This year I used Google Maps to plan my trick or treating route. This way we won’t forget to hit any sweet spots, and we can more efficiently rake in the treats.

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One of our crack designers, Nik, no doubt hard at work in PhotoShop.

This is our VP of Creative, Jess, who came to work dressed as a cactus. He wins the prize for most realistic costume, hands down.

Happy Halloween from everyone here at ArcStone.

This is Annie Picken, part of our courageous support staff that works tirelessly to improve our products, help customers with problems, and just get things done in general.

She definitely has a “we can do it!” attitude.

Everyone at ArcStone has a multi-monitor setup. Long ago I convinced ArcStone’s owner of the vast productivity benefits that come with more screen real estate. At first, like many people, he was a skeptic. However, after using multiple monitors himself, the value became apparent.

Some might argue it simply amounts to what you become used to. I disagree. I see a significant drop in my productivity when I work out of the office, and have to rely on my laptop screen alone.

If you have the means, I urge you to try adding another monitor to your setup.
Here are some examples of ArcStonians multi-monitor setups:

Our Top Sales Person

Our Systems Administrator

Yours Truly

There has been a lot of talk about Wonderfile lately. For those of you in the dark, Wonderfile is our answer to the problem of organizing, sharing, searching, filtering, archiving, and distributing digital information.

To accomplish all the amazing things you can do with Wonderfile, we give you three tools: Libraries, Categories, and Tags. This trio of tools allows for unparalleled flexibility, organization, and searching capabilities.

To further illustrate how these tools can be put to use I have prepared a list of my top 10 ways to use Wonderfile:

Keep Track of all the PDFs I Download
Library: PDF Stash – Tags: Documentation, White Paper, How-To

Organize My Source Code
Library: Secret Sauces – Tags: Open Source, PHP, Security

Store Scans of Take Out Menus
Library: Munchies – Tags: Chinese, Free Delivery, Fast

Archive My Digital Artwork
Library: My Artwork – Tags: Anime, Flash, Black and White

Share Photos of the Kids
Library: My Two Sons – Tags: Candid, Halloween, Sports

Backup My Important Software
Library: Tools Of The Trade – Tags: Utilities, Drivers, Shareware

Capture Important Emails
Library: Transmissions – Tags: From Me, Receipts, See Attachment

Store Bookmarks
Library: World Wide Wonders – Tags: Funny, Useful, Blog

Play Photoshop Tennis
Library: 40 Love – Tags: My Serve, Completed, Draw

Sort Candid Celebrity Photos
Library: Celebrity Snaps – Tags: Vacation, Britney, Red Carpet

My Home Away From Home

Flickr has a great feature that lets you annotate your pictures by drawing little boxes right over the image and adding text. You don’t have to browse Flickr long to find some incredible photos enhanced with this fun feature.

I find exploring someones photo annotations much like embarking on a treasure hunt. You never know what you’ll find.

I recently took advantage of this feature to document the typical developers work environment (mine).

Click the photo or here to view the annotated version.

I have a theory.

A web application will be at least 100% better if the developers who create it also actively use it.

It is akin to a meal prepared by an expert chef. The best chefs constantly sample their creations as they prepare a meal. When it is ready, they’ll serve it to their patrons and then sit down themselves to enjoy what they have lovingly created.

Like a chef, expert developers need to actively sample (test and use) their software while working on it, then sit down and consume their own code as a user would.

QA provided by testing experts definitely has its place – but I fear that sometimes developers (even good ones) miss significant opportunities to write better applications because they rely too heavily on testers / users to catch bugs and provide interface feedback. This reliance costs time – but even more significantly, we lose opportunities to improve the user experience because those who know how to change the code don’t take the time to actively engage and use the application. This lost opportunity for creative improvement could be avoided if developers spent an hour actively using the application for every 10 hours spent coding.

When I say using – I don’t mean quick tests, scripted testing, a little demo or anything like that – I mean actively using the application like their users will have to. I’m talking really, really use it and engage. A good chef will sit down and eat the meals he prepares – from that he draws inspiration for improvement. Programmers who consume the applications they write will create better software – hands down.

I’ve posted a little snippet of Austin demo-ing ArcSite. ArcSite enables our clients to browse to any page on their web site, click a button and edit text, images and links. It is infinitely customizable and will work in any design.

A few random thoughts about a web development company working on its own web site….

First and foremost – it’s hard.

Client work always comes first, we have hundreds of other related obligations, it has to be good, creative, effective – which makes it a little scary. At the end of the day we’ve spent all our juice working on our client’s sites, there’s not a lot left over for our own stuff. (more…)

We have been selected to present at the Push Technology Conference held annually at the Walker Art Center (this year June 10 – 12). They select eight companies as “Emerging Leaders” / presenters. Each has six minutes to pitch their globe changing idea to the entire gathering – fabulous prizes to the winner.

We will be presenting Wonderfile – our online document management and collaboration platform. Can we have a moment of silence for our competition?