Ron Mertens’ blog

A lot of people want to start developing a web site, and for some reason talk to me about it.  Many are developers,  just starting out with web development…  I always recommend reading a book called “Building Scalable Web Sites“.  It’s a great read, with lot’s of info on hosting, DB, programming, security, performance, scalability and more.  So go read it…

I just finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. That’s the last one (#7) - and I must say it was very good.

I really liked all Harry Potters. I remember reading the first one during my NZ Trip, I think it was in the buscot Station.  I thought I wouldn’t like it (too popular?) but I ended up enjoying it. I think the series got better and better, and the final chapter is  a great read. Will it become a real classic? I think so. We’ll wait and see

A long time after I updated OLED-info’s design, I finally did it for my other older blogs - Spintronics, MRAM and ExpressCard. I think they look better

I just finished reading another book - The 4-hour workweek. My friend Costy recommended this one.

It’s basically about the ‘New-Rich’ - these guys are not rich in money, but rich in time. The author tells us that we should not work 40 years to enjoy a retirement - but rather have mini-retirements all the time, try to ’save’ as much time as possible (efficiency at work, personal outsourcing, automating stuff, etc.), and to enjoy life - mainly through travel (hah! as if I didn’t know). He also thinks we should not ‘accumulate’ a lot of stuff (wise), and having 10 million $ in the bank should not be our goal (I agree on that one). You should have enough money and cashflow to support yourself and than you’re set to go (right, but how Do I *really* do that?).

So first of all, it’s a fun book! This guy (Tomothy Ferriss) is rather funny, and the writing is good and I enjoyed reading the book - it’s also not lengthy which is good. The tips are sometimes interesting (the thing I liked best, and will try to do from now on, is to NOT check your e-mail all the time. So now I only check my mail in the morning, and then again in the evening. I have to say it makes me work better - but it’s not an easy thing to do).

The advice he gives sounds good on paper, but it’s usually very basic and ’simple’ - like the 80/20 law, or the passive-income thing or ‘what to pack for your vacation’. Reminds me a bit of the Rich-Dad / Poor-dad sort of advice (buy a stock when it’s cheap, and sell when it’s expensive. Why didn’t I think of that??). Although I really disliked rich-dad so please don’t think these books are similar…

So the verdict - a fun book, can be quite an inspiration, but I can’t see it really helping you become a ‘new rich’ guy as he calls them. But it’s a good book to get you started… If you’re stuck in a job with long hours thinking that it’ll be better in the future because you are making loads of money - please do read this book and rethink your life

My main issue with the book is that Timothy himself is rather annoying. I don’t think I’d like him as a friend. He wins a kick-boxing championship, but uses dirty tricks that are legal. He feels fine using people and lying and pretending to be someone he’s not - all for the sake of having a good time… which might be right for him, but if everybody behaved like he suggests - it’ll not be fun at all.

I’ve just launched a new blog (yeah… another) - this time on e-ink displays. E-Ink is used in book readers (and other devices) as they consume very little power and are very easy on the eye - it’s almost like reading a real book. The screen has no backlight (in fact it requires no power when the display is static).

Have you ever heard of Link-Bait? The idea is to create great content, that will ‘make’ people link to you. One of the ideas used in link-baiting is contests…

So here I go - I published my first contest, at oled-info.com. Kodak has agreed to give one OLED photo frame (worth around 800$) to the winner. It’s easy to enter - just follow me (oledinfo) on twitter, subscribe via e-mail to the RSS or post about it in your blog.  Read all the rules here. 

This contest is open to everyone (not just in the US). Good luck, and help spread the word

I just finished ready a new book ‘Building Findable web sites‘, by Aaron Walter. This is part of my quest to learn SEO.

So what’s my verdict? I’m not so happy with this book. The idea is good - talking about ‘Findability’, which is more than SEO. He defines the findability of a web site as

• the way to attract visitors (who can find you on search engines)
• the way people find content on your site
• making people return to your site

My main problem is that I wanted an SEO book, and there’s not much SEO discussions in it… I would have wanted more (maybe my fault - I should have got a real SEO book). Another thing is that there are some code example in the book that are quite irrelevant. For example he devotes many pages to build an Ajax search engine in your site, or building a mailing list… but this book is not about coding, so I think it’s just a way to write more pages.

So it might be a good book to start and learn about SEO plus get some more tips on writing blogs and sites. But if you want a book dedicated for SEO, look for something else (I know I will - and I’ll update you when I find something).

If you know me, you probably know that I’m a big fan of Ray Kurtzweil. When I started playing the piano, I always wanted a Kurtzweil digital piano… I almost bought one actually (but never did). I later learned that Ray is actually friends with my uncle… He then started to send me signed copies of his books (what a nice guy!) - which I read. We even met one time in Boston. He’s a bit of a nut - but a brilliant nut!

Anyway, now there’s a movie about him, called “Transcendent Man“. It even features music by Philip Glass (who I also like, and sometimes people say my music is a bit like his). That’s one movie I gotta see…

I’ve always used Eclipse for my PHP coding. I decided to check whether it’s worthwhile to switch to a commercial editor… I checked a couple of editors (PHPEdit and PHPEd, what great creative names!) - and decided to stay with Eclipse. I didn’t like the ‘look’ of these two, and frankly I didn’t see any features that Eclipse didn’t have.

But I did decide to upgrade to the newest Eclipse, install a different PHP pluging (PDP 2.0 instead of PhpEclipse) and finally enable a debugger. So it’s not all lost time…

Abigail is 7 months today! It’s amazing how quickly it all went by, and yet how slow. She’s a totally different baby than she was just a few weeks ago - much more fun to be with, she’s laughing all the time, and everything seems to be new and exciting. 

 
I’ve also stumbled upon something fun - food barter. I’ve given my old computer in exchange for an excellent lunch at Mitzy’s (that’s where I’ve taken the photo above) and had a great fix-my-open-office-in-exchange-for-lunch at Karin’s (another great cook!). Finally my long years of computer training pays off!

Other than that? We’re thinking of going to see (hear?) Rona Keinan next week. One of the best recent Israeli musicians. So in the past few days I’m listening to her albums again - she’s really good!