Archive for May, 2009

10 ways to Rapid Development

By Robert on May 28th, 2009

Often times when you think about rapid development you think about what frameworks you are using to make the development process fast. While frameworks help a great deal, it doesn’t stop there when you need to push out products quickly – especially prototypes.

At FACollective we primarily use Ruby on Rails for our web development framework as well as jQuery – we also use Erlang and other languages. These two frameworks aid in rapid development, however we can’t push things out as fast as we do if we stopped there.

Here are a 10 quick tips to expedite your development time:

1. When developing anything/everything always think about code reuse. If you can reuse that piece in other parts of your current application or in other applications, take the time to make it into either a plugin or a gem.

2. Rails Generators. A lot of people will tell you you’re doing it wrong if you are using the scaffold generator or any generator. They’re full of it and it is simply not DRY. Write your own generators that covers the 80% of what you’d normally add to any project and use it. It is better to have a good starting point immediately then spend that time rewriting the same setup for every app you work on.

3. Rails Templates. At the end of 2005 I wrote a Gem that would setup your rails apps with the normal things you’d always add to your apps: testing, authentication, users, etc. As of this year, Rails has added Templates which makes this pretty easy. Use them. We employ a few templates that will build out accounts, plans, user management, authentication, ecommerce, blogs, etc. From there, we customize it to suit the application’s needs.

4. jQuery Plugins. You’ll find that you will write the same JavaScript code over and over for applications: flash messaging that shows up and then fades out, hover animations, ajax forms, ajax links, etc. Make them all plugins with options that you can easily pass in to change certain behaviors.

5. Tools. We find that we create a ton of gems for things and we like our gems setup a certain way. So, we created our own gem to create them how we like them. Bash scripts and gems are awesome for taking care of those little things that you repeat often. We use Bash scripts for aliasing ‘rails’ to create a new rails application using a template which pulls from a local version of rails 2.3.2 – which is always kept current. We also use Shell Scripts for various build processes.

6. Deployment. Capistrano or Vlad are great for deployments to various servers. Add your generic recipes to your Templates so when you create a new rails app you have your recipes to get started.

7. Freeze Everything. When collaborating with others, freezing your gems and rails to specific version in your application is a huge time saver for them and for you. Do it.

8. Form Builders. This has been a huge time saver for us. We have settled on specific HTML blocks for all of our forms which provides a lot of flexibility via CSS. So, we created a Form Builder for this and use it everywhere. Since most applications are just a bunch of forms, this has saved us a ton of time.

9. Extend Rails when needed. There are times when you need specific functionality in various areas of rails, that rails does not include. Take the time to extend rails in a plugin that you can reuse in other applications. Not only can you reuse this in other applications, but you will have saved a lot of time in maintaining that piece of code, especially if you are using it in various areas of the applications.

10. Experiment. Experimentation is vital for any programmer or designer, IMHO. It breeds creativity, motivation, and is a nice break from the mundane. People will tell you that you need to keep yourself focused when working on project, which is true, but if your mind has already wandered off on an idea, you’ve already lost focus. I’ve found that it is best to follow that idea for a small bit of time because you won’t ever have that same insight and motivation for that idea again. Experiment with it to keep yourself motivated in your craft and you might possibly learn something that you didn’t know, which ultimately makes you better at what you are doing anyways.

What development practices do you employ to build applications rapidly?

Rethink Communication Flow

By Jake on May 26th, 2009

Ah.. remember the good ol’ days when you as a company could just sit back and fire out TV ad, after newspaper ad, after magazine ad, after radio ad and people would come? When you told people who they were, what they liked and what they were going to buy? You sat in a lofty high-rise raining down words of wisdom on the consumer. You controlled their dreams, their goals, and ultimately their purchases. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on who you are), those days are over.

The days of the one-way street of communication are long gone and a ‘conversation’ has arisen about your company. People are talking about your products and services and they didn’t even ask you what they should say. They didn’t ask you what their dreams should be or how your company could help. They’ve decided what they think about your products; They’ve decided whether or not they appreciate your services and you know what else their doing? They’re telling their friends.

My question is simply this: Are you participating in this conversation or are you denying it’s existence? I submit that you MUST be participating in this conversation and being as involved as you and your company can. You can learn a lot by listening, or better yet, providing a place in which this interaction can occur. When you choose not to join this conversation, you miss your customers. The choice is simple: Join the conversation or die.

