Atomicity is a property of an operation either to succeed or fail completely. Disks assure atomicity at the sector level. This means that a write to a sector either goes through completely or not at all. But when an operation spans over multiple sectors of the disk, a higher-level mechanism is needed. This mechanism should ensure that modifications to the entire set of sectors are handled atomically. Failure to do so leads to inconsistencies. This document talks about the implementation of the Journaling Block Device in Linux.

... the Flash ad contains code to open a popup that leads to a very different destination -- it's what I assume is an affiliate link that attempts to download and install ErrorSafe on your computer (link is to Symantec's description of it).

This, of course, would be totally against any ad company's guidelines. Masquerading as a banner ad, but discreetly opening a popup -- and not only that, but to what people consider malware -- is totally against any ad company's guidelines. So how did it get through?

Simple -- the ad actually contacts its website in the background, and the site returns a response code that tells it whether to display the popup or not - 'popup=1'. My guess is that kpremium.com returned 'popup=0' while the ad company were testing the ad for conformance to guidelines, and then they turned it back on once it was out in the wild.

Hey Folks -

Just a quick announcement.

As of today, Boyink Interactive will no longer be providing quotes for church website projects.

This decision comes after much deliberation and realizing that in six years of being in business I have talked with literally dozens of churches and have only ended up doing one site.

One.

As conversion rates go, that’s abysmal.  And not at all what my experience has been for projects coming out of the business world where my success rate is much higher.

And yes - it usually boils down to an issue of price.  I’m just not able to build sites with the level of design, content and functionality that churches are after for the budgets that I’m seeing churches come in with. 

Don’t get me wrong - I still have a passion for seeing the big “C” Church use the web in better ways than in the past.  But it’s clear that the way for me to have the most influence on getting the Church there isn’t to build better websites for a large number of (little “c') churches.  So rather than attempting to hire myself out to find fish for churches, I’m going to focus on teaching to fish instead—which currently will be through the Building a Church Site on ExpressionEngine series on Train-ee.com.

If you represent a church and are seeking a web designer or developer, I’d suggest registering and posting in the Godbit Forums for some leads on help.

Fresh content will bring spiders (and people) back to your site more often.

How often you update your website is extremely critical to your success on the web. First and foremost, search engines loves fresh content. Let's take two sites that cover the same topic. Site A who updates their site every month and Site B who hasn't updated their site since they created it. The search engines only have "so much time" to index sites.

If the spider comes back and finds that information has changed, it will normally decrease the time between now and its next indexing (to see if there were even more updates that have happened between crawlings.) If the content hasn't changed it might increase the time between its last crawl and its next crawl (assuming that if it wasn't updated lately it probably won't be updated next time either). Regularly updated content will bring spiders back more often which leads to faster indexing.

Now, what if both sites decide to run Christmas specials and both update their sites. Which Christmas special will be seen sooner and thus have a better chance of being effective?

Besides being great for search engines, fresh content is great for real life humans. People love getting the latest information about everything. Updated content also builds trust in the information you provide. If you haven't updated, people might think that you have gone out of business, or don't care about keeping your customers updated, or don't carry the latest product that the competition has on their site.

Another benefit of new, fresh content is that it builds authority into your site. As you add new pages about your products, services, or frequently asked questions, you further strengthen your authority of that subject. You show that you really know your stuff. More people will be willing to link to you because you have the answers that they are searching for. It also creates extra miniwebs or natural doorways into your website which will help your clients find you from even more keywords.

With the popularity of blogs and other mechanisms for publishing content quickly on the web, the importance of updating your site has increased exponentially.

Humans have been formulating computational logic for execution on digital microprocessors (aka software development) for just a few years, and some people think that this profession is already a full-fledged engineering discipline.

I think this is not the case yet (by far).

Thinking otherwise actually impede the growth of this line of work into higher level of consciousness that allow us to get out of the same expired and twisted mindsets similar to waterfall-like development processes.

A trait of the infant state of our profession is the frequency of incomplete design work as a significant cause for software development projects failures, incomplete work in a central activity and outcome: design.

