BostonPHP Podcast discusses JQuery, barackobama.com, High Traffic of Facebook, et al
BostonPHP has some great podcasts in their archives. Among the notable are two covering JQuery, a conversation with one of the folks behind barackobama.com and a talk by a guy from Facebook covering strategies for 'high traffic' php sites (including how they deliver billions of images per day, obscene stuff.) Listening to people talk through code doesn't exactly lead you to mastery, but it does lay some broad conceptual strokes and ranks among the highest forms of nerdy enjoyment.
Getting the most out of your (not just the most) monitors
I am currently running a three monitor system in my home office: a 19" Samsung SyncMaster 920BM, a 22" wide SyncMaster 2253BW and a 24" SyncMaster 245BW. Each is mounted on an Ergotron LX Desk Mount articulating monitor arm allowing me to rotate and position them exactly as I want them. I have found that Samsung monitors are the best monitors at the best price. They are crisp, reliable and have all the extras that are nice, such as good menus, DVI and VGA ports, bright colors, great refresh rates, etc... If you have thousands of dollars that you must spend on your monitors, I'd look elsewhere, such as a charity, give half of it to the charity, then look here again.
Orientation
Before widescreen monitors, there was little difference between using your monitor right side up and sideways. Turning a wide screen monitor sideways, however, is a whole different story. When I first did I was a little shocked by it. Then I got used to it and haven't looked back.
Web Browsing
I never thought it would be useful since, even at a healthy 1050x1680 (the native resolution of my 2253BW) a lot of web pages looked squished. They were used to lounging around in the sweat pants and tee shirt 1680 width. Now they were choked into 1050. But then I looked up and down and saw how much I could see. Entire pages were rendering using exactly all of the screen space. Also I realized that most pages out there are optimized for 1024 monitors, which my new res fit nicely. I found I didn't have to scroll anymore; I could glance. My wrists cheered.
Web Development: Browsers
So browsing is nice, but what about development? When I develop I use firebug... a lot. If you don't know what that is and you edit web pages in any capacity, make sure you're using firefox and get firebug. IE 8 has come a long way (and has even surpassed firebug in some areas like runtime stack reporting.) Google Chrome has a pretty good document browser as well. But whichever you use, stacking the browser on top of the document inspector is an extremely efficient layout.
Web Development: Editors
As with web pages, the vasy majority of source files are longer than they are wide so swiveling the monitor is advantageous here as well. I use my 24" 245BW at 1200x1920. I've also found that 1920 px of vertical space is too much for comfot, so I drag my browser panel below the text. This way I get the full 1200 width and adjust the ratio between code and navigation to a comfortable ratio (this varies depending on the codebase and language I'm using.)
The need for both: Video, graphics work and non code-exclusive IDE's
There are, however, a lot of times when we'd want that landscape resolution such as video, graphics work and IDE's such as Flash that are designed to go wide. Further, we're not either coders or DVD watchers; we need to be able to do both and we're not going to put up with having to meddle with screws or other complicated mechanical mechanism. This is where articulating arms come into play. I mount my monitors on Ergotron LX Desk Mount Arms. They are rock solid, have a great articulation range, allow for 90 degree rotation and even have conuits to tuck wires.
--
I've had computers of one sort or another for about 25 years now. In that time I've gone through a good number of monitor configurations. At first the main factor was size (12" gave way to 13" which led to 15"). Then resolution started to play a role. Then there was a quantum leap into the flat screen days. Then multiple display video cards hit the main stream and there were two, then three - then as many as you wanted - monitors. Somewhere along the line wide screen monitors became commonplace... and of course sizes and resolutions continued to increase as lesser stats such as refresh rate, color depth continued to improve. Today we can get big beautiful cheap monitors and plug them into multiple cheap video cards that often rival our main boards in certain specs.
Client / Project Development Meditation Exercise
In order to get what I have to do done, I have to be able to choose what to do next now without wasting hours and energy (both of which are at a premium these days.) To do this I have to gain a perspective on all of the things on my plate, which requires a certain distance. Here's one way to do that:
- Clear off your desk and close all the windows open on your computer.
- Cultivate a distance and perspective: what sort of responsibility is this?
- Begin to think through all the things that you have (posses) to do.
- Think about the state of that project / relationship / etc...
- What is your next step? Visualize yourself doing it.
- Make a mental note of any thoughts, emotions, etc... that arise while meditating on that task. (Just note it, don't follow where it will lead.)
- Move on to the next thing.
Doing this makes it less likely that I forget things and let them slip away. It also helps me shake out the unhealthy connections to my responsibilities so that I can make the best decision on what to do that my current sensibilities allows.
Why does this come up?
On any given day as an entrepreneuer it's common to juggle up to a dozen different things. These may be simple discrete tasks such as answering a question, filling out a form or writing (or paying) an invoice. Some are more involved concrete tasks such as performing the next step in an ongoing project or preparing for a meeting. Others are potentialities or more theoretical tasks such as sending out an email to keep a perspective client or parter excited about an idea or project that you're cultivating or researching a skill set that seems as if it will help you strengthen a weak area in your work.
Pretend that this desk is my brain and you'll get the idea.
Things to do vary widely and require vastly different forms of attention and action. As these responsibilities build up, they can become overwhelming. I find that the hardest thing about my job is keeping the things I have to do in perspective so that I can make determinate choices about exactly what I should be doing now so that I can do it. When I can't make a clear choice I feel like a guy using an old gas powered lawn mower; no matter how much I pull the chain, the engine won't engage.