It’s hard to bring yourself to blog about things. Because I know as soon as this goes out there people will judge what you write and do. But I should do it, for my own notes and for others who might follow.
So on with the updates! I spent some time getting to know Raleigh and where cool things are. (PS if you from here and know of cool things comment, email or tweet me) And granted I haven’t been working as hard as I should on projects but progress is being made.
My first iPhone app went live it’s called Pay to Play and is a tool for calculating time at work vs things you buy. I don’t think putting it in finance was the wisest thing. It’s not popular category with clear winners. Should have put it in utilities. Going to start another as soon as I get a cool idea. The goal is to put some more effort and charge for the next one and not make pennies on ad’s or hope that 100,000 people download your app.
I started redoing Haiku at work slowly. The new goal is to follow the route of something like FML or Text from last night. Allowing more anonymous usage and longer then 3 lines haikus. I also played around with the syllable counter I made from it had it scan some books for occurring Haikus. No idea what to do with that other then some blog posts to boots haiku at works google juice and get some eyeballs on the site. Also have to come up with 100s of haikus to fake users because with sites like that new users don’t want to be first and early adopters are hard to come by. Some people think that practice is shady, but it’s how reddit and a ton of other sites got traction and users by faking users and activity.
Clozed books is going ok. Got a lot of the design work. Goal is to sometime next week sit down and do the backend stuff.
I mainly use Django for all my projects but the python deployment options kind of suck. Another goal of this weekend is to play with my EC2 instance and get setting up a python server with nginx, Varnish, Django, ect.. All set up.
Till then please feel to contact me in the comments, email me at fdcleary[at]gmail.com or on twitter @raisins
I need to post more often, maybe I just generic cool posts about code or things I find.
TLDR: I dropped my life and am gonna try to make it on the internet.
(note: my writing is terrible, but can only get better with writing check the about me page for more info)
Hey internet. So, I just had a major life change. I got out of a long term relationship and am no longer going to college. I moved from Meadville PA to Raleigh NC with my friend Dave. So as it stands now my life is a blank slate. I have no money, no job, a friends couch to sleep on and 1/2 of a CS/Anthropology/Math degree (that I could have done in my sleep), but I am young(24) and plan to start living and working on what I want. I am smart and have a unique knowledge base that I plain on start capitalizing. I thought about trying to go a freelance/contract work but I am scared of dealing with nightmare clients with how stubborn I could be.
I spend a good chunk of my day reading hackernews and programming reddit, and ect… I do a ton of side projects in Python, Javascript, CSS, MongoDB and a dozen other technologies. I’ve read every internet/startup/programming process book I could get my hands on. With this new found openness of my life and need for cash now. I am going to go “the practice what you preach route” and try to make internet/startup life work for me. I can get a shitty job in retail or a company anytime in my life. I am gonna try to make it doing what I dream/love. The words in the words of jay-z “”But do you have the power to get out from up under you?” Well I am gonna try.
I plan on overcoming all the fears 1st time entrepreneurs have and blogging about it as my own knowledge base and for others. It’s time to quit reading, dreaming, and living in fears and it’s time to start doing.
These are various ideas I have that I could work more on or start. I have the year of an amazon EC2 micro for free. Also I have a webfaction account that is payed for the next 6 months.
Haiku at work
http://haikuatwork.com
Money Making: Ad’s, maybe a book from the community.
