I used to read.  Books.  Articles.  Magazines.  Sherman's Lagoon, even Marmaduke.  I found that in 2010 I read a lot but never more than the surface.  I learned a lot of trivia, but didn't learn all that much.  I will be more deliberate with what I read, and try to read with depth and curiosity.

By reading less I hope to read more.

Right now I am reading The Next 100 Years by George Friedman.  My Mom always finds great books for me and so far this one is really good.  Having read a lot of anti-US and conspiracy books about US foreign policy, it's a refreshing and well written perspective.

2.  Disconnect at least once a day.

I am the poster child for connection.  Laptop, iPhone, iPad, desktop, servers, etc.  I never really thought of this as a bad thing.  I wore it as a badge of honour, the fact that I was always connected and responded to tweets and emails within minutes.  Recently, I have been disconnecting as much as possible and it has made a huge difference.  The world keeps turning, business keeps running, people do just fine without me.  This is a liberating feeling.  We can never get it all done, the more time we make, the more things we will create to fill it.

In 2011, I want to make disconnecting a habit.  I will enjoy more time away from electronics each day.

Until recently I drank a lot of coffee and Coke Zero.  This habit started in third year university for me, and has gotten stronger since.  I was up to 8-10 cups a day I am sure.  This is hardly moderation.  For the past week I have been drinking 1 or 2 a day and trying to make one of those a de-caff.  I believe that everything in moderation is good, so I don't think giving it up completely is a wise choice.

Exercise and meditation will take caffeine's place this year.

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Thank you for reading.  I truly do appreciate it.  May you and yours enjoy a healthy and happy 2011.

All the best,

Kent

That line is blurring quickly. 

Today I had a eureka moment, I am going to nerd out a little here so if you are coming from Facebook you might want to stop reading :)

I have been using Heroku for some time now to launch small applications, I save my production quality ones for Engine Yard and their cloud platform.  I love Heroku, but I was very skeptical about not having total control of my server, meaning I didn't have total control over my data.  However, tonight I took a big mental leap.

I setup a quick application that uses MongoHQ and Heroku.  I setup a few models, a few more controllers and within a matter of minutes I had a good little application going.  Nothing special, this happens to Rails developers all the time, but what made this special is that I am not hosting the database.  This is being handled by MongoHQ.  Even as I write this I am a little worried.  What the hell is MongoHQ?  Who the hell is running it?  Are they smart people?  What if they fold up tomorrow?  What if they go down when TechCrunch writes about my awesome app? What if? What if? What if?

It's uncomfortable letting go this way, but it's so much easier once you do.  I am not saying that MongoHQ or some other hosted DB application will host this data forever, but realistically at the beginning of a project, it's probably not a bad idea.  It takes a huge mental burden off your mind, and you can get back to what you do best, writing your awesome application.

So I would love for the MongoHQ guys to have some Google Alerts setup, read this post and leave me a comment telling me that they are serious about their company and plan to be around for a few years, but they might not and I am okay with that.  I am okay with the fact that they might fold up tomorrow.  I am not okay with loosing my User's data, so I will make sure I find a way to back it up and have it just in case.  There will come a time when developers will not think about these data details, and I think it's going to happen sooner than we all think.

I am letting go, little by little and it feels really liberating.

Thanks for reading,

If I don't see you, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,

Kent

I let that sink in for a few days, and realized how simple and powerful that statement is.  It quickly frames and constrains.

By picking two of the three options, you are left with one slack.  This is what will need to change.  The other two are fixed.

Typically people want the best possible product, in the shortest amount of time, thus constraining Time and Quality.  This leaves Money, as the only slack that you can work with.  In this case, you might need to hire more people, hire better people, or pay people more to get the project done in time.

Choosing Time and Money isn't ideal since Quality then becomes your slack.  In this case, you are saying that you will deliver the product, given a fixed timeline and budget, but the quality will suffer.  This isn't something people want to hear.

A better solution is Quality and Money.  Typically, people have a fixed or ideal budget in mind and they want the best quality that they can get.  This leaves Time as the slack variable.  Which makes sense.  If you give people enough time to get something done, they will typically give you a better price and will deliver a higher quality product.

I recommend using this next time you are starting a project with someone.  It will help frame the discussion and bring out the true priorities.

What do you think?

Thank you for reading,

Kent