A mayor factor for such mediocrity comes from a misunderstanding of the role of abstraction in design work, which leads to incomplete design decisions hence incomplete designs that are supposed to be carried out without any mayor design changes.

A role of abstraction is to manage complexity, focusing on a selected set of design attributes at a given time, ignoring —just for that moment— other equally important attributes; waiting for their turn in the co-evolution process of design.

A professional software designer takes complete design decisions. A design decision is completed when the designer walks the abstraction stack all the way down and returns up to the starting level with a set of implications for that particular decision, turning it to a fully informed and conscious design decision.

The fatal state of affairs for software development projects casting crappy software is when designers do not come back and consider the attributes they left behind in their mental stimulation so-called 'abstracting' or 'modeling'.

So, we all can see that abstraction is not a mean for incomplete or insufficient work; abstraction means putting things aside for the moment, for complexity management purposes, not for leaving aspects of your work in a hang state.

CP4E get's regularly noted when folks talk about expanding Pythons m???share by commencing more programmers. Similar to the 'create, don't overtake, markets' thought.

Mats Wichmann threw this discussion an appropriate curveball by asking: 'If Python is so easy for humans to program in, shouldn't it also be an easy language for programs to program in ...?'

Fredric Lundh addresses the literal issue here.

I have never analyzed code generation from UML tools before, but a comparison of model to code from a C++, Java and Python example would add insight here, although the tip of the iceburg for Mats thoughts. 

Jeff Sutherland threatens: 'Therefore, American programmers must find a way to be ten times as productive or they are history', following it up with the dire need for Model Driven Development and resources.  Hmmmm... Python & Java: a Side-by-Side Comparison opens with 'A programmer can be significantly more productive in Python than in Java. How much more productive? The most widely accepted estimate is 5-10 times'. 

Wizards fall in there somewhere also, but are just one slice of that taxonomy. I like task automation wizards and that let me save the steps for later use, ideally in a plain text editable fashion. Which leads to...

Embedded Python for 'code that pushes applications' is also an area where python could use more face time. VBScript is a tired poster-boy, and it seems that with the latest OpenOffice/STAR Office, the window of opportunity is being addressed with Python-UNO.

Also, of note: Learning Tree's Python training is no longer supported! Many alternatives exist, including this one during October in Colorado by a University of Wisconsin graduate.

It's good to see more books on Web accessibility being published. More books means different authors and different writing approaches, and a greater chance of there being a book available that suits different people.

I mention this because to some people, words such as standards, regulations, or compliance are huge turn-offs that make them effectively stop listening. Maybe Design Accessible Web Sites will sit better with that crowd, since the author, Jeremy Sydik, presents the information in a gentler way, without getting overly hung up on checkpoints and accessibility guidelines.

I think it's a very good approach. There isn't much sense in slavishly following recommendations just to tick checkboxes without knowing what the benefit is. And I've been seeing quite a bit of that lately...

It seems that often when a client requires their website to be accessible, the task of making sure it is accessible is handed over to a back-end developer who also happens to be the only one on the project who has any sort of knowledge of front-end development. But that developer is very rarely aware of what makes a website accessible, so they turn to checking points off the WCAG checklists and checking checkboxes in whichever IDE they are using. And that often leads to badly implemented accessibility, like the issues I mentioned a while ago in Overdoing accessibility.

Apologies for the long introduction, but it's there since I think Design Accessible Web Sites could actually work for the developers I am thinking of. There is not a lot of pedantery and preaching and 'you must follow these guidelines exactly, or else'. Instead, the author focuses on the end result – if doing this or that actually makes the site more accessible. And in the end that is a lot more important than ticking boxes in a checklist.

The book consists of five parts and goes through everything from best practices to testing to taking a look at the legal situation that surrounds Web accessibility. It's written in a very easy-to-read and friendly manner that makes it a pleasure to read. The advice it contains is correct and up-to-date, and focuses on how the end user is affected instead of following outdated guidelines to the letter.

Speaking of guidelines, the book teaches how to design accessible sites by following ten principles instead of various guidelines. I won't quote the entire list of principles, but a couple of my favourites are these:

Users' time and technology belong to them, not to us. You should never take control of either without a really good reason.

