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New Photo Blog – Israel Photos

Yaakov Ellis — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 12:25:31 +0000

For the past three and a half years, my wife and I have been using a pocket-sized point-and-shoot digital camera to try and capture our future memories. Although it has and continues to serve us well, we are very often frustrated with the amount of time it takes to capture a picture, from start to finish. While it is fine for taking shots of landscapes, when taking pictures of little kids, we often have less than a second in which to get what we want on film before the moment is lost (and more often than not, we are not able to capture it in time). So using some gift money we just purchased our new camera, a Nikon D40 (I wanted to get a DSLR, and according to reviews that I read, it is a very goof "beginner" camera for this class of cameras. So far it has lived up to expectations). It takes awesome, crisp pictures, and works fast (instant start-up, up to 2.5 pictures per second).

Of course, with such a fun new toy at my disposal, I can’t help but try out my hand at some amateur photography. And since I just can’t help but do so whenever I inaugurate a new hobby or area of interest, I have created a new blog to share my work: Israel Photos (RSS). The common theme with all of the pictures displayed is that all are taken in Israel (where I live). Beyond that, the subject matter will be quite varied.

I researched some of the different options for photo blogs, and in the end settled on using WordPress with the YAPB (Yet Another PhotoBlog) plugin. I am used to setting up and customizing WordPress blogs, and I like how the plugin leverages the strengths of WordPress while adding the functionality needed to modify the default operation of the software as required. And since this is running off of WordPress, I could integrate other WP plugins down the line, if necessary. Although I will probably change some of the colors down the line, I am right now using the Grain theme, a theme specifically designed to work with YAPB. Setup for all of these components (including some minor customization of the theme) was very straightforward.

Please let me know what you think – I would appreciate the feedback. (An easy way to see thumbnails of all photos posted so far is through the mosaic page. My favorites to date: Rotting Pomegranate, Purple Flower with Dew and Old Woman Swinging).

Items of Interest: 2007-06-04

Yaakov Ellis — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 12:49:08 +0000

Google Keeps Tweaking Its Search Engine – Inside look at the Google Search Quality department in this behind-the-scenes article in the New York Times. You will learn something new about “The Algorithm”. Also see the followup from Matt Cutts highlighting Five Things You Didn’t Know About Google Search
Google trying to delete competitor ads in Street View – From Kevin Burton
How I built a Web 2.0 … … site for $12K – From Guy Kawasaki, about Truemors
32 Ways to Keep Your Blog From Sucking – Pertinent advice from Scott Hanselman. I’m good on most of these things, except for the part about maintaining only one blog (I currently maintain five, all on pretty different topics) and about writing interesting things (I accomplish this only part of the time, so it seems)
Web Forms are Killing Me – Rant from Ayende
Bubbles on the Brain – Marc Andreessen doesn’t think that this is a real bubble (like in 1999). Neither does Steve McConnell or Ouriel
7 Apps for Online Notetaking – from Web Worker Daily (I am still probably going to just stick to Notepad2, though)
Die Hard 4 Press Conference with Bruce Willis. In Second Life.

Items of Interest: 2007-06-01

Yaakov Ellis — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 06:52:59 +0000

Microsoft Data Centers – Getting Bigger and Bigger – Can you say 1.3 miles worth of server rooms? (Channel 10)
Microsoft vs. TestDriven.NET, May 31 2007 – An update from Jamie on the situation. Secret Geek says that we shouldn’t blame Microsoft, rather we should just blame Jason Webber, the Microsoft PM who needs to brush up on his communication skills, while Chris and Johan both wonder why Microsoft are trying to mess around with their developer community in this fashion and Mike G. is more disillusioned than ever. Phil Haack (cleverly) analyzes the situation and points out that in enforcing their own EULA, Microsoft may very well have violated the TestDriven.NET license.
The Best Code is No Code at All – Jeff Atwood exhorts us to minimize the amount of code we write wherever possible. (I would qualify this: we should minimize the code wherever possible, as long as it does not mess up readability and make code maintenance a nightmare.)
A Look at Google Reader working with Google Gears – Step-by-step process from Search Engine Roundtable. (I haven’t had the best experience with it so far – it keeps telling me that I am offline when I am not).
The Origin of LINQ to SQL – A history lesson (and lesson on internal Microsoft politics) from Matt Warren (found via Dare Obasanjo)
Zooomr Update from Robert Scoble – Apparently Zoho has stepped up with data center space and Sun has stepped up with 42 TB of loaner servers. Thomas Hawk gives a situation update and explanation of the significance of the new Mark III Zooomr upgrade while a MS Evangelist offers a helping hand.
A Lack of Enthusiasm in the Microsoft World – Rhockford Lhota tackles the issue
What Does a Teacher Make? by Taylor Mali, found via think:lab

Items of Interest: 2007-05-31

Yaakov Ellis — Thu, 31 May 2007 14:34:47 +0000

Microsoft vs. TestDriven.net from Jamie Cansdale – Jamie gives a full accounting, including all emails exchanged between himself and Microsoft over the past two years of bullying by a Visual Studio PM, while MS tries to get him to stop distributing his Unit Testing framework because of dubious licensing issues (when the real issue is that his free product is superior to what they offer to customers who pay lots of $$)
Six ways to write more comprehensible code by Jeff Vogel. Here’s the short version:
1. Comment smartly – don’t write comments on obvious code, don’t document where it is not necessary
2. Define your constants rather than just putting ambiguous values into functions
3. Name your variables wisely
4. Perform error checking inside your code
5. Don’t optimize until the functionality is done
6. Choose to code for understandability versus conciseness.
Working hard on getting a new server from Thomas Hawk – The latest round in the “we will be releasing our super duper new version tonight…doh!” saga otherwise known Zooomr. Well, at least they got it up for 10 minutes this before meltdown, poor guys.
Google Gears – Google one-ups everyone and releases an open source framework for using webapps when offline (compare this with MS trying their hardest to prevent independent developers from making MS developer tools better).

