Tech ★ Sumeet Jain

How My Mom Taught Me to Make Websites

2012-05-29T00:00:00-05:00

I learned to build websites when I was primary school age. Like many of a child’s hobbies, my interest in web design peaked about five minutes after my first victory and hit a low about five seconds after my first failure. My hobby graveyard was full of such corpses: calligraphy, pogs, BMX biking, poetry, Abraham Lincoln, etc. Web design was on the verge of joining that cast. Then Mom stepped in.

Even though she didn’t have a technical background, she could see that knowing how to build websites was more than a hobby. It could be a viable career skill. She also didn’t need to be a technologist to know that whatever I had taught myself so far barely scratched the surface. That meant there was lots of additional value to be gained from the hobby, but it also meant that there would be many more little victories to keep me motivated. Her challenge was to keep me active in the hobby so I could encounter enough victories to develop a genuine passion for it.

People are motivated by different things at different times in their life. As a kid, I knew only enough about money to know that it was glorious for some reason. Mom told me that I could earn $1,000 over the summer if I wanted to. That got my attention. A thousand glories sounded great.

It was a slow process. She handed me the Better Business Bureau catalog and told me to start cold-calling local businesses. My opening line was, “Hello. I’m a young web designer, and I’d like to build a website for your business for free.” Eventually someone took me up on the offer. I made a basic company website with FrontPage and uploaded it to Tripod’s free hosting service. I think I did one or two more free sites that summer.

I wasn’t thinking, “Where’s my money?”. I was having fun playing with new tools. Sometimes I’d accidentally screw up a setting on the computer, and I’d call Dell Customer Support to get help fixing it. I owe Dell’s phone staff a huge thanks for their patience. Dell technicians were the first people to teach me about FTP, defragging, ‘ipconfig’, GIMP, and so much more that went beyond the scope of customer support¹.

I was working my way through the “G”s in the BBB catalogue when a local business called actually called me. The owner of Miramar Flooring was friends with the owner of one of the businesses for which I’d built a free website. He asked if I would build him a website. It sounded more complicated than the other websites, so Mom talked to him to learn the details.

We visited his store and took pictures of the carpet and flooring samples, and he sent me some content for pages. I struggled a lot with the project. The design (which was a template from Macromedia Fireworks) was more ambitious than the previous designs, and it was my first encounter with fancy effects like link rollovers. I finished the website eventually, and the client was happy. He paid me $800 for the website (Mom negotiated the terms).

Fast-forward to today: I’ve built a solid career around making websites. My job lets me do all the fun things I want, and often my job is the fun thing I want to do. I’m so grateful that I had someone to push me harder than I was willing to push myself. Mom’s support was precisely executed, and it came at such timely moments.

You do not have to be a parent to support someone. More boldly, you do not have to be a parent to push someone beyond their comfort zone. Whom do you support? Whom do you push harder than they push themselves? Who fills that role for you? We need to inject ourselves into the lives of those around us. Too often we build fences with no doors around ourselves and others, so we end up interacting from a distance.

Technical support at large companies today is run differently than it was when I was a kid. I wonder if they would be as generously helpful to a child today. It’d be cool to build a general technical support staff that only accepts calls from kids. I know some parents who might pay for something like that. ↩

On the "Chinese Mothers" Controversy

2011-01-10T00:00:00-06:00

The talk of the town for the past couple days has been an excerpt from Amy Chua’s upcoming book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. The excerpt, published in the Wall Street Journal with the title “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior”, sparked discussions on Facebook, Reddit, Hacker News (1, 2, 3), Quora, and probably whatever website you use to keep up to date.

I won’t rehash those discussions here (Some get pretty heated and most are severely anecdotal.), but I do want to share two notes:

1. Appreciate the conversation.

As a subject of discussion, “Parenting Styles of Different Cultures” is relatively new. For the subject to break out of academia and into coffee table conversation, populations had to mix. International travel has only recently become safe, reliable, and affordable. Then the various components of a mixed population needed to achieve some similarities in socio-economic standing. Otherwise comparisons would fail due to fundamental differences before a subject like parenting nuances was breached. Finally, the subject’s reach was extended by some kind of media to kickstart a discussion.

