Make Your Life Easier (Pt I)

As part of our commitment to making developers’ lives easier, we’re sharing with you some of the hacks, tools, tips and tricks that we use to make our own jobs and lives easier – as well as some ideas that our friends, partners and customers have shared with us.

As we build up a library of these cool hacks and the like, we’ll keep sharing – so consider this the first in a series.

We need you! Want to become an AppFog Fellow? If you have any helpful ideas that have made your life easier – please let us know and we’ll add them to the library! What do you get in return? Free service! Credit will be applied to your account as an AppFog Fellow. AppFog Senior Fellows have been an AppFog Fellow for over a year. They get even more goodies and swag!

Sandbox distractions.

AppFog Senior Fellow Matthew Lyon:

I check email from the computer once a day — before I start coding. Delete / Archive / Respond to things as necessary but get them out of email. Then quit the email client. I’ll check it during the day but only from my iOS devices, and then if I need to respond right away from the computer fire it up again. Twitter, Facebook, Reddit etc have been relegated to my iOS devices, even from my personal computer. Hacker News has been “blackholed” in /etc/hosts. I’d suggest considering doing that with Facebook etc as well if you have a hard time being disciplined. If I see something I want to “read later” on twitter I star it, and the revisit those later when I’m in “reading stuff” mode.

Manage SSH credentials intelligently.

AppFog Fellow Steve Ho:

When working with GitHub and AWS and the like, add credentials to keychains with ssh-add /path/to/key. Do this the same way every time to avoid errors and issues and to be efficient.

Express ideas concretely whenever possible.

AppFog Senior Fellow Matthew Lyon:

I use whiteboards, notebooks, mockups, flowcharts, lists and state diagrams to figure out what I’m supposed to build before I start, and I encourage and help others do the same. Expressing requirements concretely as something you can look like makes it easier to talk about the particulars and the end goals rather than expressing it verbally where you have to hold everything in your head and it’s easier to talk about theoretical what-ifs.

Become a keyboard shortcuts ninja.

AppFog Fellow Tim Rosenblatt:

One of the more obvious ways to become more productive (or more efficient + effective) at work is to not have your hands leave the keyboard. The most common reason for taking your hands off the keyboard is usually “to use the mouse.” So stop touching your mouse!! Learn, live and love your keyboard shortcuts. You’ll be faster, less easily distracted and as a bonus you’ll be less likely to need to wear wrist braces in the future.

Use paper lists.

AppFog Fellow Larry Hitchon:

Paper lists are good. I use Dropbox for virtually every document I have. I use Github for nearly all my code. I will hardly buy a book anymore if it isn’t available in Kindle format, or at least a PDF. I have access to nearly everything, nearly all of the time. But making a to do list on paper at the start of a day and checking things off is uniquely satisfying. And effective.

Learn to love the Google Chrome Developer Tools.

AppFog Fellow Steve Ho:

While the Firefox and Safari tools are useful and good – Developer Tools in Chrome is not only better but far faster and less of a time-waster.

http://code.google.com/chrome/devtools/docs/overview.html

Also make sure to check out the Chrome extensions

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/home?hl=en-US

Work in places where you can safely ignore the surrounding environment.

AppFog Senior Fellow Matthew Lyon:

The lizard brain is constantly looking for things happening around you that may be relevant. In an office that means listening in on co-workers conversations, paying attention to who’s coming in and out, who’s talking behind closed doors, etc. None of that is good for concentration. In a cafe you’ve only got other people you don’t care about, perhaps some screaming kids or angry beatnik. Unless it presents a threat to your safety (as a deranged-looking man in a long coat who walked in and started crying once could have) you can safely ignore it because it has nothing to do with you.

IRC is magic.

AppFog Fellow Todd Sampson:

While there are projects and products and technologies out there where the smart kids behind them do not use IRC, they are rare. If you run into real technical issues that need real-time resolution, IRC is where you should go. Odds are that in the time it takes you to filter through all the linkbait sites that you get from your Google search you’ll have your answer on IRC.

Use Google Public DNS.

AppFog Fellow Joe Chung:

While it might seem like a small price to pay, that slow name resolution from your crappy ISP does start to add up. And then there are propagation worries, and security concerns. You get the idea. It’s free, it’s fast, it’s no bullshit. Get it.

The Google Public DNS IP addresses (IPv4) are as follows:

• 8.8.8.8

• 8.8.4.4

The Google Public DNS IPv6 addresses are as follows:

• 2001:4860:4860::8888

• 2001:4860:4860::8844

GitHub GitHub GitHub.

AppFog Fellow Todd Sampson:

Really… it’s 2012 people. Get on-board. GitHub rocks. The learning curve is quick and easy, and the payback is massive and increases over time. Also use GitHub for project management – even if you don’t have a repo the project management and wiki are great for running any project. Honestly, there is no argument against using this.

Bonus Tip (for entrepreneurs).

AppFog Senior Fellow Lucas Carlson:

In talking with VCs, when you want money – ask them for advice. When you want advice – ask for money.

If you don’t know VCs but still have questions, ask people who have done it before. I’ve raised $10M from VCs for AppFog, feel free to ask me anything you want – lucas@appfog.com

Share this post

Try AppFog: The new PaaS Hackers love