When you’re working on managing and pushing live various site each month, it’s not always easy to break away to read about the happenings of your industry.
I don’t think it’s neccessary for me to go into how quickly things change in the web/app development world, but you can only imaging how much a week or more will set you back.
It’s important to not only know what’s going on within the community but to also contribute to it. This is something that’s been hard for me over the last part of the year. So when vacation comes along, I pack my bags mostly full of books and make sure my RSS reader is fully refreshed and I stick my nose in as many books and articles possible.
This vacation was helpful for getting quite a bit of reading done and I still have a few days.
I finished a fantastic book by Danial Pink called A Whole New Mind which talks about moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age. I can’t begin to explain how valuable this book was for me along with a great resource for new inspiration.
Along with finishing A Whole New Mind, I caught up on the monthly Treehouse Magazine which has great articles and tutorials on a variety of new web trends and philosophy.
I also got a chance to dig pretty deep into Agile Web Development with Rails which is a book I borrowed/stole from Dan Morrison. For those that have been keeping up with my blog, we’re using this language and framework to develop 7dots.
If that weren’t enough, I’m right now finishing this months Business 2.0 magazine along with 300ish blog posts currently sitting in my news reader.
I can’t express how good it is to get so much reading done. Later this week I have plans to pick up Blue Like Jazz and possible start Velvet Elvis which was given to my by Mark Tanis earlier this year to read and discuss.
So what have you found yourself doing this holiday season?
posted on December 26, 2005| 1:33 PM EST
7dots is an absolutely fun project to be working on. We’re all learning new things and beating our heads over the little details. We’ve had plans to setup a blog to discuss what we’re working on but with DNS issues and holiday schedules, we haven’t had a chance until now to get one setup.
So check out the new 7dots blog. It’s pretty basic but things will chance once we figure out the product brand. For now, it’s a basic install of Typo (a blog developed with Ruby on Rails).
posted on December 24, 2005| 9:22 AM EST
I’ve been sitting in a running car, out front of Bollo’s Coffee shop, for almost an hour now siphoning WIFI. I was inside drinking coffee and enjoying the atmosphere earlier but after closing at 10pm instead of their origional midnight hour (due to holiday hours), my internet time was cut short.
So Phil Taylor and I are spending our coffee money on gas to heat a car and letting our Powerbook G4 laptops use ever last drip of energy possible.
This is a sick addition and one I hope never stops. I now have 13 minutes left.
posted on December 20, 2005| 10:55 PM EST
Jodi and I (and Jessica) are finally on vacation in Blacksburg, VA visiting some friends.
It’s hard for me to take vacations, I’m a work-a-holic and the thought of stopping in the middle of a busy time just seems insane. A few days of vacation however completely changes how I look at the world and I quickly come to the conclusion that I don’t need my job and all the stress it brings. I should quit all those things that I don’t want to do and begin traveling - all the while working on things that are fun and hopefully profitable.
Right now I’m working on a plan to work remotely but I’ll probably end of coming back because I have to. This is officially, “day one” of vacation so we’ll have to see how strong the urge gets.
If Jodi had her way, we’d move away - I just need to figure out how to make money while being out of Holland.
posted on December 19, 2005| 4:44 PM EST
As you may have already noticed, things are changing here on theParagon site. I’m just getting sick of the design and decided to remove everything from my CSS file.
I’m starting over and will be doing it in front of everyone. Things may start our rather boring but it will hopefully get better (although I can’t promise when).
The main rule I’m keeping for myself while redesigning the site is to not touch any of the HTML. I’m only allowed to touch the CSS files.
Why am I doing it that way? I’m mostly curious if I can, that’s all.
As for ideas - I have no clue as to how it will look when I’m done. If you have suggestions, feel free to let me know.
posted on December 10, 2005| 2:39 PM EST
