The Times They Are A-Changin’
Image by ~MVI~ (scrounging for photos) via Flickr
Big changes on the horizon. September will mark the end of 4+ years at my job in Rochester, NY and the beginning of a new job in our nations capitol Washington, DC. Yep, I’m taking this show on the road and will be moving the middle of September. New place, new people, new job… it’s all new and I think that’s what I need. Sometimes you just need to mix things up.
Things will most likely be quite for the next month or two as I do the actual moving and get situated in a new place, but I hope to get back to work shortly thereafter.
Speedy Subscriptions Using Spreedly (Part 4) – Checking for Updates
OK let’s recap. So far in this guide I’ve covered: creating your Spreedly account, setting up your subscription plans and (most recently) linking your applications sign-up process to your Spreedly account. The elephant in the room at this point is managing updates and allowing Spreedly to notify our application when users make modifications to their subscription/billing settings or when something goes wrong: like when a credit card expires or a transaction can’t be processed. In this final post I will review how to open the lines of communication between your Spreedly account (a.k.a. your billing system) and your application.
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Review: CodeIgniter 1.7 Professional Development
Along with being a Zend Certified PHP5 engineer I’m also a strong advocate for application frameworks (CodeIgniter specifically). That’s why I was pleased when Pact approached me about a month ago to write a review of their new book about CodeIgniter (CI): CodeIgniter 1.7 Professional Development. Aimed at experienced PHP developers with a solid footing in object oriented programming, the book provides a detailed overview of the CI framework from an absolute beginners perspective. Chocked full of code samples and tips/techniques on how to leverage CIs tools this book is a great resource for anyone new to the framework looking to quickly get up to speed.
CodeIgniter 1.7 Professional Development
For you CodeIgniter fans out there, Packt released a new book last month called CodeIgniter 1.7 Professional Development. I got word this morning that my review copy is in the mail so keep your eyes out for my thoughts on this book in the coming weeks. From the summary it looks like it covers a wide range of topics from beginner to advanced so I’m excited to take a look. If interested, head on over to the Packt website to read a sample chapter on database interaction.
Sign-Up-Sheet.com Relaunched
I’m proud to announce the relaunch of Sign-Up-Sheet.com this morning. It’s been a long 4 months, but I’m very excited that things are up and running after suffering some initial setbacks. Check it out and let me know what you think.
Speedy Subscriptions Using Spreedly (Part 3) – The Sign-up Process
Picking up right where I left off, in this post I will review integrating Spreedly with your programs sign-up process. As is the case with most services like this, including PayPal, the quickest way to incorporate Spreedly involves redirecting the user to their website and allowing the financial transaction to take place on their servers. The user is then redirected back to your website once the transaction has been completed. This is the quickest and easiest method available and is the one I will be reviewing.
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EE 2.0 Module: Oneliners
As you may know, I’m in the process of re-developing Sign-Up-Sheet.com. When it came time to start building the new website I decided to use ExpressionEngine 2.0. I have been a long time fan of EE and now that it’s running on CodeIgniter I just had to use it for this project. Content management systems are handy but I think of EE more as a website framework because you can do just about anything with it (with a little bit of PHP). In building the new Sign-Up-Sheet.com I needed a simple way of managing little chunks of content so I decided to build a custom module. The module is called Onliners and in this post I’ll give you the details on what it does and how to use it.
Is it 2010 already?
Is this really my first post in 2010?? Wow, that’s a bummer… so much for that new years resolution to pay more attention to the blog. Lot’s of things have been happening:
- sold BadgeTracker to a great bunch of folks back in January
- kicked off re-development of Sign-Up-Sheet.com in January… relaunching next month (hopefully)
- been desperately trying to keep up with the personal MBA business crash course (to no avail)
Mostly I’ve been trying to work on my new outlook, or master plan, that I mentioned in my last post. So far so good… very excited about relaunching Sign-Up-Sheet.com next month. And thanks to Sign-Up-Sheet I have a bunch of new things to share with you right here on the blog in the coming months.
Keep your eyes out for new posts as well as some other bits and bytes I’ve been working on. Stay tuned!
Entrepreneur Heal Thyself
As a freelancer or sole proprietor, how do you decide when to start a new project? I’m not talking about taking on client projects… I’m referring to ventures, product or application ideas that you have and think would make a good business. Are you the kind of person who gets an idea in their head one day and jumps in head first the next? Or, do you need to have a plan in place with potential return on investment before you pick up your mouse? Until recently, I would have said that I fell in between those two extremes landing a bit closer to needing a plan than jumping in. However, over the last several months I have come to the conclusion that I fall smack dab in the first group and have determined that that’s not necessarily a good thing.
Update
It’s been about a month since I posted anything worth while and I wanted to write a quick update to let everyone know I’m still here. Things are pretty hectic right now because I’m trying to get BadgeTracker ready for it’s next major release next month. That’s monopolizing most of my time at the moment so of course the blog takes a back seat. I know I left you all hanging in the middle of a post series on Spreedly which I do intend on revisiting once things get back to abnormal but just hold tight for the time being. Better yet check out my Delicious account, which is also syndicated in the sidebar under Side Notes. I usually post new links there once or twice a day about the exciting things going on on-line.
More soon!
