January 2012
1 post
2 tags
On Challenging the Status Quo
It’s freakin’ hard to do. Great blog post, huh? No seriously though. I have learned an awful lot recently from speaking my mind on controversial topics. It comes naturally to me to say what I think and I’ve never been the person to go along with things when they don’t seem right. Maybe it’s just the way I see the world, my perfectionist personality, or perhaps...
November 2011
1 post
8 tags
A Letter to the Developer Community
Dear Mac/iOS Developer Community,
Empathy is the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes who may be different from yourself and attempt to understand/have compassion towards that person’s feelings, especially if their feelings are different from your own. If you do not consider yourself to be a particularly empathetic person, there’s no need to read any further.
I...
October 2011
1 post
4 tags
Finding Your Success
The other night I was debating with a friend whether or not it was truly possible to have major success in your career without your job coming first. She believes it’s simply not possible. You’re either family oriented or job oriented, but something always must win. I was nearly persuaded. But after she left I thought about it some more, and decided it is possible to achieve major...
August 2011
1 post
8 tags
Software should be more like Cirque du Soleil
I recently attended a traveling Cirque du Soleil performance called “OVO” which was an insect themed performance. If you haven’t seen a Cirque du Soleil performance before, you must go because they are fantastic! When you arrive, you enter a humongous tent and are immediately transported to this bizarre kind of circus that’s all grown up. The costumes are incredible, the...
April 2011
1 post
6 tags
Work/Life Balance is a Joke
Not the actual concept of achieving a balance of work and life, of course, that you can do. But the phrase “work/life balance” has been thrown around so much by companies that don’t have a clue what it means, touting their excellent work/life balance and benefits, that it has become virtually meaningless.
A company at which employees must fit their sick days and personal time...
March 2011
1 post
A Worm in My Apple (wbyoung) →
Having not been around in the Mac developer community for long… I may not have the same ideological disappointments from Apple’s “it’s just business” mindset, but I definitely feel the uneasiness in the community…
wbyoung:
I’ve had this uneasy feeling recently. I keep thinking that Apple is on the verge of trending toward unfavorable. Don’t get me wrong, I...
February 2011
3 posts
9 tags
Mise en place for coding
Chefs employ mise en place (“everything in place”) as an initial step before beginning to cook a meal. It involves gathering all the ingredients, measuring out or weighing each to the quantity required, and then laying everything out along with any pots/pans, or other tools required for the recipe. This serves a couple different purposes. It makes certain that you have everything you...
5 tags
Indie Developer == Adapter
A moderately terrifying thought occurred to me the other day and it’s been rattling around in my head ever since. I don’t have a plan. I have no idea what I will be working on one year from now. I have absolutely no clue what my tiny company’s product portfolio will look like in five years. In ten years will I still be a Mac focused developer?
There are about a hundred and one...
3 tags
Life or death, it's in your hands software....
The more technological we get, the more catastrophic it becomes when technology fails. On an average day we rely on more technology than ever before to get through our routine. What’s behind all that technological magic? Usually software. But software is involved in more than just entertainment and productivity these days. We rely on software for medical tests, to keep planes from colliding...
January 2011
3 posts
4 tags
13 Reasons Why Software Is Not Free
Lately it seems more and more evident that the general population expects software to be free or at the very least cheap. This is reinforced when companies like Apple, who make a tremendous income off of their hardware, the iTunes store, and many other revenue streams, heavily discount their software. I’m thinking of the iWork suite in particular. Apple can afford to discount their software...
12 tags
What Business School Wouldn't Have Taught Me...
Before I begin, I would just like to say, I don’t in any way think that business school is useless for everyone. I certainly don’t think I know everything there is to know about business either. I simply don’t believe that business school is a pre-requisite, or even a useful background, for running a successful technology company.
There was a great article published in Business...
9 tags
Lost Without a Ladder
Before abruptly quitting my consulting gig at a large global corporation to become an indie Mac developer, I was on what they call the corporate ladder. The expression “climbing the corporate ladder” has been around forever, and is typically seen as a positive thing. It refers, as you know, to moving up the ladder (through promotions) to get as high as possible in a business. People...
October 2010
1 post
6 tags
The path to pursuing your dream job
After reading a fairly discouraging article on the “Dream Job Delusion” posted on LifeHacker, I felt I had no choice but to write my own rebuttal (if you will) on what it means to pursue your dream job. I simply could not let this article go without a response. Seriously! I can’t remember the last time I read an article and disagreed so strongly with practically everything that...
September 2010
2 posts
wbyoung: Your Perfect Job →
wbyoung:
Find You’ll find it randomly. There’s no telling how your perfect job will materialize. You might find it from a job posting. Maybe it was a website that you ended up browsing some day. How you found it doesn’t matter, but when you do, your thoughts will be: … Apply What you need to do is…
6 tags
The Unhealthy Addiction
Upon abandoning the world of business for the more casual, open community-based field of software development, I was initially awed and inspired by the general passion for coding that was seemingly everywhere you turned. People in general, especially in specific development communities like Ruby and Cocoa, seem to love what they do with a fervor that I had not seen before. Work was not work, it...
