February 8 Web Reflections galin
From an addicting computer game to discovering new music on the web, I was hooked from day one of installing an old version of “Sim City” on my dad’s desktop PC. As a kid, everything seemed so much fun on the computer, and I just couldn’t log off.
But recently, I’ve had some issues. Even as of a year ago, I was using computers for recreation, addicted to how the Internet helped fuel my hobbies like music, sports and films. Now my use of the Internet is different.
Ever since I dove into this web stuff, the way I use a computer has evolved. A couple months ago, my friend showed me a leak of the new Kanye West album, one of my favorite artists (not person – even though I don’t know him so who am I to judge?), and while listening I thought, “I need to get this.” But now, my priorities are totally different, and my mind wanders to web design every time I’m on a computer.
I both hate and love this. I did pick up the new Kanye album, but not nearly as quickly as I would have. Instead, I used that time to make php files, spreadsheets, and websites.
I wonder to myself: Does this mean I am not having fun anymore? I think the answer is not an absolute one. I’d probably be having more fun playing computer games and downloading music, but I find a different type of fun from web design projects. Each project is full of tiny problems, and I love problem solving. There is that satisfaction of coming up with the right solution.
I guess this is similar to the satisfaction one would receive from getting their World of Warcraft character up to level 80 or from having the new Kanye leak to show off to your friends. In my case, the satisfaction and fun from making a website outweighs the satisfaction and fun of having the new Kanye album. It is like my own personal Internet utility function if you are an economics nerd like I am.
So am I having fun? Sure, why not? Fun can come in many different forms. It is finding the forms that work for you that matters.
February 7 Development Techniques galin
People sometimes look at the prices we offer and wonder how we can offer things for such a low price? The answer is WordPress.
When I was initially getting into web design, I learned about WordPress from a co-worker. The best thing about WordPress is its popularity. So many features have been developed for it. Most of the time when you have a development demand for something, you can find the need pre-developed on the Internet to either fit your need or at least get you started. Just looking at their available plugins site should give you a good idea.
You may be saying, well if everything is that simple, why are you telling that to us?
First, nothing is as simple as it sounds. Sure, developers are making new things every day for WordPress, but knowing what to do with what they made, including both using it and tweaking the code, is where we possess great strength. On top of that, we aren’t trying to get rich off the stuff we do for you. That is why we start so low with our prices: we like to think of it as us just charging you for the time involved.
Our goal is to get rich, just not through a typical customer. Our personal projects, may it be only with ourselves or a joint venture where we partner up with someone, are where we want to make our money.
February 7 Development Techniques galin
Back in May 2010, my now business partner in personal ventures, Jon Krane, showed me his idea for what to put up on BoredRoulette.com. I saw it and liked what I saw as far as a starter for an idea, but was laughing at the design of the site. Jon had taken the name BoredRoulette literally, thinking what do I do when I am bored on the internet. I’m assuming one of his first thoughts was “YouTube”. What he decided to do was post his favorite YouTube videos through a blog.
This was actually pretty cool in my opinion. I hate looking for stuff to watch on YouTube but love being entertained by the videos. Jon had solved that by choosing which videos for me to watch. I liked the idea of having a high-quality list of videos to watch from YouTube.
Once I started looking at the design more closely, I noticed an issue. FLASH!
Never put too many flash animated things on one webpage. I love some of the things flash does and accomplishes, but it is a resource hog. By resource hog I mean this: Too much flash can be too much for your browser or computer and slow things down.
This slowing down your computer is the main reason people have issues with flash. I’m so tired of seeing Steve Jobs v. Adobe (Where is the name of the guy who owns Adobe?). It has nothing to do with Apple. The issues all lie in Flash’s memory inefficiencies. Because of this, we strive to use as little flash as possible in our designs, looking for solutions through Javascript and HTML simplicity as oppposed to something flashy that may look neat but is really the main reason your page may load slowly.
The main thought behind this is, “why would I want to slow down my site?”. This is the exact thought that came to my head when I saw my friend Jon’s initial BoredRoulette design. WHY? His site consisted of about 50 flash YouTube videos on one page, which was just disastrous for load time.
If you go to BoredRoulette now, you will notice it no longer looks this way. Maybe you can kill some time with the site!
