David Ensor

I’ve held professional positions in IT for eleven years; if there’s one thing I’ve noticed, solutions to problems often seem more complicated than they need to be. There’s a simple process model that exists and – once understood – there are merely systems behind each type of process that you are handling. Once the process is used a few times, the best way to maintain consistency and efficiency is to make a system for that process.

The Process Model

Here it is:  Input -> Process -> Output.

Obviously, things get more complex than this, but the simplicity of work completed is much less daunting when you consider a new project as a simple input-output process. By identifying the output (project/process goals), you can identify what you need to get started (input) and what it is you need to do with those inputs to process the output.

Improving Processes with Systems

If you talk to people who know me, they’ll confirm that when I do or see something for the first time, I’m quietly observant and subtly disengaged from conversation. By the time I’ve done something a couple of times, I will have started developing ways to do something the most efficient way I can complete that task. It hit me the other morning as I was leaving the house that I have habitual methods of getting along my way. Clothes are always ready the night before, I have a certain order to brushing my teeth, shaving, getting dressed, preparing my lunch a certain way, preparing for lessons on days I teach, eating my dinner in a specific order so that the salty stuff is eaten first or fries are eaten last (since I like them the least and don’t care if I finish them) and the sweet stuff is eaten last. I don’t think I have an disorders, but I have a system for everything…and have a reason for why I do each thing.

It occurred to me this week that, while I make systems for most things I do with life and work, I constantly avoid making my web development processes more efficient. I’ve always perceived this as my creative outlet and have avoided approaching it as a process. The more I do it (and the more projects that come my way), the more I’ve realized that I need to streamline the processes surrounding the creative process – email templates, contracts, code snippets, etc.

I’ve started compiling a list 0f items I need to take care of in my freelance work; those that need have a system to handle it. Things like working on more consistently developing content for blogging, best approaches for estimating projects, identifying a system to handle invoices and time-tracking towards projects. I’m going to try and document progress as I go along, but I’d like to hear suggestions from others. Drop a suggestions in the comments.

I’m a fan of Dropbox – big fan, actually.  In the spirit of their latest changes (iPhone app, site renaming from getdropbox.com to dropbox.com, etc.), I thought I’d give it a little more promotion.

I work from 2 (sometimes 3) computers – Windows and Mac – and switching files between them is a VERY regular task I encounter.  At work, I have a personal space that I can connect to on both computers, but I have to have drives mapped, connect to it if not actively connected, open windows to get to drives, etc…needless to continue – I don’t like inefficiency in irrelevant tasks such as this.

Last year, I read about this handy little tool (yes, Dropbox)…I’m a technical guy that enjoys his gadgets almost as much as the next guy, but this one got me “geeked” like I hadn’t been in awhile.  It’s free backup space on the web where you can store at least 2GB of space.  But, wait – there’s more!  Not only do you get free space, it instantly synchronizes with any computer configured with the application.

After installing the application, I can now open and save a file on one computer (mac or win), shift my seat over to the other computer and open and save the updated copy I just opened on the first computer.  It’s magical and fast and all you need is a folder on your computer to synchronize to the server.  I now have a folder sitting on my win/mac docks that opens right up to the synchronized folders.

Like what you hear? Check out Dropbox (and, yes, that’s a referral link that gives me additional space when you sign up)!  Check out their blog for latest news.

I’m not talking about the H1N1 virus here…though, I was taking antibiotics by Sunday for a sinus infection.  For a few months, one of my clients had been getting a weird error popping up on their WordPress web site. I was (rightly) convinced that there was a security issue causing the problem, but I searched the web high and low without ever finding anything to point to a cause of the problem. I searched for a particular string of text that came up repeatedly when it was broken and the best I could find was a “fix” to correct the issue.

Saturday morning, the answer finally came to me in an email – a WordPress security exploit.  Months of suspicions proved true and I was left to carefully analyze the server database for corruption over the ensuing hours.  Despite my hesitation to upgrade the site’s WP version (if you only knew how many customizations, hacks and mods there were on this web site…), I went forth with it and haven’t seen the problem return.

Moral of the story – you have to keep an eye on security updates and make sure to carefully upgrade after doing functional testing!

For roughly ten years, I’ve been doing this web consulting gig…ashamedly, for half of that I had used the same old web site. Since business has been picking up over the last year, I decided that it was time for a change (okay, so I wanted to make a change about two years ago, but I never liked the designs I had worked on and just eventually found other things to do).

So, here it is; it’s not the fanciest, cutting edge design ever created; but, I feel it fits me quite well – simple and blue (I REALLY like blue and green – always have!).

One thing that I’ve decided to do is to add a blog/journal to the site – it’s a commitment on my part to be more vocal with the work I enjoy so much.

I’m still working on the portfolio/work page, so hang tight – it will be there soon.