Hi everyone. Just a quick update on a couple of changes I am making to this site. Today I have started using FeedBurner to monitor my site feeds. So if you have already signed up for the old feed, please signup for the new feed instead. For anyone not familiar with RSS and feeds, I will be posting an article on this in the upcoming weeks.

I am in the process of officially adding this blog to technorati, you can check out my Technorati Profile.

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Here’s a quick summary of my current goals, most of which I want to achieve before the end of 2007. View the full post to see more details.

1. Learn Ruby on Rails
2. Compete GTD application
3. Blog more
4. Save money
5. Study interface design (and usability)
6. Study Information Architecture
7. Complete another two projects by the end of the year

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For anyone who doesn’t already know, I am currently working on a Web application to organize my tasks, goals and quite simply make my life easier by reducing the amount of needless thinking and procrastinating I do. This is the first app I have made from scratch using Ruby on Rails (RoR), and I am really looking forward to seeing how it all works out.

So far working in Ruby has been an absolute dream. For any developers, or even designers out there, who are thinking about learning Ruby on Rails, I can’t recommend it enough. I have only been working with it for about 2 months now, but I have found it an absolute dream to work with. I am completely self taught and started off by reading Build your own Ruby on Rails web applications by Patrick Lenz, and Agile Web Development with Rails by the Pragmatic Programmers. I highly recommend both of these books, and will write up a review for each once I get a better grasp of RoR and get this project under control. [Read more…]

Don’t get me wrong I actually like Google Adwords. But there is a time and place for them. Here is a good example of how NOT to integrate google AdWords into your website that I came across while looking for AJAX tutorials today.

Today I have updated this site with Gravatar so that all you nice folks that leave me comments (you know who you are) can now also include an avatar. Gravatar ( Gloabally Recognized Avatar ) allows you to store an 80 x 80 pixel image on their servers. They even have a nice tool to help you crop your image. Then each time you leave a comment on a gravatar enabled site, it will automatically add your avatar, based on your email address.

Sounds nice, where do i sign up?
To signup, just go to http://site.gravatar.com/signup pop in your email address, upload a picture, and you are ready to go.

Run your own blog and want to add gravatars?
The good team at gravatar have created plugins for most of the popular blogging engines, so just head over to http://site.gravatar.com/site/implement and download the plugin for your site.

When it comes to ‘quick start guides’ for new software/hardware components (aka installation manuals), more often then not they consist of pages upon pages of small hard to read text, detailing everything from how to install, how to configure, what to do if something goes wrong, and of course the 4 page reminder that electronics and water don’t mix. But do we really need all of this information in a ‘quick start guide’?