In other words: Airplanes, digital technology, and social media came together to bring - for the first time in history - a widespread discussion about the sharp contrast between how parents from different continents raise their kids. Such a complex topic deserves all the viewpoints it can get, and today’s technological and economic achievements have made that possible.

Hooray!

2. Amy Chua is not the devil.

I worry about the Chua Family. People on the Internet can (and do) mobilize quickly and effectively against forces they claim to be evil. The hive mentality of Internet “pundits” has already spawned hateful blog posts blaming “mothers like Amy Chua” for the problems in the world. The best case scenario is that the backlash ends in a healthy discussion - even one containing scornful Tumblr essays. The worst case scenario entails Internet “Do-Gooders” seeking misguided real-life retribution for online controversy.

I hope it doesn’t go that far. If it does, it will have been because the excerpt from Chua’s book was taken somewhat out of context and then given a linkbait headline for the Wall Street Journal issue. Amy Chua clarifies:

I did not choose the title of the WSJ excerpt, and I don’t believe that there is only one good way of raising children. The actual book is more nuanced, and much of it is about my decision to retreat from the “strict Chinese immigrant” model.

Amy Chua’s response to Christine Lu

The broader point here is that we are all often too quick to assign blame to parties who unwittingly and unwillingly become champions of some argument’s perspective. And in assigning the blame, we lose sight of the issue itself. So the nuances of an issue fade away, and we emerge from the fight angry and bruised but only marginally smarter.

Traveling with Technology

2010-11-15T00:00:00-06:00

Technology makes travel easier.

MacBook

I decided to bring my laptop with me, because I wanted to get a lot of work done while traveling. I wanted to learn a new programming language, contribute more to open source projects, and stay up to date with new startups and tech commentaries. I wish I could say that’s how it played out, but the truth is that I’ve done a poor job of balancing work and play so far. I’m only one month into my travels, so I have plenty of time to get back on track. But it’s fair to say that this particular use of technology while traveling has not gone as expected.

One of the biggest departures from my expectations has been the role played by Internet tethering. Before I left, I decided against buying a MiFi dongle and instead just jailbroke my iPhone to unlock Internet tethering. I thought I would be coding non-stop while on the long train rides, and I anticipated using my iPhone’s Internet connection to push code, get help, and promote my work.

The reality has been that I’m exhausted when I board most trains and end up relaxing in the lounge car, catching up on my journal, or watching a movie. I code occasionally, but not so much that I need a constant connection to the Internet. So far, my trip would not have been too different if I left my iPhone un-jailbroken. Free wifi at hostels and most cafes in cities has been sufficient.

iPhone

Most of the time, I leave my phone in the “Airplane Mode” (no cell, data, or Internet connection) to preserve its battery throughout the day. I rely on my phone so much that I want to ensure I’ll be able to use it all day as needed - even if my night ends up running to sunrise. If I switch it off of Airplane Mode, it’s probably to use one of the following features:

Google Maps

Cabs are an expensive last resort, but figuring out a new city’s public transportation system can be difficult. With Google Maps on my iPhone, I can usually get bus and light rail directions to my destination.

Travel Guides

I really like WikiTravel.org for understanding a city and learning what to do there. Their travel guides are written by their users, and the resulting collection is very informative.

I use an app called Tourist to browse the guides on WikiTravel. Tourist lets me download a city’s WikiTravel guide, so I can view it even without an Internet connection. This is useful, because I can take periodic looks at recommended attractions in my area without leaving Airplane Mode.

The guides on WikiTravel are organized. I can dig deeper into a city’s guide by selecting a particular district - like the Castro in San Francisco, the Bywater in New Orleans, or South Austin in Austin. I can get information on how to get around the city, where to eat, what to see, etc. (And, of course, I can also choose to leave my phone in my pocket and ask locals for their personal recommendations.)

Itinerary

It can be difficult to keep track of the various trains, buses, hostels, vacation rentals, etc that I use for each segment of my trip. TripIt.com does a great job of organizing my trip details. Their actual website kind of drives me crazy, but they have two killer features.

First: Automatic extraction of trip details from an emailed reservation confirmation¹. After I make a reservation, I almost always get an email confirmation. Then I just forward that email to plans@tripit.com. TripIt reads the email and adds the details to my trip. I’ve successfully added plans from email confirmations from Airbnb, HostelWorld, and Amtrak - and TripIt supports a thousand more sites. This feature hasn’t failed once for me yet.

