Programming Classroom is the result of this effort.

Rex is well known throughout the programming community, especially in the standards world. He is also highly regarded for his live programming seminars where he teaches classes in C, C++, C# and more.

We thought it would be a great service to offer the seminars that Rex uses in his live classroom teachings to the general public in electronic format. These are the exact same materials from documentation to example source code. It is just that it is at a much lower cost than a classroom setting because it is self-paced learning. You will find seminars on C#, C++, Java, Visual Basic, and C. You will also find some freebies like sample chapters and tips.

So check out ProgrammingClassroom.com and let us know what you think. Needless to say, I am very excited while very nervous at the same time.

I am in the market to redesign my company website.

A few months ago, I put version 1.0 of the Twin Roots website out to the public. It is based on a free template that I thought was interesting and relatively unique (for something that is free). But I knew all along that it was only a temporary stopgap until I decided I wanted to get serious and get a more permanent design for Twin Roots established.

Well that time has come, and you know what, I am as confused and perplexed as ever on where to begin. Here are some things I know:

• I am not a good front end or graphic designer. I have no shame in admitting that. Thus, that’s why I am looking around for a “3rd party” alternative.
• I am open to free templates, free templates that can be modified, paid templates, or a real life person doing the web design
• I am willing to pay money for the website design (whether template or web designer), but I am not willing to break the bank. For what I currently want, I have a top threshold price that I know I shouldn’t go over.
• I want a clean, crisp look (see below for examples of sites that I really like)
• I have no e-commerce need yet; this is currently a purely informational site
• I like my logo; simple, clean, yet unique. So I want that incorporated into the site.

But, where to start is actually quite mind boggling. There are an infinite number of template websites, tons of “Bid For Design” sites, many individual website designers offering their services (but whom I don’t know personally), etc. Do I use a WordPress CMS theme or something else? Many questions are running through my mind.

Here is what I found in my research:

• Site Designs I like: Slicehost, Datamartist, ReliableSite.net (no they are not my host), Kirix, Panopta, GoalComposer, MacRabbit (I get a lot of my impressions from the sites of the good people at the Business of Software forum).
• Templates: TemplateMonster, Open Source Web Design, WooThemes, Design Offers at WebhostingTalk
• Bid For Design: 99designs, DesignOutpost,
• Website Designers: Design Offers at WebhostingTalk, Craigslist

And I have just hit the tip of the iceberg.

Any advice on a sane, coherent process to get a new website for my company would be MUCH appreciated.

Thanks.

From the Associated Press (AP):

SEATTLE (AP) — Apple Inc. co-founder and Chief Executive Steve Jobs said Wednesday he is taking a medical leave of absence until the end of June — just a week after the cancer survivor tried to assure investors and employees his recent weight loss was simply caused by a treatable hormone deficiency.

Jobs, 53, said in a letter last week that he would remain at Apple’s helm despite the hormone deficiency, and said he had already begun the “relatively simple and straightforward” treatment for the problem. But in an e-mail to employees Wednesday, Jobs backtracked.

“During the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought,” he wrote.

Apple’s chief operating officer, Tim Cook, will take over Jobs’ responsibilities while he is on leave.

After-hours trading on Apple shares was halted. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company’s stock had sank $2.38, or 2.7 percent, to close at $85.33.

Jobs announced in 2004 that he had undergone successful surgery to treat a very rare form of pancreatic cancer — an islet cell neuroendocrine tumor. The cancer is easily cured if diagnosed early. Jobs did not have a deadlier and more common form of pancreatic cancer called adenocarcinoma.

Here is the letter that Steve Jobs supposedly sent to Apple employees:

Team,

I am sure all of you saw my letter last week sharing something very personal with the Apple community. Unfortunately, the curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well. In addition, during the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought.

In order to take myself out of the limelight and focus on my health, and to allow everyone at Apple to focus on delivering extraordinary products, I have decided to take a medical leave of absence until the end of June.

I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for Apple’s day to day operations, and I know he and the rest of the executive management team will do a great job. As CEO, I plan to remain involved in major strategic decisions while I am out. Our board of directors fully supports this plan.

I look forward to seeing all of you this summer.

 
I wish Steve Jobs a fast recovery and the best for him and his family.

From the financial side of things, well, all indications are that the stock is going to plummet tonight and open 10%+ lower tomorrow morning. As an Apple stockholder (of the miniscule kind) who has lost a lot of what little money he has put into the stock, I am strongly considering buying some more, especially if they reach the levels I think they might reach tomorrow.

