Just over eight weeks ago now, I accepted a position at a company called Realise. With a very strong history in web development they are increasing the ASP .Net skillset in the business. The opportunity was one I thought was excellent, I have more responsibilities and a degree of process management to do. I think it will be am exciting challenge and I am ready to take the plunge, stepping outside my comfort zone.

It wasn't an easy decision to leave Ezone. They are a fantastic, if little, company with a strong skill set and some great projects. I feel I have learned a great deal in my time with them and grown both as a person and as a software developer. It is also quite difficult to pass my main project onto someone else. SK Chase have been fantastic clients and I have had the privilege of providing some quality bespoke software for them. I am proud of my achievements over the last 2 and a bit years.

In a shameless plug, as I was asked: Check out the rebranded Consumer site at: www.kisschasegifts.com.

Given that the time is right for me to move on, I am looking forward to the challenges Realise will throw at me and hope I can begin to add value through my own experience and ways of working.

It is simplicity in itself. I hit "Windows key + Q" start typing something that makes sense to me, and hit enter. My file, program or folder launches as if I had gone through the effort of moving my cursor to the stat button, clicking it, selecting all programs, finding the right program in the list and then launching it. I have tens of "magic" key words, and I barely have to type 3 or 4 characters as the little utility auto completes for you.

It is immeasurable how much time this little tool saves me but I can say it will be a couple of seconds for every file, program or explorer location I use on a regular basis so I would expect that it adds up to quite a lot of time.

So I begin, with the first part of an unknown number of posts about the tools that increase my productivity when in front of my computer screens.

You may or may not have noticed that my last paragraph ended with the plural of screen.  This was not a mistake, I have 2 per machine (1 at home and 1 in the office). I cannot equate in time the amount of effort this saves me in a day. I liken it to spreading out over a physically wider work area, allowing me to have more organised and smaller "piles" for my work. 

Take a program like Photoshop.  Not something I use often (not being a big designer or photographer) however it has all these floating palettes and tool bars that while aiding usability, simply take screen real estate away from what I am working on – the photograph. With my 2 monitors I can fill one whole screen with my photograph and have the palettes and toolbars on the other, giving me more room to work on the image itself. This also is reflected in my work as a Software and Web developer.Much of this requires a minimum of 2 windows open – the development environment (in which I write my code) and maybe 2 or 3 browser windows for web work.  On 1 screen I would be constantly flicking between windows and it doesn't help me at all.  On 2 I can have a quick glance at how my work is going without too much effort.

However, as a Windows user multiple monitors although well supported are less easy to manage.   The task bar does not stretch over and you still get the piles of open windows stacked high there. Moving the windows between the 2 monitors is also a pain, they need to be resized smaller than maximum the dragged across the screen.  

Ultramon sorts all of this out. It adds a task bar to the other monitors making it much easier to use. It adds buttons to the window for switching program windows between monitors.  Alternatively there are the keyboard commands to do the same and also to move the mouse cursor form one monitor to the other. 

I cannot stress how these two simple things increase my productivity massively, so together they come top of my list! 

I do really enjoy the work despite some frustration at times. It is sometimes a really interesting project to work on particularly when I implementing new features that are innovative and exciting. It is great to see the application moving forward and improving, ensuring good quality on which to base their business.

SK Chase [the clients!] have also been making a bit of a splash in the press recently. You can find articles in The Scotsman here and The Sunday Herald here. They have also managed to get themselves on a business promotion reel on STV (Scottish ITV) running for the next few weeks between the regional and national news programs.

Any ideas?

To that end and with the long term future in mind, I have spoken to Ezone with regard to doing a bit of freelance work on the side. This is not a career move as such but a way for me to look at different ways of working and trying new things. I am not going to be actively pursuing freelance work but I wouldn't turn it down out of hand. I want to keep my workload manageable and not spend all my spare time on it. I am big on quality as opposed to quantity.

I have the technical skills to provide technology for both the web or if necessary a custom Windows application, even a custom Linux or Unix application, using a variety of technical skills. One area where I could provide a great service is as a web presence consultant. I have strong skills in the technical side of this, in accessibility and usability and analysing web standards. I have also great business analyst skills that would guide someone into getting what they need from their web presence. With a raft of contacts in design, web technology and a variety of other areas, I can introduce the right services to get the best out of any budget.

