Monthly Archives: July 2007

Xero on Public Address Radio

A couple of weeks ago Russell Brown from Public Address visited the office to talk to us about what we’re up to at Xero.

The segment includes an interview with me and also with Darryl Gray who is the brand manager at Xero. It aired on Radio Live last week and has now been posted on their blog for you to consume at your leisure …

http://www.publicaddress.net/system/topic,605,pa_radio_ground_xero.sm

Enjoy!

PS This post is taken from the Xero Blog. If you want to keep up with what we’re doing at Xero check it out. :-)

Why blog?

Here is a really good example of the power of a blog:

  1. Go to www.google.com.
  2. Type “Rod” in the search box.
  3. Click “I feel lucky!”.

That’s right our Rod is the #1 Rod in the whole world!

What about Rod Stewart (with more than $250m of album sales, and six consecutive UK #1 albums) or Rod Laver (the only professional tennis player in history to win all four grand slams in the same year) or Rod Steiger (who won an Academy Award for best actor in 1967) or even Rod Flanders (son of Ned)?

All less important, according to Google.

As far as I can tell, none of them have a blog. Coincidence? ;-)

Amazingly this also works if you search for “Rowan Simpson” even though I’ve only been doing this blog for just over six months.

Thanks to everybody who has linked here or commented. You’ve all made it much easier for people who are looking to find me on Google.

And hopefully you’ve enjoyed some of what I’ve written in the process.

Green is the new black

Check this out:

http://www.blackle.com/

According to my friend who sent this link to me…

“When your screen is white – either an empty word page, or a Google page, your computer consumes 74 watts, and when it’s black it consumes only 59 watts.

Mark Ontkush wrote an article about the energy saving that would be achieved if Google had a black screen, taking in account the huge number of page views, according to his calculations, 750 mega watts/hour per year would be saved.

In a response to this article Google created a black version of its search engine, called Blackle, with the exact same functions as the white version, but with a lower energy consumption, check it out.

It’s better for the world people!!”

Here is the Mark Ontkush article:

http://ecoiron.blogspot.com/2007/01/black-google-would-save-3000-megawatts.html

Nice!

:-)

UPDATE (27-July): Turns out to be a bit of a scam. Go read the comments. Anyway, “green” is so yesterday. Today privacy is the new black. :-)

Kick-off at 3am

Why do we get up in the middle of the night to watch live sport?

A few weeks back Michael Barnett, the Chief Executive of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce was advising bosses to take it easy on staff who had been up all night watching the Americas Cup.

I guess we should plan for a massive national productivity dip in September in time for the Rugby World Cup.

Mark Cuban has a “hypothesis” which explains it:

“The greater the number of people that watch content simultaneously, the greater the emotional attachment of the viewer.”

So, if you follow this logic, the reason we like to watch is because everybody else is watching at the same time. And, of course, you can’t influence the outcome of the match unless you’re watching it live!

Although, not everybody agrees with Mr Cuban.

P.S. Wasn’t it great to see a smile on Richie McCaw’s face at the end of the game tonight. Long may it be so. :-)

Google is the benchmark

Last week the DominionPost had a story about Peter O’Hara leaving Fairfax. He was formerly the Editor-in-Chief. I only met Peter a few times during my time at Trade Me, but was impressed each time. He will be missed, I’m sure.

I went looking for a link to the article this afternoon on Stuff.

A search for “Fairfax” on Stuff returned only one result: “Fairfax Magazines Terms & Conditions“.

Not very helpful!

A search for “Fairfax site:stuff.co.nz” on Google on the other hand returned about 415,000 results (in 0.32 seconds no less!)

An on the first page, this article: “Fairfax Media’s editor-in-chief leaves“.

With “Fairfax” in the headline and repeated several times in the article you’d expect this to have been in the site search results.

How is it that Google can index Stuff better than Stuff can index themselves? Stuff only has to index Stuff. Google has to index the whole web. And still they do a better job.

Including search functionality on your site is very important, but unless it works you may as well just refer people to Google.

How long?

Neilsen//NetRatings recently announced that they will be changing the way they rank sites they track:

Tyranny of the Page View nearly over?, from Read/Write Web

Who cares? Advertisers use this data to help them understand the traffic patterns of the sites they are advertising on, so anybody who relies on advertising as part of their business model should be paying attention.

And lots of consumer sites are designed, consciously or otherwise, to take advantage of the existing measure. For example, ever wonder why the NZ Herald site regularly splits articles over multiple pages?

