The cryptic title doesn’t tell you much but I’d bet you’re interested, eh?
I ordered the second edition of Agile Web Development with Rails today via the magic of the mobile web. The first edition was so good (and Rails development has changed at lightspeed) that I figured the $50 was worth it. I’m still working on my wife’s site but the new book with it’s updated practices and sample code would benefit significantly.
Do you ever feel a bit full? Stuffed? Jammed? That’s my brain right now.
Daring Fireball: “But the idea that each new reply in a thread ought to contain the entirety of each previous message in the thread is silly, wasteful, distracting, and unnecessary. The point of quoting isn’t to maintain a self-contained copy of the entire thread in each single message; the point is to provide context for your own remarks.”
As some of you may know, a lot of things changed for me in the last four months. I got a new job, a professional certification, an office of my own (yeah!) and most of all a new look. The photo you see at the beginning of the post is a picture of me from 2004 that I used on my weblog for years. It is also a pretty accurate “self image” or what I expect to see in the mirror each morning and indeed, has been exactly that for 30 some years. I’ve looked this way since maybe high school where my hair was very standard: short, cropped, parted, boring.
I don’t look like that any more.
I’ve worn my hair long now for six months and added a beard at the same time, two things I’ve never done in my thirty-six years of life. I’ve had bad moments with the hair, wondering if I look like a “hippie” or just a sloppy head floating inside a sweater. While this isn’t the best picture of me, it’s pretty representative of what I look like today. I catch myself, from time to time, looking at a stranger in the mirror. It’s a little disconcerting, to say the least. Overall, I’ve decided that I like the new look and the new me. Last Thursday, Tammy and I went to Chesterfield Eye Works and I picked out a new pair of glasses and new dark lenses for my old frames. I’ll upload some new photos when they arrive.
Post from the Apple Store in St. Louis
(beautiful subnote–posted at 3:33:33PM
Light blogging this weekend. I'm turning off the technology and enjoy some time before the SuperBowl. See you all Monday.
Business 2.0: Why blogs mean business.
Folks have forgotten that blogs work because people have something to say and others find what they say valuable. Our business culture works the same way — it runs on the currency of influence, authority, and relationships. People who have strong and well-informed opinions command respect and become influencers; they win deals, drive decisions, and ultimately determine the fate of companies. The thirst for high-end business information — the kind that makes people feel like influencers — has created a $15 billion professional publishing market in the United States alone.
The only thing I would add is that blogs and their companion RSS feeds create an environment that allows you to process information much more effectively. When the formation of opinions takes place in an environment where there are multiple original sources and where comment and, yes, criticism are encouraged, you are bound to get better opinions or at least more accurate ones. Email was a big jump is speeding that process up. As for publishing, blogs are a quantum leap ahead of email.
test post from the Treo. hoping to blog this in realtime
How Do Blogs Help Your Company?. Someone asked me how blogs help companies, and I've been giving it some thought. My first response is that it makes me better at my job, and it connects me with others that care about the same things I do…. [John Porcaro: mktg@msft]
I really like this post. Its as thoughtful as it is insightful. Its a question that I have been pondering for some time now. Could it be that it puts a human face on corporations? This works internally as well as externally because it creates a kind of interaction that is simply not possible over the phone, in email, or IM. Scoble was right all along. (Not that I ever doubted him.)
Jill asks the question none dare ask out loud:
What would you do?. If you could be a superhero, who would it be and why?
I would want to be Batman (well, woman). I would be rich and have all kinds of cool gagets. All without being a mutant. And I could have a cute male sidekick in tights! [jillnews News]
Superhero: Spiderman
Why? Crawlz anywhere, kewl web-shooters, great looking gal (in the movie, anyway) and finally–he's a swinger!
Steve Kirks 