Evening coding

With lots of interesting client work on at the moment, I’ve decided to spend some evening time moving along the next version of Done by When. This is nothing too stressful, but the project is getting really interesting now. I think I’m over the initial conceptual learning curve and now I’m making proper progress. Where the launch version of Done by When was primarily a working proof of concept, this next version is about attention to detail and responsiveness (that’s the speed of interactions as opposed to the adaptive layout stuff that’s already in place). I feel like I’m properly upgrading something when I’m spending as much time removing code as I am writing it new. More updates soon.

For a free and open internet, be quick

“On December 3rd, the world’s governments will meet to update a key treaty of a UN agency called the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Some governments are proposing to extend ITU authority to Internet governance in ways that could threaten Internet openness and innovation, increase access costs, and erode human rights online.” – src: protectinternetfreedom.net Here are a couple of places you can show your support for a free and open web right away: http://www.protectinternetfreedom.net https://www.google.com/intl/en/takeaction If you have a bit more time, you can get creative with Mozilla’s Webmaker kit https://webmaker.org/en-US/ITU/kit/ You can see who is speaking on your behalf here: http://files.wcitleaks.org/public/S12-WCIT12-ADM-0004!!PDF-E_18Nov.pdf And this article sums up the transparency issues: https://www.cdt.org/blogs/cynthia-wong/1607…

Menu Planner: Sequence of user needs

Here’s the next instalment from my Coursera project notes:   This has been an interesting exercise but I’m looking forward to doing some actual design and prototyping work soon. I’ve also been thinking about how much more flexible software design can be than physical product design; especially hosted auto-updating software like a web app.

Announcing ‘Done by When’

I promised to ship a new piece of software today but I haven’t quite made it. Ironically it’s a tool for managing expectations, and visualizing likely delivery times for a given piece of work. It would have been useful! I hate making excuses, but it’s been a crazy month with lots of good interruptions (lovely clients with interesting projects) and bad interruptions (family emergencies and so on). So while it’s not ready for you to use today, I’ll have to settle with announcing the project title today, ‘Done by When‘. A version of the tool, whether it’s ‘finished’ or not will ship by this time next week. Thought I didn’t make the deadline this time, it’s been very helpful for focussing the mind.

I’ve set myself a challenge

I’ve had an idea for a piece of software I think would be really useful. And rather than spend months thinking about and scoping it, I’ve set myself a deadline (deadlines are magic). The first version will ship by the end of this month. If I’ve not announced this new project on this blog by 31 Aug 2012, feel free to send me abuse. I’m also going to use this as a chance to learn some new skills. I think I may learn Python.