Wouldn’t that be a great feel-good motivator for the new year? Well it is.

As part of learning web2py, Python and Google AppEngine, I have been creating few applications. Earlier I created a checklist application, which I’m happy about. Since beginning of December, I worked on a simple blog engine. Requirements were based on my itch and they are :
1. Should support writing in Markdown. I have been using Markdown for all my writing. An additional benefit of writing in a pure text format is that you got a local copy of all your writings.
2. Just a single author system.
3. Commenting is non- essential. Ratio of quality comment that adds to the discussion to time spent on spam is low. I don’t mind taking the discussion to Twitter or G+, if required.
4. Have a minimal design. Yes, I want to learn CSS but I also like to limit the learning to few topics at one moment so that I can learn them well. Also I have found that minimalistic blogs are pleasant to the eyes

Having laid out these simple requirements, I went about developing it. Due to workload and family commitments, I could spend only an hour or two at max a day, some days even that was not possible. But the desire to create something of my own kept my enthusiasm high. The intuitiveness of web2py design should be commended since I didn’t spend any time in picking up from where I left. There was no time lost.

I set myself a deadline – I should complete the blog engine before Christmas and should migrate my other biz blog before New Year.

When I started, I wasn’t sure I will be able to complete. But am happy that I was able to meet the deadlines I set to myself. In fact, I did better. My biz blog was running on wordpress and I was even able to import wordpress entries (though I would consider it was only about 90% success).

On 24th, I had the running code and launched the application on Google AppEngine. I called it Minnaedu – a Tamil word for online journal. I played with it few more times before announcing it in web2py forum on Dec 25th.

Soon after I worked on making it work outside of Google AppEngine. I was hosting my biz blog on webfaction servers. Though webfaction doesn’t provide quick-install method for web2py as they provide for django, they do provide a script. Few clicks here and there and voila, I got my biz blog in my own blog engine.

That is when I understood the power of web2py – I could run the same codebase on Google AppEngine and webfaction (only change was database connection string).

This blog is still running on wordpress. Migrating this to minnaedu is less priority than getting minnaedu well tested and having the deployment taken care by fabric.

Overall it is a great way to finish the year.

Wishing you create something useful for all – you and the tribe you chose to be with.

Happy New Year

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Here is a blog engine for Google AppEngine (and just about everywhere else) is post from finally{}.

Author Bio : Joseph is an independent consultant helping organizations to achieve their business objectives through IT investment. You can follow him on twitter @jjude

There are two unused laptops at home – one quite old with Windows 2000 on it & another not so old with Windows XP on it. Both of them work but don’t recognize the home network and so don’t connect to Internet. I could’ve searched for drivers or tried to debug but the pseudo-geek in me overtook my senses and I decided to install one of the Linux variant. I thought, it will be a latest OS, so will detect all the hardware devices. I finalized on Kubuntu & downloaded the latest version.

Installation went smooth. As I rightly predicted, it detected all the devices and I was able to connect to Internet. Wifi didn’t work, but I decided it can be fixed later.

I did a quick test with the essential applications – Konqueror, Spreadsheet and Word. I even played a bit with the default games. It felt good.

It was time for some ego-boosting.

Only it was not.

When I observed her using the laptop and looked at Kubuntu from her eyes, I realized that the user interface isn’t polished; menus, buttons and dialog boxes appeared scaffolded rather than complete.

She didn’t like what I gave her.

I had overlooked an essential aspect through this entire process. My wife is a normal computer user and she doesn’t care if it is a superbly engineered, open-sourced, freely distributable, community developed OS (or apps for that matter). She expects a smooth experience from the time she opens the lid of the laptop to closing it. She will hardly spend more than half hour daily. If she gets frustrated at initial tries, the laptop will remain closed.

With that realization, I apologized.

She was happy to leave the laptop. She went back to cooking lunch.

Then I took the laptop where Windows 2000 was installed and tinkered with it. Soon it connected to net, in a wired mode. When I gave it to her, she was happier.

But she could be even more happier.

She had used my Mac time-to-time and that is how her desire for a laptop started. It was cruel of me to introduce her to Mac and then relegate her to Kubuntu.

“I want a Mac”, she said without saying it.

That is when the ‘feelings-side’ of my brain, which is punctured for a man by default especially when it concerns his wife, woke up with a point:

If I’m callous, I will dump her with Ubuntu; if I’m indifferent, I will give her Windows; if I’m in love, I will gift her a Mac.

Now, if you will excuse me, I am going to the Mac store.

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An User’s Perspective on OSes: Horrible, Bearable and Adorable is post from finally{}.

