PHP

But this isn’t just another article about cohort analysis. If you already know the importance of the topic and want to skip the introduction, you can jump to the simulator, where you can either simulate startup growth based on retention, churn, and a number of other factors, or analyze your own PayPal logs with the code I’ve open sourced. If, however, you don’t realize that these are some of the most important metrics around–continue reading.

Starting a new remote gig, be it a contract project or a full-time job, can be a little intimidating if you're used to going into an office day after day. But this style of employment is growing in popularity, with some very notable companies lending it their endorsements. I've worked remotely for years now on projects of various scales and durations. With this post, I hope to enumerate some of the best practices that I've picked up for working in a variety of situations. The advice here ranges from specific recommendations for software and hardware to tips for hitting your team's deadlines.

I live in Córdoba, Argentina, approximately 130 kilometers (~80 miles) away from the lake where I kitesurf. Thats roughly a two-hour drive, which I can deal with. But I can't deal with the fact that weather forecasts are inaccurate. And where I live, good wind conditions last just a couple of hours. The last thing you want to do is clear up your Monday schedule to go kitesurfing and find yourself cursing the gods on a windless lake after two hours of driving. I needed to know the wind conditions of my favorite kitesurfing spot—in real time. So I decided to build my own weather station.

Everyone has their own set of tools. As a PHP developer, one of my favorites is a Rapid Application Development framework called “Nooku”. In the words of the development group: “Nooku is more of a web development toolkit than a framework” In case you are not familiar with it, have a look. It’s an open source project that makes heavy use of industry accepted design patterns to produce highly componentized applications that are easily extensible and reusable (initially created by one of the lead Joomla developers). Out of the box, Nooku gives you a great deal to help get projects off the ground faster. A small, but strong sample: