I’m sure we all have skills and abilities that our co-workers, friends or even family do now know about.  This is where GazetMe comes in.  I first started work as the Lead Developer on this project a year or so ago and since our formation, Colin Seaman Consultancy have been given the green light to fulfill the evolution of the project.

Since working with us, Colin Seaman Consultancy has refactored a lot of the main sections of the website, including adding Gigya as a social integration tool to allow people to use the site using their everyday Facebook, Google, Twitter or Yahoo account to name a few.  The integration also allows the site to post status messages to Facebook and Twitter when a user records a new achievement or skill on the site.

We have made great steps with Benedict to improve the site’s exposure to the more connected social media outlets.  We are continuing to work with GazetMe on more changes to further push it’s functionality.

http://www.gazetme.com

It’s an attitude that can be practiced in most trades and it’s a statement that always runs true.  With a pending UK election in a few weeks time, it’s something that all the parties will no doubt practice.  Remember, whichever party gets in this term, they’ll make all their mistakes and tax hikes in the first couple of years, hoping that people will have forgotten it in the latter 2 or 3 years so that they can be reelected.  It’s true also that we won’t be able to do anything about these changes; but enough of the election talk!

In development terms, a high quality finish is something that users will always appreciate and remember.  It often takes a long time to polish a newly developed site, usually because the UI that has been scoped out in the planning phase is often different to what a regular user would actually go and do or behave like when using the site.

We like to create wireframe models of our new developments to help clients get a sense of how their site will work and operate, and to also see how semi-technical people would use the site (from the wireframes).  We believe that this approach saves thousands of pounds in the long term.

Upon finishing the last aspects of the site, it’s always important to liaise with the senior designer and UI expert to get their final take on things.  You may notice something glaringly obvious that is wrong in the user journey at the end that’s best sorted out before going live.  Remember, if people visit a half finished site they may never return to see the corrected version.

I’ve worked with both a number of academically taught developers and designers over the years, as well as self taught ones like myself.  I often see recruitment agents specifying “must have a computer science degree of 2:1 or better”, and then I think why?  Surely a candidate with 2/3 years experience is better placed than an academic rookie.

When I left my university course to take up a full time development job in 1998, my tutor wished me good luck but also conceeded that education wasn’t the only route to success.  I believe a willingness, a desire and most importantly an interest in what you are doing will take you much further than a graduate that is only in the industry because it can pay well.

On the flip side, academically taught developers seem to have a better initial understanding over a wider range of issues such as security, re-usable code and OOP.  These skills are gained much later by a self taught individual.  Academics, however, often have little appreciation of the pressures of a real business and the concept of deadlines to turn a profit in the business.  For some this comes as a bit of a shock to them, especially when they’re asked to write some code by Friday having never done so before (and making sure it works!).  This is their real learning curve.

I guess in summary there is no wrong route to Internet development.  There are pro’s and con’s for each, however you must always have an interest in what you are doing and without that your ability will suffer.

Back in 2000 I was working for a well funded Educational platform development company. It was at the start of this year when I first heard about Google after a fellow developer mentioned it in the office. At the time, my search engine of choice was AltaVista, pretty good at the time but it was terribly frustrating when it returned results far from what you were after.

Seemingly over night Google became the search engine of choice, and has since diversified it’s suite of tools and products to seemingly take over our lives. It’s remarkable foresight on the part of the Google owners and team, but sometime we need something a little different.

Often I have conversations about how to implement or produce a certain project or application. In many instances, the very thing that the user is after has already been developed by Google in some form or another. Yet Google and it’s apps can’t be all things to all people, and developing something that stands out and is different than Google’s offerings will make your company or application stand out too.

I’m not suggesting to dump Google’s offerings, far from it, but to use Google as another tool in the box rather than the toolbox itself is often the better solution. Google has a great number of APIs associated with it’s products and leveraging them in your own application isn’t done as often as it should be. The Zend Framework  has many built in components that leverage the use of these services already.

