AkenRoberts.com

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  • Jul 22, 2025

    A quick mind dump about inspiration through trying times

    A candid mind dump about staying motivated through a tough stretch — job searching, freelancing, and pushing personal projects forward.

  • Apr 22, 2025

    Using AI To Write a Better Social Media Post

    How I used AI to augment my writing skills and "punch up" a social media post.

  • Dec 9, 2024

    CEO Or Bust?

    As a solo entrepreneur endeavoring to learn, try, and (hopefully) succeed in business, I have a lot of identity crisis moments.

  • Jun 7, 2024

    React Native TextInput Vertical Padding Not Working

    On iOS with a multiline TextInput, paddingVertical only applies to the bottom. Use paddingTop and paddingBottom individually instead.

  • May 22, 2024

    Crappy Software Motivates Me

    I vented today in an entrepreneur group chat about how my domain registrar keeps sending me renewal and expiration emails after I have fully transferred a domain away from them.

  • May 21, 2024

    Launching June 13: Stay Woven

    I'm launching my first 2024 product: Stay Woven, a mobile app that helps you strengthen your personal and professional relationships.

  • Mar 18, 2024

    Dungeons & Dragons Brings People Together

    My wife and I wore Critical Role swag to a birthday party — and in less than two hours we had three separate D&D conversations with complete strangers.

  • Feb 18, 2024

    Dancing in the Window

    One recent evening, while my wife and I were driving home, we passed an apartment building. In one window, two young people were dancing — joyful, unconcerned about being seen.

  • Dec 19, 2023

    On Prioritizing Multiple Ideas

    As an aspiring entrepreneur with many ideas, how do you prioritize work? Even when all your ideas seem to have equal weight?

  • Nov 11, 2023

    Spend Better: Days 7 & 8 🚀

    I was so close to my one-week goal. But that doesn't matter — SpendBetter.com is live!

  • Nov 8, 2023

    Spend Better: Days 5 & 6

    With an expected short amount of work time on Day 5, I've made good progress on my smaller items to-do list over these two days.

  • Nov 6, 2023

    Spend Better: Days 3 & 4

    Things are going well! After Day 2, the plan for Day 3 was UI. Check! ✅

  • Nov 6, 2023

    Book Review: Permission to Screw Up by Kristen Hadeed

    As I take yet another journey into entrepreneurism, I'm actively working on overcoming my fears of failure. Kristen Hadeed's Permission to Screw Up came up in my search for books about said fears. This is my casual review.

  • Nov 2, 2023

    Spend Better: Day 2

    Yesterday I told you about starting a one-week project, Spend Better. How are things looking at the end of Day 2?

  • Oct 31, 2023

    One Week Project: Spend Better

    Two and a half years ago I wrote down an idea for a business directory to help you find alternative shopping experiences to large corporations. Now I'm building it in one week.

  • Oct 30, 2023

    Options Day Trading: 2023-10-30

    Journaling my experience learning to actively trade 0DTE options — the decisions, mistakes, and lessons from day one.

  • Oct 30, 2023

    Recognizing A Great Meal

    A couple days ago, I went on a date night with my wife at a local restaurant neither of us had been to.

  • May 28, 2021

    Be Honest With Your Projects

    You're starting a new project. But do you have a clear understanding of how it fits into your life?

  • May 11, 2021

    Building In Public: Kickoff

    Kicking off my first product built in public — a direct-to-consumer retail business selling customizable artwork.

  • Feb 6, 2021

    January 2021

    A monthly update: buying our first home, a positive performance review at FormAssembly, and goals set for February.

  • Jul 21, 2019

    Magic Call Methods & Static Context in PHP

    PHP's dynamic nature makes it an extremely flexible language. It can also mean confusion if you don't understand the inner workings behind the "magic".

  • Jul 15, 2019

    Hashed Passwords Using Symfony's AliceBundle

    When using AliceBundle for fixtures in my Symfony project, I ran into an issue creating hashed passwords for users.

  • Jun 10, 2019

    I Have Already Failed - Why Am I Wasting My Time?

    Those are the words I just spoke out loud to my wife.

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