JCS Development

I read this post and thought I would share it for my Clients using Google Analytics:

http://www.freelanceadvisor.co.uk/freelance-technology/the-basics-of-google-analytics/

I really got a kick out of this, mainly because it’s so true.
I definitely fall into he Developer category.

Click the image to see it full-size.

Infographic by: Shane Snow. Shane Snow is an entrepreneur,
writer, and recent Columbia MS/Digital Media graduate.
Visit his personal site and follow him on Twitter @shanesnow.

JCS Development recently completed development of a website for Clarity Energy Consulting, LLC, a national energy procurement and consulting service. This site, developed in WordPress, includes numerous JavaScript enhancements and customizations as well as Facebook/Twitter integration.

Amarillo Young Professionals is an organization that builds leadership and supports local businesses in the Amarillo Texas community. Taking a design by Joppa Design, JCS Development created a WordPress site which involved a membership-only site, an events calendar as well as the traditional CMS and blog site.

Recently JCS Development created an eCommerce addition to a site developed by Joppa Design for the Tri-State Fair in Amarillo, TX.  The site facilitates ticket sales for events, as well as donations to their foundation.

JCS Development assisted Advanced Creative Endeavors in creating a Magento based Ecommerce package for a local resort and spa in North Dallas. 

If you know me at all then you know I’m a big fan of MonsterQuest and MysteryQuest on the history channel.  Yeah, sometimes the "cheese" is a bit over the top, but it’s always very interesting to see how they try to find real monsters, or conspiracies and scientifically prove them.  Personally I think Bigfoot is an Alien but who’s asking.

So, lately my search for a really good IDE for PHP has felt like the search for "Bigfoot".   Lots of "sightings" that turn out to be disappointments.  Now granted I come from a Visual Studio background which has pretty decent tools for everything.  So that has colored my judgment.  I’ve also used Dreamweaver quite a bit but only the coding part.

So what are my criteria:

1. Syntax Coloring
2. Code Completion (a.k.a. Intellisense)
3. HTML/CSS Code Completion.  I can’t remember every attribute of both HTML and CSS (who could)
4. Code Folding
5. Integrated FTP sync.
6. Code Snippets Library

Sounds fairly simple right?  Think again…

First I tried Aptana but it was so complex trying to figure out where this tool was, or that tool.  It uses "views" and to me changing the IDE all around is really confusing.

Next I gave Netbeans a try and I have to say that  I like it the best of all the free ones I tried but it is still confusing.

PhpED from NuSphere has some great built in tools.  But sadly some of them don’t work with CSS or HTML.  Code Navigator in particular. 

I really, really like phpDesigner 7, it does almost everything I need.  But the lack of code folding is very frustrating.  Working with Ecommerce files that are huge is a pain.

So, I’m back to using WeBuilder 2010.  Great HTML/CSS tools, built in FTP publishing, PHP code completing (sort of).  But it’d be nice to have the debugging tools built in.    I’m happy for now, but I’d really like to see some improvement in this area.

JCS Development is proud to announce the roll-out of the new Camp Bowie District website.  Camp Bowe District, Inc. is a Public Improvement District (PID) that helps the Historic Camp Bowie corridor in Fort Worth in a variety of ways.

The website, built on WordPress, creates a dynamic data driven site that will allow the district to update the content themselves, providing a cost effective way to grow and change the website without requiring significant developer time.

I’ve been a long time Google user (and stock holder) but I’d begun to like bing.  Sometimes Google can have a little too much junk in the searches and I was having some good luck with searches on bing.  There is so much content on the Internet that it can be daunting to find search results that are really relevant and not just somebody selling something.  I had high hopes that the competition between bing and Google would seriously improve that.

Well that was until today.  While working looking for some information I stumbled across this advertisement.  I was very offended, but not for the reasons you might think.  You might think I was offended simply because God was listed.  Or if you’re politically motivated that God was equated to Oprah and Lance Armstrong.  Nope, although that does somewhat offend me. 

I’m offended because some knucklehead at bing (or worse Microsoft) thought this was a “cute” advertising technique.  Even more that somebody let this slip by.  Microsoft (who I am also a stockholder in) has enough problems without inciting the religious establishment in this country.   Remember what happened to Disney? 

As a Christian, yeah it bugs me that people think Oprah, Lance Armstrong and God are on equal footing when it comes to power, or that God has a Twitter account.  God doesn’t need a Twitter account.  Not that he doesn’t know everything about technology, who do you think gave us the brains to conceive of this stuff?  If you don’t think it was God, then explain to me why we can’t even come close to duplicating the human brain??  But I digress…

Microsoft, and by extension bing, has gotten a black eye for so long on everything from security, to browsers, to corporate greed they don’t need to beg for bad press.  I would think that a company who has spent so much money on the Windows 7 launch would have really been sensitive to the timing of such a bad ad going out.  But that’s me thinking again.

Oh well, guess this is just another example of Proverbs 1:22.  As for me, I’m going back to Google.

As a developer/IT professional I am honestly not concerned about the religious wars between Windows/Mac/(xxx)nix.  I’ve used windows sine Windows/286 (does that date me or what) and I have to say Windows 7 is the best version yet.  Not perfect, but really good!

I’ve been using the Release To Manufacturing (RTM) for a month or so and here are my favorite things about it:

1. Document Libraries – You can now create libraries for documents, images, media and in my case “Projects” and have access to them in all of the different windows explorers from “Opening” to “Saving” files.  Really cool.
2. Task Bar – Finally the task bar is useful.
   • You can pin program shortcuts to it and it will give you (if the program is developed that way) a cool “jump” menu.
   • Groupings are useful they will show you what windows are open for that app, and you can even close them that way.
   • The Action Center keeps you from having a ton of messages always popping up, but you have to remember to look at it.
   • The Task Tray is now in one pop-up menu that you can customize much easier.  VERY handy.
3. User Account Control – if you used Vista you know what a headache this was.  Now it’s easy to adjust the settings, or even turn it off.  But know the risks.
4. Search – You can finally search for documents again and it works.  It works inside the windows explorer with a interface similar to a web-browser.  Very smart.
5. Homegroup – while this is designed primarily for families with multiple computers it would work just fine for businesses with only a couple of computers too.  I’m using it with my computer, my wifes computer and a Network Storage device.  It’s very handy and easy to share all kinds of files.

All in all I really like Windows 7.  While it’s not as “pretty” as Mac’s Snow Leopard it is very functional, and if you’ve been using Windows for a while it’s a refreshing change.  It’s not perfect yet, but it’s definitely worth the cost of the upgrade.