We just moved to San Francisco and really could have done with some of this advice before we came here:
Still, we ended up in a nice place but wow, this place is tough and pricy to live!
My space on the web
We just moved to San Francisco and really could have done with some of this advice before we came here:
Still, we ended up in a nice place but wow, this place is tough and pricy to live!
Well, I finally did it. After months of researching, deliberating and general laziness I went ahead and got a VPS for one of my websites, Baseic.
Since early development I knew I'd need a decent web server with full root access to run some of the automated processes via cron, amongst over things. I'm primarily a systems/applications developer and I'm always interested in learning new things like setting up a server environment to run my website(s) on.
Linode came out on top after all my research in terms of cost and support plus I really liked the look of their server management tool and documentation library.
I've got a fair bit of experience with linux so following Linodes 'Getting Started' and 'LAMP stack' guides were pretty straightforward and worked almost flawlessly. I had some minor issues with setting up virtual hosts for Apache and getting phpmyadmin to work.
The virtual hosts problem came down to the 'default' site that is created when you first install Apache was interferring with my actual site virtual host. A quick look in the Linode forums and the answer was simply to setup my domain & public_html as the default.
As for phpmyadmin, it seems there is a security risk of managing your MySQL server via phpmyadmin unless it's via SSL. You can do it without if you like but it requires tweaking the config a bit.
So far, so good. Let's see how it holds out when I (hopefully) get a bit of traffic!
Although a bit biased towards working at a startup, the following blog post I came across details some interesting differences between startups and big companies and is well worth a read.
Check it out: http://alexlod.com/2012/03/12/10-facts-about-working-at-a-startup-vs-a-big-company/
I've been scouring the web for the last few years looking for any and all information I could find about building web applications. Not so much the technical side but all the rest of it including marketing strategies, lean start-up methods, early company structure, how to fund and so on.
I was reading an interesting question related to software startups on stackoverflow and was linked to the 37Signals guide. I'm only a couple of chapters in but so far so good plus the table of contents looks promising.
Take a look: http://gettingreal.37signals.com/toc.php
A discussion opened up on Hacker News about the differences between technical interviews in the UK and the US. Having experienced interviews both sides of the pond I found this discussion quite relevant and some good points are made.
Here's the link: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3369723
In short, it seems that US companies focus more upon having several rounds of coding tests including whiteboard presentation style tests on the in-person interviews. US companies tend to care less about what you have done previously and more about what you can do right now. In the UK there seems to be much more focus on your past experience although some testing is done, it's not to the level of US companies.
There's currently in interesting conversation started on Hacker News asking what you'd do with 3 months and $1000 if you didn't have to worry about bills and so on.
You can join in here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3287318
For me, I'd probably use the time to polish up my current project, Baseic, and also start contacting potential customers for free trials. The $1000 would be used to pay for server and advertising costs.
Working from home is hard. People reading this who work in an office will likely scoff at that and wonder how hard could it be sitting in your underwear in the comfort of your own home!
I thought the same way in all the years of working in the office. I used to day dream about being at home and being able to do whatever I want, whenever I want. Want to go for a run at 11am? Great, off I go. Want to check out that new game on release day? Sure, I can do that.
However the reality is a bit different.
When you're working from home, your home becomes your workplace. If you're anything like me, you can't just relax whenever you're home because you're constantly thinking of what needs to be done and the fact you can do it right NOW. When you work in the office, you get a sense of acomplishment as you walk out the door at 5pm, even if you really didn't do a lot that day. Once you leave work, you've left for the evening and you can forget about it all until tomorrow. At least that's how I am when I'm working a 9 - 5 job. Working from home offers no such boundaries and so you have to create your own or constantly suffer thinking about a job not yet complete.
Another often overlooked difficulty of working from home is the lack of social stimulus. At the office you have people all around you. They'll want to talk about the weekend, go grab a coffee, pop out for lunch, have meetings and so on. As much as you might get fed up with that while at the office, humans are social creatures and seem to need that kind of interaction. Being at home alone all day means then only person to talk to is yourself which can get boring as you always know what you're going to say!
Balance is the key.
I've found that I should embrace the joys of working from home while attempting to make some of the downsides a little easier. You start by staying organised and making plans for each day to include at least a full days worth of work intermingled with things during the day you couldn't normally do while working at the office. If I make sure I do 8-10 hours of real work a day, it's up to me if I do that in 2 four hour chunks with a 3 hour break in between or a straight 8 starting at lunch time. This way you can still go outside in the summer and not feel guiltly.
Just came across an interesting "About" page for a company which offers website monitoring called User Look.
You can tell by the photos they had fun creating that!
I've recently been looking around at games jobs postings, not looking too seriously but I generally like to keep up to date with who is hiring and so on. I see all the time they're looking for someone with a "passion for games" which makes sense considering only the very passionate would be willing to work 60+ hrs a week for less than average pay!
As I was looking around I came across an interesting article on Gamasutra which talks about passion vs professionalism and found it very interesting.
You can check it out here: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6523/the_designers_notebook_passion_.php?print=1
I came across an interesting post on Hacker News about a guy who quit his job to go full time into his business. The most interesting part is that his gamble failed and he was brave enough to accept it and then come out and explain it to a large community. The thread itself is full of great advice which applies to others thinking of doing the same thing.
It really stood out to me because I did almost the same thing a few years ago - quitting an enjoyable and well paid job to start my own business. My business also failed but I feel I learned many valuable lessons along the way and would not change my decision if I did it all again.
The key for me is to fully evaluate the whole experience to understand where things went wrong and learn those lessons so that next time I have more chance at success. I'm happy to fail because it means I'm a step closer to success and I think the guy who posted on HN should feel the same way too.
You can read his post here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3102143
