There has been some resurfacing of the importance of backing up and version control. Jeff over at Coding Horror makes a valid point of versioning your database with your application. Robert Scoble points to a friend who had Vista Beta lock him out of his PC. Not to mention the countless number of people who have lost data due to viruses.

This is all just a reminder that as developers and Sys Admins that we should be backing up and versioning as much as we can and what is important to us. Your databases and applications; configuration files and registries before you try a new piece of software, scripts, even your to do lists and resume. I recently had to go back to an old to do list to see what I had done.

My strategy is if it is important it goes onto a back up and gets rotated off site. If I need to keep track of something and may need to roll back or compare/see an older version then it goes under version control and the repository gets put on a back up tape.

Things that I like to backup: Nightly backup of documents, databases, calendars and address books, email files, and version control repositories.

Things that I use version control for: any development (documents, scripts, images for applications, application database structure and data, source code, resumes, to do lists, configuration files and registry hives, and user databases.) I sometimes also keep documents that a team works on. This way all have access to it and can refer back to originals. Its also a nice way to see how things emerged.

Technorati Tags: backup, strategy, version control, development, successful

Ok, the title is a bit of a poke and this is a new blog…

Recently there has been a lively discussion around Robert Scoble’s description of what a blog is and isn’t. There has been a lot of controversy over his post. I am not joining that particular debate, but one comment about advertising and blogs later on in the discussion. It got me thinking again about how is blogs being about advertising and advertisers any different than in the 90’s with banner ads, impressions, and click thru’s? Or even recently with all of the popup ads? It is still all about the advertiser. This made me really want to form a solid response. My brother in-law is a merger and acquisitions consultant and has asked me the same question, “What does Web 2.0 mean?”

I didn’t have a good answer for him, so I started where most people start, Wikipedia. Roughly, Wikipedia has defined Web 2.0 as “a community, collaborating online to create a collective consciousness,” examples site are Digg, TechMeme, Technorati, and Del.icio.us. Others associate it with the technology, Ajax, Ruby on Rails, ASP.Net, etc. Finally there are those that associate it with the services that have risen: RSS, XML, web APIs (Google maps, Zillow, Amazon’s s3, etc), Blogs, Podcasts, and Video Blogs. Looking at this from 10,000 feet, what becomes obvious to me is that its all about enabling the user. Allowing the user to share more, interact more, gather more information even quicker than before, and in general just allow them to explore their creativity and express themselves.

In the history of software and technology you can see the evolution, because it has been around longer. It used to be that software only did something small, was hard to set up, hard to use, and very unfriendly. The typical error message was, “You have caused a fatal error! Go see your system administrator.” Then wording became nicer and graphics were added, but things were still made from the perspective of the programmer. Now desktop applications, including the desktop, are pretty, easy to use, and interact with the user and enable the user to do many things automatically or to customize them to specific users (think of photo and video editing and of page layouts.) Companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Adobe spend millions of dollars on research, focus and user groups, all to make the software easier and more enjoyable to use. The same can be said of technology, like digital cameras. Things have progressed to the point where the audience is thought of first, thus driving sales up.

The web is relatively new to the scene in comparison. HTML and script coders weren’t always thought of as programmers. The divide between web developers and desktop developers was almost as great as the difference between the two experiences and types of applications. In the early days it was rare to see anyone using source control for web application. It was just not done and it was considered “over kill”. Now its a necessity to use source control and traditional software techniques and methodologies to develop web applications. Even the term web application is thought of in higher regards now.

The line between a desktop application and web application is becoming even further blurred with Web APIs. Google, Amazon, Technorati, Del.icio.us, Zillow, etc. all have APIs that desktop and web developers are integrating into their applications. Thanks to things like Ajax, Ruby, and ASP.Net, even the interfaces are becoming similar.

So truly, the line between them is blurry, which just makes me ask the question, “Is it really a Web 2.0? or Is it just that the software industry is merging within itself and maturing? I think the industry has finally joined the Cluetrain.

Technorati Tags: Web 2.0, Microsoft, Apple, Cluetrain, Scoble, Ajax, Ruby, Design, Audience