Progressively enhance your basic content by adding extra features. Allow it to degrade gracefully for users who can't or don't want to use them.

Design Accessible Web Sites is an excellent read that I highly recommend.

Design Accessible Web Sites

Author: Jeremy Sydik

ISBN-10: 1934356026

ISBN-13: 978-1934356029

Add 456 Berea Street to your Technorati favorites.

Posted in Accessibility, Reviews.

• 17 trees
• 3.3 cubic yards of landfill space
• 360 gallons of water
• 100 gallons of gasoline
• 60 pounds of air pollutants
• 10,401 kilowatts of electricity

After finding four official National Geodetic Survey benchmarks during an interesting walk around downtown New Orleans, it was time to meet at Antoine's for dinner. The famous restaurant has been continuously operated by the same family since 1840. Through wars, the Great Depression, epidemics and storms, the culinary treasures continue to be served. The French Quarter, where the restaurant operates, was fortunate to not have any water damage, although the winds took a toll and repairs are still underway. After dinner, my son and his friends headed for the music they wanted to hear. For me, there was only one place I had in mind.

I had not been to Preservation Hall for more than thirty years but I remembered exactly what to expect. The sound of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band is unique and inspiring. The musicians are polished and professional. I talked with the trombone player during break and he told me he was a professor of music at a local college. To hear him and his colleagues play you would never see a piece of music. It seemed to come from their soul. The saxophone player told me he read music when he was a boy but that now it comes from the soul. From their web site are a coupe of great quotes. "Musicians in New Orleans are born to entertain. There's nothing wrong with that, because I'm happy when I play. I love what I do". "We play gospel music here. We play old spirituals. We play military marches. There's no end to the variety of music that we play. But we play it all our way. And the more we play, the more the level of happiness rises. Just to watch our audiences go wow when we play, that gives me a good feeling and makes me want to put out more."

The amazing part to me is the coordination. There is no sheet music, no conductor, not even subtle leads from one of the members. All seven -- trumpet, two trombones, tuba, drum, tenor saxophone, and piano -- played as one. Soloists knew when to stand -- at times several would stand -- the crescendos and decrescendos were perfect and soft harmonies were flawless. These are truly great musicians. Walking a half mile down Bourbon Street back to the hotel there were dozens of "bands" playing at peak volume. It was a different world than Preservation Hall. I prefer the latter.

After Sunday brunch overlooking the mighty Mississippi River, it was time to head for JazzFest. The temperature was 90, the humidity was 100%, the crowd was 100K+ and there was no place to sit. In spite of this it was a great experience. The Paul Simon performance, in particular, was worth the price. Nice to see the 60+ performers -- he was amazing in every respect. Digital music is great but nothing compares to a live concert. The big screen made you feel like you were in the front row (even though there were no chairs). Regrettably, Fats Domino (78 years old) cancelled at the last minute for health reasons. Lionel Richie took took the stage instead.

On Monday morning it was a pleasure to make a presentation to a group of networking and IT executives at the English Turn Country Club. The topic was, guess what, the future of the Internet. With the incredible humidity, I do not regret not being a golfer and staying for the afternoon.

With regard to New Orleans,I found a mixed story. The water marks, damage, and debris were staggering. One can see why a huge number of people have been displaced and why housing is the main issue on many people's minds. I spoke to a number of residents who were working in the service industry. The common thread was that they were hopeful, courteous, and wore smiles on their faces even though they had every reason to be bitter. One person told me there was three feet of water in the second story of his house. He and his family moved in with a cousin -- eight people in a small home. The only good news is that there are plenty of jobs. The biggest tragedy may be that there are only five schools open in a city that was once more than a million people.

Over two years ago now I wrote a post entitled Potential Client Red Flags, wherein I listed 6 situations that, if they come up while talking with a potential new client, might possibly lead to me passing on the work.

I re-read that post this morning and have a few red flags to add.

7. Previous Web Developer Baggage
Once in a while I’ll be approached by someone with a project that has already been taken on by another developer and the project has failed.  In these situations the potential client always blames the previous developer for the failure, saying they had misrepresented themselves, or were over committed, or were just flat-out not able to do the work.  The potential client will then appeal to my ego with statements like “After reviewing your portfolio it’s obvious you would be a much better fit than the previous developer was.”