Author Bio : Joseph is an independent consultant helping organizations to achieve their business objectives through IT investment. You can follow him on twitter @jjude

But then I became solo and quickly I realised that solo developers don’t enjoy the luxury of that silo-expertise.

As a solo developer, you are required to master a whole gamut of software tools. Its difficult but not impossible. Mostly we know the challenge and ‘know’ we can handle it. After all, all of these are still software.

What came as a surprise to me and am sure to others in this flock is that suddenly you need to master so many other non-software skills.

You are expected to have good, if not excellent, communication skills – and many fellow programmers will admit it’s a nightmare; and you need a knack to close a sale, which includes among many others strong negotiation skill.

Being in India, I am aware that some, if not most, of these tasks can be outsourced. But even that requires these non-software skills like contract negotiation and cash-flow management!

So what I’m saying is, when you transition from an employee-programmer to a solo developer, you are no more a programmer. You are a businessman. Earlier, you realize it, it is better.

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Solo Developers Aren’t Just Programmers is post from finally{}.

Author Bio : Joseph is an independent consultant helping organizations to achieve their business objectives through IT investment. You can follow him on twitter @jjude

I’m pondering this question as I develop 123-check, which, I hope, will have all the checklists at one place.

Let me tell you why I think slug is not necessary.

To start with, implementing a slug has an overhead.

First the overhead of programming it. In a framework like Django or WordPress (yes, WordPress is no more just a blog engine), enabling this feature may be just a matter of few lines of code or few clicks to install a plug-in. But if you program in web2py, it is not an out-of-the-box option. You need to spend time developing it.

Secondly, there is an ongoing overhead of translating the title (or whatever else you convert) to a slug and then later, searching through a db with a slug (a text field search, so it’s slower than an id match). This wouldn’t matter much in most environments but in Google AppEngine (where I host 123-check), it matters.

I would pick up the overhead if it helps. But I am more than convinced that there is no reason to implement it any more.

Let’s look at how you land at a web page. For convenience let’s limit to content pages (which is what 123-check is) and leave out corporate informational pages.

The fastest way to reach a web page is via bookmarking. May be you bookmark 123-check because you know, you can find all the checklists in a single portal (and if you have not bookmarked it, go ahead and do it now. I will wait).

But there are times you search. I have not used Bing much, but Google sorts by +s & general popularity. Recently it also shows if someone from your circle shared or +ed a result. So you go ahead & click a result thrown to you by Google.

Wait, did you look at the URL of the web page? I bet you didn’t. Most of us don’t.

There is still another way you land on a web page, which is through activity stream of Twitter, Facebook. Ironically, you don’t even know the domain of the link you click because mostly its bit.ly or something similar.

Ok so the slug is not used by humans. May be its for machines! But let’s look at some of the players in the ‘content’ field.

Twitter gives a pretty URL to my profile page. So do LinkedIn & Facebook. But on GPlus, I’m just a number. Now that might surprise a lot of people.

What? The grand-daddy of SEO doesn’t have a pretty url in its social media site?

So if Google doesn’t go with Slug why should you?

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Is Slug A Necessary Feature Anymore? is post from finally{}.

Author Bio : Joseph is an independent consultant helping organizations to achieve their business objectives through IT investment. You can follow him on twitter @jjude

If you are on the search for a tool, know that no tool or framework is so comprehensive to cover an exhaustive use-cases. So whatever choices you make, it is likely that you will encounter someone from the anti-camp. Hear their arguments, just be sure of your requirements. Otherwise you will waste your time in search of the best tool!

While we are at it, here is a related point: since no tool can meet all your requirements, you may have to learn another tool.

With that said, here is a list of the tools I’ve acquired and use:

Computer Environment: You might buy the best tools but if you have to run them on a lousy computer, your productivity is still hampered. I have been using a MacBook for the past three years and I don’t regret the investment. Why? Because it just works. Do yourself a favor and get the best computer you can buy.

Programming Language: Another important choice for software developers is the programming language, since you have to literally live with it. Of all the languages I have used, I prefer Python. It is simple, hence easy to learn; it has got great community around; got many frameworks for both desktop and web development; and an added advantage of a simple programming language is that when you return after a break, you can quickly pick-up and move fast.

Virtual Environment: Without an virtual environment, changes you make impact the main installation, sometimes disturbing the system behavior. Virtual environments give you the flexibility of experimentation & isolating your experimental changes.

I use both virtualbox, which is a full fledged virtual emulator and virtualenv which is a python virtual environment.

