Nice features on it

Press the command touch (Windows touch on the keyboard) to display Superswitcher.

To switch from a desktop to another press Command + arrow left or right

To switch from available windows in a desktop press Command + arrow up or down

To move a window into another desktop press Command + shift + arrow left or right

To search within all windows name Command + [any text]

Screencast

I’ve just recorded a quick screencast to show all these functionalities

So?

For me it’s now a must have on every computer I use, because it make organizing my desktops really easily.

2009 was a really busy and exciting year

While I was looking back on what happened in 2009 I found that:

• I moved 2 times.
• I had 1 bike accident. 2009 was a cycling year for me. I started to cycle everytime, everywhere to ditch the car. In mid year I had an accident with a broken colar bone in results. I spent nearly 3 weeks out of work. It was a really bad time.
• I’m now engaged. This is a result of the bike accident .
• I launched 3 web app. In the beginning of the year I launched Serialcooking, which is now closed but the blog is still alive. Then in September I launched Tweetcetera, an easy web twitter client. Finally in December I launched Howgoodismyfood.
• I moved to full time freelance. This is the big change this year, and a big challenge as well as my network, in England, is not as big as it was in France.

So basically 2009 was a really good year, and I’ll work on make 2010 even better.

Make 2010 better and more exciting than 2009

• My first decision in 2010 is to discontinue the Serialcooking web application (we’ll keep the blog alive). It was supposed to be redo from scratch (because I made a lot of UI mistakes), but finally it’s going to take a lot of time and effort, and in 2010 I really want to concentrate myself on my freelance activity.
• I’ll blog more as well. This is going to be result of the previous decision. I’ll have more time to update this blog and to create tutorials and smaller apps.
• Embrace this f*** social media: I’ll try to be proactive on Linkedin, facebook and Twitter.
• I’ll do my best to attend at a minimum of 1 network/conference event a month.
• Run the Bath half marathon
• Release at least 3 plugins/gems: I’ve got some code in the cardboard that I need to clean up before releasing, but I’ll do it

The most important one

Find some interesting work!

As some might know I’m a workaholic, I just love coding, crafting websites, applications. So if you have any project in preparation, do not hesitate to contact me for a chat.

What is tweetcetera?

Tweetcetera is a web application I’m working on the spare time. Basically, you login in with you Twitter account, and it reproduce the Twitter web interface with smarter options.

Once the beta out, I want the development to be user centred, so a uservoice will be open and everyone will be welcome to ask for new features.

What is the problem?

I had a conversation with Matt Aimonetii where I asked him to test the current version of tweetcetera.

Even if I use Twitter Oauth for the authentication (ie: I don’t store you password, you login on twitter and then are redirected to the application), there was a confidentiality problem.

His first thoughts were:

How do I know that you’re not going to use my personal informations?
How do I know that you’re not going to post analyse informations like DM or protected statuses?

I must admit that, as a fair developer, I wasn’t expecting these kind of questions. I didn’t even think about it when using another third party application to connect to Twitter.

But the question is legitimate. You don’t want to be spammed, or analyse without your contentment right?

What can I do?

As a lot of developer, I’m fair. And so are my applications. I’m not going to use informations for post analyse. But how can I transmit the message?

I don’t want to write a big warning on the landing page saying “Trust us, we are not evil!”, that would scare more people than reassure the others.

If you are using web third party app (like Seesmic for example), what makes you trust a this application? (Brand reputation? Website design? … )

Hardware

As described in a previous post I now use a netbook as main development machine until September this year.

Machine1: Medion E1312,11.6″,Athlon 1.6 Ghz single core, 2 Gig Ram . For all task, it’s really responsive, but when you run tests, the single core is as slow as a dead cow unfortunately. The screen can sometime be a bit small, but it’s ok most of the time.

Machine2: At home, an old P4 is used to backup everything on 1,5 TB hard drive. (Ubuntu server)

Screen: At home I’ve got a second monitor, 19″ from HP.

Headphones: Sennheiser HD215

External mini western digital HD: 360 Gig in a small pocket size.

Software

Ubuntu, because it’s efficient and easy. If you want to learn more about my setup you can see my Rubyists guide to Linux development environment.

