Teare Software Solutions

Rails Envy

I know I'm late to the party, but I just recently found a great blog called Rails Envy. Gregg Pollack and Jason Seifer have done an excellent job of distilling what Rails is like compared to other languages in a few Apple-inpired ads.

The first ad compares Rails to Java. Anyone who has done any J2EE work and then got saved by Rails will love this. While watching this, remember that the Hibernate/Spring/Tapestry stack was a "best-of-breed" solution that made "standard" J2EE EJB's seem heavy weight. I especially liked the teddy bear in the jar representing Hibernate :)

After my friend and I started doing our own thing (and paying the bills) we had zero interest in paying the costs associated with Java and searched for alternatives. This second movie shows exactly how we felt when we started using PHP:

Thank-you DHH for freeing us :)

Google Vanity Alerts

I was reading Don McCalister's blog today and the term "Google Vanity Feed" caught my eye. It seemed like a great idea to configure a Google Alert on your own name so you could participate in conversations and see what people are saying about you — if anything ;)

I've always had alerts for Mac Password Manager and a few competitors, but I always felt alerts on yourself were, well, vain. Thankfully Don taught me it is ok :)

Going to C4!

Well we're signed up and the cheques are in the mail, so it's almost official: Roustem and I are going to C4[1]!

I'm really looking forward to this conference as it is not really a true "conference": it's simply a bunch of really cool people that get together and shoot-the-shit about business, coding, and other stuff that affects Mac software development.

The agenda is fairly relaxed, giving just enough information to wet your palette but not too much to box in the presenter into a specific talk where there is no room for diversions. That should help keep the discussion lively.

Here's the Full C4[1] Agenda:

I love seeing Pizza and Beer on the agenda. I expect it to be a lively event!

The Importance of Setting Goals

One of the first things you learn from motivational speakers and "Howto gurus" is the importance of setting goals.

Over a year ago I was working full time for The Man, working 60 hour weeks, not including the 2 hours in traffic each day. I worked, ate, and slept. There was no time for anything else.

Thankfully I read the book Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and with some help from my best friend I managed to change my perspective on finances and started to understand why it is a bad idea to work for money. I set my goal to quit the Rat Race by my 32nd Birthday, so I could spend more time with my family and friends.

To keep track of this goal I added a Countdown Timer to my Mac's Dashboard so that every time I checked the weather I would be reminded of my goal. I discussed before that I was successful at reaching this goal and it is so commonplace now that I forget that old life even existed — I am so thankful I no longer need to work for money.

I get a kick out of seeing that old goal, however, so I keep it on my Dashboard of my old laptop. Here it is:

Notice the Quitting the Rat Race is now in the past :)

The original plan was to quit my day job and live on savings while I built the wealth ratio. That is why the second goal is a 0.8 wealth ratio by the fal of 2007. Well I'm happy to say that goal has already been achieved as well! In fact, my Wealth Ratio is closer to 3.0 if I include proceeds from the business.