In defense of the scrollbar (0)

Journal entry June 9, 2011

I don’t get Apples insistence on getting rid of scrollbars in OS X. What have they got against them? They take up screen estate, sure, but seeing how the smallest Mac display has a resolution of 1280 by 800 (on…

Read the full entry, Software, Usability , 0 comments

Build your core (0)

Journal entry March 3, 2011

When building a new software project, you should focus on building your core functionality - usually the magic sauce that makes your company money. This might seem obvious, but many people don’t realize just how much extra work is needed…

Read the full entry, Business, Projects, Software , 0 comments

You don’t know what you want (0)

Journal entry February 14, 2011

There is an old saying; “You never miss the water till the well runs dry”. The meaning is that it’s easy to not realize what you have until it is no longer there. The opposite is also true - possibly…

Read the full entry, Projects, Software , 0 comments

Is app update nirvana here? (1)

Journal entry February 3, 2011

When I previously wrote about the tyranny of software updates, one of the takeaways were that it would be nice if someone were to create a centralized, out of band, update mechanism for installed applications. Lo and behold, with the…

Software, Usability , 1 comments

Tracking exceptions with Redmine (2)

Journal entry November 23, 2010

Staying on top of errors that happen in your production Rails applications is a must. Unfortunately trawling through log files get old really fast, and getting enough information about where the error happened can be hard. That’s what services like…

Read the full entry, Programming, Software , 2 comments

Putting code on display (0)

Journal entry November 18, 2010

Some months ago, the people I share offices with had an exhibition showing off their works. They are all visual designers and artist, so their works are fairly easy to exhibit. I turned down being part of the exhibition, primarily…

Read the full entry, Life, Programming, Software , 0 comments

Adium installs updates on quit (0)

Journal entry September 22, 2010

Adium has moved one step closer to the approach I’ve suggested applications take for software updates: “Install on Quit” is a great option and sure beats the “install now and interrupt what I wanted to do”. I would prefer that…

Software, Usability , 0 comments

Move to Applications? (3)

Journal entry September 2, 2010

We Mac users have been blessed with self-contained applications that (for the most part) don’t require an installation/setup. This means trying out a new application is a simple matter of downloading and double clicking and the app is running. However,…

Software, Usability , 3 comments

Feed the trolls: Launch your project now (3)

Journal entry June 14, 2010

One of the many things I try to make my customers realize, is that their web application is never done. There is always something that can be made easier to use, pages that can be made to load faster, new…

Read the full entry, Business, Software , 3 comments

The software behind Substance Lab (2)

Journal entry February 25, 2010

When I founded Substance Lab I knew I wanted to build a virtual business - or at least as much as it could be. Why should petty details like physical locations decide whether I can help my clients? From the…

Read the full entry, Business, Software , 2 comments

The tyranny of software updates (8)

Journal entry January 8, 2010

There you are, sitting at your desk. Your thoughts are coming alive on the glowing display in front of you, brought into existence by your fingers effortlessly running across the keyboard. The outside world has become a distant memory -…

Software , 8 comments

Using Google Page Speed to optimize websites (3)

Journal entry July 27, 2009

Back when Yahoo! released their YSlow add-on for Firebug, I took it for a spin and optimized biq.dk using it. Google recently released their variant of YSlow called Page Speed. Like YSlow, it’s an add-on for Firebug and it provides…

Read the full entry, Browsers, Programming, Projects, Software, Usability, Webdesign , 3 comments

Testing HTML emails with Rails and Litmus (1)

Journal entry April 8, 2009

Jakob looks at how to use Rails and Litmus to make sure your HTML emails look great to all your users.

Read the full entry, Projects, Software, Webdesign , 1 comments

Side job versus dayjob (7)

Journal entry November 20, 2008

I have been moonlighting as a freelance webdeveloper for the last couple of years. The first year, I was using my spare evenings and weekends until I began having trouble finding enough time to dedicate to new projects. My reaction…

Business, Life, Programming, Projects, Software, Usability, Webdesign , 7 comments

Things I learned from the Microsoft ads (0)

Journal entry September 23, 2008

Windows is confusing and all about nothing - just like any episode of the Seinfeld show. Microsoft needs to piggyback on Apples creativity. Even though everyone and their brother use Windows, group pressure isn’t going to make me switch…

Software , 0 comments

Stikipad doesn’t spell doom for all cloud services (1)

Journal entry June 9, 2008

My rant about how Stikipad founders has screwed their customers attracted this comment from reader Verity, which I figure warrants a proper reply, not just a comment: It proves that it will be a long time before we dispense with…

Software, Technology , 1 comments

StikiPad - When software in the cloud goes sour (15)

Journal entry May 27, 2008

For a long time I have been using a wiki service called Stikipad to jot down things I wanted to save for later; like business ideas, drafts for blog posts and presentations, stuff like that. Unfortunately Stikipad has looked like…

Software , 15 comments

FreeTDS connection issues (1)

Journal entry December 6, 2007

Mental note to self (and everyone reading here): If using FreeTDS on OS X and you cannot connect to your MS SQL Server using iodbctest , but you can con using tsql, and your TDSDUMP logfile contains tds_iconv_info_init: client charset…

Software , 1 comments

OS X, MacPorts, ImageMagick, and RMagick (2)

Journal entry August 5, 2007

2 hours down the drain, and all I had to do: sudo port install ImageMagick sudo port install rb-rmagick…

Programming, Software, Technology , 2 comments

What the heck is an iPhone application? (0)

Journal entry July 3, 2007

As you’ve undoubtedly noticed, assuming you follow at least a few blogs, listen to podcasts, or otherwise read the press, Apples iPhone has been released. Ever since Steve Jobs non-announcement of 3rd party iPhone applications really being web sites, there…

Hardware, Software , 0 comments

iTunes podcasts should work across computers (1)

Journal entry May 16, 2007

Imagine this: I’m at work when someone tells me: “Hey, you need to check out this podcast”. “Sure”, I say, “I’d love to”. So I fire up my iTunes, add the podcast to my subscriptions, and forget all about it….

Hardware, Software, Usability , 1 comments

Prototype and TEXTware QUICKfind vs Internet Explorer (5)

Journal entry April 16, 2007

You know we’re sitting on four million pounds of fuel, one nuclear weapon and a thing that has 270,000 moving parts built by the lowest bidder. Makes you feel good, doesn’t it? After launching the rewritten and redesigned BiQ I…

BiQ on Rails, Browsers, Programming, Projects, Software, Technology , 5 comments

Launch: BiQ on Rails (3)

Journal entry April 2, 2007

After 6 months of evangelizing and advocating, followed by 6 more months of rewriting, and then 3 more months of building new features and enhancing existing ones, we have finally launched the new version of BiQ. Going from ASP/VBScript on…

BiQ on Rails, Programming, Projects, Software, Technology, Webdesign , 3 comments

One reason to upgrade Ruby to 1.8.5 (0)

Journal entry December 19, 2006

Last week I took a quick executive decision to deploy BiQ on Debian Etch instead of Sarge as initially planned. Mainly so we could take advantage of Ruby 1.8.5 (let me hear you scream “Mongrel”) and Subversion 1.4.something. Today, yet…

BiQ on Rails, Programming, Software , 0 comments

My iTunes is messed up (2)

Journal entry October 17, 2006

Podcast syncing in my iTunes Jukebox (or whatever the name Apple wants us to use for it) is broken. I’ve it set to “Sync all unplayed episodes of all podcasts”. iTunes reports that I currently have 11 unplayed podcasts in…

Hardware, Life, Software , 2 comments