Hey there Santa. How ya doin’? I hope your “off season” treated you well.

I’ll skip the BS this year Santa. Here’s some ideas for what to bring me.

Random Stuff:

• Starbucks gift card
• Amazon gift card
• gift cards for stores with kitchen stuff or decorating stuff
• chocolate (preferably dark; favorite brand is Ghirardelli)
• 15″ MacBook Pro
• iPad or Android tablet
• foot spa
• candles that smell like men’s cologne (Midsummer’s Night from Yankee Candle)
• session with a personal trainer
• makeover or spa treatment or massage
• a cowboy

Stuff for the House:

• ice cream maker (something like this … don’t care about brand)
• offset spatula
• Kitchenaid mixer
• food processor (full size)
• tv for the basement (32″ flat)
• couch or chairs for basement
• couch for living room
• SodaStream
• handheld vacuum
• a cowboy

Stuff for my Car:

• portable air compressor (in case I get another flat)
• a cowboy

P.S. I’ll leave you some extra baked goodies.

A while back, I bought some noise canceling headphones to use at work. I got a good deal on them from NewEgg, and I needed some new ones anyway. They’re not completely noise canceling, but they do a pretty good job at blocking things out.

I share an office with 3 co-workers, and my back is to the door. When I have my headphones in and I’m in “the zone”, I can’t really hear when someone comes in the office. Sometimes I can … if I don’t have the volume up too loud. But people don’t come in to talk to me all that often, so I usually just keep going about my business.

For the past couple weeks, it seems like when I’m really in “the zone”, that’s when someone comes in and wants to actually talk to me. I can tell when that happens because my co-workers start laughing. Really?

I’ve come up with a solution …

Install buttons or switches next to the door that connect to lights on our monitors. When someone comes in and needs to talk to us, if we don’t hear you, you hit the button or flip the switch for the person you want to talk to. That triggers an LED light on the corner of our monitor to flash, thus getting our attention.

Brilliant, right? I wonder if I could get the company to implement that.

The only problem with this solution … I’d no longer be able to use the excuse that I didn’t hear you when I was actually just ignoring you.

I have been meaning to completely re-do this place since WordPress 3.0 came out. The current version is 3.4.2, and I *still* haven’t managed to get this place redeveloped. Oops.

I work on other people’s websites all day at work. I get ideas for my own sites (this one and my professional site) from time to time while working on stuff at work. But by the time I get home in the evenings, I’ve lost all of my motivation to work on my own sites.

I have started on a re-do a few times. My biggest issue is figuring out how I want the site to look. I’m a KodeMonkey™ and not a designer. My logo is pieced together from an online paper doll site and a couple images (hat and laptop) that I found from Google Images. How sad is that? I think I need to beg some of the designers at work to make me a new one.

I need to just stop the excuses and dive in. Get my ass out of the recliner and downstairs in my computer chair and just do it.

If you’re a web developer/programmer by day, how do you get yourself motivated to work on your own sites in your free time?

My laptop will be 5 years old at the end of this year. It’s a Dell Inspiron 1520 (running Windows 7). It has served me well, but it’s been wigging out on me the past few months. The video driver has been crashing and it won’t run more than an hour (if even that) on the battery. Luckily it has recovered every time the video driver has crashed, but one of these times, I’m afraid it won’t. Then I’m screwed.

So I’ve been thinking about getting a new laptop. I don’t really have the money to get one, but I really do need a computer. I pay all of my bills online. I’m not going to do that at a library or at work if my laptop dies. And I won’t go back to mailing in payments.

I never really considered anything other than a Windows PC in the past. But lately I’ve been considering a Mac. Scary thought. LOL

The reason I’ve been considering Mac lately is the fact that I’ve gotten into iOS development at work. While I prefer Android over iOS (mainly because I have an Android phone), I don’t hate iOS. I’d like to spend more time on iOS development. I don’t think I’m going to get the opportunity at work. We’ve only had one client want a mobile app. Maybe there are more that will or new ones that will come in, but I can’t count on that. That  means that I need to do it on my own.

From what I’ve researched, it’s not possible to develop native iOS apps on a Windows machine. So if I’m going to do iOS development on my own, I’m going to need a Mac OS in some shape or form. I have 2 options:

1. get a new Windows laptop and install a Mac OS virtual machine
2. get a Mac laptop and install Windows either in Parallels or via Boot Camp (that was suggested to me)

I have had numerous people tell me to switch to Mac. While I am considering it, it’s hard to stomach the price tag. The Windows laptop that I’d probably want  to get wouldn’t be that much cheaper, but it would be cheaper.

