Productivity

I came across an interesting productivity hack the other day. As programmers, we (try) to use Unit Testing as a way to ensure my software is running correctly. Edward O'Conner, inspired by Michael Wallace, came up with a list of Personal Unit Tests he runs daily.

I decided to jump on the bandwagon as well. I've put together a simple spreadsheet to help me track my progress, and I've also copied in all of Edward's and Micahel's Unit Tests to use as inspiration for creating my own.  read more »

Thanks for the feedback on the first part of 'How I build an application' that I published two days ago.

The day after writing that post, I had a meeting with a client and I am starting an addon to an existing application for them. During the meeting, which lasted about 2 and 1/2 hours, I thought about what I had written the previous night. Here I was spending time laying out details of a business process with a client, discussing pro's and con's, when I had just written that I mostly guess at this stuff!

Well, I figured I should come clean. It took me another 48 hours to figure out that I really was still guessing. The meeting really came down to discussing the business process, or The Vision rather then the actual implementation of the project. In fact, because I know this client pretty well after working with them for over 2 years, they don't really care about the implementation.  read more »

The Hive Co-op is a place where freelancers and entrepreneurs can come together and work in a collaborative environment. It's part Internet Cafe and part Executive Office. Check out the FAQ at http://hivecoop.pbwiki.com/FAQ.

I've actually been looking at Executive Offices lately when Nate sent this over. The offices I could afford were dumps. The offices I wanted were too expensive and closed off. As I mentioned before, I am very interested in finding places where I can be productive. From the looks of it, the Hive might be the ticket. It opens April 1st in downtown Denver.

Thanks to Nate for the link.

UPDATE: A reporter from the Denver Business Journal published an article about the hive and it includes a quote from me. Needless to say, I was shocked.

The Hive hopes to gather busy bees with new concept

Well, rather then doing any more research, I just went out and bought a backpack yesturday.  More on that in a second. First, I'd like to say thanks to Alex and Nate for emailing me suggestions.  I also realized that I had turned comments off on my blog, which I immediately remembered doing because of an excessive amount of spam.   Now, back to the pack.  I ended up purchasing a REI brand daypack called the Lookout.  The large weighs in at a hefty 2500 cubic inches.  After spending some time looking at the other packs in my price range, this one fit the best.  I've had it less then 24 hours so I don't feel I can make a good review just yet.  Perhaps I will write one later. I normally don't make purchases this fast.  However, the need was huge here, so I had to do something.  Part of the reason I went to REI was because of their excellent return policy and the fact that I drive by their flagship store almost every day.   

Well, the laptop briefcase my wife bought me finally broke this weekend.  As I was walking into the house, the metal ring attaching the shoulder strap to my bag broke.  Unfortunately, this makes this bag effectively useless to me. 

I'm not too dissappointed, I have been wanting a new one.  So, the search is on.  If you have any suggestions for a good bag, please email me on my feedback page.

First, requirements. 

• The bag needs to be able to handle a laptop, I guess that is fairly obvious.  What might not be so obvious is that it needs to handle different sizes of laptops, I typically carry two different laptops depending on the situation.  My third (and oldest) laptop rarely gets carried around.  read more »

The guys over at http://www.wintabber.com finally released their software!  The best thing about the new WinTabber is that I can now tab my PuTTY windows!  I just downloaded and installed it.  My five minute impression is that it completely rocks!!!  In addition to cleaning up my task bar, I can now keep my fingers on the keyboard.  Keeping my fingers on my keyboard is a key area of productivity for me, so this is exciting. Enough talking, go check them out.  read more »

It's not often that I would consider using three (yes, three) exclamation points in a title, but today I could have almost used four.  Dries announced at 4:25AM MST that Drupal 4.7 has gone gold.  This is very exciting, I've been waiting for this release for a LONG time. Way to go everyone. What makes this even better is that I'm going to be presenting at the Denver Drupal meetup tomorrow night.  I'll be able to use the 4.7 branch to install a full website!  Talk about releasing just in time! http://drupal.org/drupal-4.7.0 Technorati Tags: drupal

Slacker Manager once again puts up a great post about slacking at work.  I particularly like this one because other's perception of me at work never equals the effort I feel I put in.  I feel like an incredible slacker, yet I am perceived as one of the most hard-working and capable individuals on my team.  Read on for an interesting take on this concept. Slacker Manager: The Slacker Equation 

Alex King's FeedLounge service announced it will enter public BETA on January 16, 2006! This is exciting news and I wish Alex and Scott the best.

When it comes to relationships, it can feel like you are traversing a minefield at times.  But, who created those mines?   Usually, by the time I realize that the apprehension I start to feel from a relationship comes only from me, I've missed a golden opportunity. Keith Ferrazzi makes some excellent points about this topic in a recent blog post.  Keith wrote a book titled "Never Eat Alone - and other secrets to success, one relationship at a time". I believe that relationships are a fundamental key to success.  I can't count the number of people I've met, then let slip from my address book.  Does a system exist to track your communications with friends, the emails you send, the phone conversations you have?  The closest thing I've found is a CRM system, but I think that is geared too much towards driving the relationship into a profit-making sale.  Who knows, this might be a great opportunity for some home grown code in the future.