Gedit combined with Gmate makes my editor of choice under Linux. One day, I’ll learn to master Vim …

Gnome-do, a Quicksilver like.

Banshee media player, really good at managing music collection and screencast/podcast feeds.

Firefox 3.5, with web developer extension, bugzilla, Yslow, Delicious.

Tweetcetera is now my twitter client of choice. Normal you would as I’m the developer . Should be released in beta soon.

Liferea is my main RSS reader. Needed to do some tricks to make it quick in Ubuntu.

Gnome-evolution for all my different emails accounts.

Gnome terminal.

Gitg, a git desktop app, better than the old gitk.

The Gimp, I’m not a designer, so, that fit my needs.

Inkscape, same as The Gimp. Fits my needs.

Other

Bike: I use an old Raleigh racer bike, transformed into a single speed after an accident.

Bag: Targus messenger bag that can all my life, and carrying it around the city.

I’m now moving into a full time freelancing position, for the first month I’ll start with a contract where I’ll work in the Jiva office. So I’ll need to carry my laptop everyday on my bike. But I also like to have a beer outside in the evening, so I’ll again carry my laptop everywhere with me. When I said carrying I mean on my bike, as it’s now becoming my principal mode of transportation.

I also like to have my 2.5″ external hard drive with me, and sometime an external mouse.

At home and office, I’ll always have a second monitor + keyboard + mouse.

Looking for something to start with, for less than £ 400, I had 2 options :

1. A cheap laptop, with a dual core processor, 15.4″ display (1280×800) and would weight around 3Kg
2. Looking around these crazy netbooks, with a weight less than 1.5 Kg, but will have a cheap ATOM processor

What do I REALLY need

Yes, that would be lovely to have a spaceship controller computer, but if I don’t need the its power, why would I spend a fortune.
So my question was, why do I really need?

First this is a secret for nobody, I’m a Linux guy, and would not consider having an Apple laptop. So all the Mac range is out.
Secondly, even if I spend all day on my computer, it’s for doing the same thing, web development!
So what to I do everyday, what software I use with my laptop

1. Web development, conding on Gedit or Vim, services open apache/mysql/postgresql/passenger …
2. Email (Gnome Evolution), Internet (Firefox, Opera, Chromium)
3. While I code, I love listening to music in my headphones (using Banshee)
4. Bluetooth / Wifi

I’ll sometime look at some videos, doing a bit of design with the GIMP, using Skype. Rarely play any games.
I never do any videos montage, music montage or anything like that.

So basically, I just need a text editor, 3 terminals, a music player and an internet browser. Playing time to time a Battle for Wesnoth.

I started looking during holidays for laptop/netbook benchmarks, and I already have an ACER ASPIRE ONE, with an ATOM N270 processor and a 8.9″ screen. So I did reinstall it from scratch and installed everything I need for developing. The poor ATOM processor wasn’t able to cope with GEDIT + Banshee + Firefox all in one time, and was really struggling to give a smooth experience. So the ATOM processor was out for me.

The rare pearl

I found it in ALDI (I know it’s strange, but in the UK they are the only MEDION resellers). Medion, is a German brand, quite known in France. They sell cheap electronic stuff, usually good value.

So I found the Medion Akoya E1312 for £339 in ALDI with very good specs :

• AMD Sempron U 210 (1.5 GHz) processor
• 1 Go ram
• 11.6″ screen (1366×768)
• ATI Radeon XPRESS 1250 3D card
• Wifi n
• External HDMI and VGA
• 1.4 Kg with battery
• 3 Years warranty
• 30 Days money back
• Windows licence
• Full size keyboard, with real Home/PgUp/PgDown/End touch (not the FN + combination)

Was really promising, so I decided to give it a try, and using it from a few days, test it during the 48 Hours of the Rails Rumble competition to see how it can cope with an extensive use. If it doesn’t pass the test, I’ll use the 30 days money back to return it.

My Verdict

The pros
This netbook is just awesome. While it was on windows I tried the 3D card with trackmania nation, and the game just run smoothly. 720P HD video are perfect in full screen.
The keyboard is ok for little bit of work on the move, touch are quite big, so that’s good for my fingers, real Home / End and PgUp/PgDn touches are a plus.
The 1368×768 resolution is a really plus on this screen, the colour rendering is very good.