As Robert Scoble said in his post, Apple will continue to have a great team and an awe inspiring brand. Heck, they converted me from a Windows fan boy to a joint Windows and Apple fan boy. Plus, what Robert didn’t mention was that Apple still has about $25-28 billion cash in the bank. That is not too shabby.

Yes, I need to give buying a couple more shares a lot of thought. Of course, as I am not a financial planner, I will not directly advise you to do the same. You need to make your own financial decisions

In my seemingly never ending quest to find comparable applications on the Mac that I have on my Windows PC, I searched for a personal finance package that could replace Microsoft Money.

It was actually a harder task than I thought, and I can’t definitively say that any of the software I looked at blew Microsoft Money out of the water.

As I have said before, I am looking for a program that:

1. Allows for online download of transactions from institutions
2. Keeps track of both bank and investments accounts
3. Looks like a genuine Mac application (not a Windows port)
4. Can generate simple invoices for business and keep track of accounts receivable (for my company Twin Roots).

But below are my findings. I didn’t have a ton of time to do an exhaustive check and review of financial applications for the Mac, so first impressions became *very* important.

Winner

• iBank 3.3.2: Well, this is the best of the bunch in my opinion. Not perfect by any stretch (e.g., not intuitive on manually entering securities in an investment account – have to currently use the “Move Shares” transaction, which is weird). But the interface is absolutely gorgeous in my opinion. Blows all of the other ones out of the water on that front. It handles investments. It downloads data automatically from some institutions (but not all major ones). It DOES NOT have simple business invoicing. I could get iBiz to do that if I want, and the cost would not be much more than Microsoft Money Plus Home and Business. It takes some getting used to, but this is what I consider a true Mac application.

Up and Coming

• Moneywell 1.4: From a potential curve, Moneywell wins. I love the “Envelope Budgeting” method. The interface looks nice. But, it currently cannot not track investments. No way to enter stock holdings, for example. This is coming, I think.

Mysterious

• Quicken Financial Life (QFL): Not out until Summer of 2009. And they would not allow me to be part of the beta, for whatever reason.

The Rest

• MoneyDance 2008 (build 629): I think this would do what I want it to do, but, selfishly, I did not like the user interface. It felt too “Windows-ee” on the Mac, and if I am going to go to the Mac, I want to go all out.
• Cha-Ching 1.2.3: Interface had some nice appeal, but it does not support the tracking of investments.
• Fortora Fresh Finance: Does not support investments from what I could see. The interface seemed fairly nice though.
• SplashMoney: Again, does not support investments
• Liquid Ledger 2: This actually had some potential, but I could not find a way to download transactions from banks, get quotes online for investments and there were bugs seen when deleting accounts (like this mysterious 0 folder that appeared). The interface was fair.
• GnuCash 2.2.8: I could not locate the Mac binary since their wiki was down. First impressions, remember. So I might not have given this one a fair shot, but I had to move on.
• Quicken Mac 2007: I refuse to use any software that does not give me a free trial (at least one readily available on the Quicken Website). Plus knowing that QFL is coming out, there is something just not right about using this version, which, by all accounts, people don’t like anyway.

So, in summary, iBank will be my Mac financial application, as imperfect as it may be. But it is by far the best and most complete financial software package out there for my needs (and if you include iBiz, it would match Microsoft Money in most, if not all, facets). I will wait and see what happens with Moneywell, and I am intrigued by the upcoming release Quicken Financial Life (although I am disappointed I cannot be a part of the beta).

If I am wrong about any of my impressions, I would appreciate you letting me know.

My company website is now publicly online.

Twin Roots, a software and technical consulting, contracting and development company has been active for about a year now. And while I have had an initial website up for the last month or so (basically so that I didn’t have to have the GoDaddy start page as the website), I have never really publicized it.

However, I have found what I consider a pretty good theme for my website and am happy enough with it publicly announce it here. I am using a *free* theme from Six Shooter Media (credits maintained on the web site, of course). I just liked the theme. It is simple yet different enough to where I think it can stand out quite nicely. I see an easy maintenance path for the site, being able to highlight current developments, work or products very easily.

I know a free theme is sometimes frowned upon for a business website. And it could be down the line that I have an original site created. But for my first go around, I feel this will do quite nicely.

