Category Archives: Technology

Software I love!

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This post is by no means meant to be an advert for any specific product or company. I am not associated with any of the companies in any way.

Being a software developer, I am on my computer most of the day and anything that makes my job a little easier, catches my eye. There are three applications that I will be very briefly mentioning: Versions App, Omni Focus and Sparrow Mail. All of these products are beautifully developed and easily affordable.

Versions App 
Web: http://versionsapp.com/
Twitter: @versionsapp

Versions is a very easy to use OSX svn client. It does everything for you – you are able to view changes, view the timeline of past code commits, checkin, checkout, revert etc. For me, it gets the job done and it has an amazing interface that is user-friendly.

Well worth the €39.00.

Omni Focus
Web: http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnifocus/
Twitter: @omnifocus

I work at many different businesses, doing many different things. For this reason, I find it hard to keep track of all the tasks that I have to get done and when they are due. This application allows you to load tasks into projects and contexts which allows sorting and makes it easy to get a clear overview of all the work that you need to get done.

The product is sold for $79.00. A little pricy, however worth it.

Sparrow Mail
Web: http://www.sparrowmailapp.com/
Twitter: @sparrowmailapp

This again is another brilliantly designed application. It has a beautiful UI and also works so much better than the built in OSX mail client. It automatically links into Facebook and loads contacts images and details.

This application is priced at $9.99.

Handy Help #2: Water damage on a cellphone is not the end of the world!

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This morning I dropped my BlackBerry Bold 9700 into water – given I grabbed it within 5 seconds of the drop. None the less, the handset was soaked and would no longer even turn on. The screen wouldn’t show anything, and the infamous red light would go on for a little, then just die.

Not that I love my BlackBerry, but it is so much better than the other currently alternative I have – my Sony Ericsson C902 (or something along those lines). Stupidly, I tried to turn it on after only drying it with a towel – then decided after multiple failures to place the handset (with the battery removed) into rice. I also put the battery into the rice – just to ensure that all the moisture would be absorbed.

I then left the handset and tried not to think about the fact that I possibly would have to spend the next 10 months using a Sony Ericsson. About 1 hour later, I decided to try the handset again. This time, the screen turned on and the phone actually loaded the OS. The keyboard was not functional. I put it back into the rice and about 10 hours later removed it.

Everything is functioning perfectly again. Apparently one should leave the handset in for at least 24 – 36 hours – so if faced with this situation – if you have the patience (unlike me), try to give it that amount of time to ensure that all is perfectly dry.

Analytical review of 2010

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As done in mid 2009, I decided I should take a look into this past year – with relation to website vistor analytics. For someone like myself, seeing these datasets is very fascinating and raise some very important technical points – with regard to technology (such as browsers, software platforms etc.)

Take a look at the post from 2009 (Review of noelharrison[dot]net) if you would like to compare results. When reading this post, do note that the data collected by the statistics package is not 100% accurate. It is near impossible to give exact figures when it comes to tracking visitors.

From the beginning of January 2010 until the end of December 2010, noelharrison[dot]net has seen over 5950 new visitors and over 165000 page hits. The blog has used over 1,6GB of bandwidth.

From the statistics generated, it is clear that the more I write, the more visitors I get (this is obvious). The monthly unique hits have grown from early January at 384 to 731 in December 2010.

When looking into the day and time that people view the website the most, the following was discovered; People view the website most on a Sunday and a Monday between 11am and 1pm.

The following I found most interesting. I am able to track great amounts of geographical information. Certain packages are able to break it down to suburb level, however for this blog post, I will keep it nation based. As it normally is, the United States of America ranks in first place. The interesting second runner is the Russian Federation. South Africa is third and Great Britain is fourth. Other nations in order – after fourth are;

  • The Netherlands
  • Canada
  • France
  • Germany
  • Romania
  • Ukraine
  • Brazil
  • Latvia
  • Australia
  • Japan
  • Italy
  • Indonesia
  • South Korea
  • Czech Republic
  • Malaysia
  • India
  • Finland
  • Saudi Arabia
  • Poland
  • Austria

The next bit of interesting information is the content that viewers have found most interesting – based on the number of views. Ranking very high up is the first blog post on noelharrison[dot]net, Government Intervention; Destroyer of the Free Market and the Hot Top: Gaza / Israel.

Again, on a more technical note, 67.9% of all viewers on the site were Windows users and 18,8% are Macintosh users. I have looked at the hits to date this year, I am very proud to say that Macintosh is on top in 2011 (I do wonder how long this will be the case).

Browser wise, in 2010, 47,2% of viewers were using Internet Explorer, 17,1% were using Firefox and a small 14,5% were using Google Chrome. In 2011, I have seen that Google Chrome is sitting at 49,1%, Internet Explorer at 26,2% and Firefox at a dismal 6,9%.

I have found that posting on Facebook is a huge traffic driver to the site, along with Twitter and actually interacting with other blogs – ie. commenting.  Some of the top keywords used to find noelharrison[dot]net are:

  • Economy
  • Free Market
  • Intervention
  • Forces (economic)
  • Production (economic)
  • Interference
  • Government
  • Africa
  • Life

In conclusion, there has been dramatic growth of traffic on the site, which is exciting. The site has made it onto the first page of Google, in 2 or 3rd position over the singer – Noel Harrison. Silly, but it is a rather large challenge to compete.