I had some problem for the Ubuntu Linux installation (see bellow) but now it’s all ok. Before the Rails Rumble I upgraded it to 2 Gig ram, and the computer did the 2 days without any restart, even if, in the average I had, 6 used workspaces, 2 Firefox instances, each with more than 10 tabs, 2 Gedit instances, 3 terminals, the GIMP, banshee + streaming radio music, all open at the same time, everything was running smoothly, and the heat generated by the processor was ok.
The suspend and hibernate are working out of the box under Linux.
The power cable has a little on/off button, really smart when you switch off for the night.
No paper inside the machine, so you can open it without breaking the warranty!.

The cons

I had to change the Wifi card for one with better drivers under Linux (but should be fixed soon in future kernel).
The 6 cells battery will give you (Wifi + Internet/Dev) a max of 2H45 under linux. But an optional 9 cells battery cost less than £ 70. The eco and the plane button help you to find the best option to keep the battery running.

So ?

I used this laptop for the Rails Rumble, without external monitor! I wanted to give it a heavy try, and give it back if any problems appears.
Finally the 48 Hours went really good, no headache, no particular problem with the machine.
So, my verdict is, if you are looking a machine to use on the go, or as a cheap development station, go for this machine, at £339, it’s really a bargain.
The screen resolution made it really usable, the Sempron processor is powerful enough when it’s it’s time to multitasking, and the 1,4 Kg (with battery) are wonderful in a laptop bag.

I’ve found a video with a test (under windows XP) with HD videos and 3D games. But it’s in German.

Linux tricks for the Medion E1312

1. 3D drivers

My trick would be to WAIT!. ATI dropped support for this range of 3D card, and they stopped working with the current version of Xorg. But they open the specifications so the open source driver developers are working on an open source implementation of it.
I tried multiple thing to install the 3D drivers, one was to downgrade Xorg to a previous version. Was working quite well, and the 3D drivers made every single game I tested working smoothly. But I had multiple problems regarding the downgrade to, my trick, would be waiting for Karmic and the new Radeon HD drivers with full 3D support (Available in the lastet git branch).

2. Wifi

Hum, I had to use Ndiswrapper to have my card working. But was unable to connect to a WPA2 network. I just changed the card for another Half size mini pci one. Works now like a charm.

I’ll start on projects for a company called Jiva in south Bristol for several months which is an ideal position!.

On these kind words, I’ll leave you and go on holidays for about 2 weeks. Preparing my RailsRumble app, my freelance CV and try to sleep a bit.

But, as last year, I’ll compete at the RailsRumble this year. My app? PlanetToaster.

So I’ll do my homeworks, and try to be organized for the DDay.

What if learned so far from last year is :

• 48 Hours is not so long!
• You need to prepare your timing as much as your application itself. This year I’ll try to come with a detailed schedule for every 30 minutes/1 Hours.
• Prepare your assets. Prepare your icons (CC) prepare your wireframes for EVERY pages, even the so forgotten 404 / FAQ.
• Don’t overestimate your capacity. During these 48 Hours, you’ll under pressure, and your brain will not work as fast as you want.
• Register everything. Domain name / Emails / Twitter /
• Only use gem that you know. It’s not the time to have trouble with something you’ve never played with (like myself last year and the Timezone broken in Rails …)
• Do your tests, but not to much. This will be time consuming (at least for me flying solo).
• Prepare your ring. Prepare your desk and computer, clean everything and just keep what you need for the rumble.
• If, as me, you have pretty rubbish design capacities, try do go as simple as possible. If your app worth it, you’ll still be able to improve it later.
• Commit early, commit often. This will help to keep trace when your brain will start to burn.
• Sleep well, the 2 days before.
• Enjoy it as much as possible. Even if we are all behind our screen, this is a fantastic opportunity to (virtually) meet new people. And there is a great satisfaction after the 48 Hours to see your works live.

So in a nutshell, prepare carefully your application development process, prepare your time schedule, prepare everything you can before the competitions.

I’ll be back from my holidays the 14 of August. Have a nice week!

Manage your queries properly

Believe it or not, but before the beta launch of serialcooking.com, my index page was performing 95 queries! Outch. I wanted to write my code as fast as possible and completely forgot to do performance review.

