A disclaimer: I’ve only deployed one non-trivial Django app to Heroku, so my experience is limited.

Limitations: This overview is intended to be language agnostic. Check Heroku for specific steps required for your language or framework. Heroku has tutorials for Ruby, PHP, Node.js, Python (Django and Flask), Java, Clojure, and Scala.

Tools: Git, Bitbucket or Github, Heroku, a command line interface (Git-Bash or Cygwin for Windows), and your choice of web framework.

1. Create a git repo and origin branch on Bitbucket.

Install git and setup a Bitbucket account. In Bitbucket, create a team, create a repository, and copy the address address under “Clone.” This will be your origin. Your local machine (and your team’s local machines) will push to and pull from this repository.Clone your Bitbucket origin to your local machine.You now have a local repo setup, and it’s time to set up your remote origin branch.Copy the remote branch address from Bitbucket then create a remote branch in the command line.

Now push your project to the remote.   Remember to fetch and merge [or pull] the most recent changes before you begin a development session.

2. Deploy to Heroku

Before deployment, you’ll need at least a bare bones web application that runs on a local development server. See the “Supported Languages” page on Heroku for details and deployment instructions for your language. Assuming you’re running locally, here’s an overview of the deployment steps:

• Create an account on Heroku, download the Heroku Toolbelt for your OS, and login. When you create a project, a PostgreSQL database should be created for you.
• Adding a heroku remote depends on if you’re starting a project or if you want to connect to an existing project. This tutorial assumes you’re creating a new project. Here’s how to collaborate on a project.
  
• For a new project, the git remote is added to your existing repo when you run ‘heroku create’. Make sure to run this from the top level of your project directory after you’ve created a local repo. Run

  ‘$heroku create’
  This will add another git remote to your local repo. (Heroku will be your production remote, which is separate from your Bitbucket origin.)

• Configure your Procfile. The Profile tells Heroku what applications are required run your app. Details can be found in your language-specific tutorial on Heroku. This file must be in your project root directory. The Procfile should be added to your repo before you deploy to Heroku.
• Deploy your code

  $git push heroku master

• Run “$ heroku logs” for error messages, then go search Stack Overflow to figure out what went wrong until you get it working

Good luck!

How’d it go for you?

This is my first technical tutorial here on Happenchance, so I’d love to hear your feedback. Please let me know in the comments if this tutorial help you, or if there’s anything that’s entirely wrong.

Resources

Git, Git-Bash, and Cygwin

Git cheat sheet (printable)

Getting Started With Bitbucket

Heroku Getting Started, Heroku Supported Languages, and an Introduction to Heroku from the co-creator of Django.

I occasionally do some technical editing and writing, but overall I think that the effort-reward ratio for general freelance writing is too low. The market is saturated with smart, educated people willing to work for cheap. I don’t mind hard work, but I think it’s kind of stupid to do mentally demanding for less than I could make delivering pizzas. Besides, programming is a damn sight more satisfying.

That said, I still think freelance writing is a fantastic field for a young, single person who a) wants to use geo-arbitrage to support a nomadic lifestyle, or b) needs a 3rd source of income to pay down their crushing student debt.

What does this mean for Happenchance?

I’ll probably post more technical content here, mostly because I understand things better when I write about them for an audience. There might be some stuff about being an old guy in an undergrad program, or silly things my kids say, or interesting things researchers have found about creativity, motivation, etc.

Whatever.

It’s called Happenchance for a reason.

• Non-Deterministic Finite Automata Converter. Here’s a video about doing NFA to DFA conversion.
• RegExr: Interactive regex builder and tester. Here’s another nice regex tester.
• B-Tree visualization.

• Scott Chacon’s book Pro Git available for free in its entirety.
• Github bootcamp
• Git Immersion guided tour of Git
• Vogella’s Git Tutorial
• Visualizing Git Concepts
• Roger Dudler’s Git Tutorial
• This post on Stack Overflow should cover everything else.

Know of any more good Git tutorials? Let us know in the comments.

About a month ago, I quietly released Redemption, the second installment in The End of the Iron series. To celebrate, I’m offering Redemption, along with everything else in my collection, free on Amazon from August 29th until September 2nd. Here’s a link to my Amazon author page. (If you don’t have a Kindle, Calibre does a good job of converting to .pdf and other formats).

Redemption is a novel about what happens when good people doing dubious things in pursuit of a goal. There’s also mischief, mayhem and awkward moments, as well as government intrigue, mass psychosis, and interdimensional demons … you can’t forget the interdimensional demons.

In other news, on August 20th, I finished the first draft of an upcoming novel entitled Doghead Empire. Set in the year 3000, this work begins and ends with the story of Kali Vance, a caterer who crosses path with an outlander suicide bomber.

Unlike in the Iron Age series, this book provides multiple POVs —five at this work’s current state.

I can’t decide if it’s premature to be talking about this work. Right now, it’s a first draft, which is necessarily a train wreck. Even worse (or better, depending), it’s a 140,000-word train wreck.

Fortunately, I had a pretty good idea of the story before I sat down to draft this work. The draft is a mess, and finishing it will take some time, but this should be my next major release.

Thanks for reading.

Direct links

 Reaction: The End of the Iron Age, Book 1

Redemption: The End of the Iron Age, Book 2

5 Short Tales of Strange New Beginnings

Also, if you enjoy what you read, you could really help me out by posting a review on Amazon or Goodreads.

Thanks, and enjoy!

I’ll be creating and sharing content on topics like self-education, curiosities, oddities, creativity, productivity, frugality, and whatever else has my attention at the moment. I’ll try to keep everything useful, intriguing, or at least entertaining.