Whilst at the current time the market is in a period of content and data aggregration (mashups), let’s start aggregating services a little more to offer multi use systems rather than just multi information systems. We can look at the retail industry to find out why this is already a proven concept.

Let’s take Tesco for example. Once just a supermarket, now it’s not just a place you go to to get your food, you get your petrol there, your credit card is with them, your home insurance is with them, you might even bank with them. It truely is a one-stop shop – however Tesco, like many other companies, are just buying in white label services and products. I believe there is always room for innovation in the technology market, but lets make use of the services available and mix them with our own ideas to create something new and fresh.

You will find that this is quite a common finding when either picking up your existing code or another persons code.  Whilst each developer has different ideas on how to acheive the goals set by the client, understanding how other developers meet these needs is often the hardest part of the job.  In the real world of Internet development, not much code is commented so its often down to your own logical mindset in calculating how things work (or are suppose to work).

Over my IT career I have picked up many developers code and continued to work on top of this.  The first thing that I ask myself is ‘will it be quicker to redevelop this?’.  In some cases, it is, and thus the client gets a more efficient code base in less time (and consequently less money).  However sometimes spending a bit more time to understand how other developers have worked a situation really pays off.  The ability to consider other people’s ideas and think outside your own logical mindset is a great asset for a developer to have.  We’re not right every time, so understanding ideas that other people have put forward in my opinion really pushes your skills forwards and allows you to easily adapt to future situations better.

Like any developer, I’m proud of the code that I have developed at the end of the project, but if you do have time (even after the project is fully paid up and complete), it’s definitely worth stepping over what you have done to better your own abilities.

I was told about a company called Crunch almost a year ago that could solve all my problems. To cut things short, they have done this and more. Crunch.co.uk not only set up my business and various other shareholdings, they provide a very unique online environment that keeps track of all your business finances. The main focus of the system is the invoicing areas where I can easily send and track all of my client invoices. Coupled with the really good expenses area and the newly released dividend section where I can easily withdraw dividends from my profits, Crunch is a complete system that I would urge people to use.

Even if you are unsure about any company financial problem, Crunch have qualified accountants on the end of the phone who have helped me out immensely.

I guess some people’s concerns are that they either can’t follow these articles (some of them do make some huge presumptions!) or they don’t want to have to write a plugin (for example) just for one custom render of a form.

The easiest way to achieve a half way house is to use the power of Zend Form and all it’s validators and such, but to control the form element layouts in your phtml files.  I’ve placed some sample code below which I hope helps people in this situation:

IndexController.php

public function blahAction()

{

$form = new forms_myform();

if ($this->getRequest()->isPost())
  {
   $postdata = $this->_request->getPost();

if (!$form->isValid())

{

$form->populate($postdata); // form is invalid, send the data back to the form

} else { // the form has validated successfully, now do something with it

$filtered_data = $form->getValues();

// Do something with the output

}

}

$this->view->form = $form; // assign the form object for use in out view script

blah.phtml (view script)

<p><?php echo $this->form->username ?></p>

<p><?php echo $this->form->email?></p>

<p><?php echo $this->form->submit?></p>

myform.php

<?php

class forms_myform extends Zend_Form
{
    public function __construct()
    {
  $translate = Zend_Registry::get(‘Zend_Translate’);
             $this->setDisableLoadDefaultDecorators(false);

  // Create the non empty validator
        $validatorUsername = new Zend_Validate_NotEmpty();
        $validatorUsername->setMessage(‘Username cannot be empty’);

      
        $username = new Zend_Form_Element_Text(‘username’);
        $username->setLabel($translate->_(‘Username’))
           ->setRequired(true)
           ->setDecorators(array(‘ViewHelper’,
                         ‘Description’,
                         ‘Errors’,
                         array(‘HtmlTag’, array(‘tag’ => ’span’)),
                         array(‘Label’, array(‘class’ => ”),)))
                 ->addValidator($validatorUsername);

