If you’re reading this then you must use JIRA or know of someone who has had a JIRA experience. It seems that JIRA is a bit like a Marmite brand – you love it or you hate it. JIRA can be too much effort for many projects – but thats only cause the project can’t find time to build the value in JIRA.

I think that anything which helps take pain away from managing bugs, issues and tasks is brilliant. It’s just so annoying that most people think of JIRA as a bug-track or issue management tool. For me, JIRA is turning out to be more than that. In fact the less I can use it for bugs, the more I use it.

Greenhopper for User Stories

If you do Agile, or even if you’re starting to get better at User Stories, then you’ll find Greenhopper great. Right now I use Greenhopper to capture the stories and epics (requirements that are too conceptual to be a story yet). I’m sure it can do more (schedule a story with a version for example) …. but I can’t find any good examples of how else to use it.

Once you have your stories in JIRA – you can capture Requirements and link them to the story. That sounds easy.

Annoyingly, Greenhopper is an add on for JIRA which means you pay extra ££ for it.

JIRA for Project Management – Components & Versions

Components are flexible ways to group your project. If they were GANTT charts, components would be deliverables like web, server, mobile app, marketing. I task or issue in JIRA can have more than one component (think content strategy is delivered in the web build), so I usually use a few of these.

Versions I’m strict on having 1 version – versions I treat as phases in your project such development, testing, scoping .. and confusingly by release cycle during the develop / deliver phases. By linking a task to only 1 version, it wont get missed. I also regularly sweep Versions to check that tasks are being resolved.

Testing with JIRA

Tracking the results of testing is probably the best way to make use of Greenhopper. You can link your test tasks and issues to a story. Which is great for traceability. I’ve not had the time to do this with JIRA yet – but I can see this is a great way to prove development delivered.

Project Issues, Risks, Actions, Agendas & Client Relationship

JIRA can be your friend. One useful way I’ve found to get team members use JIRA more is to use it to track meeting actions – which are basically tasks or bugs anyway  This way everything is tracked.

Oh the best feature of JIRA – it outputs pretty much any view of issues to Excel so you can share it with the boss.

Damien Saunders

Well that was the end of January! So in case you were living underground here are the most popular posts that you missed from last month:

• 4 of the best Android apps for Wifi: I've been writing about Android for some time now. Here... 866 view(s)
• HOW TO install Virtualbox on Mac osx host & WinXp guest using TinyXP rev 09: Virtualbox is a dream freeware solution for anyone - no... 325 view(s)
• HOW TO: Keep your Wifi connection awake on Android: Most people read this post because to find out how to c... 180 view(s)
• HOW-TO install Ubuntu using Virtualbox on a Mac: How easy is it to install Ubuntu on your Mac - this qui... 113 view(s)
• HOWTO: Fix no mobile internet after Cyanogenmod install:   Here's a simple fix to problems of no Mobile Intern... 68 view(s)
• Android apps run full screen on Honeycomb Tablets:   Google recently announced some exciting new featur... 58 view(s)
• Android – Best Apps for WiFi – refreshed for 2011: I've been writing about Android for some time now and B... 46 view(s)
• Zoho CRM what is a lead vs contact vs opportunity: Zoho CRM is a cloud based SaaS (software as a service) ... 37 view(s)
• 2 must have Android Apps to manage wifi: Have you just got a new HTC Magic? or waiting for the H... 35 view(s)
• Mobile Usage and Trends – Updated with UK Statistics: Good mobile insights and statistics are hard to find ... 30 view(s)

and just a reminder … there are lots of updated presentations you view (and download) – including How to Get Started with Foursquare

Damien Saunders

This year, is the year that HTML5 will be on your CV. That is … if only you can prove what you did was in HTML5. Right now, I think that HTML5 is a bit of a catch-phrase (or catchy acronym?) when what we’re all doing uses a lot of .js and other familiar code frameworks.

HTML5 is not a new language – but it is visual

Every project I’ve got so far this year will need HTML5. So what I’ve found is that it’s not a new language, it’s not going to replace Flash (yet), but it’s going to do some flashy visual stuff.

Already there are great examples of visual things built with the new HTML tag elements like <Canvas> and for many of us, our Modern Web-Browsers are adding HTML5 ‘stuff’ with every release.