I invite you to visit the site and comment on it, either through my email address provided there or right here on my personal blog.

Some items I am looking at adding in the near future are:

• A company blog
• Maybe a quick comment section to talk about items such as the site or its content

I am happy that I can get a presence for Twin Roots finally out there.

I am signing up with a web host because I plan to first host some blogs. Then, down the line, I plan to host some other web sites.

I knew I was either going to go with Shared Hosting or VPS Hosting — I don’t need dedicated yet. Shared Hosting would have been easiest for me because I could get blogging software up and running very quickly, it would have been cheap, and I wouldn’t need to know much Linux (or Windows) if I went that route. VPS Hosting is more expensive and requires command line knowledge of Linux (oooohhhh, command line), but you are guaranteed a set of memory, CPU and resources (albeit not as much as some of the shared hosts *claim* to give you). Plus, you are in control of everything from the OS perspective — you get root access.

I decided to go with a VPS solution (to tell you how close this decision was — this morning when I woke up, I was *sure* I was going with shared hosting). At the very worst, I learn a little bit of Linux and understand how to run my own LAMP server (LAMP = Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP). At the very best, I am able to successfully host everything and anything I ever need to host, all under my control. In the end it will cost me $10 a month more than shared hosting would have. But that is OK. I am excited about the process.

So, the host I decided to go with after much deliberation is Slicehost. I had two VPS providers in mind, and I chose Slicehost because of what I considered its great website, excellent tutorials, community support options (chat being one of them), and the recommendations from many at the Business of Software forum. The last one was the tipping point.

So I am excited to try this out. I have already signed up for a new account and got the LAMP server up and running. Their tutorials helped out a lot here. It is important to note that this is an unmanaged hosting environment, which means, other than hardware failures, I am responsible for everything. There are no traditional support mechanisms other than the community.

In case you are interested, I signed up for the smallest package of $20/mo which gives me 256 MB of deddicated RAM, 10 GB disk space and 100 GB bandwidth/mo. You can upgrade/downgrade at anytime and I have 30 days to try this out to get some of my money back (You have to pay for at least 3 months of service initially – this was the only “downside” I saw about this)

My first major project is to move this particular blog over to the new host. I figure that should inundate me in the whole hosting process, real quick. That will be the topic of a future post.

I had 5 web hosts in mind; if you are interested in the other 4 that were on my short list, let me know.

That’s all for now.

It has been a while since I have given a progress report of where things stand for me professionally. Back when I worked for Intel, I was mandated to give monthly status report. I am feeling nostalgic today.

Here is  quick bulleted list.

• I am still consulting, but, unless I am told otherwise, my current work is ending fairly soon here (maybe in the next couple of weeks).
• I told you about a month ago that I figured out the product I was going to develop to start my micro-isv. My progress on that front has been limited. However, I am fleshing out a new idea that would make that product a subset of this new, what becomes an overarching, idea. I won’t say much now other than say I am looking for a couple of partners and it includes, but goes beyond, software development into the world of internet media and other information dissemination mediums.
• I am exploring the options for a webhost. I believe I have narrowed my choice down to 1, but I have an outstanding question to their sales department before I can say for sure. The hard part was to choose to go with a Linux based host over Windows because Windows is what I know.
• When I choose my new webhost, I believe I am going to move this blog from its current home (WordPress.com) to the new webhost via WordPress.org. The reason for this is two fold – (1) Consolidation of all blogs and websites at one place (2) A learning experience about WordPress.org and the migration process. I have never self-hosted a blog before.
• I have gone totally Mac. Well, that is a little disingenuous, I suppose. I am running Mac OS X Leopard as my primarily operating system and running Windows Vista via VMWare Fusion (primarily because my current consulting gig requires it). This configuration is just awesome!! I love it!!! I am beginning to love Mac OS X as much as Windows. Also, I just bought a 20″ Apple Cinema Display on Ebay that I expect to get today or tomorrow.

I sure hope Jerry Yang and the Yahoo! Board of Directors know what they are doing. These are rich folks on the board and may not be able to see things through the eyes of the everyday shareholder.

Personally, I think they made the wrong decision to not accept Microsoft’s $33/share offer this weekend. I honestly think it is a case of “I would rather have the ship sink than be with the “Evil Empire”….well, that wish might just come true. I hope not.

Steve Ballmer’s letter to Jerry Yang is very interesting…and the response.

And how does Google feel??????