At the moment the most popular way of comparing sites in NZ is by unique browsers – i.e. the number of distinct people that visit a site over the course of a day, week or month.

By this measure Trade Me is the clear leader:

Rank Site Unique Browsers
1st Trade Me 3,616,165
2nd Stuff 2,008,982
3rd NZ Herald 1,684,464
4th MSN 1,357,486
5th Xtra 1,006,726
6th Air New Zealand 994,135
7th TVNZ 839,063
8th Westpac 646,257
9th Whitepages 624,036
10th ASB Bank 608,092

Ranking based on total time on site (unique browsers x frequency of visits x average session duration) doesn’t really change the order much, but if you look at the actual numbers you can see just how dominant Trade Me is relative to the other big NZ sites:

Rank Site Total time (mins)
1st Trade Me 366,878,020
2nd NZ Herald 41,127,592
3rd Stuff 32,358,673
4th NZ Dating 31,734,424
5th Xtra 22,052,836
6th MSN 16,553,184
7th FindSomeone 9,995,179
8th Air New Zealand 9,062,535
9th Seek 8,235,827
10th Whitepages 5,251,263

Data from Neilsen//NetRatings for June 2007

Note that NZ Dating (the 28th biggest site by page views) and FindSomeone (the 34th) both make the top 10 when ranked by time. TVNZ drops from 7th to 24th.

And, yes, that’s over 366 million minutes we collectively spent on Trade Me during June, or just under 700 years!

Interesting.

Before we all get too carried away though, Joel on MarkerBlog makes an excellent point:

Neilsen//NetRatings quits smoking in favour of harder drugs

Nice!

Pay Now

Earlier this week Trade Me launched a new payment system, called Pay Now.

This allows sellers who use Buy Now to accept credit card payments directly on Trade Me.

As a buyer this means that you can complete your purchase entirely within Trade Me – no need to wait for payment instructions and then pay via internet banking.

As a seller it means you get instant notification of payment and delivery addresses, plus it opens up a whole new payment option. The fees to sellers are cheaper than most would be able to get if they setup their own merchant account with their bank.

Currently only sellers with over 500 feedback can register (if you’re one of those lucky ones you can register now). Expect to see that limit drop in time.

Look out for the new icon on listings:

It’s a massive improvement. For example, this really adds an extra dimension to the DVD category changes we made earlier in the year. You can now browse by title (or director, or actor, or whatever takes your fancy), choose a price/seller you like, buy and pay for it all on Trade Me, without having to mess around with bidding, emails back and forth with the seller, internet banking, etc.

This is something that has been “under development” for a while, so great to see it launched and used in anger.

Bonus: Lance (who also worked with us at Trade Me) has his own take.

My Football Club

This is great:

http://www.myfootballclub.co.uk/

These guys are trying to sign up 50,000 members in order to buy their own UK football club. They already have 45,000+ confirmed.

Top of their wish list of clubs: Leeds United, which was in the Premiership when I arrived in London but has since fallen on hard times. That would be awesome.

By the looks they have picked up sponsorship from EA Games, who possibly see this as an extension of their popular FIFA Manager game.

Will be fun to watch and see what happens.

Never compare your inside with somebody else’s outside

What kind of car would you buy if money wasn’t an issue?

I’ve had this conversation with a few people in the last couple of weeks. It’s always interesting to hear what people think they would do.

In my experience, what people actually do when they find themselves in that situation is sometimes quite different.

The ’99 Ford Laser I’m currently driving is fine, but for some reason I think I need something better different. Even so, I’ve struggled to get excited about the purchase.

Scott Adams explains it nicely:

“I remember when Dilbert hit it big and it became clear that I would never again have to worry about money. It was a wonderful feeling, but it didn’t last. I went from happy to hollow with no warning. The first moment that I could afford any car I wanted, I lost interest in having a nice car. I simply couldn’t see the point, if there ever was one. Success is surprisingly disorienting.”

From: The Meaning of Meaning

And, in his book ‘Stumbling on Happiness’ Dan Gilbert offers a possible explanation:

“We change across time; the person you are when you are imagining what it would be like to have that fancy new car is not the person you will be when you actually have that fancy new car.”

From: The Joy of Delusion, New York Times

PS The title for this post and the cartoon above can both be found in Hugh McLeod’s excellent manifesto called How to be creative.

