runk's junk : geeky goodness

Today was the last day of my contract with Target, and before I left, I was asked to jot down some guidelines for the developers to help them in the future when designing their applications. Below are the pearls of wisdom I came up with. Not new or revolutionary by any means, but it has been my experience that they are all too often over looked.

First, let me just say there are no hard and fast rules to development. Every project is unique and has it’s own challenges, and you need to be flexible in finding solutions. The guidelines listed below are just that, guidelines; they are not meant to be followed absolutely or blindly. Size plays a big role in these guidelines; the bigger the project, the more important these guidelines become.

1. Never develop a site to work with just one browser. I don’t care what you’ve been told, but at some point, someone is going to need this site to work on a browser other than the one you developed it for.
2. Future-proof your site. You don’t know how your site will be used or expanded in the future. Building it with the future in mind will minimize rework.
1. Building your site to be cross browser compatible goes a long way in future-proofing your site.
2. Develop and use a naming convention. A naming convention is an essential tool in organizing your site’s files and CSS and allows others to more easily understand the structure of your site.
3. Use CSS to control the layout and design of your application.
1. Use external style sheets to easily make global site changes. Do not use in-line styles or HTML attributes (i.e. <td width= "100">).
2. Use tables for what they were intended, to display data. Do not use tables to layout your site.
4. Use prototypes. Build HTML and CSS prototypes to test UI and browser compatibility before starting construction.
1. “Know your users—for they are not you.” As developers we often become too close and familiar with the project we are working on. It is important to make sure that you get feedback from you audience as you develop the prototypes.
2. Not all browsers display HTML and CSS the same way. Prototyping gives you the opportunity to discover browser specific issues and fix them before construction begins.
3. Once the prototypes have been tested and approved, use them as the foundation of your development. This speeds up construction and helps eliminate chances of error.
5. Know the limits of your technology. If a particular .Net or ASP control is incapable of rendering code in the format you need it to be in, make sure your prototype reflects this. Nothing is more frustrating than spending weeks building and tweaking a prototype only to find out that the technology you have chosen for development is incapable of recreating your prototype.

From the publisher: Let’s get something clear right up front.

I’m not Harry Dresden.

Harry’s a wizard. A genuine, honest-to-goodness wizard. He’s Gandalf on crack and an IV of Red Bull, with a big leather coat and a .44 revolver in his pocket. He’ll spit in the eye of gods and demons alike if he thinks it needs to be done, and to hell with the consequences—and yet somehow my little brother manages to remain a decent human being.

I’ll be damned if I know how.

But then, I’ll be damned regardless.

My name is Thomas Raith, and I’m a monster.

So begins Backup, a twelve thousand word novelette set in Jim Butcher s ultra-popular Dresden Files series. This time Harry’s in trouble he knows nothing about, and it’s up to his big brother Thomas to track him down and solve those little life-threatening difficulties without his little brother even noticing.

From the publisher: When the supernatural world spins out of control, when the police can’t handle what goes bump in the night, when monsters come screaming out of nightmares and into the mean streets, there’s just one man to call: Harry Dresden, the only professional wizard in the Chicago phone book. A police consultant and private investigator, Dresden has to walk the dangerous line between the world of night and the light of day.

Now Harry Dresden is investigating a brutal mauling at the Lincoln Park Zoo that has left a security guard dead and many questions unanswered. As an investigator of the supernatural, he senses that there’s more to this case than a simple animal attack, and as Dresden searches for clues to figure out who is really behind the crime, he finds himself next on the victim list, and being hunted by creatures that won’t leave much more than a stain if they catch him.

Written exclusively for comics by Jim Butcher, The Dresden Files: Welcome to the Jungle is a brand-new story that’s sure to enchant readers with a blend of gripping mystery and fantastic adventure.

From the publisher: The Horror Writers Association Presents Blood Lite…a collection of entertaining tales that puts the fun back into dark fiction, with ironic twists and tongue-in-cheek wit to temper the jagged edge.

