Helpful Git Command Tips and Happy 10th Birthday Wishes

Happy 10th Birthday Git!

This year marks the 10th birthday of git,  the distributed version control system created by Linus Torvalds who's more famously known as the creator of the Linux kernel.  If you're a software developer, I hope you're at least familiar with source control systems because they make your professional life SO much easier (though I admit they can be a bit challenging to first get accustomed to...).

Even if you're day job isn't in the software development space, my guess is that if you're in IT in any capacity, you've probably interacted with Linux or other open source software systems, most of which use git (and / or github) to manage their source code repositories.

Below, I've included a few helpful tips and tricks I've discovered to make using git even more productive for your daily workflow, along with links to learn more about the history of git and an interview with Linus on his take on git after it's first 10 years...

Increase Conversions and Reduce Cart Abandonment by moving to Magento Cloud Hosting (Webinar)

Key business drivers for moving to cloud-based Magento Hosting

The Magento Commerce team recently hosted a webinar discussing the key business drivers for moving to cloud-based hosting for your site.

The short version is that EVERY SINGLE SECOND of page load time costs your site money.  The presentation started with a great overview of exactly how:

• You can increase conversions (read Sales) by 7% for every 1 second you reduce your site's latency
• Lowering load times by 3 seconds results in 40% fewer carts being abandoned before checkout completion.
• Maintaining the much sought-after 5 9's (99.999%) of availability will reduce customer churn by roughly 28%
• Migrating to cloud hosting can save your IT budget an average of 15% vs. traditional server-based hosting

I found the webinar well produced and complete with insightful information and anecdotes to help make the business case for moving to a cloud hosting system for your e-commerce store.  Although it was targeted towards Magento, the broader themes are applicable to every e-commerce platform.

The full webinar is embedded as a Vimeo below, but you can find it, along with a lot of other great webinar content on the Magento Commerce Webinar Portal.

Why Cloud? Why Now? from Magento on Vimeo.

The complexity of designing, developing, and managing PHP Mobile & Web Applications in the Cloud

Maxine Giza from Tech Target recently interviewed me for an article on the opportunities and challenges facing PHP mobile and web application developers migrating to the Amazon Web Services platform and how Zend Server 7 can help.  We discussed how Comit Developers addressed these challenges as we migrated from a LAMP stack over to Zend Server 7 running on the Amazon Web Services cloud.

Fair Warning: I did an hour-long interview with Tech Target for this piece and it was pretty substantially condensed. Some addition details can be found over on the AWS blog athttp://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/simplified-php-dev-z-ray-in-the-cloud/ for anyone interested in a deeper technical dive on the topic.

What do you consider a "real-time" transaction?

Image Courtesy of Eligible

There's a fantastic write-up from Eligible, a company I've had the pleasure of working with recently, on the state of "real-time" transactions in the health care sector.

With the passage of The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), our government created a set of standards defining the kind of transactions that your doctor, your insurance company, Durable Medical Equipment Providers (DMEs) and a whole host of other participants in the health care sector carry out while delivering your health care to you (and making sure it's paid for...)

Image Courtesy of CMS

While most of the attention around HIPAA tends to be focused on the Security, Privacy, and Breach of Notification Rules, this legislation was the first time any of the participants in the health care sector attempted to create a single unified standard defining what types of information should be included, for example, when a doctor's office sends an electronic request to an insurance company to verify what kind of coverage you have before providing you with services.

The Social Media Breakfast Club - Via The Comit Developers Blog

The Social Media Breakfast Club (Shanna Perkins via The Comit Developers Blog)

Shanna Perkins, SEO & Internet Marketing Specialist at Comit Developers, wrote a great post on the different strengths and weaknesses of the most popular social media platforms last week.

Given that I'm old enough to remember watching The Breakfast Club in the movie theaters, I was particularly fond of her use of the characters from the movie to describe the traits of each social media platform.  It's a great way to offer a perspective that everyone can relate to - even if you didn't watch the movie ;)

Birthday Wishes to Jennifer Kendrick & Joining the Comit Developers Team!

Are you talking to me?

So I've been contracting now at Comit Developers (and it's sister e-commerce company Ameda Direct / ACA Ventures) for almost a year, but I've recently decided to join the team as a full time employee.

I'm excited about the vision of our leadership team over at Comit Developers and I've been honored to have the opportunity to be a part of such an AMAZING group of individuals in the design, development, engineering, and internet marketing / SEO divisions within this keiretsu (i've always wanted to work that term into a blog post...).

One of the main reasons I decided to join the team at Comit Developers and Ameda Direct is their genuinely open culture and their commitment to assembling the best team possible from a diverse mix of people.  

It's that diversity and the distinct personalities and perspectives of all the members of our organization that allows us to attack problems from many different angles simultaneously and that same diversity helps us to develop truly innovative solutions to the challenges our customers face every day.

