September 2007
53 posts
Getting a startup right the second time →
If something isn’t working, you need to look back and figure out what got you excited in the first place.
patience
The capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble or suffering without getting angry or upset.
Login Form Design Patterns - a photoset on Flickr →
SDRuby Podcast :: Episode 023: RubyInline →
One of my presentations to the San Diego Ruby User Group. Basically, “Yes, RubyInline is that easy,” with a few misguided attempts at humor thrown in :-)
“Finish your outdoor work and get your fields ready; after that, build your...”
– Proverbs 24:27
200%
How does one give 100% time to two different clients at the same time? By just getting started. As a courtesy notice to my friends and readers, I am going to be a bit scarce the next two or three weeks.
Jay Parkinson, MD. A physician in Williamsburg,... →
Some very cool innovation in health care. House calls only combined with communication over phone, email and IM help this doctor keep costs low and quality of service very high. I want a doctor like this guy.
Amazon.com MP3 Downloads →
Popular music, classical music, new releases and more, in MP3 format. No DRM and cheaper than the iTunes Store. Sounds like a winner! I’m testing it out now with Dvorák 9.
Fruit of the Light →
My method for handling difficult projects?
Dear Me: Get to work | 43 Folders →
A helpful tip from the Getting Things Done devotees at 43 Folders: write more descriptively, as if you are delegating to someone else rather than merely deferring to yourself.
Well the thing I find most amazing
In amazing grace
Is the chance to give it out
Maybe that’s what love is all about
I wish you could see me now
I wish I could show you how
I’m not who I was
Brandon Heath - I’m Not Who I Was
7 reasons I switched back to PHP after 2 years on... →
If every why-I’m-not-using-Rails article made as much sense as this, the world would have a lot less to flame about. (But that’s probably not stopping anyone at Slashdot.) See also The Big Rewrite (via DHH’s response)
Stencil Revolution :: Bleach on fabric tutorial →
As if I didn’t already have enough ideas for cool art projects.
CSS Frameworks + CSS Reset: Design From Scratch →
Great roundup on CSS frameworks, their advantages and their disadvantages.
WatchFinale to the most epic Facebook comment thread ever.
“We want to make sure the solution is less confusing than the problem.”
– Rob Kaufman
Semantic Web: Difficulties with the Classic... →
So the challenge is to formulate the end user value in ways that will resonate with people.
12 essential facts, formulas, and photographic... →
Matt points out why I need some Ambition in my life (or, well, in my programming).
focus!
Back and at it in San Diego. Thank the Lord that Disk Utility fixed my broken OS X partition without any real hassle, saving me 8-10 hours of mind-numbing maintenance. You can be sure I’m running some extra backups!
Finding myself too worn out from the drive to settle in properly, I spent the evening socializing with friends and playing around with my new Zoom H4. Its audio quality is...
“As a designer, wherever possible, I avoid drop-down menus.”
– Jeffrey Zeldman 29 June 2004
Why I Don't Like Drop Down Menus
You probably don’t really have that much data and would be better served to simplify and streamline what you do have.
It’s harder to hit a moving target. Two decisive clicks can actually be faster than precision targeting.
Shove stuff in a drawer and you make it harder to find. Guide your users one click at a time, don’t force them think or look around.
How is anyone...
Drawing Parallels in Proportions →
Courtney’s last blog post was two months ago, but it was a doozy. Maybe she’ll write again soon… (nudge, nudge)
Styling File Inputs with CSS and the DOM →
For my own future reference.
What single book is the best introduction to your... →
Here’s a decent reading list. For the next eight years.
Schedule disciplining
Early morning: Project management: correspond, touch bases, review next action lists, send email and participate in meetings.
Late morning: Do some writing then brew some coffee and spend a couple hours putting out fires and tackling the big, ugly tasks. Or just keep rolling with a productive morning meeting.
Early afternoon: Sheer, in-the-zone productivity to meet this week’s...
Bloom Filters →
are a data structure that can be used to compactly represent a very large set of items. Rapleaf released a Ruby library.
Apple - Support - Discussions - Boot Camp hosed my... →
Yikes! Mine too! PTL for subversion, web based tools and backups, but it looks like I’m working in Windows until I get home and have the tools at hand to reformat :-(
Miwa in HK: Called, or Open Door...? →
My friend Maria writes on a subject I’ve been thinking about a lot the last week or two.
I realized that while I have been called clearly to do some things, there are… opportunities where a door has opened, and I have had the choice to walk through and take part, or not.
I just checked off my last to-do items for the week. That felt really good. I’ve recently rediscovered Highrise for helping to keep track of it all. I wasn’t busy enough to appreciate it when it was first released, but the way it groups tasks by time is really great if only because I can tell at a glance when I am done for the day.
Good Mourning: Learning to dance again →
When some part of our life that we prize suffers a death, that piece of us that attached us to it may die as well… . By grieving those pieces of our lives that have died, we recognize their importance as a part of our lives and say a proper goodbye to them.
Life lessons learned while teaching algebra
Start with what you’ve got. Write it all down so you can get a good look at it.
Not sure how to get where you want to go? Start by simplifying what you’ve got.
Don’t think too hard, just take it one step at a time.
New web site for Hoefler & Frere-Jones →
Their browser fonts of choice? Lucida Grande, Lucida Sans, Verdana, Georgia, Helvetica, Arial. (Via Kottke)
Kottke is back at it →
Funny how you don’t really notice when something good is gone until it’s back.
Amusing Coincidence
Nick Zadrozny is still wondering how exactly one might quantize fantasticness. 48m ago
Polo Gore is fantastic. Seriously. 23h ago
Amusing coincidence from Ariell’s Facebook news feed.
Vlad the Deployer — Sample Recipe
Here’s a recipe I’m using right now for a site of mine. It really is this easy—once you figure out what goes where. Note that I did need to dig in to Vlad and patch an issue or two (mongrel variables and web_command) but I’m told a fix is on the way.
My favorite part is the custom symlink_assets and deploy tasks to get around the lack of Capistrano style “after”...
What Would You Do If You Had Nothing To Do? →
Pretty much what I’m doing now, plus some of the things I want to be doing now. Wait, does that make too much sense?
7 Habits of Highly Ineffective People →
Guilty x 7.
1 Corinthians 15:58 →
Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
Evaluating e-whiteboards
http://vyew.com/
Long and kindof annoying signup process.
Multiple account tiers, free account has ads.
Email account validation.
Can manage lots of different “books” and pages.
Graphics are a little bit laggy.
Most robust?
http://www.skrbl.com/
Drops you right into a whiteboard, no signup.
Doesn’t support Camino? Crashes Firefox? IE only?
No Mac support = deal...
Lindsay the Prophet
Nick: i could see myself living in seattle and putting together a discipleship group with them
Nick: my pastoral calling chomping at the bit, i guess
Lindsay: ok. LIVE IN SEATTLE.
Lindsay: that's what god wants.
Lindsay: will you submit to his will?
Nick: "Ah heahd from onn hiighuh -- a worrrrd from the Lawd!"
Lindsay: the destiny is in your hands
Lindsay: hahaha
Lindsay: yess
Lindsay: hark! the harkson says you must stay here
Nick: Wilt thou Hearken unto the Son?
1 John 2:15-16 →
Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world.
“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily...”
– Jesus of Nazareth (Luke 9:23)
CouchDb →
The next generation of web storage? A “document database system” that doesn’t enforce any particular schema and uses a RESTful JSON interface. Intended to be highly flexible and massively scalable on commodity hardware. Worth keeping an eye on. Besides, hey, it’s written in Erlang. (Via Tobi.)