qxb

I think mzbridget and krsgoss make sensible suggestions elsehwere in the comments. On the topic of work/life balance, I'd add: try your hardest to "close the door" on your workspace when you've finished for the day. If you have a home office and can do this literally, then even better.

On the topic of having the same routine as if you worked in an office, I heard somebody once say that they left the house before work and walked round the block, rain or shine, to simulate a morning commute. They said it helped create the mindset mzbridget mentions (point 1).

I think this might be the one you're talking about: http://calnewport.com/blog/2011/11/11/if-youre-busy-youre-do...

HN discussion from a few days ago here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3222725

That's a very good point well put. "Simple account" might even be a description of the level of account you have, causing further confusion.

Many banks in the UK are referred to, and understood, in everyday language without the "bank": Barclays, Halifax, Natwest, Santander, Lloyds to name a few.

> Not sure if it is possible to share documents with non-GMail email addresses on GDocs, which would be a must.

This is possible. You can set a document to be visible to anyone with the link, so sign-in isn't requred. More info here:

https://docs.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answ...

Clickable: http://castle.so

I imagine these is already on your radar, but it seems appropriate at this point to link to two of the 1000 True Fans essays from a few years ago.

Original -- http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/1000_true_fan...

Followup -- http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/04/the_case_agai...

This is the full Ofcom report (pdf): http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/telecoms-...

Another interesting nugget from the summary: "Mobile broadband data volumes are now significant, at an average of 240MB/month for each 3G connection." (p. 2)

Why does Google Analytics not meet your needs? Rather than creating different landing pages, have you tried tagging the links in the ads using Google's URL builder [0] and then using Goals and Funnels in Analytics to track conversions?

[0] http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?...

Settings > Themes

My first two steps: I started from nothing with Pine's Learn to Program, and then moved on to Learn Ruby the Hard Way.

http://ruby.learncodethehardway.org/

After you've got the basics, the best way to learn is to have a problem to solve or need to address. About halfway through LRTHW I started making notes on little programs I could try to build once I'd finished the course. None were very original: a custom contacts book, a script that scraped football scores and added them to a text file, a simple single-serving website that told me the weather for my area. My learning spiralled out from there.

Finally, this is an online version of the famous Pickaxe book, which I found to be a good reference. I wouldn't recommend it as a first port of call if you're new to programming, but once the terminology (object, class, method, variable etc) has sunk in it's useful for looking things up.

http://ruby-doc.org/docs/ProgrammingRuby/

Have fun!

Updating a spreadsheet with quantities of desk lamps and keyboards sounds painfully familiar.

I would target businesses. Here's something to consider. With a home user, you first have to convince the potential customer of the benefits of keeping an inventory. Then you have to persuade them to use your service over a competing one, or a spreadsheet, or pen and paper. Then you have to convince them to pay you for your service, presumably, at some point in the future.

Keeping an inventory is already an established practice for businesses, so that first home user hurdle is cleared. You just have the remaining two: explaining why iKeepm is better than struggling with a spreadsheet (photos and reports are two features that spring to mind for me straight away) and getting people to pay. My hunch is that businesses, already persuaded of the need to keep an inventory, would be more ready to pay than home users.

Congratulations. I think this is a neat little service. I could certainly see a market outside the domestic one, too. I've worked for small businesses and public sector organisations where maintaining an inventory of office equipment was necessary not just for insurance, but also for funding and auditing purposes.

Best of luck.

Previously on HN: http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=raspberry+p...

Clickable: http://www.walkbase.com

Previously on HN (54 days ago, 62 comments): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2916352

> Would be cool to have a basic SMS altert app that can connect to many web services.

Try http://ifttt.com

You might find this article, "Considerations on Exchange Rate Data Providers", useful: http://www.currencysystem.com/kb/13-143

It's from the website of the Cloanto system and has some ideas on publicly available FX feeds.

I like it. I am a big fan of simple, straightforward webdesign that focuses on content.

Without looking at your source code, my only quibble is: remove the underlining from "posts". Everything else on the page that's underlined is a link, and that isn't.

Jason Fried wrote a column for Inc. on being a one-man company and feeling and fighting the need to exaggerate its size: http://www.inc.com/magazine/201106/dont-exaggerate-your-size...

As well as the corporate market, RIM also has, at least in the UK, a large teen market. They can't get enough of Blackberry Messenger. You hear it on every bus, tram and train: "What's your pin? I'll BB you..."

It's nowhere near as big as the corporate market but it's there.

A related infographic from last year by David McCandless, "How much do music artists earn online?": http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music...

I found this Economist piece on Samsung's strategy of "swapping infotainment for lifecare" really interesting: http://www.economist.com/node/21530976

Here's a list of parties that make up The Greens – European Free Alliance:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Greens%E2%80%93European_Fre...

Interesting from a UK POV is that as well as the Green Party, the SNP and Plaid Cymru are included, as members of the European Free Alliance.

Now available to listen again at the same title link above.

This is fantastic. Many thanks for sharing.

"Evan asks his panel if it's getting easier to create a new business in the wired world, or does a lower barrier to entry mean it's more difficult to get noticed? They also consider how good businesses are built on the back of mistakes.

"Evan is joined in the studio by Matt Brittin, managing director of Google, UK and Ireland; Lara Morgan, founder of Pacific Direct and Company Shortcuts; Luke Johnson, serial entrepreneur and chairman of Risk Capital Partners."

I am surprised at how high the average development cost for a Mobile/PDA (non-Apple) game is. Almost as much as a Wii or PS2/3 game!

Can anyone explain why? Is it something to do with making it compatible for several formats (eg. different Android-based phones)?

As a comparison, the logo for Freddie Mercury's birthday resulted in 1.2M Wikipedia pageviews on the day, and ~500k the day after: http://stats.grok.se/en/latest/Freddie_Mercury

Jorge Luis Borges? 2.0M -- but the day after (perhaps this is a time zone thing?) http://stats.grok.se/en/latest/Jorge_Luis_Borges

Those two were global doodles.

Goethe, who was given a doodle in Germany, received ~113k: http://stats.grok.se/de/201108/Johann_Wolfgang_von_Goethe

I don't have the time to do any more, but if anyone wants to (or can think of a way to automate it), the list of Google Doodles is here: http://www.google.com/logos/index.html

(I was assuming that Wikipedia was the first result for the person's name in these cases. I also only counted en.wikipedia.org for the global doodles.)

EDIT: extra contextual stats from grok.se

I might be in a minority of one, but for anyone else who had never heard of the Pomodoro Technique before reading this: http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/