[saltcod]

You're 100% right about having something specific to work on. Going through tutorials doen't commit you to anything, and hence never compels you to keep going when things get tough.

The place where I stopped with Michael Hartl's tutorial was on the authentication chapter. I found that whole salt thing completely confusing. Later, I heard about Devise (and others), I thought—Ok, so I'll never actually need to know how to do this—but that's not true. Right on the Github page it says that Devise is complicated and not for beginners. In fact, I'm pretty sure it links back to Michael Hartl's article as an 'easy' way to implement authentication!

That's when I packed it in right there!

Thanks for the advice and for taking the time to write this stuff down. Your freelance site looks amazing for 12 weeks work. Great stuff.