Dev Tools for Quick Mockups

Just so that I don't forget about it now:

1. JSBin makes it easy to mockup some real HTML with some real JS and see the real result, then iterate through it with versioning.
2. BL.OCKS.org will take your Github gist and render it for viewing.  Here's the blurb:  "This is a simple viewer for code examples hosted on GitHub Gist. Code up an example using Gist, and then point people here to view the example and the source code, live!"

Color & Git Branch in your BASH Prompt

This one will be easy.  Place this into your .bash_profile:

This defines a function called "parse_git_branch", which reads the symbolic reference for the HEAD pointer (sending errors to /dev/null) and assigning the value to the "ref" variable.  Then, it echos the value of the variable, but filters out "refs/heads/" from the answer (See example 10.10 here at tldp.org)

After setting the value for some colors, it sets the first level prompt to print the current working directory in green and the git branch in yellow.

Voila

Test your webpages from outside of your domain

I love tools like Firebug and Chrome's Developer Tools.  But a tool originally developed at AOL and the open source has captured my attention:  Web Page Test does a great job of displaying all the nitty gritty details that are otherwise hard to get, such as DNS lookup time.  There are even developer tools with a RESTful API.

Highly Recommend

Scrum Planning Poker for the Distributed Team

I've taken on the role of Scrum Master for our team and wanted to get everyone participating in issue scoping with independent votes.  So I searched for a Planning Poker scoping tool for distributed teams. The one I like the best is Pointing Poker.

It's free, requires no login, is very easy to use and effective.

One person logs in and starts a new session.  That person then distributes the URL with the session identifier to the rest of the team (we use Skype).  Everyone else then visits the site and enters their name.  No user account, no registration, no nothing.  From there it is easy to clear the last vote, have everyone vote and see the results. Want to change your vote?  Simply click on a different value.

Kudos for an effective tool.  Hey Matt Ruwe, if you were to put a donate button so I could donate a few bucks, I would.