Articles marked historical record the period of starting HelpSpot in 2005 through 2019. In 2020 I decided to give the blog a fresh start, but have left these here for posterity.

January 3, 2015

Neo Programmers

A bit on the very best programmers, but first read Paul Graham, then read Eric Sink. OK. Now, my 2 cents. In short, I mostly agree with Eric Sink and I suppose by association of sorts Paul Graham...

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October 17, 2014

In Defense of Duplication

A meme going around PHP lately is that developers should stop building open source libraries that duplicate existing establish packages. I couldn’t be more against this line of thinking. A few...

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September 10, 2014

Why Apple Watch Is All About The iPad

I was pretty down on Apple Watch yesterday. I was really expecting something far more revolutionary. It had no real surprises in terms of tech other than perhaps not having any connection...

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September 4, 2014

69 Bootstrapping Resources

Some of the books, blogs, podcasts and resources I’ve found useful while bootstrapping UserScape for the past 9 years. The Profitable Side Project by Rachel Andrew Joel on Software by...

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September 3, 2014

Why I love programming

http://www.facebook.com/dave.winer.12/posts/274417819432297 1. I love puzzles. 2. I love Rube Goldberg contraptions. 3. I love solving problems (I have an inner-Columbo). 4. People are the biggest...

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September 2, 2014

Wufoo as CMS

I made a CMS out of Wufoo. It’s pretty cool actually. I wanted to put together a quick little site for Laravel consultants that would be my go to place to send people when they...

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September 1, 2014

Eat less carbs

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/02/health/low-carb-vs-low-fat-diet.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0 People who avoid carbohydrates and eat more fat, even saturated fat, lose more body fat and have fewer...

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April 30, 2014

5 Tips for Hiring Your First Employee

http://blog.besnappy.com/2014/04/5-tips-hiring-first-employee/ I did a post over on the Snappy blog about how to hire your first employee. Check it out!

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February 18, 2014

How To Prune Your Twitter Account

Over the past few months I’ve been feeling a bit overwhelmed by twitter. It seemed my timeline was a never-ending stream of things I felt compelled to read. Some of it truly was important (Well as...

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January 29, 2014

Landsman’s 10 Rules of Customer Support

I’ve been building customer support tools for about a decade now. Over that time I’ve pretty much seen every random thing a help desk can do. There’s a few core principles though that I really...

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January 23, 2014

Bitcoin

Article: Why Bitcoin Matters by Marc Andreessen I was a big detractor of Bitcoin I have to admit. I’ve gone through more than a couple rounds of fighting in the UserScape chatroom on it. I...

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January 17, 2014

Metrics Porn

Bootstrappers and startups in general are addicted to Metrics. Measure everything, that's the only way to succeed!!! I'm not totally against measuring things, but if you're just starting out I think...

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January 11, 2014

9 Tips For Working Remote With Kids

You’re going on a phone call and you want to lock that door so the kids won’t come in and interrupt. All you’re doing is guaranteeing a barrage of knocking and yelling that you’ll have no...

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January 11, 2014

Everpix

https://github.com/everpix/Everpix-Intelligence/blob/master/Anonymized%20VC%20Feedback.md You have to wonder if Everpix would still be around if there was less time spent courting investors and more...

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January 7, 2014

Crabs Gone Wild

  The Red Crab migration. Pretty wild. http://www.viralnova.com/red-crab-migration/

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January 7, 2014

ebook: The Profitable Side Project Handbook

http://www.rachelandrew.co.uk/books/the-profitable-side-project A really nice book if you're starting out bootstrapping, even beyond side projects.

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January 7, 2014

How to be a great developer

https://the-pastry-box-project.net/ed-finkler/2014-january-6 Empathy is your most important skill. Practice it with everyone you interact with, and everyone who interacts with your work....

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January 5, 2014

To The Laravel Community

There’s been some recent commentary from Phil Sturgeon and others that people who are excited about Laravel and using it to make great things should cool their jets and think more about PHP as a...

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January 4, 2014

Evernote privacy

http://jasonkincaid.net/2014/01/evernote-the-bug-ridden-elephant/ Alarmed and not a little bit furious that I nearly sent him some deeply embarrassing musings, I tell the support person about the...

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December 31, 2013

Interesting on Bitcoin

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/12/why-i-want-bitcoin-to-die-in-a.html Via Daring Fireball To editorialize briefly, BitCoin looks like it was designed as a weapon intended to...

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