Heroku. Build, test and deploy Rails apps without ever leaving Firefox. Wow, what an app. If this had been around 3 years ago, all those hours and days of frustration getting a server up and running (again!) or updating my local environment (again!) could have instead been used to do productive design and development.
Five historical blog posts. “HOWTO: Some Guy Compares Thee to a Summer Day.”
In A better way to start a business “[a]uthor Scott Shane offers 10 tips to improve your odds of startup success” — among them “start with a team” (”half of new businesses are started by individuals, ‘even though the performance of new businesses founded by teams is better’”), “sell to businesses, not consumers” (”90% of the fastest growing private companies in this country sell to businesses”) and “form a corporation” (”new corporations outperform new sole proprietorships on almost every possible measure”).
James Edwards created a Doom/Wolfenstein 3D game walkthough using only CSS and Javascript. Impressive use of available technology or just a fun proof of concept?
Notes from last year’s Y Combinator Startup School that I’d never seen before.
Research time. Let’s do some book learning!
I ordered The Illusions of Entrepreneurship and Finding Fertile Ground, both by Scott Shane, from Amazon today. Really looking forward to reading them.
I just AppDeleted TextMate. Felt good. Long live Coda!
I’ve just recently come to realize that trying to create a truly profitable business out of web design is futile. Whether it’s freelance, conferences and education, or something like Weebly, it’ll never be anything more than a feature of a successful business — never a business in and of itself. I’ve got to understand that.
How can America’s rich teach their children the value of a dollar?
Susan Bradley, founder of the Sudden Money Institute, once ran a forum for wealthy parents at which one of them reported that their child was paying the housekeeper to make his bed. “And everyone thought this was hilarious and very enterprising, showing early business capabilities and that kind of thing,” says Bradley.
Also this bit struck me:
“[R]esearch on rich adults shows they’re far more likely to feel friendless than poor ones. “Think about it,” says Luthar. “How does any of us know we’re loved by friends? It’s when they come to us in a time of need. If we don’t have a time of need because we buy what we need, how are we going to know who truly loves us?”
Lots of other interesting points about Gates and Buffett planning to hand down only very small fortunes to their children, comparing Manhattan to the United Arab Emirates, etc.
The only curse everyone wishes upon themselves — the curse of wealth.
Weekend Plans. “We have a membership at Gymboree with guest passes!”
“God is a hot niche category on the Internet right now …” God, I hope he’s kidding.
The Email Standards Project and its accompanying article on Vitamin Ensuring your HTML emails look great and get delivered.
Web designers, speak softly and carry a great portfolio.
Ever notice how the web designers who talk and write the most do the least amount of great work? And those — you’ve heard of — who talk the least can do truly amazing stuff? Odd that.
I launched the Design Deadline redesign/realign today. You can read more about it here.
Foamee. I’ve come to the conclusion that Dan’s work consistently stands out because he really is having fun with it. It’s that simple.
Hrm, this Alter Your Temple site looks awfully familiar. Just a tip, Ryan Nalepinski, you probably shouldn’t sign your name to designs you’ve stolen.
Thanks to screenfluent and light on dark for featuring the new design. Things are probably still a little buggy, but thanks for stopping by.
New Vitamin article: How will OpenID change your site?