August 2010
1 post
wbyoung: Not a Startup →
It’s been a year and a half now since FadingRed became a registered LLC. A year and a half — that’s not very long — you must be a startup, right? No. The term startup is usually used to describe young companies in technology. In general, startups have relatively small teams and a reputation for…
July 2010
4 posts
5 tags
It All Comes Down to Confidence
Today I pondered what defines an entrepreneur. It’s certainly not a lack of fear, because everyone has those. It doesn’t matter how smart, witty, or hard working you are. Those qualities help, but they don’t quite capture “it”. For me, it really comes down to confidence. If you don’t have confidence that your team will pull through, that you will figure out that...
8 tags
Becoming More Productive and Less Stressed... It's...
I recently received the book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, by David Allen, as a birthday gift. Only half way through the book, I am already transformed in the way I approach productivity in my life! As someone who was an incessant planner and list maker, I had no idea how inefficient my productivity methods were until I started to make and see the changes recommended in...
8 tags
"Look at the line to the men's restroom. This...
This June I attended my first WWDC, Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference, in San Francisco. The conference is an opportunity for everyone developing software on the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Web platforms to come together and spend a week learning the latest and greatest coming out of Apple headquarters while networking and learning from each other. And when they say worldwide, they...
8 tags
We fear that which we do not understand
This morning I woke up, put on a slouchy black t-shirt and knee length skirt from Urban Outfitters, and slipped on my silver flip flops. I gathered up my Macbook Air, Ray Bans, and beach towel, slathered on some SPF 45 (sun safety people!), and headed to the office. That’s right, I went to work like that. You won’t catch me ever walking to work in heels. No thanks. As I walked my 1/2...
May 2010
1 post
6 tags
What a difference 5 years can make...
It’s exhilarating to be a part of an industry where change happens everyday and the world around you is constantly being transformed, and the rules re-written. That’s what I love about technology. I couldn’t possibly imagine working in a field like politics where change happens in slow motion and only after the 15th try will something possibly change — only to be rolled back by...
April 2010
4 posts
Byrd & Belle — Classy iPad case →
I think this is the best iPad case I’ve found so far…
8 tags
Why So Few Women in Silicon Valley? - NYTimes.com →
This is a great article on why there are so few women involved in technology startups.
13 tags
The further I get from college....
First, I want to make it clear before I begin that I am not at all discrediting the value of a college education. There’s no better time or place to immerse yourself in knowledge, collaboration and growth than on a world class college campus, and this experience should definitely not be passed up. It’s just that the further I get from college (2 years out now) the more I realize the...
5 tags
Working From Home: The Good And The Bad
The Good
I never wake up early for work, unless of course I feel so inclined (which is rarely). I wear what I want to wear (usually casual and comfy is my motto). I can leave my hair wet sometimes (its long and takes forever to dry). I don’t have to worry about offending anyone by taking frequent brain breaks and getting lost in the latest news, or shopping online. And I definitely...
March 2010
2 posts
7 tags
I Cannot Code Without Art
Without art, writing code would simply be a process of regurgitating syntax and stringing together if-then statements to create logical algorithms. When I was in engineering school, it seemed pretty obvious to me that you could apply design to any engineering field. For instance, civil engineering includes the design and construction of buildings and bridges, which involves a lot of vision and...
6 tags
How I Quit My Job to be an Entrepreneur
Last year at about this time, I found myself in an uncomfortable position where I was not satisfied in my job. I didn’t see the future career path to be at all what I had imagined when I took the job, and it felt like I was running on the wrong track. It was a good job by all accounts - a large respectable company with good compensation and benefits and nice people. But something just...
February 2010
6 posts
12 tags
Apple's Removal of Raunchy Apps: My Perspective as...
When Apple began banning sexually explicit (read: trashy content) from the app store last week, there was a plethora of backlash coming from both sides of the argument. Most definitely the developers of these apps were upset, and rightly so, in the fact that they worked on creating these applications, got approved to sell in the store, started earning a living, only to suddenly have it taken...
PostSecret →
I love reading Post Secret, and there are some great ones for the week.
9 tags
Can Barbie Make Engineering Sexy?
Although I’m not sure the impact Barbie may have on young girls of today, when I was a little girl I loved Barbie! I must have owned a dozen different barbies all with different themes: Lifeguard Barbie, Hair Dresser Barbie, Model Barbie, Equestrian Barbie, etc. But I most certainly did not have a Computer Engineer Barbie! Mattel’s new Computer Engineer Barbie is a step in the right...
12 tags
Ladies, Wake Up and Get Coding!
There’s a great big world out there — full of technological breakthroughs — like cars that drive themselves, lasers that can turn off cancer cells, homes that generate rather than consume energy… all just waiting for your passion, expertise, and skills to take things to the next level. So why is it that we let the majority of these energizing, life changing, incredible careers go to the...
April 2009
1 post
“Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who...”
– Albert Einstein