My Solution(s) to Stress

Sunday, November 25th, 2007 - 13 Comments

Andrew's Happy Land Kit

So it’s been a couple weeks since I blurted out all my problems with stress, and I’m happy to say that I’ve overcome all that worrying and anxiety by making a few changes in my life and they way I treat certain things.

The Flat

Getting a space of my own has been very important to me, and sorting it out has made a huge change to the way I feel. Although it’s only small it’s more than big enough for me, the perfect little hideaway from all the stress and worries of the rest of the world.

I do enjoy being alone, not that I don’t enjoy other peoples company, but there is something about that quietness and restful state, with little or no communication.

After a busy day surrounded by people asking questions and constant talking I really look forward to getting back to the flat to just take a load off and sit and think.

Or maybe I’m just a loner!

The Job

Whenever I am involved in a project I pour my heart and soul into it, simply because I want it to succeed. Sometimes this can cause problems, if things aren’t going well or are out of my control then I worry about it, maybe too much sometimes.

So I’ve been treating work more like a job and less like my life depended on it, stopped staying late and going in on weekends and worrying too much (that’s for the managers to stress about not me), seems to be helping out so far.

I mentioned in the stress post that I was quitting my job at Greenvoice, but I’m happy to say that I’ll be staying now, we talked things over and worked out some stuff to help reduce my stress levels too.

The work outside of work

Something else which I think contributed to all that stress was the amount of extra work and side projects that I do or am involved in. I really love doing all of these little projects and things but it means I never really take a break from work.

To solve this I’ve put quite a few little projects and things on hold or turned away work in favor of free time to myself as a means to relax. It also helps me focus my efforts if I’m working on less projects, which I have struggled to do ever since I started work.

The Technology

A lot of the comments about the stress post said I should try and get away from technology and the internet, unplug from the grid for a while to reduce my stress levels.

I choose not to do that, instead I kind of went to the other extreme, buying an XBOX 360, a large TV, Halo 3, Project Gothem Racing 4 and Call of Duty 4 to go with it!

Whilst I’m sure getting away from the electronics works for a lot of people, I’m quite the opposite, when ever I’m feeling stressed or annoyed, technology always works for me. Messing around with RAID, kicking everyone’s ass on DOD:S or even configuring a network helps to make me feel better.

I enjoy everything tech, it relaxes me and helps me take my mind off anything else that might be troubling me at the time.

The XBOX has done wonders for that, having not had a gaming machine of any kind of over a year and not having a gaming console for over 5 years I forgot how addictive, attention stealing and just plain fun they are!

So I’m feeling much better now, I don’t have an XBOX Live account yet, due to my lack of internet connection in my flat, hopefully will sort that out this week some time.

Thanks for all the great comments on my last post by the way, very much appreciated.

Feeddit Problems

Tuesday, November 13th, 2007 - 1 Comment

Upside your head

Quick update to Feeddit.com users, the feed has been down since Friday, I’ve just had a quick look and it’s getting a 403 error back from the Digg API.

Either Feeddit has been blocked by digg or they have recently changed their API, I’m looking into it and it should be backup in a day or so.

Update: And it’s backup, with exception_notifier so I get told next time there are problems!

A New Abode

Monday, November 5th, 2007 - 12 Comments

A New Abode

Way back in January I made some New Years Resolutions, including “Independence” ie. get my own flat. Last friday I ticked off this resolution as complete when I moved into my very own studio flat.

Located just round the corner of Notting Hill Gate, West London, it’s a studio flat on the first floor. Comprises of one large main room with a kitchen at one end, a small balcony and a bathroom as well.

And the best thing is that 2 minutes away is Starbucks, Nandos, Tescos, EAT, KFC and so many more great shops as well as the tube station which means I’m only 10 minutes away from Oxford Circus (with the Apple Store) and the buzzing center of London.

I’ve been going through the motions of sorting this out for well over a month now, which has no doubt impacted my stress levels but I’m finally in and settled and feeling less stressed already. Having a place of my own where I can escape from the world is just what I needed and reducing my daily commute has done wonders too.

Of course no house moving is complete without a trip to IKEA, over the weekend I’ve been getting everything I need to get along by myself. All I need to do now is sort out a stonkingly fast net connection and I’m set for life!

Thanks to Ryan for the use of his car/van and valuable time helping me move all of my stuff across London and all my family for their support.

You can see all the photos of my flat here: flickr.com/photos/nez/tags/flat

Super Simple Ruby on Rails Install with MacPorts (for Leopard)

Sunday, November 4th, 2007 - 33 Comments

Rails on Leopard

Update: Since Rails 2.0.2 has been released rails setup on leopard has been greatly simplified, check out my new guide here: teabass.com/rails-on-leopard-the-right-way

So Apple’s newest Version of OS X is here, Leopard and it rocks! Stacks, Spaces, Timemachine and all the other little features and improvements make it the best OS to date, if you haven’t already got it what are you waiting for?!

One of the most awesome, although not so widely know improvements in Leopard is that it comes with Ruby on Rails installed right out of the box!

This guide is to help you set up the perfect development environment for developing Ruby on Rails Web apps giving you everything you need and making it easy to stay up to date with the latest versions.

I’ve taken my previous guide for setting up OS X 10.4 Tiger and tweaked it for Leopard plus added some optional extras on the end too.

The 8 step Guide

So lets assume that you have a brand new mac or a clean install of Leopard and dive straight in:

  1. Install X11 - You’ll find this on your Leopard disc that came with your mac or download from Apple

  2. Install Xcode Tools - Again on the Leopard disc with your mac or you can download the latest version from ADC

  3. Install Macports - Download Macports and run the installer (1.5.0-10.5 for Leopard at the time of writing)

  4. Add macports to your Terminal - Since macports gets installed in /opt/ you’ll need to add the path to your terminal config so you can use it.

    Open ~/.bash_profile with your favourite texteditor and add this line to the bottom of the file:

    PATH="/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin"

    and then save the file, close it and restart your terminal.

  5. Check for macports updates - in your terminal type:

    sudo port selfupdate

  6. Install MySQL - Ruby, RubyGems, Rails and Subversion come pre-installed with Leopard so we’ll get straight to MySQL. This is the one that usually causes the headaches, put these commands into the terminal:

    sudo port install mysql5 +server

    sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.mysql5.plist

    sudo mysql_install_db5 --user=mysql

    cd /opt/local ; sudo /opt/local/lib/mysql5/bin/mysqld_safe &

    sudo ln -s /opt/local/var/run/mysql5/mysqld.sock /tmp/mysql.sock

    Optional: I like to set my self up as a user so I can get into mysql a little quicker put this into the terminal:

    mysql5 -u root

    Then excute this sql statement (you’ll need to change the name andrew to your Leopard username):

    GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'andrew'@'localhost';

    I didn’t include a password in the previous command because i’m only using my databases locally for development, if you want a password use this command (replace andrew with your username and some_pass with your password):

    GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'andrew'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'some_pass' WITH GRANT OPTION;

  7. Install Ruby’s MySQL adaptor - One last port install:

    sudo port install rb-mysql

  8. Update Installed Gems - Leopard comes with a load of gems pre-installed including rails and capistrano, we’ll just check they are up to date:

    sudo gem update

Now your ready to get started developing Ruby on Rails applications on Leopard.

Optional Extras

You don’t have to install these pieces of software, but they will make your life easier if you do and most of them are completely free!