My Next 10 Books
One of my New Year’s Resolutions is to read more; in order to do that, I’ve decided to create a list of my next 10 books. Hopefully this will encourage me to actually complete the 10 and move onto the next 10! Here’s the list right now.
Favorites of 2012
I’m going to be honest here. 2012 was a pretty great year for me. A lot of amazing things happened in both my personal and professional life; most publicly, I got my first book published, and I hope do the same in 2013. While I don’t have too many traditions on this blog (something I hope to change in 2013), my Favorites of the year post has been a pretty good staple.
Gifts for Web Developers / Geeks 2012
Thanksgiving and Black Friday officially kick off the Holiday, and subsequently the gift-giving, season. I often like to publish lists like this, that will help you shop for the web nerd (or just nerd) in your life, and 2012 is no different. With all kinds of new services, gadgets, and toys, 2012 is a great year to be a nerd! Here are some of my recommendations.
Articles from Pocket July 5th, 2012
Here are some of my favorite articles from my Pocket account. I’ll probably do this sporadically based on how much I’m reading/how interesting the Internet is being.
- Responsive Navigation Patterns – Brad Frost (@brad_frost)
- COPE: Create Once, Publish Everywhere – Daniel Jacobson
- So You Want to Accept Credit Cards Online? – Bryan Jones/Nettuts+
- 7 Principles of Effective Icon Design – Sean Hodge/PSDTuts+
- Is your book idea good? (Yes, I promise) – Scott Berkun (@berkun)
- Your E-Book is Reading You – Alexandra Alter/WSJ
- Multi-Device Layout Patterns – Luke Wroblewski (@lukew)
Favorites of 2011
What has seemingly become a tradition on this blog is my annual “Favorites of” post, where I recap some of my favorite things of the year. Even though the posts on this blog have slowed in recent months, I would like to keep that tradition, so here they are!
10+ iPad Apps for Students
With college starting up again after the holiday break and what I’m sure is many students heading back to school with a shiny new iPad, I figured it might be good to offer a list of apps I’d find useful as a student.
Favorites of 2010
Happy New Years Eve! As tradition for the last couple of years, here is a list of my favorites from 2010.
- Favorite Tech Toy: Amazon Kindle. Competition was pretty stiff this year with all of the new gadgets I got- an iPad, a new Macbook Pro, and most recently, the HTC Incredible. I also broke from choosing my cell phone as my favorite tech toy. I got the Kindle for Christmas last year and love it. I’m including it in the 2010 running because most of the use came in 2010. The reading experience is superior to the iPad, the book selection is huge, it’s lightweight and very portable, and I love that you can make notes and annotations on it. I feel like I read more in 2010 because of the Kindle.
- App/Website: Dropbox. This is another thing I had in 2009 but didn’t start really using until 2010. Dropbox makes it amazingly easy to sync across all of my devices (Mac, PC, iPad, Android Phone). I’m considering upgrading so I can try some of the neat advanced things you can do.
- Favorite Book: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. My friend Katie recommended it, and even though it’s a fairly long book, it’s a quick read because of the fast pace of the story. I highly recommending it. I’ll be starting the next one soon!
- TV Show: Dexter. I was lucky enough to start a series this year that I’ve been missing out on. Dexter is an awesome show about a good guy who’s also serial killer. The show is thrilling and intellectually stimulating, and the acting is rock solid. I highly recommend it if you’ve never watched it.
- Movie: Inception. Leo DiCaprio had a great 2010. For a while, I though Shutter Island would be the best movie of the year. Then Inception came out and blew my mind. Cause for a lot of discussion and speculation, it’s a movie that keeps on giving, and an original idea at that.
- Music: The Gaslight Anthem. My brother Phil and friend Danny told me about them in August/September and I’ve been listening to them daily since. I love their classic alternative rock sound (non of this new-alternative Nickelback crap) and the lead singer’s vocals are awesome. I highly recommend them. As far as new in 2010, Mumford and Sons is pretty awesome. You should check them out too.
Book Review: HTML5 for Web Designers
HTML5 for Web Designers by Jeremy Keith is a book I pre-ordered when it was first announced and I finally got around to reading it last week. I got it because it looked short & sweet, A List Apart does great work, and up until that point I didn’t know much about HTML5.
5 Books I’ve Found Helpful as a Freelance Web Developer
I do what I consider a good amount of reading (especially since I got my Kindle) and while I do read some fiction, I read mostly non-fiction on business, web development, or politics. I love reading stories of how companies got started and how to deal with certain aspects of business. Several books I’ve read have given me great perspective and advice I can use as a freelancer, and I’d like to share 5 of those books today.
Busy May
Wow. I just realized I haven’t posted here since the end of April. And really, I have some ideas for posts, but no time. I am in the midst of finals week, projects, and getting ready to go out to San Francisco for Google I/O. I also have some ideas for projects I want to do over the summer. So in light of that, here is a “Random Thoughts” post to hold you over until I have time to write something more substantial.
- I finished A Confederacy of Dunces. It was very good. I am now reading Bringing Down the House, the book the movie 21 is based on.
- Iron Man was an awesome movie. Go see it. Take me with you.
- I am using a new system to keep track of invoices and expenses for my business. That will be my next big post.
- Google Reader integrated Notes and the ability to share websites not in your feed reader, as I requested in my last post. It’s like they are listening directly to me!
I frequently have random thoughts that I will post on Twitter, if you’d like to follow me.