If you’re wondering, I’m still living in rural Appalachia with my wife, baby son, and cat. They’re all healthy and happy. I’m still writing speculative fiction, as well as teaching a bit and taking grad classes. After I finish up a large writing project, I intend to learn to code.

There will be interludes.  I’m such a naughty blogger.

3-27-12 21:44pm Update: During my 72 hour giveaway, 578 people downloaded this book. Reaction also his #8 in the Amazon Sci-Fi>Adventure bestseller list. Early reviews have been great, though my copy editor and I allowed a couple silly typos to slip through. (“Meat me at the river” makes me giggle like a teenager). I expect to pull the book early next week to correct these.

Original post: You may have wondered why I haven’t posted here since the first of the year. Now, my friends, you have the answer: I was simultaneously learning to be a parent and finishing Reaction, the first book in my sci-fi adventure series The End of the Iron Age. You can download the book for free here until late Sunday night. You can purchase this little yarn an Amazon for only $4.99.

And, if you enjoy this work, I would appreciate it if you could either take a couple minutes and leave a brief review or share this work with your friends. I’m just getting started, and I need all the help I can get.

Now that this book is out, I will resume posting here at Happenchance, assuming the little fellow lets me get some rest:

Here at Happenchance, 2011 looked a lot like 2010, only with a bigger readership, a clearer message, and a bit more self-deprecation. (My original title for this post was ‘2011: A Slow Year at a Mediocre Blog’).

In the late winter and early spring, I focused on writing longer articles. For the middle of the year, I slowed down my posting as I tried and failed to make a living outside the 9-to-5.

In the fall, at the request of my more faithful readers, I revived the roundup posts. While the roundups are easier to write (2 hours vs. 15-20 hours), they attract far less engagement than the longer posts and are of dubious long-term value to you. Whether they’ll continue in 2012 remains to be seen.

As I said before, my strategy for 2012 is to do less, better. With a baby on the way, a full-time job, and fiction to write, I’m going to be a busy boy, and as much as I enjoy writing for you, I only have so much energy and attention.

For now, I intend to take a couple months off from regular posting here at this fine site. I’ll likely start something up again in the spring. Until then, watch for longer, resource-rich articles, perfect for bookmarking and sharing (not just quick consumption).

A Few Stats

For 2011, Happenchance had 71,283 total visitors, about 5000-7,000 visitors/month. Most people read about 2.8 pages per visit.Of these visitors, 85% were new, 15% were returning. As of today, 165 people receive updates by email.

I created no products and earned less that $500 in commissions from the General Store and a couple affiliate products. Since I’ve never put any serious effort into monetizing this site, this comes as no surprise.

Popular Articles

Perhaps because it was picked up on Y-Combinator,  this silly-yet-fun article on standing desks was far and away my most viewed post.

Here are a few other popular articles I’m still proud of:

• 7 PhD-Approved Ways to Increase Your Happiness 
• 8 Lessons in Creative Work I Learned From My Garden
• How Creating Systems Can Make Your Microbusiness Rock (My microbusinesses actually sucked, but that’s because I had too many of them. However, the principles are still sound: creating operations manuals and checklists for your endeavors will make your life easier)
• Information is Overrated
• 5 Simple-Yet-Power Tools for Defeating Resistance 
• Stop Whining and Start Grinding

This year I’ve also received several kind emails from readers. For the most part, they just wanted to thank me for writing something they read here. This feedback is enormously gratifying, and if you have any suggestions for what you’d like to see in the coming year, please contact me and let me know. Your feedback helps me shape this site.

See You Later!

As always, thanks for reading. I’ll be back in a couple months. Until then, I hope you create something amazing!

Photo credit: jurvetson

I’m not the sharpest scythe in the shed, but sometimes my coal-dust addled brain learns a lesson or two from its mistakes experience.

To wit: in 2011, I did all kinds of enterprising work to support myself outside the old 9-to-5: freelance writing, micro-affiliate sites, web design, junk peddling on ebay and craigslist, English teaching, and a couple other things.

I lived modestly and made enough to get by, but I still put in way too many 70-80-hour weeks. Now, every week, I spend half as many hours promoting tourism in my state for a modest salary and health insurance for my family.

In short, I quit freelancing because a cool opportunity came along and I was tired of getting my ass kicked by the patchwork Franken-career I had created for myself.  I realized I needed a smarter way to earn a living. My decision isn’t right for everyone, but at this time, it’s the best decision for me.

#

When I think about all the work I did, I debate whether I’m the world’s shittiest businessman, or if I was just trying to do too much.

Because I’m not without ambition, and since a struggling book publisher once credited me with saving his business, I’m going to go with the latter.

I suppose I could always sell ebooks that tell you how to make a living selling ebooks about how to make a living selling ebooks [/spammy lifestyle design blog rant].

In all seriousness, if a person diligently pursued any one of these activities, they could probably support themselves. My problem was that I just had to try them all.

So what’s the lesson?

Do less, better. 

Or, in the words of productivity guru David Allen: You can do anything, but not everything.

The bonus: I now have more time to work on things that are wildly fun and stupendously unprofitable!

Links for you

• The end of the year is a great time to both look back and look forward. While I usually end my year with several marathon journaling sessions, these aren’t for everybody. If you’re interested in how to review and prepare for the coming year, Chris at Art of Non-Conformity has a great post on How to Conduct Your Annual Review. While you’re there, check out his free new report The Tower.
• What if 2012 were the last year of your life? Pro tip: morbid thoughts can do wonders for your work ethic
  
• Another great post from Lateral Action called 6 Steps to Building Your Creative Endurance.
• If I had read this 12 months ago, would I have listened? How to Accomplish More by Doing Less
• Here’s a cool poster from Tanner at Creative Something.