Site Remark allows you as a company to provide a place for that interaction to happen. It is a perfect way to hear what people are saying, respond, hear some more, respond, hear some more, and yet again, respond. When you are participating in this conversation, it shows your customers that you are serious about knowing them, their needs and fulfilling those needs.

More to Site Remark

By Jake on May 20th, 2009

We’ve just released some new updates and features for SiteRemark. We have considered many interface enhancements and are working to continue to improve the overall user experience. We have made various minor tweaks along with the following major additions.

FAQs
We’ve added a section for companies to add ‘Frequently Asked Questions’. This identifies your company as being proactive in customer service and prevents the duplication of questions in the forum. In the future, we will be adding a widget to allow companies to embed these in their websites.

Tab Control
We wanted to give you more control over what content is available to users. Maybe you only have one employee, or maybe you’re a non-profit organization that doesn’t have any products or services that need review. You now have access to show and hide the various tabs. This makes SiteRemark a flexible communication tool for all types of companies and organizations.

Committed to making the product better
We are becoming more and more convinced that Site Remark will help companies be more transparent and honest with customers, as well as help in building relationships and community around a company or product. We are committed to the continued improvement of this service. Please join the conversation and let us know how we can make it serve your needs better. Will we always do it? probably not, but it will help us continue to consider new ideas and ways in which we can improve Site Remark for companies and their customers.

For more information on recent updates, see this previous post. If you are interested in being in the beta test group, email john at facollective.com.

Provide feedback, suggest ideas, or join the conversaton HERE

Time is Money – The Genesis Plan

By John Moorhead on May 16th, 2009

I write this post at 2:00 AM.  Why?  There are just never enough hours in the day.  I find that I can get some quiet time to myself to write, work, think, and just be.  As with any entrepreneur, business, or individual… Time is of the essence.  If you take too much time to develop something, and not enough time to let your customers “kick the tires”… You are losing money.

Thus, why we created the Genesis plan.  The goal is to be able to take nearly functional concept and make it reality within 7 days.  There are obvious exceptions to this based on the scope and size of an application, but still a noble cause none-the-less.

Most venture capitalists today will ask for a prototype or some design elements of an application.  They want to do this for multiple reasons, but number one to see if you are committed to the project.  If you can turn a concept into something tangible.  To help others see the passion and vision that you have for the product.

We want to help you make your dream a functional and visited application.  We want to take your napkin notes and take it live.  Free Air Collective has all of the moving parts needed to do this.  We can even do it in 7 days.  Come find out how!

On Principle, Not Outcome

By Jake on May 15th, 2009

As I sit and look at my 2 yr old son, I think about all that I want to teach him. As his father, I see it as my responsibility to teach him first about our great God, and to instill in him principles to live his life by. That made me think a lot about what principles are. They are not conditional; they are absolute and independent of any outside circumstance.

I’ve been working from the local coffee shop for the better part of the week and have overheard many conversations which prompted me to take a step back and look at our current culture objectively. A lot of our decisions aren’t based on principle, they’re based on the result or outcome of those decisions. ‘What impact will this have on my career? my life? my future?’  ‘What will my peers think?’  ‘How will society see this?’  ‘Will this benefit our company?’  ‘Will this get us ahead of the competitors?’  These are the questions that are often asked when making decisions. None of these questions are based on principle, but rather the outcome of the situation. I think that is where a lot of our current problems lie.

If I develop a set of principles that govern my personal life, my career, my social life, etc., I can easily make the right decision regardless of the outcome. If you have no principles to live by, you tend to be tossed to and fro with every whim of society. I can ask ‘Is this consistent with my convictions?’ or ‘Does this violate my moral code?.’  I challenge you today to be a person of principle, instead of being capricious.

This concept is especially important in business. Companies that act on principle seem to be more likely to succeed in the long run. You see great companies like Zappos, Chick-Fil-A, 37signals, & In-n-Out Burger who start with principles and build their business on them. You also see companies that are just looking to make a quick profit who base all decisions on the desired outcome. They may make that quick buck, but they lack the foundation to be successful in the long run. They end up sacrificing customer service, losing focus, or doing something stupid.

We at Free Air Collective hope to build a business on principle and to make products that help people & companies do the same. That’s why we’re excited about our first product, Site Remark. It allows companies to move to more transparent customer communication. A company that is committed to customer service will see this a natural evolution of their customer service committment. When you show that you are willing to be just as public with your failures as you are with your successes, your customers know they have a company they can trust.

