Dave Nelson

This book is a part of O'Reilly's 97 Things series where individuals contribute short entries to a wiki, which are then edited, from which 97 items are selected for a book.

I found this book on the shelf at Fry's and after paging through it a bit decided buying it and having a hard copy to let others borrow was worth the cover price as opposed to reading it online. The series is different from most books as the entire contents are available to read for free at http://programmer.97things.oreilly.com/

I feel like I got a lot out of this book, maybe the most valuable was that I need to read the book "The Pragmatic Programmer" ASAP.

Here are links to entries that I found the most interesting, they are really short so give a couple of them a look and let me know what you think:

Comment Only What the Code Cannot Say

"…comments should be treated as if they were code. Each comment should add some value for the reader, otherwise it is waste that should be removed or rewritten."

Continuous Learning

"Follow the advice of The Pragmatic Programmers and learn a new language every year."

Do Lots of Deliberate Practice

"Deliberate practice does not mean doing what you are good at; it means challenging yourself, doing what you are not good at. So it's not necessarily fun."

"Deliberate practice is about learning. About learning that changes you; learning that changes your behavior."

Don't Be Cute with Your Test Data

"…when writing any text in your code — whether comments, logging, dialogs, or test data — always ask yourself how it will look if it becomes public."

The Professional Programmer

"Professionals are responsible. They take responsibility for their own careers. They take responsibility for making sure their code works properly. They take responsibility for the quality of their workmanship. They do not abandon their principles when deadlines loom. Indeed, when the pressure mounts, professionals hold ever tighter to the disciplines they know are right."

Read Code

"…don't read another book. Read code."

Simplicity Comes from Reduction

"The code should be simple. There should be a minimal number of variables, functions, declarations, and other syntactic language necessities. Extra lines, extra variables… extra anything, really, should be purged. Removed immediately. What's there, what's left, should only be just enough to get the job done, completing the algorithm or performing the calculations. Anything and everything else is just extra unwanted noise, introduced accidentally and obscuring the flow. Hiding the important stuff."

Two Heads Are Often Better than One

"When pairing, we each bring our collective programming experiences — domain as well as technical — to the problem at hand and can bring unique insight and experience into writing software effectively and efficiently."

Ubuntu Coding for Your Friends

"I get better because you make me better through your good actions."

I hope to put what I have learned into practice immediately and look forward to reading more of the entries that did not make it into the book.

I rate this book a 8 out of 10 and believe that anyone who programs will get something out of it. Remember that the entire book and more are available for free via a Creative Commons License at http://programmer.97things.oreilly.com/

Almost every day I use Google Reader to read RSS feeds from many different web sites, 44 of them today, and I would like to share the photography feeds.

The Big Picture

The Big Picture is a blog over at boston.com where they post some of the most amazing pictures of the week. These picture regularly inspire me to get out there and do that thing that I do.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/

Blue Pixel Musings

Blue pixel is a site billed as “Inspiring and Educating Photographers Worldwide” and I learn something from them every post.

http://www.bluepixel.net/

Hyperphocal

Hyperphocal posts tend to be pretty basic stuff, but I like the subjects they choose and I find something interesting in every post.

http://hyperphocal.com/

News: Digital Photography Review

DPReview covers everything that is new in photography. It is a great place to learn about new and upcoming cameras.

http://www.dpreview.com/

Photo Attorney

Photo Attorney is written by Carolyn E. Wright is an attorney who works for photographers. The posts are always relevant to photographers and photography. This is a great source of information on the war against photography.

http://www.photoattorney.com/

Photo-Resoures.org

Photo-Resources is full of posts similar to this one, bringing attention to other web sites and resources with every post.

http://photo-resources.org

Photo Permit

Photo Permit is a great blog to keep you on top of what is happening in the war on photography.

http://www.photopermit.org/

Photoshop Insider

This is Scott Kelby’s blog about Photoshop and photography. It is also where you can keep track of the worldwide photo walk (http://www.photoshopuser.com/photowalk/).

http://www.scottkelby.com/

Rob Galbraith DPI

This blog is usually very short posts about anything that may be happening in the world of photography from photo slideshows to new equipment reviews and announcements.

