imp

Last year I got busy with lots of small organizational things that were overwhelming. I read and implemented GTD and it helped me out a lot. Lately, I'm not quite that busy so I don't rely as much on some GTD things like the weekly review. I think it's worth going through and organizing everything at least once. Then you'll find some things that work well for you and others that don't. I still use a inbox/outbox system for my desk and a filing cabinet for everything. Overall, the busier and more fragmented your schedule, the more you'll get out of it.

That already happened. The company is called Venture Lighting:

Venture CEO Wayne Hellman began the development of the company after a 16-year career with General Electric, during which he pioneered innovations for metal halide lighting. Fifteen years of developing metal halide for GE convinced Mr. Hellman that a tremendous opportunity existed for a specialty metal halide lighting company. Mr. Hellman, along with a small core group of marketing and engineering managers from GE, formed Venture Lighting, literally beginning from scratch.

http://www.venturelighting.com/About_V-History.html

I don't know what would be wrong with that. As long as you don't take any IP or equipment you can generally be free to do what you want.

Exactly. The saying is "make something people want," not "make something you think is cool."

Having your PayPal account frozen is only a problem if you don't move your money OUT of PayPal after you receive it. If you regularly transfer money into your company checking account, then you won't have any real problems. In the worst case if PayPal freezes your account then you can still mail people checks. Keeping your money in PayPal is kind of dumb anyways, since it doesn't earn interest. I've been using PayPal for two years without any problems.

In general it's probably not a good idea, but it probably depends on the product. I have a web app that I charge a one-time fee for, but it only lasts for one year, so it's essentially a one-year non-renewing fee. It works because it fits naturally with how people use the product (it's for fantasy football so it lasts for one NFL season).

Most web apps, like project management software, fit nicely into recurring monthly/yearly payments. Unless yours is very different from that then it's probably better to do recurring. You'll have recurring expenses to pay to keep the site running, so you'll need recurring revenue to cover those.

Looks cool. I read a Theory of Fun and it was really insightful. I probably won't follow along with this class due to lack of time right now, though.

I see you're organizing the class mostly through your blog. If you find that to be cumbersome, I've created a collaborative learning website that is designed for this kind of group learning. It can add some structure around the class, help people track their progress, and send out emails to students when new stuff happens. It's called Curious Reef http://curiousreef.com/ and it's free to create and take classes.

Yes. The book Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill does exactly this. It's an oldie but goodie.

http://www.amazon.com/Think-Grow-Rich-Napoleon-Hill/dp/04492...

It's how Bruce Lee set his goal:

I, Bruce Lee, will be the first highest paid Oriental Super Star in the United States. In return I will give exciting performances and render the best of quality in the capacity of an actor. Starting 1970 I will achieve world fame and from then onward till the end of 1980 I will have in my possession $10,000,000. I will live the way I please and achieve inner harmony and happiness.

Bruce Lee

January 1969

There's people working through the class on my learning website, Curious Reef:

http://curiousreef.com/class/structure-and-interpretation-of...

There's already a lot of work available that others have posted which is handy if you get stuck or want to see other ways of solving the problem.

A nice big filing cabinet that's sorted alphabetically. It's been great. I put things in manila folders that are labeled with a label maker. Straight out of GTD. It's helped me a lot.

Seems like an okay plan. I would put more importance on getting people to use your paid product. I've also has developed projects in limited hours per week, and the features I thought were important at the time really weren't after I put it in front of actual users. The faster you get feedback on your paid product the better.

I don't think it has any holes, but it could be inconvenient if they clear their cookies or want to use your site from a different computer. Instead of remembering one of their standard passwords, they have to dig through their email to find the link you sent them just to use your site.

You can try making a product to sell, like the Bingo Card guy. It may not be a "cool" startup, but it's a step above CMS stuff.

Probably a Windows issue with font-face.

I got my current web dev job by building my own website in my spare time. I don't have a CS degree or any other programming experience besides what I built. If you want those skills, go out and get them!

I've got two running now. A large for the webserver and a medium high CPU for the database. Roughly a couple hundred reqests per second.