Wireframe Sketchers: It is better to visualize the design before writing a single line of code. That will limit the cost of changes later. I play around with many desktop-based & web-based tools for wireframe but I keep returning to pencil (the real paper & pencil and the simple Pencil extension for Firefox)

IDE/Text Editor: Integrated Development Environments are packaged with tons of tools to assist software development. But, I find them bloated for a Python based web development. A text editor meets almost all requirements of python based web development.

Recently, I switched to TextMate and I am happy with it. It comes with lots of bundles that ease your way of working.

Frameworks: Frameworks provide a means for all the common activities of software development like UI design, events controllers, DB access and session management (in case of web apps). That said, frameworks can also be restrictive, so ensure the frameworks support the use-cases you have in mind.

I regularly use wxWidgets for desktop programming & web2py for web development. They are not perfect and there is always a better framework; but they fit my needs.

Source Control: It is suicidal to start software development without a source control tool, even for a solo-developer development (like me). There is an associated benefit of using a source control system: using commit comments, you can keep track of your progress in implementing features & fixing bugs.

Mercurial is my choice for source control. On mac, I use Murky as the mercurial client.

Bug / Issue / Features Database: Bugs & features should be collected in a single bucket rather than being littered in papers or in text files. Most of the version control systems provide a bug tracking system too.

I use the bug / issue database that comes along with Bitbucket.

(Automated) Testing Tools: after a certain threshold, it is impossible test all features manually. you should automate as much as possible and resort to manual testing only for those aspects that need to be tested manually like look & feel of the application. There is a whole lot of testing tools available depending on the aspects of testing, for example functionality testing and load testing.

I don’t have a choice or a preference when it comes to automated testing tools. I’ve used Python unit-testing, Selenium and now learning Robot Framework. But I’m still on the look out for a better (read one that makes functional & load testing easier) testing tool.

Hosting: Web applications need a hosting environment. For my simple need Google AppEngine and WebFaction are sufficient enough.

I’m eager to know what are the tools you use? Leave them in comments.

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Tools of Software Craft is post from finally{}.

Author Bio : Joseph is an independent consultant helping organizations to achieve their business objectives through IT investment. You can follow him on twitter @jjude

It is not just that the domains have become too large. Now, we are expected to posses skills in many of the associated fields to be successful. It is not enough that you can focus and capture amazing pictures, but you need to be able to persuade clients to engage you for assignments, negotiate fees and also effectively manage time.

When all of these crowd your mind, you tend to forget things – some times even the crucial things. That leads to disasters which can’t be forgiven, because you knew you had to do it, you knew how to do it, yet forgot to do it.

That is how proposals are emailed to wrong clients and product upgrades are done without shuting down email servers!

But is there a remedy? Can this be solved?

“Yes,” says Atul Gawande in his book, The Checklist Manifesto. If not obvious from the book title, he recommends us to use checklists.

I stand by checklists, because I use them and I have found their effectiveness.

Because I’m convinced of the effectiveness of checklists, I have created a web-application to be a repository of checklists.

It is only the first version. But you can already create checklists and tag them. I have list of additional features to implement (like delete, modify checklists, share in social media etc.), Still you can mail me your suggestions.

Now its your time to go and create checklists, because you don’t want to make stupid mistakes.

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Simplify Your Life With A Simple Application is post from finally{}.

Author Bio : Joseph is an independent consultant helping organizations to achieve their business objectives through IT investment. You can follow him on twitter @jjude

Why?

Is it because it is free?

Is it because it has dropbox interface?

Is it because it has a full screen edit? (well almost)

Yes all of the above, but those aren’t the only reasons for my ‘wow’ feeling.

More than everything above, its the macro bar on top of the regular iPad keyboard that makes me tap it to capture notes.

The extra line of keys bring undo, redo, letter and word navigation and so on. It is so useful that, I think it should be a default in iPad.

Even though it’s free, Nebulous Notes Lite lets you define your own macros and rearrange these macros (by way of export and import) to suit your need.

Another one of geeky feature that I love is it’s support for Markdown tags. Now I can type blog posts in a readable format and convert to HTML when I post. This helps me concentrate on content creation rather than worry about presentation. I use TextMate on my Mac, so conversion is taken care of well by TextMate’s blogging bundle.

Ever since I bought iPad, I have been compiling my blog posts solely on Nebulous Notes Lite and I observe that, my rate of getting the post out has increased.

I am so amazed by features in the free version, I might soon buy the full version. It’s that good.

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iPad App Review – Nebulous Notes Lite is post from finally{}.

