RyanJM

RyanJM http://ryanjm.posterous.com Most recent posts at RyanJM posterous.com Mon, 20 Dec 2010 16:53:01 -0800 Week 18 & 19 - Summary http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~3/DyiDBtBoauo/week-18-19-summary http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-18-19-summary <p> <span style="font-family: Arial;">This two weeks ago I was Chicago working on OrangeQC, and last week I spent in Urbana visiting with friends.</span><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">There really isn't much to say about these past two weeks, but I did want to put out there how helpful and encouraging it is to get feedback from customers. Especially unsolicited feedback. It is awesome to have people seek out your email and give you their thoughts about your application. It is good to know I've created something people like.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">Take away lesson: I should make it easier for others to contact me through my applications.</div> </p> <p><a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-18-19-summary">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-18-19-summary#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~4/DyiDBtBoauo" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/699681/profile_300.png http://posterous.com/users/4afDiNfXb3CF Ryan M RyanJM Ryan M http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-18-19-summary Tue, 14 Dec 2010 05:54:00 -0800 iOS Fonts http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~3/PmOaZ9cx5q8/ios-fonts http://ryanjm.posterous.com/ios-fonts <p> <div class="posterous_bookmarklet_entry"> <div class="posterous_quote_citation"> Check out this website I found at <a href="http://iosfonts.com/">iosfonts.com</a></div> <p>via adamhuda.com</p></div> </p> <p><a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/ios-fonts">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/ios-fonts#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~4/PmOaZ9cx5q8" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/699681/profile_300.png http://posterous.com/users/4afDiNfXb3CF Ryan M RyanJM Ryan M http://ryanjm.posterous.com/ios-fonts Wed, 08 Dec 2010 13:56:00 -0800 Converting to a Universal App (Part II) - Blog - Use Your Loaf http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~3/pobRL9OyLPQ/converting-to-a-universal-app-partii-blog-use http://ryanjm.posterous.com/converting-to-a-universal-app-partii-blog-use <p> <div class="posterous_bookmarklet_entry"> <blockquote class="posterous_long_quote"><h3>Preparing the ground</h3> <p>Before attempting any major changes to an existing app it is worth taking some time to refactor and clean up what you already have. This is less satisfying in the short term if you are in a hurry to see something up and running on the iPad but it should pay off in the long run. Some suggestions to take a look at:</p> <ul> <li>Review the Model-View-Controller Design Pattern</li> <li>Reduce dependencies between classes.</li> <li>Screen resolution dependencies</li> <li>Supported orientations</li> <li>NIB file organisation</li></ul></blockquote> <div class="posterous_quote_citation">via <a href="http://useyourloaf.com/blog/2010/4/19/converting-to-a-universal-app-part-ii.html">useyourloaf.com</a></div> <p></p></div> </p> <p><a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/converting-to-a-universal-app-partii-blog-use">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/converting-to-a-universal-app-partii-blog-use#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~4/pobRL9OyLPQ" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/699681/profile_300.png http://posterous.com/users/4afDiNfXb3CF Ryan M RyanJM Ryan M http://ryanjm.posterous.com/converting-to-a-universal-app-partii-blog-use Sun, 05 Dec 2010 15:19:16 -0800 Week 17 - Summary - Nearing the End http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~3/A8Ad-Nwn-lk/week-17-summary-nearing-the-end http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-17-summary-nearing-the-end <p> <span style="font-family: Arial;">Most of the week has been spent either working on cleaning up / improving OrangeQC code or looking at jobs. It is the beginning of December and I'm less than a month away from January 1st, the date this experiment was to finish. My income has not changed enough in the past 5 months for me to sustain myself, so I am taking my lessons with me into my next position. In the coming weeks I'll be writing a post of all the lessons I've learned / what I will change the next time I attempt to do this.</span><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">I don't think I'm being too idealistic, but there are three things I would like to find in my next position:</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;"><b>1. An Interesting and Challenging Problem</b>. As I looked through applications this week, there are some positions which just aren't for me. I will do my best work and be providing the most value for a company if it is somewhere where I will be challenged and I am excited to be helping the company innovate. I'm a detail oriented person, therefore I want to see what the big picture is so I can be excited about building every step between here and there.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;"><b>2. Mentorship.</b> I'm wondering if I'm being too optimistic in this one. I want to find a place to work where the environment encourages learning and teaching others. I want to improve my skills, both technical and business.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;"><b>3. Freedom to build. </b>I love programming. I will always want to build things. When I work for a company, I want to write great code in order to accomplish objectives. And when I come up with ideas for the business, whether serious or something to play around with, it would be nice to have the freedom to build it (obviously the required work comes first). And in off hours / weekends, I think it is important to have the freedom to do whatever I want with that time, whether it is to work on side projects for the business or myself.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">I should clarify that these side projects aren't meant to take my focus off of my job. It's not me trying to work on someone else's dime in order to get my own startup up and running enough to survive on its own. If they bring in a side income, great. But my focus would be on my full time job.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">There is a second aspect to this that I find very important. When working on one application I tend to get a very narrow view of what is possible. It is when I challenge myself with a new problem in a different area that I find new ways to solve things. Those ideas are then able to cross-pollinate, thus making my code cleaner all around. And I think I should be trying to improve my ability to code in whatever way I can.</div> </p> <p><a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-17-summary-nearing-the-end">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-17-summary-nearing-the-end#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~4/A8Ad-Nwn-lk" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/699681/profile_300.png http://posterous.com/users/4afDiNfXb3CF Ryan M RyanJM Ryan M http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-17-summary-nearing-the-end Tue, 30 Nov 2010 08:08:59 -0800 Week 15 & 16 - Summary - Lessons from Feedback http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~3/hkHhR5n9n1Q/week-15-16-summary-lessons-from-feedback http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-15-16-summary-lessons-from-feedback <p> <div style="font-family: Arial;"><b>The Quick Summary</b></div><span style="font-family: Arial;">The past two weeks have gone by quickly. I finished up the new design for the Blue Shirt Labs site and got it launched when FavBites came out. I also spent a lot of time working on marketing for OrangeQC and took a trip up to Urbana the weekend of November 19th. And of course this week was Thanksgiving, and I had many relatives in town.