The Verge's web sucks

It's information like this that makes me happy I'm not dependent on ad revenue for my lively hood. I can't say I wouldn't do the same if I were in their shoes.

The decline of Stack Overflow

I think 90% of my google searches are now answered using on of the Stack Exchange sites but this article make some good points.

i want hue

I used this to get a bunch of colors for a graphing program that needed a bunch of colors.

Shields IO

I wasn't aware there were this many projects that had these shields. It's a little crazy if you ask me.

What It’s Like to Work for a Bad Contracting Company

In my line of work, I get to see a whole lot of SQL Server projects – both good and bad – and work with the teams involved in building them. More often than not, I see contracting companies who have taken some disturbing shortcuts with horrifying results.

See, bad contracting companies have a huge sales force that goes out and asks customers, “Hey, what problems are you having? Sure, we can solve those. Just sign here.” They make impossible promises about their – well, YOUR – capabilities and timelines.

PDF Rotate

I had a client email me a PDF that was rotated 90 degrees and they wanted it posted. This page made it a quick fix.

Improved Server Defaults in 5.7

The items that I know needed to be changed are nice to see but I wonder how many pieces of software are going to break because of this and the quick fix is going to be change the settings back. Still a good step forward for new deployments.

This post has some examples of what will happen.

MySQL Extension, Going, Going, almost Gone

I was thinking I was going to need to write a wrapper to upgrade the old mysql_* functions in my code but it looks like someone has already done that.

Developer Escapades: Recruitment Redflags

This one is my favorite:

5 years experience – that framework came out 2 years ago!

Podcast: Systems Thinking: Less Coding, More Thinking with Kishau Rogers

An interesting discussion on how to thing about how our code fits into the bigger picture. I know we've had conversations about features that seemed like a quick no brainier but then ate up a lot of time adding refinements and fixing bugs.

Podcast: Relationships, Geek Culture, and Raising Nerds with Anjuan Simmons

Another interesting conversation about geeks and how they fit in with normals. Also some comic book talk that went a little over my head...

Podcast: How to Prewire a Meeting

I don't have to do this type of meeting much but this has some helpful times (including to practice fully [not just read the slides in your head]).

Podcat: Corey Haines - The 4 Rules of Simple Design

In this episode, Adam talks to Corey Haines, author of "Understanding the 4 Rules of Simple Design". They talk about the importance of low-level design decisions, tricks for naming things well, why you shouldn't model your objects after the real world, and of course, Active Record.