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May 10, 2012 | Craig Isakson: Responsive?

Here at Sundog we create a lot of responsive websites.  Essentially you create one site which scales its size and changes its layout and content based on the browser resolution.

April 23, 2012 | Preston Johnson: Support Should Be Proactive, Not Reactive

I’ve been referred to as “the guy to call when things break” more than once. As a support professional, often our work is only noticed when things aren’t working as they should. That should’t be the case and here’s why.

April 09, 2012 | Preston Johnson: 8 Lessons Facebook Can Teach Us About Release Management

Recently, Ars Technica’s Ryan Paul got an unprecedented look inside Facebook’s release management process while the company rolled out the new timeline feature for brand pages. He spent two days alongside Facebook’s Chuck Rossi, Facebook’s release engineering team lead, and learned how the site’s aggressive development changes are pushed to the 845 Million people who use the world’s second most popular website. Here are 8 lessons we can learn from Facebook about release management.

April 02, 2012 | Craig Isakson: iOS Salesforce SDK Tips

Recently I have had the opportunity to start to use the Salesforce SDK for iOS.  So far this has been a great tool which takes care of a lot of the leg work in dealing with the Salesforce REST api.  Until now I have mostly concentrated my efforts in the Android arena.  When I did start to write an app in iOS I had found that there were a couple of issues that I was having troubles with.

March 20, 2012 | Craig Isakson: Underdog

This past weekend I had the opportunity to attend Mobile March in the Twin Cities.  During the conference, I attended a four hour long Microsoft Windows Phone training session.  My reasoning for attending this session was to learn more about a platform I have little experience in.

March 15, 2012 | Alex Berg: Force.com vs OS - Complexity of Web App Platforms

I’ve been working with the Force.com platform for quite a while now. I’ve been working on the platform for so long that it seems I’ve forgotten about the state of app development before Force.com. However, since I’ve shifted gears and taken some responsibility for maintaining some of our Java web apps, the world of traditional web app development, and all the responsibilities and details that accompany it, have landed on my plate. Due to this change, I’ve reached a viewpoint from which I can see some of the benefits of working on a platform like Force.com.

February 14, 2012 | Alex Berg: Mitigating Maintenance Cost with Open Source Software

Open source is an interesting thing. If I open the source for my software product, anyone can make a clone of my product and easily recreate my company’s money-maker. Open source is bad in this situation. On the other hand, due simply to the price difference, many will choose the open source solution. Is price difference the only sensible reason to choose an open-source product? And is open sourcing their code always bad in business?

October 26, 2010 | Paul Bourdeaux: Is There A Shortage Of Mobile Software Developers?

Bloomberg Businessweek is reporting that companies are running up against a dearth of mobile software developers.  But is there really a shortage of developers, or a shortage of companies willing to help train existing developers in new technologies?

September 23, 2009 | Paul Bourdeaux: Using the OpenSessionInViewInterceptor for Spring + Hibernate3

Anyone who reads my blogs knows that I rarely just redirect readers to another article or blog.  But Paul Codding has done such an excellent job of detailing exactly what needs to be done to get rid of the annoying LazyInitializationException message when using Hibernate and Spring that I simply can’t do it any more justice.

There is a LOT of information about needing to use the OpenSessionInView strategy with Spring and Hibernate… but very little information about HOW to use it.  Kudos to you Paul!

September 04, 2009 | Paul Bourdeaux: Remembering the Old Ways - Debugging in 1999

Sometime I hate to admit how long I have been writing code - it tends to give away my age. The first program I wrote was in Apple Basic on the brand new Apple IIc (insert joke about my age here). But coding for as long as I have been has given me an interesting prospective on the tools and methodologies we use to develop software. The occasional look back to the ways we used to code makes you appreciate the current practices that much more.

Today I revisit the arduous task of debugging…

August 16, 2009 | Paul Bourdeaux: Three Common Mistakes When Estimating With Planning Poker

Planning Poker is an incredibly useful consensus based estimation tool that has become a household word in Agile shops around the world. Personally I love it - when it is used correctly. However, as I have participated in estimation sessions across several different projects and teams, I have noticed three common mistakes that team leaders are making. One mistake takes away from the efficiency of planning poker, and the other two compromise the integrity of the estimates. All are easily avoidable.

August 06, 2009 | Paul Bourdeaux: 10 commandments for creating good code

Time to pass along another gem from our friends out at DZone.  Alberto Gutierrez brings us the 10 commandments for creating good code.  While I encourage you to follow the link to read all of the commandments, there are a couple that I feel deserve special mention.