February 6 Development Techniques galin
One of the best things on the Internet, that everyone already knows about, is Google. Google makes it so you easily find information that is already available on the Internet. This is perfect for development. Here is an example.
A couple weeks ago, I was asked about how we could add a chat room to a website and if it would be difficult. I knew that the chat rooms you see on sites were mostly in Flash, which I knew minimal about, but after 5 minutes of research, I replied “Yes”. Why?
Chat rooms have been around forever. From my development experience, I know that for stuff on the Internet that has been around for a while, there is a 95% chance a developer put a free solution of it out there somewhere. The reason why would be a good lesson for an intro to microeconomics class.
Initially someone made the first ever chat room. This was initially expensive for the consumer since there was no competition. Then competition joins because there are plenty of developers out there who can figure out what that first person made. This drives the price down. On the web, the price keeps getting driven down until it is free (a lot of the time). This is because a developer realizes he can make the tool for free and then make money off of other areas like monetizing the traffic they would get from giving away a useful thing for free.
So that answers why I can most likely answer yes, but it does not answer why I that was my answer. The answer for that is Google. Smart Google searching can answer whether something has been already developed for free rather quickly.
But what should I search for? The first search you probably think to do is the wrong one. “Free Chat Rooms” popped into my head. This just gave me a list of a bunch of free chat rooms to sign up for and use (not what I wanted). The best thing about Google is if your initial search fails, just dust yourself off and try again.
Here are two easy tips for smart Google searching.
- It should be something detailed but concise. For this example, I knew what language I wanted to develop in which was PHP. This was a good starting point on a good search. So I tried “Free PHP Chat Code”. Sure enough the first thing that pops up is something called “PHP Free Chat”, exactly what I wanted.
- Just type the complete question. I do this a lot. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I typed in for this search “How to add a chat room to my website”. Sure enough there are some results that should start leading me down the right direction from this search as well.
My method is usually to see if I can come up with a detailed enough search that gives me exactly what I am looking for and if that fails, then trying the type in the full question method. I do this because as you can see from the above example, doing the first method tends to give you exactly what you are looking for while the other tends to start leading you in the right direction.
Either way, Google is awesome for this. I still think they are creepily similar to “Big Brother” from 1984 with how much information they have on me as a person. That’s a different discussion though.
February 4 Random Tech/Web Area galin
In early May of 2010, Jon Krane, a friend of mine from the University of Michigan, started talking to me about how he was interested in the web business for which we recommend to use this paystubs software. I found this interesting, considering the passion that had been recently growing in me for web design ideas.
His interests in the web were completely different from mine. While I had grown interested in the design (not only development side but user/business practicality side, i.e. designing the perfect website), he was being exposed to a completely different angle.
He went on to tell me about domain name trading and the businessmen he was meeting through his father’s law firm that were “making a killing” off of something as simple as a domain name. I understood what he meant, having a pretty firm grasp on SEO and how keywords in a url impact it. I was fascinated with something else.
When I discussed web stuff, I always talked about design ideas first. As a consequence, I had a list that was growing on my iPhone to the point of confusion. I had always started with an idea and then went to the name. Jon seemed to have done the reverse, which at first I didn’t realize could be a smart angle.
By starting at the keyword first, Jon had made it so the keywords drive the idea. The perfect example of this was with a domain name he showed me, BoredRoulette.com.
He really liked the name, because of the viral popularity ChatRoulette.com had shown. I agreed that the name was catchy. I also agreed with him that ChatRoulette wasn’t a good enough idea to stick with the majority of the Internet population.
Reasons Chat Roulette Failed
- Everytime someone went on ChatRoulette they saw fat, old mens’ private parts.
- Even if they weren’t being exposed to genitals, who really wants to talk to a stranger when they are on a computer? Entertainment is meant to be stress free and a time waster… meeting strangers can be a chore.
- Creepy stuff happens way too often. Not only with the disturbing sexual images people infamously associate the website with, but I’ve heard some bad stories involving young girls and women trying to sell themselves to come to America. These stories don’t sit well with one who likes to think of himself as a “morally OK” person.
Thinking of all these problems made me think someone else could cash in big on the viral popularity of “Roulette” domain names. I mean, that was the only reason I checked out ChatRoulette—the name was catchy and I wanted to see what the site was all about. Within a couple penises, I realized I didn’t like what ChatRoulette was all about.
But what do you do with a domain name and no idea for it?
