March 30th, 2009
My Experience with Outsourcing
I’m usually a one-stop shop for anything web or design related. If I don’t know it, I’ll often take the time to learn it… or I just won’t take the job. But you can’t do that when you are yr own client. In building DubFiler, I hit a couple roadblocks and either couldn’t learn the stuff myself, or didn’t want to take the time.
Flash is one of the few ways to get a progress bar when uploading a file. There are Javascript methods, but I didn’t want to get into it. So I fiddled around with Flash for a bit and then decided I’d rather have someone else build it.
DubFiler uses the Zend Framework. I was taught to use it but never to optimize it. Once I’d build the core site functionality, I wanted another pair of eyes (ideally those of an expert) to to tighten things up and implement caching, plugins and abstraction to make it run faster.
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Tags: elance, freelancing, guru.com, hiring, outsourcing
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March 27th, 2009
Crayonbox Color Picker plugin Update 2.1
The crayonbox plugin has been updated once again! I discovered a bug in IE, so that got fixed. Then for fun (and cos I needed it for a project) I added a callback function that gets called after a crayon is selected. Check it out!
Tags: crayon, crayonbox, jquery, plugin, update
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March 17th, 2009
Presenting DubFiler next Tuesday
I will be talking about DubFiler at the NYC Music Technology meetup next Tuesday. I’m really looking forward to it. It should’ve occurred to me sooner that there would be a meet-up for tech and music. So this will be my first to attend, and I’ll be presenting! If yre interested in music and tech, come out! Come say hello.
Tuesday Mar 24th 7-9pm
NYC Music Technology meetup
at Think Coffee
248 Mercer
between 3rd & 4th street
New York, NY 10012
Tags: dubfiler, NYC Music Technology meetup, pitch, presentation, talk
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March 15th, 2009
Lessons I’ve Learned: Play Monopoly
Lessons I’ve Learned: This is going to be different for everyone unfortunately, but learn how to be patient with money. For me, it took buying Monopoly for my iPod Nano and playing it on the subway. I didn’t buy it with the intent of it teaching me a life lesson, but it did. I found myself being more patient and more understanding with budgeting in my own life.
Whatever it takes, learn how to manage, budget, prioritize, and save money. Sometimes you don’t even have to do these things, just understand them and how to do them. And I only mean in a personal way, but doing it for yourself personally, which is simpler, helps you do it for a business, which is more complicated (if that applies to you).
Learn how to resist splurging, or else budget for it (this was really hard for me).
I also read Personal Finance for Dummies, How to Invest $50-$5,000, and a number of blogs that cover personal finance. I don’t read most of them anymore because I feel I’ve got a handle on the important parts. But it was great for a few months to have key points drilled into me daily.
Oh, and get out of debt. Now. Make it the most important thing. Seriously.
Tags: investing, money, monopoly, personal finance
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March 11th, 2009
Ultralight Startups meet-up, March, 2009
Last Thursday, I again found myself at the Ultralight Startups meet-up at For Your Imagination in midtown (is 27th street midtown? I can never remember). The theme of the night was Employment-Related Business Models, which would’ve interested me last month, but I’ve since got a day job (it occurs to me that I should write about that too. Too many things to write about!). Anyway, I’m mostly interested in pitching, hearing pitches, and seeing what interesting things people are doing on the web.
The definition of an Ultralight startup is still being honed, but there’s intrinsically a web component. I am a web nerd, so I can find something of interest in any topic being discussed. And one of the components of the meet-up is a 60 second “elevator” pitch. I love talking about dubfiler, so I enjoy this format. I’ve only gone to a couple of these, but I personally find the combination of small business and web focus really interesting.
The main pitch that stood out to me was for Urban Interns. I still fear it’s a misnomer, as they’re really pushing part-time employment, but it’s the kind of work that I’ve been hiring friends for. A few hours here and there doing odd jobs, or specific jobs but that doesn’t warrant posting on elance or guru. I look forward to trying out their service.
Afterwards I went for a drink with a few stragglers and enjoyed chatting to Graham, the founder of the group, Jeff, one of the sponsors, and Allen, from alistplacements and one of the panelists. It’s often these off moments when you better meet people. It’s a good group and look forward to watching it grow.
Tags: meetup, uls, utralight
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March 10th, 2009
Molding code
I am first an artist type, but I happen to write code for a living. So my mindset tends towards molding, sculpting and experimentation. My grandmother would’ve blamed my “other-handedness” (she was also a lefty). I don’t even think about it, but I suspect it means my coding process is different from others. Not sure if it’s a good thing or bad, just different.
I do plan out my coding, but i tend to make small changes and then test. I rely on the context of code written to decide to write more code. What fits where? After implementing a function or block of code, do subsequent functions or blocks of code make sense? I think of it more as molding and sculpting, rather than building from the ground up.
I’ve definitely seen a difference in process between myself and hardcore, left-brained CS-trained coders who use a very linear plan. I wonder if anyone has noticed a big difference between a “designer” approach to coding versus a more tradition CS style approach?
Tags: coding, writing code
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March 3rd, 2009
Quince for UX design patterns
Quince UX Design Pattern Community
Listening to the getpixel8ed.com podcast from last week, I learned about Quince, a great web app for UX design patterns (both are from Infragistics). Right now it lacks content, but the different approaches to searching – a real challenge given that the results are visual and sometimes vague – will make it an interesting site to use. I look forward to seeing it filled out.
Tags: design patterns, quince, silverlight, ux
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