Quietly drowning in interesting things... »

So I've had a busy couple of weeks that's been packed full of interesting things that I've been hoping to share around here. But, as is generally the case when interesting things are going on, I just haven't had much time to spare on sharing the details (and now I've probably forgotten half of the really interesting things).

Anyway since officially leaving Catchafire I've been keeping busy with:

1. bit.ly - Starting last week, I'm doing a month-to-month contract gig with one of my favorite internet companies out there! So far the two weeks I've been there have been super fun, and also somewhat challenging (since they are primarily a Python shop and until recently I haven't done a ton of actual/production Python)...in addition to picking up Python 2.x I'm also just getting used to their development process and learning all the ins-and-outs and who's who around the BetaWorks offices (BTW very awesome group of people).

Of course, in those two weeks I have managed to get a few little things done...the best of which is I've implemented the core of XAuth support to the bit.ly API (it will be a while before it can be released though as it still needs to go through internal testing and approval first -- and there's that whole SSL thing that needs to be set up for it)...I also built a quick and dirty Chrome extension as a front end for another REALLY awesome project Hilary has been working on for Bit.ly (not sure if I'm allowed to share details on that just yet)...and I did a few other little quick hacks to test some spam services.

More recently I'm working on some more back end pieces to the API and the reg. bit.ly web site (though I haven't made too much progess with that just yet).

2. When I'm not spending my time on bit.ly I've mostly been hacking away on the Android version of the FluWatcher app (a paid-client project)...which I *finally* got a dev. version done tonight (though I've already found a small list of bugs/tweaks to work out).

I now have dev. versions completed for the iPhone, BlackBerry, and Droid...and am really just waiting on final graphics/name approval from the client to be able to really close out the project and submit the apps to the various stores (and collect the rest of the payment - YEAH!).

Overall, it's been a really interesting (and somewhat frustrating) process building the same basic app for all three platforms...I have a lot of tech. things and opinions to share related to this experience but I'll save them for future posts.

3. Last week bit.ly actually hosted a hackathon (hackabit technically)...which was the perfect chance for me to throw together another quick wow.ly related tool...this time I started to build instapaperfeed.comwhich basically pulls the most popular links from your twitter feed once a day and dumps them into your instapaper account (so you can read them later if/when you want).

The project isn't actually ready for release yet (so this is the first public mention I've done for it, and I only do that because I know no one really reads this blog)...but the basics already work (actually everything but the daily scheduling and a pretty front end is in place -- right now you have to manually tell it to execute, and you have to know what it's all about because there's no help/information on the site).

When I get a few more minutes, I'll finish out those last few things and then start pimping it out to people to see what they think (so stay tuned!)

4. I'm still debugging a few little things with whotoget.com that have been pointed out to me (haven't really had any time to close this out yet).

5. My friends over at NFLDraftScout chose last week to move to new servers...and they hit a few snags that I had to jump in and help out on (luckily nothing too major).

6. David and I have continued to bounce around ideas and details about creating a new sports-related casual game company (my current plan is to stick with bit.ly as my main thing until we are ready to make a run with the ideas/team we are putting together on this)

...there's probably more but those are main things off the top of my head...oh yeah, throughout all of this I also took the past weekend off to jump out to MN to visit some friends and catch a Twins game in the new stadium (awesome!)...and the week before all this started we (the Marshall family) were on vacation in Williamsburg VA (also awesome!).

Long story short...it's been a busy but extremely fun couple of weeks. Right now, I'm ready to crash for a bit...but can't wait to see what the next two weeks brings!

Very interesting meetings... »

After doing a couple of quick fixes to whotoget.com based on actual user feedback (yeah!) this morning, I headed into the city for a couple of meetings that turned out to be very interesting/fun!

The first meeting was actually a lunch at the famous Shake Shack (I had a Shack Stack, Fies, and a chocolate shake -- about 20lbs. of food in all, yum!)...I met up with Tim Marman who is an awesome developer in the NY scene (though he's moving to Pittsburgh soon).

