While traveling, however, I have settled on a routine to buy my flights:

1. Check the price on Kayak.  The flexibility to filter on almost criteria is incredibly useful.  This really helps to find the ideal flight.
2. Once I find a flight that looks good, I head over to Bing Travel (formerly Farecast) to see if this is a good price or not.  Their search isn’t as easy to manipulate as Kayak’s, but I really like the price predictor.  Then I have to decide if I want to gamble if the price will drop as predicted, or just buy the flight then.  I have saved some money on flights using this in the past, but have also been burned when a “wait” rating quickly changes to a “buy” and the price has gone up.
3. After I buy the flight, I forward the information to Tripit.  This collects all of the trip information into one handy screen so I don’t have to find the specific email.  They really execute this idea brilliantly, including the fact that you don’t have to do anything to register with them.  As you’ve forwarded them an email, they know your address, so all you have to do is set a password the first time.  There is no other user name to create or a lengthy form to fill out just to use their service.  They also keep track of how many miles you fly and cities you visit.  Since I started using them, I’ve flown 58,836 miles which is just my personal (non-work) travel.

As much as I like these services, I look forward to not using them for some time.  I don’t think 30 days is too much to hope for.

Overall, it’s one of the apps I use the most on my iPhone.  I wonder if the Spotify app gets approved if there will be a shift away from Pandora.  I personally like the randomness of Pandora, although I will certainly use Spotify to play a particular song that I’m in the mood for (Pandora’s license terms prevents you from choosing a specific song to play).

Depending on what option you choose from the following tools, most can be had for free.

• Source control – This is one of the most important tools, even if you are a solo developer.  Even if your hard drive doesn’t fail (which it will eventually), it’s essential to be able to view previous versions of a file and tag code for a particular release.  Check out Beanstalk (CVS) or Github (git) depending on what system you use.  You can also install CVS or git on your own server.
• Bug tracking – Another very important tool to track issues and new requests.  I like FogBugz (they offer a free version for 2 people), especially the scheduling feature.  There are a ton of alternatives, including Bugzilla, Mantis, and many others.
• Email – Instead of paying for an Exchange server, I’d use Google Apps.  This also gives you a shared calendar and online document editing.  I’ve used Google Docs for sharing some simple documents and spreadsheets, but for a true desktop editing experience, use Open Office.
• IDE – Depending on the type of development, this can be free, such as Eclipse or quite expensive, such as Visual Studio.  If you are going to do development on a Microsoft stack, check out their BizSpark program that gives you access to their tools and support for free and only pay for the tools you use after three years.  You can also use their Express tools for free, but they may hamper you in important ways.
• Web hosting and domain registration – This can vary greatly, but for a minimal site should probably be in the $15-50/month.  There are oftentimes large discounts, like Dreamhost frequently offers unlimited disk space and bandwidth for only $10 a year.  If you want to buy an existing domain name, that could set you back a pretty penny.  It’s probably best to get a domain name first instead of falling in love with the “perfect” name and then realizing it’s unavailable.  I like using BustAName to automatically find combination of words you like and see what domains are available.

There are plenty of other tools that you may need depending on your application, but there are almost always free alternatives.  Do you need Photoshop for image editing?  Possibly, but you could also use Paint.net, GIMP, or even an online tool like Picnik.  Utilities like an ftp client (Filezilla) or zip program (GZip), even anti-virus (AVG) can be free.

There are clearly many paid alternatives to everything on this list, but many of these open source tools can be just as good or better.  Even if there is a tool you want to pay for, it may make sense to start with the free alternative and switch once you have money coming in.  In reality, for most basic development needs, you can probably get going literally for free, with the only expense being your machine itself and the installation time (which shouldn’t be discounted and may mean paying for a product makes more sense).  The amount of open source software and the tools built on top of them is incredible and extremely helpful to anyone trying to start a new business without a large outlay of cash.

I like John Gruber’s take on this: “Figure out the absolute least you need to do to implement the idea, do just that, and then polish the hell out of the experience.” This is my goal for the next week or so.

• The process can be about as fast or as slow as you want it to be.  If you really wanted, from the time you start looking at homes to the time you move in can be just over a month.
• You can decide if you are going to buy a house in a matter of minutes.  After touring a few houses, you can know almost as soon as you walk in the door if the house is not for you.  The kitchen may not have a great layout, the second bedroom may be a few feet too small, the view could be terrible, whatever.  Most likely, something will jump out right away and you shouldn’t waste time rationalizing it away.  On the other hand, knowing if it is the right house can take a little longer, but it is strange looking back on how long we (my wife and I) spent in this house before making the decision to buy it.  I think I test drove my car for longer before buying that.  In some respects, this makes sense – you can walk through the home in a few minutes and make sure it has what you want – natural light, a yard, lots of counter space, whatever.  The little things that may annoy you, such as doors that open the opposite way you think they should, or the lack of an outlet exactly where you need it, won’t be apparent until you are living day to day in the house.  It would be fantastic if you could really try a house out before buying by living there for a few days, but unless the housing market really crashes, you’re probably out of luck here.
• There will be surprises.  The first night we spent in our house, we could hear train whistles that were a few miles away.  They aren’t loud enough to keep us up, but it was not something I expected as I never crossed a train track anywhere near here.  If we were living a mile or two closer, it would be much more annoying, but there would have been no way of knowing as it only happens from midnight to about 5 AM.  I don’t know if previous owners would have mentioned this, but we bought it new, so no one had ever lived there and the seller probably didn’t even know.

My parents have lived in their house for almost 30 years, and I was the first of my siblings to buy a house, so there weren’t many people who could give me first hand advice.  After going through it, here is my advice for other first time buyers.

• Put 20% down. As lending requirements have been getting tighter, this may be more of a requirement than advice, but putting down less than 20% wasn’t even something we considered.  If you don’t put down 20%, you will have to pay PMI (Private Mortgage Insurance) and possibly have a higher rate on your primary mortgate.  In my mind, base what you can afford based on 20% down.
• Know your credit score. You should check your credit report every few months, and it is worth paying one of the credit unions to get your score (you can get the report for free).  It only costs a few bucks, and knowing your score can help you estimate mortgage rates and identify any problems early in your search.
• It will cost more than you expect. You will owe a significant amount of money at closing, but you can calculate this ahead of time.  It is also easy to calculate your monthly mortgage payment.  What I mean is all of the costs that you now have every month as a homeowner.  Do you pay for garbage collection, all utilities, water and sewage usage for your apartment?  You do now.  How about any building materials or tools, repairs, or a new water heater?  Do you have to buy any new furniture?  You don’t want a beautiful new house that you need to leave empty because you can’t afford furniture.  The mortgage is obviously the most significant cost, but be sure to add a few hundred dollars a month for various expenses when calculating what you can afford.  Don’t be strained to the limit by the mortgage and then be unable to pay for a major home repair if necessary.
• Don’t compromise on what is most important to you. Different people are looking for different things.  Your primary concern may be proximity to your job, the size of the master bedroom, or large lot.  Whatever this is, make sure the house has it.  If not, there are plenty of others available so try not to get too emotionally invested right away.  Certain things like paint color and furniture arrangement can easily be changed, but you can’t just add more bedrooms or make the yard larger.

With that said, the ability to create a nice looking app quickly is a huge positive.  The real trick is taking it to the next level and making it actually worth something – not necessarity in a monetary sense, but by providing value to users.  Can I accomplish this without making a complicated mess?  That’s the plan.   I’ll keep posting on my progress.