In lieu of a New Year’s resolution post, like many others, I decided to write up some of my running goals. Apparently the social pressure of posting goals helps reach them, so hopefully I have a good chance of accomplishing these. I felt that I also had a better chance of accomplishing these goals than the more generic resolutions. So here we go! Increase Speed - Now that I have a subscription to Runner’s World, thanks Grandma, I have come to understand the importance of speed work and repeats.

Precisely one year ago (ok maybe more like 11 months and three weeks), my two friends accomplished what seemed to be to be an unfathomable feat of endurance by finishing the 2013 New York City Marathon. It had been a long road for them as they originally planned to do so in 2012, but had to delay a year due to the event’s first ever cancelation due to hurricane Sandy. They bruted out another year of training and crossed the finish line together, inspiring me to do something that seemed impossible, start training for my first marathon.

A Journey Through Time at Singapore’s Famous Hawker Centers Singapore may be most famous as a world financial hub, but it is quickly becoming even more well known as a foodie destination. Singaporeans are very serious and proud of their culinary heritage and this is obvious nowhere more so than at its famous Hawker Centers. Hawker Centers got their start in the 1970s when government officials decided to clean up Singapore’s streets by forcing street food vendors off the street corners and into large covered buildings to hawk their goods.

What’s In Your Bag is a common series on technology sites and blogs where writers open their bags and their hearts to show their favorite gadgets, tools, and necessities. With that in mind, I’d like to share what I typically carry in my bag on a daily basis or on a trip. The bag I’m a tech nerd, so I of course carry a branded laptop bag from my company, Audible.

Everyone who works with computers has their essential apps and programs, but for a software developer, the tools we use on a daily basis are especially critical and can give an extra edge in being productive. With that in mind, I’d like to share my 5 most essential apps and tools in hopes that they may help others achieve productivity nirvana. #1 IntelliJ As someone who’s livelihood depends on the code I write, obviously a good IDE is a top priority.

I’ve been reading The Art and Zen of Motorcycle Maintenance and one of the topics of exploration that comes up is quality and what it really means. The assertion is that quality can be seen and observed, but is nearly impossible to describe or articulate. With this in mind, I started thinking about what quality means with code. Now, there are a few ways of analyzing code, but when it comes to articulating what really makes code high quality, I am similarly stumped.

Audible.com Employee Culture I’m very proud to be a part of this video on Audible’s employee culture. Take a look at this amazing place to work.

Over the years, whenever I’ve wanted to hack together a quick project or web test, I’ve turned to LAMP, the “easy to use” web stack featuring Linix, Apache, MySQL, and PHP or Perl. Well that part of me is dead now that I’ve discovered Amazon Elastic Beanstalk, part of the AWS suite. The days of my PHP and Perl proficiency are long gone and these days, I’m much more comfortable in Java so Tomcat is now my go to web server.

Inspired by Lifehacker’s productivity series, I decided to share some of my work practices. Location: Wanaque, NJ Current Gig: Software Developer at Audible.com One word that best describes how you work: Methodically Current mobile device: HTC One (M8) Current computer: MacBook Pro What apps/software/tools can’t you live without? Why? My number one app is definitely Evernote. I use it for taking notes at work, managing todo lists, and planning projects. I even use it for storing travel trips, restaurants to try, and planning trips.