September 2011
2 posts
Your attention please →
Jason from 37signals writes that he thinks time was his most limited resource but highlighted the difference between giving your time vs your attention.
How many of us give(sell) our time to our employer? Are we giving our attention that whole time?
How does this change when you work for yourself or if your compensation is tied directly to your performance (which we assume requires your...
Do Happier People Work Harder? Yes! →
“Working adults spend more of their waking hours at work than anywhere else. Work should ennoble, not kill, the human spirit. Promoting workers’ well-being isn’t just ethical; it makes economic sense. Fostering positive inner lives sometimes requires leaders to better articulate meaning in the work for everyone across the organization. Sometimes, all that’s required is that managers address...
July 2011
1 post
The VersaPay Team and I in the news! →
An interview about how VersaPay can improve cashflow & sustainability while reducing cheque fraud.
May 2011
4 posts
Why the groupon copycat business models don't make...
In the late 1500s, tulips were introduced to Holland. The flower was considered so rare that wealthy aristocrats and merchants tripped over themselves to buy them.
Speculation ensued and the flower became wildly overvalued.
In 1637 the tulip trade crashed.
People who thought of themselves as extremely rich were reduced to poverty overnight. Trends are temporary.
Don’t just do something...
Is a Well-Lived Life Worth Anything?
“The economy we have today will let you chow down on a supersize McBurger, check derivative prices on your latest smartphone, and drive your giant SUV down the block to buy a McMansion on hypercredit”
an outcomes gap: a yawning chasm the size of the Grand Canyon between what our economy produces and what you might call a meaningfully well-lived life, what the ancient Greeks...
“When Steve comes into his office and his garbage can is full, he stays late and...”
“You know how you can tell when you’ve made a good decision? If you feel...”
–
Jason Fried is co-founder of 37signals, a Chicago-based software firm, and co-author of the book Rework, which was published last March.
http://www.inc.com/magazine/20110501/jason-fried-how-to-hire-an-assistant.html
March 2011
2 posts
“3 questions Coudal asks before deciding to take on a project:
Can we make...”
– Coudal Partners
“They are not new lessons. Never owe any money you can’t pay tomorrow morning....”
– Warren Buffett’s answer to “What are the key lessons you took from the financial crisis?”
February 2011
1 post
“Ultimately, the best test of any product is to go to your target market and...”
– One of the entrepreneurs profiled by Saras Sarasvathy in “How Great Entrepreneurs Think.” Among Inc. 500 CEOs, 60 percent had not written business plans before launching their companies and just 12 percent had done market research, according to the article.
January 2011
7 posts
To create positive change, don't make rules focus...
Facebook has cut spam by 97% in the past year. An impressive feat even for a tech company with their vast resources.
Facebook defined spam as anything that shows up in your feed that you don’t really want to see. Remember all those farmville messages?
How would the company or government of yesterday deal with this? The US would declare war on it, Canada would cook up a bunch of poorly...
“You know what we’ve found? Magical things happen when employees know they’ll get...”
– Un-Manage Your Employees, an article for My Business by yours truly on the self-managing teams at 37signals.
“We live in a world of action driven by thoughts from our head; yet we are...”
iWallet Payments here sooner than you think
Now we have a hint: Another new Apple patent suggests an iPhone (or iPad, etc) could get a second SIM tray-like port on one side, into which you’d slip the little golden chip segment from a modern credit card. The neatness of this idea is impressive: All the credit card makers need do is slightly modify their existing cards so you could pop-out the chip in the same way you do when you get a...
Testing copy with google adwords
I was inspired by Tim Ferris’ technique for testing potential titles for his new book using google adwords.
He took 6 prospective titles that everyone could live with: including ‘Broadband and White Sand’, ‘Millionaire Chameleon’ and ‘The 4-Hour Workweek’ and developed a Google Adwords campaign for each. He bid on keywords related to the book’s content including ‘401k’ and ‘language...
December 2010
1 post
How to achieve your new years resolutions.
Based on my research this year here is my advice:
1. Do not say them to anyone. Research shows that the effect of your brain mistaking the saying for the doing is stronger than the social obligation created by announcing your plans.
2. Start as soon as you come up with your ideas as any cognitive dissonance you exhibit now will carry into the new year and foil your positive habit building...
November 2010
1 post
Ubuntu boot time scripts with etc/init.d
I wanted to collect some of my learnings on how ubuntu/debian manages scripts at boot time.
First, /etc/rcRUN-LEVEL.d/NNname is a series of directories that are symlinked to the /etc/init.d/name actual boot script.
So, if you want a service or program to run at boot time first create the script at /etc/init.d/servicename and chmod it to be executable. You can find an example at ...
October 2010
1 post
How to add disk space to a ubuntu machine with lvm
Add the additional physical disk
sudo pvcreate /dev/sdb
sudo vgextend ubuntu /dev/sdb
sudo lvextend /dev/ubuntu/root
sudo resize2fs /dev/ubuntu/root
September 2010
1 post
How to Fix error while loading shared libraries:...
Having an error ./compx: error while loading shared libraries: libstdc++-libc6.2-2.so.3: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory when trying to run a 32 bit program on a 64 bit Ubuntu machine?
If so do
sudo apt-get install ia32-libs
wget http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/universe/g/gcc-2.95/libstdc++2.10-glibc2.2_2.95.4-24_i386.deb
dpkg —extract...
April 2010
1 post
March 2010
2 posts
wow good →
Gourmet organic vegetarian restaurant in toronto
June 2009
1 post
A Bash script for generating configuration files...
