Blog Tags: 
news
ubuntu
contest
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Announcing the winners of the first TurnKey development contest

Liraz Siri - Wed, 2010/11/24 - 17:17 - 4 comments

Ladies and gentlemen, by now you are all shuddering in anticipation, dying to find out who won the very first TurnKey appliance development contest... in the history of the universe!

The stakes couldn't be higher. In truth, all three of our winners will lavish in (varying proportions of) unending fame and riches, but only one man will get the exotic, elusive embodiment of the Django pony goddess. Oh ye most blasphemous infidel will ask, why thee persists in worshiping a pony, thus pink and plush. Hush I say, tis not any earthly pony we worship, but the very symbol of the holy bond that ties all open source communities together. So say we all!

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Blog Tags: 
web
design
methodology
ux

On good web design

Liraz Siri - Tue, 2010/11/16 - 21:20 - 8 comments

A few months ago I was looking for ways to improve the TurnKey web site. I spent a lot of time researching good web site design online by:

  1. studying the theory of web site design from such resources as "a list apart".
  2. "reverse engineering" the design of existing successful web sites:
    • Good.is online magazine / community
    • The Wordpress blog
    • Techcrunch
    • A List Apart (they're the experts on web site design and usability)

I payed especially close attention to the social aspects of the web sites I was studying as I was interested in improving the social experience on the TurnKey web site as well.

I wanted to improve my understanding of good web design in general. Not just for my work on the TurnKey web site. By then we were discussing our ideas for the TurnKey Hub and it was clear it would come in handy for that as well.

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Blog Tags: 
development
insight

Programming insight that helped unblock me

Liraz Siri - Wed, 2010/11/10 - 15:50 - 5 comments

I'm finding a big part of the context switch involved in getting back to a high level of productivity on my programming is relearning old lessons.

In particular one of the most important lessons is to figure out how to systematically break down different goals into separate steps in a way that allows you to concentrate your full brain power on each of those steps in succession rather than trying to get it all done at once.

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