The second killer feature is a comprehensive API and reasonably active developer community. In other words, anyone can make an app that accesses TripIt’s data. TripIt themselves have released an app to browse your TripIt plans, but I think the guys behind TripDeck have outdone them. The interface is cleaner, faster, and more usable.

The combination of TripIt’s itinerary importing with TripDeck’s iPhone interface lets me avoid the usual headaches around complex itineraries. I never need to…

hastily open GMail to find out what time my train is leaving or what the address of my hostel is.
manually enter any information into my itinerary.
worry about time-zones - TripIt takes care of that.
print anything out or write anything down.

Kindle

I travel with a backpack, so I try to be efficient with my cargo. A single book is about the same weight as a Kindle but about twice as thick. It’s also less durable (I keep the Kindle in a case). I understand the visceral joys of a real book’s smell and the feel of the pages, but I can enjoy them when I’m not living out of a sub-20 liter backpack. I was skeptical about bringing a Kindle before I left, but it’s proven to be a very useful asset.

Point-and-Shoot Camera

I left my Nikon DSLR at home. Instead, I’m borrowing my mom’s compact camera. The quality is good enough, and I’m thankful to not be stressed about damaging my bulky Nikon. I love to take photos, but I don’t believe the purpose of my travels is to maximize every level of enjoyment. In the tradeoff of those extra pixels of photo quality versus space in my backpack and stress, I think I come out ahead.

It did occur to me to get an iPhone 4 and not bring another camera at all. I decided against this mostly because I didn’t want to renew my contract with AT&T so close to the likely Verizon iPhone launch.

Other itinerary organization websites offer this feature, too. But in my experience, TripIt does a better job than the rest. ↩

First Fork

2010-09-16T00:00:00-05:00

A couple days ago, I published my first open source project. It’s tiny and useful only for a small group of people, but I made it myself and am proud of it - and I’m certain it’s the first of many. Anyways, today I saw that someone forked it on GitHub. I cannot hope to describe how exciting that is, but I’ll try.

What kind of positive feedback do we usually get for our work? If (like me) your history is one of web development for corporations, praise comes in the form of kudos - usually from someone who hasn’t worked with you (department head) or doesn’t understand the work you do (manager or client)¹.

The best moments during a project at work are usually those spent in close collaboration with another developer. You’ll bang your heads on the desk a few times, have an argument or six, and eventually figure out a solution. This is how programmers bond. And the high-five shared after such an experience is more uplifting than any amount of kudos from a director, manager, or client.

When I saw that my tiny sliver of the open source pie was forked, I felt like I’d just shared in one of those excellent post-discovery high-fives. But it was different in a couple ways.

For one things, I don’t know this person. It’s a great feeling to have a stranger walk by your cyber-cubicle, glance at your screen, and say, “Hey - that looks pretty cool!” It’s also different on a more fundamental level, since this isn’t code that someone told me to write. This is just a solution to some problem I had. It’s forking is an indication that at least one other person in the world appreciates the problem and is interested in the solution. It’s a validation of my effort that - however minute - my work may have an impact on the Web at large.

Are there parallels to this kind of experience in other industries? Is there another field where collaboration is so immediate, streamlined, or essential? As I struggle to answer these questions, my joy at having become a coder is reinvigorated. I cannot wait for my first pull request.

Clients and managers have the best of intentions, but I have never met or worked with one who can appreciate the elation which results from victory after a day of delicate and creative problem solving. They appreciate results, but good developers love the experience of building, improving, dissecting, and learning about their work. ↩

Homework Blogging

2010-02-10T00:00:00-06:00

Note: Sorry if this old article shows up in your newsreader. I needed to change a few filenames, and my site’s RSS generator might pick up the changes and republish the articles.

Anyone who has ever been on a hike, inebriated late at night, or refreshed early in the morning can tell you that the best conversations cannot be forced. When the air is fresh, the senses focused, the mood right - only at such times will the Muse begin her song.

Classrooms are ill-suited for genuine, in-depth conversations. They are run by one individual, limited by time, crowded, indoor, and the seats are uncomfortable. Members of a classroom are obligated to be there, and most forms of jesting, fighting, and crying are discouraged. The Muse can choose any audience: Why would she sing to such an unnatural and unhappy crowd?