</span><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;"><b>FavBites Update</b></div><div style="font-family: Arial;">Here is a quick update on FavBites. It has only been out a little over a week, and I have sold 11 copies. Obviously my weak point is still marketing, but this time I sent out 20+ emails to friends and family who I knew had an iPhone device and asked for help to promote it (via Twitter and Facebook) and to give me feedback. I'm really glad I did this because as the feedback has been rolling in, I've seen what kind of things I should be improving on the app and have been able to prioritize the features I have planned.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">One of issues that came up was the confusion surrounding the "In Progress" button and the location of the buttons on this review page. The idea behind the "In Progress" button was that you could do half of the review before the meal and half after. Before the meal you would choose the profile and put in what you are eating and hit "In Progress." This would then save the current review and highlight it when among the other reviews. Then you could come back into it and add your score and comment after the meal.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">Since it wasn't immediately clear what it meant and people were looking for the buttons at the top (a standard location in iOS apps). I removed the button and moved the "Cancel" and "Save" buttons to the top. It is still highlighted when no score has been added, indicating it still needs to be finished. These changes will be coming out in the next release.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">This has just been a good reminder that it is important to get feedback from other people.</div><p /><p><div class='p_embed p_image_embed'> <img alt="B1e39019564a96b4f9a3d2be987472" height="416" src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/ryanjm/U89pTwBA4JoWyihy8z0PDX8MLxLELzp73NpKdYcGjWi0QX9MGwe2CR4Awg7A/b1e39019564a96b4f9a3d2be987472.png" width="277" /> <img alt="2cf57cecd77d190424f7589b5a579d" height="480" src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/ryanjm/jnCi4t3iOjsoreau1p5Uny73vORWyEa9gUuD2BGqb6Lkrw0XRo8EZn8SVhZb/2cf57cecd77d190424f7589b5a579d.png" width="322" /> <div class='p_see_full_gallery'><a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-15-16-summary-lessons-from-feedback">See the full gallery on Posterous</a></div> </div> </p> </p> <p><a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-15-16-summary-lessons-from-feedback">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-15-16-summary-lessons-from-feedback#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~4/hkHhR5n9n1Q" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/699681/profile_300.png http://posterous.com/users/4afDiNfXb3CF Ryan M RyanJM Ryan M http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-15-16-summary-lessons-from-feedback Mon, 29 Nov 2010 15:10:26 -0800 So True http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~3/Z1w9BNlsiUc/so-true http://ryanjm.posterous.com/so-true <p> <div><blockquote type="cite">The best designers and the best programmers aren't the ones with the best skills, or the nimblest fingers, or the ones who can rock and roll with Photoshop or their environment of choice, they are the ones that can determine what just doesn't matter. That's where the real gains are made.</blockquote></div><p />Reading through <a href="http://gettingreal.37signals.com/toc.php">Getting Real</a> for the first time. There are lots of great things in there. </p> <p><a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/so-true">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/so-true#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~4/Z1w9BNlsiUc" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/699681/profile_300.png http://posterous.com/users/4afDiNfXb3CF Ryan M RyanJM Ryan M http://ryanjm.posterous.com/so-true Sun, 14 Nov 2010 22:25:45 -0800 Week 14 - Summary http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~3/fapHh818G14/week-14-summary http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-14-summary <p> <span style="font-family: Arial;">I'm learning a new groove and a different type of excitement. When I started this experiment back in August, my excitement was for programming. I had no problem sitting down for a solid 8 or 9 hours a day programming away. Build, build, build. It let me learn many lessons along the way in regard to development cycles and management. I've had my ups and downs with it, but last week when I learned the lesson of really focusing on the core, it opened my eyes to other areas that I really need to focus on.</span><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">Since launching Bookmark + 8 weeks ago I have sold 18 copies. I did some AdSense in the beginning but that didn't do much. I haven't released an update and I haven't encouraged reviews. There is a whole other side of business that I haven't been touching.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">Last week, I mentioned I would be rewriting my restaurant application. By Thursday morning I had finished and worked out all of the bugs I had found. It was time to choosing a name. I ended up going with FavBites. I have set the price at $0.99 and have also lowered the price of Bookmark +.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">I have ideas for both of these apps and am excited for where they can go. My plans are to spend half a week doing development on both applications, thus pushing out a new version each week. The other half of the week I'll be learning marketing and finding new ways to promote the apps. I'm proud of the work I've done, and I want to share it with others.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">This new excitement is similar to walking into the first class of the semester and seeing the overview. In that moment you, if you are crazy like me, get excited about the amazing things you are about to learn in that class. I see that I have a lot to learn when it comes to marketing and promotions, but I'm excited to learn. I'm not on fire yet, but I'm working up my appetite. I am still learning which direction to take the first steps.</div> </p> <p><a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-14-summary">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-14-summary#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~4/fapHh818G14" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/699681/profile_300.png http://posterous.com/users/4afDiNfXb3CF Ryan M RyanJM Ryan M http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-14-summary Thu, 11 Nov 2010 10:44:26 -0800 Week 12 & 13 - Summary - The Large Mistake http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~3/1h5fddiXpYM/week-12-13-summary-the-large-mistake http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-12-13-summary-the-large-mistake <p> <div style="font-family: Arial;">In my last blog post I mentioned that I felt like my head was buried in the sand. This should have been a personal alert to myself to check what I'm doing, but it wasn't. I ended up spending the last two weeks continuing to do what I have been by keeping my head down and moving forward. I finished my application and took a week to design the UI. It looks great. I even got to try it out. Then I realized something: it doesn't work.