poissonpie

Two come to mind

A thought a day app that just completely tanked. It only gives you 1 thought a day - most others seem to be every possible thought you could want at any time. Mine just didn't catch on. C'est la vie.

Then there was the site-flipping attempt that just didn't work out at all - the content was all dream and alt/complementary therapy related. Just didn't hit the spot apparently.

Thank you! and well spotted.....google app engine + naked domains are a little annoying to get going - I'll look into it.

so so true.....i can't actually remember the last time i read a book that didn't have pictures in it.....but man, you can't beat having a child :)

Looks neat thanks. I tried Less Framework a while back and for some reason, just didn't quite get on with it...so it's nice to have an alternative

For the first couple of years with my daughter, I coded on the weekends. I timed it for one of her naps, because she had a pretty solid routine - 2hours sleep 2hours awake during the day time. I timed everything though, and limited myself to 30 minutes at a time to make sure I got to my share of the chores and got enough rest myself.

If you plan carefully, you can be very productive - try something like the pomodoro technique to make sure you aren't just faffing about. Evenings after work I found it better just to enjoy time with my family and get some exercise and rest.

I have to say that's a mouthful for anyone to learn when all they want to do is get a form up and running. I think it sets up a barrier to getting something going for a rank beginner.

My personal suggestion is to go with Python on google app engine. Use a simple text editor. The implementation is simple and has slightly less "magic" going on than Ruby on Rails. Once you've got it running in GAE, you'll have a better understanding of the request/response cycle and an appreciation of getting variables from forms manually. Then do the same project in Rails (or Django if you prefer Python). Once you understand the manual approach of dealing with forms, you will have an appreciation of what's going on behind the scenes when Rails magically does some processing for you.

After that you can iterate again and add to your skills learning about SASS, HAML, finding the "perfect" IDE etc.

Start as simply as possible, learn a little about what is going on behind the scenes, then grab tools that help you automate the boring bits.

In fact, if you didn't already know some Python and Ruby on Rails, I would suggest just hacking out some nasty PHP to get up and running (simply because it is so widely supported and saves a lot of deployment hassle when you just want to get the thing working)

Michel Thomas has worked for me - French, Italian and Spanish...It is all audio-learning though - no written per se. I've gotten surprisingly good results - at least enough to hold my own in simple conversations from the CDs (they are about 8 hours each for a basic course).

Ubuntu 11.04 Google Chrome - ssl error and blank page.....

Definitely check out Django - the documentation includes a great tutorial that will guide you through developing a web site. Well written and easy to follow.

For something a little more minimal, try google app engine - their getting started guide is a very simple one form web app: http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/python/gettingstarted/

I actually like the "hold yourself back" idea. The "tortoise and the hare" comes to mind here.

The SQL Server Management tool is pretty good. And to be honest, I've actually never had a problem using SQL Server. It's been a solid, dependable database on any number of applications for me over the years. Granted, the businesses have been less on the startup side and more on the larger older organisation side of things.

Looks like you guys are doing very interesting work - I've been working in healthcare in the UK for more than a few years now....it's definitely wide open for some decent solutions. Are you open to remote/flexible working or is it on-site only at the moment?