Tim and I share a passion for technology and for fantasy sports (especially football)...and so we can easily pass hours on end chatting about the different projects we're hacking on or the different fantasy moves we're considering (or some combination of both!)...so catching up with him is always a good time.

My second meeting was at bit.ly, where I got a sneak peak at some of the really awesome things they are working on behind the scenes...and I got to talk more tech. in general and about some of ideas for all that beautiful data bit.ly is generating.

Overall, bit.ly (and really all of BetaWorks) is an awesome place to spend any time...there's a vibe around the office that you just don't get from many other places...and you know all the people there are top-of-the-heap sorts who are working on really interesting things (nothing like knowing I'm the dumbest guy in the room every time I walk into those offices -- then again, I'm aware of the same fact for almost every room I ever walk into so...)

Anyway, bit.ly has a bunch of ideas they want to put into action, but only so many people to actually do the work right now and so there's a chance I might get to help out with some of that...so again, super exciting to me!

So even though I didn't get much actual coding done today, it was an interesting and fun afternoon (plus the weather around NY was amazing today!)...and every so often it's good to move away from the keyboard, and you know, talk to real people about stuff.

Tomorrow the family and I head off for a week long vacation...so the trend of not coding will probably continue for a bit...but I'm sure I'll still fit in a bit here and there (I gotta finish out an Android app anyway).

Another quick hack project. »

Just a quick head's up that I have released another quick hack for people to play with:

whotoget.com

It's a little hard to explain (and if you check it out, you'll see that's one of the big issues I have yet to tackle around the site)...but basically the idea is a quick and easy way for a group of people to filter a CSV file.

The idea itself came to me as a specific request from some friends who needed something like this to (hopefully) save them some time in deciding as a group who they should or shouldn't invite to various events they host.

As explained to me, the process that they go through involves a flurry of emails and spreadsheets so that everyone has a chance to get the people they want onto the list for a given event...and then someone has to step in and complete the busy work of doing the final merge/purge of the results.

So what they were looking for was a simple system where they could upload a CSV file that all their employees could then, at their leisure, go through and mark which records should be moved to a 'yes' list and which can be put on a 'not for this event' list. Beyond that they had a handful of other basic ideas and rules around what they were looking for (for example, when you are saying 'yes' or 'no' to a give record within a dataset, you can just use the 'Y' or 'N' keys on the keyboard instead of having to click the yes or no buttons).

And so I really used their soft requirements as the basic road map for what to build in this initial version...of course I also threw in a few more things that I felt were required to make the system a bit more generic and scalable beyond just their specific needs (like the ability to work with variable length records in your CSV file, manage permissions on who has access to each of your datasets, and the ability to export the filtered results for each unique set of answers back out to a CSV file).

Overall, I'm pretty happy with this initial version and the basic feature set but the site itself could use a lot of help in terms of explanation (and general user interface stuff)...but I'll wait to see what feedback my friends who requested it and others have before I spend too much more time polishing any of it up!

Fuzzypop version 0.14 released! »

Threw together a few key updates to fuzzypop today that I thought I would share with you real quick:

1. Added tabs to the bookmarking form so that instead of one long form, there's five simple tabs ('URL', 'Tags', 'Note', 'Share', and 'Alert me'). The only required field when bookmarking is 'URL' and so that's the default one you see loaded when you click the extension icon (or use the form on the homepage of fuzzypop.com).

2. The 'Note' feature is new as well and does what you would think (let's you store a note along with your bookmark). The Note field also doubles as the message that get's shared if you use the new 'share' feature.

3. Speaking of the 'share' feature, it's new as well and let's you post the URL you are bookmarking to your Twitter and/or Facebook stream along with whatever note you added.