$email= new Zend_Form_Element_Text(‘email’);
        $email->setLabel($translate->_(‘Email’))
           ->setRequired(true)
           ->setDecorators(array(‘ViewHelper’,
                         ‘Description’,
                         ‘Errors’,
                         array(‘HtmlTag’, array(‘tag’ => ’span’)),
                         array(‘Label’, array(‘class’ => ”),)));

$submit = new Zend_Form_Element_Submit(’submit’);
        $submit->setLabel($translate->_(‘Submit’))
          ->setValue(‘1′)
          ->setDecorators(array(‘ViewHelper’,
                         ‘Description’,
                         ‘Errors’,
                         array(‘HtmlTag’, array(‘tag’ => ’span’)),
                         array(‘Label’, array(‘class’ => ‘nolabel’),)))
          ->setAttrib(‘class’,'loginbutton’);
        $this->addElements(array($username, $email, $submit));

    }
}

//  You’ll notice that we set the decorators in the form so that we don’t get all the junk DD, DT etc tags that by standard Zend Form produces.

->setDecorators(array(‘ViewHelper’,
                         ‘Description’,
                         ‘Errors’,
                         array(‘HtmlTag’, array(‘tag’ => ’span’)),
                         array(‘Label’, array(‘class’ => ”),)))

By wrapping the HTML tag in a span, it means that we can control it easily via CSS.  By default it doesn’t display any differently if you have no specific span style defined.

Having many years of experience in different systems and technologies myself, a mistake like this is obvious to spot. However, if a client hasn’t got any information to the contrary, they could potentially use this as a viable solution which in itself is scary. I’m sure the Drupal e-commerce component fits the bill for certain people, but as a number one recommendation it’s rather bizarre. For reference, I’d recommend something proven like Magento.

It makes you wonder how many clients have received something that doesn’t quite fit the brief or expectations when dealing with other companies. It’s could literally mean fitting a square inside a circle.

The most important part of getting what you want is the requirements gathering stage. There is an action both on the client and the company in this instance, where the client should be as detailed as possible to the developer and the developer can then talk through ways in which the goals can be achieved and surpassed.  Before undertaking any work you must think about the business goals, the design goals and the development goals of a project, and only then we can make a recommendation of which product best fits the bill or whether any bespoke work needs to be undertaken.

I believe that everyone has at least one good idea in them, but not necessarily the skills or know how to get their idea developed.  Being a techie, most (if not all) of my ideas are Internet based as it means that I can do something about them when I find the time.  It’s amazing how quickly you can build up a network of people in the area your idea resolves in by just talking to several people.  What’s more, you’ll soon find someone who has been along the same thought process of you and is perhaps looking to launch something in a similar business area.

Good ideas aren’t hard to find.  Good ideas aren’t hard to implement either.  As long as the market has been researched and there is a genuine need for the idea then it’ll usually be a success.  Obviously marketing does play some part in this, but we live in the age of free, viral marketing meaning that you can quickly target a large audience.

I launched a football site during the mid-1990’s and without spending a single penny managed to attract nearly 10 million visitors per month.  The principles of free promotion or networking haven’t changed, just the processes.

Social Media is playing a huge part in peoples’ lives at present, with Facebook claiming to have around 140 million registered accounts.  However, a little Internet history tells us that this isn’t a new idea, just a re-adapted one.  Where there are people chatting away on Facebook now, during the early 1990’s there were (and still are) Newgroups (alt.news.talktome!), which we’re adapted in to a more mainstream Forum/Message board system for most sites later in the 90’s, IM’s such as ICQ we available in the late 90’s to the new century, where we all seem to communicate using Facebook, Skype or MSN.  It goes to show, even if your idea has been (in principle) already developed, changing the face of something is often a good thing.  It is, after all, all part of product innovation.