Graham Glass, etc.

Code Reviews

We spent the last week doing a major code review, and managed to trim about 40% from the codebase. This is great news, because it means that it will be significantly easier to extend and debug the platform going forward.

The only remaining things to do before launch are creating the video tours, testing, and populating the database with seed content. I plan on treating myself to a week off after launch with a primary goal of getting my music equipment ready for some recording sessions.

Stock Photos

We decided to use stock photos for our edu 2.0 public beta web site, and started by browsing iStockPhoto.com. They had a reasonable selection of low cost photos, but a terrible implementation of search; most of the photos it selected had very little to do with the search terms, which resulted in lots of wasted time. Photos.com had a better selection and a decent search facility. It's around $130 a month for unlimited downloads, which seems like a good deal.

EDU 2.0 Business Cards

As the Dec 4th public beta launch for EDU 2.0 nears, we've also been working on various accessories. For example, here are the front and back graphics for my new business card:

The cards were offset printed by Speedway Digital Printing on the thickest stock we could find, and cost about $500 for 1000 cards. A little expensive, but well worth it.

EDU 2.0: Code Review

We're about 3 weeks away from our public beta, and a full 1 week has been set aside for a comprehensive code review.

The code is already pretty good, but there are still plenty of opportunities for improvement, including refactoring, renaming, constant extraction, and additional comments.

One of my company's strategic advantages will be the ability to evolve quickly, so investments into a lean and mean codebase are very important.

 

Borat's High School

I'm a big fan of Borat, so I was very amused to learn that Sasha Baron Cohen went to the same UK high school as me; Haberdashers' Aske's School in Elstree.

On a related note, here's a great video of Sasha Baron Cohen out of character.

EDU 2.0 Public Beta

The EDU 2.0 public beta will be released on December 4th with a fresh new look, several new features, and at least 10,000 indexed education materials. I am very happy with how the project is turning out, and can't wait to start innovating beyond the initial feature set.

It has been surprising to me how long the last phase of developing a consumer-facing site has taken, relative to my experience with enterprise-class infrastructure. I have spent more time tweaking the look-and-feel of the site than coding an entire UDDI server!