I’ve been working with the founders, Dave Margulius and Andrew Sutherland (student at MIT), for around 6 months remotely and on short term trips as a contractor, and have now decided to accept an offer with the team full-time.  I’ll be responsible for developing new features on both websites, improving user experience, increasing monetization, and overall growing the businesses.

Quizlet.com is a studying website that lets students make flashcards online and study in a more effective and more fun way.  The site serves over a million students each month, has over 750,000 registered users, and has over 50 million user-generated flash cards.  As only the second developer on Quizlet, I’m excited to grow the website in huge ways and spend most of my time helping make studying better for a lot of people.

Collectors Weekly is a resource for all things collecting, antiques, and vintage.  It’s a combination of great original content and providing tools to browse eBay in a better way (SuperBrowse example).  I just helped launched its new geo-targetted events section and will spend about one third of my time developing new features for this site.

Both websites run on the LAMP stack.  I’ll be working heavily with Apache, PHP, JavaScript / Ajax, MySQL, Memcache, Sphinx, etc. to help grow traffic and features in a scalable way.  A decent number of the interesting technologies that I used for the first time in 2009 were a result of working with these guys.

This is an exciting time and a big opportunity for me as I’ll be able to significantly impact the growth and success of the startup.  It will also nice to be able to focus all my work attention in one direction rather than juggling many projects, as I’ve just graduated from UF and won’t be continuing freelance web work.  And of course, moving to San Francisco from Florida will be a big change and I’m excited, although I’ll still get to fly back every so often.  Wish me luck!

Since the year is over… here’s a quick list of 15 technologies/frameworks that I got to learn in 2009 alone, during my last year in college.

1. Learned PHP optimization techniques, such as using APC and Memcached
2. Worked with the Twitter API to create a Twitter bot
3. Learned advanced Google Analytics tools and did multivariable testing of conversion rates with Website Optimizer
4. Work with the PayPal Payments Pro API
5. Created a simple Facebook App (using FBML)
6. Learned some Objective C and worked with XCode and Interface Builder
7. Created a basic iPhone App that interacted with an XML web service
8. Worked heavily with Magento customization and theming work
9. Wrote a WordPress plugin to make deploying multiple sites easier, along with plenty of other WordPress development
10. Wrote an ExpressionEngine module to save people time, and other EE work
11. Learned about various MySQL performance with different storage engines
12. Built a Google Wave Robot at a Google hackathon and demoed it at a WordPress Dev Day
13. Worked with the YouTube API to build an automatic video status checker
14. Geo-targeting by IP address
15. Automatic language detection of text with Google’s Translation API

Hopefully 2010 will bring its own interesting technologies and opportunities to learn!

Chapter 1: Introduction & Overview, Chapter 2: Quick Tricks – Good chapter to teach beginners to both JavaScript, jQuery, and PHP the differences between client-side and server-side code, and how the jQuery framework fits into it all.

Chapter 3: Tabs and Accordions – At first this chapter looks to be nothing more than glorified examples of jQuery UI Widgets, but later it actually does a nice job showing how PHP can be used with these widgets to do server-side management of the tabs.

Chapter 4: Forms and Form Validation – Interesting and insightful way of validating forms (both on the client and server side, which is necessary) without having to duplicate all the validation rules.

Chapter 5: File Management, Chapter 6: Calendars – Very specific examples, but Ch. 6 uses the very nice jquery-week-calendar plugin to create an interface very similar to Google Calendar and shows how to link it up with PHP managing the events server-side.

Chapter 7: Image Manipulation – Another nice example of bringing using both PHP and jQuery plugins (treeview and jcrop) to create something really useful.  In this case an image browser, resizer, rotator, and cropper.

Chapter 8: Drag and Drop – Standard sorting/dragging examples + persisting data.

Chapter 9: Data Tables – Using the DataTables jQuery plugin with PHP on very large data sets.

Chapter 10: Optimization – A few helpful tips regarding caching, automatically merging .js source files, JavaScript code optimization, perceived user load times, etc.

Overall, if you’re a programmer not super familiar with PHP or JavaScript, this book does have some very helpful explanations with good examples.