This article is not about the shortcomings of any system of education. For now, I accept that broad-scale education cannot be as inspiring as a walk through the woods or a twilight dialogue. But it can be better than it is right now.

Start small: Students should blog their essays.

They need to be reminded that they are part of this world - not just components of a tiny classroom. Understanding common literary themes is important, because that wisdom helps people live well - not because it will get them good grades. When a student recognizes this, the quality of their writing will improve. The stakes are higher, so they will take more risks and enjoy the work more.

And they will remember. Students forget an assignment after its completion, because the assignment is the only part of the learning process over which they have any control. By preserving an essay, opening it up to discussion with people who have lived some of the lessons about which the student is learning, and removing the grade dynamic, the value of the assignment becomes unpredictable and thus intersting (and thus less temporary).

I firmly believe that a child’s mind expands to fill the space it is allowed. Let’s encourage our students to broaden their worlds and blanket us in the warmth of their brilliance.

Real quick, my thoughts on Apple's iPad

2010-01-27T00:00:00-06:00

Note: Sorry if this old article shows up in your newsreader. I needed to change a few filenames, and my site’s RSS generator might pick up the changes and republish the articles.

It’s a gap-filler. A few niches have been created where the current offering of gadgets is inadequate for whatever reason, and the iPad can cater to many of them.

Students

In the future, every student at Acme University will carry a single item for all their classes. As class begins, the professor instructs them to refer to their textbooks. Every student touches the item’s screen, and their textbook appears. As class continues, the students navigate from page to page, typing notes as they go, calling a calculator to the screen for some quick math magic, adding an exam date to their calendar without reaching for their datebook, confirming some facts on the Internet, sharing notes with a tardy classmate (without having to hand over their notebook), and eventually taking a quiz and getting their scores… All from a single, slim, usable screen.

This is possible right now - no second-generation features are needed to achieve this future. Just adoption by a school. If I was a student at such a school, you bet your overstuffed backpack I’d spend $499 on an iPad to participate.

Old People

Today’s elderly don’t have a good computing option. I know this is terribly unoriginal, but my grandparents need only a handful of features on their computer. Everything else is either a distraction or an obstacle in the labyrinth that is a typical operating system (Yes, even Mac OS X).

Tablets of the past basically replaced the mouse with a stylus, so using them wasn’t much easier than using a laptop. But having to touch an icon to look at photo albums, play a movie, have a video call, write an email¹… That’s easy.

This is simultaneously both the most awesome evolution and devolution of digital interaction ever: We’re a huge step closer to Minority Report, but all we’re basically doing is grabbing, poking, and groping the areas of a screen that look like they’ll accomplish our goals. (“Unhh. Must watch movie. Must press movie picture. Funny movi-Must make bigger. Must stretch movie to make bigger. Stretch with hands. Gooood.”)

Healthcare

Everyone knows doctors like tablets. Nothing new here. Google if you’re curious.

What It Isn’t - and Some Closing Thoughts

The iTab isn’t a replacement for anything Apple is selling right now. I’m not buying one, and I’d be surprised if many of my friends do. I simply don’t buy Steve’s claim that the iPad does things the iPhone and Macbook do - but better. Designers, programmers, CAD engineers, gamers, and people who just like to tinker with their computers won’t want an iPad - at least not in lieu of a Macbook. And I doubt lots of people are going to double up on their mobile devices.

But I do think Apple has the opportunity to take hold of new and developing markets. This is a checkpoint (milestone?) in the computing revolution: Hardware innovation is plateauing as integration with public services, ubiquity of data networks, and efficiency and grace of software mature. To all the people underwhelmed by the iTab, I empathize. But to the people who are trashing the iTab for being a huge disappointment, I have to ask: In what massive way has the iTab failed you?

I think the truth is that it got reasonably close to our mental image of a mythical digital gadget. Yea, it needs a camera, AT&T needs to start not sucking, multi-tasking, and a couple other things which we’ll get soon enough. But what the heck else were you expecting? Hardware is done innovating for a little while.

Apple is wise to spread its user experience magic to as many niches as it can. Get those credit cards into the iTunes Store, impregnate educational institutions with Apple’s sensibility and usability, rejuvenate relationships between grandparents and their grandkids, replace hospital clipboards with iPads.