http://www.robgalbraith.com/

Sisters

Jason Lee is a great wedding photographer who has made a project out of taking and manipulating photos of his two daughters. The results are amazing an fantastic!

http://kristinandkayla.blogspot.com/

Strobist

The Strobist has a cult-like following for the great posts about lighting and photography. There is a lot to learn as it is not just a blog but also includes tutorials about off-camera lighting.

http://strobist.blogspot.com

StudioLighting.net

Studio lighting dot net contains a lot of tutorials and the blog feed contains new camera and accessory announcements.

http://www.studiolighting.net/

TWIP

I have written about This Week In Photography as a podcast before, but it is also a great blog with tutorials, product reviews, and more.

http://twipphoto.com/

Zack Arias

Zack is an Atlanta based editorial and music photographer who also produces DVD tutorials. I like the photos that Zack shares via his blog and the local Atlanta flair appeals to me.

http://www.zarias.com/

Vincent Laforet’s Blog

Vincent is in China shooting the Olympics and is planning to blog about it all along the way. Including an awesome post about what he has packed to capture the event.

http://vincentlaforet.wordpress.com/

Sports Shooter

I do not look at Sports Shooter every day and do not subscribe to a feed from them, but I do recommend checking the site out on a regular basis for lots of great information about being a professional photographer.

http://www.sportsshooter.com

The Hollywood Stock Exchange (HSX) is a web based stock trading game that trades in the success and failure of movies. The game is free to play and can provide some real insight into how a stock exchange works and what makes for a successful movie.

By creating an account you receive $2 million HSX dollars to buy and sell stocks, bonds, and funds with.  It is plenty of money to jump right in and create a portfolio that can take off but not so much money that you cannot lose most of it in one bad weekend.

On HSX you can trade in stocks, bonds, and funds. Stocks are holdings in specific movies, bonds are holdings in credited actors, and funds are managed groups of stocks and bonds that have been brought together to create a single investment.

The most powerful feature of HSX is the community forums, here you can learn about what movies are in development, who’s career is taking off, what the next big movie is going to be, and more about movies than anywhere else.

I really enjoy playing the Hollywood Stock Exchange game. It keeps me informed about upcoming movies and how well the HSX community thinks they will do at the box office.

My Username is Phrop, look me up and let me know what you think about the game.

About four years ago I found myself deep in debt to the point that I spent many nights laying awake worrying about it. I was making enough money to pay the bills that came in the mail every month, but there wasn’t a lot of money left over for having fun. I was fed up and sick of it all.

I sat down with my computer and worked out a written budget, I included everything I spent money on every month, all of the bills, food, gas, rent, etc… Putting everything in a spreadsheet where I could see exactly where the money was going made it much easier for me to funnel more money to my largest bills. After two years I had made a very nice dent in the mountain of debt.

Then I heard this guy on the radio telling people that they needed to have a written budget and to spend every dollar on purpose. This rang true enough with me that I started to really listen to him and tweaking the way I was working my plan.

His name is Dave Ramsey and over the last couple of years his plan has helped thousands of people make a real difference in their lives, including mine. Dave’s message is now available on the radio, television, multiple best selling books, and Financial Peace University.

About a year ago I married my beautiful wife; we owed money on two cars, credit cards, and a student loan. Over the past year, following what we learned by reading “The Total Money Makeover” and “Financial Peace Revisited” along with taking the “Financial Peace University Online” course, we not only paid off all those loans, but we were also able to pay cash for our wedding, buy a new camera, pay for a broken timing belt, and many other surprises that were no big deal because we had a plan.

What we have learned from Dave Ramsey over the last two years has not only changed our lives but will have repercussions for our entire family tree for generations to come.

For more information about Dave Ramsey and FPU:

• http://www.daveramsey.com/
• The Truth About Debt
• Scriptures on Finance
• Financial Peace University

We are holding FPU at St. Michaels in Brookhaven August 19^th to November 11^th on Tuesday nights. Contact Neal Marwitz at franklin-mcnealofg@comcast.net for more information or to sign up.