While not actively looking for this work it will be interesting to see where it goes.  If anyone needs some help in these matters please contact me and I will get in touch.

When I first started working at Ezone and on SK Chase's project, I was instantly aware of the ambitions of SK Chase.  They did not want to solely be a supplier of the gift voucher application to the hotel and tourism industry, but wanted to produce a site that took the vouchers loaded by the hotel clients into the gift voucher app and sell them through a single portal.  Enter www.skchase.com….

The site originally a simple "About us site" was transformed into a basis for what you see now.  Earlier this year SK Chase put together the design and soft launched a manual sales site. Manually controlled, with every bit of content being entered by hand, and with links to the existing gift voucher catalogues of their customers.  The site was unmanageable, unwieldy and I believe it must have been difficult to use as an end user.

So over the last 2-3 months I have taken their design and rewritten it, to what you see now.  It was a busy and ambitious development cycle, with not a minimal amount of stress, but the end result is what matters.  And I am proud of the end result.  

The site pulls in vouchers from the hotels using SK Chase's application, and categorise them.  I have developed a bespoke search system that allows the categorised vouchers to be fully search-able by type, location, for who and other search aspects. This "search" might not compare with the likes of Google but it is an achievement in itself.

The site then lets you buy multiple vouchers from multiple hotels in one order and deliver them wherever you like.  One thing I am really proud of is incorporating the conceptually two different sites – the hotel catalogue eg at Gleneagles and the SK Chase site – into the same application.  This gives a great experience for a user who is used to purchasing vouchers from a hotel catalogue.  The cart and checkout in particular look and feel and act in the same way – giving returning users the same experience, one which they are accustomed to.

I am particularly proud of my work on making the site Search Engine friendly and optimisable. Having a manually created site there first meant I was always reacting to existing search rankings. I still believe this is the wrong way round, but I developed a solution for even the most dynamic of pages, including the search results page, that allows SK Chase to maintain their positions in the rankings through an effective use of content. While I cannot go into details about the solution, it is something, I think will help SK Chase cement their strong reputation through a good set of search engine rankings.

The site itself from its soft launch at the end of October has been relatively successful, orders are coming through steadily, although not in great quantities as yet.  There has been no advertising other than that of the search engine rankings and it is great news that the number of visitors and buyers is on the increase.

While I am hoping for less manic development cycles in the future I am looking forward to taking both the application and the site itself to new levels in the coming months.  Please do take a look at the site, even if you are not wanting to buy anything….www.skchase.com 

UPDATE: 2008/02/26

Check out their new site launched just before Christmas – www.kisschasegifts.com!

Despite the heat, it was the CS reunion on Saturday.  CS being the HWU Computer Science class of 2004.  It was a long afternoon out in the sun with a few beers and a bit of geeky chat.  We are, after all, Computer Science graduates.   There was a football and a Frisbee but it was too hot for that, so the beers and the chat won out.  Although the beers soon got to the warm stage.  After that it was on to Zizzi's at the start of the Canal for a pretty decent dinner and then on to the Chanter (formerly the Hogshead) for a few further drinks.   It was a great night in the end, good to catch up with a lot of folk.

It is strange to think that it was last week 2 years ago that it was graduation.  It is funny, in the two years since, despite a slow start, most of us have fallen into reasonable IT jobs or are doing something that is completely different but more grown up.   There are a few folk doing similar jobs to myself, others more in support roles and others doing some really interesting stuff. 

It has been a long but very short two years.  A lot has happened, in such a short space of time.  It wasn't long ago that I was off touring the US, or struggling to find "proper" work.  Now I am working hard at something I am actually enjoying which cannot be too bad and am pretty settled.  I hope the next 2 years are as good.

Concurrently we are also undertaking a strong degree of performance and load testing.  This is important from both the business and technical point of view.   And many sites can explain it better than me!  Basically, we need to know whether we can handle the number of visitors and the actions that they perform that have been predicted.  This is a case of learning to write specific testing scripts invariably in a new language to what I am used to.  A busy time for me with these two running side by side.

As a side dish, I am liaising with Visa and MasterCard accredited auditors, such that SK Chase become fully compliant with the PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry – Data Storage Standards) that will allow SK Chase to be accredited by the leading payment card providers in the world. An interesting bit on the side!!