A collection of Rails links
This is a nice step-by-step article on integrating
PayPal with your Rails application, using
ActiveMerchant.
I’ve only skimmed over the new features in the upcoming 2.0 release of
Rails, but this looks like one of the nicest features. This is a good
explanation of how it works and why it’s useful.
A bugfix release of Mongrel is out. Looks like 1.1 is due soon, and it
looks interesting:
“Mongrel 1.1 is coming real soon now with JRuby support and a few
other things.”
Being a bit of an Emacs junky, I’m not sure how I missed this. Looks
mature, and very functional, and almost TextMate-like. The link has a
nice flash video of Emacs on Rails in action.
Sitepoint’s book “Build Your Own Ruby on Rails Web Applications” is now
free, at least for the next month. I’ve only skimmed it, but it looks
like a decent introduction, and the price is certainly right.
I will be at the SEED Conference in
Chicago on Monday. If you’re reading this, and you’re going as well…
say “Hi” in the comments below :)
:http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385512058?ie=UTF8&tag=approachingno-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0385512058
Geeks are, generally speaking, much better with technology than people -
I’m no different. But the fact is your ability to build and maintain
relationships with other people will take you farther in life than any
technical skill you can acquire. For a lot of people, myself included,
these are just not skills that come naturally. Fortunately for us, this
book was written. Never Eat
Alone
does a very good job of explaining the hows and whys of developing and
maintaining relationships over the long term. The book is a quick read,
but explains very well some important concepts of “networking” (I term I
don’t care much for, but that’s neither here nor there). Mr. Ferrazzi
discusses why it’s important to build a network of associates, and
then immediately delves into the the how. He also explains how to
leverage your network when you need to, like looking for that new job,
or when you need the help of a friend of a friend of a friend to close a
big deal. This book is written in a casual style, and is peppered with
real-world examples of what works and what doesn’t. If developing and
maintaining relationships with people is not something that comes
naturally to you, then you need to read Never Eat
Alone
:http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0785281126?ie=UTF8&tag=approachingno-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0785281126
John Maxwell is one of the best authors on the topic of leadership.
Developing The Leader Within
You
is easily the best book I’ve read on leadership. Mr. Maxwell covers how
to develop influence with people, creating positive change, problem
solving, and developing people - among other things. If you were to only
read one book on the subject of leadership, this is the one I would
recommend. Developing The Leader Within
You
covers the fundamentals of leadership, does it well, and does it in an
easy to read manner. If you are (or aspire to be) a leader, you need to
read this book.
:http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1590597141/104-3429296-6459107?ie=UTF8&tag=approachingno-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=1590597141
This book is, very simply, a collection of interviews with the founders
of successfull internet companies, such as
del.icio.us, 37Signals,
Craigslist, Flickr,
and more. As such, it’s easy to read this book in small chunks - most
interviews are only 3-4 pages long. It was written by Sarah
Livingston, who is one of
the founding partners at Y-Combinator, best
known as “that VC firm Paul Graham runs” (Paul is one of the interviews
in this book, naturally).
I really enjoyed reading this book. It gives a rarely-seen perspective
on what it’s like in the early days of a startup. If you’re interested
in starting a startup of your own (or even joining one), buy this
book
- it’s always better to learn from other people’s mistakes.
Note: The links to Amazon are affiliate links. If you buy a book, or
anything else (need a copy of OS X -
Leopard
or a MacBook
Pro
to run it on?), I get a small commission. You too, can help feed my book
addiction :)
Marc Andreesen has written a very good series
of articles on career planning that is worth a read, regardless of
whether you are just starting college or have been working for decades.
Marc has a lot of good thoughts on how to choose a career, a college,
and a job. He then goes on to explain his ideas around what skills you
need to develop to be succesfull.
The series so far contains three articles:
The Pmarca Guide to Career Planning, part 1:
Opportunity
“Instead of planning your career, focus on developing skills and
pursuing opportunities.”
That quote pretty much sums up this article.
The Pmarca Guide to Career Planning, part 2: Skills and
education This one
has some good advice on choosing colleges and majors, but the real
wisdom is in his advice on which skills you need to have, regardless of
your chosen field. I won’t spoil it for you (seriously, go read
it), but Marc
really nails the key skills and why they are important.