Join me for a free webinar on making the most out of Git in your development workflow!

UPDATE 1/23/2014: Since the webinar has already come and gone, I've got the entire session's YouTube video embedded below!

I've been using Mercurial for a few years now, but have only recently tackled a serious software project using Git as my primary distributed software source control system.

The transition was easier than I thought it might be, but even after using it day in and day out for the last few months, I find every now and again I get tripped up on a command or two (or find myself Googling for Stack Overflow tips when I get stuck ;)

Fortunately for all of us, Atlassian (makers of BitBucket and SourceTree, two tools I use every single day of my professional life) is hosting a free webinar on Git best practices. Best of all, it's going to use REAL CODE EXAMPLES!

That's right, you'll be learning as Nicola Paolucci Developer Advocate @ Atlassian works a real bug report - from branch creation to code review to final merge!

Follow Up to Paul Jay's Knowledge Centered Support (KCS) - Key to Great Service

A short while back I posted about the webinar hosted by the ICMI & Paul Jay on Knowledge Centered Support and it's role in delivering the best possible customer experience.  Whether you had a chance to participate in the live webinar or have watched the saved recording, you probably noticed that there were a TREMENDOUS number of really great questions posed by the participants.

Fortunately for all of us, Paul is a fantastic contributor to the KCS community and has taken time out of his busy schedule to respond to many of the questions that couldn't be covered during the initial webinar.

You can see the responses to the top 21 questions posed during the webinar over at the ICMI blog:

Watch the Best Video Introduction to Gamification & Explanation of its Pros & Cons from Penny Arcade

It's a funny and informative introduction to gamification and I guarantee you will laugh out loud at least once :)

This may actually be the first simple explanation I've ever seen of any of the potential positives AND pitfalls of using gamification as a strategy.  Clocking in at around 6 minutes, it's a great introduction to share with people who are interested in learning about the basics of gamification.

The fantastic work done on this particular episode deserves to be called out:

Video Interview with Ev Williams on Medium - the next evolution in the way we write, share and consume content on the web

Medium Team hard at work at Obvious HQ

I know 6 months seems like an eternity in Internet time, but it was only back on September 25, 2012 that Ev Williams, Biz Stone, and Jason Goldman (the original founders of Blogger, Twitter and many other web platforms) unveiled Medium, one of the latest creations from their startup incubator, Obvious.

Medium announced only a few weeks ago that they've acquired the long-form publishing startup Matter, and I have to agree with Matter's founder Jim Giles that the Medium / Matter acquisition seems like a natural fit:

Living Social Hacked: security breach leaves 50 million users compromised

Living Social Hacked: security breach leaves
50 million users compromised

I'm not sure how much we have in common, but I'm pretty sure neither of us would want to receive this email at 7:16 PM on a Friday evening.

But sadly, I did.  Right before I dropped some delicious BBQ onto the grill to celebrate the kick off of Festival International de Louisiane, I heard a little ding from my email client notifying me of an important message (you may have gotten one too).

It would seem I am one of the 50 million or so LivingSocial registered users whose account information was compromised in an cyber-attack on their computer systems in which attackers gained access to sensitive personal information about LivingSocial's customers (namely, me).

The breach appears to have been contained, though there are only scant details about the attack being released from LinkedIn at this time.

The information that was accessed includes (but note they do not say "is limited to," which means additional information may have been accessed) Customer Names, User email addresses, Birthdates (only for some users, not all 50 million, WHEW), and encrypted passwords.

LinkedIn transforms Contacts section into super-powered personal assistant that integrates with EVERYTHING

Image Courtesy of  TechChrunch

Today, LinkedIn released a few important new features for members that really turbo-charges their Connections section of the site.  In addition, they released a new mobile app called Contacts for Apple devices (with other platforms slated for future release dates).

If you're like me, you have probably already imported some of your Contacts into LinkedIn from your gMail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc accounts.  Which was great...except of course, that it was a one-time affair.  If you have added any contacts since your original import, those won't appear on your LinkedIn Connections because the import is a one-way process.

Well, go back and do it again, because now LinkedIn creates a permanent connection to your mail system's contacts and will keep your contacts synchronized between those systems (should you choose to permit it) and your LinkedIn profile.  Unbelievably, LinkedIn also now supports synching your mobile device's contact lists with your LinkedIn profile if you also install the mobile application.

Free Event: Fiber for Breakfast :: Fueling Healthcare - See how Lafayette, LA is using innovative fiber-powered technologies to deliver new experiences in patient care.

Screen Capture - The Louisiana Immersive Technologies Enterprise (LITE) Center's Home Page

One of the reasons Sam and I were excited to move back to Lafayette from Austin, TX was the innovative things the community was doing around Fiber To The Home.