Charlaine Harris reveals the dark side of going green, when a quartet of die-hard environmentalists hosts a fundraiser with a gory twist in An Evening with Al Gore…In an all-new Dresden Files story from Jim Butcher, when it comes to tracking deadly paranormal doings, there’s no such thing as a Day Off for the Chicago P.D.’s wizard detective, Harry Dresden…Sherrilyn Kenyon turns a cubicle-dwelling MBA with no life into a demon-fighting seraph with one hell of an afterlife in Where Angels Fear to Tread…Celebrity necromancer Jaime Vegas is headlining a sold-out séance tour, but behind the scenes, a disgruntled ghost has a bone to pick, in Kelley Armstrong’s The Ungrateful Dead. Plus tales guaranteed to get under your skin—in a good way—from

Janet Berliner, Don D’Ammassa, Nancy Holder, Nancy Kilpatrick, J. A. Konrath, F. Paul Wilson, Joe R. Lansdale, Will Ludwigsen, Sharyn McCrumb, Mark Onspaugh, Mike Resnick, Steven Savile, D. L. Snell, Eric James, Stone Jeff, Strand Lucien, Soulban Matt Venne, and Christopher Welch

So let the blood flow and laughter reign—because when it comes to facing our deepest, darkest fears, a little humor goes a long way!

As I stated in an earlier post, I’ve have decided to reread/finish what has become know as The Legend of Drizzt series by R. A. Salvatore. And while I became side tracked by Vay on my iPhone, I’m going to start reviewing them. I’ve decided to review them in their published order as opposed to their chronological order, and to review them not as individual books, but by their original series grouping.

It is not my intention to give a detailed synopsis of these books, but to briefly summarize them and express my thoughts on the series as a whole. I will try not to give spoilers, but may bring up details to help me illustrate points in my review.

The first series in the Drizzt saga is The Icewind Dale Trilogy which consists of the books: The Crystal Shard, Streams of Silver and The Halfling’s Gem.

The Crystal Shard: Originally published in 1988, The Crystal Shard centers around the struggles of the dark elf Drizzt Do’Urden; exiled dwarven king, Bruenor Battlehammer; an orphaned barbarian youth, Wulfgar; and the sticky-fingered halfling Regis as they attempt to protect Ten-Towns, their home, from marauding barbarian tribes and an wizard held in thrall by an ancient crystal artifact.

The Streams of Silver: Published in 1989, The Streams of Silver chronicle Drizzt, Bruenor, Wulgar and Regis’s quest to reclaim Bruenor’s lost mountain kingdom, Mithril Hall, a source of untold riches and untold dangers. At the same time, Artemis Entreri, a hired assassin, is looking for Regis and has taken Bruenor’s adopted human daughter, Catti-brie, hostage.

The Halfling’s Gem: In the The Halfling’s Gem, the companions race to the desert city, Calimport to rescue Regis, who after being captured by Artemis Entreri, is being held prisoner by Pasha Pook. Along the way they battle pirates, brave the deserts of Calimshan, and fight monsters from other planes. The Halfling’s Gem was published in 1990.

Review: The Crystal Shard was R. A. Salvatore’s first novel and one of TSR’s, the original publishers, first novels to take place in their newly created Dungeons & Dragons’ role-playing setting: The Forgotten Realms. It was originally written as a stand-alone novel, but was later tuned into a trilogy. This contributes to a disjointed read; this isn’t one story told over three books, but three separate stories roughly sewn together to make a trilogy.

When reading a novel, and especially a fantasy novel, the author must ask the reader to suspend their sense of disbelief. That sense of disbelief is suspended by degrees depending on the setting of the story. This is where Salvatore shows his inexperience. Quite often his characters would be more at home in say, the Marvel or DC universe, as opposed to a fantasy setting. His characters are disproportionally too powerful compared to the rest of the world. Wulgar is prime example of this: Wulgar is a human teen raised by Bruenor, and has spent a half dozen years working in the smithy, as such, he is exceptionally strong. But at his core, Wulgar is still human, and needs to be governed by the laws of nature like everyone else. When Salvatore has Wulfgar lift and toss a camel at desert bandits, or slay a dozen giants nearly single handed, my suspension of disbelief is stretched too thin. While these exploits can contribute to a fun read, more often than not, they have the unintended effect of pulling the reader out of the story.

Another contributing factor to the roughness of these stories is the newness of the setting. The Forgotten Realms is now twenty years old, and dozens of authors and editors have contributed to making it a fully realized world that can be drawn upon for novels. But in 1988 Salvatore was making it up as he went, and this leads to continuity issues. The most grievous being the use of our calendar months within The Forgotten Realms world. It’s a small slip, but it completely threw me out of the story. A better alternative would have been better to refer to the time of the year as “late winter” or “early spring”.

I don’t want to nitpick on these books too much. They aren’t high art, but the don’t pretend to be. They are a fun, escapist read, that will appeal particularly to readers with a history of fantasy role-playing.

The Icewind Dale Trilogy can be purchased from Amazon as individual books or in omnibus form by clicking on the links above or the images below.

Homer Simpson tries to vote for Obama in the ’08 election…

I found this hilarious YouTube video on Cartoon Brew. The blending of politics and classic Disney is just irresistible.