Im looking forward to huge growth in 2011. Thank you for reading. Comments are always appreciated and generally (if need be) responded to.

Noel Harrison

Introducing a classic

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So I have been rather silent for a number of weeks, however, not without a reason. I have been working on a number of projects – however the one that I have enjoyed the most is an open source framework that a friend and I have started. We have been working hard on getting the system to a stage in which we are ready to show the public.

Introducing the Classic Blend Framework.

Both myself and the other developer (a good friend of mine – Jonathan Wagener – http://www.espresso-online.info) have worked with many other frameworks over the many years that we have been developing. What we have done is committed to developing one of the easiest frameworks to use – both for ourselves and for anyone else – for free.

What have we done so far?

  • Database Class: We have created a powerful database class which handles all database queries – from one -> x number of database connections
  • Module Class: This powerful class allows the framework to be easily extended for any purpose. Third party developers will be able to create and edit their own modules and optionally make it a public module which will become available to any other developer in the Classic Blend community.
  • Theme Class: This is possibly one of my favorite aspects of the framework. It allows for the development of themes for the system to run. However, it also makes use of the “Smarty” template’s engine (however is heavily edited), and allows for the assigning of theme variables from anywhere in the entire framework!

That’s it for now - take a look of the first screen-shot the public has seen!

An OSX Users Review of Windows 7

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If you are looking for an article that will bash Windows, this is not the article you are looking for and also if you dont have much time, I can sum my experience of Windows with a single word – Wow! I am a very strong “follower” of Apple and have removed Windows and PC’s from my life in general. However, I was interested in seeing what all the talk about Windows 7 was about. A good friend of mine (he is sold of Windows) convinced me to install it as my main operating system on my designers computer, which I let him do.

Although it is still in Beta, it has proven to be brilliant in every aspect of the word. In general it has the same clean and dynamic looks as Vista, but it is better. They have added many minor tweaks which makes it easier to make use of. One of the issues for me at first was the ugly start bar, but now that I am using it, it aint ugly anymore. When you delve deeper you also realise how much work they have put into something as simple as the start bar.

An application when running is displayed in a small square along the start bar. When moused over, all the active open windows running with the program show in a small thumbnail above the icon. Also when mousing over, you will notice that it takes the most used color in the logo and makes it the highlighed icon color. See screenshot below;

The start menu is alot like Vista, but the main thing that is so wonderful about this one is that the shut down button is the first button – unlike Vista where you had to click and go into a small menu to shutdown. It is that kind of minor tweaking which makes it so much better in my opinion.

On a more intellectual note, Windows 7 is by far more stable than any other Windows OS that I have ever used (with Windows ME or Vista ranking as the worst). As far as software compatibility goes, Windows 7 runs like a charm. One of the huge put offs for me with Windows Vista was the fact that I could plug a memory stick in and it would not be able to locate the driver and therefore I could not use the memory stick. It was terrible, I could not use devices that I needed to do the work that I do.

The computer that I am running Windows 7 on was built to run Vista. It only had a gigabyte of ram and Vista was heavy on the system resources. Windows 7 on the otherhand starts quickly and runs fast in general and also shuts down very quickly in comparison to my experience with Vista on the machine.

They have built in many useful small things such as libraries. This makes it easy to share files with other Windows 7 users. The networking controls have been improved dramatically – one of those things that many Vista users hated about Vista.

In closing, it is the same beautiful look of Vista, but this time it is backed by the stability and speed of OSX. What do you think, have you tried it – what will you be willing to pay for it?

Noel Harrison

Review of noelharrison[dot]net

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I thought that I would write about the statistics on my blog; how they are useful to me in a personal sense as well as in a business sense and what kind of information we collect from you as the user.

There are many great applications in order to collect this information, I personally use a system called AwStats – that is until I finnish developing my own personal system which I will be using on my clients websites (see my business at www.spinningyourweb.net).

In a personal way, it is useful to see what people are interested in reading – you are able to track what people searched for in order to find your blog, you are able to see where in the world the visits are coming from (for instance, this blog gets hits from – South Africa, United States, Argentina, Great Britain, Canada, Japan, Australia, Brazil, Russia, France and Germany to name a few). It also collects information about when my users are on the blog and for how long they are reading my blog. It also tells me where the hits came from – eg. other blogs and search engines. It is a good way to see how well your networking with other sites is working (Networking? Things such as your URL, link or reference to your blog on other online locations).

From a business perspective, these features are very helpful. You are able to aim your websites content towards the audience that is visiting your website. As far as countries go, it helps you to be able to target the appropriate languages to the appropriate groups of people. In business, it is important to know how many different (unique) people view a website a month and for how long they stay on the website. This gives you an understanding of approximately how many people are reading how much.

Anyway, heres what my blog has had in the last year or so; Unique hits: 2641, Page Views: 15421 and Visits: 2614. This is very low in comparison to most large websites, but I have detected a increase in hits over the last few months, so im excited to see what the next year or so holds as far as blogging goes.

