Category: Personal

Despite being at work all the time, and being constantly busy, I am still a human. I am social. I have a life, family, and friends. I have thoughts and experiences. Once in a while I share them, and when I do, I do so in this category. If you don’t know me personally, chances are you’ll find posts in this category particularly boring.

On the nature of old things …

Here are some assorted points that will hopefully come together once I am finished writing them.

  • My mobile – Sony Ericsson P910 – looks very old and much used.
  • I got it second hand as a temporary solution.  I have feeling like it was three month ago or so.
  • Via “On this day” section of the sidebar, I am reminded of this post.
  • The biggest problem with this mobile was the broken keyboard.  A few month ago, I took it off. Now I use virtual keyboard via touch screen.
  • The second biggest problem with this phone that I had, was stylus.  I had only one and I lost it.  For a few month now I’m using just my finger.
  • I’ve heard about “temporary being the most permanent”.
  • A Polish colleague of mine once noted  that most people in Poland drive  very old cars. “A car of 25 years old is like brand new“, – he said.  He was only half joking.
  • I am looking for a new mobile phone to buy. I am not in a hurry.
  • Google Android stuff sounds very cool, and it will have a lot of future, and I will have one of those.  But they aren’t available yet.
  • iPhone is available.
  • So is BlackBerry.
  • I am not in a hurry.  By the time I will make my mind and decide to do something about my phone, probably Androids will be all over the place.

Yes, I am very slow sometimes.  But even if I am taken out of equation, like with those cars in Poland, there is one argument, which is very very simple, but is very very hard to overcome – “It works“.

Looking for a king of TODO list managers

Recently I did another round of TODO applications testing.  There are plenty around, but none of them seemed to fit into my work flow.  I wanted something online, but something fast.  I wanted something simple, but with enough features to integrate with the rest of my toolbox.  This, that, and a bit more, and preferably free.

Just to give you an idea where I was before the TODO list manager – I was using Google Calendar with tasks written down as all day long events, which I was constantly moving forward, spreading them across the upcoming week.  Needless to say this was somewhat time consuming and boring, with a few low priority tasks falling off the list every now and then.

My  quest for TODO list manager started with Hiveminder.  This is a really nice web application, which is easy to use. It implements some really neat ideas, like doing a brain dump first and then reviewing and reorganizing tasks later. It also integrates nicely with the outside world.  There is a way to link it with Google Calendar, as well as follow things via RSS feeds.  There is some integration with email.  And, also, there is a very nice system in place for sharing tasks with other people.  Plus, Hiveminder is the baby of the same parents who gave us RT request tracker.

As I said, Hiveminder is a really nice application.  But it didn’t fit into my work flow somehow.  And I was a little bit turned off by the interfaces. Needs a bit more polish  I guess.

Then I tried … well, I don’t really remember now all the applications that I tried.  What I remember is that there are plenty of good ones.  Each does something differently, focusing on different areas of TODO list management.

… then I settled on Ta-da List from 37 Signals – people, who really know how to web applications.  I loved Ta-da List the moment I saw it.  After all those features and ideas that I saw everywhere, it captured me with it’s simplicity.  There is practically no functionality.  Just create lists, add and remove items, and subscribe to the RSS feed. That’s pretty much it.  That’s what I was looking for.  In case I wanted something extra – plenty of functionality is available through commercial upgrades.  But, at that time, I didn’t want any extra functionality.  I’ve seen so  much of it everywhere that I wanted to get away from it for some time.  And it worked.  For some time.

Finally, I arrived to my current choice of TODO list managers – Toodledo.  A few of my friends were trying it out independently of each other, and all seemed to have only positive feedback about the service.  When I tried it – I understood why.

Toodledo is a very feature rich service. It has lists, goals, contexts, priorities, notes, due dates, and a tonne of other features.  Somehow they are organized so that they always nearby, but without jumping into the face.  The interface feels like it had a lot of thought put into it.  But the best of all – the connectivity of the service with the rest of my tools.  RSS feeds are there.  Google Calendar is there (and it’s done better than that of HiveMinder).  There is Firefox extension with sidebar and toolbar buttons.  And there is even Twitter integration.  What more can I ask for?  (Provided that I don’t use iPhone, for which they also have an integration).  In this place and time, Toodledo is just perfect for me.  If you are in search for a good TODO list manager, I strongly recommend that you give it a try.

What is a startup?

There is a lot of talk about startups on the web.   But what exactly is a “startup”?  Different people put different meaning in the word, and sometimes it gets very confusing.  Here is one example I came across recently:

 The reason I get asked this is that I left a perfectly good start up called Preemptive Solutions to come here. When I say “perfectly good” its one that I am a co-founder, is now 10 years old, and was President (which I later became VP as I decided I wanted to live away from the HQ).

Somehow, a 10-year old company didn’t fit my understanding of “startups”.  From a quick definition check at Google I like the one from Oakridge Venture Capital best of all:

 New business venture in its earliest stage of development.

This fits my understanding perfectly.  And with this in mind, I think that most companies grow out (or die out) the “startup” stage in their first year or so.  If the company survives that period, it starts getting some routine in it (procedures, practices, paperwork, traditions, etc).  The culture of the company shapes up.  Most of the “what is good and what is not” issues are ironed out.  Etc.  And then it’s not a startup anymore.

What’s your understanding of startups?  How can you say if a company is a startup or not?

How to become a programmer

In the last couple of days I repeated this more than four times, so let me post it here for any future references.

Two points for those who want to become a programmer.  First, there is no lack of information these days. There are numerous tutorials online and books in print.  There are magazines, classes, mailing lists, search engines, and everything and anything you need.  But all that information won’t make you into a programmer.  In order to become one, you have to program.  There is no way around it.  You have to design your programs, write the code, debug it, test it, document it, and maintain it.  And you should also read good code that other people wrote.  There is no lack of open source projects these days – take the most popular ones and you’ll learn a lot.

Secondly, among all those available resources, I can suggest two books and two books only.  If you read and study both of them, you won’t need to read another book about programming your life time.  The first book is “The C programming language” by Kernighan and Ritchie.  This is an all time classic.  The second book is “Programming Perl” by Larry Wall.  This is a piece of modern literature.