Atlanta may not be the heart of technology in the U.S. but there are many opportunities to meet like-minded people that are interested in technology here. For instance, Atlanta Web Entrepreneurs Meeting is one of the largest ones with 1000 members. It’s a monthly meeting, where a subject is chosen each month and a few speakers will present on that subject. The one I attended was on iPhone Development, people who developed iPhone applications shared their experiences and gave statistics regarding sales of their applications to an audience of 50-60 people in the room.

I wrote about Founders at Work recently. Here are some memorable quotes from this book:

On customers:

David Heinemeier Hansson, cofounder of 37signals

“First we built the audience and then we figured out a product”

Meno Trott, cofounder of Movable Type

“Having customers from day one was the thing that really forced us to be a company. If we had been just talking about a product and we had to build up a customer base and figure out how to market it, that would have been incredibly hard.”

“Founders at Work” consists of 32 interviews with founders of famous technology companies such as Paypal, Apple, Lotus, Yahoo, TiVo, del.icio.us, craigslist, Flickr, Adobe etc. It’s about stories of startups’ early days, and contains valuable advice not only for people starting companies, but for everyone in technology business.

It’s a great resource for learning about what the founders have been through, and how they transformed their ideas into successful companies.

Lately, I’ve been thinking that everything is about user experience. We buy brands that make us feel special, we use beautiful products that provide a good experience. We love people that treat us well. What matters is how you feel, it’s all about the experience…

I bought a new bag for two reasons: (i) It looks great, I’m pleased every time I see it (ii) It’s in line with “less is more” philosophy

Randy Pausch, a Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, passed away from pancreatic cancer in July, 2008. One year ago, on September 18th, 2007, he was one of the speakers in a series of lectures called “Last Lecture”. The idea was, “If you had one lecture to give before you died, what would it be?”

Sadly, he knew this lecture was one of his last ones, so he gave an inspirational talk titled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”. This motivational talk is about life and living. He gives examples from his career about overcoming obstacles and shares the lessons he learned throughout this journey. It’s about an hour long, but definitely worth watching. I especially enjoyed the twist at the end :)

Getting Real is one of the books that helped me look at software development from a different perspective. The title of the book is “The easier, smarter and faster way to build a successful web application”, but it’s really the manifesto of 37signals, a web application and design company that’s been influential to the whole community with successful products like Basecamp and by creating the Ruby on Rails web framework.

I created an aggregated RSS feed that combines 28 different student blogs listed on Georgia Tech’s Student Blogs page. Yahoo! Pipes is such a great tool for manipulating RSS feeds easily.

Being a student for too long, I’m not a big fan of assignments or projects anymore. Among all assignments I had to do at Georgia Tech, there is one that I truly appreciate and will never forget:

First year. First semester. Alex Orso’s class on Software Development Processes. First assignment is about requirements gathering. There’s no written information given about the assignment. To learn what the assignment is about, each group has to interview the professor for 15 minutes. In a way, the professor is the customer, who needs an application developed, and it’s our job to figure out the requirements by interviewing him.

Orhan Pamuk, a prominent Turkish writer who won the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature, lets readers take a glimpse at his inner-world and what lead him to become a writer in his Nobel Lecture:

As you know, the question we writers are asked most often, the favourite question, is; why do you write? I write because I have an innate need to write! I write because I can’t do normal work like other people. I write because I want to read books like the ones I write. I write because I am angry at all of you, angry at everyone. I write because I love sitting in a room all day writing. I write because I can only partake in real life by changing it. I write because I want others, all of us, the whole world, to know what sort of life we lived, and continue to live, in Istanbul, in Turkey. I write because I love the smell of paper, pen, and ink. I write because I believe in literature, in the art of the novel, more than I believe in anything else. I write because it is a habit, a passion. I write because I am afraid of being forgotten. I write because I like the glory and interest that writing brings. I write to be alone. Perhaps I write because I hope to understand why I am so very, very angry at all of you, so very, very angry at everyone. I write because I like to be read. I write because once I have begun a novel, an essay, a page, I want to finish it. I write because everyone expects me to write. I write because I have a childish belief in the immortality of libraries, and in the way my books sit on the shelf. I write because it is exciting to turn all of life’s beauties and riches into words. I write not to tell a story, but to compose a story. I write because I wish to escape from the foreboding that there is a place I must go but – just as in a dream – I can’t quite get there. I write because I have never managed to be happy. I write to be happy.

You know that you are living in a third world county if:

• You have to waste your time by waiting in queues all the time
• It takes twice the time it would normally take to go to anywhere because of traffic
• You don’t see anyone smiling when you are walking on the streets
• Your government does not provide you quality education, health service or transportation
• The last thing you want to trust is your legal system, it takes ages to conclude any legal case
• Your country is threatened by terrorism
• You have to risk your life and waste your time for military service
• Your money becomes colored paper outside your country
• No one obeys the rules or laws
• Your government is censoring the Internet