Starting Up Stuff

New idea

2008-09-29T23:04:00.001+10:00

I've been off the webz for a bit while we moved house, but I'm back now. Louis, if you're listening, I have a new Twitter app brewing and I'll send you a prototype as soon as I can.

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Server schmerver

2008-09-09T21:37:00.001+10:00

Had a tough few days recovering from a server crash. Most stuff is back, including email and the PopIt automated story poster thingy.

On the plus side, it prompted me to move FriendFeedMachine to Google App Engine. That wasn't too difficult, as most of the smarts are in the JavaScript for the site.

Next project will either be another Aussie focused site or a Mac OS X app, I'm not sure which just yet. We are also moving house in a week, so I'll be shifting boxes and packing for a while and dev time will be limited.

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One more project done

2008-08-25T21:46:00.001+10:00

I have completed my latest project, sports.popit.com.au. it's a Social News site targeted at Aussie sports. I also have plans to do Aussie gossip, news, and financial sites based upon the same code, but want to move on to something else for the moment while I see how that site goes for a few months.

The next project I'm doing is in the social network space. I'm starting with a prototype using the Mac OS X Xcode environment. I could do the project in Java/Swing, but I feel like learning Objective-C and Quartz, plus I like the look better than Java. More updates in the next few weeks.

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For Jasmine

2008-08-02T20:38:00.001+10:00

This is a totally unrelated post, especially for my beautiful daughter jasmine, just in case she ends up reading my blog way off into the future (she's only 3 atm).

Jassy, I love you so much. You make me laugh, you make me cry; you bring my world to life with your giggles, kisses and questions. I am so glad that you are my daughter, and I can't imagine how wonderful it will be watching you grow up. I love you with all my heart.

And to my wife Marla, just in case you're reading this too, know that without you I am nothing, you are truly my soul mate and I'll love you always <3

I'm the luckiest guy on the planet.

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Almost finished

2008-08-02T20:24:00.001+10:00

Most of the functionality for my social news site has been finished ... at least those features targeted for launch. there's still a bit I want to do, but I want to get it out the door and rolling before I go too mad adding stuff. It's a pretty slick site, and it's really only taken me a few hours over two weekends plus a few more hours over three nights in between. I think that by next weekend it should all be sorted and live.

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2 New Projects

2008-07-29T07:42:00.001+10:00

I have decided to put my micro-blogging project on hold and focus on a couple of new things. The main reason is that Twitter is starting to be (slightly) more reliable, plus there is now an open source alternative (identi.ca). I will still make something of the app I have written, but I think I may leverage it in an enterprise software offering (more on that when I get around to it).

My 2 new projects? One is based around a kind of 'meta friend" concept, and the other is a customizable social news app that I will use to launch a bunch of Australian focused sites. The basic app for this is about 50% complete after a couple of evenings work, so the first site should be ready to launch next week.

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Back at RealJob

2008-07-08T23:44:00.001+10:00

Watched Pirates of the Caribbean 3 last night after reading blogs and sorting my app to-do list. Tonight I worked on a proposal. I am going to try and push through the barrier and get it completed tonight, but I might have to catch some sleep and finish it tomorrow night.

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Clean out

2008-07-07T07:40:00.001+10:00

Back into RealJob today, after 2 full days of working on the app and 2 days working/family time. All up I've probably done about 30-35 hours the past 4 days, and have really got it close to "launch ready". I've pulled the site down from the web, as I filled it with junk that took a few hours to clear up, so the datastore is nice and pristine and ready to go. I just want to complete a few more features that I hadn't intended for launch, just to add that extra bit of incentive for new users. I'll likely make a call after next weekend whether or not to launch.

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Very tired

2008-07-05T01:29:00.001+10:00

Two full days of coding and the app is really looking good. Still some tidy up to do with field validation and maintaining views across page submits, but it's really getting there. It should be ready for testing in a few days; I will need to clean up the datastore and put some sort of invite only thing in.

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More progress

2008-07-02T08:44:00.001+10:00

Completed a few more items off the todo list last night, including likes and loves.

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To do list

2008-06-30T22:13:00.001+10:00

Last night I made a big to do list, and tonight I completed a few items. Lots more to do, including some significant functionality, but at least I have a known target for launch now.

