Anonymous asked: How do you maintain focus (on work, dreams, goals, life)?You do one thing at a time.
I've been casting my net wide these past fews months and so far haven't found that one thing yet, but I know when I do it will ring true like is has in the past.
Yesterday I bought a computer game. For those that know me well this may came as a big surprise since this isn't something I normally do. Lately I've found myself searching for something to sink my teeth into. I've not quite found it yet so I've been doing my best to not just sit in front of the television and watch movies. To that end a discussion at work recently brought up the game Braid. I have to say so far it is an awesome puzzle game, my favorite genre. The playing with time dynamic the game has isn't something I've seen in the few games I've played or heard about and it's done very well. Definitely worth the few bucks it cost me.
Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A no nonsense approach on how to design web sites to be as effective as possible. The second edition adds information on treating users well and designing for accessibility while trimming the focus on how to conduct usability testing. It has been a number of years since I first skimmed this book and I found the changes welcome. My biggest complaint with the book continues to be a lack of a summary or checklist on the high level points with references to where the topic is covered in more detail. While the book is concise enough to easily skim through I frequently found myself wishing for some more than just the index to find material when I wanted to review a topic. If even half the advice given in the book was followed the web would be twice as easy to use.
I've been occasionally following NoSQL over the past year since starting to use SimpleDB for unstructured data storage. A lot of options have opened up and recently Tim Anglade put this list together that I thought was worth sharing. Hopefully I got all the links correct as they were not part of the original message.
I had read this book awhile ago as part of a book group but due to a gag order around discussing books prior to meeting in person, I'm only now getting around to posting it. Minor spoiler alert.
The Music of Chance by Paul Auster
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
The book started off great. I had visions of Rounders and Good Will Hunting in my head as the story started to unfold. Unfortunately once they lost the big poker game and voluntarily entered indentured servitude my suspension of disbelief was broken and I could no longer relate to the characters. As a result I found it a drudgery to complete the book.
