Leave It Behind > Brian Bailey

Everybody needs a Backpack

If you're one of the more detail oriented visitors to this site, you will notice a small addition - an ad for Backpack from 37signals. They recently released an affiliate program and I only had to think about it for about 37 seconds before I decided to participate.

As I've said before, Backpack is the one application I can't live without. I discover a new way that Backpack makes my life easier just about every day. I currently use it to remind me to get the oil changed, record all the movies I want to see and all the ones I've seen, track my to-do lists, manage a website redesign project, remind me to cancel a 30-day free subscription, and help me write a book. And this is just the start.

You can incorporate free Writeboard pages for more in-depth writing and quickly share any page with as many people you want, including everyone. So, you and your team can track a project together or you and your spouse can plan your next vacation. Your whole family can share Christmas lists or your teenager can store all the details for her next paper in one place. For a few dollars a month, you can add images and files.

Give it a try, you can get started for free. All I get is more months of Backpack. All you get is one of the best, simplest, and most helpful apps out there. Plus, you can sound really cool at  your New Year's Eve party when you talk about this great new Web 2.0 tool you're using.

Tags: backpack, 37signals, affiliates, web2.0

New Design

To welcome the new year, I recently designed a new look for LeaveItBehind.com. Those of you who subscribe to the feed, take a quick second and have a look around. Yes, the site is even simpler than it was before. I hope my love for minimalism doesn't take too much away from the reading experience. If anything, I hope the design will make it a more pleasurable experience.

Other than continuing my quest for a clean look, the other purpose of the redesign was to end my use of TypePad's advanced templates. I want to be able to quickly change the look of my site, including the layout and sidebar content, and that's just not possible with advanced templates. Of course, you can't control what RSS feed the browser will auto-discover without advanced templates (if you're using FeedBurner for instance), but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. Unless you have mad skills (or easy access to someone who does) or don't change the look or content of your site often, I don't think advanced templates are worth the investment.

Enjoy the new look, and enjoy the new year!

Tags: typepad

Teaching Programming to Kids

I have been searching for the best way to help my son Ben explore programming. He loves computers and is constantly looking for new challenges. In fact, for the past month, he has been hacking the Lego Star Wars text files to change the behavior of the characters, including their size and how they react to gravity. Cool stuff.

We've played with a few scripting languages and used the Firefox web developer plug-in to edit the CSS of random websites to see what havoc we could cause. He has also been a regular user of Microsoft's Bitman's Place, a site created to help kids explore computers and programming. Unfortunately, the site has rapidly lost momentum - the current lesson apparently involves getting all the kids to help solve an Object reference not set to an instance of an object error that has been there for 3 months.

As I've written previously, I'm surprised there aren't more options in this area. Ben and most of his friends talk about wanting to create computer games all the time. Can you imagine a software environment that allowed kids (10+) to build a computer game, partly from self-contained programming blocks that handle certain actions, but also through code they could write themselves? The games they create could then be shared with other kids through a community site. You couldn't tear my son away from something like that, and if it really taught programming concepts, parents would be all over it as well.

Until that dream comes true, I think I found two books that are better than anything else I've seen. The first is Learn to Program by Chris Pine. This book focuses on the language of the moment, Ruby. Chris seems like a terrific guy and is someone that has experience teaching programming. He has really thought about what works best for people who are truly starting from scratch. The book will be released shortly and my order has already been placed.

The second is Head First HTML with CSS & XHTLM by Elisabeth and Eric Freeman. This book is unbelievable. I have been searching for a great, current HTML and CSS book and this is all that and more. The Head First approach of beautiful, clever, and visually-focused pages is perfect for this subject. The book is over 650 pages and just came out in December. If you want to get started with HTML and CSS, this is where to begin.

Welcome Back, Mr. Storch

The blogosphere received a late Christmas present with the return of my friend, co-worker, and co-author Terry Storch. Though he has been posting and podcasting on our book blog, his personal site had become, how should I put it, a quiet place of reflection. Terry returned today with a Top 10 list that gives a small hint of the 24/7 adventure he's been living over the past few months. Be sure to stop by and say hello!

Unfortunately, by publishing this post, Terry reveals something we have been trying to keep secret for many, many months. Now, however, that is no longer possible.

So, let the record show that yes, Terry Storch and Tony Morgan are indeed the same person!

I know many of you have long suspected this. The humor, the love of clothes, the suspiciously effective PR techniques and mutual promotion, and now, with this post, the affinity for Top 10 lists. They got a little careless, though, when Tony went on a two-week vacation and suddenly Terry publishes his first post in months.

Well, Tony/Terry, you did good keeping it a secret for that long. Enjoy your "vacation" Tony, and Terry, good to have you back.

Christmas 2005

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope all of you are having a blessed day with family and friends. Lori, Ben and I shared a wonderful morning together filled with clever, thoughtful presents and enough smiles to overwhelm any digital camera. Of course, now that Ben is 10, we received our first wake-up notice at 6:00 am! Contributing to my reputation as an underground spy, Ben got me a shredder for Christmas.

But just because it's Christmas, there's no reason to ignore technology! You can experience the incredible Fellowship Church Christmas message, Light, from the comfort of your own home. Watch Ed Young on FellowshipChurch.com (click Watch Now) or grab the Christmas Day podcast. This is simply the best Christmas message I have ever heard, and it's my seventh Fellowship Christmas. Enjoy and God bless!

Random Question

Why does Hair.net point to the new weblog by Microsoft's Ray Ozzie?

Just curious.

Slick WSJ Deal

Don't worry, I won't be turning this site into a poor man's Slick Deals. I just had to pass along a Wall Street Journal offer I came across. I love the paper, but it's quite an expense. A year subscription (now 6 days a week, by the way) is typically $210 a year, or $0.70 a day.

Since I've never been willing to swallow that expense, I stop by the online version consistently and decided to see if they were offering a special holiday rate. I was shocked to see an actual, honest-to-goodness WSJ sale! You can get a full year subscription (plus the standard 4-free weeks) for $99! A total of 56 weeks at $0.32 per day.

Here's the subscription page.

I know most of you couldn't be less interested, but I bet there's a few that just found one more Christmas present to put under the tree. By the way, there's no indication of how long the offer lasts.

If you love excellent writing, news, politics, business, investing, and provocative editorials, you can't go wrong. Unfortunately, they also rate $1000 picnic baskets and only review cars over $40K, but that's a small price to pay. Especially now :)

One year ago: Channel 9 Guy Goes to Church. A moving Christmas tale in words and pictures.

Surprise Me

We're having a new washer and dryer installed tomorrow at the Bailey house. We got our current set when we moved into our house 10 years ago and they are finally ready to be retired. All of us are very excited to start fresh with a shiny new pair.

While I was saying goodnight to Ben, we started talking about tomorrow and I said, "I sure hope it goes well and there's no surprises."

He said, "I hope there are."

"Really? What kind of surprises?"

"I hope they're even better than we think they're going to be."

Most of the time, I'm so focused on making sure things go "right" and nothing, God forbid, unexpected happens, that I can't even fathom that most of life's truly wonderful moments are, you guessed it, surprises!

Like this one.

Christmas Cheer

Last December: The 12 Days of Blogging.

Tags: blogging