In the eyes of Robin Monks

I refuse to call this an ‘Audcast’ but thankfully this once-in-a-blue-moon GameMaker discussion has re-branded itself GMCast after taking the name from a rival to GameMaker TV which never materialised.

Listen as Robin Monks, Dan Eggers and myself make fools of ourselves while talking about topics such as the best GameMaker games of 2008, the security issues effecting GameMaker and YoYo Games’ instant play and a summary of the events last year.

Cringe at the cheesy opening and at my reluctance to speak as I find that recording a podcast with people I’ve never met is much harder than writing a blog or magazine article.  Disagree with our thought-up-in-10-minutes round-up of the best games of the year and complain that the entirety of my pre-record is taken from previous GameMaker Blog posts.

But above all tell us what we can do to improve.  What kind of features would you like to see on the show?

via GameMaker Blog - Game Maker News, Comment and Opinion.

GMKing, Game Maker Game Maker, gmcast, GMKing, podcast

If anyone missed that deal, here is another for $97 off any yearly plan, and $51 off a monthly plan (no known expiration date).  The coupon code is rm0 (are-emm-zero), and, since all the dicounts are set to the maximum possible, I don’t get any kickbacks from anyone using this (just like I didn’t get kickbacks from the link below).  I’m just trying to save people money on some good hosting.  Go to Dreamhost to use it.

 

Via lifehacker:

DreamHost is running a New Year’s promotion right now. 95% off a 2 year hosting agreement which works out to $10.47.

To use, go to DreamHost, select a two year plan, and use promo code 202 (expires Jan 3, 2008 — today).
For $10.47 you get unlimited transfers, bandwidth, a free domain registration and all the perks that come with a full account like unlimited MySQL databases, email accounts, and domain hosting.

DreamHost also has a plug and play web control panel for quickly adding in popular components like Drupal (and WordPress).

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Cross-posted from Architects Rule!

A magazine recently ran a ‘Dilbert Quotes’ contest.  They were looking for people to submit quotes from their real-life Dilbert-type managers.  These were voted the top ten quotes in corporate America :

‘As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to access the building using individual security cards. Pictures will be taken next Wednesday, and employees will receive their cards in two weeks.’ 
(This was the winning quote from Fred Dales, Microsoft Corp. in Redmond WA )

 

 

‘What I need is an exact list of specific unknown problems we might encounter.’
(Lykes Lines Shipping)

 

 

 

‘E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or data. It should be used only for company business.’
(Accounting manager, Electric Boat Company)

 

 

 

‘This project is so important we can’t let things that are more important interfere with it.’
(Advertising/ Marketing manager, United Parcel Service)

 

 

 

 

‘Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the schedule.’   (Plant Manager, Delco Corporation)

 

 

 

 

 

‘No one will believe you solved this problem in one day!  We’ve been working on it for months.  Now go act busy for a few weeks and I’ll let you know when it’s time to tell them.’  (R&D supervisor, Minnesota Mining and Manufactur ing/ 3M Corp.)

 

 

 

Quote from the Boss: ‘Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say.’
(Marketing executive, Citrix Corporation)

 

 

My sister passed away and her funeral was scheduled for Monday.  When I told my Boss, he said she died on purpose so that I would have to miss work on the busiest day of the year.  He then asked if we could change her burial to Friday.  He said, ‘That would be better for me.’
(Shipping executive, FTD Florists)

 

 

‘We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not going to discuss it with the employees.’

(Switching supervisor, AT&T Long Lines Division)

 

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[Dec 18-08: I've updated my list below with solutions and issue URLs, where possible.]

Yesterday, Steve Dondley (owner/founder @ Prometheus Labor) and myself were working on some very repetitive work for a client site; discussing how we can’t wait for the intelligent CMS to come along and do all this repetitive work for us.

This got me thinking.  A lot of the repetitive tasks we were doing could have been served much more nicely with a bit of software intelligence.  Microsoft office has some examples of intelligent and some non-intelligent ways of making tasks easier.  One bad example: Office Clippy.  One good example: Excel’s dragable rows.

