23 January, 2012
Twitter API to the rescue

Sometimes I half-remember a tweet, something that a person I follow on
Twitter had shared. Visiting the Twitter profile of this person and
browsing through it, manually searching for THE tweet, can take quite some
time.

I encounter this difficulty in cases where I vaguely remember the tweet,
perhaps just a phrase of it, but forget the link that was shared to a
particular blog post or video that caught my attention.

Fortunately, Twitter provides an API. By browsing through the
documentation,
I found this URL to be very useful in such cases:

https://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline.json?screen_name=TWITTER_USERNAME_HERE&include_entities=true&count=200&include_rts=true

(This displays the last 200 tweets published by the user
with screen_name TWITTER_USERNAME_HERE.)

A Ctrl+F in the browser helps to find the complete tweet (and its metadata)
by searching for the phrase or words that I had remembered.>

11 January, 2012
Vertical software

Joel Spolsky describes why software for a vertical market (vertical software) is a good option for startups. Two advantages of developing vertical software are: “1. It’s easier to find customers. If you make dentist software, you know which conventions to go to and which magazines to advertise in. All you have to do is find dentists. 2. The margins are better. Your users are professionals at work and it makes sense for them to give you money if you can solve their problems.”V

7 January, 2012
Available options when creating a new Ruby on Rails application

Running rails new -h in the terminal returns a list of switches that may be used when creating a new Ruby on Rails application. Usage: rails new APP_PATH [options] Options: -r, [—ruby=PATH] # Path to the Ruby binary of your choice # Default: /Users/alextabone/.rbenv/versions/1.9.3-p0/bin/ruby -b, [—builder=BUILDER] # Path to a application builder (can be a filesystem path or URL) -m, [—template=TEMPLATE] # Path to an application template (can be a filesystem path or URL) [—skip-gemfile] # Don’t create a Gemfile [—skip-bundle] # Don’t run bundle install -G, [—skip-git] # Skip Git ignores and keeps -O, [—skip-active-record] # Skip Active Record files -S, [—skip-sprockets] # Skip Sprockets files -d, [—database=DATABASE] # Preconfigure for selected database (options: mysql/oracle/postgresql/sqlite3/frontbase/ibm_db/sqlserver/jdbcmysql/jdbcsqlite3/jdbcpostgresql/jdbc) # Default: sqlite3 -j, [—javascript=JAVASCRIPT] # Preconfigure for selected JavaScript library # Default: jquery -J, [—skip-javascript] # Skip JavaScript files [—dev] # Setup the application with Gemfile pointing to your Rails checkout [—edge] # Setup the application with Gemfile pointing to Rails repository -T, [—skip-test-unit] # Skip Test::Unit files [—old-style-hash] # Force using old style hash (:foo => ‘bar’) on Ruby >= 1.9 Runtime options: -f, [—force] # Overwrite files that already exist -p, [—pretend] # Run but do not make any changes -q, [—quiet] # Supress status output -s, [—skip] # Skip files that already exist Rails options: -h, [—help] # Show this help message and quit -v, [—version] # Show Rails version number and quit Description: The ‘rails new’ command creates a new Rails application with a default directory structure and configuration at the path you specify. Example: rails new &;/Code/Ruby/weblog This generates a skeletal Rails installation in &;/Code/Ruby/weblog. See the README in the newly created application to get going. A good-to-know thing, since many times we take the defaults for granted.

3 January, 2012
"If you are looking where everyone else is for the next big thing, you are looking in the wrong place."

— Mark Cuban

30 December, 2011
Books I read in 2011

*Steve Jobs* by Walter Isaacson
*Anything You Want* by Derek Sivers
*The Magic of Thinking Big* by David J. Schwartz
*The E-Myth Revisited* by Michael E. Gerber
*Business Stripped Bare* by Sir Richard Branson
*Influence – The Psychology of Persuasion* by Robert B. Cialdini
*The Personal MBA* by Josh Kauffman
*How to Win Friends and Influence People* by Dale Carnegie
*Evil Plans: Having Fun on the Road to World Domination* by Hugh MacLeod
*Switch* by Chip and Dan Heath

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