[Book Review] - Technical Blogging by Antonio Cangiano

Title: Technical Blogging
Author: Antonio Cangiano
Publisher: Pragmatic Bookshelf
Publish Date: March 1, 2012

As part of my new years resolution to more blog more regularly I started reading this book on the train into work on my iPad, finishing it within a week. As I mentioned in my post last week this book is great and has been a real motivator for me to take my blogging more seriously.

Book cover - image taken from the Pragmatic Bookshelf

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is a keen blogger or even someone who has a website or app who wants to increase their exposure to their product as the tips given in the book are transferrable. Antonio Cangiano is the author of many blogs - most famously Zen and the art of Programming and Math-Blog so he know's what he's talking about.

The book covers the following key topics:

• Determining what kind of blog you are running (personal, company, general, niche etc)
• The technicalities on how to create a blog
• Creating content and maintaining your pace of blogging
• Promoting your blog
• Making money from your blog

The book focusses mainly on the Wordpress platform, but most of it is transferrable to other platforms (e.g. I use Blogger). 

The big takeaway I took from the book which I could instantly put into action were tips on how to ensure your blog more regularly (e.g. have blog entries in reserve in case you suffer writers block) and how to make your blog reach more readers. It's amazing what can happen if you just publish your best content onto reddit for example.

Has the book made any measurable difference to my blog? YES! 

1. My number of posts has increased dramatically. More importantly I have a backlog of potential blog posts ready to get out there.
2. Previously my record number of page views in a day was 54. This week I had 2500 in one day! 
3. I've started to contribute back to the programming community which feels really good. Reading and commenting on other people's contents helps broaden my knowledge and get me more enthused in the industry.

Well worth picking up for the motivation alone.

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Can someone from a non-programming background successfully manage or lead a team of programmers?

This is a question I have asked myself a few times over the last few years, and it can be a bit controversial:

Can someone from a non-programming background successfully manage or lead a team of programmers?

It's a good question. Of course, ultimately if you go up a few layers in an organization, the person at the top is invariably not from a programming background. I'm talking about direct leaders of the development team; the technical lead, the development manager, the scrum-master.

Over the years I've been managed by various different people from different backgrounds with varying success. I've also managed or led various development teams. Here's my general views on this:

Projects tend to fail, over-run or be massively underestimated in occasions when someone from a non-programming background leads a project. The following issues commonly arise:

• The development team aren't involved in the work estimation and so it is hugely under-estimated. 
• Requirements are not communicated effectively. Typically the initial requirement is paraphrased to the development team with key points which may hugely affect design omitted. This leads to rework or worse starting again. 
• The lead may try to impose a bad design onto the development team, and due to their position the development team have to persevere with it.

Great example of bad design from Donald Norman's book - a great book for UI design. (Image from Amazon)

Some of the points above can be counter-acted with a strong development team - a team who are not scared to question decisions coming from the top. Additionally, agile teams can fair better where the development team are getting far more exposure to the end customer and the end requirements. 

Another thing which can commonly come up is that if the person leading the team does not have a good technical background, the development team can run over the top of them as they always delegate decisions to the team. I find good teams have strong leaders who will have a good technical vision but who will delegate some (or a lot) of decisions to the team. However, ultimately they have a vision and can quickly determine if the project is going off track. 

In conclusion, I think that having a development team led by someone not from a programming background is extremely dangerous, and from experience very rarely works. Adopting agile methodologies can help with mitigating some of the problems above, and strong minded development teams can overcome hurdles and ensure projects stay on track. 

I appreciate this is a generalisation, a bit controversial and every case is different so I'd like to hear your experiences - if you want to share please add a comment.

Android - Check for internet connectivity.

It's common to check for connectivity to the Internet within your Android app before you try and perform an operation. For example, if you were about to call an external REST call, you may want to check internet connectivity before performing the operation.

To perform the check I use the following utility method:

private boolean isNetworkAvailable() {

           ConnectivityManager connectivityManager

                 = (ConnectivityManager) getSystemService(Context.CONNECTIVITY_SERVICE);

           NetworkInfo activeNetworkInfo = connectivityManager.getActiveNetworkInfo();

           return activeNetworkInfo != null;

}

Remember you need the following in your AndroidManifest.xml in order for your app to connect to the Internet:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE" />

[FIX: Eclipse - Android layout file] - Incorrect line ending: found carriage return (\r) without corresponding newline (\n)

I hit this annoying issue today - I think due to copy and pasting code. Within my layout file in Android I'm getting the following error:

Incorrect line ending: found carriage return (\r) without corresponding newline (\n)

Closing the layout and deleting the problematic elements did not help. However, the fix is easy:

1. Open your layout file. 
2. Press Ctrl + Shift + F
3. Save the layout file. 

Hope this saves someone time in the future!