If you thought that three monitors was pushing it…

Yaakov Ellis — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 15:46:12 +0000

Check out Stefan Didak‘s office. Nine monitors, 10 systems (including laptops). One wicked setup. He has also posted an FAQ answering (or avoiding) some of the common questions that a geek will come up with after salivating over the first picture of this home office.

Productivity Improvements

Yaakov Ellis — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 15:46:23 +0000

Check out this post on the JOS forum by SumoRunner, describing what things were like “back in the day”, and why old-timers like him scoff at so-called productivity gains achieved by the IDE or framework of the day.

Items of Interest: 2006.07.23

Yaakov Ellis — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 08:16:24 +0000

Things that I found interesting on July 23, 2006:

What’s New (at coComment)? – coComment has released a bunch of very useful features (which make their service significantly more attractive for the average blogger
Bezos Expeditions Invests in 37signals – Looking for big things to come from these guys
Geek to Live: Map Your Time – lifehacker presents an interesting spreadsheet-based method for making sure you are spending your time where you want to be spending it
ForumTrackr – Someone hacked together a site to mirror the different Joel on Software forums, and add some features that Fog Creek should have added long ago (like showing you what threads have been updated since your last visit).
20 PRO Tips for new CSS Developers – Worth reading even if you think that you know it all
The 1% Rule – Chris Campbell from ParticleTree talks about the numbers of users you can expect to contribute to your web applications (compared to the overall usage) and its significance
How to live happily with a great designer – Sound advice from Seth Godin

Items of Interest: 2006.07.20

Yaakov Ellis — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 09:43:45 +0000

Things that I found interesting on July 20, 2006:

11 Suggestions for not being a Dot Bomb 2.0 – (via Ouriel)
Why can’t Database Tables Index Themselves? – Jeff Atwood asks the question
Intellectual Bargain Shopping – Jeffrey Veen presents a very good alternative to the design philosophy that “all users are stupid” (via Mike Davidson)
Interview Tips from an Experienced Recruiter – (via Jason Haley and lifehacker)

Items of Interest: 2006.07.19

Yaakov Ellis — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 09:18:09 +0000

Things that I found interesting on July 19, 2006:

Do Quit Your Day Job – Ian Landsman explains why in some situations (ie: when you are committed and can afford to do so), quitting your day job is the best thing you can do for your mISV
How I Trained Myself to Get Up Early in the Morning – Matthew Stibbe gives the low-down on his technique
Google-Earthing the North Korean Military – Colin reports on how some members of the Google Earth community are using the program to identify missile launch sites in North Korea
String Formatting in C# – Nice guide by Steve Tibbett (via the Daily Grind)
Failure of a mISV – Interesting story reported on BOS
Store Viewstate in a Persistent Medium, the Proper Way – Bilal Haidar gives an improvement on the method proposed by Scott Mitchell
Five Steps to Kicking off a New Software Project – Advice from Russ Olsen (via Jason Haley)

Items of Interest: 2006.07.16

Yaakov Ellis — Sun, 16 Jul 2006 14:23:34 +0000

Things that I found interesting on July 16, 2006:

Looking at People Through Their Words – Analysis of most frequent words and phrases used by contemporary writers (including Martin Fowler, Noam Chomsky and Joel Spolsky) by Pavel Simakov
WordPress Templated – Easy way to create WordPress template files (if you don’t want to worry about the syntax) from SimplyGold (via Blogalistic)
Separating Programming Sheep from Non-Programming Goats – Jeff Atwood talks about a test that can be used to separate those who can grasp programming concepts from those that cannot
More ASP.net 2.0 Data Tutorials now Available – Check them out (via Scott Mitchell). I have tried these out and have found them very valuable making the 1.2 to 2.0 transition.
Taking an ASP.net Application Offline – Rick Strahl talks about the new App_Offline.htm feature in ASP.net 2.0 (via the Daily Grind)
VB to C# Converter – For all of those times when you are reading an article by someone stuck in VB.net land and do not want to go through the motions of translating it yourself
Broken Windows and Unit Testing – Jon Skeet talks about unit testing strategies (and somehow is able to bring NYC subway graffiti into the discussion)
A new day, two new browsers compared – Firefox 2.0 Beta 1 and IE 7.0 Beta 3 – Scott Hanselman reviews and compares the two new beta browsers
10 Common ASP.net Pitfalls – (via Jason Haley)
Thickbox 1.2 – Release by Cory Lindy
Adapting TechCrunch to the French Audience – Ouriel talks about the process he goes through

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