Archive for the 'Project Ideas' Category

Another Weekend of Code

Published
by
Josh Kim
on December 11, 2007
in Project Ideas
. 0 Comments

This past weekend was well spent, inside. Good thing I had enough food to last through the insanity that is freezing rain.

Definitely made some headway into what I wanted to do with the projects I have. Wrote some code, but mostly throwaway. Looked into a lot of the new Rails 2.0 stuff, but only to realize how little Rails I know period. Also added a third to HanMeta, and I hope to keep adding more people as time passes, and… you know… as I get grander ideas. I’m sure I’ll tap on some shoulders as time passes.

And hopefully, soon enough, LLC is in the future. Need a lawyer and an accountant… yikes.

And that’s all the update I have with regards to HanMeta. I have some nice wrist support gloves to aid me in my wrist painness and it feels like they are working.

Got the Ball Rolling

Published
by
Josh Kim
on September 5, 2007
in Project Ideas
. 0 Comments

The weekend was a blur. It went by too fast.

I made a trip to Madison, Wisconsin, where I met up with Amir to get this feed reader project off the ground. We didn’t code all the time, of course. We got a chance to see Superbad while it was still in theaters (when I first saw the previews for this movie, I knew I wanted to see this with the big Manj himself). I finally got a chance to play Metroid Prime 3 as well (which was cool).

I was happy to get the ball rolling. In the end, we didn’t get a lot of code down, but I felt like a lot of the foundations were laid into place… So many things I felt like I took for granted while running through the Depot application using Locomotive…

Deployment of Rails Applications

But alas, this weekend has really pushed me to even more topics I need to quickly learn. Deployment of Rails is an amazingly tricky issue, and I have yet to see a coherent blog post on it. Hence, I bought the eBook Deploying Rails Application. Looks like a very good resource for all things Rails deployment.

Currently, we’re using Dreamhost (because it’s free, since Alex was cool with us using it) with FastCGI and Apache2. I hear it’s not the way to go. Oh the choices run the gamut from Lighthttpd, Mongrel, Pound, Nginx, blah, blah, blah.

Looks like one of the good ways to go is: Pounding Mongrel Light(tpd)ly

Something about Lighttpd rocking Apache, minus load balancing, which is taken care of by Pound…

Yes, I’m still confused. Much to test and learn.

Naming the Darn Thing

I really liked names that had to do with water due to the phrase “river of news”. “Firehose” and “Fire Hydrant” were suggested. We even went the tongue-in-cheek route and tried to name it something to do with garbage… refuse, debris, detritus… Foreign words… Latin words… I mean, this wasn’t the first naming session for this project.

In the end, we decided to not really belabor this issue any longer, and ended up just coming up with a standard way of naming milestones. Of course, this had to be funny, since it would be used internally.

We ended up with: Words that have to do with Christopher Walken sketches on Saturday Night Live.

Yes, I agree. It’s hilarious.

Of course, the first milestone project name had to be called “Cowbell”, from the infamous Blue Oyster Cult sketch involving “Gene Frenkel’s” (Will Ferrel’s) hilarious usage of the cowbell in the song “Don’t Fear the Reaper”. And who could the producer be? None other than Bruce Dickenson (). Yes. The Bruce Dickenson.

Why is this man so funny? I don’t even know if he’s trying… I wonder if he… talks like that… in real… life.

Or was that too Shatner?

The Date

Heck, I don’t even remember when I got the idea to do something silly like this. But I do remember coming up with a cool looking launch date not based on anything but the fact that it was a cool looking date. (For those of you wonder, that date was 07.07.07)

Regardless of what might have come before, September 1st, 2007 it is. The day when “Cowbell” started.

Time to put my pants on, one leg at a time. Except, once my pants are on…

Well, I’m going to sleep well tonight

Published
by
Josh Kim
on July 30, 2007
in Project Ideas
. 0 Comments

I don’t know the exact number of hours spent on HanMeta today. I gotta keep better track of the hours spent. I mean, I read my feeds during my breaks, and do some other work related to finding a full time job. Regardless, It’s just been a very very hectic day.

I’ll try to be a little bit more detailed so that others that are trying to set up Rails, Subversion, and Capistrano won’t have to go through the craziness that ensued today. Just need to figure out Capistrano… followed by lots of tweaking.

Yes. I’m so happy the app is getting started. I set a goal for this Sunday night (a little leeway) to have all this process stuff out of the way. Which mean I need to:

  • People
    • Who’s in? Who do I want in at this early stage?
    • Who’s doing what?
    • Take inventory of the hours people have to put towards this project
  • Rails
    • FastCGI vs Proxing HTTP?
    • How do I even do the second (because I hear it’s the right thing to do) on DreamHost?
    • So many other questions just about deploying an app…
  • Subversion
    • Double check on user/passwords
    • Make documentation (very similar to what I did with UIUC’s College of Education) on how to connect to the servers
  • ActiveCollab
  • Capistrano

Oh, and as a bonus, I want to run through the tutorial in the Rails book again before the end of the week. That way, I’ll be completely prepared for the n00bage that’s going to start next week.

I really hope that this doesn’t turn out like the last time I set out to do this. Lesson from that failure: Do something. It’s so hard to get things rolling.

Meet Your New App: HanMeta

Published
by
Josh Kim
on June 24, 2007
in Project Ideas, Web Applications and Web Development
. 0 Comments

I woke up today, fixated on picking a name. I had racked my brain trying to figure out clever metaphors in nature (everything from tree trunks to rivers to pollinating flowers)… clever mashing of two words… sticking “han” in front of everything, trying to go with the naming scheme I’ve devised a couple of years back. (No, I’m not going back to slapping “jk” in front of everything)

There was a domain name I had before this one that would fit in perfectly with what the application will do. But sadly, I gave it up and now it’s in the hands of some spammers.

Regardless, let it be known:

HanMeta.com: the social web 2.0 blah rounded corners blah starburst blah tags blah rss feed reader. Now with more Rails! Ugh.

Let’s see how far I can take this with a ragtag team of awesome coding ninjas, present company included. Looks like, at the beginning, it’ll be Derek Remund, Amir Manji (This guy needs a blog!), and me. I must call upon the help of the sweet coding ninjas of Alex Argo, Dan Janosik, and, of course, the venerable Raj “Taco HTML Edit” Doshi.

All I’ve got is a running list of great features I’d like to implement, and lots of time to do it. (Oh, please please please let me have less time to work on this, if you catch my drift, potential employers?) I’ll try to chronicle this crazy journey. Like… startup.com or the DVD that fogcreek put out. Just in text form.

I just hope it’s more like the latter than the former.

07.07.07: Here we come!

More details as I get time to write them down.

Just as I thought: 3rd Party Apps… er… Web Apps on iPhone

Published
by
Josh Kim
on June 11, 2007
in Apple, Project Ideas, Web Applications and Web Development
. 0 Comments

When I thought about 3rd party applications for the iPhone, I didn’t think that it would require me to learn Cocoa.

I thought… why not web applications? Heck, it’s got a browser built in.

I’m happier now that Jobs has come out and said it. Although, for some, this might seem like a copout solution. However, I’m happy that things are, once again, moving towards the web.

The only thing missing is somehow using the power of the multi-touch screen… That sucker seems locked down… Maybe somehow somebody somewhere could hack that.

And here comes the feeds about today’s Stevenote… ugh.

Oh my goodness, apple.com looks more lickable…

Oh, and go download the Safari Beta. Because… my love for Firefox is dwindling… and I’m trying to kill my dependence on interface add-ons. More on that, later.

Couple of cool commentaries