<br /></div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">It works in that it does everything I programmed it to do. But it isn't functional. When I had originally explained my idea to my brother, he had no problem pointing out that it was too complicated. My thought was, "Oh, he isn't my target audience. I know how I want to use it, so I'll just continue to program." That was a dumb move on my part. This post is much longer because it is a mistake that I need to learn a very important lesson from, and other might need to also.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">So what have I spent the past 5 weeks building? And how did I end up making this mistake?</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;"><b>Problem to be solved</b></div><div style="font-family: Arial;">When I go to a restaurant, the question I inevitably ask is, "What did I have last time?" And sometimes the more important question is, "What did my brother have last time?" He usually picks out things I would like to try out. So that was the goal: simply remember what I had last time.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;"><b>What happened next…</b></div><div style="font-family: Arial;">Once I had that in place, my mind took a quick detour, "What could this app end up looking like?" Well, if you have people rating items in a restaurant, you could gather the restaurant's menu. Not only that, but if you go to a new restaurant, you could see what other people said was good. And with a little cross reference magic, you could not only suggest new restaurants for people to check out, but also what meals they might like.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">If you are gathering the items on the menu, you might as well get the price. Price! That means it would be really easy to create a virtual "receipt" and calculate the grand total for you. And if I have that I could do a cool tip calculator.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">Ok, so I have the user go to the restaurant, pick out which menu they want to look at, which section they want to look at, and then they can flip through the items. It would be cool if they could flip through the menu like a book. Like the iBook app! And then they just add the item to their order and then I'll have the receipt. See, that is nice, clean and simple.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;"><b>"The Bare Minimum"</b></div><div style="font-family: Arial;">I'm not dumb. I know that you shouldn't put in <i>every</i> feature in the first version. You should iterate and slowly build features into it over time. I didn't mention my ideas for what a website could do with this data, and the ability to follow other people, and the badges that could be there… but I'm sure you get the idea. So the question was, "What is the bare minimum set of features that I need to build?"</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">Well, obviously I need the restaurant name. And since I want to split things up by menu and section, I'll need those two. And I would like the item name, it's price, and the description would be nice too, but that can be optional. Then I need the receipt, since that will be where people can review the item. And since I have that, I'll also need the feature of adding a tip. Coupons and taxes are necessary in order to get the right grand total.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">So that was the bare minimum. (Ha)</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;"><b>Use Case</b></div><div style="font-family: Arial;">When I was finally done designing and all (and I was really happy about the design, even if I did mimic the iBook app a lot) I finally got to try it out at a restaurant. I put in the restaurant, the menu, and the section. Then I added the item, price, and description. Then add a section for drink and the drink itself. Plus I added my mom's items. And that is all without reviewing the items.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">This many steps is a huge fail. The worst part is, even after adding your review, there was no way to see your review. I had cut that out. It <i>was</i> going to be in the next iteration, which was supposed to be within a week of the release, so it wasn't a huge deal, or so I thought. When my girlfriend looked at the app this was one of the main things she asked about.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">The app, after spending a month on it, didn't even solve my initial problem. In fact it complicated the whole process (no matter how wonderfully designed it might be).</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;"><b>The Lessons</b></div><div style="font-family: Arial;">- Ask over and over and over your feature set. Is this <i>really</i> the bare minimum? Does it really solve the problem (and just the problem)?</div><div style="font-family: Arial;">- Make sure to use it as soon as possible and ask the above questions again. Use it before the app is finished!</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;"><b>Goal</b></div><div style="font-family: Arial;">So the goal for this next week is to rip it all down and try again. I have some good pieces of code in there, and I learned a lot along the way. So <i>hopefully</i> this rewrite should only take a week. But we shall see.</div> </p> <p><a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-12-13-summary-the-large-mistake">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-12-13-summary-the-large-mistake#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~4/1h5fddiXpYM" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/699681/profile_300.png http://posterous.com/users/4afDiNfXb3CF Ryan M RyanJM Ryan M http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-12-13-summary-the-large-mistake Mon, 25 Oct 2010 10:59:44 -0700 Week 11 - Summary http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~3/wYr4jH4IZ-I/week-11-summary http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-11-summary <p> <span style="font-family: Arial;">I'm 11 weeks in and I mostly feel like I have my head buried in the sand. I'm at my computer most of the day, all week long, programming away. This weekend I had to make myself step away and just relax a little bit (and catch up on some tech news).</span><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">Ok, less with the boring mundane stuff, and more of the interesting stuff. This week's lesson: <b>user stories</b>. I'll assume you know what they are if your reading a startup blog. If not, check out the wikipedia <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_story">article</a>.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">Last week, I had hoped to have most of the application finished by Friday, and then I would be working on design stuff this week. Though I did get most of it done, I over simplified my tasks and therefore poorly judged the time it would take to finish them. User stories not only provide a structure for knowing what features you want to implement but can also allow you to see how much still needs to be done.