HTML5 – you’re (probably) already doing it

Yup thats right … you’re (probably) already doing it but don’t know that you’re doing it. Crazy? No .. the standard WordPress TwentyEleven theme already supports HTML5 tags and this website uses plugins that render HTML5 code.

So my point is this … If you’re looking for someone with HTML5 experience … then what are you really looking for?

Damien Saunders

30 minutes a day … every day. That’s how much time I need once I’ve got a concept for an article to publish here. I just need to find the time. Lately, I’ve not had the time for that 30 minutes – too tired, too busy, too many other things to do.

A lot of regular bloggers and social media consultants insist on blogging everyday. But that’s a chore and regular blogging is part of trying to win at SEO and social media optimisation.

Content has to be well written to have value to you, the reader. Ideas need to solidify as a concept before I can start writing. Looking at my stats, a good article can take 3 months to a year to really become sticky and then it can continue to drive traffic to your website.

So I wonder … is it better to spend 30 minutes a day writing ‘something’ that is short and less ‘sticky’?

Damien Saunders

I’d be lying if I said ‘I never change anything on my website‘. Absolutely lying. Actually I change something on here every week. Bits of code, bits of UE, bits of content. Always be fine tuning and always be tweaking your work is what I think.

In my ‘world’ it’s important to be learning new things and improving existing things. So when you run out of steam and energy … what do you do? At work I take a break and go grab a coffee. At home, I might go to the gym (or iron – ironing is good for concentrating and not burning shirts.

So with the website this means … planning and redesigning … and this means I’m going with a blank canvas .. this is a custom theme from Woothemes which doubles as a framework to build upon.

I’m attached to my website … and some of the design work done over the past 6 months.

I’m in love with the Google Web Font Monofett by Vernon Adams (thanks — I really do love it). It’s bright, big, bold and brings to life the six letters in my name.

I’ve discovered that bold, single colours work really well with my presentations. Colour makes content ‘pop’ from the dull web page.

And finally, I realised that I had started to use my website as a playing ground for Code changes. Which is great – but not great when you break things.

So I’m going to do some writing. But I’m going to keep clear of changing my website til I’ve found a new idea.

Damien

Damien Saunders

[Brixton Academy, London] http://www.last.fm/event/1941972+Explosions+In+The+Sky+at+O2+Academy+Brixton+on+27+January+2012

Damien Saunders

Web Application Development can seem easy if you’re used to a shared host and WordPress running out of the box. Moving into the world of unmanaged VPS can be daunting at first – or really easy if you’re insane.

If you’ve got access to a terminal or CLI – command line interface then you have here a number of options for checking your website performance. Here’s a few choice one’s I’ve been using lately.

Ubuntu / Linux – Login Information

The most basic is to open your Terminal and login to the server. This will show you something like this:

Welcome to Ubuntu 11.10 (GNU/Linux 3.0.0-12-virtual x86_64)
* Documentation: https://help.ubuntu.com/
System information as of Tue Jan 17 20:57:06 UTC 2012
System load: 0.0 Processes: 86
 Usage of /: 4.0% of 74.81GB Users logged in: 0
 Memory usage: 44% IP address for eth0: 11.222.333.444
 Swap usage: 0% IP address for eth1: 12.345.678.901

Ubuntu / Linux – W

If the most basic System info has gone from your terminal, try W.  Just type w and press enter. This will show you something like this:

21:31:20 up 2:59, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.01, 0.05
USER TTY FROM LOGIN@ IDLE JCPU PCPU WHAT
damien pts/0 11-22-33-44.zo 20:57 0.00s 0.54s 0.00s w

You’re most interested in the load average on the first line which shows the status for the past 1, 5 and 15 minutes.

Ubuntu / Linux – Top Command

Type Top and press enter will load your page and refresh every few seconds with stats on everything that is running.