Every major technology company should be focused on merging itself with people’s lives. Steps toward this goal are the only achievements that sound impressive anymore! (“Solar panels on your company’s roof? Cute trick, kid. Your company’s solar panels power my house? Holy shit!”) Google is making itself the omniscient brain of the world, Amazon is a seemingly omnipotent consumer universe sitting on a single mouse-click, and Apple could be the company that makes all of this omnipresent… and elegant.

Yes, I know there’s no camera on the iPad. Just be patient. ↩

Mommy, where do websites come from?

2009-02-28T00:00:00-06:00

Note: Sorry if this old article shows up in your newsreader. I needed to change a few filenames, and my site’s RSS generator might pick up the changes and republish the articles.

The Internet is a medium for human interaction.

Even when we use an intelligent and automated web application, we interact with the humans who created it. Their choices, tastes, words, designs, failures, and successes are all contained within the code that serves us. You cannot escape the humanity of the Internet.

The human connection is more obvious in some online experiences than others. Video-chatting on Skype with my grandmother across the world is direct interaction, and the technology is only secondarily apparent. Even if you take away the video, her voice is still human enough that I don’t feel the filter of technology.

Other experiences begin the transition away from direct, human interaction. Instant Messaging like with AIM or MSN Messenger is still direct communication, but the human aspect of it is lessened by the introduction of a person’s “cyber-ego” (or “online identity”). Not being able to see or hear the person with whom we’re speaking necessitates the creation of an image in our minds of who (what?) the person is. We can’t help but project our own assumptions and judgements onto them. Still, at least we’re conscious of the fact that we are communicating with a human - though our image of them is admittedly inaccurate.

At the other end of the spectrum are online experiences where the human connection has been completely erased. That is, when we use applications in this realm, we forgot that humans are involved at all. The big example? Google, of course.

Let’s say I forgot the keyboard shortcut to open the last-closed tab in Firefox. As I Google for this keyboard shortcut, I’m aware of my expectations: The query will be processed by Google’s engine. I will be shown many results. Clicking one of them will likely provide me the answer I desire.

But as I read lifehacker’s post on the keyboard shortcut, at no point am I considering that a human being wrote this tip. It’s information, and it’s there, and that’s that.

For our younger generation, the removal of this human connection is even more apparent. They have no reason to equate information with humans, because they were never alive during a time when humans gave each other information directly. Their entire view of acquiring information has its premise in the Internet - and more than likely in applications like Google.

What I’m curious about is how long it will take for applications that are not like Google to become equally human-less. Twitter seems poised to be the first. This is a site with an overwhelmingly expansive data structure that I actually feel fear when I think about it. It’s huge. Perhaps its most powerful feature is its search, which looks through all Tweets by all users.

Try searching for a good budgeting application for the Mac. Or what’s new with the San Francisco Giants? Your results will vary, but you’ll find a wealth of information about whatever you search for.

Another way to get information from Twitter is to just ask. Say you hear some folks talking about the Rolling Stones touring in the USA and get excited. Quick, Tweet a question to the world at large: “Are the Rolling Stones really coming to the States?” You might get a couple people giving quick replies within the hour. Specific information - on demand.

So far, Twitter’s users are very aware of the fact that all of this information comes from people. There hasn’t been enough time for a Twitterer’s real identity to become dissociated from their online persona. Once that happens, it doesn’t take long for the online persona to fade into obscurity and become one with the Internet.

But Twitter grows - as do many of the Internet’s offerings. And as a new generation grows up with these resources more available than any other resource - man-made or natural - I wonder how long the Internet has before it’s wholly a non-human entity.

A pivotal point in human development is the asking of that existential question: “Where do babies come from?” Among other things, it marks a child’s awareness of the world as something which is created. How soon will our informational development be marked by our awareness of the Internet as something which is created? When will children ask, “Mommy, where do websites come from?”

Create and Consume

2008-12-24T00:00:00-06:00

Note: Sorry if this old article shows up in your newsreader. I needed to change a few filenames, and my site’s RSS generator might pick up the changes and republish the articles.

Consume, consume, consume.

With all the cool websites to visit, thrilling television shows to watch, movies and music to steal, books to read, and games to play, it’s a wonder we’re not walking around in a post-Thanksgiving-esque stupor.

