So I’m a big fan of David Allen’s GTD System. For a long time, I’ve been looking for a personal information system that could help me get the job done.

I’ve been extremely impressed with the early versions of Things. I’m starting to get very excited about their iCal sync feature.

If you’re looking for an electronic version of David Allen’s system, this is the tightest app I’ve seen for it. I especially like the “Areas” feature, as most apps I’ve used lack this feature.

Once I have the ical feature, I will be able to sync this info with my PDA. That’s really the only problem with Things in its current build. Once I’m able to access this information on the go, I’ll feel a lot better about having an offline app for this type of organization.

Most Rails developers know of PeepCode but I know only a few that have actually purchased a screencast from them. I’m really happy that they’ve reintroduced their year subscription. There’s no excuse now - go and buy this! After watching two or three I can say it’s already paid for itself.

Interestingly, I’m enjoying the pdf’s just as much as the screencasts. Keep it up PeepCode!

If you’re a cheapskate, start out over at RailsCasts - but if you like them, help Ryan out and buy some PeepCode material.

So Kyle convinced me to purchase MarsEdit. I’m definitely digging it and I’m hoping it will help keep me motivating in post regular updates here.

So, this is my first post using Markdown - let the posting efficiency increase!

So I use Trac a lot. I love their search mechanism - you can easily pull up a ticket, changeset, or report by typing #(Ticket Number), [(Changeset number)], or {(Report Number)} respectively. Many times, I’ll get a list of ticket numbers to run through and opening them all can be a pain.

With the help of Quicksilver and its Firefox plug-in, I’m able to get into Trac extremely quickly.

Here’s how I did it.

1. Install the Firefox plug-in for Quicksilver
2. Create a quick search bookmark for your trac site. Use something short like “trc” as a keyword. The location should be something like http://<your trac url>/search?q=%s&wiki=on&changeset=on&ticket=on. Make sure you place it in the “Quick Searches” folder.
3. In quicksilver you should now be able to type “trc” (or whatever keyword you set in step 2) > tab to “Search For” > tab again > enter your search query.
4. When you press enter your search results should come right up in Firefox.

Hope you find it helpful. It saves me a lot of time and aggravation.

The guys at Particletree published a really cool article on what technology is behind four popular web applications. While the applications are different in functionality, what really astounded me was time to market and its corresondance with technology platforms. Of all four applications, Blinksale took a short three months to build out. The .NET platform RegOnline took three years - approximately 30,000 lines of ruby code to 400,000 lines of C#! (Can Visual Studio even handle a library that big? ) Here’s the real kicker: RegOnline makes 10 times more per customer, but employs 10 times more employees and fields 20 times more support requests.

Now obviously there’s many unreflected variables in all of this, but the statistics really say a lot. If I had to choose, I would definitely choose to stay lean, mean, and of course…on a Ruby on Rails platform. How much has the web changed in the last five years? I believe you’ve got to contain and focus your app so that you can change with the needs of your customer.

Who do you think has the best situation here?