The Pmarca Guide to Career Planning, part 3: Where to go and
why The final
article in the series discusses how to choose the place to work, not
only in the sense of which company, but where (domestic vs.
international). Marc discusses the different types of companies you can
work for and why you would want to work there. Marc has a bias towards
small high-tech startups (surprise!), but does discuss other types of
companies, as well as starting your own.
That’s all he has written (for now). All in all, there is a lot of good
advice in these articles. Read them yourself and then pass them along.
Paul Graham has a new article up called
Stuff:
I first realized the worthlessness of stuff when I lived in Italy for
a year. All I took with me was one large backpack of stuff. The rest
of my stuff I left in my landlady’s attic back in the US. And you know
what? All I missed were some of the books. By the end of the year I
couldn’t even remember what else I had stored in that attic.
And yet when I got back I didn’t discard so much as a box of it. Throw
away a perfectly good rotary telephone? I might need that one day.
On a related note, Paul’s site now has comments, which is a first.
They’re powered by Disqus, which is a Y
Combinator funded site. The comments look
nice, and it supports threading and some advanced functionality like
forums.
Fake Steve Jobs has been
outed.
It’s Daniel Lyons, a Senior Editor at Forbes. He was outed by Brad
Stone of the NY
Times
.
I had always suspected it was a journalist or writer of some sort - the
writing quality was too good to be a random schmo.
An assortment of tasty distractions.
A fun collection of classy
insults. Here
are a couple of choice ones:
“A modest little person, with much to be modest about.” - Winston
Churchill
“I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with
great pleasure.” -Clarence Darrow
What 120 calories looks like.
Nice reminder. Via Jeremy Zawodny
A productivity tip from Jerry
Seinfeld
I really didn’t believe this until I read it. Good advice.
YUI 2.3.0: Six New Components and a Prettier
Face
“We’re pleased to announce today the release of YUI version 2.3.0.
This release features six new additions to the library as well as a
new skinning architecture and a new visual treatment for most of our
UI controls. All of this, plus 250 enhancements and bug fixes, is
available for download immediately.”
One of the notable additions is a rich-text editor that is stated to
work well across all of the YUI “A” browsers.
I have a few articles I want to publish, but I’m holding off until I
have this site moved over to Slicehost. In
the meantime, here’s a kottke - style list of
random things that have caught my eye lately.
How to Charm a
Woman
I am(thankfully) long past dating, but just because you’ve convinced her
to marry you doesn’t mean you don’t still need to charm her.
How YouTube
scales
Summary of a Google Tech
Talk on
how YouTube scaled, both pre and post
acquisition. With the massive storage requirements (they have servers
dedicated just to serving thumbnails), this is certainly not a typical
scaling story.
Catch The Best
Catch The Best is a new “applicant tracking
and ranking system” from Ben Curtis, who is
fairly well known in the Rails community. This looks promising. Ben is
also looking for sample
resumes
to test his system out.
The Brand Called
You
10 year old article by Tom Peters on the
importance of developing a personal brand. Still very relevant.
Just seen on
TechCrunch:
Why are you people searching for Britney Spears!? She is hardly the
eye candy she once was so I just don’t understand how she has topped
Yahoo’s most popular search terms for the fifth time in six years
but is appears that the flashing, divorcing baby mama has.
Tonight at 9 p.m. PST, Yahoo will release their most popular search
terms of 2006. In the top five are Britney, WWE, Shakira, Jessica
Simpson, and Paris Hilton.
This makes me want to cry.
So, how’s Microsoft’s iPod killer being received? The Sun Times’ Andy
Ihnatko sums it
up:
Result: The Zune will be dead and gone within six months. Good
riddance.
Yeah, what he said. I’ve not seen a positive review of this thing yet.
And the junior marketing flunky who came up with “squirting” as the
metaphor for transferring content wirelessly needs to find another line
of work. It just sounds dirty. Like you could get slapped for saying it
out loud in mixed company.
It’s possible that version 2.0 of the Zune may redeem itself (this is a
Microsoft product after all), but it seems unlikely. What seems a lot
more likely is that this will go down in history as a “what were they
thinking” event.
My suspicion is that the people at Apple laughed
hard when they first saw this thing. For something that was touted as an
iPod killer, it amounts to little more than a paper cut.