Rails App 1 :: The Typer
The Typer is a word processor web application. The design of the site is simple and this works well with the subject.
The Typer offers a simple method for creating online documents. The sign up process is ok but I hate sites where I have to go back to my email to complete the sign up process.
Once you have completed the activation of the sign up you are ready to roll.
The interface is clean and minimal and the screen is a soft grey which is good for long periods of starring at the screen.
The features are that it auto saves every 60 seconds, it has a spell checker, you can send the document via email, you can download it as a text file and also you can save it as a blog post which is pretty neat (I am not sure what blog software is supported).
I found the spell checker pretty nice and it was pretty good with the words I tested it with.
You can customise your work space to any look you want but I found that I really didn?t need too.
The Typer is a no frills word processors and at that it does at great job. If I could make some changes then I would add some more formatting options like heading formatting, create a full screen function and maybe offer more export functions.
If you are looking for an alternative to writeboards or google docs and want a simple place to store your mussing then this would be a good place to start your search.
You get 5 free documents on the free plan and for a paid plan its $30 a year which is pretty reasonable. .
Be sure to checkout the The Typer yourself
Well it was yesterday but I thought I lost my job yesterday as a blog post title wasn?t quite the same :p
I got made redundant from my job as a senior web developer at cre8media (UK company). It?s the first time it?s ever happened and I was not sure what to expect. I am not sure how it differs here in the UK to the rest of the world when a company goes bankrupt. We had a receiver come in and tell us there is not enough money in the bank to continuing trading and we were not getting paid.
Fortunately here in the UK there is a government fund that covers employees of ltd companies and we will get something but it might take up to 6 weeks.
So what happened?
It was a mixture of bad accounting, bad business plan, bad hires and just plain old bad luck.
Classic case of growing the company too big too soon. The funny thing is that come the end it was actually making decent money but the damage had been done and the layoffs of a couple months ago were too late.
I don?t blame anyone person for this it?s just the way it goes and I learnt some lessons for my own adventures in business.
So what now for me?
Well I have a pretty good CV that should get me a job and there are plenty of jobs out there for experienced web developers but I think I will finally go down the being my own boss route.
The one thing I have learned from this is don?t be extravagant in your spending and stick to what you know you are good at (well that?s 2 things I know).
Now its start up city for me, I have a lot of code and a lot of ideas and a bit of money to get me by for the next month or so and I also have a couple of clients too which is also good.
I have decided why bother sitting on all these web app ideas and tech demos I have when I could just release them out to the wilds of the internet and let the world judge if they are any good.
Watch this space for my first project.
On a lighter note I can finally get rails app fortnight going. I have 16 apps ready to be reviewed.
“What’s the most impressive WPF demo you can construct in a single line of XAML? Can you improve on these?”
Putting health into the patient’s hands