If you're having a motivational crisis, then it could be that you just don't like doing those things. Try something different for a change. Maybe radically different.

However, your post is negative sounding all around. Having concerns about being motivated to work is one thing, but describing the rest of your life with words like "sucked into", "suffer", "frustrated", "compulsive", "sociophobic" sounds like you have a generally negative attitude that's separate from your desire to be productive. Maybe that's just because you feel like you're in a crisis, but maybe consider trying to look at things more positively. I think that issue is separate from deciding what to do next in your career.

Add some exercise to your daily routine. It'll help with lots of things, physical and mental.

It's fine to be an introvert, but don't use it as an excuse not to go out and meet people. I know that's challenging, but meeting new people is good for happiness and getting ideas for things to do.

I almost got jealous, but just yesterday I ran across an article of yours while fixing some messy PHP UTF-8 bugs (http://www.oreillynet.com/onlamp/blog/2006/01/turning_mysql_...). Then I realized that you've busted your ass a lot more than I have so far to achieve what you've achieved. Just serves as more inspiration :)

I don't know anything about your website and you expect me to give you my phone number? No thanks. Is there a link to a demo that I missed, because that would help a lot.

I've switched from PHP to Django for personal projects. Here's some random thoughts:

- Deploying Django isn't hard at all. No more difficult than LAMP apps.

- Python is a better language than PHP (IMHO)

- Tons of python libraries to work with. Wanna resize thumbnails? It's easier to work with PIL than cobbling together imagemagick commands.

I've never worked with those PHP frameworks, so I can't comment specifically on them. They're probably fine to work with, but I'll always stick with Django over learning a PHP framework. The main difference is getting to use a language like Python or Ruby instead of PHP.

I haven't done it myself, but for your price range you'll likely end up on rentacoder. An article posted here a while back had some good tips on managing a project there:

http://maxkle.in/the-subtleties-in-outsourcing-using-rentaco...

Wow, a lot cheaper than Slicehost now. $20/month gets you 256 MB on Slicehost and 512 MB on Linode.

There is definitely value in keeping up with news, especially since technology moves so fast.

However, that said, 95% of what you'll read in a given day is trash. Cut out as much as you possibly can. Tim Ferris took this to the extreme, and you can read about it in the Four Hour Work Week. He said that he never reads any news, ever. When there's a presidential election, he emails his friends and asks them who they're going to vote for and why, and then makes a decision based on that.

IMHO, cut out all global political news. All of it is outside of your control and doesn't affect your life. Glance at a newspaper on the sidewalk occasionally and you'll get the gist of what's going on in the world. Be more judicious with other news sources also. You'll still know what's going on in technology if you only read HN every other day instead of every day.

If you have lots of free time, there isn't necessarily anything wrong with reading a lot. It's only a problem if you have other goals that aren't being achieved because you're spending too much time reading. You can either be reading the news, or making the news.

Wow, really cool. I like the idea and the development process. Very bare-bones MVP, but still useful. You'll even get to have an excuse to market it wherever you go. "Hey, why are you dressed like a cowboy?" "It's for charity. I have this website..."

It's going to be hard to get work if you don't have any portfolio at all. Try designing some stuff for fun or for fake clients so that people can see what you're capable of.

How much value would you get out of speaking if it were free (assuming they pay for travel)? If you told them a price and they said no, would you be okay walking away from the opportunity?

I usually find it easier to start with a project I want to build, and then learn whatever it takes to make it happen. There's so much to learn that it really is a personal preference.

Would you mind commenting on my website, Curious Reef, which is aiming to help people learn new things? I would love to hear if you think it's a solution to that problem.

http://curiousreef.com/

Oops, I meant that I disagree with marcamillion about the ship sailing thing...

Is the solution better software or smarter managers? I mean, you know that enterprise software sucks, but do the people who pay for it know that it sucks? How would you tackle that problem?

What kind of tech news? XBox games? OSS? VC funding announcements?

Right now, what would the top 5 headlines be on your ideal news site?

I disagree with linkfrek that the ship has sailed. Online communities will always exist and evolve. Digg, Reddit, and HN won't be the last tech communities ever built.