Dev Dawn

It was only days into my life as a blogger that I stumbled across Paul Stamatiou (and his blog). He had written the excellent “How To: Boost Your Blog Traffic” article. This was a keystone point for myself as a blogger. Even though, months afterwards, I have settled into a slightly less-travelled path, it still remains as a turning point.

Paul continues to write wonderful articles on his blog. He shows you how to customize K2 (absolute kicker of a Wordpress Theme, and this is the first of three articles), how to do cool things with your Header Graphic, and a bunch of other useful information articles. When I say useful, I mean it. Paul doesn’t wax long and boring with inane anecdotes. He provides one of the better tutorial sites (small at the moment in number though it is) that exist on the web.

Quite apart from his helpful articles, Paul is also a first-tier news provider. His focus is noticably Mac & Web oriented. Even with a thumb-screw, he wouldn’t divulge his sources, so suffice to say … they are pretty good. Good enough to lose digits over.

I made that last bit up.

So I asked him to be the first Spherical Phoke Interviewee, understanding that he was one of the more high profile candidates on my first phase list. However, thankfully, he accepted.

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Spherical Phoke is a project that has been mulling about in my mind for quite some time. While it’s still very much in it’s infancy, we have a beginning.

Spherical Phoke is about the people behind the stuff. Looking beyond content (blogs, development, most other things) and to the author of that content.

Our first Interview is with Paul Stamatiou. That’s right. Pretty sweet.

One of the main purposes behind collating Interviews of “Spherical Phoke” is for others to come and be inspired, be convicted, to see others doing what they dream, or to find that there are people experiencing the same thing.

Of course, an Interview can only show so much, and a lot depends on the skill of the Interviewer and their questioning acumen. Of course, I’m a total newb … but with great experience comes great power … or something like that. Anyway, that’s not going to stop me. I get better every time I write out some questions, read other people’s interviews, listen to the news, and so on.

Thanks for coming, and stay tuned for the first of the Spherical Phoke.

Okay, so maybe I am a Hype-Monkey. This is possible. But while I’m willing to admit my problems, I urge everyone that has any aspirations at all in the world of Software Development to go and take a dive in the crystal waters of Joel on Software.

There is so much good here. Mind-blowing kind of stuff. Information/Wisdom that you have heard before, in pieces, but here it’s woven together with experience. It’s a single package. Gold Jerry!

The articles I’ve recently read are each and every one a gem.

The Joel Test: 12 Steps to Better Code, Top Five (Wrong) Reasons You Don’t Have Testers, The Law of Leaky Abstractions, and The Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing.

But there’s more, a lot more. Check out the Archives.

So just a little plug.

A blog/site like Joel on Software has the effect on me of instantly pushing me to be better at development. It’s been over six months since I last visited, and I wonder why it hasn’t been a regular haunt. Or at least every few weeks.

So to all the Skeptic’s out there (you know what I’m talkin bout), if you never buy into any hype … visit this place. It’s the bomb. And by bomb, I mean unassuming quality site with a gold-mine of information and experience mixed together into wisdom.

Visit.

Geoff Bomford pointed out This Article on the Clarion Newsgroups. Borland is bailing out of the IDE business. Delphi … in my understanding one of the biggest competitors of Clarion, is soon to be without a parent. Not that they won’t get picked up by someone … but still.

Not sure what this means, but plenty of people have given their thoughts on the matter (in the newsgroups).

In an effort to better understand what is happening in the world of Development, I took out my sleuthing suede hat, pipe, magnifying glass, and got to work. It was rough at the beginning, fighting villian’s of the calibre of Professor Moriaty … wait on.

All dream-sequences aside, I began my search with to of the greatest tools at our disposal today. Google, and Technorati.

What follows is a shocking tale of greed, murder, mystery, … heh heh. Can’t you tell I’m a frustrated story-teller.

Read on to see what I discovered. Part 2 (the Technorati bits) is forthcoming.

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Man alive! I’ve never really thought about this particular point, and so, like the oft-mentioned lightbulb … it really clicked with me.

Dion Hinchcliffe writes about the Web 2.0 Mashup Ecosystem.

What really hit me square in the forehead was his looking at the web like a big giant OS. Awesome. It’s really mind-blowing for a yokel like myself. I mean, it’s pretty simple when it becomes clear. It’s not restricted to a single computer, hardware, software … it’s far greater than it’s parts.

Next I want to hear that the web has started to create it’s own little spaces in the fabric of reality. I mean … that’s the way my mind goes after reading this article. One more step along the path towards what writers dreamed of years ago.

Okay … I’ve got this awesome post, spend over two hours tonight on it … and then BAM … moved my hand slightly, and pressed the BACK button on my 5-button mouse.

Boom. Gone.

There isn’t a power in the world that can bring those hundreds of words back to me. Except they will come back, not now, but later. Just … it’s painful to lose something you thought was good writing. Or at least it was a lot of writing. Heh heh.

Night night.

It’s been posted a few days, but go and check out Tad’s Shaving Article. It made me laugh out loud. Mostly I guess because of the Late Show (the aussie one), where Tony Martin (and Mick Malloy?) go through this new super, many bladed shaver. Awesome stuff. And here I find Tad showing me a shaver with six blades (1 hidden). Man alive!

Also, if anyone doesn’t check out Tadspot, you should. The site is getting very popular now, front-page in Digg, and other bookmarking sites. Got a range of different articles/posts, like the shaving one :), but also TV-casts, books, and some good ideas about where Internet stuff is heading.