One small gripe about the book: while I do know that black and white books are much cheaper to produce, reading code without syntax coloring makes it unnecessarily harder to understand.

To learn more or purchase: “jQuery 1.3 with PHP” by Kae Verens.

I thought it’d be worth mentioning the classes at UF that, looking back, had the greatest impact on me.  I’ve taken a bunch of classes over the past 4.5 years, but these were the ones that I really can appreciate the most…

It wasn’t until this class that I really understood how computers worked.  I started this class as a freshman who could barely count in binary.  In one jam-packed semester, we learned all about: number systems, logic gates, mixed logic, k-maps, multiplexers, flip-flops, ALUs, RAM, ROM, etc.  We also learned how to design hardware components using Quartus and VHDL, and program them onto our PLDs to watch different LEDs on our breadboards react to various switches and buttons (see picture of my breadboard wired up after programming a PLD).

All in all, we started with simple logic gates and designed an entire (basic) 8-bit CPU – and then programmed it by writing and hand-compiling assembly code.  What a great learning experience!

This was also a great example of where it was completely worth taking the class with the harder professor who gives more homework, because he was very passionate about the subject and knew how to teach it well.  I don’t remember every detail of what I learned 4 years ago in this class, but because I had a great professor, I can still explain most of the major concepts and would feel comfortable diving back in if needed.

This OOP class has had a greater influence on me as a developer than anything else ever has.  Heavily based on both in-class lectures (with reading assignments) and very large get-your-hands-dirty team programming assignments, the course was a great mix of theory and practice.

We went over many important topics such as encapsulation, inheritance, composition, cohesion, encumbrance, type conformance, Law of Demeter, Tell Don’t Ask, Open-Closed Principle, Liskov Substitution Principle, and MVC.  We also became deeply familiar with reading UML diagrams and sequence diagrams and used these to express complex software object models.

The real value from this course, though, came from the programming assignments.  We worked in groups of 7-8 people throughout the semester on three different iterations of a real-time role playing rage (RPG) in Java based on proper OO design based on what we had learned at that point in the semester.  We actually started from scratch for each of the 3 iterations, and, for each iteration, I spent about 90 hours outside of class working with my group on a solid UML design and implementing our design in Java.

These group assignments, even though they were very time consuming, had a huge amount of value in helping us turn abstract OO concepts into practice.  They were also very rewarding as we were creating a pretty cool game

A side effect was that I also learned a lot about teamwork and leadership, and working with a group of people under high-stress work environments.  They also were what caused me to really know Java well.

• Design Patterns in OOP (CIS 4930) – Dave’s other class.  I’d highly recommend it to anyone wanting to become a better programmer/designer.
• Business Finance
• Intro to Financial Accounting

Common advice is that for the 1024 resolutions you have a maximum width of around 960 or 980px to work with. But if you really need to get every last pixel in, I can confirm test results from Windows XP running at 1024×768, with Internet Explorer 6.0 fully maximized, gives you a width of 1007px to work with.

* Of course, fluid layouts are also nice.

[Jump to Download/Installation Link]

Each time you set up a website with ExpressionEngine you probably want to install several different modules, extensions, and plugins. Doing that usually involves downloading a .zip file for each add-on, then individually unzipping and uploading each file/folder to the corresponding modules/, extensions/, plugins/, language/, and themes/ folders. Then each time any add-on is updated, you have to repeat the process across all your websites.

With my module, installing other add-ons is basically a one-click process. You just visit the module page (shown below) and then either upload a .zip/.php file, or give it the URL to the source from the developer’s website. Hit one button and my module takes the source file, extracts, and searches through the files and determines where each file/folder goes.

Screenshot:

For example, if you just upload a .zip file that contains a folder for a module, a pi.someplugin.php, and a lang.someplugin.php, all of the files will get extracted and moved to their proper locations. If it comes across a file it doesn’t understand, it will let you know.

Requirements:

• ExpressionEngine 1.6.8
• PHP cannot be in Safe Mode
• You may need to change permissions for a few folders if instructed

These likely would only be a problem with some shared hosting companies. (If you need good ExpressionEngine hosting let me know).

