Support the Boagworld Christmas Appeal. Sponsor me on Just Giving.
132. Drobo
Posted in Podcast on: Wednesday, August 27, 2008 by
In this weeks show Paul and Marcus return to talk about the abundance of content management systems and ask the question “Are there too many?”, as well as discussing Paul’s new Drobo and backing up.
Vote Boag
To start with we’d like to ask a favour of all the loving Boagworld listeners, would you vote for our panel at SXSW this year. We’ve called it Clients Are Stupid…? and the official description is as follows:
Why do clients seemingly make idiotic decisions? How come they fail to ‘get it’? Learn how to improve communication with your clients and enhance your working relationship. Be more successful at pitching ideas, getting design sign off and ensuring projects stay on track. Don’t let your projects become a battleground.
Check out the panel page for more information on what we’ll be discussing and we’d appreciate the vote!
Special Discount
On last weeks show Ryan and Stanton talked about FreeAgent, an online accounting and project management tool for freelancers. Ed Molyneux, FreeAgents founder and CEO, has written to us to offer a special discount for Boagworld listeners:
We’d be really pleased to offer Boagworld readers/listeners a discount of 20% on all ongoing subs if they sign up with the referral code boag99 before the 15th September 2008. They get a 30-day free trial before having to subscribe, and monthly subs range from £15 for Sole Trader freelancers to £25 for Limited Companies.
So thanks Ed, and listeners be sure to check out freeagentcentral.com to take advantage of this offer.
News and events
Step away from the keyboard
One of the curses of being a web designer or even a website owner is that we spend too much time in front of a keyboard. Whether we are writing content, coding or planning a site structure, it is normally done in front of a PC.
I have tried to escape the shackles of the keyboard but with only limited success. Sketching can help and I do a lot of information architecture work using pen and paper. However, these approaches don’t allow the flexibility and speed of a PC.
However, this week I have come across two little products that help to escape the PC. The first is called GUIMagnets. They are basically fridge magnets with GUI elements printed on them. These including text fields, radio buttons, dropdown menus and more. Used in conjunction with a whiteboard you can quickly prototype page layouts in a much more tactile way.
The second product is an alternative to whiteboards. The problem with a whiteboard is that you don’t always have one handy when you need it. They are large, static and relatively expensive. What you need is something that provides the benefits of a whiteboard but without the disadvantages. Magic Paper is that alternative. Magic Paper is made from lightweight, flexible plastic that can be rolled up and carried anywhere. When you want the whiteboard you simply smooth it onto a wall and it is held in place with static. You can then use it like a whiteboard and remove it when you are done.
Hopefully these two products will encourage you to leave the PC behind, at least some of the time!
Creating slick CSS
Next we have some tips for you CSS coders. If you have grasped the basics of writing CSS and want to improve, then you should read the ‘7 principles of clean and optimised CSS code‘. As the title suggests this post provides 7 ways that you can improve the quality of your CSS coding. These include:
- The use of shorthand
- Avoiding hacks
- Using whitespace wisely
- Pruning any frameworks or reset code you use
- Future proofing your CSS
- Documenting your work
- Making use of compression
Bitter experience has taught me this is excellent advice. Even if it is old news to you it is worth reminding yourself of these points. It is easy to fall into bad habits.
While on the subject of CSS, I also want to quickly mention a site called Conditional-CSS. This site provides a mechanism to deliver specific CSS to specific browsers without relying on hacks. It uses either PHP or C to achieve this and uses a very similar formatting to IE conditional comments.
It would be unwise to become too reliant on this approach because it could cause problems as new browsers emerge. That said, it is potentially useful in certain circumstances and is worth checking out.
Focusing on the wrong thing
Talking of reminding yourself of best practice make sure you read Gerry McGovern’s post on Google and Yahoo! Gerry examines why Google makes 10 times the profit of Yahoo! even thought it has significantly less page impressions.
Gerry argues that Yahoo! focuses too much on its products/website and not enough on the needs of their users. In essence Gerry is emphasising the importance of putting your customers first.
Although as website owners and designers we should all know this, we often forget it in the scramble to add new features, and implement new technologies.
Screencasting beginners guide
Our final post today is an introduction to screencasting by smashing magazine. This is a subject I covered myself in show 122 and for good reason. Screencasts are becoming increasingly popular and it is important that we know how to implement them.
The article looks at why you should make a screencast, tips for creating a good screencast and reviews of the different tools available.
Its a good post that provides all you need to know to get started. It also provides some excellent tips that are worth taking on board. My favourite is…
Editing may be an option, but sometimes its better to simply start over and have a nice flow to the production rather than piecing together snippets.
Editing is for wimps :)
Feature: Too Many Content Management Systems
I know we live in a capitalist society. I know we are supposed to believe in choice. However, there are just too many damn content management systems. Another extract from the Website Owners Manual in this weeks feature.
Review: Drobo And Backing Up
Since posting on twitter about my new Drobo, I have received a number of requests for a review of this backup and storage solution.
Related Posts:
What did you think about this post?
Additional comments powered by BackType
19 Comments
Comments are for the discussion of this post. If you have other questions / comments then post them to the forum or send me an email
Looks like a good show, I look forward to having a listen when the file finishes downloading.
Sorry to be a terrible, irritating, boring asshat, but “weeks” (in the introductory paragraph and the penultimate paragraph, and under “special discount”), and “FreeAgents” (under “special discount”), need apostrophes.
