Killing me Softly

Came across this message today:

and yes, I really (really, really) wanted this page to go away, HOWEVER,  feeling quite christmassy, not sure if I wanted to 'Kill' it.

In a nutshell, I couldn't get myself to press 'Kill pages', so I've just closed the browser - weak, I know :).

Do all developers come from the gaming industry these days? Sounds like.

What's next? Press 'Kill pages'and get some blood pouring animation on your desktop?
'This page has been killed as instructed, don't worry, plenty more out-there'.

(All the old Warcraft days are coming back to me :))

Killing a process or a virtual machine is common terminology in the IT development world, not sure at all about using it in the Internet browser - and quoting some of my clients in a meeting the other day : 'hello, we're normal people...'

Why I walk the hills

I woke up this morning with Radio 2 playing Sam Carter's 'Dreams are Made of Money'.
No matter how hard I try, I can't fault its message and makes me sad.

I remembered a day walking through a meadow in the mountains in Romania, in the strong heat of the summer when the air is hazy and the grass can touch the sky with its scents.
Suddenly and out of nowhere,  clouds of small and totally blue butterflies filled the path and followed us for a while dancing around, to then just disappear into another world.

I have these days when I need to go away from the city and walk the hills - it's the only time I can abandon my dreams made of money.
And for a short while dream of blue butterflies.

Internet Success is all about Content

I'm totally convinced that Internet success is all about the quality of your website content. No doubt this sounds like a broken record, it has been said a million times before.
If your website content is interesting, informative, reads like a good story, it's witty and clever, people will come over and over again to check it out.
They'll even put up with a crappy website for interesting content - I know I've done it in the past. However that's not to say I'm not going to fight for usability. If there is one thing I know how to get right that's probably usability.
But I disgress as per my usual habit.
A recent question I got while sharing the smashingtrips idea was: 'what about the content, have you got the content'?
I like when people ask the right questions.
On this note, I'm building a group of initial content creators and beta testers.
In two weeks time I'm up in the Dales to meet Julie again, and ask her to act as our first beta user and content provider.

And to breathe some open space before I die of too much urban civilation and style.

Smashingtrips - One Year Later

The Smashingtrips idea has been simmering in my head for too long now. Time to make a move.

What's different this time?

Well, the fact that my life seams to be back on track, and most importantly, the fact that I can get help with the architecture and with the DATA. And this in itself gives me huge confidence.

If you would have asked me a while ago how do you build such a thing I'd have said : well, start by prototyping the screens, build the database and start coding the forms with a bit of IDM and graphic design thrown in the mix.
Today's story is a bit different, because I want to add a bit more of the recently acquired sophistication of a formal Business Analyst.
Which means we'll have a nice Logical Data Model, most probably caring on the data model started long time ago in Enterprise Architect, we'll have proper Use Cases and proper system requirements.
...to summarise, what you'll see here is a BA acting as a BA, also remembering how to be a .net developer again, and a Data Architect acting as himself and doing the data architecture.

It will be have to be asp.net because that's me limits as a developer...not that I'm complaining though.