Installation:

1. Download freo_addon_installer_1.2.zip and unzip
2. Upload the freo_addon_installer/ folder to your system/modules/ folder
3. From the Modules page of your EE Control Panel, click “Install” next to “Freo Add-on Installer”
4. If you’re running a version of EE older than 1.6.8, copy freo_addon_installer/language/english/lang.freo_addon_installer.php to system/languages/english/
5. Please donate to support development of this and future add-ons.

Changes:

• v1.2 – Bug fixes (Oct. 25, 2009)
• v1.1 – Fixed problem when URLs redirect, like on github download zip URLs.  Added better support for installing fieldtypes for Brandon Kelly’s FieldFrame extension.  (Oct. 7, 2009)
• v1.0 – Initial Release. (Oct. 7, 2009)

Ideas & Plans:

• Create a long list of known add-ons to choose from so that installing will truly be one-click and not require looking up a source .zip URL.
• Integrate with LG Addon Updater so installing updates will be more of a breeze.

Feedback & Support:

If you encounter any problems or have any ideas for improvement at all please let me know. Leave a comment below and let me know how you like it. This support thread in the forums is the best place to resolve any problems you may have.

Please donate to support development of this and future add-ons.

Chapter 1: Introduction, Chapter 2: Installation, Chapter 3: Categories and attributes – High level overview of Magento.  These chapters aren’t very useful if you’ve already used Magento at all, however for someone starting from scratch this would be a faster way of learning than going through the guides on Magento’s website. Chapter 3 is available as a free sample.

Chapter 4: Taxes – Very good chapter – I actually learned a lot.  It was very helpful as I am finishing up a Magento store right now and am about to configure taxes.  It discusses how tax rates and rules work in detail,  according to the product type and purchaser’s location.

Chapter 5: Adding simple products - Same analysis as Chapters 1-3.

Chapter 6: Minimum customization of your store’s appearance - Great for pointing beginners at where different files in Magento live and how to customize them.  However many of the tips for customizing the design will break if you try to update your site and default theme.  I’d recommend reading my post for Magento beginners before you start customizing anything.

Chapter 7: Beyond simple products – Helpful, although doesn’t provide much more information than is readily available on Magento.com.

Chapter 8: Customer relationships – About managing customer accounts. Configuring store contact options.

Chapter 9: Accepting payment, Chapter 10: Configuring shipping – Pretty thorough job of explaining different methods of accepting payments with the various gateways, and configuring all the different shipping options.  There’s a lot of details and explanations, so I’ll be looking back on this chapter again.

Chapter 11: Fulfilling an Order - A walk-through of fulfilling an order. Discover your options for handling order fulfillment by observing the lifecycle of an order in Magento.

Appendix: Abbreviated step-by-step directions – A good idea for any book!

To learn more or purchase: “Magento: Beginner’s Guide” by William Rice

I’ve been working with Magento for over a year now, and overall I’m extremely impressed.  The architecture of the system is certainly very complex, but once you start to poke around and understand why there are so many different directories and files, and how everything is organized, you’ll love the flexibility that it creates.

The biggest complaint of Magento is the lack of documentation. From the wiki pages, to user guides, to source code comments, the documentation is severely lacking and often out-of-date.  I hope this improves over time (I think it will).  What I’ve found is that you can eventually figure things out, but the learning curve is just a little steeper than it needs to be.  It is pretty necessary to understand many core concepts of Magento (how XML layout files are used, how data is stored, how template blocks and functionality interact, etc.) in order to correctly make even the simplest of changes.  But once you get it, you can do a lot.  I think the CMS ExpressionEngine does extremely well at this, in comparison, and they are both products aimed at similar audiences.

When I started developing on top of the Magento platform, I kept a log of some of the help things that I learned along the way, that I wish I had known upfront.  Many of these tips seem obvious upon looking back, but I thought I’d share them for anyone just getting started programming or designing for Magento.

