Progress on six week test – looking for authors

September 18, 2009

As a quick followup to my previous post (http://michaelkimsal.com/blog/six-week-test-followup-custom-business-cards/) I wanted to drop a quick update here.  Six weeks isn’t too long if it’s your only activity.  Trying to fit in a six week project in the midst of other projects and deadlines is hard, but you already knew that!.  I’m 4.5 weeks in, and have a basic site template up, and am working on the info gathering portion (nearly done, but can be improved) and then paypal and google checkout integration.  Given my current workload, hitting Sept 28 is still possible, but it’ll be tight!

re: timing – the designer I worked with had me on somewhat lower priority than I’d hoped, which ate up a lot of the 4.5 weeks – I was hoping to be where I’m at now about 1.5 weeks ago.  However, I did not convey any sense of urgency to him, nor give him a deadline, so that rests entirely with me.  I satisfied with the first round of design that we did, so I can’t complain (about anyone except me, anyway!)  Lesson learned: have hard deadlines in place with people you work with

If you’d like to be involved in testing or giving feedback, give me a shout or leave contact information.  I’m specifically looking for feedback and testing from self-published authors (of any genre).

Posted in Book, Business, Development, Software, Web No Comments »

Web Development Job Hunter classes (raleigh)

September 10, 2009

I’ve been working with a couple local people on developing a short term plan for them to get in to or move around in the web development job space, and I was wondering if there’s a need for something perhaps sightly more formal in the Raleigh area.  Here’s my initial sketch…

Weekly classes (probably Saturday morning) 2 hours per class for 6-8 weeks

Class would consist of

• reviewing web development options (technologies, focus – front end or back end, etc)
• deciding on a particular technology to focus on
• developing a short term game plan for achieving certain tasks – small projects to connect to a database, do flash animation, handle user authentication, etc.
• work with participants to keep them on schedule, answering questions that may come up
• have in speakers from local hiring companies to do presentations about their work environments and what they’re looking for in entry-level positions
• have in guest presenters from the area who specialize in one tech (.net, ruby, flash, etc) to answer specific questions
• general support and motivation when learning the new technology.

For some people getting in to new tech can be rather overwhelming because there’s so many choices, and often conflicting advice about what’s “best” to get in to.  What I’ve found is that there’s isn’t one “best” that’s right for everyone.  Learning PHP just because that’s where the jobs are, but you hate it – that’s just pointless.

Is there a need for something like this in the Raleigh area?  Would you be interested in participating?

Posted in Business, Development, Job, Society, Software, Web 4 Comments »

Moving to Opera, partially

September 2, 2009

I’m planning to move to using Opera as my main webmail client.  I do a lot in gmail, and to a lesser extent in yahoo mail and other webmail clients.  Firefox, as nice as it is, tends to hang quite a lot (not just with gmail – basically, all the time – 3.5 has not been a great update, and feels like a step backwards).

So, I’m going to treat my ‘mail’ as a separate notion, much like my regular mail client, and simply have Opera 10 open all the time on a secondary screen, along with my regular mail client.  I suspect this will be a long-lived setup, but if it turns out there’s something wrong with it, I’ll let you know

Posted in Personal, Software, Tools, Web 4 Comments »

Looking for web freelancers to interview

August 25, 2009

I’m putting out a call for fulltime web freelancers to possible be interviewed for an upcoming book project.  PHP, Java, .Net, Front End Engineers, JavaScript, Graphic Designers – if you do web development or design for a living as an independent, we’d like to talk to you.  Visit http://webdevpub.com/interview to fill out a quick background statement, and we’ll select a number of subjects from those who’ve filled out the form.

Posted in Book, Software, Web, Writing No Comments »

US Federal government to change cookie policy?

August 18, 2009

I stumbled on an article recently about the government’s plan to change its cookie policy.  There wasn’t a whole lot in the article other than that the new federal CIO Vivek Kundra has proposed that federal websites be allowed to use persistent cookies to track visitors.

It’s *about time*.  Give me, the tech savvy end user, the *choice* to be able to interact with the gov’t on my own terms.  If I’m comfortable with cookies, I should be allowed to use them, and get a better experience from the federal agencies I deal with.