That's why I'm delighted to share this wonderful free event with you that is being held at the LITE Center in Lafayette, LA : Fiber for Breakfast: Fueling Healthcare.

During the event, there will be brief presentations from representatives from

• Lafayette General Medical Center
• Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center
• Acadian Companies
• Schumacher Group

I can assure you this is not an event you are going to want to miss....Plus if you're one of the first 25 there, you get a free lunch.

Google adds Google+ comments to Blogger

Google adds Google+ comments to Blogger

It took me less time to enable it on this blog than it did to write and share this post.  You can see for yourself how the new comments look on my blog in the capture above from a post I made a while back.

Here are the instructions:

1. Login to your blogger.com blog and navigate to the blog in which you want to enable the new Google+ comments system.
   
2. Click the Google+ link in the left hand menu.
   
3. Click the "Use Google+ Comments on this blog" check box.
   
   Mine looks something like this:
   

Developing Zend Mobile Apps that utilize Cloud Web Services with Kent Mitchell

I recently wrote about the latest Zend Studio Release, version 10.0.1.  This video from Kent Mitchell covers using Zend Studio to develop apps that are connected to cloud web services.

Additional info at the Zend Developer Zone and the YouTube Page for the video below.

If you're a (free login) member of the site, you can also watch the higher-resolution flv version of the video at http://www.zend.com/en/webinar/studio/70170000000c17m-DevlpMobApps-20130320.flv

Ideum announces major updates for Gestureworks and Presenter Interactive Multi-Touch Wall Systems

Ideum releases revamped gestureworks.com sites

Even by my (sometimes tending to the over inflating . . . sometimes!) standards, what I am posting today is a Set of Major Updates on Ideum, about whom I've written on a few distinct occasions.

I also confirmed via email from CEO Jim Spadaccini and Nora Galler that in addition to the updates detailed below, the GestureWorks site & Wiki have received a facelift recently.

I can confirm after reviewing the links below that the site updates are not only clean and quick to load, but it's much easier to use the new layouts than it was with the old sites. Kudos to the team for investing in an improved user experience - the UI/UX changes will pay dividends with happier customers, like me!

Now, for the updates ...

Free Online Course: Gamification by Kevin Werbach via Coursera

Free Coursera Course: Gamification

This free online course from Coursera is taught by Kevin Werbach, an Associate Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics at the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania.

After hearing about the class online I decided to sign up myself!  Although I've downloaded a few class lectures from iTunes, I haven't yet registered for a Coursera class, so this one was my first class.

There's a video introduction for the class from Kevin Werbach himself and quite a few other resources I put together below.  If you're new to Gamification, the following graphic provides a basic introduction to the concept, but I've also posted an introduction here on the blog that's a quick read.

Zend Studio 10.0.1 Released - Available for Immediate Free Download

Zend Studio Download Center

UPDATE: Bonus "Introducing Zend Studio 10" YouTube Video after the jump!

What's in this latest Zend 10.0.1 Maintenance Release? The announcement email gives a little background on what's included in the update:

"We are pleased to announce that Zend Studio 10.0.1 is now available for download.

This maintenance release includes several updated components including the latest Zend Framework 1.x and 2.x releases, support for Windows 8, integration with Zend Server 6 for IBM i, and a variety of other product improvements and bug fixes."

Free Webinar & White Paper: IBM Social Analytics: The Science behind Social Media Marketing & Putting the Science into Social Business

As I have been working on Inbound Marketing & Content Marketing Strategies with clients I have noticed that as we begin to master measuring and managing the metrics that have been traditionally associated with Social Media Marketing (likes, reach, shares, etc...) they quickly discover that these metrics are disconnected from the way we manage the rest of our Marketing, particularly around tracking Sales Conversions and assigning cash values to metrics.

The truth is that even though Social Media offers marketers a wealth of data that almost no other marketing channel provides about our customers, the tools we have to analyze, report, and act on that data have not kept up with the pace of development of the various social media platforms.

IBM has recently released a fantastic set of resources that help to illuminate how you can use a scientific & quantifiable approach to tracking these Social Media Metrics.  They are based on IBM's new approach to Social Business & Analytics and outline steps you can begin working on today to develop and execute a Social Media Strategy that is based on HARD DATA instead of the guesswork we're so used to in this space.

Salesforce.com turbo-charges Mobile Developer offerings with Salesforce Platform for Mobile Services

UPDATE 04-16-2013 : You can watch the DeveloperForce.com Mobile Code Talk Google Hangout on Salesforce Platform for Mobile Services with Sandeep Bhanot, Dave Carroll, and more right now!

It was only last month that I wrote about Salesforce.com & AT&T releasing a new Mobile SDK, the AT&T Toolkit for Salesforce Platform, but nonetheless Salesforce.com is at it again: this time releasing a serious upgrade to the mobile development toolkits available to software developers wishing to create applications that access the Salesforce.com platform.