Sounds simple, right? When you’re in those first stages, where you have that idea. That spark. The A-Ha moment. You realize you’ve got something special and you’re going to take over the world… it’s easy to get caught in the moment and forge ahead thinking people are going to flock to sign up for your service or purchase your product.

But we all know that not every idea is worth pursuing. Some can rightfully be considered throw-away projects. One-offs. Built for tinkering around with some fancy new client-side library. Others turn into businesses. Real business. Profits, expenses, employees…

Before that happens, talk to people. Ask them for feedback about the idea. The vision. The problem. Start marketing your idea before you start coding. Set up an AdWords campaign and drive some traffic to a landing page you threw together in a few hours and get ’em on an email list. Then decide if the idea is worth working on.

Practice What You Preach

My wife is an avid knitter, following in her mother and grandmother’s footsteps.

Different knitting projects require different sets of needles. They vary in their gauge, length, shape, and materials from which they are made. Your project requires Bamboo circular needles, size US 7, 48 inches? Makes my head spin… think of all the permutations!

So when my mother-in-law calls to see if we have a specific set of needles, as she does from time-to-time, we started thinking about ways to make the process simpler. More efficient. Easier. Enter Knitting Knot.

I could have hacked out an ugly but functional prototype that night. But the best learning is by doing. So we took a step back. Registered knittingknot.com. Built out a coming-soon page. Setup adwords. Spread the word. Did the Twitter thing. And now we’re working on getting feedback.

This feels incredibly unnatural for me. My first inclination is to jump in and code. That’s what I know. That’s what I do for a living. Let’s build something. Screw talking to people… I’d rather spend my time coding, then come out of left field hopefully making a splash on Hacker News, only to disappear onto Page 2 of your Instapaper account.

I’ve spent $50 on ads and have a decent trickle of traffic to Knitting Knot, along with a budding email list. If time were money, I could have spent a half-hour building a prototype. But I still wouldn’t be any closer to knowing if people wanted my solution to the problem.

We’ve got a new project at work: a stoplight to signal the state of the our build server.

This was a temporary test that our code can turn on the correct lights. Looking good so far… now we just need to make this a more permanent solution and get it set up in the office. Can’t wait.

Lagoa Multiphysics 1.0 – Teaser from Thiago Costa on Vimeo.

Most of us have heard that sitting is unhealthy. But many of us also have discounted the warnings, since we spend our lunch hours conscientiously visiting the gym. We consider ourselves sufficiently active. But then we drive back to the office, settle at our desks and sit for the rest of the day. We are, in a phrase adopted by physiologists, ‘‘active couch potatoes.’’

Certainly an interesting read regarding our sitting habits and our health. Do you sit or stand while working?

We finally got a redesign of our company site out the door. It makes extensive use of CSS3 and HTML5 (even found a way to work in the canvas tag), and gracefully degrades for those lesser browsers. I’m super pumped.

Go check it out!

A week and a half in, things are starting to sprout and pop up. Might need to get some chicken fencing sooner than I thought to keep those bunnies away!

Handy little thing to add to your ~/.gemrc if you’re looking to speed up installation of gems. Who needs local documentation anyways?

Make sure to watch the video in HD

Meet the sloths from Amphibian Avenger on Vimeo.

Started working on the garden this past weekend. We took the square foot gardening approach with two 4′×4′ boxes. We’re considering building a third box to house some fruits and melons.

What’s planted so far: red and green bell pepper plants, jalapeño plant, two cherry tomatoes, green beans (pole type), green beans, yellow beans, broccolini, cauliflower, cucumber, carrots, two varieties of lettuce, peas, and snow peas. We have another two tomato plants will end up in SIPs.

Should be a fun summer watching these things grow.

Recently acquired a Schwinn Le Tour III. Needs a tune up, but it’s been great riding to work for a week or two.

I’m considering converting it to a single-speed to join the few Hipsters that are in Holland. Unfortunately, for that transformation to be complete, I need to lose 30-40lbs, find some skinny jeans and V-neck T-shirts. Look for me at Lemonjello’s sipping an espresso, walking my fixie down 8th Street, or at Skiles drinking some PBR at the end of the summer… it’ll take a few months to grow a substantial beard and what not.