Welcome to facebook

Check out the first line of the facebook terms & conditions pages:

“Welcome to Facebook, a social utility that connects you with the people around you.”

Nice touch.

I’m guessing that most people who click through to this type of page never bother reading much beyond the first sentence, so it’s a good idea to make it friendly, rather than jumping straight into the intimidating legalese.

You wouldn’t let your accountant write the copy on your pricing page so don’t let your lawyer write all of the copy on your terms.

[Blogged from SuperHappyDevHouse Aotearoa!]

Mac-curious

I’ve been Mac-curious for a while, I guess.

All of the cool kids have one.

At Kiwi Foo Camp earlier this year there were so many Apples it was like an orchard!

What was I missing out on?

I’ve been using Windows ever since I bought my first PC in 19961994. I didn’t (and don’t) consider Windows to be broken. On top of that I was obviously at the back of the queue when they handed out the Apple kool-aid … I still don’t even own an iPod.

But, they say a change is as good as a holiday, so I took the opportunity when I moved to Xero to try switching.

A month in and I’m hooked.

I have found that most of my assumptions were wrong.

For starters, I was surprised to find that it didn’t cost much more. I priced up a Dell and sent the details to a couple of Apple fanboys. The challenge for them was to convince me to buy an Apple instead. Actually it was pretty easy for them. I’d always assumed that Macs were more expensive. While it’s true that you can buy a much cheaper PC, when you compare like with like (Apples with not-Apples?) there is not a great difference.

OS X has been a surprise too.

I didn’t expect to rave about an operating system.

And I know that there are lots of people who don’t like it. Phil for one has taken the time to document the specific things that frustrated him.

But, I love it. It took me a few weeks to get through the valley of despair – or more accurately the valley of unfamiliar keyboard shortcuts. But, now I’m there I find I’m spending much less time fighting with software and more time getting on with things. It feels like the operating system has melted into the background compared to what I’m used to.

And I haven’t had any trouble finding software to use. Like Nic I’ve been pleasantly surprised to discover a healthy industry of small application developers creating great software for OS X. My favourites so far are Yojimbo (which has replaced my hitherto dependence on OneNote), VLC, and Quicksilver. And of course Firefox (I’ve also tried Camino, but in the end went back to Firefox for the add-ons). If you’re into Getting Things Done then Actiontastic is also worth keeping an eye on (although it’s not quite there yet for me). I’m also keeping an eye out for VMWare and Pixelmator.

The switch has also highlighted to me how much of my software now resides on the net and so is independent of the operating system – Gmail, Google Reader, WordPress, Xero, etc etc.

I’ve heard a number of people say that OS X isn’t suitable for business use. Now I can understand why.

Microsoft Office for the Mac is a pale imitation of the Windows equivalent. Entourage is especially painful. I’ve failed to get our Exchange server working with OS X Mail, so for now I’m stuck with it.

I’ve started to learn Omni Graffle and Keynote, but I’m still a bit of a novice with both, so I’m not as productive.

So, until the new Mac version of Microsoft Office comes out I’m resorting to running Vista on Parallels for some of this stuff. It’s a bit of a security blanket, but I’m cool with that. It’s a feature. As Marc Andreessen points out, with a Mac you effectively get three operating systems in one (OS X, Unix under the covers, and Windows in Parallels/BootCamp). Or, for a slightly more fanboy spin on the same point: “… all computers can run Windows, but some, the special ones from Apple, also run Mac OS X.” (from John Gruber).

I haven’t tried to do any development yet – although I know plenty of great developers who are Mac users, so I don’t expect any problems and again, with Parallels and/or BootCamp the development languages and environments I am more familiar with are only a mouse click away.

Of course, the hardware itself is super sexy. As Amnon said about the Dell when I sent him the comparison: “How will you live with yourself with that monstrosity in the house?” The only downside is I have had to upgrade my laptop bag to match!

As a long time ThinkPad user I wondered how I’d go with the track pad (I always thought I was more of a nipple man!) but I haven’t had any problems adjusting. I’m now addicted to the two-finger scroll.

Downsides?

Choosing the right time to buy seems to be a secret art. I was all ready to go until a friend pointed out that there would be a new version out shortly. I realise that Apple manage to generate a lot of buzz via their rumour mill. But, I have to wonder if they don’t create a fair bit of bad-will (is that a word?) when they make sudden leaps forward in their product lines. Take, as an example, this comment from the MacRumours.com forums following the announcement of the new MacBookPro range:

“NOOOOOOOOO! I’ve just bought my new Macbook Pro! Loving it alot. But now……. a little less.”

