Mike Henry's blog

I really enjoyed this post from DHH at Basecamp. He’s talking about how Ruby on Rails is more implicit, because it’s designed for a different use case than other programming languages. His key observation is that different programming languages/frameworks are designed with different programming styles in mind. Different programming languages/frameworks are not only for different kinds… Continue reading Requirements Definition: Programming edition

A letter to the customers I see every day who are trying to start a new blog/website and make money, but don’t know how to start. Starting a blog or website to make money online? It’s not going to magically happen with ads. Sorry. That era is long gone. If you want to make real… Continue reading Making Money with a site/blog/whatever on WordPress.com (or elsewhere)

I enjoyed the premise of this idea – mix up conferences by adding people open to new ideas and change, not just the same old conference crowd. Enjoy! Link: Every Conference Should Invite Two Hitchhikers “If you wish, give them the right to shout out “You must be on drugs!’ or “I wouldn’t give you a… Continue reading Every Conference Should Invite Two Hitchhikers

In the city where I live, we have both paper and card bus tickets – the paper ones are one-time, and a card can be reloaded with more tickets or a weekly/monthly pass. However, when you get on the bus, you have to go through the front door (well, you’re supposed to), and validate your… Continue reading Public Transit and the power of not queueing

Apple just released the iPhone 7. Guess what, just like everyone was predicting, they removed the headphone jack. And because of removing that jack, they’ve taken quite a beating from the popular press. I could pick on any of them, but I was just reading Newsweek, so we’ll start there. The article suggest that Apple… Continue reading Apple, the iPhone 7, and being the biggest company in the world

Hello internet, A brief note from your friend Mike. I work for Automattic with WordPress.com support, and so I see a lot of auto-responders. Because of this, I start to see patterns in auto-responders, and what separates a ‘good’ auto-responder from a ‘bad’ auto-responder. A public service announcement: If you’re leaving a job, and they’re going… Continue reading Changing Emails and Auto-Responders

I was catching up on some 99 Percent Invisible, when I ran into an episode titled ‘Soul City.’ The episode tells the story of Soul City, North Carolina, a city that was founded as a new, largely-black city in the 1970’s. Soul City no longer survives today, largely because they were unable to attract enough… Continue reading Remote Work and New Cities

I love Slack. It’s waaay better than email. But a few weeks ago, they committed a cardinal sin – changing their interface without really making it noticeably better. More specifically, they changed the top bar in a channel. New layout: I join or leave channels fairly often, and you used to be able to click on… Continue reading On Interface Changes

I was at a team meetup in Phoenix in January when we learned about the different types of communicators. I’m a thinker. I like to think. I don’t like to respond to a question right away if I can avoid it. But there’s really a lot more nuance about it all. I like systems, and… Continue reading Thinking and Creativity Time

Ok, not actually an ode. I acquired a Fitbit Charge a couple of months ago, and it has changed how I think about my personal fitness and habits. Seriously. And it doesn’t do it in a nagging ‘why haven’t you walked today’ or ‘if you don’t go to sleep until 3am you’ll feel awful tomorrow’.… Continue reading Ode to my Fitbit