Author Bio : Joseph is an independent consultant helping organizations to achieve their business objectives through IT investment. You can follow him on twitter @jjude

As soon as I became an independent consultant, I bought myself a MacBook Laptop. Yes it was expensive, but that is one of few purchases that I am not sorry about.

Reasons?

Due to nature of my assignments, I had to use my laptop only on an open network. But so far, I didn’t have to worry about virus creeping to my laptop. I freely use thumb-drives for sharing files with all others Ms-Windows users without any care or concern. I do have an anti-virus installed; yet the assurance of safety in itself is a great relief.

Secondly, in these many days, I haven’t wasted an hour of downtime due to system crash, failed updates or hanging system for thousand and one reasons. Efficiency is implicitly expected out of consultants and being an IT consultant, I am glad that I never had to say, “please give me one more day since I have to re-install my computer” (though I had to hear that from many of my colleagues).

Another advantage of Mac is the pleasure of using better designed products. I can’t comment if this differentiation is brought forth by designers of applications or MacOS itself somehow mandates a pleasing UI and a well functioning design; in any case, Mac users benefit from such application ecosystem. One such feature that is ‘full screen editing’ by which you are presented a full screen canvas with minimalist tools, thus helping you to concentrate on creating the content rather than being diverted by umpteen number of tiny icons scattered all over the screen. I am not saying all Mac users are highly productive – I can’t even say that about myself, but these applications facilitate productivity and then gets out of your way.

Is it all only admiration? Of course not. I am not a Mac zealot to be blinded. There are some black-spots too in Mac.

Foremost is the lack of wide spread customer service centres, at least in India. There are only handful of service centres, (though they were extremely helpful), and then there are absolutely none in tier-2 cities.

And then there is this, common complaint that anything to do with Mac is very expensive. There is definitely a premium to be paid for all the features in Mac, be it hardware, MacOS applications or third-party applications. They are more expensive than their counterparts in Windows machines.

But these gripes are small compared to what I get out of owning a Mac.

I will continue to enjoy the pleasure of being with a Mac.

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Two Years On; And The Date Is Still Strong is post from finally{}.

Author Bio : Joseph is an independent consultant helping organizations to achieve their business objectives through IT investment. You can follow him on twitter @jjude

Ever since I got an iPad, I have been browsing the AppStore for free apps.

Browsing the AppStore can overwhelm you. While large number of applications is a good thing, searching through the AppStore can overwhelm you. There are just too many apps. Of course, if you care to spend time sifting through all of searches and app descriptions, you will find what you want.

But if you are ready to spend money, then you don’t have to spend that much time going through the appstore – just pick up the app you want to buy, pay and own it.

Since I had time, I decided to search for free apps.

In fact, I’m surprised that there are any free apps for iPad. Apple charges enormous amount (at least according to my standards) to be part of the developer program and without participating in it, you can’t get your app into AppStore which is the only distribution mode for iPad apps. Yes, there are free apps with ads, but not every one.

Here I present the free apps I found useful.

Top 20 Free iPad Apps

While there are hundreds of free apps, I didn’t go and try every free apps. Why? Because of how I want to use this iPad.

I framed ‘consume, create, converse’ model for learning. I am curious about various subjects and I want to learn about all of them. So I looked for apps that fit into these three broad categories.

1. AppStart: A beginners guide for iPad. It gets you started with using iPad. It also provides list of essential applications (both free and commercial) under different categories.

2. MobileRSS: I am a follower of ‘Eat like a bird’ principle advocated by Guy Kawasaki. So I read lot of blogs and Google Reader is my choice of RSS aggregator. Hence I prefer desktop & mobile clients that syncs with Google Reader. MobileRSS is an easy to use iPad app syncing with Google Reader.

3. Read It Later: Another tool for consumption of interesting ideas. As I read blogs and tweets, I collect links that would be of interest which I can read leisurely. ‘Read it Later’ client enables me to collect these links and as the name indicates, to read them later. An annoying aspect though is that you need to be connected to the Internet to save these links. It would be a welcome feature if links can be added offline too.

4. Echofon: Twitter enables me to consume, create and engage all within the same system. I learnt a lot through Twitter regarding all the topics that I’m interested in. Echofon provides a simple and easy interface to all of Twitter functionalities (lists, retweets, reply etc). I can also save links to ‘Read It Later’, if connected to Internet.

5. Evernote: Evernote is a fantastic tool for knowledge management. It has tools for collection from RSS readers, browsers and menu bar and all of it’s clients (on MAC, iPad, android) for free. These collected notes can be tagged and organised under notebooks. Since it is a free plan, there is no offline reading of these notes, which I am ok.