TIP: If you put in a note like "@falicon check out this cool site" and share with your 'Twitter' stream, your tweet will be logged as a mention in your Twitter stream...if you put in a note like "d falicon check out this cool site" and share with your 'Twitter' stream, your tweet will be logged as a direct message in your Twitter stream.

4. Cleaned up some of the basic graphics and buttons and moved around a few things on the 'your account' page...but I've got a lot more to do in this area before I feel like it's even close to 'good' and useable.

That's about it for today (it took a lot longer to implement than what it sounds like in this post!)...up next I'll be spending some more time trying to figure out/clean up the actual web site interface and document the API (btw, the extension and website are both just interfaces to an API that I haven't released to the general public yet -- once I do, anyone could write their own interface on top of all this functionality!).

I'll also be integrating some bit.ly information into the extension soon so you can see some quick details if other people have shortened a link to the URL you are on as well as how many people have clicked on those shared links.

I'm also thinking about adding in some extra behind-the-scenes features that monitor Twitter and Facebook for links you've tagged to see who in general is mentioning those links (even if they aren't specifically tagging them with fuzzypop)...there's a bit of a scaling issue to tackle before I could release this to the general public, but I think it's a cool idea that people would really like and so I'll probably spend at least a little time trying to figure it out.

Didn't you just start four months ago? »

For those of you that don't know, I recently transitioned out of being 'the tech. guy' behind Catchafire.org...and since I was only there for about four months in total, you might be wondering just what happened? So I thought I would take a quick minute to explain myself.

Before I get into any details though, I want to say that this move was entirely initiated by me. Once I made my decision the team supported it and I believe we made the transition happen quickly and friendly. And I really believe we all came out for the better in the end (they found a SUPERSTAR in Andrew Lin to replace me). Plus I still intend to pitch in as they need me, and I *think* we are all still on good terms...and I know personally I would be happy to work with Jane and Rachael again in the future.

Anyway, getting back to just why I decided to remove myself so shortly after having joined the team...

The core reason is that I just couldn't find enough passion within myself for the project (this was my concern going in, but I thought I might be able to build up the passion once I got into it full time - I was wrong)...it wasn't that I didn't like the idea or think that it would work out (actually I love the idea and I'm certain that they are going to build a huge industry around it)...it was just that, no matter how hard I tried, I wasn't loosing sleep over the idea. I could easily focus on it from 9 to 5, and then shut down for the night.

I know that when I'm truly passionate about a project or a problem I go into 'nonstop' mode and literally can't go to sleep (or do just about anything really) without thinking about what I'm going to do/try next to move it forward...so I've been doing this sort of thing long enough, and know myself well enough, to know when I'm really just calling it in...

And to me that's a HORRIBLE way to be within such an early stage startup...and completely unfair to the rest of the team that's pouring so much of their heart and soul into the project.

Could I have made it work? Yes, without a doubt...and in fact, I did manage to build the initial alpha version (that was already bringing in sales) and was heavily into a Beta version we were just about to release (though I suspect my replacement will take things in a different direction and eventually throw out all the code I was putting in place -- which is completely fair and understandable given the position).

But I'm a big believer in passion...and I think it's a NECESSITY in any early stage startup where everyone's gotta be working 24/7 doing the work of a small army...and if someone's not putting everything they have into it, it's to everyone's advantage to get them out as quickly as possible (there's just no room to waste time trying to make it work at such an early stage).

So, I decided to remove myself as quickly as possible (it took about a month or so to find what we think is the perfect replacement and only a couple of days to make the actual transition once we found Andrew).

Though my time at Catchafire was short, it really was sweet...and I like to think I learned a lot more about myself, what really motivates me, and what sort of things I personally need to do different in my next adventure (which I'm already lining up and will talk more about shortly).

As I mentioned before, I'm sure Catchafire is going to continue to build an amazing company going forward (if for no other reason than they are already an amazing team of people who I think are doing the right things for the right reasons)...and I look forward watching them do just that (and kicking myself in the future for not sticking around long enough to earn any stock!)