Again …  You’re interested in the load average on the first line which shows the status for the past 1, 5 and 15 minutes.

top - 21:13:28 up 2:41, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.05, 0.07
Tasks: 84 total, 1 running, 83 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 0.3%us, 0.1%sy, 0.0%ni, 99.4%id, 0.2%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st
Mem: 2047820k total, 1128708k used, 919112k free, 22920k buffers
Swap: 4192960k total, 0k used, 4192960k free, 570000k cached
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
 1 root 20 0 24052 2072 1264 S 0 0.1 0:00.59 init
 2 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 kthreadd
 3 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.17 ksoftirqd/0
 4 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 kworker/0:0
 5 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.01 kworker/u:0
 6 root RT 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 migration/0
 7 root RT 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 migration/1
 8 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 kworker/1:0
 9 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.14 ksoftirqd/1
 10 root RT 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 migration/2

Top – Continuous Load Average

A better version of this is command is

top -b | grep "load average"

Left running for a few minutes and your screen will fill up like this:

top - 21:14:27 up 2:42, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.04, 0.07
top - 21:14:30 up 2:43, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.04, 0.07
top - 21:14:33 up 2:43, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.04, 0.07
top - 21:14:36 up 2:43, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.04, 0.07
top - 21:14:39 up 2:43, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.04, 0.06
top - 21:14:42 up 2:43, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.04, 0.06
top - 21:14:45 up 2:43, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.04, 0.06
top - 21:14:48 up 2:43, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.04, 0.06
top - 21:14:51 up 2:43, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.04, 0.06
top - 21:14:54 up 2:43, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.04, 0.06
top - 21:14:57 up 2:43, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.04, 0.06
top - 21:15:00 up 2:43, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.04, 0.06
top - 21:15:03 up 2:43, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.04, 0.06
top - 21:15:06 up 2:43, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.04, 0.06
top - 21:15:09 up 2:43, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.04, 0.06
top - 21:15:12 up 2:43, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.04, 0.06
top - 21:15:15 up 2:43, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.04, 0.06
top - 21:15:18 up 2:43, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.04, 0.06
top - 21:15:21 up 2:43, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.04, 0.06
top - 21:15:24 up 2:43, 1 user, load average: 0.08, 0.05, 0.07
top - 21:15:27 up 2:43, 1 user, load average: 0.08, 0.05, 0.07

This command is really useful when doing server load testing. Leave your terminal window open. Open another new terminal window and run your benchmark script tests.

Damien Saunders

jQuery and Javascript may not be all that bad for you .. or your website.

Recently I’ve been looking into fluid and responsive layouts for web design and I’ve been using a jQuery framework called Isotope on my blog page.

Isotope looks like it can do magical things. If only I had the time to make it work properly.

So here are two more impressive examples of what you can do with .js, jQuery and a bit of HTML5.

Impress.js

Impress.js uses the HTML DIV container to create the slides, but it is the transitions created with CSS and webkit and browser capabilities that makes this jump.

deck.js

Deck.js uses the same concept of DIV containers for each side. It’s very stable and shows how you can build up a presentation in your browser.

If you’re really wanting to stretch your own skills at creating presentations online … why not check out Prezi or Google Doc’s own presentation tools.

Damien Saunders

Did you know that social media is more than just blogs and RSS feeds? Well I hope so.

I have a following on Twitter that is <— this BIG —>   which is a lot for little me.  Maybe you prefer Twitter because you can dip in to the Twitterstream – maybe you should try following me.

What does Damien Saunders have to share on Twitter?

Damien’s Twitter account is kept updated 24/7 with the latest headlines from across my Internet websites. This is complimented with unique social media news, and sharing of important articles from across major tech and internet websites.

Let me share what’s up with you

I also spend a few minutes each day reviewing what people who follow me have to say and I do go out of my way to RT (re-tweet) anything funny, interesting or new.

If you don’t like Twitter — well stick to reading my blog or subscribe to my RSS Feed.

Or if you don’t like social media — then why did you read this?

Damien Saunders

It’s very easy to show more posts when browsing WordPress.

Make sure you first View All Posts, then
Select Screen Options from the top right of the Toolbar; and finally
Change the value (eg 200 in the example picture)

Damien Saunders

The title field and the big Post Editing Area are fixed in place, but you can reposition all the other boxes using drag and drop, and can minimize or expand them by clicking the title bar of each box.

Use the Screen Options tab to unhide more boxes (Excerpt, Send Trackbacks, Custom Fields, Discussion, Slug, Author) or to choose a 1- or 2-column layout for this screen.

Damien Saunders

In HTML mode – cut & paste only pastes plain text

Or use the W icon and paste there first.

You can also switch back to HTML to check if there is formatting you don’t want

Damien Saunders

No – font’s are not locked in WordPress, but it’s easy to switch to the HTML Editor – where cut paste will only paste plain text.

