2013 In Review (In Short)

#2013 in review:- Work) Little change » Status quo. Life) Pursued » Achieved. I know #2014 will be very different.

Video guide on the Marina Coastal Expressway

"White Christmas" (original version), being played on radio for 1st time in 1942 for World War II comrades

Convert Any Files to PDF

One common question many asked is "How can I actually convert a document or even image to a PDF file?". In some of my earlier articles, I wrote about converting a webpage into a PDF without installing any tool [option 1, option 2] and also manipulating existing PDF file(s) like merging, splitting, etc with an absolutely free tool.

Today, I just chanced upon toPDF. toPDF provides the capability to convert text documents, presentations, spreadsheets and images to PDF format. Some of its attractiveness include free service and needless to install any tool onto your PC since it is web-based. This free service supports up to 5 files (25Mb max).

10 Tips For An Effective User Experience UX Debrief Meeting

How should one conduct an effective user experience (UX) debrief meeting such that all stakeholders in the team can benefit from and do better in the next round? Userfocus offers 10 practitioner tips for running an effective UX debrief meeting.

1. Don’t wing it. Prepare thoroughly. Have a plan.
2. Don’t think of the debrief as a wrap-up meeting — think of it as a springboard to the next step. And make sure UX is part of the next step.
3. Co-chair the meeting with a lead member of the project team.
4. Make sure the main decision-makers attend.
5. Don't give a PowerPoint presentation, and don’t rehash the report. If you have 60 minutes talk for 20 minutes, then discuss for 40 minutes.
6. Insist that attendees must read the report and prepare comments and questions.
7. Before you summarize the study findings, ask the team to share what they learned from the study, what surprised them and what usability issues they feel are most important or most serious.
8. Simplify your message. Focus on just the 5 most severe usability problems. Don’t overwhelm the team by trying to cover everything (they can check the report for those details).
9. Get consensus on the problems rather than argue over solutions.
10. Don’t expect or insist that everything must be fixed. Focus next steps on things that can realistically be changed within the budget and timeline.

» The UX debrief: A tale of two meetings | Userfocus

Comprehensive and Complete Guide to Facebook Ads

Read The Complete Guide to Getting Started with Facebook Ads by Buffer Blog. Very comprehensive.

Security Practices When Making Calls to Server From Client Side

With HTML5 getting more widely adopted and more application logic done on client side, better (a different type) security should be considered to mitigate risk. Nettuts+ discussed some of the measures that can be deployed for just that. The topics are:

• Don’t Even Think About HTTP
• Make XSS Less Harmful With Content Security Policy
• Use Cross Origin Resource Sharing Instead of JSONP
• Sandbox Potentially Harmful Iframes

» Client-Side Security Best Practices | Nettuts+

Outlook.com launches automated tool to migrate from Gmail

Microsoft is continuing its attack on Google by launching an automated tool to migrate Gmail to its very own web-based Outlook.com (successor of hotmail.com).

The blog post claims emails, contacts, labels and even calendars can be imported. Immediately after the import is completed, Microsoft will send an email notification to your inbox.

Though I am not a fan of Outlook.com, I thought I should give the tool a try one day for curiosity sake.

The Essentials of Writing High Quality JavaScript

Nettuts+ wrote an article on some of the essentials of writing high quality JavaScript. It is largely based on a book "JavaScript Patterns" written by Stoyan Stefanov. Though lengthy, I strongly recommend it.