Some good that will come out of this is that it will give federal web developers better insight as to how their sites are being used over time by the same people.  As it stands, with no long-term persistent cookie support, it’s completely a guess.  Long-term cookies can, of course, possibly be used for ‘bad’ purposes, and tracking my behaviour across some federal sites (perhaps).  So what?  If you don’t like it, block cookies in your browser.  Browsers like Firefox are making it easier to be ‘anonymous’ online when one wants to be (with the built-in privacy mode), so people who want to be anonymous can be.

A potential problem will be users at state and local agencies who have no control over their browsers using federal sites where the federal cookie policy may be at odds with state-level internet privacy policies.  I realize that’s a bit of a stretch, but I can see it being a problem that’ll hit someone, somewhere.

Either way, I applaud our CIO’s effort to move our federal-level web experience forward.  Privacy advocates – turn off your cookies.  You have a choice.  For those of us that want a smoother experience, I say ‘bring on the cookies!’.

Posted in Business, Society, Web No Comments »

Six week test followup – custom business cards

August 17, 2009

I’m taking my own advice and plunging ahead with a small, focused six-weeker. I’m not sure this counts or not because A) I’ve had the idea for several months and B) I did a bit of work on it several weeks ago. With that said, perhaps I should only give myself five weeks on this one?

The crux of the project is selling custom business cards to self-published authors. If you’re a self-published author and would like to be part of the beta program, let me know. There will probably be some free or discounted cards in it for you in exchange for helping work out the kinks (and helping to promote it!).

Six weeks from now is Sept 28 – five weeks is Sept 21. I’ve got a lot of other work planned in between now and then, so hitting this will be a challenge, but I think it’s doable.  When I said “plunging ahead” above, I meant I contacted a designer and should have an initial comp or two to review in the next few days.  From there, I’d be doing some of the programming, tying in with paypal and google and such, and then finding ways to promote it.  I should be in a position to take money from customers and deliver product by the end of September.

I’ll keep you all posted as this progresses.

Posted in Business, Ideas, Web 2 Comments »

GroovyMag and JSMag issues

August 17, 2009

The August issues of GroovyMag and JSMag are both out.  They’ve been out since earlier this month, but I didn’t publicize them here yet. 

GroovyMag’s content this month includes Part I of building a Grails Portal, Part II of  Logging in Grails, a deeper look at Groovy Typing, the Clojure Plugin, Grails with RMI, and more.

JSMag this month includes pieces on using Cross-Domain AJAX, Events with JavaScript, Yahoo Query Language, ExtJS Plugin Development, Mobile App Development with Dojo, and more.

I mentioned it on the JSMag blog, but not here, so I’ll repeat myself.  One of the pieces of feedback I got on JSMag a few months ago was that the topics looked a bit advanced.  While that was intentional, I’ve added a monthly column aimed at people new to JavaScript.  The column is written by Shea Frederick, so whenever you see anything from him in JSMag, it’s for JS beginners.  I’m still looking for a name to give the column (”Beginner’s Corner” sounds a bit too cliched, no?) so if you have any suggestions, let me know. 

Posted in Business, Grails, Groovy, Javascript, Web No Comments »

The six week test

August 15, 2009

I’ve been speaking with a number of local entrepreneurs over the past few weeks, and they all have a few things in common.  All are sharp, smart, have good taste (hey, they’re talking to me, right?), have some killer ideas, and seem to be stuck.  Taking definitive action on the ideas seems to be the next key step that is holding each of them back.

During our discussions, each idea was solid, but not necessarily reaching for the sky as in “I’m developing the next Google killer” (and that’s a good thing, in my view).  All were certainly achievable with enough effort and time, but time is the killer factor here.  Most of the ideas had very long time horizons – there was no plan to be even ‘launching’ for several months – usually 6-12 months from starting.  That’s a workable plan for some people, but in these cases, I didn’t think it was.

I began asking this simple question.  “Now that you’ve identified a target market to serve, what could you do in the next six weeks to be able to serve the people in that market in exchange for money?”  The question brings everything to a short pause.

The motivation behind the question isn’t to force people to only do something that will result in cashflow within six weeks.  Six weeks *is* a fairly short time period, but it’s also possible for many projects to be started and have revenue in that window. The idea is to get people thinking about short term goals, and to focus on small achievements, testing the marketplace, and so on.

