April 2012
29 posts
Editing via Vim's Visual Blocks
I have been reading Practical Vim. I am only 25% through it, but if you value productivity this book is easily worth 10 times it’s asking price.
Anyway, but to Visual Blocks. To be honest, I never saw the value in them because changes I made where not reflected on each line.
Turns out, all I needed to was be patient. When you edit code in a visual block (<C-v>) the changes are not...
Send to Kindle
Have a Kindle or use a Kindle App? Do you also have a Mac?
If you answered yes to both questions you need this app: Send to Kindle.
The Send to Kindle app is a simple tool which lets you easily send books (and documents) to all your Kindle enabled devices.
Cohacking in Princeton
I have worked at home for most of the last 8 years. One of the things I try to do is get out of my home office once or twice a week.
I attended my first Princeton Tech Meetup last night. One of the things that really impressed me was the number of people who attended (nearly 100 in just month #2). In addition, I was equally impressed with the number of people who were starting business (or...
Vim Tip: Past Commands
This week’s, how the hell did I not know about this sooner vim moment: q:.
I primarily use vim via terminal these days. One of the nice things in MacVim is the ability to arrow through previous commands (just ‘:’ then up and down arrows). Since arrows do not work (which is kind of great) navigating and reviewing recent commands didn’t appear to be easily possible….and of...
Support, Support, and More Support
If we ever move hosts on the KickoffLabs Blog I am pretty sure I know where we are going.
Great Mixergy interview of Jason Cohen (founder of WP Engine).
Lot’s of great parts (see Robert Bazinet’s blog post on the interview). The thing that jumped out to me most is his philosophy on support which is essentially: just make the customer happy.
This very much matches up with our...
Not A 501 Developer →
You see, programming isn’t a job for me…it’s a passion. I contribute to open source projects, not because I am awesome, but because programming is awesome. Think about it: with a computer, you have the power to make almost anything you want, as long as you can think out the logic.
In the short term, you always need to do what’s best for your family/etc. However, in the long term you...
Lunchy →
Don’t you hate OSX’s launchctl? You have to give it exact filenames. The syntax is annoying different from Linux’s nice, simple init system and overly verbose. It’s just not a very developer-friendly tool.
With Lunchy you can start and stop services with ease. Example:
lunchy start redis
Tip. If you use ZSH and want to stop seeing this message:
zsh: correct...
Start with RDBMS →
we recommend using PostgreSQL (or some traditional RDBMS) first, then investigating other solutions if and when you find them necessary
Age-old advice: don’t worry about scaling until you have scaling issues.
ZeFrank on Beginnings
So many great quotes…but you really need to just watch it.
Hat tip to Joe Morel of link.
PageKite
PageKite is a hosted TSL (SSL) (Transport Layer Security) service[1]. Or put more simply:
A very easy way to share your local development server with the world.
Previously I had used the following similar services:
ShowOff - a beautifully packaged service with abysmal support. I had to cancel my account on principal.
LocalTunnel - free service which works pretty well for the price. I find...
27 million users is actually very tiny →
This goes in the top 10 of the dumbest things I have ever heard:
27 million people is not too shabby, but it’s nowhere near the scale you need to make a massively large business.
Instagram may prove me wrong and end up being a huge financial success…but I doubt that is going to happen.
The first thing that comes to mind after watching that video is they are scared. What if they get it...
Creating Value →
…creating value is unrelated to busyness.
Linux Dig Command →
Dig has probably been around forever, but this one is new to me. Really helpful information.
You Must Read: The Little Redis Book →
Speaking of Redis, every developer needs to read Karl’s book, The Little Redis Book.
I learned so much reading this and I use Redis just about everyday.
Indexing with Redis →
Skip the first 10 minutes or so (*cough* Kill Your Introduction)
I use Redis a lot, but apparently there is a lot I still need to learn. Lots of interesting stuff in Paul’s talk.
Flat Icons & Icon Fonts →
Massive list of awesome icon fonts.
How to Appologize For Downtime
This my dear readers is how you issue an apology.
We are committed to making myBalsamiq known for its uptime, but clearly we have a long way to go. We are learning, and I feel very sorry that our early adopters have to pay for our inexperience. :(
They go on to offer an extremely generous credit for the downtime as well. However, to me that is secondary. All I think users really want to...
Healthy Products Remove Broken Features
One really good sign of a healthy product - The ability to remove features which don’t work and/or cause more harm than good.
Spring Cleaning
Today we’re removing two features. They’ve been gathering dust for a while and it’s time to throw them out.
Don’t ever think you cannot remove crappy features. This is a horrific myth perpetuated from the enterprise...
More money from fewer sales →
AKA - The best damn post EVER about pricing
…price should be a consequence of value. When creating products, we should first focus upon the customer, what they need, and how we can provide value. Then, we should learn what our solution is worth to them and charge accordingly.
Less customers is OK. I don’t get this obsession (especially in the startup world) with massive scale.
...
The Second Conversion →
While it’s certainly good that people are taking an interest in your start-up, you’ve overlooked a critical element of the conversion process: Getting referrals.
Vim Smart Input →
Money.
Where to Sell Digital Goods? →
I recently wrote an eBook about UI design and needed to find a way to sell it, so I compared five such services: Quixly, FetchApp, Pulley, E-junkie, and Gumroad. I’ll tell you which one I picked at the end… but in the meantime, here are the results of my research.
Great write up by Smashing Magazine on where to sell your digital goods.
Aspiring Women Everywhere →
Love seeing stuff like this on KickoffLabs:
Get ready…30 EmpowerMentors are ready to help you TRANSFORM your business, RE-IGNITE your passion and EMBRACE your life!
Selling for $600K? →
On potentially selling your business for $600K:
Was it the right decision? Only time will tell. In my view, $600,000 in the hand is awfully nice compared with having to work in the business over what could be years to possibly make more — or not.
Obviously, the exact amount varies, but the question is still valid: If paid a ‘fair’ price would you sell?
I love what I do...
Bundle Outdated →
Nice: bundle outdated
Show all of the outdated gems in the current bundle. This will give you a report of gems that have newer versions available.
Bundler 1.1 has a built in outdated feature. I had previously been using this gem.
Promises and Success →
success is largely about keeping your promises.
You NEED to hire better in Support.
A couple of people have asked a similar question recently, ‘what have you done to grow KickoffLabs’.
There are a variety of things we do around blogging, commenting, tweeting, advertising, etc.
But the one constant is support. We treat every support request as an opportunity wow and delight our customers.
In many companies, support is used as a training (*cough* proving) ground...
Frameless grid →
Dig responsive design? Hate fluid grids? Try a Frameless grid.
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