#define variables
MACADDRESS=$1
DISPLAYNAME=$3
DISPLAYNAME1=$4
DISPLAYNAME2=$5
EXTENSION=$2
FILENAME=”SIP$MACADDRESS.cnf”
FILENAME2=”SEP$MACADDRESS.cnf.xml”
#output
echo “line1_name:"$2"” 1>$FILENAME
echo “line1_authname:"$2"” 1»$FILENAME
echo “line1_shortname:"$2"” 1»$FILENAME
echo...
April 2009
1 post
this is the future of open source systems...
http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Getting Started
with chef…you create a chef repository which stores all of the cookbooks you’ve created.
A cookbook is everything that would need to be done to provision and prepare a server from bare metal to applicaiton deployed with capistrano.
February 2009
1 post
Even better, best ssh guide ever
http://www.webficient.com/2007/11/16/mac-and-ssh-keys
January 2009
6 posts
http://prawn.majesticseacreature.com/
Finally PDF generation that doesnt suck.
A Rails thankyou
Steve…Thanks. your article is awesome.
When you need to use a SSL encrypted form on a non SSL page
http://siannopollo.blogspot.com/2007/08/rails-and-ssl-https.html
Build your stack such that it can be deployed automatically. The greater the degree of automation the greater the long term benefit
http://github.com/crafterm/sprinkle/tree/master
Facinating look at the design process of the brightest internet geniuses out there http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1496-design-decisions-the-new-highrise-signup-chart#extended
All software projects should have a CI server.
http://ci.rubyonrails.org/
http://spattendesign.com/projects/synching-your-amazon-s3-asset-host-using-capistrano
this is so money…i can add a capistrano task to automatically sync my rails public directory to s3 to serve up static assets.
December 2008
7 posts
GIT Tutorials AMAZING
These are the best git tutorials i’ve ever seen…and they’re free. http://www.gitcasts.com/episodes Git interactive adding is now blowing my mind.
How to install the RubyGems 1.3.0 Update and MYSQL...
RubyGems Update
first, “sudo gem install rubygems-update”
second, “sudo gem update —system”
third, “sudo ruby update_rubygems”
fourth, “sudo gem update rails”
Mysql Update (MYSQL libraries are no longer included in Rails)
First type export ARCHFLAGS=”-arch i386” Then type sudo gem install mysql —...
How to configure a slicehost for SSH MYSQL...
You can tunnel MYSQL through SSH so that you do not have to expose your MYSQL server to the public internet. If you’re runnign IPTABLES, however, you’ll need the following rule to permit connections originating from localhost to port 3306
iptables -I INPUT -j ACCEPT -s 127.0.0.1/32 -p tcp —dport 3306
More on Form Design
50 - 75 % of the height of an input field between each question works best.
Where possible, remove global site navigation for critical forms such as checkout…reducing the number of ways people can exit out of the process.
For multi-page forms, consider ensuring you have a scope, position, and status.
Scope is an idea of the steps involved.
Position indicated where you are in the...
More best practices from Web Form Design
- For forms that natually break down into a few sections, a single webpage is the best option.
- For long forms, multiple web pages are a good way to organize the form.
- When a form contains a large numebr of questions but they’re all related to a single topic, one long webpage is usually best.
- Consider asking optional questions only once a form is completed.
- Look to web...
Best Practices for Form Design
Best Practices:
- Review every question and ask “do I have to ask this? or can I infer it some automated way?”
- “Strive for succinctness” in all questions/labels
- When short labels may be confusing…use natural language to clarify questions.
- Ensure forms speak with a single voice.
- Organzie content into logical groups.
- Structure forms as a conversation.
...
Promote vigorous and informed debate in this domain as in all others. The worst prohibition, after all, is a prohibition on thinking.
November 2008
1 post
Ryan’s thoughts on making your products and services easy to buy.
Distribution, Resellers, District Sales Managers, Representatives have a place in corporate north america….just not my corporate north america.
When I want to buy something from your company, please do not:
- Make me have to call someone to find out what it costs.
- Call you to order something. If I want to buy...
October 2008
5 posts
Slashdot | Greenspan Tells Congress Bad Data Hurt...
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/23/2212208&from=rss Ryan Wilson OnePipe Communications Inc. t.778.786.2222 c.604.716.2222 www.OnePipe.ca
Open source projects from http://www.thoughtbot.com/projects
Shoulda
The Shoulda Rails plugin is an eclectic set of additions to the Test::Unit framework that makes writing tests a breeze.
Paperclip
Paperclip is a plugin for Ruby on Rails’ Active Record that lets files work as simply as any other attributes do.
Financial Machines →
Quote from Warren Buffet
“this is an economic pearl harbour and I don’t mean to be melowdramatic. I’ve never used that phrase before” —PBS Charlie Rose October 2008
Passwordless SSH
How to have happy Passwordless SSH Access to your servers.
1. edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config on your server and ensure the following two lines are set:
RSAAuthentication yes
PubkeyAuthentication yes
2. on your client workstation generate your SSH keys if you havn’t done before with ssh-keygen
*just press enter and leave your passphrase blank*
3. copy the file on your client machine...
September 2008
17 posts
nice buttons without images →
Anyone who has loaded a webpage on a wireless connection can appreciate thoughtful web development that minimizes the use of images.
a new mantra for my list….though shalt not use an image unless it is A. a photograph or B. there is truely no way for even the most godly css programmer to do it in css
some really great art
http://desktopography.net/
http://opencalais.com/tools
machine learning and semantic web
RDF web service
www.uservoice.com
Uservoice has setup a drop in web service that allows your users to provice feedback on how to make your service more useful and get concensus on what that means. Respond to your users.
check it out
www.uservoice.com