At We Are Ronin, we enjoy sharing our work, our ideas, and even our most perplexing programming problems (oh snap!). Sometimes though, we get so caught up in the writing process that we miss out on opportunities to improve our site in other ways such as fixing bugs, adding new software and improving the design.

Today we are introducing a new series of articles called "The Fives" which is meant to help us achieve 3 primary goals:

• Share our experiences (work, ideas, problems, etc)
• Keep our articles targeted, concise and easy to read
• Optimize our time instead of crafting long paragraphs and correcting typos

Just three weeks ago we released our weather widget (Weather by W.a.R) as a Google gadget. Just before launch we defined some general goals and a loose release schedule for future updates. In that very short time our predictions, projections and goals have all been completely shattered leaving us only one choice... release version 1.1 early!

Before we talk features though, lets talk numbers.  In three weeks we've reached several milestones well ahead of our projected schedule.

• 10,000+ Unique Visitors (3/11/2009)
• 25,000+ Page Views (3/11/2009)
• 1,500+ Unique Visitors in a single day (3/9/2009)

We've successfully delivered weather conditions and forecasts to over 10,000 people in more than 600 different regions around the world largely in part to our wonderful fans on Blogspot.

January and February of this year have been very active. We've been working hard to get new content, functionality and software added to the site and the response has been great. In March, we're trying to keep the momentum up.  Here's a sneak peek at what's in store for March 2009 at WeAreRonin.com.

• Google Gadget Release - Weather by W.a.R (version 1.1)
• Fresh Content
• New Software Release - EfxSlideShow for Actionscript 3.0
• Anything else we can find time for...

Since the release of our Weather by W.a.R Google gadget a few weeks ago, we are spending a lot of time in Google Analytics learning as much as we can about...

• ...who's using it.
• ...how they are finding it.
• ...what they are doing with it.
• ...how we could draw even bigger crowds!

On any given day it's fun to dig around in Google Analytics for useful information about your web site traffic but when you throw a viral component into the mix (such as a Google gadget or Facebook plug-in) things can get exciting very quickly.

We Are Ronin is proud to announce the public launch of Weather by W.a.R in the Google Gadgets Library. If you've been looking for a fast, simple and compact weather widget for iGoogle, Blogger (Blogspot) or your own web site then look no further.  With a minimalist design, freeform search tool and several new features already in development, Weather by W.a.R could be exactly what you're looking for.

This real-time weather retrieval application is the first of many software releases we have planned for 2009. We hope you'll stay tuned in and help us improve our site and our software in the coming weeks and months.

We Are Ronin is proud to announce the public launch of Stocks by W.a.R in the Google Gadgets Library. If you've been looking for a fast, simple and compact stock tracker for iGoogle, Blogger (Blogspot) or your own web site then look no further.  With a minimalist design, easy one-touch controls and several new features already in development, Stocks by W.a.R could be exactly what you're looking for.

This stock tracker application is one of many software releases we have planned for 2009. We hope you'll stay tuned in and help us improve our site and our software in the coming weeks and months.

In a recent symfony project a client requested a robust search tool to help their users find what they were looking for quickly and easily.  Our solution was to implement the sfLucenePlugin which is powered by the very robust Zend Search Lucene library in the Zend Framework.  Installation and Customization was a snap thanks to the automation of symfony and the plugin documentation.

Over the next several weeks we beta tested the new search feature and didn't experience any problems.  After thorough testing by a few dozen users we decided that the application was ready for prime time.  It didn't take us long to regret that decision.

Within a few hours of launch a very nasty bug showed up and brought our entire application to it's knees.  No graceful recoveries, no helpful error messages, just a dead site.

Cookies are a common part of the internet today.  Used in web sites both large and small, cookies can help improve usability, track user behavior, store customized settings and much much more.  As useful as they are, not all web sites can be trusted to use cookies responsibly.  Some web sites use cookies to spy on their users and even worse, allow third-parties to place cookies on your computer without warning.

It’s true. As innocent as those little text files may seem, they greatly reduce your privacy on the internet by allowing web sites to keep track of what you are doing as you browse the web. In the most extreme cases cookies can also be used to exploit weaknesses in older browsers, leading to security problems.

WeAreRonin.com is a site created by web designers, software developers, photographers, marketers, search engine optimization experts and everyday people just like you.  We have an equal passion for both learning and teaching and our objective is to achieve both through our new site.

Our goal is to share links, tutorials, reviews and advice on a variety of topics including web design, open source software, programming, web development, search engine optimization, branding, graphic design, photography, and much much more.