I need a salesman

So I have been developing my skills as a programmer on iPhone OS and all that. I am pretty good at it and have some good ideas for future apps. I have a good idea of who I want to sell to, I just can’t really get myself to make the sales calls. I guess my enthusiasm and morale have dropped and I don’t know how to get past the slump. If anyone knows someone who would like to make a few extra bucks making sales calls let me know and maybe I will be able to keep programming yet.

9, and counting.

9 years?! Has it really been that long since we were Seniors in High School!? I think about it quite often because next year it will have been 10 years since graduation and the sealing of our time capsule. This also means our 10 year high school reunion is on the horizon! It's a weird anxiety I have, trying to be "successful" before seeing our old classmates. Perhaps I'm just puffed up with pride, It's hard to know when you're looking from the inside out. In my optimistic mind I perceive it as a healthy and obtainable goal demanding personal growth and responsibility, yet to many it may seem like a prideful ambition tied to money. This has always seemed highly debatable to me.

Is it reasonable to claim that the determining factor whether a desire is good or bad is found in the underlying motive behind the desire? It seems that would certainly be sound thinking. I recognize that "Success" encompasses more than just finances, it's overcoming any variety of challenge. But I'm going to be referring to financial success for this example. If someone wants to be "successful" so they appear to somehow be better than others, I would say that's prideful in nature. However, if someone wants to be "successful" so they can become interdependent (sharing their abundance) to bless more lives than their own in the world, I would say that's very horable in nature. And then of course there are those who declare that any desire for increase in any aspect of life is unholy and disrespectful. (I believe those people are blessed with a pessimistically humble attitude, and I don't agree with them.) I guess my true fear isn't how WELL other classmates percieve me to be, but how prideful I will appear to be to my friends because of said "Success". Is that even a valid concern? ...? (Gotta end here, I've got to get off the bus. Literally not metephorically.)

The Problem with Cash

I've recently been called on, again, to help a friend in need financially. I've done so on many occassions and have learned a lesson that many people go through life not ever really understanding. "More money doesn't solve money problems." That may sound incorrect, but the fact is you can give away as much money as you want - to fill someone's needs or not - and the same problems will come their way again.

"Then what does solve money problems, Mr. Know-it-all?" Without this turning into a lecure, let me keep it to a simple answer of "Financial education" and "Personal Development". I wish I knew how to share this with more people. Have a great day my friends - who haven't asked money from me yet. :)

Real good

Surely there is a way to do real good and be compensated for it monetarily, right? If I'm presented with a path to riches which doesn't involve doing much good for anybody, is the money worth it? Is the money worth it if I use it to support a more helpful, less profitable project perhaps?

It's beginning to look like "good money for good product" is old-fashioned idealism. Many of the most helpful things (to me, at least) on the Internet are free, like Wikipedia and Google searches. If I was to create something with that level of usefulness, how would I pay my mortgage and fix the Gremlin?

Money. Bah.

Happy Macheist Blogging

So I just got done with a fun purchase from macheist.com and I am trying out MacJournal. They said in the description that I should be able to blog with this program and I am thinking that might be a neat use for it. It also allows for keeping a personal journal etc. I am excited to give it a shot. If you have a mac I would seriously consider this MacHeist bundle great price and if we get to 50,000 people we get Tales of Monkey Island fun game from a great series. So it worked and I am now updating to see if that works, and it does my friends this is a sweet program.

1 comments?

For a bit of software with as much development muscle behind it as blogger has, you would think it could distinguish between the number 1 and all the other numbers, then make "comment" singular or not. In fact, here you go blogger folks, the fix in one line:

<?php

$commentLabel = ($numComments == 1) ? "comment" : "comments";

?>

And if you don't use PHP, I know that Java has an equivilant. ASP and C++ ought to, but I don't know. If doing it server-side is a big deal, here's a client-side, Javascript implementation, using my native jQuery:

$('span.comment-link').each(function() {

var numComments = $(this).html().split(" ")[0];

if(parseInt(numComments) == 1) {

$(this).html(numComments + " comment");

}

else {

$(this).html(numComments + " comments");

}

}

That oughtta do it. It's not tested though, so use it at your own risk.

Anyway, I'll be moving development of my book over to my personal blog. My intent was to generate some sort of traffic over here, make something interested that would help people want to come around every so often, but I don't think it quite fits.

All the best to you all,

-Benjamin

Chapter One: Snow

The wind howled deafeningly. Snow swirled through the forest as if the spirit of the sky itself was falling, unable to resist the tempestuous fury. Everything in the forest with life had taken refuge as best as it could. Animals lay deep in the backs of their burrows and thickets, birds clung to their nests. Only the trees were left exposed, forced to stand against the fury, or bend to the wind.

The forest was not unaccustomed to storms, but this one was remarkable. It seemed to Dren that the storms in Lockewood Forest were getting worse lately. From where he sat he could see almost nothing but the driving snow through the mouth of the little cave. He had been out hunting when the storm seemed to fall upon the forest all at once, without warning. The rabbit he had been tracking had led him directly to the cave, which had been formed at the bend of a now dry creek. As Dren had made his way into the cave, the rabbit had scurried up in to the knot of tree roots and soil that made the roof of the cave and disappeared.

He never actually captured anything, he didn't even have much of a weapon. There was almost no chance of his home-made bow being strong enough to drive an arrow into an animal's hide, and his arrows didn't fly straight enough to aim. He mostly liked following the animals, finding out how close he could get to them before they trotted away. It was a good way to escape the pressures of the constant schooling, training, and chores which seemed to occupy fully his real life. He was 15 years old, in the first year of his apprenticeship as a bookkeeper. Dren enjoyed his training, partly because of the break in routine from school. Instead of going to 7 classes a day in subjects he didn't always find meaningful with other children who, would rather be somewhere else, he could now spend at least half of his days doing something he found interesting around people who seemed to like the things they were doing. The downside was that he had less time to himself. As a simple school student, he had had a couple more hours each day to explore the forest. Now that his outings were more rare, and often cut short, there were even more important to him. The forest was his best friend and had heard all his deepest secrets, dreams, and fears.

He had been able to come hunting today because it was a festival day and the schools and businesses were closed. There was to be a parade, and Dren wondered how the festivities were faring in the unexpected early winter storm. He looked out into the whiteness, trying to decide if the storm was lifting. He thought he could see some trees across the riverbed, and the wind seemed to be calming down. He thought he might start back to town when he saw a somebody moving through the whiteness. The gray figure was walking with the wind at its back, wearing what seemed to be a long, hooded cloak. Dren began to shuffle his way to the mouth of the cave, concerned that one of the townsfolk was lost in the white-out. Dren knew the woods very well, and was deeper than he believed most people ventured unless hunting or gathering wood. As he stepped out of the cave, he marveled that the wind and snow had stopped nearly as suddenly as it had began, and the sun was already pressing its way through the lifting clouds. Dren looked around for the figure but saw no one in any direction. He looked on the ground and saw no tracks in the snow except for his own behind him, leading from the cave. He climbed up the river bank and looked around again, but saw only fresh snow, trees, and some bits of bushes the wind must have blown around. Shrugging his shoulders, Dren turned down the hill had began the walk home.