A video worth watching.
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Running a web application online is lots of fun and involves quite a lot of work. There are lots of advices online on how to go about building your application. The most repeated advice, which I come across is how features within the application matter less. The more I use web applications to get work done, the more I find this not to be true.
I have recently been using a lot of new web applications. From applications which worked quite well before, to now using application which had that extra feature which helped me work better. I recently switched from Campfire to HipChat because HipChat allowed for one - one messaging. It's the small things which makes people switch.
Features matter. Understand your audience and build your application around features you think they might need / use. This does not always mean less features, it means having the right features you users will need while using your application for them to work better.
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People who travel a lot and get work done have always fascinated me. I have been reading many blogs and stories of people who constantly travel around the country / world and still manage to be part of different projects and actively contribute to it.
My current work / life style allows me to work from any where. As long as I am contributing and getting things done, the location from where it happens is not a question being asked.
One of the things I wanted to do this year is travel a lot, having missed out on it the last year. Wheel are already in motion to to visit a few countries this year and I am accepting all invitations from friends to join them in their trips. Having refused a lot last year, a few were surprised, I was keen to join.
One of my major concerns right now is, the work quality going down due to the travel. But will the work quality suffer? I wouldn't know, until I attempt the journey. Having freelanced for four years now, from the same location, I am eager to see what change travelling brings to my productivity.
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Birthday's are a good time to reflect back on how the year has been. Most people reflect back during the end of the year, but I like doing it on birthday. Turning a year older, makes me want to look back and reflect on all that I did the previous year.
So here it goes, from 26 to 27.
TL;DR : Had a great time building @brightpodapp, made some new friends and had some awesome food experiences. Un happy about not having traveled much, spending less time with friends and spending no time reading books.
Yesterday my friend Sanat(Hi, Sanat!), asked me, how the year had been, and I summed it up as in the paragraph above. My major concern being, not travelling much this year. I always had 'Travel' on top of my list of things to do.
One thing I am really happy about building this year is @brightpodapp(www.brightpod.com) with Sahil and Komal. The app is getting better each day. If you are a digital marketing agency, you will love the current version and all the updates we have planned for it.
I like learning new tools / languages, but this year has not been good on that front. Focusing on one task leaves you with less time to do / learn other things. With web improving each day, I am looking forward to taking time out and learning a few new tools and languages. node.js, backbone.js, Objective-C, being on top of my list to learn / implement in a project.
Being a self proclaimed foodie, I like eating at new restaurants and trying out different cuisines. This year, I managed to visit a lot of hotels in the Churchgate / Colaba area of Mumbai. Indigo Deli, Woodside Inn, Cafe Royale, Pizza by the Bay, All Stir Fry, Le Pain Quotidien and Delhi Darbar are places worth eating at.
Learning how to drive a car had been on my list of things to do since a long time, and this year, I managed to get my driving license. I also bought my first car, and driving around the streets of Mumbai has been quite a challenge. Most people tell me, if I can drive in Mumbai, any where else in the world is quite easy.
I have worked from home, the last 3 years, and in the last three years, I got told quite a few times, that I need to go a office to work. This year, I also gave "going to office to work" a try. I rented office space with Regus in Andheri,Mumbai. The short version of the story being, I pulled out after 2 months. Reasons? Travel time + expensive rent. I also did not notice any change in my productive, by working from an office.
2013, looks like quite a busy year on my Calendar. I have plans to travel to a lot of place, learn some new tools, work on some interesting projects and experience bungee jumping and sky diving.
Hope you all have a great day.
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As a solo founder, time is limited. You don’t want to be left behind, but you don’t want to spend all of your time keep up either. Prior to starting Sifter, I used to believe that running my own business would give me flexibility to aimlessly explore new technologies. I was half right. There’s plenty of time to use and learn the technology, but there’s not much room for aimless exploration.
When you need to learn something, take the time and do it right, but if you don’t need it yet, file it away and move on. Worse case scenario: it will be there you when you need it. Best case scenario: newer technology will make it obsolete and 10 times easier by the time you do need it.
Could not have said it better. I often am in this position, where I think I need to keep up with new technologies when working on my applications.
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New to Ruby on Rails and want a quick and easy way to get started with installing Ruby and Rails on Mac? I found these three tools recently, which I think should help a lot.
Pow - Zero-config Rack server for Mac OS X.
Powder - Makes Pow even easier. I mean really, really, ridiculously easy.
Anvil -A beautiful menubar app for managing local sites, which works well with Pow.
Now you have less reasons to not trying Ruby on Rails, because it is too hard to install.
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Some really good use of data visualization and human interaction. Worth a watch.
Source: http://oblong.com/
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News about Sparrow being acquired by Google made big news on the Internet. A few weeks before Sparrow's acquisition, Mozilla Thunderbird announced that they would stop developing the product further.
After Sparrow's acquisition news, I decided it was time to try a new email client. A client which would continue to develop, add new features and resolve any bugs it had in it. The most popular choice seemed to the Postbox, which I knew from before, but never tried because of Sparrow.
After purchasing Postbox and using it for a while, last week I uninstalled it from the system. The reason? As good as the software is, it was too slow to load (Also the reason I do not use Mail.app). Could I spend some time, clearing out emails and searching online for solutions? Of course. But I did not want to. If Sparrow could work with the same configuration, so much faster on my machine, I would expect the same from any other email client.
Having uninstalled all email clients from my laptop(other than mail.app, which cannot be), I am now back to using the web clients to access my emails. They are so much faster to load, than their desktop counter parts. I just hope, the email client I am looking forward to try ".Mail", has speed as one of it core features.
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Apple is not and will not change things just for the sake of change. And while some may now be clamoring for this change, the paradox is that if Apple did make some big changes, many of the same people would bitch and moan about them. Apple is smart enough to know that in this case, most people don’t really want change, they just think that they do because that’s the easiest way to perceive value: visual newness.
That’s why Apple is now the most valuable company in the world. And that’s why you will buy an iPhone 5. And an iPhone 6. And beyond. You’re upset about The Prestige, or the lack thereof. But it’s all about The Turn.
A really good article by Mg Siegler. Apple’s Magic Is In The Turn, Not The Prestige
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