tips

The following posts are hopefully related to "tips" in some way.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008, 5:00pm

Simple Tool To Increase Your Productivity: ClipX

I was turned on to ClipX by this post by Coding Horror and in less than 24 hours I am completely hooked. I probably shouldn’t write about these things while I’m right in the middle of the high, but so far I see very little reason NOT to recommend ClipX to any Windows user that sees a need for a more powerful clipboard manager.

What is ClipX?
ClipX is a simple, one-trick application that lets you manage your clipboard history. There are a ton of clipboard extenders like ClipX out there for both Windows and Mac users, but many try to do way too much and many even cost money. ClipX, however, is very easy to use and doesn’t cost a dime. (more…)

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Wednesday, January 23, 2008, 5:00am

Learn To Write Eloquent JavaScript (And To Think Deeper)

I know this post won’t be for everyone, but it’s certainly been helpful to me. Marijn Haverbeke has written an online book called “Eloquent JavaScript” that outlines best practices and good habits for the JavaScript programmer, although most of the advice Marijn relates is easily applied to other programming languages as well. Here’s a snippet:

To some of us, writing computer programs is a fascinating game. A program is a building of thought. It is costless to build, weightless, growing easily under our typing hands. If we get carried away, its size and complexity will grow out of control, confusing even the one who created it. This is the main problem of programming. It is why so much of today’s software tends to crash, fail, screw up.

The book goes on to provide a detailed look at the JavaScript language, complete with simple and complex examples of each point Marijn mentions. I found the content to be very well-written and extremely useful. (more…)

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Saturday, January 19, 2008, 3:31pm

The “One And Done” Blogger Syndrome

Just like workers in other professions, sometimes a blogger will fall into a rut. One problem that manifests itself during a rut is the notion of “if I just squeeze out this post I can move on”. In other words, an author will begin to force ideas just to publish a post.

I call this the “One and Done” syndrome because what you’re really doing is taking away from the continuous nature of a blog - that is, the idea that a blog is a stream of ideas and that you are constantly reading and learning and building upon those ideas has now become merely an exercise. (more…)

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Saturday, January 19, 2008, 10:39am

As a Follow Up to My Last Post

…I can safely say I’ve secured more freelancing work through blogging than I have through any other method, even more than local, offline word-of-mouth marketing. I think blogging, combined with services like tumblr and Twitter and Facebook, is a great way to connect with others if - and here’s the kicker - you use these services with a purpose.

Many people are too afraid or embarrassed to ask friends or colleagues for help in their work or in their startup, but why? I’ve asked friends if they knew business owners looking for a website and more often than not it works out well for everyone involved. If it’s an awkwardness or an ego thing, you’ll get over it pretty quickly when that new client asks for a $3,500 website redesign.

The people you connect with through your blog can make a big difference in your success. Though I still feel blogging strictly for money is a poor use of your time, if you write with a purpose you’ll be successful in many other ways.

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Friday, January 18, 2008, 5:55pm

Making Your “More” Links SEO-Friendly

I came across this article and thought it was something worth mentioning here. Essentially the argument is that by not including a NOFOLLOW attribute on your WordPress “Read More” links, you’re actually hurting yourself a bit in the SEO category. Here is the reasoning.

Links with generic terms in the anchor text does you no good in terms of SEO, and in fact will somehow show that your Wordpress blog is very much about “read” and “reading” due to the number of internal links containing these words as anchor text.

I’ve actually used this technique here for a while now and recommend it. I’ve also removed the anchor reference from the link so when a user clicks “(more…)”, he or she goes to the top of the post page rather than to the middle of the post (where I put the special more tag).

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