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">I am glad that this lesson is being learned now. The better I become at writing user stories and estimating the time it will take for me to complete those stories, the better off I'll be.</div> </p> <p><a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-11-summary">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-11-summary#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~4/wYr4jH4IZ-I" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/699681/profile_300.png http://posterous.com/users/4afDiNfXb3CF Ryan M RyanJM Ryan M http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-11-summary Mon, 18 Oct 2010 07:37:33 -0700 Week 10 - Summary http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~3/_TZz9bpavBo/week-10-summary http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-10-summary <p> <span style="font-family: Arial;">There are some lessons you just have to learn twice (or three times). The beginning of this week my goal was to get my next application up and running (I'm looking forward to using this application). I wanted to try doing design this following week. I knew how I wanted the flow of the application to work, mostly, and had some concepts for the design. But once I started to put it together, I realized it wasn't something I would want to use. So I went back and reworked a few viewControllers. That didn't help enough, so by Thursday, after refactoring a couple times, I stopped everything and went back to the beginning. I figured out</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><i>exactly</i></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"> how I want to flow of the application to work,</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><i>and</i></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"> I figured out what each view would look like. Icons will change when I get to the design part, but placement and feel of the application is now set.</span><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;"><b>Lesson learned: figure out as many specifics about design as possible, before writing any code</b>. Thankfully, I was able to reuse most of my code, but I ended up losing 3 days of forward momentum. The idea of figuring out specifics should also be applied to functionality of each view. I was thinking it would only take me a day per "section" of the application, but as I started looking closer, I realized each part would have a lot more details than I had anticipated.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">I am thankful that I'm learning these lessons now. Hopefully future applications can get off the ground faster because of them.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">Having figured this out on Thursday / Friday, Friday afternoon was very productive and I did get pretty far. I hope to have an internal working application by the end of this week and submit it to Apple soon the following week.</div> </p> <p><a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-10-summary">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-10-summary#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~4/_TZz9bpavBo" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/699681/profile_300.png http://posterous.com/users/4afDiNfXb3CF Ryan M RyanJM Ryan M http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-10-summary Sun, 10 Oct 2010 15:32:11 -0700 Week 9 - Summary http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~3/CdaSGHtAaSU/week-9-summary http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-9-summary <p> <div style="font-family: Arial;">I was out of town for most of this week so not much got accomplished (including no more applications being sold). Therefore I wanted to spend this week's post on goals for the coming weeks. One of the lessons I've learned about entrepreneurship is the importance of having a plan.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">I have 12 weeks till January 1st. Which, for those who haven't been reading along, is my goal time frame for making a self-earned-living. This week I've been reflecting on this fact, and it made me think about a lot of questions. Was 6 months enough time? What happens if I don't make it? What should be the next step? But since I don't know what is going to happen in the next 3 months, all I can do is plan, execute, and see how it goes.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">I have just over a month and a half (rest of October and November) to build the foundation of Blue Shirt Labs. By December, the focus needs to be bringing in an income. I need to make over $3,000 during that month, and in order for me to extend this experiment another month, I need to feel like I can replicate that in January.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">I have a lot of application ideas that I could build, and I could build 2 or 3 of them in that time frame, but I don't feel they would have much quality. I want to build one application and build it really well. If I can make a living off of it, then I will want to build the others in due time, but I really feel like I need to focus.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">And actually, I will focus on one and a half applications. I feel like the desktop application I've been building can be a pretty good side business and bring in a little extra cash. But most of my time and energy will be spent building the rest of my newest iPhone application and then improving on it. I want to do 1 week iterations; pushing out a new version of it each week. The idea is to do the bare essentials and the improve on it little by little. I have already mapped out features for the first 11 iterations and have ideas for more features. The 6th iteration (as of now) will be a big one, and with it I want to do a major marketing push. Right now I'm thinking I'll be giving away hundreds of dollars worth of prizes, so you should stay tuned at <a href="http://blueshirtlabs.com/">blueshirtlabs.com</a> and sign up for the newsletter there. We'll see how this all turns out in 12 weeks.</div> </p> <p><a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-9-summary">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-9-summary#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~4/CdaSGHtAaSU" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/699681/profile_300.png http://posterous.com/users/4afDiNfXb3CF Ryan M RyanJM Ryan M http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-9-summary Wed, 06 Oct 2010 12:51:11 -0700 Week 8 - Summary http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~3/gRpley7yGEw/week-8-summary http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-8-summary <p> <div style="font-family: Arial;">Note: I meant to post this Sunday but I was out of town.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">This past week I was reminded that the app store, just like any other market, has great competitors. While I was in college I would write down ideas for apps that I thought would be great and which didn't have any good implementations at the time. But now, 6-12 months later, that niche market now has 3 or 4 really good implementations and my original idea wouldn't be bringing anything new to the table. Therefore, my timeline of applications to build has changed. I have now started to work on an app that, I feel, has a lot of potential. We'll see how far I'm able to take it and if I'm able to sell it enough before my time is up.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">I find myself in the same position as a couple weeks ago. I have a lot of things I need to do: build a new application, finish the desktop application, and market Bookmark +, but I'm not sure how to divide my time accordingly.