Asymptomatic

Well, I've had enough. I've got a stack of routers in my little home network area, and none of them performs like I want.

Currently, my home network serves approximately 12 devices (computers and computer-like appliances), and provides telephone service via Vonage VoIP. Not all of the devices are used simultaneously, and not all of them are in locations convenient to the router. I have always-on needs for the telephone and for at least two of the connected PCs, which serve files and function as my desktop when I'm connected remotely. I often find myself at less able and lower powered computers than my home PC, so using Remote Desktop to access my home desktop is quite handy.

Somewhere on the network there is a printer, which I have no intent of attaching to any specific PC, whether it's on continuously or not.

The trouble is that no router I've found has the reliability and features that I need. Perhaps I need a combination of devices to build me network. But I'm pretty frustrated with what I have now. more

A thread on the support forum recently crossed my radar, wherein help is sought for a sick WordPress. It seems that the popularity of some blogs, especially those with high number of commenters, is causing issues on those servers.

Having recently gone through some operations to optimize the user experience on my blog, I have some personal involvement in trying to optimize my own site. I have a lot of control over my own server (I run this site on a VPS) so many of these changes were easy to implement. Some of them would still work if I was using shared hosting, and it still may be worthwhile to know these things when talking to a shared host if you can make any performance suggestions.

You can use these tips to keep your site running ultra-smooth, because keeping your server online is one of the more important aspects of running a web site. more

Perusing Digg, I came across a post that outlines a set of twenty questions that interviewers should ask their candidates for web development positions. I thought it would be fun to see how I would answer these questions. Here we go...

What industry sites and blogs do you read regularly?

None religiously. Great ideas don't always come from the most respected names in the business. You'll find that every now and then, something new and interesting will come from someone previously unknown. That's why you have to have your fingers on the pulse of the web, and know how to sip from the firehose of new web tech.

That said, I do monitor QuirksBlog and have occasion to peruse ALA periodically. Also, I have in my aggregator a bunch of folks who keep tabs on these things pretty well. Combined with some good PubSub subscriptions and the Digg/del.icio.us/Slashdot filtering I do, I get a good feel for what's going on.

Do you prefer to work alone or on a team?

It depends on what the project is. It only makes sense that if it's a very small project, I would expect not to have to coordinate with five other developers. Also, I prefer to focus on coding over design if possible, so a team of developer (me) and designer (someone else) suits me great. more

A recent thread on Slashdot asks, "Should students be taught with or without an IDE?" In programming, an Integrated Development Environment is basically a souped-up editor for writing code. The author of the question wonders whether students who are learning to program will benefit more from learning with or without the extra features that the IDE provides. I agree with most of the opinoins offered in the comments of the post, but obviously I have my own take on it.

My initial reaction is that teaching a language using an IDE is a bad idea, but I have certain reservations that I need to think out. Primarily, using an IDE is a bad idea since it doesn't insist that students type out important syntax structures that are necessary for learning the language. If the IDE closes every function call with the proper parenthesis, and automatically inserts semicolons wherever they are required, students might not learn the necessary elements of the language to be able to do without the IDE. Perhaps this concept is not as important in C++ as it is in HTML. more

Dear Web Development Community,

I've been running a web site of my own since 1995. I have used shared servers, dedicated servers, virtual private servers, and all sorts of operating systems with various hosting companies. I even host some services out of my home office.

I also have an immediate need for a to-do list application that is web-based so that I can access it from wherever I go. I should also either be able to sync it with my Palm, or use it from my Palm's web browser without having compatibility issues. It should take advantage of the latest technical innovations in web development like Ajax. ...