Then again, maybe that’s exactly what we’re doing.

Listen: It is vital for the growth of children and adults alike to create as well as consume. This is especially true for our youngsters, who may not remember a time when the world wasn’t accessible from a desk chair. We have to show them - remind them - that the world they experience doesn’t merely exist. Rather, it is built.

There are an infinite number of ways to create. Here are just a few:

Draw. Just draw. Take 15 minutes this evening, go outside, and draw the clouds and moon.
Write an Op-Ed for your local or a national newspaper. Even if it doesn’t get printed, you’ll learn about where you stand in the process of writing it.
Cook something for the first time. Grab a recipe and get going.
Become a photographer. Buy a disposable camera from a store like Safeway and take 5 photos from the perspective of an ant and 5 photos from the perspective of a bird (This means climbing!).
Start a blog. Tumblr is easy to use and takes 10 seconds (literally) to set up.

And if none of those are appealing, think of another way to create. Or help someone else create.

Supplementing consumption with creation enables growth on multiple levels. When you create, you build the confidence in your abilities that’s required to take risks in the future and think quickly. What’s more, your creation may become a form of consumption for others. The world grows as we create.

One final method of creation: Responding to the creations of others. As you experience something, feelings and thoughts must go through your head. What do you do with them? Most people either forget them or don’t even notice them in the first place. But developing an awareness of your self, so that you can detect and understand your fleeting emotions and thoughts, is perhaps the only way to truly improve yourself from within.

As practice, try commenting on blog posts and online news articles. This will force you to think about what you just consumed, and eventually your thoughts will become clearer and awareness will require less effort.

Kallow - Single Product Recommendations

2008-12-09T00:00:00-06:00

Note: Sorry if this old article shows up in your newsreader. I needed to change a few filenames, and my site’s RSS generator might pick up the changes and republish the articles.

It’s gift-buying time. And whether your process involves driving to a local retailer, browsing Amazon, or scouring Craigslist, you’re likely to be inundated with so much choice that you’ll spend most of your time researching to find the best products and deals.

This is always a source of frustration for shoppers, because most of the time people just want a good value: Something with slightly above-average performance and a reasonable price. And even helpful reviews on Amazon or sites like CNET don’t narrow the possibilities down to a manageable two or three.

Caleb and Jordan at Kallow have discovered what I think could be a useful idea - especially at this time of the year: They’ve chosen 22 product categories (like Digital Camera, Headphones, and even Laptop), researched each - taking into account performance, ease of use, and price - and then listed one recommendation for each category.

According to them, if you’re looking for a good deal on a digital camera, you can’t go wrong with the Canon PowerShot SD790IS for $179.99. That’s a good value, and for the vast majority of shoppers who don’t care about 3x versus 4x optical zoom, 8 megapixel versus 10 megapixel, and Canon versus Panasonic, it’s a done deal.

The beauty of Kallow is that it’s either a conclusion or a beginning. That is, you might look at Kallow and immediately decide to buy the recommended product. So it’s the conclusion of your shopping cycle. But some users can use Kallow as the beginning of their shopping cycle by following the product recommendation to Amazon, viewing similar products, and eventually choosing a competitor’s product. The moral of the story is that you’re more likely to find a quality deal by beginning your search with a good product than if you began your search from scratch.

I’m curious to see how the site develops after the holiday season. While cleanliness and simplicity are integral to the site, it goes without saying that more product categories are a must. But beyond that, I think adding a premium level to each category would draw in more of the power-user audience. Properly implemented, such a feature wouldn’t have to detract from the site’s ease of use.

The decision to get prices from and link to Amazon is also something that I think will require revision. It’s not uncommon for buyers to find better prices at smaller shops. If Kallow is really about recommending quality deals and saving consumers time, it should link to the best deal at a reliable online retailer. Of course, this flies in the face of Kallow’s business model (They make money by getting paid every time someone buys one of their recommended products on Amazon.), but I’m sure Jordan and Caleb can think of some other way to stay in the black.

Check out Kallow for yourself, and let me know what you think. Were the recommendations helpful either as conclusions or beginnings? What product categories would you liked to have seen that weren’t available? Did you tell anyone you know about Kallow?