Alternatively, If you’re in the Visual Editor then … Click the W icon and paste there first.

tip: You can also switch to the HTML Editor to check if there is formatting you don’t want

Damien Saunders

If you just added a plug-in or made a change to a theme and now you can’t access either the wp-admin pages or the front end

Open the FTP programme and navigate to wp-content/plugin and delete the plugin you just uploaded.

Damien Saunders

Are you using W3 Total Cache or a CDN and seeing a broken picture icon on the live site
Right click on the icon and choose to show image in new tab
Go to the Performance section
Choose CDN
Click on Purge
Copy paste the broken image link without the Rackspace cdn part
Refresh the page with the broken image

Damien Saunders

Android Mobiles are taking over the world … and that seems to be supported by the latest statistics or trends. If you’re thinking about mobile marketing .. and wondering ‘what is all the fuss about Android’, then this presentation is for you.

Only the latest Android Insights and Statistics

• 10 billion app downloads (December 2011)
• 200 million activated devices (November 2011)
• 400,000 Android Apps (December 2011)

We can only wait for the next Google I/O conference to confirm how these numbers are growing!

Damien Saunders

I’ve decided that designers and creative types like to bundle mobile apps with features that can be near impossible to bring to life. I know I’m going to lose a few ‘friends’ here .. but bare with me a minute.

When developing your first app for your brand or client – it’s more important to engage customers and get usage through having the right features and a flawless function.

Mobile Apps need to be beautiful in form & flawless in function

Would you rather an app that is a ‘Thing of Beauty’ or an App that delivers on its function?

The dilemma here is that making an app beautiful will cost more than you ever budgeted for. It is definitely better to deliver an app that is flawless in how it functions … and then make it ‘smooth’ and beautiful to use.

And so I leave you to go away and open your Amazon Kindle app on your iPhone or iPad … and check it at different times of the day … It’s easy to make an app beautiful without burdening it with features or transitions or other visual tom-foolery.

The point I want to make about the Kindle app is that when you are at the ‘Home screen’ and viewing all your Kindle books, you can view them as a list or icons. Nothing else. It’s totally about the function.

Except … what’s that? the background changes based on the time of day. Now that is beautiful.

Opening

Dawn

Morning

Evening

Night

Damien Saunders

Thanks for your patience while I had some work done to migrate my site to a new server.

The average page load time is now around 5 seconds as reported by Google Analytics – it had been floating between 12 – 20 seconds on various days last week.

So hopefully, we’ll have no more issues.

Cheers

Damien

Damien Saunders

What a year 2011 was … over 31,000 people visited my site which is a growth of about 47% year on year.

So thank you to all of you who came, read and left … and to the few of you who do come back again and again.

Google Analytics Web Trends

I’ve been using Google Analytics since I moved to stand-alone WordPress in 2009. I support agencies and brands to develop complex reporting and engagement insights using Google Analytics.

I believe the bounce rate is pretty good as most people visit, read and leave. This is pretty common for blog-type websites. The high percentage of new visitors is pretty much related to one very old post of mine. It’s popular for anyone interested in cross-browser testing.

1 Jan 2011 – 30 Dec 2011

• 31,128 people visited this site
• 70,549 Pageviews
• 2.10 Pages/Visit
• 27.42% Bounce Rate
• 92.59% % New Visits

1 Jan 2010 – 31 Dec 2010

• 21,191 people visited this site
• 55,573 Pageviews
• 2.31 Pages/Visit
• 40.74% Bounce Rate
• 87.97% % New Visits

Ouch … in March this year, I had no GA analytics data for a month due to problems with of ‘authentication’ between the plugin I used and Google.

Some notes – I exclude (filtering) visits from my own IP or work IP addresses. I use Yoast’s Google Analytics for WordPress plugin and compliment it with event tracking which I’ve setup.

Slideshare Presentation Trends

My Slideshare presentations were viewed over 14,000 times last year … perhaps you should head over to look at my stuff there.

Damien Saunders

Just a short note — Tonight there will be some planned maintenance and the wonderful team at Evohost will be migrating me to a newer, faster server.

The downtime will hopefully be kept as short as possible – but maybe come back on Saturday if you find anything funny.

Cheers

Damien

Damien Saunders