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">Bookmark + has been out for a week and 8 copies have been sold. Most of those are via promotional codes I gave away for two press releases. I have a lot to learn in regard to marketing applications and getting them in front of people. I also understand that not everyone has the need for an audio controller for the iPhone, no matter how great I think it is.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">This is what gives me a little more hope about the next application, as I see it being used by a wider audience. I just hope I can get it in front of those people.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">This past week I came across a quote from <span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><a href="http://twitter.com/#!/chrismichel/status/25859806329">Chris Michel</a>, "Never confuse activities with outcomes…" And so I've been trying to make sure that my tasks during the day are directly effecting my goals. I find it especially difficult because I feel like I should do 20 different things, and I feel like all of them will help accomplish my goals. But in actuality it is probably much less than that.</span></div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">That is the goal for this week: do activities that will directly lead to my goals.</span></div> </p> <p><a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-8-summary">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-8-summary#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~4/gRpley7yGEw" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/699681/profile_300.png http://posterous.com/users/4afDiNfXb3CF Ryan M RyanJM Ryan M http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-8-summary Sun, 26 Sep 2010 14:33:08 -0700 Week 7 - Summary http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~3/YYGu9ly7gZI/week-7-summary http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-7-summary <p> <span style="font-family: Arial;">This past week has been a very productive one. I was able to work on the desktop application a little bit and finish Blue Shirt Labs's website. Since most of the week was spent designing and implementing the design for the site there really isn't much to reflect on. </span><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;"><b>Photoshop</b></div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">I'm not sure if it is just my install of Photoshop, but it continues to crash on me. It probably crashed 4 or 5 times on Wednesday. I also need to find more tutorials on best practices for Photoshop workflows. I'm not sure what the best way is to check out various color schemes and to keep track of the progress (version control).</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;"><b>Goal</b></div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">My goal for next week is to put out some ads and get feedback on the application. I also want to finish a rough version of the desktop application and start working on the next iPhone application.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">Please check out <a href="http://blueshirtlabs.com/">blueshirtlabs.com</a> and let me know what you think.</div> </p> <p><a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-7-summary">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-7-summary#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~4/YYGu9ly7gZI" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/699681/profile_300.png http://posterous.com/users/4afDiNfXb3CF Ryan M RyanJM Ryan M http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-7-summary Sun, 19 Sep 2010 21:16:10 -0700 Week 6 - Summary http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~3/NuXhGjNzux4/week-6-summary http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-6-summary <p> <span style="font-family: Arial;">This week's goal was to focus on one thing at a time, and I think that helped a lot. I completed my first app by Wednesday evening and did a large update for another app on Thursday. It was a lot easier to focus on one app at a time since I could see the progress being made.</span><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">This week I did get in 43 hours. That might not sound like much, but considering that those are (usually) focused times of work, not including breaks, I think that is some solid work time.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">My first application is a bookmarking application: Bookmark +. If all goes well, it should be out this coming Friday, September 24th. I think the UI is very slick and much more functional than similar applications on the store right now. I am planning on charging $2.99 for it, but starting out I'm going to set the price at $1.99. If things go well, I plan on adding some pretty cool features to it.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">My focus for this next week is to finish the Blue Shirt Labs website and to build a desktop application. The application is a side project I am building with my brothers. Hopefully I'll have more news on that in the next couple weeks. Another big thing I need to figure out this week is marketing for Bookmark +. I will probably find a couple forums and post a message about it, and I will give away some promo codes to a few reviewers to get their feedback and some publicity. I might even do some banner ads.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">Things are moving along smoothly. I just have a lot more work ahead and looking forward to seeing what others think of the application.</div> </p> <p><a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-6-summary">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-6-summary#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~4/NuXhGjNzux4" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/699681/profile_300.png http://posterous.com/users/4afDiNfXb3CF Ryan M RyanJM Ryan M http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-6-summary Sat, 11 Sep 2010 20:40:26 -0700 Week 4 & 5 - Summary http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~3/sxSugrgH55o/week-4-5-summary http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-4-5-summary <p> <span style="font-family: Arial;">Life would be too easy if everything went according to plan. If it had, I would have had an app in the store, the website finished, and my bank account would have money in it. But the reality is that it has been 5 weeks and none of this has happened. I feel stuck in limbo.</span><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">The past two weeks have been spent working in spurts on a lot of different projects. I have two applications which are almost done and I've been doing maintenance on a third. I've also been working on a desktop application which is 10% complete, and I have a lot of ideas I would like to bring to life.</div><div style="font-family: Arial;"><p /><div>I have not been as diligent about keeping track of hours these two weeks. Which I think might be for the best. It is a good reminder that I have to keep diligent about getting work done and a good visual of the slump I've put myself into. It is a strange motivation, but whatever works, right?</div><p /><div><b>Baby Steps</b></div><p /><div>My goal for this next week is to completely finish and submit my first application. I'll put everything else on hold until that is complete. It is five weeks in and I only have sixteen weeks till my goal (Jan 1).  