Greg Palmer

Coda, the new all-in-one web development application from Panic, promises a lot. So much, in fact, that I doubted it could deliver. Combining my text editor, file browser/organizer, terminal, SFTP, and reference all into one is a tall order.

To their credit, Panic doesn’t claim to have the best of every individual function, only that they’ve combined these functions into a unified, elegant interface. And they’re right. Coda is a masterpiece.

As a recent “switcher� to Mac, I’ve yet to find a coding/development style that suits me. I don’t (yet) run a local webserver, so my process was fraught with code, upload, test, repeat. I used a combination of Fetch and Textmate to accomplish the bulk of my work.

Coda greatly simplifies the “code, upload, test, repeat� process by combining the upload process into the file organizer and text editor. It’s quite a simple idea – when you edit a file in Coda, it gets marked as edited and ready for upload. Clicking on an icon next to that file sends it up to your testing server.

There is one workflow process that I haven’t seen anyone master either on Mac or PC. When you’re running a small or medium-size website (1-5 people involved), you’re often at the point where you are working with a testing server, but working fast enough that you want to push changes to the live server quickly after testing. Here, Coda doesn’t necessarily shine, but does perform better than traditional methods. I created two sites with nearly identical properties, save for the remote address and host. This works decently, but I have to manually mark files for upload to get them to the live site.

What’s needed in this marketplace is a way to move files from “testing� to “live.� I’m sure there are better ways to do this using versioning systems and some server voodoo, but for small, growing sites with limited IT expertise (read: me and a few other DIYers.), it would be nice to be able to do this locally.

But I digress. The bottom line is this – I’ve used Coda for a few days and I’m completely hooked. There wasn’t a single moment where I wanted to be back in Textmate (though I love it!). Kudos to Panic for seeing a hole in the marketplace and changing the game a bit. Bravo.

• Tell Them Seth Sent You - New York Times
  Former speakeasies in NY.
  (tags: nyc)
• Use Server Cache Control to Improve Performance - apache web server settings for optimized caching with configuration files
  How to trigger expirations for design refreshs and enable caching the rest of the time.
  (tags: linux howto webdev)

• Alter: The Truth Makes a Comeback in Congress - Newsweek Between the Lines - MSNBC.com
  “Historians will likely see the 2006 midterm election returns as indispensable to their work. Without a change in party control, we would never have a chance to get to the bottom of what has happened to this country.”
  (tags: congress politics)
• Quote Doctoring - Books - Review - New York Times
  “It happened to me about 10 years ago. I had called David Sedaris’s memoir “Nakedâ€? a “tour-de-farceâ€? in a review in Newsday. Shortly thereafter, the publisher ran an ad in which my 600-word review had been boiled down to one phrase: “tour de f
  (tags: literature media writing)
• Mac Favicon :: Firefox Add-ons
  Finally! This is a key part of Firefox that I miss on MacOS.
  (tags: osx mac)

I noticed this in a bunch of places, and really don’t have much to add except to confirm that the new AOL looks an awful lot like Yahoo. Explanations?

In relation to this post on cancelling Windows Onecare, I was finally able to cancel my account by calling Microsoft at 1-866-672-4551.

I spoke with a man who sounded like a robot. (No, seriously). Within 5 minutes my account was cancelled, I received a confirmation e-mail and will get a refund to my Amex. Why doesn’t Microsoft just list this information on the website?

• A Surprise on the East Side - New York Times
  Ridiculous.
  (tags: nyc)
• For $82 a Day, Booking a Cell in a 5-Star Jail - New York Times
  For offenders whose crimes are usually relatively minor (carjackers should not bother) and whose bank accounts remain lofty, a dozen or so city jails across the state offer pay-to-stay upgrades.
  (tags: society)
• In Apparel, All Tariffs Aren’t Created Equal - New York Times
  Congress, it turns out, plays fashion favorites.
  (tags: economics policy)

• The Pressure of Great Expectations - New York Times
  On Joseph Perella - Lehigh alum
  (tags: lehigh nyc business)

• PJNet Today: Moyers: An Entrepreneur Will Save Journalism
  I love Bill Moyers.
  (tags: news norgs media)
• red24 - Home
  (tags: thatcher)
• Current Account: Passport Bank Account: HSBC Bank UK
  (tags: thatcher)
• The Bill Moyers documentary on our failed and barren press - Glenn Greenwald
  “If you didn’t watch Bill Moyers’ documentary last night regarding the joint, coordinated behavior of our government and its media in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, I can’t recommend it highly enough.” Echo that.
  (tags: media iraq policy)
• Bill Moyers Journal . Buying the War . Additional Interviews | PBS
  Well worth the hour and a half, I promise
  (tags: media news politics iraq)

• Found, a planet like earth — but 5 billion years away-News-UK-Science-TimesOnline
  An Earth-like planet that may be capable of supporting extraterrestrial life has been discovered orbiting a distant star.
  (tags: space science)
• Digital Web Magazine - Coding for Content
  (tags: toread)
• Converting the Converted, or How to Increase your Newsletter Signup Rate
  This works.
  (tags: webdev email)
• Jeffrey Zeldman Presents : The profession that dare not speak its name
  SO true!
  (tags: webdev business)
• cancellation - Windows Live OneCare
  The actual way to cancel OneCare
  (tags: software customer.experience)

Following up on the parking meters post:

As expected, he has both caught grief and heard hosannas for his most contentious proposal: a charge of $8 for cars and $21 for commercial trucks that enter Manhattan below 86th Street during weekday business hours. It’s the vaporizer solution: a way to break up congestion, all that traffic choking Manhattan streets.

For decades, little has modified driving habits that pretty much everyone agrees are wasteful and unhealthful. Many people drive into Manhattan because they prefer to, not because they necessarily have to. Some don’t even mind traffic jams. In the age of cellphones and BlackBerries, the car can double as an office during a crawl through Midtown.

Mr. Bloomberg’s goal is to nudge these drivers into subways and buses, or force them to pay for refusing to change their ways.

I haven’t looked - are there studies on how well this has fared in London? (And sorry that the link is TimesSelect only…)