@Josh – it’s wonderful to hear from someone with similar sensibilities as me. Chris Scott (another Headscape person) and I thought we were the last two. I have given up on Paul I’m afraid ;-)…
Speaking of apostrophes, this is a funny page on some silly errors- http://www.apostropheabuse.com/2005_08_01_archive.html
On a completely different (but still language related) slant, I do find this French poem very funny. It’s best to get someone else to read it aloud to you- listen to the sounds of the words as opposed to the French (which doesn’t make sense anyway)- can anyone guess what it is?
Un petit d’un petit
S’étonne aux Halles
Un petit d’un petit
Ah! degrés te fallent
Indolent qui ne sort cesse
Indolent qui ne se mène
Qu’importe un petit d’un petit
Tout Gai de Reguennes.
Sorry that this is completely unrelated to the post!
I am the Marcus pimper from Twitter and im sorry Paul for deflating your ego! We were all waiting for abit of a rant on the next podcast and you didn’t let us down, marcus we love you! :-)
Is Paul’s new favorite word ‘Pimping’?
http://flickr.com/photos/2ndmile/2805369079/
Drupal is a great open source CMS that is running some major sites across the web but as you said in the show, the documentation is lacking in many areas, both on the dev and user sides. On the bright side, there are thousands of people developing and securing it, and it is free.
On the subject of getting away from the keyboard, I thought you were going to actually get out of the house as well! I find going down to the beach (only 5 minutes away for me) for a little bit with a pen and paper is a good way to get some ideas, and/or relax, however it really needs to be warm and not raining, something which is sometimes hard to come across here on the Fife coast… :-)
Keep up the good work guys, even you Paul as it’s obvious Marcus is the star of the show!
That was meant to say especially instead of even…
with regards to either voting for Boagworld or Rissington, I can’t fathom why someone would vote for Rissington. Don’t get me wrong; I love the podcast, but it’s going on something like two months now since they last updated it. Why is it even in the running? I would imagine only those that are friends with the Jo(h)ns would vote for it.
Again, I listen to each Rissington podcast over and over again but it doesn’t seem like they take it seriously. Paul Boag and Marcus Boddington on the other hand make sure the show gets done even when they are on vacation.
On the subject of CMS,s I was very surprised to find that TXP was not mentioned atall, unless of course i missed that bit. I have been personally using it for a while now and have found that there is much Documentation, resources, flexibility with this CMS. There are no presently known security issues, It is extrememly easy for clients to learn to update content after a short eductaional tutorial and it is very very robust, semantically designed and regularly updated. It has a huge community of helpful followers and its absolutely FREE. Oh how I do love “Opensource software”. being a bit of a poorper in all!
Been listening to the show for a few monthes now and it seems to have replaced music on my regular long distance journeys form East Anglia to Newcastle, helping to releive some of the boredom with light humor combined with great content of which I would never have the time to research and keep up with all by my self!….Keep up the good work men ;)
Once again another great show guys, keep them coming. your so much better than that rissington rubbish… im not even sure why they class it as a web design podcast its more like a pile of tripe ramblings about anything but the internet.
Keep up the good work.
andy
With regards to the listener question “Project Management and Invoicing Applications” from show 131 (which I can’t comment on?) I can recommend Billings from Market Circle @ billings2.com and also, for a higher budget & more complete solution, you could look at Streamtime from Particle Systems @ previewstreamtime.com
On a side note, Paul, is your Drobo the USB only version, or the firewire version? Would love to get my hands on one of those…
Huge fan of the show, keep up the great work!
I really like the look of that magic paper stuff.
But I thought you guys might be interested to know that fixed whiteboards aren’t ‘that’ expensive.
You can get a 90cm x 60cm magnetic one for about 30 quid, with a nice grid on it to help lay things out.
Hi Guys,
I was listening to your feature on backups and while the main point was to talk about Drobo, I was a little disappointed when you didnt talk more about offsite backups.
We use a similar solution to Drobo – a Dlink NAS with 2 raided drives. However our concern is the risks of having it in the office – theft, fire, other damage etc.
I wondered what your thoughts were on this as while insurance may cover the value of the data, the overall value of loss is much greater.
Failure of drives is probably more likely than fire, theft etc so having an onsite backup is essential but does that mean we should discount offsite based on the lower risks?
Onsite is certainly much cheaper as you say offsite hammers bandwidth unless you physically take it offsite yourself!
Thanks and keep up the good work on the podcast!
Andy
Hi guys,
interesting chat on the DROBO, but you didn’t make any mention on the software that you use to carry out the automatic backups to it…
You did say that your earlier “backup disaster” was caused by the backup software failing, so important I think to get feedback/reviews on the actual software people use to actually get data onto their DROBO’s or other storage devices…
Thanks
Gary
I saw the magic whiteboard stuff on Dragon’s Den. With a recommendation from Paul and the support of Dragons, it looks like they’re doing well.
It was in this Dragon’s Den episode:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00d2wxf
Paul’s “Magic Paper” is not the Dragon’s Den product – “Magic Whiteboard”. I wonder if something amiss given the Dragon’s Den folk got their investment through having the patent and sole worldwide distribution rights for this product. Magic Paper is around 4 times the price, has an amateur site but seems to claim that product for hundreds of wipes. Magic whiteboard can be bought Rymans and claims 20 wipes but with care longer.
PS. I’m a huge long-term fan of the show – it’s fantastic. Funny what get some folks commenting isn’t!
Not that I want to question Pauls judgement but heres a slightly more authorative review of the Drobo that doesn’t put it in such good light:
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/202032/data-robotics-drobo.html?searchString=drobo
I have been using Mozy for over a year now including backing up on a drive. I find Mozy excellent but it can be dog slow at times. But it backs up in the background, doesn’t take over too much of your processing and it’s very inexpensive. Couldn’t sleep without it. Am going to give Drobo a try. Thanks for the review.