There is still a lot of work to do, but it feels good to get the One Point Oh release out the door! Check it out at UI Blueprints - easy to use mockup software!
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
UI Blueprints 1.0 is Released!
There is still a lot of work to do, but it feels good to get the One Point Oh release out the door! Check it out at UI Blueprints - easy to use mockup software!
Friday, January 6, 2012
Best Hacker Conferences in 2012?
One of my goals for 2012 is to break out of my little corner of the world and attend a couple of developer conferences. There are two primary benefits of doing this: 1) learning about a technology that is interesting (and hopefully valuable!) and 2) networking with other developers. But given the plethora of conferences out there, and the inherent cost in attending, which ones provide the best opportunities to derive these benefits? Read on.
There are several dimensions that can be used to compare and contrast the various conference options.
Specific vs. General
Lots of conferences focus on one specific technology, like a programming language, framework or platform. This is 101 stuff. Interested in Ruby? Check out the RubyConf and/or RailsConf. Python? PyCon. Facebook's F8 event would benefit those working with (or wanting to work with) FB's toolset/APIs for integrating with their platform. While I am sure there is value in these conferences, I am more interested in conferences that are more general, focusing on a cluster of technologies that share some common thread, but may not be otherwise related. A couple that come to mind are the OSCON put on by O'Reilly, that focuses on open source technologies and the ApacheCon that revolves around Apache technologies. The topic list for the 2012 OSCON looks interesting and has some focus on things that are hot right now including "The Startup Stack" and a track on "Open Source on Mobile Devices". In my opinion the most interesting things going on within Apache right now include all the tools related to handling the Big Data problem with Hadoop and the litany of supporting projects like Pig, Cassandra etc.
Big Company Conferences
These are pretty simple. Are you an Apple fan boy...uh... I mean... hacker? See you at the WWDC. Microsoft? Maybe they'll do the BUILD conference again in 2012. One BigCoConf that would be a bit more general is GoogleIO. If I end up going to a BCC, it would likely be this one... not because I use many of Google's developer tools, but mainly for the atmosphere/networking opportunities. While not perfect, Google just seems to have done a lot of things right in terms of developing a culture that is hacker friendly, plus they focus some on newer/interesting tech like HTML5 and mobile dev; not to mention the toys they've passed out in previous years have been cool at the time.
Trending Technologies
In terms of learning about an interesting technology that also is valuable, it is worth looking at tools/areas that are fairly new, but have the critical mass to and sufficient press to be trending upward. A few that come to mind include Big Data solutions (Hadoop related tech), NoSQL databases (mongodb, couchbase, etc), and newer frameworks like node.js. I've been seeing my own interest in document/JSON oriented data stores (NoSQL) ticking up over the past year and have been considering doing a deep dive on mongodb; hitting the 10gen event in ATL could be a good fit with my goals here.
Conclusion
Conferences cost money. They also have an opportunity cost for the time they require. So we need to pick the ones that provide value by A) discussing interesting/valuable stuff and B) good networking opportunities. Currently I am leaning toward OSCON and GoogleIO for my top two picks as well as strongly considering the MongoDB event in Atlanta.
I am sure that there are some conference ideas that I've missed here (Business of Software anyone?) What did I miss? What hacker-friendly conferences do you want to attend in 2012? Maybe I'll see you there!
Join the discussion on Best Hacker Conferences in 2012 at Hacker News.
There are several dimensions that can be used to compare and contrast the various conference options.
Specific vs. GeneralBig Company Conferences
These are pretty simple. Are you an Apple fan boy...uh... I mean... hacker? See you at the WWDC. Microsoft? Maybe they'll do the BUILD conference again in 2012. One BigCoConf that would be a bit more general is GoogleIO. If I end up going to a BCC, it would likely be this one... not because I use many of Google's developer tools, but mainly for the atmosphere/networking opportunities. While not perfect, Google just seems to have done a lot of things right in terms of developing a culture that is hacker friendly, plus they focus some on newer/interesting tech like HTML5 and mobile dev; not to mention the toys they've passed out in previous years have been cool at the time.
Trending Technologies
In terms of learning about an interesting technology that also is valuable, it is worth looking at tools/areas that are fairly new, but have the critical mass to and sufficient press to be trending upward. A few that come to mind include Big Data solutions (Hadoop related tech), NoSQL databases (mongodb, couchbase, etc), and newer frameworks like node.js. I've been seeing my own interest in document/JSON oriented data stores (NoSQL) ticking up over the past year and have been considering doing a deep dive on mongodb; hitting the 10gen event in ATL could be a good fit with my goals here.
Conclusion
Conferences cost money. They also have an opportunity cost for the time they require. So we need to pick the ones that provide value by A) discussing interesting/valuable stuff and B) good networking opportunities. Currently I am leaning toward OSCON and GoogleIO for my top two picks as well as strongly considering the MongoDB event in Atlanta.
I am sure that there are some conference ideas that I've missed here (Business of Software anyone?) What did I miss? What hacker-friendly conferences do you want to attend in 2012? Maybe I'll see you there!
Join the discussion on Best Hacker Conferences in 2012 at Hacker News.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Bham Central Two Years Later
It was a fun experiment to see what could be accomplished in one week with creating Bham Central (a listing site targeted at Birmingham, AL). I learned several things with launching this site in such a short time:
1) First and foremost, the feature set needed to be smaller. While I was able to implement the features I outlined, the final product was fairly crude and buggy. In particular the Events feature was difficult to use and did not work unless just the right data and formatting was used. Without some validation and better usability work this feature should not have been released.
2) When building a site like this you initially need to focus on areas where content creation is easy. It is difficult to get people to start listing houses and jobs when there is no traffic on a site. So after releasing the "1.0 feature set", I eventually turned several sections of the site to focus on areas where I could easily create good content: restaurants in Birmingham, AL and social events in Birmingham, AL.
