Ryan’s Blog

Free video service Hulu lauanched and now provides semi-high quality video for free.

Here’s a taste:

Merry Christmas everyone. If anyone is looking for any last minute gift ideas… here’s what I’d like more than anything else in the world.

You too can build one of these using the following:

• EasyStart Training Airplane
• KX-131 (the 151 is out now, and looks to be superior)
• Airwaves 612 RF (2.4ghz) transmitter (you can get this from Active-Robots)
• Airwaves 623 RF (2.4ghz) receiver (you can get this from Active-Robots)
• Any of the i-glasses
• A gyroscope, he got his from RC-Tech
• He uses a Futaba T9C Controller

He lists all the parts he used in the video, along with a link to the RC-Cam forums

I’ve seen a lot of blog posts that state the “proper and correct” way of writing or implementing code. Things such as suggestions that may make your development easier should not be taken as rule. An article I read the other day, 9 CSS Ethics Every Designer Should Have, had me almost beside myself. These “ethics” were simply the blogger’s opinions. Some even violated performance and accesibility guidelines. A few people commented that they didn’t agree with the a few of the items on the list, but no one seemed to have a problem with them being declared “ethics”. I’ve always considered ethics, and please, comment and let me know if I’m wrong, to be black and white, wrong and right. So I’m writing “unethical” CSS by not following their suggestions?

I by no means am a CSS Designer. I work in design, web and application development, server management, database architecture, as well as project management. I’ve spent time working in every aspect of computers. By no means am I an expert in every field, but I know enough about each area to get me by. I’ve written some pretty decent code over the years, and I’ve designed and developed some large scale websites for larger scale clients.

I looked at the list of 9 “ethics” and could not find a single ethic listed among them.

1. Indent descendant and related rules
   Let’s start with this one.  I can understand where you’re coming from on this, but what about minified CSS?  There goes all your formatting. 
2.  Grouping and commenting your CSS rules
   Another good one.  This is another “readability suggestion”.  Again, destroyed with minify.  Doesn’t effect how my CSS  performs.
3. Keep style type on single line
   There goes your readability arguments…  What about when my styles are complex?  Also destroyed again by minified.
4. Break your CSS into sheets
   That’s a performance violation.  CSS should be kept to a single file.  File download limits are set to 5 asynchronous transfers PER domain at a time.  If it’s downloading 1 CSS file, it can be downloading 4 images at the same time, instead of 4 CSS sheets and a single image.   Another tip, CSS is text and compresses for faster transfers.  Larger files compress better over HTTP and don’t have the overhead of begin response/end response of smaller files.  Keep it to 1 file for maximum performance.
5. Reset your elements
   Finally.  One I can agree on.  There are even great pre-setup CSS files for resetting styles.  I’m in on this one… except that they’re completely against reseting globally.  Sometimes it makes complete sense to do a global reset.  And that also allows you to define ALL styles explicitly.
6. Place color scheme in one place for ref(e)rence.
   That’s a good idea to save you lots of time, but again… ethics?
7. Use a meaning naming system
   Again, I won’t argue with this one… It’s not a bad idea, but it’s not ethics.
8. Alphabetical Properties
   Again, this one makes sense.  Still a readability issue.
9. Keep a library of helpful CSS classes
   I still fail to understand how I’m a bad Designer if I don’t do this?  It’s a useful tip, but still does not effect my end product.

I was really disappointed to see things like Group Collaboration and agreement weren’t on this list.  How you work in a group is more important in most instances than not.  When you start working in even small groups of people on projects, you’ll find that everyone has their own style.  It’s best to sit down and work out what style would be effective for the small group.  For instance, the group I work with consists of 3 people.  I have my own quirks, like the following:

Pascal Casing on function names.
Camel Casing on class names.

There are many more things that developers all do differently, and to work efficiently as a team, there needs to be an agreement.  What takes longer?  Spending 3 days outlining a conventional development standard for your group, or the time spent grumbling about how I hate to work on Ryan’s code because he prefixes private variables with underscores, and uses single line CSS styles?

Everyone has their own techniques and experiences, and it works better when all parties involved are on the same page.

After thousands of people sent in video to Google for their GMail Collaborative Video, the results are back from the cutting room floor.

Good stuff.

It’s pretty well known that Detroit Public Schools has been having lots of bad PR lately. In July I took a position with a company called VisionIT, a decent sized IT staffing firm in Detroit. The client they hired me to work on is DPS. I’ve taken the position of Lead Web Developer. Our team is pretty small, just 3 of us to handle all updates to the DPS website. When I arrived, the website was a mess. There were no standards… Many pages had text that overflowed onto the blue background and became unreadible.

Since that time, we’ve spent a lot of time revamping most sections of the website. There have been a lot of challenges. Many people have used the tired website for a long time, and they’ve been set in their ways. It has taken a lot of work to show them that it can be better. We’ve recently been implementing flash video using Google Video (Youtube is filtered by proxy) and RSS feeds. Our largest section of the website, the employment section now has RSS feeds based on position types and searches. With the way Detroit’s economy has been, everyone is looking for a job. Maybe this little RSS feed will help atleast a few of them find what they’re looking for.

The news section has been revamped and has RSS available.

Our next big project to finish will be a Joomla implementation to provide individual schools their own customized websites. We’ve even talked with the school board about bringing in student interns to assist in keeping school information up to date, including sports schedules with scores and other events.

I’ve worked on a few high traffic websites, both in design and code. This is the first website I’ve been a part of where it feels like I can make a difference. We’ve been sent thank you emails, and I’ve received phoned calls at my desk from people who are very happy with the new functionality. I really felt an overwhelming feeling when I arrived on the job. Things were looking pretty rough. After I sat down and prioritized the issues, we have been able to maintain the existing level of service, and even have some time to provide valuable changes.