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Today at work I mananged to code up three fairly heavy layouts of an upcoming website redesign for Alere. I did it in 4.5 hours starting from scratch. These three pages essentially serve as the template for all the other pages on the site. I'm normally fast at front-end coding, but today I just got into some sort of extreme pace and managed to get it done just before the end of day. Now, I'm idling again at work with nothing much to do. If only I was as quick on the back-end side of websites.
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As I was browsing around Apple's website today, I noticed a rendering issue on one of the pages. As I went to report it via their Contact Us form, I noticed a link just before the submit button regarding the submission of ideas. The very fact that it had to be written out was just plain sad, and a clear reflection on the American legal system. Apparently many users that submit their suggestions for product updates to Apple think that just because they submitted an idea, they have the right to sue Apple if they ever dare to implement it. Sounds completely unreasonable does it? IT IS!

Think of it this way. If I blogged and announced to the world that I had a great idea for a flying vehicle, and 40 years from now a brilliant engineer manages to build something very similar, am I entitled to any compensation? The bottom line is: ideas are cheap. I can come up with 100 brilliant ideas within a couple hours (although many of them would not be currently feasible with today's technology). What really matters is the execution. And if someone tries to sue another over execution, it had better be a complete carbon copy (or very close to it) for there to be any merit to the case.

So why does this irk me so much? It's because there are tons of very smart people out there that want to create "something cool" to offer to the world. But because of the way copyright and patent laws are set up in America, many people feel that they have to tread lightly or else get blown up by a landmine in the form of an epic lawsuit. In fact, there are many smaller companies that get sued out of business by bigger companies, including one of our clients at my workplace. It's just a dismal situation to be in.

And so, with all that said above, I had to make some changes to the Terms of Service (which hardly anyone reads anyways).
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Any New Year's resolutions?
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In the development process of anything, logically one should always knock down the mission critical elements first, and then descend from there, going from higher priority to lower priority. However, many times I like to iron out the little details before proceeding with higher priority things. Maybe it's because those other things tend to be more difficult, and so I'm trying to purposely avoid doing them for as long as possible. Or maybe I just have OCD precision in the way my websites are designed, especially with structure and alignment.

I'm trying to break out of this habit, but it seems so wired into me.
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Although I love my 15" Macbook Pro, at times the screen (1440 X 900) feels a little cramped for multi-tasking. And despite my Olympic abilities in Alt Tabbing through my windows, sometimes it becomes too much of a hassle. And so finally it's time for an upgrade. I've decided to hook up my laptop to a stand-alone monitor while working at home. After doing some research, I've decided on the NEC PA271W. Not only is it 27" @ 2560 X 1440, but it's also a professional-grade IPS monitor with all the granular options that power users want.

One bad thing about this purchase, and is the case with all pro-grade equipment, is that it is difficult to see the actual product in person. Since physical retail stores cater to the average consumer, there are usually no pro-grade stuff in inventory. So essentially this monitor purchase was a "blind" buy. But the reviews have all been so stellar that I feel safe in taking the plunge anyways.

This should most definitely speed up my productivity and web development, and as an entertainment piece it's going to be fantastic with Avatar or any Pixar film running at 1080P!
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I'm holding down a full time job at Ply Interactive doing front-end web development. I also have a side contract job in which I'm developing a portfolio website for a local architect. And finally, I have my personal projects like MajorIndulgence. Although it eats up a ton of my time, I feel like I'm constantly learning something new and increasing my skills. Plus, it helps that I enjoy what I do and the results that come out of it, especially on the user experience side of things.

If I could have one wish as a web developer though? For people to stop using outdated versions of Internet Explorer and move on to better and FREE web browsers, like Firefox, Chrome, or Safari.
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No, I'm not taking out features, but rather just optimizing what's behind the scenes to make the site run faster, even if it's not entirely noticeable. It's unbelievable when you revisit your code a year later and realize how amateur some of the coding was.
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A lot of times when web developers create sites they place so much attention on the main pages, such as the home page, about us page, and all the primary content pages. However, small but important things like a Forgot Password reset process is just as important since many people tend to forget. I personally don't forget these things, and so naturally it never really came up in my mind until now. It should be implemented by the end of today.
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Any web developer can tell you the insane amounts of time spent on cross-browser compatibility, especially with Internet Explorer 6 and 7. Some people are simply stuck in the past and don't want to upgrade, despite the fact that all the web browsers are 100% free. IE9 is supposed to be vastly upgraded from 8 with full CSS3 support. And when it's released, Microsoft should roll it out as a critical update for all Windows users. It's time to move on to newer and better things.
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Ugh, I just browsed through a lot of my code for this site, and much of it is disorganized and unoptimized. Everything works, it's just that it can be written so much cleaner.
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