HTMList.com, A Web Development Blog by Synapse Studios

Today’s post is on something a bit different but still very much relevant in the web development world: project management. Now, I’m not all that old and I haven’t been a web developer for all that long (about 6 years in total, 3 actually getting paid ;-) but I have had the opportunity of working for a medium-sized media company with a development team of about 25 developers, a small 5-6 person development company (3 developers), and as an independent contractor.

When I began my career at the medium sized company, I initially saw my project managers as a pain in the ass. All I was interested in doing was coding. I had my own ideas of how the project or feature was going to be done and I thought that I could handle deadlines and project requirements better than they could. Was it really necessary to ask me multiple times a day what I was doing and what percentage of the project was still left to be done? PM’s gave new meaning to the phrase “avoid like the plague.” In all honesty, I wondered why in the hell these people were even hired to begin with. I just could not see the role of a project manager as being all that important.

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Popularity: 12% [?]

Tagged with: agile, documentation, framework, management, project management, projects, scrum, software development, task management, time management, waterfall

Posted in: Articles, Development, How To

It’s been about three months since I broke into Magento for my first project here at Synapse Studios so I thought I’d give my impression on the shopping cart tool having gotten to know it a bit better.

Obviously a free, full-featured, shopping cart and e-commerce solution is great concept. I mean, really, one can’t bitch too much about something that is free (notwithstanding, say, venereal diseases or OScommerce…) Magento’s feature list is comprehensive: coupons, specials, multiple checkout and shipping options, tiered pricing, layered navigation, etc. Unfortunately, when you are neck-deep into anything, you get a better sense of the minor and major flaws lurking just under the rosy surface. Take a look after the jump at some of its more vexing problems.

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Popularity: 37% [?]

Tagged with: ajax, e-commerce, EAV, magento, reflection, xml

Posted in: Development, Reviews

News that our US Customs agents can stop and look through a person’s laptop and digital devices when they enter the country happened to hit me very late. Only yesterday did I actually read an article explaining this gross violation of privacy; US citizen or not. While I would love to go off on the legal, constitutional, and ethical shortcomings of a policy such as this, I promised my editors (read: bosses) I would try to provide a bit more of an upside with my rants, instead of just straight ranting.

Thus I am here today to offer a few recommendations for those of us that still believe in the right to individual privacy. (And a few that might get you into trouble on your next time at the airport.)

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Popularity: 78% [?]

Tagged with: bitlocking, browser cache, cryptography, customs, data encryption, data protection, encryption, feds, forensics, GIAC, rant, us customs

Posted in: How To, Rants

Today, web developers have a number of platform options to develop on. Some like the familiarity of Windows combined with an IDE like Eclipse or Zend Development Environment, while others (like myself) prefer the more down-and-dirty method of vi on a Linux workstation. Whatever your taste (or skillset) requires, if you develop on the LAMP stack as we do, then eventually you may have to interact with the Linux command line interface (CLI).

In my few years of experience in LAMP development, I have worked with a number of developers with wide-ranging abilities on the CLI. I have oftentimes been surprised that even some of the very best PHP coders can feel a bit uncomfortable when faced with the CLI (hey, sometimes it’s unavoidable). So I thought I might write a series of how-to articles on some of the more useful CLI tools, to help the budding or even advanced PHP developer increase their familiarity with the CLI when they need it. Dive in, after the jump.

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Popularity: 14% [?]

Tagged with: cli, command line, cut, linux, linux tutorial, man, paste, rtfm, sort, tools, tr, truncate, tutorial

Posted in: How To

Browsing through my Google reader today, I came across this article. Apparently, today’s over-sexed, disease-proliferating, premarital-pregnancy-crazed teenage population is in need of the services of a teen dating site.

While I attempt to refrain from a violent outburst of profanity-laced verbiage, let me highlight some of the finer points of this site (please remember that this site is marketed towards teens…from 0-18), after the jump:

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Popularity: 12% [?]

Tagged with: child exploitation, mylol, parenting, teens

Posted in: Rants

What follows is the concluding chapter of my Master’s thesis written a little over two years ago. If you are interested in reading the rest, check it out here. I just thought I would post it to see some of your thoughts on the idea of open-source software as a platform for government service delivery.