For everybody:

• Use the Wiki, Knowledge Base, and forums
• Don’t ever modify core Magento files! Seriously.  This quick article is a must read for all beginners.
• To upgrade to a new version of Magento: just upgrade all of the components by using Magento Connect Manager.  This is found in the admin’s System menu, or by adding /downloader to the Magento home page URL.
• To add Google Analytics: simply add your Analytics account profile’s tracking number under Config > Google API
• To setup PayPal IPN: there is no need to change IPN settings in your PayPal account.  Magento automatically passes the IPN path with each checkout.
• Refresh the cache! If you make a change and wonder why it’s not showing up, use the dropdown on System > Cache Management.  It’s helpful to disable the cache during development.
• Learn how to customize via XML
• After installing Magento with sample data and SEO URL rewrites, the same data shows up on the index page but many of the links are broken, even with my .htaccess file present.  Solution: Refresh catalog rewrites in Admin > System > Cache > Refresh catalog rewrites
• Learn how to optimize and speed up Magento’s performance. It’s very slow by default but can be drastically improved. (I’ll be writing another blog post on this soon, but for now check out this thread.)

Design/theming tips:

• Read the Design Guide
• To figure out which template file to edit: turn on “Template Path Hints” through System > Configuration > Advanced > Developer > Debug > Template Path Hints = ON.  This option is only visible if you change the “Current Configuration Scope” dropdown to a website (like “Main Website”) rather than “Default Config”.
• To switch to a theme (such as “Modern”), after downloading it in Magento Connect Manager, go to System > Design and then click “Add Design Change”.

Programming tips:

• Understand the architecture
• To debug and output PHP variables: set System > Configuration > Advanced > Developer > Log Settings- > Enabled = Yes.  Then, from a CLI in your web root do “cd var/log/” and “tail -f system.log”.  In PHP, you can say Mage::log(”hello world”); to write to this log.
• Locate the PHP error log when getting a blank/white page, or an error message.  Mine was in public_html/error_log.

That’s all for now.  If you’re looking for a Magento designer or developer, get in contact with me.

Bug description: When having a centered background image over a centered <div> (like a drop shadow over a main content <div>), the background image’s position would sometimes be “off” by 1px as the viewport in Safari, depending on the width of the viewport.  So half of possible viewport widths would show the incorrect version.  While 1px isn’t the end of the world, it can really hurt a design, and it’s nice to get center alignment in Safari/Chrome to work like Firefox/IE.

Example code:

body {
    background: #f8f8f8 url(../images/dh_bg.jpg) 50% 0 repeat-y;
}
div#everything {
    width: 980px;
    margin: 0 auto;
}

Partial Solution: First of all, always use an even-width background image – this way the rest of the browsers will get it right automatically.

To fix Safari we can apply a CSS hack targeted towards WebKit.  If your background image’s width is just a little wider than your main <div>, then this will fix it:

@media screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio:0) {
    body {
        background-position: 49.999% 0;
    }
}

The problem with this is that if the viewport is resized to be a little larger than your div, but not as large as your background image, then the 1px problem comes back.

Real Solution:
So my solution is always use an even-width background image that is wider than the devices you want to support. I made mine 5000px wide (which is still < 1kb).  Then, the following CSS works great:

@media screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio:0) {
    body {
        background-position: 50.001% 0;
    }
}

Hope that helps somebody.

Thanks to the helpful comments on Rob Goodlatte’s post (a JavaScript solution), which helped point me in the right direction.

Source

Pink discusses several research studies on how typical reward-based motivation works very well for routine, mechanical tasks, but fails — and actually decreases performance — for tasks that require any kind of creativity.

The solution is to add intrinsic motivation for cognitive/creative tasks, which comes in three forms.

1. Autonomy – an urge to direct our own lives
2. Mastery – a desire to get better and better at something that matters
3. Purpose – a yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves

Traditional management is good for compliance, but self-direction is good for engagement.  He then goes on to tell a few stories of how autonomy has worked for companies in the real-world.

Summary:

1. Traditional rewards do work, but only in a narrow band of circumstances.
2. If-then rewords often destory creativity.
3. The secret to high performance is the unseen intrinsic drive.

As I think about what projects I’ve felt especially motivated on in the past, I can definitely identify how I’ve been motivated by autonomy, mastery, and purpose.  I hope to seek, with more clarity, projects and work that have these characteristics.