6. Nebulous Lite: A text editor for iPad. But it’s more than a text editor. It has support for markdown format with dropbox sync. If that isn’t enough, it also has support for macros which brings an additional row of keys to default iPad keyboard. I have found that this extra row of keys offer very useful features like undo, redo, navigating shortcuts etc. Try this app if you plan to type a lot on your iPad. In fact, I am typing this blog post in it, which will be converted into HTML on my MAC.

7. Bible: There is no other book that has inspired me as much as Bible. Now I can carry it along with me to read it anytime I want. Not just one version but many versions (I have downloaded Good News Version).

8. iBooks: Probably the only free app from Apple for iPad. This is a book reader. You can download books on variety of topics from the bookstore. I have downloaded some of the classics. Currently I am reading, “India : What can it teaches us?”

9. Toshl: A tool to track expenses. It is a iPhone only app which syncs with their web app. Since I have been already using it, I went ahead to use it in iPad too.

10. Idea Sketch: A simple tool to draw flow chart or mind map. The drawing can be saved locally or emailed.

11. Documents Free Mobile Office Suite: Mobile office suite which can handle both documents and spreadsheets along with integration to Google Docs. Google Documents can be downloaded, edited and uploaded back. Documents can also be created in the iPad and uploaded into Google Docs.

12. Dropbox: The glue. Now-a-days, I depend on dropbox for sharing files back and forth between iPad and Mac and writing notes on the iPad and syncing back to Mac.

13. WordWeb: Dictionary for iPad. It’s fairly comprehensive and has an extensive search facility too. Every now and then, I would like to refer a word and with word web, I don’t have to wait until I get a Internet connection.

14. WordPress: I host two blogs – one is this and [another] where I blog about consulting. I can post from within the iPad and also track comments. But the most useful feature is the access statistics of the blogs.

15. Times Of India: Times of India is the only Indian newspaper that has an iPad version, that too for free. I have been a subscriber of its paper version. Now I sync the iPad app in the morning and I read while traveling or whenever I get free time during the day.

16. Flipboard: A new way of consuming digital information. An interesting concept that turns blogs and twitter feeds into a digital magazine.

17. CloudReaders: A PDF reader for iPad. You can download from its bookshelf or transfer files from your mac. It has an easy mechanism to transfer files into iPad from Mac.

18. Chess: If I completed whatever I wanted to do, then I take a break and play for sometime before I get to the next task. This app is well designed.

19. Epicurious Recipes & Shopping List: Cooking can be fun and a stress reliever. Epicurious lists lots of recipes. I’m still looking for a good Indian menu in the list. Right now, I am just trying out the drinks mentioned here.

20. IM+: I use Google (gmail) as my contact manager app, so I was looking for a chat client with a support for Google protocol. IM+ supports almost all existing chat protocols and it’s easy to use too.

As days go by, I will test out other applications in each of these categories. If you have any suggestions, please let me know via comments.

As I use these applications, I will also post full review of these applications. So stay tuned.

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Top 20 Free iPad Apps is post from finally{}.

Author Bio : Joseph is an independent consultant helping organizations to achieve their business objectives through IT investment. You can follow him on twitter @jjude

I could have asked any of my friends in the US to buy me an iPad 2 and dispatch via someone returning to India. But too much of ‘I-want-to-help-Indian-economy’ ideology prevented me from doing it.

So I decided to buy an Android based tablet.

But there was no Android tablet available in the market. There was Samsung Tab, but it wasn’t really a tablet since it was running on Android OS meant for phones. Samsung Galaxy Tab was announced but not yet released.

So here I was in India waiting for a real tablet. Then something unexpected happened.

There is a reason Apple is the most celebrated brand now. They beat their competitors in every factor. Not only they create smooth and beautiful products, but they also devour their competition unexpectedly. One such move was their introduction of iPad in India.

Apple announced that iPad 2 will be available in India by first week of May.

Unlike the US there were no long queues in India to get an iPad. Even the shortage of iPads were attributed to shops ordering just few units.

When I went to Anything Mac for servicing my MacBook, I casually asked, if they had an iPad 2. Since I didn’t see any crowd and also the shop itself was so small, I had assumed they won’t have one. But I was wrong. They had iPads. The receptionist apologetically said they had only the wi-fi ones, which was great since I wanted only wi-fi ones.

So there I became the proud owner of iPad 2.

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How I Came To Own An iPad? is post from finally{}.

Author Bio : Joseph is an independent consultant helping organizations to achieve their business objectives through IT investment. You can follow him on twitter @jjude