To get around this I got a temporary machine from Rentamac for a couple of months until the new model was released. This would also be a good option if you’re not totally sure that you’ll want to stick with a Mac.

Would I recommend it?

Definitely give it a try.

I can also recommend a Mac to anybody who is looking to opt out of providing tech support to their extended family. I got an iMac to replace Mum & Dad’s old PC, and I can now honestly say I don’t know how to fix any problems they have when they call. Although, so far to be fair there haven’t been any to fix!

Now, about that iPod … :-)

Cartoon from: Hugh McLeod

[Blogged from SuperHappyDevHouse Aotearoa!]

Don’t believe everything you see

Spare Room has a great scoop on the photo that both TVNZ and TV3 used in their coverage of the New Plymouth tornados earlier in the week.

Turns out the image was photoshopped.

Doh! TVNZs “annus horribilious” continues.

I’ve stopped watching the evening news …

For the last 6 months I’ve been recording and timeshifting One News using Vista Media Centre. It works great. I can watch the news whenever I get home and it only takes 20 minutes if you cut out all of the “headlines recap” and “coming up later” crap + the ad breaks.

But even that has become too much. The straw that broke the camels back was the story about the deathbed confession by a guy who featured on Fair Go several years back. He gave a $1000 cheque to compensate some of the people he ripped off. It wasn’t a news story, it was an extended advert for Fair Go.

Enough!

So, now I have 20 more minutes everday. :-)

28x

Phil Haack has an interesting post about the difference between the most productive developers and us mere mortals.

His conclusion:

“By writing less code that does more, and by writing maintainable code that has fewer bugs, a good developer takes pressure off of the QA staff, coworkers, and management, increasing productivity for everyone around. This is why numbers such as 28 times productivity are possible and might even seem low when you look at the big picture.”

From: 10 developers for the price of one

He’s absolutely right (imo).

Some developers are much more productive than others.

And, it’s very difficult as a manager to find the right way to recognise this without stepping on toes.

At least that’s true in the short term.

In the long run the cream normally rises to the top.

Parlez vous Anglais?

Some interesting responses to my post yesterday about the evergreen VB.NET/C# debate.

Andrew from Mindscape makes the point that every different language has “different levels of expressiveness and also different aesthetics.”

Quite right.

He posts this Ruby code snippet …

10.times {|i| puts i }

… and asks “Which do you find more beautiful?”.

The VB.NET equivalent is:

For i As Integer = 0 To 9
Console.Write(i)
Next

I agree that the Ruby code is beautiful.

However, I’m not sure that is the right thing for us to optimise on.

How about optimising for readability? Most code is read much more often than it is written. When we’re designing databases we understand what this means. Adding an index to a table adds a small cost to every write, but it’s worth it in situations where there are many more reads than writes. But we don’t seem to apply the same principles to the code we write.

I’ve worked on a few different applications now and can’t think of any where the limiting factor was the number of keystrokes in the code. And as a couple of people have pointed out a good IDE setup can significantly help with this anyway.

MVP Alex calls the VB syntax “ridiculously clumsy”, and points the finger specifically at keywords like Overridable, NotOverridable, and MustOverride.

I guess that depends on what language is native for you. For me, when I read ‘virtual’ (a term that can actually mean 1000 different things depending on the context) I have to translate that into ‘able to be overridden’ or ‘overridable’. I’m not the only one.

You say tomato, I say tomato.

And that was really the point I was trying to make.

An argument between two developers about which language is “best” is like a debate between an Englishman and a Frenchman. Each will prefer their own language. And each will be right because they will both be able to express themselves best in their own native language.

And again, while the debate continues, important problems remain unsolved.

:-)

C# vs VB.NET

Kirk (one of my new colleagues at Xero) and Phil (one of my old colleagues at Trade Me – Phil, where’s your blog?) have organised a C# vs. VB.NET debate for the Wellington .NET users group tonight.

Should be fun.

My predictions:

  • Most of the audience will be C# developers;
  • Few of them will have ever used VB.NET in anger;
  • Despite that, they will have already convinced themselves somehow that VB.NET is inferior;
  • None, if challenged, would be able to build anything using C# that Phil couldn’t build just as well in VB.

Meanwhile, important problems remain unsolved.

:-)

Update: I’ve responded to some of the comments and emails generated by this post in a subsequent post called Parlez vous Anglais?