The three key factors in an effective developer desk setup

Setting up your desk for efficient working is a vital step for any software developer, whether working from their home or in an office environment. In this post I set out a few tips on how to make your environment as effective as possible.

Note: This post is slightly different to my usual content, but I've been reading a book just now - Technical Blogging by Antonio Cangiano (responsible for Zen and the Art of Programming and Math-blog) - which stresses the importance of keeping up your pace of blogging when you start out. So while I've been too busy to blog as I've been building a new desk for my developer setup, I realised it formed a great subject for a blog post. I plan on writing a review post on the book (great so far) so look out in the future. 

To my knowledge there is no known ideal setup. There are three key factors you should consider when considering your setup:

• Cost - what equipment can you buy
• Space - how much space do you have (not to mention are you in a corner, open space, against a wall...)
• Hardware requirements - some developers need one laptop, some need multiple machines, some need other devices attached such as mobile phones for app developers. 

As you can see in this post there is a huge development environment setup variety even in a workplace like Google. With that in mind you should focus on the three key factors above. 

When working with cost I recommend prioritising a good chair and desk. You will spend a lot of time (most likely multiple hours per day) so comfort is key. No matter what other equipment you buy, if you aren't comfortable you'll never sit at your desk and work. 

Space is the one you can't really impact. However, a good desk can help you manage your space effectively. You want a clear working area but you want everything close. When worried about space, I find using TeamViewer to remote onto other machines can be a really good space saver. In my desk environment, I like to use only one monitor as I find additional screens distracting; however, I'm usually switching between my windows desktop, a windows laptop and a Macbook Pro (I'm looking at attempting iphone app development in addition to Android now...) so using TeamViewer to control the two laptops works great for me and keeps my desk clear. 

The problem with hardware is that it again impacts cost and space. Cluttering up your desk can lead to loss of comfort and distractions. I suggest where possible, you use remote desktop or something like TeamViewer and store the hardware elsewhere.

A few other things to consider if you are planning a new setup:

• Remember you'll probably need multiple power sockets!
• Some speakers are well worth it if you like to listen to music as you work.
• Can you get rid of a desk phone and use services like Lync or Skype?
• Can you go paperless, so you don't need space for a printer.
• If you run your own business remember to keep receipts for all equipment (desk, mouse, keyboard, computers) so you can claim them off your tax submissions.

As always additional ideas are always welcome so please leave a comment below.

Top 5 free tools to help publish a mobile app

You have created your app, tested it and are happy with your end product. That isn't you done though, you need to make sure you have the right icons, screenshots, feature graphics etc. This last hurdle can be a pain but here's a few free utilities I've found over the years which are a huge help.

GIMP - [FREE] Image creation and manipulation.

GIMP is a great free application for creating and touching up your images. Need to tweak your screenshots, create a feature graphic or an advertisement? GIMP is your tool. It's a great free alternative to Adobe Photoshop.

Syncfusion MetroStudio - [FREE] Icons for your app

Metro Studio comes with over 4000 pre-made icons which you can customize to meet your needs - change the colors, change the size and export them to any format you want. See my Syncfusion MetroStudio tutorial for help in getting started.

Paint - Simple image software

Paint is a great simple tool for quickly cropping images and tweaking screenshots.

Image Resizer for Windows - [FREE] Change the size of your images and icons

You'll notice each app store has different image sizes for feature graphics and screenshots which is another pain when uploading your app to the store. Image Resizer for windows however is a quick and easy tool for resizing your images - simply right click in windows and choose your new dimensions and the tool generates a copy of the file with the new dimensions.

Android Feature Graphic Generator - [FREE] Create quick feature graphics 

This great website allows you to simple enter the text you want in your feature graphic and it will generate a nice feature graphic for you. Tweak the colors, fonts and even add images. A really quick win if you want to get your app uploaded quickly and Google Play now requires you have a feature graphic. 

If you have any other tools you recommend please add a comment and I'll check them out. If you found this post useful subscribe via email using the link at the top of this site.