Seems like a lot, yet at the same time, not enough. I know this job is more than just building apps and putting them on the store. It is about marketing and customer relations. The first step is building the app. Five weeks is too long not to have the first step finished.</div></div> </p> <p><a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-4-5-summary">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-4-5-summary#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~4/sxSugrgH55o" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/699681/profile_300.png http://posterous.com/users/4afDiNfXb3CF Ryan M RyanJM Ryan M http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-4-5-summary Sat, 28 Aug 2010 21:19:00 -0700 Week 3 - Summary http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~3/K6Bj-ONeZYI/week-3-summary http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-3-summary <p> <p><span style="font-family: Arial;">This felt like a very slow week. My parents were out of town and the house was very quiet. I was able to get a lot of work done, but not that much more than usual. This week I put in 42.2 hours (coming close to building a script to keep track of this for me… does anyone already have one?).  I have almost finished two applications, and I was frustrated with the local government.</span></p> <p /> <div style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><strong>Week 3 Summary</strong></span></div> <p /> <div style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">This week I wanted to focus on building my own application.  One of my goals for this "experiment" is to have a very quick turn around time in finishing applications. I came close to accomplishing that this week.  I won't reveal too much about this first application yet, other than to say it isn't too difficult. I wanted to build something quick in order to get into the app store and get my feet wet. The UI came together pretty quickly, and I'm pretty excited about the ease-of-use I'm bring to this niche market.  </span></div> <p /> <div style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">I have been held up because I don't have everything filed away with Apple yet. </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">I've been waiting 20+ days for my local government to mail me a piece of paper that I need to fax to Apple. I ended up calling twice this week, just to find out that the worker didn't send it out until I had called about it. She mailed it Wednesday morning, and it hasn't gotten across town yet.  If it isn't here on Monday, I'll have to go pick up a copy from them (an option they had failed to mentioned in the beginning). Which means I'll miss my goal of having an app in the store before the new iPod touches are out. Nevertheless, my application will be coming soon thereafter.</span></div> <p /> <div style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><strong>Lessons</strong></span></div> <p /> <div style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">My biggest lesson this week is simply exposure. I'm glad I've been working on these various projects the past couple weeks because every one of them have their own set of problems, which I'm learning from and applying to others. If I was stuck with one program I wouldn't be looking at unrelated documentation and learning new things. On a related note, I'm also learning that there is a lot to be said for experience.</span></div> </p> <p><a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-3-summary">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-3-summary#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~4/K6Bj-ONeZYI" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/699681/profile_300.png http://posterous.com/users/4afDiNfXb3CF Ryan M RyanJM Ryan M http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-3-summary Sun, 22 Aug 2010 19:39:00 -0700 Week 2 - Summary http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~3/4Ihj_-RfhRA/week-2-summary http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-2-summary <p> <div><div style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="">I started this series last week in order to keep a public journal of the progress I make in getting Blue Shirt Labs up and running. This was my first full week of work and though I didn't even manage to put in a full work week (I only got in 37.25 hours), I have accomplished quite a bit and have some goals for next week. As promised, this post is going to be shorter.</span></div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;"><span style=""><b>Week 2 Summary</b></span></div><p /></div><div style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="">I started to actually track my hours this week in Evernote. It is a very primitive text document.   Each section has the date on it, and each line under the section has the time and what I plan to work on. This has helped to keep me focused on one thing at a time even though there are a few things I've been working on.</span></div><div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="">I'm almost done with the app I did for consulting. As it is commonly said, the last 10% takes 90% of the time. At the time I was ready to call it done, I ran into a bug as I tried to record a demo of it. So I still have a couple hours left on that.</span></div><p /></div><div style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="">This week has also been very heavy on design work; both for Blue Shirt Labs' logo and website, but also for OrangeQC's app.  I have a lot to learn about design, and I'm trying to balance learning with practice. I don't want to lose a week to just reading books and blogs.  And at the same time I need to improve my abilities greatly. I was blown away as I've been looking at designs on <a href="http://dribbble.com/" target="_blank">dribbble</a>. I hope to be able to accomplish similar work in the future.</span></div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;"><span style=""><b>Lessons</b></span></div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="">The major lesson for this week is that design work takes much longer for me to do. Obviously I will get a little faster in time, but I need to make sure it doesn't burn up my hours.</span></div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="">Tracking my hours has been useful <i>(,)</i> even though I do wish I had a more a more powerful tool.  I've been trying to remember to put a star rating on the sections that I've worked in order to track how productive that time was.  I didn't do it every time, but the few times I did it looked like I'm more productive in the afternoon.  Therefore <i>(,)</i> my goal for next week is to focus more during the morning and try to make those times just as productive.</span></div><div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">I've also noticed that my morning routine is too long.  I get up at 6:45 am, but between running, breakfast, catching up on news, and doing a little reading, I'm not starting work till 10.  I'm going to push news till the weekends or maybe a 30 minute break at night and try to start working by 9.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">I really think the pattern I have going, in general, is going to be very productive in the long run. I'm excited to see how next week goes.