I can’t argue with the poor vision – mine is absolutely terrible without glasses or contacts, and I used to wear the big coke-bottle lenses.

Does This Make Me Look Fat?

I know I could stand to lose about 5 or 10 pounds, but that hardly qualifies me as fat. I wholeheartedly disagree with that geek stereotype.

I think my profession has developed this reputation because we’re always snacking on something. Sugar and caffeine alone are probably responsible for 80% of all computer-related products. In fact, see the Urban Dictionary’s definition for “Geek Food”.

So I started thinking… and I noticed that many of my colleagues and I share the same snack food preferences. I’ve compiled a short list, and I’m curious to know if these snacks are preferred by the larger development community.

1. Skittles

Skittles are a personal favorite of mine – particularly the Wild Berry flavors.

2. Dr. Pepper

I don’t know what it is, but Dr. Pepper has a certain zing to it that my taste buds can’t resist. And it’s true: Diet Dr. Pepper really does taste like regular Dr. Pepper!

3. Snickers

It’s hard to go wrong with a candy bar… and Snickers bars have both chocolate, caramel AND peanuts. Most programmers will tell you this was one of the greatest ideas ever.

4. Donuts

Donuts are round. Eating lots of donuts will make you round.

5. Pizza

Everyone likes pizza – it’s required if you’re an American.

Did I miss something?

What are your favorite nerdy snack foods?

But I’m more than just a nerd – I’m also (technically) a small business owner.

Running a small business has forced me to learn a variety of other skills,  including accounting, sales, and marketing. If I’ve learned anything since starting my freelance web design business it’s that the key to success (i.e. making money) lies in managing your time wisely, and I’ve found a bunch of free software applications that help me stay productive.

I thought I would take a break from my busy schedule to share some of the software tools that help me manage my business. Note-to-self: they’re all free!

Invoicing

One of the drawbacks to building a larger client base is that you need to track who owes you money.

I recently started using Intuit Billing Manager to handle my invoicing. The thing I like the most is that it allows you to customize the look of your invoices! It also sends my invoices via email, saving me precious money on stamps, envelopes and paper.

Client Management

I recently started a handful of marketing campaigns to generate more business. With a dramatic increase in sales leads, it became very clear that I needed a tool to manage my interactions with potential (and current) customers.

A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool does exactly that; it tracks your sales leads, clients and projects so that you can efficiently complete tasks and increase productivity. I chose to use Zoho CRM after testing a number of other CRM solutions because it allows me to track sales leads, current clients, active projects and marketing campaigns all from the same tool.

It also has the ability to integrate with any email marketing tool. Speaking of…

Email Marketing

Email marketing is the cheapest and easiest way to maintain customer relationships.

I recently started a monthly eNewsletter (signup here) to keep my clients aware of my recent activity. The benefits? It reminds people that I’m still alive and encourages them to refer my services to people they know.

I use MailChimp because it’s free up to 500 subscribers or 3000 emails per month… which is WAY more than I think I’ll ever need.

Web Conferences

In order to meet with clients who have busy schedules, it can be a huge time-saver to simply meet online.

DimDim is a free online tool for web conferencing – it’s basically the same thing as WebEx, minus some features that I don’t use anyways.

What are you using?

Do you have any suggestions to add to this list? I’d love to hear them!

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!

* 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:

Strung Out on Kid A (Tallywood String Quartet)
Kid A is probably my favorite Radiohead album. One of the coolest things about Strung Out on Kid A is hearing the different keyboard and guitar layers played by a string quartet. There’s also a bunch of different albums to choose from! If you like classical music, buy one – you won’t be disappointed.

Swordfish (Soundtrack)
Oddly enough, I’m not really a fan of trance/techno music. And I’ve never seen this movie. But this CD rocks. Paul Oakenfold does some really, really cool stuff.