Drupal had the ability to do a much better job at anticipating the users desires and making it easier to perform repetitive tasks.  Here are just a few ways:

1. In the content area of administer, when the user filters the nodes and then chooses to select all those nodes on the page, they should be given the option to select all nodes that match the search.
   1. Populate form fields in the Firefox Web Developer extension would ease this, but not fix entirely.
2. Content type bulk clone.  It should be possible to select a content type, clone it, and then enter a comma separate list of machine names, and display names for the clones to allow users to make multiple clones of a content type at once.
3. Views bulk clone.  Same as above but for views.
   1. Re #4: I had to copy a view yesterday 24 times, each view only had a different name, and one taxonomy filter changed.  (do to how the view was used, arguments were not an option).
4. Views should allow you to enable, order, and set block options directly from the view rather than needing to enter the admin/build/block pages.
   1. Yes, I mean that the options that are on Admin->Build->Blocks->{block name} should be available as a table directly under {view}->edit. 
5. When you create a node, in the success message at the top of the new node, there should be a “create another” link.
   1. As per a suggestion in one of the comments; I’m working on a module to implement this, although I’d love to see it in core Drupal.
6. It should be possible to disable drag-and-drop sorting on an admin page, perhaps view a toggle, and the system should remember not to use JQuery sorting on that page for that user.
   1. Disabling JS browser-wide would not be a solution here, since only some pages are anonying with the JavaScript turned on.  An excellent example is the drag and drop in admin -> build -> menus.  If you have a menu with a large number of children, and then move it, it becomes nearly impossible to do with the drag and drop, necessatating manual intervention with weights.
7. When a user enables modules, the success message should include links to each of those modules primary admin pages.
   1. Re #2: If a module had no pages, then the usual message should disable.  Also, menu access checks should ensure a user has permissions to view the links that could be displayed.  A link to the modules help page would also be most helpful.
   2. Issue 198919: Enabling modules results in display of links for those module.
8. Modules should be sortable by enable status.
   1. Re #2: One possible solution would be to filter out all enabled modules before displaying the group to the user and still maintain grouping.  Since if you’ve just downloaded a new module, you don’t want to scroll though all the enabled ones to get to it.  And vice/versa for disabling a module.  In a perfect world, JavaScript would do this with a toggle.
9. status_update’s messages should be dismissible.  In the case of security updates, for x number of minutes/hours; much like how Windows Update reminds you to restart.
   1. Possible solution for 5.x: jGrowl
10. Watchdog pages should automatically refresh.
    1. A possible solution to this is to instead of logging errors to the database, log to syslogd instead; then use another tool to display the content of syslogd (suggestions for that?).
11. Administrator theme should be a checkbox under admin/build/themes.
    1. Issue 135976: Usability: Make picking administration theme more user-friendly
12. admin/build/block should give the option to organize by the module producing the block.
13. Dates entered into the publishing options of a node should automatically be transformed into the standard date on blur.
14. There should be a key combination to hit submit, even when Preview is the default node add action.
    1. Possible solution on 5.x: Hotkey
15. In fact, there should be a key combination to hit save/submit from every page no matter what field you’re in.
    1. Possible solution on 5.x: Hotkey
16. Like views, blocks should have an [edit] option that appears on hover.
    1. Zen theme implements this at the theme level.
    2. block_edit module offers something similar, and including inline editing of custom blocks.
17. Like views, any node should be able to become a block.
    1. Re #2: I think I will make a module to demonstrate this as well.  Because, the idea of a view for every node is a bit messy at best.

This is my wish-list for ways to make Drupal work faster and smarter.  Have more ideas?  Post them here and over at the Usability Group.

 

Drupal

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I’m looking for a good, cheap backup service for automated backups of my personal computers. I’m wondering what others are using?

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Google has released a themes option for GMail, at long last! No more need for hacks Grab it yourself:
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Anyone else with a Chevy Venture van have problems with ABS sensors?

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Happy Birthday Dries!  Have a peice of virtual cake, and enjoy your birthday!

 

Drupal Birthday