</div></div> </p> <p><a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-2-summary">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-2-summary#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~4/4Ihj_-RfhRA" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/699681/profile_300.png http://posterous.com/users/4afDiNfXb3CF Ryan M RyanJM Ryan M http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-2-summary Sat, 21 Aug 2010 06:49:07 -0700 App Development is just a business and the App Store is just a distribution system. Nothing magical. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~3/DVZ5E159sME/app-development-is-just-a-business-and-the-ap http://ryanjm.posterous.com/app-development-is-just-a-business-and-the-ap <p> <span style="font-family: Arial;">I get riled up when people start talking about the app store being a gold mine or <a href="http://www.loiclemeur.com/english/2010/08/how-much-can-you-really-make-developing-mobile-apps.html">asking</a>, "Is it worth it for the average developer?" It seems like people are losing sight of exactly what app development is; that it is just another business like any other, and instead view it as a potential gold mine or a lottery ticket to make tons of money.  Here are some things to keep in mind.</span><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;"><b>App development is a business</b></div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">Most businesses fail. This is out of <i>all </i>businesses. Dave McClure did a talk recently in which he stated that <a href="http://www.danielodio.com/2010/08/18/founderconference-adeo-ressi-drew-houston-dave-mcclure/">90% of you will fail</a> (via HackerNews). Just like any other industry, this means that if you are a developer and want to improve your downloads / revenue, treat your development as a real business. That includes marketing your application, making sure you have good customer relations, and actually producing a product that people want.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">I don't care that there is an Apple review process. That doesn't mean that all approved applications are great. If you've spent any time on the App Store looking for an app, you know that for the category you wanted there were seven poorly designed apps and one or two good ones. Those one or two developers who spent time making what you want are going to get your business. Thus developers for those apps aren't getting an "average" of the purchases.  The better built applications will make more money.  The overall "niche cap" (vs market cap on the entire market) would be a helpful statistic because it would let developers know what kind of market there is for a given genre, and what the potential profit is for building a better app and having better marketing.  Statistics which you would want to check before going into any other industry.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;"><b>Viral != Gold Mine</b></div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">Extend the idea that app development is just another business and apply it to the market. We come to the conclusion that some developers will make lots of money (or at least more than others).  This is because they have a good product, good marketing, or a good <i>market</i>.  But most of the time it is a combination of all of the above.  For example, I bought Angry Birds because I saw Kevin Rose tweet about it and I heard Leo Laporte talk about it on TWiT.  Rovio Mobile, makers of Angry Birds, didn't hit a gold mine.  They spent time making sure they had a great product and then marketed it well.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;"><b>The App Store is only a distribution source</b></div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">A distribution source isn't a good enough data source to be dividing the profit share among the products that go through it.  Let's put it in a different context: what if we were to say that companies who sell their product through Wal-Mart make $X on average a month.  That statistic isn't worth much is it?  We don't expect companies who make the screws in the hardware department to earn the same as a candy maker.  They are from two different parts of the store, fill two different needs, and have two different profit margins.  But if we were to do a comparison between a name brand spaghetti and a generic one, that starts to mean something.  We can then figure out what kind of revenue difference there might be for different locations on the shelf or if we throw in a third brand we might be able to see if people go for price or for quality.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">We could even take this a step further by doing a comparison between a name brand spaghetti at Target and Aldi's spaghetti.  This one gets interesting because a survey of the shoppers would probably tell us that those going to Target expect to pay more than those who shop at Aldi's.  The thing to remember here is that the distribution system is only a means of helping us put our product in front of customers.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;"><b>Look at the niche not the market as a whole</b></div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">But we go on losing our mind over the mobile app market.  Yes, it is huge.  But so is the food industry.  Rather than trying to analyze the market as a whole, I think the focus should be on a given niche. This is harder to do since Apple keeps everything quiet, but we can make some simple observations.  For example, we know that quality casual games continue to do well - just look at the top 10 apps on any given day.  If more developers will share profit like TapTapTap, then we can get a better idea of how some developers are doing.</div><p /><div style="font-family: Arial;">I want to do another post sometime about mobile advertising, but I need to do a little more research.  What I've seen so far, though, is that people are treating it the same way, as something different (especially as data from iAds is coming out).  But it isn't different.  Business logic still applies.</div> </p> <p><a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/app-development-is-just-a-business-and-the-ap">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/app-development-is-just-a-business-and-the-ap#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~4/DVZ5E159sME" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/699681/profile_300.png http://posterous.com/users/4afDiNfXb3CF Ryan M RyanJM Ryan M http://ryanjm.posterous.com/app-development-is-just-a-business-and-the-ap Sat, 14 Aug 2010 19:47:00 -0700 Week 1 Summary http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~3/kth_xwGszBU/week-1-summary http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-1-summary <p> <p>This week I've started Blue Shirt Labs, an independent iPhone development shop.  As this is my personal blog I want to keep a running tally of some of the lessons I learn along the way and do a weekly summery showing my progress.  As this is the first post in this vein, it will be a little longer.</p> <p><strong>About Me</strong> (<a href="http://www.ryanjm.com/">site</a>)</p> <p>The 30 second spiel about me is that I just graduated from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (same school that has produced quite a few well known ventures) with a degree in Computer Science from the school of Engineering.  I have been interested in the entrepreneurial route for quite some time and I figure now would be a better time than any to jump into that goal. I constantly have ideas running through my mind.  Many of them have been built by others, but as we know, ideas are next to worthless without the proper execution, which is what I want to do with Blue Shirt Labs.