This is the time of the year when we are looking back in the past and start thinking about the next year. Although, next Monday will be a normal Monday, it somehow feels as if someone is going to press the reset button this weekend. For us 2012 has been a great blogging year. The amount of unique visitors increased with almost 200% and You are one of them! Thank you for visiting us! Knowing that an increasing audience is reading, and even better using the knowledge we like to share is really rewarding. Let’s have a look at what you seemed to like most over the past year.
Skype was having issues too often
Several Skype updates caused serious issues. In May many Windows 7 users couldn’t connect to Skype any longer. We quickly found a solution and decided to share this. It resulted with the highest amount of visitors within one hour ever on our blog. Some days later we could more or less see the impact of this update. By the end of May we had to suffer again and in June as well. Rumors which probably all had to do with the merger with Microsoft could be noticed, but in our opinion that couldn’t be the case and it wasn’t. Based on a new traffic peak on December 18 we had to conclude something went wrong again, but we didn’t face any issues ourselves at that time.
Although, it’s nice to see these post generated a lot of traffic on our blog, we hope Skype will be more reliable in the upcoming year. Too many people are relying on the availability of the service. We will for sure write about the changes that will be made by Microsoft. That’s because we really believe to notice the first changes by 2012, since the merger was already approved.
Java and .NET development knowledge really appreciated by our audience
The Java community seems to really like our Java related posts. One of the older ones: Quick start with Ehcache Annotations for Spring is still attracting many readers. Developers also seemed to be eager to know how to create Java web applications with Eclipse. Based on your interest we can conclude JEE6 is hot as well and it leads to joyful productivity.
Also the Microsoft .NET community visited our blog often. It looks like back in 2009 we were far ahead of our time, because this year the post how to use Quartz.NET in PRO way was read frequently. The same is applicable to our review of Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ). Less surprising for us is the fact that ASP.NET MVC gains attention. We’re using ASP.NET MVC already for some years and shared several lessons learned, like the post about MVC3 Forms Authentication and the Ajax.Actionlink issue.
The software development world becomes more Agile
The fact that the software development world is becoming more Agile might be a too bold of a statement. Anyhow, the fact is that our posts about Agile software development are quite successful. We honestly hope this will lead to an increased understanding and adoption of Agile work practices. We are really happy we chose this direction several years ago. Although, we know it’s not easy to find the right balance in between functionality and technology, we will have to face this challenge to make software development more successful and more adjusted to the business’ needs. Using methods or tools like Scrum, Domain-Driven Design or Test Driven Development can help us, but most important is that the whole organisation understands the needed change and that both business and IT are willing to understand each other.
And there was more ….
We’ve been covering many more topics on our blog than those mentioned above. We invite you to browse around and to find what suits you best. As I noticed, next week will start with just a normal Monday again, so we will continue blogging like usual. Please tell us what you would like us to write about by leaving a comment below, or use the bottom “pop-up”.
Thanks for your support! We wish you all the best for the new year.
Glad to see agile picking up more all around
Hi Peter, thanks for your reply. We also like the fact that the software development world is becoming more Agile, although I have to admit that there’s still a lot to be improved. During the past weeks I gave several Agile workshops and I’ve visit many companies and the bottom line conclusion is that many of them aren’t Agile at all yet.
A lot of companies will slap on the agile branding and do little to change their development process. Hopefully, this means more companies will actually go agile instead of calling themselves agile after the fact.
Hi Peter, thanks for your reply. We notice a similar “trend”. Many companies hope that Agile is the holy grail, but without really implementing it from the top to the bottom it will never work. It’s not a tool you can implement, it’s a philosophy need to live. What are your personal experiences with Agile development?
I love using Skype for social and casual interactions. But for business meetings, security is my top priority, hence I prefer using RHUB web conferencing servers. It works from behind the company’s firewall instead of outside of it.