If you have an idea that may take 8-10 weeks, that’s fine too.  Hey, it’s even fine if you have an idea that really *will* take 10 months – go for it!  But for the majority of people I talk to, they’re very likely to get lost during those 10 months, stumble around, and eventually give up on the idea altogether.

Does this approach work?  Well, it can.  I’m living proof that it can.

My own GroovyMag and JSMag ventures took longer than six weeks to start up, but they definitely weren’t 10 month ventures.  I started looking in to the idea in earnest in late June 2008, started serious planning in August 2008, and launched GroovyMag in November 2008.  That was probably 12 weeks total, but much of that time was working with others – writers, layout, etc. And at the 6 week mark it was in full swing, with a defined launch date.  During that time I wasn’t quiet about it either – I engaged the community for feedback and input, created a signup form to collect contact info on those interested in the idea, and had a ready-built customer list on day one.

Similarly, my brother recently launched a small project, and it took about two weeks from idea to cashflow.  Will this take over the world and let him retire on just this project?  Probably not, but it’s also given him a customer base of people who have an interest in that particular topic.  As that grows, he’ll have better insight as to what those customers want and need, and can serve them better with other related products.

On the other end of the spectrum, I’ve followed a couple of people working on projects over the last 12 months, and neither of them have launched yet.  They’re doing everything possible *except* putting the product out there for sale, which is a shame.  Had they started smaller, gotten better feedback from potential customers in the first few weeks, and changed course accordingly, I think both people would have had better products after all this time.

This “six week test” isn’t anything new.  Many of us have heard the phrases “release early, release often” or “ready, fire, aim” or similar ideas.  My only twist on this is phrasing the concept with a specific time limit attached.  Six weeks wasn’t an arbitrary choice, mind you.  It was longer than ‘two weeks’ (very few people can organize themselves enough to be productive in just two weeks), longer than ‘a month’ (months have different days in them), and not ‘two months’ (which often ends up being something people feel is so far in the future that they can put it off).  “Six weeks” is, to me, concrete enough for people to realize it’s a short time period, but long enough to accomplish something in.  It’s also 42 days, and we all know the benefits of 42.

What could you accomplish in the next six weeks?  Do you have an idea for a new product or service you’re thinking of putting together?  Does six weeks seem doable to you for your ideas?

Posted in Business, Development, Ideas, Software, Web No Comments »

Magento with Facebook Connect

August 6, 2009

My brother wrote a Magento module recently – the Facebook Connect Module.  It’s pretty straightforward, and allows you to make it easier for shoppers to enter in their information in to your Magento store.  When checking out, they can connect their Facebook info, using the Facebook Connect process, and their information will be imported in to your Magento store.  It’s not free – there is a charge for this, but the source code is included, not obfuscated or encrypted, so if you need to extend it or make customizations, you can.

Possibly one of the more interesting things it does: “Alerts users via Facebook notifications to changes in their order.”  This sort of social networking integration with ecommerce sites will possibly be more common in the future – perhaps some other sites are doing it already that I don’t know about?

You can also just sign up for the mailing list to be notified about new features and such over at http://biz.metrofindings.com/main.page/facebook_connect_magento_module.html

What other sorts of Magento tie ins to social networks would you like to see?

Posted in Ecommerce, PHP, Software, Web 3 Comments »

I’m a hypocrite, sort of (phones)

August 4, 2009

I’m finding that I will likely end up purchasing a new phone – with a contract/agreement – in the next week or so.  I’m fighting the urge to consider myself ‘caving in’, and have ended up thinking about it differently.  If I end up needing to pay an early termination fee, I just won’t care.  The thought isn’t a fun one, but ultimately, if that’s the only thing keeping me from trying out something new, it’s basically a bit silly.

What I will *not* do is end up being one of the people who orient their purchasing life around this idea of “hey, i’m *eligible* for an upgrade!”.  You’re *always* eligible – it’s called buying something that you want when you want it.  “Oh, but I don’t get a discount!” – then move to another carrier.  They’ll more than likely give you better deals to snag you away from someone than your own carrier would to keep you.  We’re still back to ‘only certain carriers have certain devices with certain features’ – that sucks, and possibly will never change in my lifetime short of some specific court case.   Even then, when govt gets involved in stuff, it often makes things worse rather than better…

Posted in Society No Comments »