On Writing Requirements
When you are the person who writes the requirements and the code it's a good idea to keep a good amount of separation between each activity. It's always tempting to make the requirements fit the code rather than the other way around. This is when it's time to get out a piece of A4 paper and head to a relaxing restaurant that takes a long time to bring the food. Get comfortable, and think big about the requirements. Write them down as if they were for someone else. Once coding again, they'll keep you honest as you try to choose between the easy way and the best features.
I've Never Looked Forward to Sysadmin Work, But There are a Few Things that have Made It a Lot Easier
Tech thank-yous to the open source projects that made MailNuggets.com easier to build:
1) YUM http://yum.baseurl.org Prior to YUM installing and updating new Linux apps was an exercise in frustration. YUM is standard on CentOS.
2) CentOS http://www.centos.org Extremely happy with CentOS 5.3+. The best Linux distro for running LAMP, I feel sure. My only complaint is that it takes a little more work to get the latest version of PHP running. However, the system is remarkably stable and fast.
3) Linode http://www.linode.com Great VPS hosting. I have 100 MB/s transfer speed between my Linode and Amazon S3. Their CentOS 5.3 VPS is great.
4) PostFix http://www.postfix.org It can be hard to get excited about a Linux mail transfer agent, but PostFix is a pretty good one. It makes email piping and configuration easy.
5) Apline/Pine http://www.washington.edu/alpine This email client is an oldie but goodie. It's easy to see how Gmail took certain UI queues from this app. Perhaps this is why both are great for productivity. The advanced filters available here outdo almost any other email program.