Category: Articles (Page 228 of 258)

Personal opinions and how-to’s that I’ve written both here and as contributions to other blogs.

Why I’ve Taken Referral Fees

July 10, 2013 / Tom / 0 Comments

Like those of you who are reading this, I’m a big fan of reading other people’s blogs for all of the traditional reasons:

Entertainment
Learning something new about a topic that I don’t know much about
Having my opinions or thoughts challenged about something
…and more

Of course, we all have our preferences for what and who we like to read, but I think that we also have our preferences for the types of topics that we like to read.

Case in point: One of the things that I enjoy reading the most is from people who offer opinions that challenge my own because it gives me food for thought to re-evaluate my own position on any given topic.

Sometime, I end up conceding a point; other times, I end up reaffirming my stance on a position. The thing is, I end up taking a significant amount of time to mull things over, so I rarely end up commenting on the post as soon as I read it.

Then, when I am ready to comment, it’s often too late and the time for the discussion has passed. Sure, sometimes I go back and leave a comment, sometimes I’ll chat with the person on Twitter, and sometimes, I’ll respond in a blog post.

My Day-To-Day: Listen to Podcasts

July 5, 2013 / Tom / 0 Comments

One of the things that I try to make sure that I do at least once a day is listen to podcasts. Honestly, I try to listen to several throughout the day, but it really depends on what all I have going on.

For the most part, I listen to podcasts whenever I’m in the car driving or I’m out on a run. Sure, there are only so many podcasts or so much of a podcast than you can listen to on any given, but this has worked pretty well for me for the past few years.

On top of that, I’ve given a number of podcast applications a fair shake and have come away with a favorite. But I’ll cover that in a second.

Go Ahead and Admit Your Mistakes

July 1, 2013 / Tom / 0 Comments

Arguably, one of the easiest observations to make about the development community is that we’re not exactly the best at admitting our mistakes. Admitting our mistakes is akin to admitting that we were wrong or that we didn’t know what we were doing and no one likes to do that.

Naturally, right?

It’s human nature to want to showcase our successes and mask our failures, but the truth is that no one has any success without actually failing (and likely several times over at that).

Lame.

Unfortunately, I think that developers may be more notorious than others for this. We’re good at criticism, trolling, and flat out demeaning other people’s work, but we’re not so good at accepting it when it comes back around to us.

Although this is may be a bit idealistic, it shouldn’t be that way.

My Day-To-Day: Inbox Zero, Revisited

June 28, 2013 / Tom / 0 Comments

A couple of months ago, I shared my strategy for trying to get to inbox zero. In short, I mentioned the following points:

I think that trying to get to inbox zero is a myth at worst, and a slippery slope at best
I outlined my strategy for dealing with email on a daily basis
I talk about the software I use as well as various things such as newsletters, after hours, etc.

Since that post, I’ve changed up my strategy a little bit and since email seems to be a common issue for everyone with – well, y’know – an inbox, I thought I’d share what I’m currently doing to manage my inbox.

Help Scout Workflows — An example of a Help Scout Email

Using Help Scout For WordPress Support

June 27, 2013 / Tom / 0 Comments

A few months ago, I wrote about Finding The Right WordPress Support System in which I laid out my points for what I’d look for in a support system. The post ended up generating a lot of really good feedback, and – as of last week – I officially chose Help Scout as my WordPress support system.

Obviously, it’s been about three months since I originally published that post so I clearly took my time (read: evaluated services after the responsibilities of my day job) deliberating on which service I to use.

As with any more decision, there were a number of factors that contributed to this decision.