Dark Side of the Moon (Pink Floyd)
Dark Side of the Moon is obviously one of the classic Pink Floyd albums. Smooth, a bit jazzy, and each track melts into the next. Simply brilliant. I will say that this isn’t my favorite Pink Floyd Album (I would pick Animals every day of the week), but you can’t lose with this CD.

Three Snakes, One Charm (Black Crowes)
I’m a big Black Crowes fan, but I might be alone in saying that this is my favorite album. It’s less produced than Shake Your Money Maker, but cleaner than Amorica. If you’re into pure Rock-N-Roll, this album is hard to beat.

Legend (Bob Marley)
The best thing about Reggae music is that it forces you to be in a good mood. It’s scientifically proven. Legend may be a best-of album, but let’s be honest… it’s the single greatest Reggae album there will ever be.

The Fragile (Nine Inch Nails)
As a double CD, The Fragile is a fantastic album to play while writing code as you get more than 100 minutes of pure awesome. The Fragile is by far my favorite NIN album… a fact that few NIN fans seem to agree with. The thing I love most about this CD: I hear a new layer or instrument every time I listen to it.

This is War (30 Seconds to Mars)
I got this CD for Christmas this year and I love it. Say what you want to about Jared Leto (I liked him in Requiem for a Dream), I definitely suggest you give this album a shot. It’s a solid set of songs that get you pumped up – and nothing helps you write code more some adrenaline. (Actually, not true. Caffeine does a pretty nice job…)

Across a Wire: Live in New York City (Counting Crows)
This is actually the only Counting Crows album I own – but it’s a fantastic CD. It’s a live performance that starts with a few of the band members playing acoustic instruments, but progressively adds electric guitars, drums and other instruments. Check it out.

Unplugged (Alice in Chains)
You can’t go wrong with any of the MTV Unplugged albums (Nirvana, Eric Clapton, etc). Alice in Chains gives the listener a totally different spin on their music, and it’s very cool to hear Layne Staley’s voice over the acoustic guitars.

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (The Smashing Pumpkins)
This was a tough call for me, because I could have chosen any Pumpkins album to put on this list. Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness is a double CD with a ton of variation; the instruments, tempo and dynamics change constantly, but it’s fascinating to hear how all the songs work together.

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?

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.

1. ExtJS 3.0 Themes – When ExtJS released 3.0 earlier this year, they did everyone a favor by changing the way in which skins/themes are created. The only problem? As of today, there’s only a handful of non-default themes available. This is my tutorial to create your own.
2. Parsing XML: jQuery vs ExtJS – I got some crap from the ExtJS community about this post, but it’s a clear-cut analysis of how jQuery and ExtJS handle server responses differently.
3. ExtJS JsonStore – The JsonStore() class is my favorite part of the ExtJS library because it’s so flexible – which makes it useful for just about anything. Check it out.
4. ExtJS vs YUI – Before ExtJS released 3.0, I was toying around with YUI as an AJAX library alternative. While it shouldn’t be a surprise that I prefer ExtJS, here’s a look at why I feel that way.
5. JavaScript Unit Testing in ExtJS – JavaScript developers basically get the shaft when it comes to unit testing. A few AJAX libraries have built-in utilities for unit testing… but ExtJS isn’t one of them. I created a solution to that problem – and it’s now an open source project!

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!

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?

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:

• the full keyboard is covered when not in use (protecting it from accidental typing)
• the phone has a 2.0 megapixel camera
• it comes with a calendar
• it has a nice internet browser and can view my email*
• the screen is a decent size

* 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!

• Aesthetically, I like the green color.
• The carousel navigation system is nice – though I wish I could hide it as it blocks about a third of my background image.
• It comes with a 512MB storage card, which is more than enough for what I use the phone for.
• I also like how you can set each of the ringers (calls, messages, alarms, notifications, etc) at a different sound level OR tie them together at the same volume.

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:

• I can’t hide the carousel when I’m not using it
• the buttons on the keyboard are really close together
• the default sounds are just awful

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.