Thursday notice
The usual Thursday posts may end up postponed for the month of March. Between work, my personal life, and outside projects, time is scarce. [I'd rather be silent than offer up useless drivel.]
Next Thursday is going to be exciting- some of the NWMSU IDM majors are taking the Off Broadway Tour and I’ve been invited to participate in their power lunch, where they practice networking over a meal. This is going to be fun!
The Off Broadway Tour was one of the best lessons I ever had in professional development. I’m looking forward to meeting the new IDM majors and seeing where they are heading.
Being the industry leader
Outside In
From the perspective of an outsider looking in, as a web developer I can see how woefully behind the times our company’s web site is: it’s disgustingly out of date in design, doesn’t validate, uses archaic technology (Coldfusion 4.5, anyone?), loads slowly, and is a general disservice to anyone trying to use it.
How great would it be, to not fix the problems with the current site, but to scrap it and start fresh? Many server-side technologies are ripe for the picking, but we have had little time, no budget, and too much red tape to have a chance to shine.
Inside Out
From the perspective of someone on the inside looking out, the services offered by Angus Productions Inc. are incredible. We are the industry leaders in the cattle business, and our company is the industry leader on the web. While I consider the online sale books project a paltry offering, our competition was scrambling to catch up- even going so far as to steal our naming conventions later on.
The Future
It’s amazing to see the evolution of the web, through the eyes of the cattle industry: we set a precedent with the eye candy and presentation of the “as printed” sale books, and everyone else stood up, took notice, then ran like crazy to catch up.
Amazing! If something as insignificant (technology-wise) as sale books become the talk of the town, imagine what will happen when we really get to run amok. The web is not just a toy for playing games. It has evolved into a powerful tool that could make so many of our customers’ lives easier.
With this new project on the horizon (API is just now slowing down from busy season) we are likely to blow apart the stereotypical view of the web as a toy.
The hardest part is learning to have patience and carefully navigate past the red tape so the web department can really get down to business. The part about success being 99% perspiration? They were not kidding. I am not afraid of getting my hands dirty and doing the grunt work when it’s necessary, because I know that the future rewards I am working towards will be grand. Working in the cattle industry may not be viewed as an exciting opportunity by most, but by the time I’m through with it, it will be.
On Doing What You Love
Steve Olson finds the best reading on the web. I followed a link in one of his posts today about responsibility, where he asks “Do you need to take responsibility to do the things you love?”
A frank and succinct observation on the journey to discovering what you love doing, Paul Graham explores where our attitudes and beliefs derive. Warning: This isn’t your typical conventional list of “Top 10 Ways to Find What You Love.” It takes some reading, lots of thought, and time to digest it all.
With that in mind, give yourself a lunch break or use an extended break to read it.
How to Do What You Love, by Paul Graham [via Steve Olson]
A Visual Tour of Kaizen
A visual tour through the work I’ve been doing during this Sale season. Larger images are linked to the thumbnails if you’d like to see details. Enjoy!
Kaizen: Gardiner Angus Ranch
The recent update to Gardiner’s web site was mostly pain-free. Along with the update I attempted to use the IE conditional comments I’ve observed so many other sites use. Inside it contains a IE6 style sheet, which switches out the use of .png files for .gifs and takes out the negative margins on the top navigation. No, it doesn’t fix everything concerning IE6 presentation, but their site is in a constant state of improvement.