About: This was a site my buddy dave had that I took and made a reality. Done in python/django with a postgreSQL backend. I kind of abandoned it. There are some problems with the user experience. You shouldn’t have to log in to rate or report. This came out of making it without talking to anyone and a scare about spam and dealing with it. But in hindsight who is gonna spam a haiku site so much. Also the error UI on the posting page is terrible. The best piece of tech in the system is the syllable counter. It is pretty accurate and surprisingly so. If I wanted to keep the force logins It needs to change to a more user space and making the user feel like they own the writings or space, I don’t think haiku writing is strong enough niche for that. If I cont’ work on this I would go the FML way of just posing and letting people control it. Downside is to make any money you need alot of eyeballs
iPhone apps
Money: selling apps, or AD’s
About: I don’t know objective-C but could learn but in the mean time I have used appcelerator’s titanium is making some joke apps that I haven’t published also I have the apple dev program for the next year. I spent a week just making the worst apps, “WACKY FACTS WHILE YOU POOP” and “PET THE KITTY” where some. A problem I have is all my ideas are shitty jokey apps and with titanium it’s not built for making games. If I wanted to make games I would have to learn Objective-C or magically come up with the money for unity 3d. Plus as it stands now I know nothing about 3d programing, but that could change. I need ideas for apps that I could make and make money.
ClozedBooks
Money: selling books, Donate, maybe a kickstarter/indiegogo, ?
I want to madlib an entire book. The name is a play on Clozed test which are fill in the blank tests. With the help of the internet I think it would be fun to madlib an entire book, then release the book in both blank word and filled in states. I have a cool script written that already goes though and ID’s parts of speach and takes out some. Here’s an excerpt from Dracula Screen shot 1 I think I could be pretty funny. I also did a run with Sherlock Holmes screen shot 2
Wholelotofporn
http://wholelotofporn.com
Money: Ad’s, sponsorships, selling sexy items.
Idea: I’ve always wanted to make what I call the greatest porn site. Focused on awesome nonspammy sexy other then just ads and stolen content. The main idea is take reddit/digg idea but make it focused on sexy things for all and plus some other magic. The site would be able to drill down what you like and show you what is relevant to thins you like and every other social pipe dream. I have an early prototype done, it still needs the community side of things built so that people will stick around. This is an idea I’ve had for a while and wanted to polish polish polish but I may go the route of release early and release often. This so far is my most work/what I may want to do option. But money would take a while to come in.
SAAS app
Software as a Service App
Money: monthly subscriptions, or ad’s
This seems to be the default route for someone to go when starting out on their own as an entrepreneur. The problem for me is that I haven’t thought of a problem I want to solve other than a replacement for google notebook, that would pretty much be a clone of it. (I miss it) So I need ideas of what people want and would pay for. Also, going to have to also go the route of release early or release often.
Make a game
Money: ad’s or selling the game
I’ve always made prototypes for game ideas I have(check out Air Samurai press z, all graphics are stand in) . I could take the plunge into a real deal indie developer.
Something else
Money: ?
Idea: What ever please feel free to email me anything or about anything at fdcleary[at]gmail.com or hit me up on twitter @raisins
With some of these things I could go and try to fight for funding but I am a firm believer in bootstrapping.
These are just some of the idea that I have and are some state of doneness. If you have any advice/ideas/job/anything/ect.. Or you just want to say what I’m doing is wrong or stupid. Let me know in the comments, email me at fdcleary[at]gmail.com or on twitter @raisins. Till then stay tuned for more follow ups and stuff about me, the idea is 100% transparency. While this is going on.
Till my next post. I leave you with my internet motto
create a community, create a culture, create an impact
How to make engineers write concisely with sentences? By combining journalism with the technical report format. In a newspaper article, the paragraphs are ordered by importance, so that the reader can stop reading the article at whatever point they lose interest, knowing that the part they have read was more important than the part left unread.
State your message in one sentence. That is your title. Write one paragraph justifying the message. That is your abstract. Circle each phrase in the abstract that needs clarification or more context. Write a paragraph or two for each such phrase. That is the body of your report. Identify each sentence in the body that needs clarification and write a paragraph or two in the appendix. Include your contact information for readers who require further detail.
via:http://engineerwriting.jottit.com/
Psyco is a Python extension module which can greatly speed up the execution of any Python code.
Psyco is basically a Just In time compiler or a JIT, but as of March 10, 2010 it doesnt work on 64 bit systems. If you recently bought a mac then your OS is 64 bits.You used to have to recompile python to the 32 bit ver.
Well no more just run this
defaults write com.apple.versioner.python Prefer-32-Bit -bool yes
