foxtrot

I have an architect friend who has rented a nice office space for his own business, and he's said that the spare desk in there I can rent from him.

Its a very nice office, its the art room in a school that is being converted into business offices, so 1 wall is nearly all glass to let in light. He is only asking for £150 a month (mates rates) and that seems like a bargain to me. Its within a short bike ride from my house (30min) or a walk and a bus ride. I will use it mainly for getting my own business ventures off the ground as a way to help me procrastinate less and get in a business mindset when there.

Did anyone else find that getting office space and a desk increased their productivity? Its more of a personal preference really, but anyone able to share any advice or past experiences?

I have dabbled in PHP for a number of years, really just doing a tiny bit for one of my websites and then moving on, never investing much time in the language.

Now that has to change, I really need a book to sit down with that will teach me the core basics without over complicating things, and then allow me to move on to harder books.

Would also like to know if there are actual online study groups/classes where I can learn from my peers?

My company has just taken a nose dive due to employing a sales manager as the new COO, and he fails to understand that the technical department is what keeps the company running and without us the company would fall over. His focus is on the sales department and he is making massive changes to our shift pattern without understanding why it is the way it currently is, it basically equals 30% more hours being worked for no extra money. This is to allow more staff in during the day to develop new products to be sold.

Anyone else suffer at the hands of a COO that appears incapable of understanding the technical side of a business?

Hi,

Well someone posted a comment asking what would make a great customer support tool (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1500634) and I said a desktop app would be great.

So after a little sketching at the pub on Friday and then a little photoshop work I have created this mock up of my idea:

http://bit.ly/dujjEk

Ideally what I think it should do is be able to remotely monitor services with the ability to turn off and on (restart) them when required. It also plugs into a status area which can be updated by the company along with links to any support tickets that are open.

The task bar icons would change if a new status/message have been added or a service has gone offline.

Thoughts?

Setting up my mail system at the moment, and the easiest way I figure to stay on top of mail problems (spam attacks etc) is to actively be able to see what is happening as it happens.

There are plenty of log analysis tools for Postfix, but not many are still in production. Does any one know of a tool which allows you to view, in real-time, mail being processed?

Mail going through the server, current queue levels, sender address and recipient address. Drill down to daily totals for each address too.