I have been really busy actually – to a point where creating blog entries has fallen below the ZBB line. (Now, I am pretty sure ZBB is a foreign term to many — it is an acronym used at my old company that stands for Zero Baseline Budget. Actually I don’t know what that means, per se, but the gist is if something falls below the ZBB line, it doesn’t get done for that quarter).

So what has kept me so busy. Let me give you an idea of my daily schedule.

• 6:30 AM Wake-Up
• 6:30-8:00 A little email, eat breakfast, get the boys ready for daycare
• 8:00-12:00 After seeing the kids off to daycare, I work. I have the fortunate opportunity of having another consulting effort, this time where I am the lead editor on creating a technical specification.
• 12:00-12:30 Take a walk around the block
• 12:30 PM -1:30 Pick up the kids from daycare, put them down for their nap
• 1:30-2:00 Eat lunch
• 2:00-6:00 More work after spouse comes home and watches kids
• 6:00-8:00 COMPUTER OFF LIMITS, spend time with the family
• 8:00 Put the kids down for bed
• 8:00-10:00 Eat dinner, down time, relax
• 10:00 PM Bed time

So between my consulting job and my family, I am kept super busy. The weekends are generally kept for family time and some outdoor adventures.

The bigger question for me is how the work I am currently doing affects my overall sole proprietor / Micro-ISV plan. I am using this technical editor opportunity to decide if this is something I would like to do long term. What this has going for it is:

1. Flexible hours
2. Good pay
3. Interesting (at least for now) work
4. Oh, and did I say good pay (i.e. a real paycheck)

If I decide I do want to continue down this career path, my plan for starting my Micro-ISV may indeed change. I know I will have some downtime where I will need to be doing something. The well will run dry for short or long periods of time. In fact, I do have an idea that I have been throwing around in my head (I have the domain name reserved and the software idea floating around). But being a “full-time” Micro-ISV has now not a certainty.

We’ll see. Stay tuned. I will keep you updated.

Until then, best wishes!

It has been a 1.5 months since I posted my ideas to start my Micro-ISV. After moving across the country, continuing on my consulting efforts, and some personal research and reflection, I am reconsidering whether I should move forward with any of these ideas.

With respect to the RSS Reader, I do believe I have an interesting idea that would “uniquify” the product; but, I also am beginning to believe it might be better to just contribute that idea to something like Dare and company’s RSS Bandit rather than go with a full-fledged development project.

I was most jazzed about the Fantasy Football web site, but that excitement has fizzled lately — maybe because the football season is almost over; maybe because of the reality of differentiation; I am not 100% sure, but my initial glee about the prospect is not there anymore.

The “Bag-O-Tools” idea is still on the table.

I am now doing a re-analysis of the direction I want to go with my company (i.e. do I need a “born-again” moment?) To give you a glimpse into my mind, here is my current thinking:

My Company = Consulting Company?

My consulting effort has been going really well, with real money and possible future prospects. I have been complemented for my good work. So, do I become a consultant/contractor instead of a Micro-ISV? But, the phrase “possible future prospects” can be a bit unnerving — the well can dry up at anytime and without notice. So a backup plan is a must. Also, the possibility of constant travel may prove a bit prohibitive depending on how things go with my family.

Do I Want a Partner(s)?

I waiver on this quite a bit. On the one hand, it is very intriguing to know that I could control *all* aspects of my business. On the other hand, I know what a lonely road that could be. I don’t necessarily mind giving up some control for the chance to share in the production of something successful — in fact, running the business aspect of the business (vs. the technical aspect) intrigues me quite a bit. Also, I am still 100% convinced that the right partner, in general, is better than going solo — if, for nothing else, to keep motivation high and have a listening ear for the business.

What Is My Niche?

This is the hardest hurdle to get over, obviously, for any successful Micro-ISV. But, this is arguably the most important hurdle. My initial ideas do not carve a specific niche, per se. I knew that going in, but now I am thinking that maybe I should try to carve a niche to complement my initial business goals. What product(s) could I develop that uniquely solves a problem for a certain group of people. On the other hand, it could very well be my niche is in the consulting business. It could very well be my niche is in technical editing, or managing a project or an effort. I am not ready to say what it is yet.

So as my current consulting effort ends (sometime before April 1st), I really need to do a lot of soul searching to figure out what comes next for me. I do hope I at least have the opportunity to make a decision to make about another enjoyable consulting or contracting after this one ends.