I am about half way through Lawrence Lessig’s book Code 2.0 and it has brought back fond memories of my days writing on e-government and open-source software. If you read only one book about the Internet, please make it The Future of Ideas, also by Lessig. This book was the foundation for my thesis and is, in my opinion, one the most influential books on the Internet and information freedom.

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Popularity: 9% [?]

Tagged with: e-government, government, hacker ethic, information technology, Lawrence Lessig, open source

Posted in: Rants, Tech News

Today, I’ll be reviewing php|architect’s Guide to Programming Magento by Mark Kimsal. Magento is a relatively new open-source e-commerce application written in PHP with a MySQL back. All in all, the Magento package is an impressive application with great administrative features and a flashy user interface. But under the hood, Magento is a complicated piece of machinery. At the very least, it’s definitely not for the faint of heart. So in order to navigate this maze of XML layout files, multiple template and style directories and the EAV database schema, we purchased Mark Kimsal’s Magento programming book. Find out what we thought of it, after the jump.

At first glance of the index, I got warm fuzzies all over. File hierarchy layout, EAV schema and custom module development…who wouldn’t feel a little happy? However, I’m not really the type of person to give accolades unless something is absolutely stellar. As such, this post will primarily be about the shortcomings of the book.

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Popularity: 21% [?]

Tagged with: book review, books, documentation, e-commerce, magento, php-architect, Reviews

Posted in: Development, Reviews

Coders like to code; coders don’t like to write. It’s no secret that thorough and approachable documentation is a rarity in the coding world. Despite its necessity for the adoptability of a given software package, finding good documentation is notoriously difficult. I’ve seen “documentation” consist of a simple phpDocumentor run. To the folks at Magento: this is NOT DOCUMENTATION!!! It’s merely is an incomplete reference guide!

Maybe it’s because I’m not the greatest coder this side of the Mississippi, or perhaps because I actually have an interest in writing English, but I, for one, like to write documentation. In past projects, I have begged bosses and project managers to allocate time for me to document the code that I have written (every time I was denied…by the way). [Not the case here, for the record. We love documentation and Brandon's new. He'll come to see that. :-) —Ed] Good documentation, whether for internal applications or publicly available code bases is nearly as important as the code itself. Here’s why, after the jump.

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Popularity: 9% [?]

Tagged with: adoption, best practices, code, comments, documentation, knowledge, legacy, phpdocumentor, projects

Posted in: Development, How To, Rants

Ok, so maybe not popsicle sticks, rather magnesium and carbon fiber. Anywho, this prototype is slated for production by 2010..which is quite soon. As always, I am all for getting off our dependency on fossil fuels but I don’t think that ultra efficient cars and alternative fuel sources are going to help all that much.

Yes, they are steps in the right direction but I think that the big change we need will not happen until the American people change their minds about the concept of excess and greed.

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Popularity: 3% [?]

Tagged with: not-web-dev, rant, socialism

Posted in: Rants

Hello everyone. My name is Brandon Ching and I am the newest developer here at Synapse Studios. I recently relocated to Arizona from San Diego, CA to attend ASU. I am very happy to be apart of this company and hope that my contributions, both professionally and personally, will enable Synapse Studios to reach the next level of their business goals.

I can most easily be described as a life long student. I have a B.S. in Criminal Justice Administration, a Master of Public Administration degree and was recently accepted to the ASU Doctoral program in Public Administration where I will be researching the government’s use of Internet surveillance technologies as a means of control and coercion in the citizenry.

My technical background is a varied one. My specialty is anything and everything open-source; primarily Linux. I hold certifications in UNIX system administration and have been to a number of technical training conferences from organizations such as USENIX, LISA, and SANS and have been trained in areas such as: system administration, linux OS security, networking, computer and network forensics, and web application security. I am also a GIAC Certified Computer Forensic Analyst and enjoy computer forensics as a study and practice.

I have been developing under the LAMP stack for about 4-5 years now and have experience in everything from AJAX, object oriented PHP, and MySQL database design to the Google Maps API, Drupal, CodeIgniter, and more recently, Magento.

In my free time, I enjoy archery, shooting, competitive badminton, hiking, and photography. My wife and I are also expecting our first child in early November; we are very excited about that.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Tagged with: introductions, synapse studios, web development

Posted in: People