Site Remark Becoming More Remarkable

By Jake on May 7th, 2009

Over the past month, we’ve been feverishly working on many updates to Site Remark. Some features we’ve improved upon and some we completely overhauled. Since our first iteration, we have actually been using Site Remark to communicate back and forth as we’re working remotely. It emphasizes even more in our minds the huge benefit of using Site Remark for product development. Here is an overview of the things we’re excited to reveal today:

Marketing Site Renovation

After living with the original marketing site for a month or two, I really wanted it to say more by saying less. I wanted to improve readability and create a better flow for the visitor. I focused on copy-writing while simplifying imagery and color scheme. I wanted someone to be able to read it in 3 seconds and get it. I also wanted them to be able to spend some time on the home page (if they so desired) and get more out of it. I wanted to highlight features and show the interface in a big and beautiful way. The support copy consists of statistics about customer retention, which is really important and ultimately why someone would use Site Remark. I also wanted to highlight the fact that it is so easy to integrate and use that you can basically be up and runnin’ in 3-5 minutes.

Interface Updates

As I was working on the interface for one of our future products I realized the the original Site Remark layout was a little clunky. Yeah, it was clean and organized, but there was a bit too much space wasted in a number of places. The new interface features much of the same cleanliness and readability, while utlizing a slimmed down approach to some elements. Much of the overall style of the interface has been updated, but here are some specific pieces:

The Feedback Form & Tool Bar
This piece originally was good because it drew your attention and caused users to know where they could leave feedback, but, it was a tad on the enormous side. The new version features the Toolbar at the top of the page (still plainly visible) that only reveals the form when a button is clicked. The new version is more sleek, more usable, and not as distracting. We have also updated the javascript modal (pop-up) window that integrates into company sites to feature the new form styling and functionality. Overall, it provides for a better user experience on the client site and within the actual Site Remark community site.

The Header
The original header was fine and simple, but seemed to be lacking something. It was also a bit tricky when you were customizing it. We have updated that to feature full color customization including background color, logo, tag line and text color. Also, within the header there is the user login information, which prior to this update was floating below the header. We’ve used transparent .pngs in the background which adds a little more visual depth as you customize the colors.

Feature & Functionality Updates

Along with many interface updates have been feature/functionality updates. Here are a few of the highlights:

Most Popular
Featured in the sidebar on the main pages is the 5 most popular questions on any given day based on the activity in the community. This helps companies know what their customers are really wanting/needing and helps them respond easier and more quickly.

We know you can count
We thought it would be nice to see how many topics, people, and products present in each Site Remark community. So next to each item in the top navigation bar, you can see the number of topics, people or products and easily know if new items have been added since you’ve last visited.

Commenting
Users can new preview comments before leaving them, they can also edit or delete their comments at any time.

Global Search
You can now search for other companies that are on SiteRemark. This improves the experience for customers because they can interact with various companies worldwide using a single login. This will soon be expanded to include products and services as well. We do want to continue to avoid confusion so we’ve put this search field in the footer of the site. We also wanted to give others an opportunity to start their own customer support communities and be remarkable.

Along with these updates come many minor tweaks and improvements. We are very happy to see it where it is now, and have much planned for the future. Stay tuned for updates.

If you have any suggestions for improvement, don’t hesitate to submit your feedback HERE.

Rails Bridge

By Robert on May 5th, 2009

FACollective primarily uses Ruby and Rails for most of our work here and we were really disappointed in the Rails community as of late. It seems it is “appropriate” and “acceptable” to demean women at conferences and when said women speak out, they are told it is something wrong with them for feeling the way they do.

This is absolutely unacceptable in any community. This isn’t the first time the “leaders” of the Rails community have acted immaturely and not the first time I’ve wanted to not use Rails because of certain people’s view point of what is acceptable. I had previously stop using Rails and started using Merb, however, this attitude is actually coming out of merb core, accepted by the rails core, which are all now one.

I really do hate these ideologies where deeming people is “cool” and “acceptable”. I was pleasantly surprised when Mike Gunderloy and company started Rails Bridge. This is a place to better the community and be friendly with all people no matter who you happen to be; where projects for non-profits are taken on pro-bono, mentoring, code audits and more. A place to give to the community and reach out to others who need help.

We at FACollective really believe in giving back and helping those who need it. We will be offering free accounts of whatever size is needed of Site Remark for Rails Bridge and any non-profit company that seeks out help from the Rails Bridge Community. We will also be donating our time and talent to help build up the Rails Bridge site itself where ever we can.

We really look forward to being apart of this new growing community and ask that you stop by and give your support to this community as well.