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This past weekend I attended the 2010 Fox Lake Family & Business Expo to promote my freelance web design services to local business owners. Overall I think the event was a success, and it was great meeting all of the people who stopped into my booth! More importantly I feel like I got some good business leads.
Below are some pictures and a video I shot at the Expo. I’ll keep this post short, but I plan on attending the Expo again next year!
It’s no secret that computer nerds often have strong musical skills… which is odd given that music is processed by the human brain’s right hemisphere, while math/logic are processed in the left hemisphere*. This fact is also hard to explain as many of us geeks have awkward social/language skills (a right-hemisphere responsibility).
* So says Dr. Chudler at the University of Washington.
For example, there’s me (Art). I played guitar in a garage band back in high school. I majored in Music at Loyola University Chicago, studying classical guitar. I also minored in Computer Science, and I work as a professional software developer. Beyond my highly coordinated fingers (from typing and plucking strings), I don’t know if I see an immediate correlation between the two areas… but I’m not a neurologist, so I won’t even pretend to offer an explanation as to why I’m good at both. I wouldn’t say that I’m necessarily awkward with my social or language skills, but I would say that I’m a terrible salesperson. Make your own conclusion.
Furthermore, almost every developer I’ve met has a similar story. And in addition to playing some kind of musical instrument, we all seem to be very productive while listening to music.
I have found that a good song puts me into a focused groove – like something just clicks inside my brain and the code writes itself. Complicated concepts unwind into simple solutions as if I can suddenly think in multiple dimensions.
In other words, I start working like I’m f*cking Mozart. Only on a computer. And waaayyy less famous.
The caveat, of course, is that a song isn’t long enough to maintain productivity like this. An hour (give or take) is ideal to generate some solid code, so finding an entire album (with no crappy songs) is almost priceless.
After giving this topic a good deal of thought, I’ve come up with the ten albums which I enjoy the most while writing code. The list is in no particular order:
This list is far from complete – but I’m sure many of you will disagree with my selections.
What are your thoughts? What albums would be on your own list?
2009 has been a landmark year for my blog. According to Google Analytics, I’ve increased my daily pageviews by more than 1000% since January… growth which I hope I can maintain over the next 12 months.
How did I manage to increase my popularity that much in just a year?
The first factor was to search engine optimize the blog – the biggest factor of which was fixing the Wordpress permalinks. Bam! Traffic increased by a huge percentage. The second push was more a result of hard work and personal networking. I try to provide consistent and relevant content for my readers, and those efforts seem to have paid off.
With 2009 coming to an end, I thought it might be fun to see which of my 88+ posts have been the most popular this year. This data is taken with a grain of salt – for the first couple of months this year not many people read my blog.
Are you noticing a theme here? My most popular posts all involve ExtJS – which isn’t much of a surprise because most of my referral traffic comes from the ExtJS forums (my post footer contains a link). For anyone out there who cares about search engine optimization, this is a classic example of how social networks provide valuable website traffic.
So it’s clear to me that my popular posts involve ExtJS – but what do you want me to blog about?
Do you want less AJAX? More .NET? More pictures embedded within my posts? Throw me a bone here!
My wife and I went to Walmart over the weekend to buy some generic household items. While I have no shame in saying that I shop there for the low prices, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit there’s some entertainment value for me as well.
Case and point: People of Walmart.
So as we’re walking the aisles I noticed that Walmart sells fish. I didn’t know they sold fish and I went in for a closer look to satisfy my curiosity. As I suspected, I probably won’t be buying pet fish from Walmart anytime soon:
According to what I can gather, the dead fish in question is a Dragon Goby. I particularly like how the other fish are staying behind the knocked-over plant – they’re not stupid.
What grosses me out the most is that the dead fish is clearly decayed. I’m no marine coroner, but it looks like that fish has been there for a while. Does Walmart even feed these fish, let alone clean their tanks?
I’ve been a loyal Sprint customer for many years, and overall I would have to say that I’m happy with my mobile phone service. I get free roaming on any call I make which means I rarely (if ever) have trouble finding a strong signal. My cell phone plan costs roughly $100 a month and includes two phones (my wife and I), unlimited calls on nights/weekends, and unlimited text messages.
Why am I writing about this?
I am boring you all with the details of my cell phone carrier because I just upgraded my phone. Sprint gives me a $150 credit towards a new phone every two years – provided, of course, that I renew my contract for another 24 months. (I don’t know if other carriers do that, but I assume they probably do.) Given that I’m happy with Sprint’s service I have no problem extending my contract.
So what phone did I upgrade to?
(Drum roll…)
After reading a bunch of reviews on the Sprint website I chose the new Samsung Reclaim. For me, the choice boiled down to these factors:
* I don’t pay for the internet service, so I don’t use the browser or check my email. That being said, I will one day when I can afford to pay for that feature.
As TreeHugger.com will tell you, the phone is also marketed as “eco-friendly” – hence the green color. It’s casing is made of 40% corn-based plastic, and the phone’s packaging is made of 70% recycled materials. Sprint also claims it will donate $2 to some conservation group. TreeHugger.com’s review is hesitant to offer Samsung glowing remarks, though it’s obviously a step in the right direction.
I’ll point out that the “eco-friendly” aspect of this phone had zero impact on my decision to buy it. I think it’s all fine and good that someone is finally thinking about this issue in the electronics industry, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that it’s not my top priority. My top priority was a shiny new toy.
How I like about the Samsung Reclaim:
Overall. . . I love it!
What I hate about the Samsung Reclaim:
As I previously said, I do love the phone. . . BUT there are a few things which really bother me:
Speaking of the sounds and ringers, I am officially demanding that Sprint offer me some free downloads. The ringers on this phone are terrible at best, and really f*&$ing annoying at worst. There are two sounds I actually like: the “Classic Bell” and the “Animato Tone” ringtones. Although the phone comes with like 30 ringtones and melodies, they’re absolutely horrible. I’m talking about frog and insect sounds, crappy song melodies and aggravating tone sounds.
I understand that Sprint makes money when people download ringtones, but you’ve got to be kidding me. You’re basically forcing people to go out and spend money – particularly as you have to use the internet to download the tones (which costs money!). Sprint may as well only have a single ringtone on the phone; why even offer me the choice between crappy tone A and crappier tone B?
The bottom line.
Would I buy this phone again? Absolutely. In a heartbeat.
Seriously though, if anyone from Sprint is listening out there, I really want some free ringtones. Or free internet service. Something. I’ve been a customer for like 10 years and I constantly say good things about you. Hook a brother up.
This is not a paid review, and I do not work for Sprint or Samsung.