I need to figure out what will work best for me, regardless of price. I can always put the laptop (whichever flavor) on my credit card and pay that off over a few months. So I’m turning to you (all 1 or 2 of you LOL). Help me figure out which OS would be best for me.

As I mentioned, I want to do more iOS development. I also want to do more Android development. I need to work on my own websites too (as you can tell from the looks of this place … it needs help), so that means php and MySQL development as well.

In addition to development related stuff, I also do the “normal” things that “normal” people do with computers:

• surf the web
• pay bills
• manage my checking and savings accounts
• listen to music
• store digital pictures
• stream radio broadcast and in-car audio during NASCAR races

I plan on going through my computer to see what software I use on a regular basis and use that to help make a list of pros and cons for each OS. I’m hoping that YOU can help me out with those lists. Software suggestions or personal stories or whatever that might help me figure out what will work best for me. At this point in time, I’m open to either (while my checkbook might not be LOL).

I recently got an opportunity to venture into mobile application development at work.  I had 2 months to develop an Android app for a client. During those 2 months, I had to build a website to manage the data that would be pulled into the app, an API to get the data from the website to the app and send data from the app back to the website, AND the Android app itself. Did I mention that this was my first foray into Android development?

Android apps are written in Java (with layouts, menus, and resources written in XML). With my experience with php, I was luckily able to pick up Java fairly easily. I did buy a couple books on Android development, and I was able to get through the first one and part of the second one before I had to start coding this app. That meant I was able to figure out some of the basics before I had to write a line of code for the app.

To my surprise, I was managed to get the website, API, and Android app done before the deadline … with a couple of days to spare (I won’t talk about the amount of overtime I put in to meet that deadline [too bad I don't get paid overtime]). We launched the app on Monday (I actually published it last Friday, but there were some issues with the Android Market that kept the app from being available until Monday … that’s another post entirely). If you’re curious to see my handiwork, you can find it here: JL Beers on the Android Market

The project for this client also includes an iOS app. I’m the one who gets to develop that one as well. :nailbite: I actually have an iMac on my desk at work (along side my Windows machine).

I had time to learn some basics before starting the Android app. Now that the Android app is out, I’m sure the client (and iPhone users in the area and my bosses) want the iOS version sooner rather than later. That’s leaving me feeling a lot of  (probably mostly imagined) pressure. Ideally, I’d like to get a book to learn the basics and run through some online tutorials. But I don’t feel like I have the luxury of taking the time to do that.

I have been going through some tutorials to try to figure out some of the basics, but I’m feeling very overwhelmed. iOS apps are written in Objective-C, and I have no experience in that. It’s nothing like php or Java. In php and Java, you have 1 file for a class. In Objective-C, you need 2 files to create 1 class. And that’s just the start. We want the iOS app to be as similar to the Android app as possible. Trying to figure out how to do some of the stuff that I did in the Android app in the iOS app is making my head hurt.

It’s not that I don’t want to learn how to develop iOS apps. I would love to add that to my resume. Adding iOS to my php and sql (both MySQL and MSSQL) experience, and my newly acquired Android experience would make me a force to recon with (or so I’d like to think).

There is no set deadline for the iOS app, but I know everyone wants it done as soon as (humanly) possible (or at least that’s how I feel). And I think that’s the biggest issue. I feel like I’m wasting time reading through tutorials and not doing billable work. But working through tutorials is how I learn. That’s how I taught myself php and sql. I’ve never taken a day of programming classes in my life (well, I did take a C programming class in college, but that was HOW long ago … and it was only a basic class). I learn by doing … by actually writing the code and running it and finding the errors/mistakes and fixing them and running it and …

If I could just get a handle on the basics, I think that would help. It doesn’t help that this app has some more advanced functionality. If it had been a basic app, then I wouldn’t be so stressed out (then again …). Of course, most of that stress is caused by me.

I need to figure out how to get myself to calm down. I’ll figure it out … I always do. I’m just afraid that this time it’s going to take me longer than it has in the past. I don’t want to let anyone (client, co-workers, bosses) down.