Here were my mistakes:

1. I wasn’t using :joins and :include properly (See FIND doc on apidock)
2. I wasn’t using query_reviewer (Query reviewer on googlecode)

Query Reviewer is a fantastic tool, helping you to resolve query numbers and table indexes problem in development mode. Worth try it!

Assets management

The less you transfer, the fastest your page will load.

So instead of linking to my server Jquery file, I used the Google Ajax API, which is available for various JavaScript libraries.

Another interesting tool to package your assets in rails is the asset packager plugin. (Asset packager on github)

Basically, you declare in one config file all your assets to package, and on your staging/production server it will only transfer 1 packaged file per type (CSS/JavaScript …). The gain is just fantastic, and it’s so easier to maintain.

I’ll never use HTML again

Forget about HTML and ugly coded view. Welcome to HAML!. (HAML/SASS website).

I must admit, I came to HAML late, doing resistance and loving my XHTML. But I give it a real try on a side project. And the fact is, it’s just wonderful!

Judge by yourself

<div id="profile">
  <div class="left column">
    <div id="date"><%= print_date %></div>
    <div id="address"><%= current_user.address %></div>
  </div>
  <div class="right column">
    <div id="email"><%= current_user.email %></div>
    <div id="bio"><%= current_user.bio %></div>
  </div>
</div>

Will become in HAML

#profile
  .left.column
    #date= print_date
    #address= current_user.address
  .right.column
    #email= current_user.email
    #bio= current_user.bio

The learning curve is really quick. My only regret is to not have tried it before!.

Never, never render HTML in your Rails Helpers

This is something I did a bit in the beginning. I quickly went back. Rendering HTML in your helpers is a very bad idea, rendering a partial instead is a better one

Never use RJS again

For my first Rails project, I used RJS. (It was 2 years ago). At the time, it was fantastic, quick bla bla bla. Well, today, with current Javascript practices and Javascript libraries I don’t see the point of having ugly and obtrusive JavaScript in my code.

I prefer using Jquery like in this previous post. So easier to maintain.

Maintain and deploy your code smarter

I use git and github to manage my projects code. I use Capistrano and Capistrano-ext combined with the github repository to deploy my code and I use Passenger on Apache2 to access my application.

I also ALWAYS use a staging environment, just to be sure that everything is ok before moving to production.

Don’t believe in anyone, test!

I now test my code for 1 year. I first started with the embded Rails testing framework, and then, because all the cool kids were loving it, I migrate to Rspec during 3 months. I didn’t like it, but because everyone liked it I force myself to continue!

Finally I was writing bad quality tests, and didn’t enjoy my tests.

I then came over shoulda and now I enjoy again writing my tests.

The point here is, and it’s the same when you choose Rails over Django or Symphony, don’t trust anyone because he says “this is the better plugin/technology/language ever”.

Instead, try by yourself, see what the others can brings to you, and have a clear in mind choice.

Monitor your application

Using a tool like Newrelic is a real benefit on monitoring what’s happening in your web app, in real time. Find the slowest part of it and fix it.
Just fantastic. Currently I just use the free version, but I’m considering on upgrading as it’s so useful.

Never let an error blocking your users

I use Hoptoad to catch all the errors happening on my apps. As newrelic, you just install the plugin, and it works like a charm. You receive an email when an exception is raised in your app, so you can resolve it as fast as possible.

The tail command

A very useful command that I just learned months ago.

$ tail -f log/development

And leave your terminal window open. It will refresh every second with new thing coming from your log. Really useful, I don’t remember how I was doing before that!.

What about you?

Do you see something that you learned and is not present here? Just add it in comment.

I’d say that it’s normally a bad news, but this time it might be better than we thought.

Since her graduation, Nathalie always wanted to work in the web industry, That why we created SerialCooking and she was pretty good at managing the blog and the community on this project, but it was missing something: Coding.

She is now learning XHTML/CSS and web standard  to have a better understanding of the whole process. And I must admit she is doing very well, and likes coding. Will she be looking for a Junior Web Developer position soon? Never know .

She has a good understanding of technologies, web technologies and social networking.

So if you know someone who know someone with a job opportunity (Every position considered!), please let her know. Thanks a lot.

Here Nathalie Derain, online marketing executive resume in pdf.