For the longest time I had an annoying problem; I found it difficult to find and compare open source software. What’s the best jQuery library for x, or a more updated version of gem y?

After discovering I was not alone in this torture, I spent a few weeks building and launching GitRep. Read on to learn a little about some decisions, both technical and business, made in its making and its launch.

Despite having so much information accessible, we often fail to take full advantage of available resources and benefit from the work of others. When it comes to trying to grow as a developer, this is an excellent way to stunt your growth.

Since it is not easy to sift through and distill the knowledge of a community, I wanted to share some of the work I’ve already done in this regard with software development.

When I decided I wanted to incorporate an Instagram “widget” of some sort on my site, I decided on the jquery.instagram.js plugin since it looked easy to use and flexible.

However when I finally got it working on the site, I noticed there were some issues with the stream.

When I chose to revamp AdrianArtiles.com from a static site to something that I can share work and writings on, I quickly set to work whiteboarding everything I wanted from the new site. This narrowed my choice to two options for the framework; wordpress, and octopress/jekyll.