But - like stories of dating relationships and marriages gone awry -I’m only hearing one side of the story.  Might the issue really have been a client with unrealistic expectations, or who were unable to pay their bills on time?

I always feel like the only real way to seriously think about taking on a project with baggage would be to interview both sides of the failed project and see if I could determine what really happened.  But the time investment for doing that is such that it never makes sense because neither side is going to want to reimburse me for that time.

Additionally, if the site is sitting there half-baked and “just needs to be finished” then I’m faced with the prospect of it being started poorly and either having to rebuild it from the ground up or being responsible for issues with the site due to poor decisions being made at the foundational level by someone with less experience than I have.

8. Emergency 911
It’s amazing the number of contacts I get for projects where the timeline is “ASAP”.  Here’s an actual request: “We need a complete EE build with content and user migration from a Drupal install, the design is in Photoshop and needs to be converted to HTML, and looks like we either need some custom EE code or use of a 3rd party module.  Oh and the deadline is in 11 days”. 

Not 11 business days, just 11 days.

So after I’m done with the gut-reaction snide response that I won’t post here, the first question I have to ask is “How did the project get to be in this state?” And if the answer is “poor project management” then the follow-up question is “What other aspects of the project are suffering due to being managed poorly?” Is the design going to be right?  Has the proper functionality been identified?

I’m reluctant to take on projects that come with a red flashing light to wear on my head - I didn’t create the crisis situation so feel no urge to shoulder the responsibility of resolving it.  Although - I have toyed with the idea of proposing to take it on, but at 2 or 2.5 times my normal rate.  So far the stress potential hasn’t been worth the possible financial gain.

9. The Client Who Knew Too Much
Maybe the better title is “The Wanna-be Developer as Client”.  When I get communications from clients that include nonsensical statements like “we like the idea of separating content from presentation for SEO reasons”, or they want to talk about URL structure before the site design or IA is done the hair on the back of my neck goes up just a bit.  It’s not that I don’t appreciate technically-savvy clients, but when they have things just a bit “off” it makes me wonder how they got there, will they be open to and capable of being re-educated, or will it be a constant struggle to get them to understand how things actually work?

10. Hi, My Name Is Tom Sawyer
Once in a while I will be contacted to put a proposal together for an ExpressionEngine site, but the real reason for the proposal request is to determine if EE is actually well-suited for the project.  The challenge with these types of requests is that in order to do a quality needs assessment and (if EE is the right fit) a proposal it requires a lot of time - which is likely why the client hasn’t done it.

ExpressionEngine provides a pre-sales forum for answering questions like this - and I’ll often even pitch in on those threads.  But if the project needs an in-depth requirements analysis then that’s really outside of what I should have to provide at no charge in the form of a quote - that’s work that should be defined as it’s own project and I should get paid for as an internet consultant with specialized CMS knowledge and experience.

11. You Don’t Know Me
Boyink Interactive was a charter member of the ExpressionEngine Professional Network, and it’s been a valuable source of leads on new projects.

The downside is I’ll often be BCC’d in on emails along with multiple other members of the Pro Network.  I’ll have to be honest—if I’m elbows-deep in projects when these emails come in they do have less weight than email addressed to me specifically, or email that has come through Boyink.com instead.  I wonder if they’ve even reviewed my work at all, or are just blasting everyone on the Pro Network to see who responds.  I don’t immediately discount these emails, but if they have any other red flags (and they often do) then it’s not likely I’ll respond to them.

12. Can You Hear Me Now?
I’ve had a few interchanges with potential clients where they just couldn’t answer simple direct questions put to them via email.  And asked two or three times in different ways.  In one case after email exchanges hadn’t worked well I scheduled a phone call with the potential client instead.  When I called at the appointed time they answered with “Uh, hello?”.  This didn’t exactly instill confidence that they could communicate well enough to work with and that they were a marketing & communication firm was the deciding factor in passing on the work.

So there you have it - now the “dirty dozen” of client red flags. Will there be more?  Only time will tell…