Tag: tools

Mercurial vs. Subversion, take 2


In Becoming a Craftsman, Rock Hymas writes about Mercurial vs. Subversion. It's an excellent exposition of the tools and their underlying philosophies, and how his own development style changed from working on a Mercurial-based project. It's slightly marred by his conclusion that using Mercurial makes you a better developer; he seems to believe it does … Continue reading Mercurial vs. Subversion, take 2 →

NetNewsWire: A Review


NewsGator has released a Beta update (3.2b6) of NetNewsWire, which is their Mac syndication feed reader. I've used NetNewsWire for over a year, and before that I used their FeedDemon syndication reader on Windows. I've been very happy with their readers, so when I received the notice of the new version + impending change to … Continue reading NetNewsWire: A Review →

One Usenet to rule them all


Over the years, I've used many website forums and bulletin boards. They've been based on a variety of packages, such as phpBB, LiveCloud, or vBulletin. PhpBB is, I think, the reigning king of forum software. To add a forum to a site, you can use an off-the-shelf system, or roll your own. Casual sleuthing will reveal an assortment … Continue reading One Usenet to rule them all →

identi.ca vs. twitter


I've used identi.ca micro-blogging for the past five months. I'm switching to twitter. Why identi.ca? I was involved with a number of projects at Fisher Communications until last month. Including building a Plone system to be its news sites' in-house CMS. Our development environment and technology stack were open-source, with only a couple exceptions. When I worked … Continue reading identi.ca vs. twitter →

Mind-mapping software


If you're looking for mind-mapping software, I recommend FreeMind. I learned about it from a Macworld review. It's open source (GNU GPL), feature-rich, and works great. The review dinged it for frequent hangs, but it hasn't hung on me yet. I'm using it to brainstorm my job search. Its UI isn't very Mac-like, but it is … Continue reading Mind-mapping software →

Trac vs. Mantis; MoinMoin vs. Sycamore


I'm looking for information on Trac vs. Mantis for issue and bug tracking, and MoinMoin vs. Sycamore for wikis.  By "information," I mean comparisons and trade-offs thereof... The issue tracker would be used by about 20 people, all within one company.  The wiki would be used by up to 100 people, ditto. Any experiences, anecdotes, informed opinions, … Continue reading Trac vs. Mantis; MoinMoin vs. Sycamore →

Mercurial vs. Subversion


I'm launching a new Django-based project at work.  I'll initially be the sole developer, but I expect it to grow to 10 heads (developers, QA, web designers, operations, and project management) over time.  I hope to start the ball rolling this week, and one of my first decisions is the Source Code Management (SCM) tool. … Continue reading Mercurial vs. Subversion →

LinkedIn photos are an odd feature


I'm puzzled by LinkedIn profile photographs. I'm certain mine is a minority opinion. LinkedIn added them because, they said, it was their most-requested feature. And the blogosphere's reaction was generally (uniformly?) positive. The CW was that LinkedIn was responding to Facebook market pressure. I may identify myself as antediluvian by writing this, but I think … Continue reading LinkedIn photos are an odd feature →