Noel Harrison

Microsoft DevDays

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This evening I just attended a demo run of Tim Keller’s Microsoft DevDay presentation. He talks about Microsofts IIS and PHP and how they work together and also how PHP developers can intergrate their code with ASP.net, SQL and Silverlight. It looks like it is going to be a great presentation. I suggest that you book tickets (it is being presented in Cape Town, Johhanesburg and Durban).

For booking, please visit: http://www.microsoft.com/southafrica/devdays/default.mspx

Noel

Letter from Steve Jobs to the Apple Community

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Dear Apple Community,

For the first time in a decade, I’m getting to spend the holiday season with my family, rather than intensely preparing for a Macworld keynote.

Unfortunately, my decision to have Phil deliver the Macworld keynote set off another flurry of rumors about my health, with some even publishing stories of me on my deathbed.

I’ve decided to share something very personal with the Apple community so that we can all relax and enjoy the show tomorrow.

As many of you know, I have been losing weight throughout 2008. The reason has been a mystery to me and my doctors. A few weeks ago, I decided that getting to the root cause of this and reversing it needed to become my #1 priority.

Fortunately, after further testing, my doctors think they have found the cause—a hormone imbalance that has been “robbing” me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy. Sophisticated blood tests have confirmed this diagnosis.

The remedy for this nutritional problem is relatively simple and straightforward, and I’ve already begun treatment. But, just like I didn’t lose this much weight and body mass in a week or a month, my doctors expect it will take me until late this Spring to regain it. I will continue as Apple’s CEO during my recovery.

I have given more than my all to Apple for the past 11 years now. I will be the first one to step up and tell our Board of Directors if I can no longer continue to fulfill my duties as Apple’s CEO. I hope the Apple community will support me in my recovery and know that I will always put what is best for Apple first.

So now I’ve said more than I wanted to say, and all that I am going to say, about this.

Steve

Product Review: Remote

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As a part of reviving my blog, I will be writing a application review for a while every month. The one that I am doing today is Remote. Remote runs on my Apple iPod Touch (most likely would run on the iPhone too).

This application links into iTunes and basically allows you to control your music on your computer from anywhere in a wifi area. It connects through a wireless network – so for that reason, direct line of sight is not required. Why is this so wonderful? Well lets say that you are having a function, in which you have 100 people all around your house, and you have your computer running the music.

If you want to change the kind of music, you could do it from any location in your home by simply logging onto Remote and changing the music selection. Say you want to soften the music to make an announcement, you can do this by simply sliding your finger over the sound slider which will either make the music softer or louder depending on the way you move it.

This application works both on a PC and a Mac, but PC does give some problems as far as remaining connected to the device – you have to open certain ports in your firewall to let it through. Anyway, this application is avaliable for free in the iPod app store.

Regards,

Noel Harrison

Mac – My Review

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I did not want to write anything until I felt that I that I could cover enough about Mac. Mac is a wonderful operating system, so if you are a massive Windows supporter, now is the time that you should stop reading this blog post, or alternativly you could continue reading and tell me why you think Windows / PC is so great.

For a designer, it is the ultimate thing to have a Mac. I have now had my Mac for close to a month and have loved it. There have been a few hiccups though – it was not all a smooth ride.

Before I continue, I would like to let all you readers know that I have used a PC and Windows before – and I have used a number of versions 98, 2000, XP Home and Pro, Vista Home-Basic, Business and Ultimate over the span of approximately 8 years.

I had been contemplating this purchase for sometime, and finally I got the business that I own and manage to purchase it. It is the MacBook 13” 1GB with a processor of 2.1GHZ. Subsequently I have added another Gig of RAM and am thinking of upping it to 4 Gigs before the end of the year.

Mac OSX (Leopard – 10.5.5) is very light on system resources. I can easily run all my applications together without any problems. I absolutely love the iCal and Mail applications. Tim Keller (www.timkeller.net) kindly gave me a list of brilliant open source or freeware programs, so of which I had used the Windows versions of.

Being a web-application developer I was so happy to discover that Komodo Edit (Active State) ran on Mac. This is a freeware programming tool that I have used for the last year or so. It was good that I stopped using Macromedia’s Studio 8 – Dreamweaver.

The nice thing about Studio 8 is that the same installation disk runs on PC and Mac. The chat programme that I have been using is called Adium. It is amazing as it allows users to connect all of their accounts – eg. Gmail, MSN Live and Facebook – and you are able to talk to all these groups with a single application.

I also bough iWork which was amazingly cheap – R850.00 for a family pack which includes 5 licenses – Microsoft should consider pricing like such for their Office application.

Finally, the design of the Mac is really good looking. It is clean – I have the white one. The screen has  a crisp image and the apple light makes the design. The weight of the MacBook however is a slight let down.

I have never had sound problems with my microphone which is great. Speaking on Skype without having to come really close to the computers microphone is wonderful – but thats more a hardware issue.

So, do you work on a Mac, would like to work on a Mac? Or absolutly hate Mac? Share your opinion in a comment :)

Kind Regards,
Noel Harrison