This is the first of a series on setting up a Continuous Integration workflow for Java and PHP. It's a project I've been working on both personally and professionally recently and hopefully my experience will be helpful to others.
The goal of this setup is to install and integrate the following tools into a singe system with common authentication provided through LDAP.
Read MoreOpen Source and (it's lack of) Design
I've been looking for a decent open source project manager for some time now and I keep almost finding what I want; but there's always one aspect that I could never live with - and it's too often the design. Most packages I've looked at have a design that looks like it came from the last century: sharp corners, a flat layout and/or no sense of color at all. Almost nothing is even remotely modern. And this doesn't just affect project management software, a big chunk of open source web software suffers in much the same way.
One reason perhaps, is that good design is so hard, it always takes several iterations to get a design "just right." And, if the infrastructure isn't built to handle design iterations easily (e.g. poor coding practices; such as hard coding the design rather than using templates, etc...) it become a tedious and error-prone process as well, leaving the internet with more than it's fair share of ugly (if functional) software.
It also probably has something to do with the fact that a CS degree doesn't really require any design courses and tends to spend far more time on the nuts and bolts of programming (i.e. how to write an algorithm) than it does emphasizing the interface. I think there would be a lot more good interfaces in existence if this was addressed. Say, require two to four classes in interface design and usability.
It's really a pity that there are only a few projects that really seem to get interface design, because it's definitely worth the extra effort.
Fonts for the Web
I've always been looking for a decent way to get fonts other than the basic web fonts into my sites without relying on flash or browser-specific hacks and without having to deal with licensing restrictions. I think I finally have a good solution. It's a service called typekit and it supports all the major browsers. They have a pretty decent library of fonts to choose from and integrating it with your site is as simple as adding a JavaScript snippet and choosing the CSS selectors for each font.
There are only a couple of downsides I see to the service, but they're not major. The primary one is that it does require JavaScript, so if your visitors have JavaScript disabled or run a browser plugin like NoScript, they won't see the typekit fonts. Also, while they do provide a free/trial version of the service, it is limited to a small selection of fonts and displays a typekit logo. For the most part, though, this won't be a drawback since the cheapest plan is only $25 per year.
I'm currently using the service on my blog and portfolio and it's a huge improvement. It really helps make the text more readable and a lot more aesthetically pleasing.