Three weeks ago I left the security of my job of the last 8 years to pursue a new career as a freelance consultant/programmer.

I’ve been freelancing part-time for several years and it was always a nice supplement to my income, but I was afraid of going it alone. What if I couldn’t make enough to support my family? What if I’m not good enough? What if I fail and have to go find a job? What will people think of me then?

Earlier this year I came to the realization that there is no reason to fear failing. Would it be the end of the world if I did fail? Hardly. Would I be embarrassed? Probably. But, embarrassed or not, I can always change gears or find another job. I could even give up and just lay around watching TV all day while my wife supports me.

So, now I’m doing what I really love: Developing the best software that I’m able, using Ruby and Ruby on Rails. I also plan to spend more time working on my own software and writing about Ruby and Ruby on Rails. I’m even considering doing some speaking on the subject.

Are you looking for an experienced Ruby or Ruby on Rails developer? Maybe you’re just looking for some mentoring or guidance on a project? Send me an email at keithm at infused.org. I’m always looking for exciting new projects.

Getting ODBC working on OS X is pretty easy, but you’ll have to find the damn drivers first. First grab the newest iODBC SDK from the Software Availability page, and then grab the the Universal Data Access Drivers from the OpenLink download page. Install the SDK first, and then the drivers.

Once you’ve installed both of those packages you will have a new iODBC Administrator program in your Applications/Utilities/ directory. Open it up and add a System DSN just as you would on a Windows machine.

Can anyone recommend a good automated testing framework for PHP? I’ve been doing all my development in Ruby using TDD and I can hardly stand to work without a test framework now in PHP. I would make the development of Retrospect-GDS test driven as well. Email me if you have any suggestions.

I spent a half hour playing Zork 1 last night. Brought back some good memories.

I will no longer be doing any development of Window-only software. I’m making it official today, though it’s actually been several months since I’ve done any work on Windows applications. I will continue to develop cross-platform applications, with an emphasis on web applications. My focus has now shifted to Ruby on Rails as the platform of choice, but I will continue to use PHP (or Perl or Python) where appropriate.

This means that there will be no future versions of Ged2Csv, though I will continue to sell and support the latest version for the foreseeable future.