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Twitter integration

2008-06-28T21:07:00.001+10:00

Made some great progress today but then hit a brick wall. I got some Twitter integration working, where the user enters their twitter username/password, then a random key is sent to their stream (can't send a DM to themselves which would've been preferred). This key is then entered in to the details page of the app tp verify that the users has access to the Twitter account they say they do. This was to be the first step towards integrating with Twitter, and it worked on my dev box. However once it went live on App Engine, I found out that Twitter rejects all update requests that have the Referer header set. Unfortunately, App Engine sets this header and you can't modify it for security reasons, so this functionality will have to be parked for now until Twitter makes a change (fingers crossed).

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Movie night

2008-06-27T21:37:00.001+10:00

Gonna watch at least 1 movie tonight. I'll either do some work after that or else watch another one then bed.

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Spinny thing

2008-06-26T23:32:00.001+10:00

Added a wait spinner when retrieving replies, updated left side bar to show Google ads, and worked on a few graphics.

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AoC

2008-06-24T23:52:00.001+10:00

Played AoC tonight .. not bad. Will get stuck in to likes tomorrow night.

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Not much tonight

2008-06-23T22:08:00.001+10:00

No coding tonight, just read blogs and sent the odd email (related to my project). Will lprobably watch a movie now. I have been fixing some minor issues around the refactoring and caching stuff I did earlier. Next big step is to add likes, faves (watched items), and notification channels. I might do one or the other on Wednesday. Not likely to get much done tomorrow night as I need to catch up on some rest.

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Caching

2008-06-22T21:03:00.001+10:00

Add a whole bunch of caching (using memcache) and also did some refactoring of the code last night. All up about 3 hours work. Will probably chill with some sports on telly tonight.

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Downtime

2008-06-20T21:50:00.001+10:00

Need to relax tonight, either with XBox or Movies.

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Stats

2008-06-19T23:36:00.001+10:00

Added some stat tracking for URLs today. Fairly cool, will list the top 20 stats. Should also be easy to search a URL and see how many times it was mentioned. Didn't do much more, but should get stuck into notifications on the weekend.

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Research

2008-06-19T00:11:00.001+10:00

Updated to Flock 2.0b, but now the app only shows a blank page :( I think it's probably something to do with the DTD tag but will investigate tomorrow night. Spent a few hours researching video, SMS and XMPP for the app and 2/3 look good. Have also had an idea to add a message type: notifications. Users will be able to add 'channels' that people can subscribe to and then send notifications to the channel subscribers. This works around the problem of link spam as it's more of a permission-based model.

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Automated testing

2008-06-17T22:59:00.001+10:00

I ran some auto tests last night and then some more today. Got an exception after 10k messages last night, and after 5k during the day. Most likely just a blip in the Google service more than a bug. After loading up with messages, the search for tags and text is still fast, so it's looking good. I would still like to do some sort of concurrent users testing, but I'm not sure how viable that will prove to be.

I am concerned about that limits that Google places on App Engine, especially with regards to processing cycles and database storage (only 500 Mb). It is possible to buy more, so thats not the issue, it's the cost and working out a model so that I don't have to pay :) At medium usage, the database shouldn't fill up too fast, but if it goes viral I'm not sure about the costs, and if the increase in usage/ad dollars will cover it. Only 1 way to find out I guess ...

Tonight has mostly been research and trying to setup App Engine to point to my top level domain.

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Stealth availability

2008-06-16T21:04:00.001+10:00

Worked for around 3 hours last night. I put the site up live for a tester to have a look at, and also to see how it would work running on the proper AppEngine stack. I'm going to try and load the live site up with messages tonight and see if it still performs.

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More progress

2008-06-15T02:02:00.001+10:00

Made some more progress after the Rugby ... about 2 hours tonight plus 2 hours during Jas' nap time. The UI is taking longer than expected, I suspect mostly because I'm not a UI specialist. Of course, I did spend a while searching through iStockPhoto for some icons :)

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More sport

2008-06-14T14:09:00.001+10:00

Nothing done last night. Watched the NBA finals game 4 then played some Team Fortress 2 on the XBox. Was lots of fun :)

Am working now while daughter is napping, so I'm hoping to get a fair whack done. There's some Rugby Union on tonight, and I'm afraid I may be tempted to play TF2 again when it's over so I'm not holding out any great hopes for tonight. Still on track to possibly get an alpha version up this weekend.

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3 whole hours

2008-06-13T00:54:00.001+10:00

I managed 3 hours of dev tonight. Progress on the UI is about 40% complete. I have some nice CSS panels happening now. I still have a fair way to go; next up is formatting the message input and lists.

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