Aldenta: Web Nourishment

photo by kirtaph

A very happy 5th birthday to WordPress. Thank you for the late nights and all of the love you’ve given me.

Update: And a happy 3rd birthday to the swissmiss blog!

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For years my brother, Glenn, and I have talked about working together. I’m ecstatic to say that it finally happened! Glenn started his own business, Glenn Fu, and we’re teaming up on projects. He’s a strong developer and getting his feet wet in the small-business/freelance world. Right away, he picked up Ruby on Rails and is making sure our code is solid by keeping us on track with BDD and using RSpec. It’s extremely refreshing working with Glenn who makes me challenge my business process and development style. Every business could use that type of shot in the arm.

I’m so happy working with you Bro!

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I’ve had the fortunate pleasure of working with Tina Roth Eisenberg over the past few weeks on a project. Her client abitare, a home accessories and gift store in Brooklyn Heights, needed a website and I was able to help construct the newest addition to Tina’s many beautiful creations. I got the chance to see the shop and meet Lizzie while I was in New York on Friday. It’s rare to meet such a talented and pleasant designer teamed up with a wonderful client.

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Every day, as a developer, I’m grateful for the thousands of programmers around the world who have so graciously shared their time, knowledge, and programming code. I have access to millions of lines of free code at any moment through the Internet which allows me to write programs more easily, learn new concepts, and make a difference in society.

Yes, every open source developer plays their part in making life better. Take, for example, the recent updates to Sean Coon’s blog. A few tweaks to some great free programming code and Sean’s rapidly spreading the word about The People, Yes which directly engages the homeless community to share their voice through blogging. He’s able to send a text message which is then automatically relayed to his friends/acquaintances (through Twitter) and also posted to his blog (using a modified version of Alex King’s Twitter Tools plugin). Don’t forget that in conjunction with this great plugin there are other pieces of the free code puzzle - the powerful blogging tool, the simple programming language, and the server’s solid operating system. All of this was made possible by many generous programmers sharing their time and skills.

So here’s to the programming language, plugin, framework, and code snippet givers around the globe. You truly make a difference in the world.

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While actually on a flight, I came across an interesting New York Times article discussing US Airways bid to acquire Delta. Now, I’m interested in this possible acquisition due to all of my travels but more so due to the charts they provided.

As you probably noticed, US Airways and Delta rank pretty high in customer complaints, which doesn’t bode well for customers if a merger does take place. But, more importantly, take a look at Southwest. They are #2 in total passengers compared to the other major U.S. airlines and they only have a fraction of the complaints!

So how has Southwest Airlines enjoyed 33 straight profitable years and done what no other U.S. airline seems to be able to do? I think Jason Fried summarizes it best:

Simple fares (no secrets, one-way fares aren’t more expensive that round trip fares, fewer fees), simple planes (they only fly 737s — every SW pilot or flight attendant can work any flight), simple seating assignments (they don’t have any), simple meals (they don’t have any), simple friendliness (shiny happy people), less big airport hassles (serving the unserved at smaller, simpler airports), dead simple rewards program (based on # of flights, not miles), simpler fuel costs (they buy futures to lock in prices), etc.

I hope you’ll think long and hard the next time you want to make your web application, business, or product “bigger and better” because simplicity does pay.

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If you’ve not heard about Net Neutrality please listen to the most recent and extremely informative Conversation with Andy Coon (about 25 minutes long). Everyone needs to know how important the issue of Net Neutrality is and how Congress is trying to push a law that would give telephone and cable companies the ability to decide what we see on the Internet. Those of you who made it to the Linking Thoughts presentation will appreciate the importance of this on a whole new level. You’re not going to hear about this on the news because they are the ones who would benefit from this!

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Today, I was fortunate enough to give a presentation on HTML to the Salvation Army Boys & Girls Club of Greensboro. A number of directors from the local units came to Central Unit’s computer lab where they built their first web page by hand.

Organized by Ndesanjo Macha (not only is Ndesanjo Unit Director at Central Unit but he’s is the editor for Sub-Saharan Africa for Global Voices Online, “single-handedly built the largest blogosphere in [Swahili],” maintains a Swahili blogging guide, and a board member of The People, Yes among other things), this was step one to get everyones’ feet wet. Steps 2 through 10 will be getting a blog running for each unit, teaching the kids how to maintain it, and for those kids interested, giving them the tools to build their own.

Like Central Unit’s blog, where they share their “fun, art, and learning,” the goal is to get all of the units joining in on the blogosphere conversation. Not only do they teach the kids how to blog at Central Unit but they record and produce their own films, mix their own music, record podcasts, and are currently putting together a sound booth.

They don’t call this Blogsboro for nothing… even the kids share their voice.

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