3) Marketing is hard. After building the site I became busy with my full-time job and was not able to devote much time to the site. To try to keep the ball rolling I hired a summer intern to help with marketing in order to build traffic. He did some good work and we eventually became a top listing for the Gian Marco's Italian restaurant here in Birmingham. This page has been the major source of traffic for the site.
4) Building up a site requires consistent energy. Because of some health trouble I had, all work on the site stopped in 2010. I kept the site up and running, but didn't do anything with it. Content was stagnant and there was no marketing being done. This is bad.
Where are we now? Now I am focusing on making sure the Restaurants and Events sections are done really well and trying to market the site more. As these areas of the site mature I will then begin to add back features in order to realize the full vision of the the site.
1) First and foremost, the feature set needed to be smaller. While I was able to implement the features I outlined, the final product was fairly crude and buggy. In particular the Events feature was difficult to use and did not work unless just the right data and formatting was used. Without some validation and better usability work this feature should not have been released.
2) When building a site like this you initially need to focus on areas where content creation is easy. It is difficult to get people to start listing houses and jobs when there is no traffic on a site. So after releasing the "1.0 feature set", I eventually turned several sections of the site to focus on areas where I could easily create good content: restaurants in Birmingham, AL and social events in Birmingham, AL.
3) Marketing is hard. After building the site I became busy with my full-time job and was not able to devote much time to the site. To try to keep the ball rolling I hired a summer intern to help with marketing in order to build traffic. He did some good work and we eventually became a top listing for the Gian Marco's Italian restaurant here in Birmingham. This page has been the major source of traffic for the site.
4) Building up a site requires consistent energy. Because of some health trouble I had, all work on the site stopped in 2010. I kept the site up and running, but didn't do anything with it. Content was stagnant and there was no marketing being done. This is bad.
Where are we now? Now I am focusing on making sure the Restaurants and Events sections are done really well and trying to market the site more. As these areas of the site mature I will then begin to add back features in order to realize the full vision of the the site.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Launching a Startup in One Week
In honor of the 3rd BarCampBirmingham this coming Saturday (May 2nd), I've decided to try to do something mildly interesting:
Build a web application in one week (M-F) and release it this Saturday at BCamp. So far I have written zero lines of code. I'll be outlining the feature set and begin development today (Monday, 4/27). I'll have one week to build the application and deploy it to a public server; then, at BCamp I'll discuss the experience.
The idea will be relatively simple, but significant enough to be useful. It is an application I've wanted to build for a while now, but just haven't done it (so talking about it at BCamp will be a good motivator!!).
The application will essentially be a community portal that will represent how newspapers should have responded to Craigslist years ago (for an example of what not to do see al.com). It will allow users within a metro area to buy and sell things like Clist (i.e. an online classified site), but will do so with a more of a community feel to it by including information on local events/reviews/information etc. In addition it will eventually have a modern user experience that includes a richer, more attractive interface than what is provided by Clist [1]. Version 1.0 will be targeted only at the Birmingham, AL market and will be relatively simple.
Given the compressed schedule, I will need to keep the feature set as compact as possible. I would like to implement the following features:
1) Basis support for users (registration, login, logout, change passwords, forgot password)
2) Support for selling houses (multiple pictures of house, detatiled descriptions, location)
3) Job listings
4) General Classifieds (single associated picture)
5) Events (garage sales, concerts, user group meetings etc.)
I'll keep you updated on my progress... and if you are in or around Birmingham, you can see for yourself the results at BARCAMP!!!
[1] Craigslist is a very popular site and provides a cool service. The developers of Clist appear to view its 1990's style web-interface to be a feature... no frills, no good-looks, just the raw features necessary to buy and sell. While I agree that simplicity is good (i.e. the Simplifying Software moniker!), I view the old-school design as a bug, not a feature.
Build a web application in one week (M-F) and release it this Saturday at BCamp. So far I have written zero lines of code. I'll be outlining the feature set and begin development today (Monday, 4/27). I'll have one week to build the application and deploy it to a public server; then, at BCamp I'll discuss the experience.
The idea will be relatively simple, but significant enough to be useful. It is an application I've wanted to build for a while now, but just haven't done it (so talking about it at BCamp will be a good motivator!!).
The application will essentially be a community portal that will represent how newspapers should have responded to Craigslist years ago (for an example of what not to do see al.com). It will allow users within a metro area to buy and sell things like Clist (i.e. an online classified site), but will do so with a more of a community feel to it by including information on local events/reviews/information etc. In addition it will eventually have a modern user experience that includes a richer, more attractive interface than what is provided by Clist [1]. Version 1.0 will be targeted only at the Birmingham, AL market and will be relatively simple.
Given the compressed schedule, I will need to keep the feature set as compact as possible. I would like to implement the following features:
1) Basis support for users (registration, login, logout, change passwords, forgot password)
2) Support for selling houses (multiple pictures of house, detatiled descriptions, location)
3) Job listings
4) General Classifieds (single associated picture)
5) Events (garage sales, concerts, user group meetings etc.)
I'll keep you updated on my progress... and if you are in or around Birmingham, you can see for yourself the results at BARCAMP!!!
[1] Craigslist is a very popular site and provides a cool service. The developers of Clist appear to view its 1990's style web-interface to be a feature... no frills, no good-looks, just the raw features necessary to buy and sell. While I agree that simplicity is good (i.e. the Simplifying Software moniker!), I view the old-school design as a bug, not a feature.
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Hello. My name is Harris Reynolds and I'm a CPA turned software developer. I have Master's degrees in both Accounting and Software Engineering and have been working in the software world for the past twelve years. I've recently founded a company: