Tweaking Enterprise

I've been spending the past several evenings cleaning up Enterprise code. I know, I know, it should already be clean... but in the real world, you wind up sometimes with something that is not as clean as you would like.

The tool I've been using to help with this mini-project is called findbugs. It's open source, and pretty useful. I can't say that it has uncovered anything significant, but it has helped me track down dead code, and other kruft that the compiler does not catch. Though I haven't yet integrated it into the Enterprise ant built script, it does have ant support so that I can automate its scanning of the source so it can catch boo boos automatically.

I found the findbugs tool at the java-source.net site. Highly recommended.

New look website

I finished dressing up the Quma web site this weekend. You're viewing the results. I updated the style sheet with based on some samples I found at this Ruthsarian page. The family helped with picking the colors, and my daughter did the banner and the merging of my picture into the banner.

Yes, that is me at the top of the page. I figured if Jonathan Schwartz can put his picture at the top of his blog, then I can too.

The content hasn't changed a whole lot. I did clean up the 'buy' page to make it more obvious how to actually buy QVCS products. Whether it makes any difference will be hard to tell, but at the least, it does seem easier to navigate than the earlier incarnation of the page.

Web site updates

Now that Enterprise 1.0.0.16 is out, I've taken some time to step back from development and evaluate the look of the Quma web site.

I'm not a web designer but have surfed enough (who hasn't) to know what I like and what I don't like. The current site has the virtue of being fast to load. It has a very simple look, and is uncluttered. However, it doesn't do a good job of inviting the visitor into the site, and the content does not do a good job of describing the products in a simple way.

In spending time thinking about the problem, I've discovered that writing good copy is not a trivial exercise. Nor is organizing the information that needs to get presented trivial. I've been tempted to just use a tool like NetObjects Fusion to help re-build the site, but I'm afraid that that would leave me with a site that lacks any unique character. Web designers will probably laugh -- they knock these things out in their sleep; but I want the Quma site to work for me -- which means I have to take the time to learn about what will make the site better.

So as part of that effort, I've been visiting other sites, and have come across several other sites that have useful content. You can see them on the blog roll to the right.

Eric Sink's blog is perhaps the most interesting to me. He is a principal at SourceGear, which publishes SourceGear Vault, a product that also serves the version control market. He's been working on a book that is an introduction to version control. I've skimmed through some portions of his work to date, and have found it to be well written and useful. Interestingly, SourceGear is located in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. I went to grad school there some years ago. It's surrounded by corn fields, and is flat as a pancake, except for that pesky hill on Wright street.