Those Were The Days
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I was just talking with my good friend, Matt Grimm. We used to be in a band together called Finding Chesterfield. It was some of the best times in my life.
I wrote a post in 2008 about choosing programming over music. I remember making a conscious decision in high school to pursue programming over music. Mainly because I sucked at music and was way better at programming at the time (by my standards anyway).
It's interesting that the best times in my life have nothing to do with programming, design, making products, or any of the stuff that consumes my life today. I haven't even touched my drums or a guitar in months. It's funny how things change.
Acquisitions
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I'm really bummed today. Acrylic Apps got acquired by Facebook. Sparrow got acquired by Google.
This is what I want to know: What is Facebook doing with all of these acquisitions? I can tell you. Nothing. They haven't shipped anything that works well or looks great in awhile. Their camera iOS app wasn't bad, but from the talent they've acquired, it should be embarrassing.
I mean, Facebook is the worst iOS app on my phone. How many engineers and designers does it take to make a great app in a year? I think it's a really small team and a few months. I think part of the reason nothing is happening is there are too many cooks in the kitchen.
Hello Internet: Nexus 7
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My first experience with the Android on the Nexus 7.
Once I got it, I took a quick look at Chrome and "Google". Check it out.
Behind Cheddar’s Server
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So, tech doesn't matter. Tech is interesting though. Here's some of what I use to make Cheddar's server. A lot of Cheddar is on the server. I've spent way more time writing Ruby than writing Objective-C when it comes to Cheddar.
The Cheddar web app is written in Ruby on Rails. I choose Ruby on Rails because I already have a lot of experience with it and it let's me work quickly.
For awhile, the API and the web app were two separate Rails apps. The web app simply used the API. This quickly became hard to manage and test. I ended up merging them back together before launching. The API is still very separate from the web app. At some point, I would like to split it out once I have more time to work on my internal tools.
Founders Talk Interview
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I recently had the honor of being on Founders Talk. Adam Stacoviak and I talked for an hour and forty minutes about how I got started programming, my journey through the years, Hipstamatic, starting Nothing Magical, and Cheddar.
We talk about some pretty personal stuff that greatly shaped my life. I'm pretty excited to look back and listen to this in several years. Anyway, give it a listen if you're interested.
Update 08/07/12: Founders Talk Part 2