</p> <p>I prefer programming in Objective-C and Ruby on Rails.  So those are the skills I'll focus on in the coming months.</p> <div><strong>Blue Shirt Labs</strong> (<a href="http://www.blueshirtlabs.com/">site</a>)</div> <p /> <div>Why Blue Shirt?  Because I own a lot of blue shirts.  </div> <p /> <div>The development goal of the business is to create great iPhone applications that people find very useful. TapTapTap is definitely a source of inspiration.  I'm a practical guy and my view on technology is that it should make life easier.  Not make people lazy, but to simplify various tasks.  I want to build mobile applications that will help improve people's lives.</div> <p /> <div>As far as the business goals, I'm trying not to be unrealistic.  I understand <a href="http://www.taptaptap.com/">TapTapTap</a> has much of its success due to the hundreds of thousands of people it is able to reach with its mailings and many years of customer relations.  My goal is that by Jan 1, 2011, I want to be making over $3,000/month.  That is, in a little less than 6 months, I want to create a lifestyle business pulling in around $40,000/year.  At that point my goal is to move out of my parents' house.  I'll revise my goals at that point, but I think the next milestone I want to shoot for is a two-person shop making $250,000-$500,000 in 2-4 years.  In other words, I don't plan on slowing down.</div> <p /> <div>During this first phase I want to do these weekly posts about my lessons.  Hopefully along the way others will help give me suggestions when I run into road blocks.  I've already reached out of to a few developers and got their advice and I'll hopefully be posting their advice next week.  And I hope you will continue to stay in touch with me and join me on this journey.</div> <p /> <div><strong>Week 1 Summary</strong></div> <p /> <div>On Tuesday I moved home from college.  Rent is cheaper here and the food is healthier (sometimes to my dismay).  It took two days to go through all the things I've collected over the past 4 years; throwing out the unneeded and organize the rest.</div> <div> <div>Thursday afternoon I went to the courthouse and got papers filed for the business (change of business name) and talked with my bank about getting a debit card for the business account.  I have to wait till my certificate from the county comes before I can get the bank stuff sorted out.</div> <p /> <div>Thursday evening was spent throwing together a simple Ruby on Rails application for a holding page for Blue Shirt Labs.  Friday I spent time working on some applications that have been in the works for awhile.  One is for another <a href="http://www.orangeqc.com/">business</a> I helped start last year and the other one is more of a consulting gig I started awhile ago.</div> </div> <p /> <div><strong>Lessons</strong></div> <p /> <div>OmniFocus + GTD is helping me a lot in keeping focused on what needs to be done next.  Pivotal Tracker is great for applying this to my programming projects.</div> <p /> <div>I'm still trying to figure out the best way to track hours.  I've looked at <a href="http://www.getharvest.com/">Harvest</a> and <a href="http://www.letsfreckle.com/">LetsFreckle</a> but I don't really want to be paying anything yet.  So I think I'll stick with a text document for now.  If anyone has suggestions I would really appreciate it.  I want to know how often it takes me to create views or to do design work.</div> <p /> <p> <object height="300" width="400"> <param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /> <param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=14097761&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=1&color=&fullscreen=1&autoplay=0&loop=0" /><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=14097761&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=1&color=&fullscreen=1&autoplay=0&loop=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" height="300" width="400"></embed> </object> </p> <p><a href="http://vimeo.com/14097761">Setting up my room</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/ryanjm">Ryan M</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p> <p><div class='p_embed p_image_embed'> <a href="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/temp-2010-08-14/mhmGrtIgvhatjpGdvbzHocCfutwpDucrpipFpAxzJtshrrdwnzhGwnwIqEGj/HPIM5818.JPG.scaled1000.jpg"><img alt="Hpim5818" height="376" src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/temp-2010-08-14/mhmGrtIgvhatjpGdvbzHocCfutwpDucrpipFpAxzJtshrrdwnzhGwnwIqEGj/HPIM5818.JPG.scaled500.jpg" width="500" /></a> <a href="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/temp-2010-08-14/FwwicsbvsCijwzIJozBgAlvkIEGkozwjlknvtsnvbFiqfysFtumCmjepnstJ/HPIM5857.JPG.scaled1000.jpg"><img alt="Hpim5857" height="376" src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/temp-2010-08-14/FwwicsbvsCijwzIJozBgAlvkIEGkozwjlknvtsnvbFiqfysFtumCmjepnstJ/HPIM5857.JPG.scaled500.jpg" width="500" /></a> <a href="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/temp-2010-08-14/oIsAqszrfbwhthqpiJxxEGHpvgwsFHiwnDIHrCflGqGBlJcjjxisvskACmri/HPIM5859.JPG.scaled1000.jpg"><img alt="Hpim5859" height="376" src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/temp-2010-08-14/oIsAqszrfbwhthqpiJxxEGHpvgwsFHiwnDIHrCflGqGBlJcjjxisvskACmri/HPIM5859.JPG.scaled500.jpg" width="500" /></a> <div class='p_see_full_gallery'><a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-1-summary">See the full gallery on Posterous</a></div> </div> </p> </p> <p><a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-1-summary">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-1-summary#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~4/kth_xwGszBU" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/699681/profile_300.png http://posterous.com/users/4afDiNfXb3CF Ryan M RyanJM Ryan M http://ryanjm.posterous.com/week-1-summary Thu, 03 Jun 2010 21:38:00 -0700 Time Machine makes my life better http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~3/XyrgDJSrYwc/time-machine-makes-my-life-better http://ryanjm.posterous.com/time-machine-makes-my-life-better <p> <p>Last week Safari started to really slow down on me. After a disk repair from the Snow Leopard disk I was good to go till this week. On Wednesday every 5 minutes my computer would come to a complete stop for 3 minutes. Try to get work done with that happening. I ordered a hard drive and had it delivered the next day. Thankfully I use Time Machine on a weekly basis and I was able to do another backup even though the hard drive was starting to fail (the corrupt sector of the drive mostly affected Safari, Chrome was doing just fine).</p> <p>After 10 minutes I had the hard drives switched and was installing Snow Leopard. I then had it pull my information from Time Machine and a couple hours later I am logged in and everything is set up. All my applications launch when I log in and Finder is even opened to the last folder I was looking at. Time Machine makes it really easy to do backups and more importantly to do a restore.</p> <p>Reminder to everyone: back up your machine!</p> </p> <p><a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/time-machine-makes-my-life-better">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://ryanjm.posterous.com/time-machine-makes-my-life-better#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/posterous/eBzq/~4/XyrgDJSrYwc" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/699681/profile_300.png http://posterous.com/users/4afDiNfXb3CF Ryan M RyanJM Ryan M http://ryanjm.posterous.com/time-machine-makes-my-life-better