Archive for December, 2007

For a few months now, I’ve been planning this move from Sidewalk Advocate to something else. I started this blog two and a half years ago, just before moving to the Washington DC area. Living and looking around the neighborhoods of Washington is interesting because almost every era of US development is represented, from streets laid before the Civil War on through modern day exurbs. You usually don’t have to travel more than a mile before you’re in a totally different neighborhood designed by someone with their own view of the way cities should be designed. While the Washington metro area recently claimed the title for most walkable city in the US, there are many places that are plenty of places where you’d be hard pressed to walk off your street, much less get to a grocery store.

After doing a lot of reading, exploring, and thinking I’ve decided to retire the urban planning/architecture theme as the central focus of my blog. While I still have an interest in the topic, there are other people who are doing a good job of getting the idea across. Also, I’m also discovering a lot of newsworthy open source projects that have nothing to do with sidewalks. So, out with the old theme and in with the new…

So why Design vs. Develop? I’m finding my general interest lies in situations where you have to decide between planning something out or letting people solve their own problems. People become frustrated with the rules of events, systems, and machines that are over planned. Where there is too little design, efforts are frequently duplicated and results are often sub-par.  You can see this with urban planning, computer programming, government, education, and in many other arenas.

This post is the first one to be published from Design vs. Develop. All previous entries have been imported from the old blog. You may notice small oddities with the posts and content, but everything should be in place for the most part.

A while ago, I had the idea of starting a business where you could rent a “day-office” to get your work done if you get tired of working from home or from a coffee shop. People are evidently already doing it.

Three new books on Joomla! have been recently released by Packt. Joomla! Accessibility by Joshue O Connor will guide you through concepts and practical considerations when designing an accessible website in Joomla!. Tom Canavan (of JoomlaJabber fame) and Brandon Dawson join forces in Joomla! Cash, a book showing how to generate revenue through your Joomla! site. Finally, James Kennard has released the long awaited Mastering Joomla! 1.5 Extension and Framework Development. This volume contains a comprehensive reference of the Joomla! 1.5 framework. If you enjoyed my extension development book and want to learn even more, this new book is for you!