Still Working Toward Completion

I've got the beta in full swing, but there is still programming work left to do.

• Purchase secure certificate, set it up, and code the site to do the sensistive stuff over SSL.
• Implement the communication to the credit card processor.
• Fix bugs! :)
  

BETA!

Finally! I just sent out the URL to the people who've signed up for my beta program! This is such a huge milestone for this project.

If you're interested in participating in the beta (or you're just damn curious to see Pudding in action), sign up here.

Beta Signup Form, live

Please head over to the main Ataraxis Software web site to sign up for the Pudding beta.

Now that I've figured out how to configure everything (including Capistrano) to run one rails site, getting Pudding up and running should only take another day or two.

Capistrano, deploying from a local subversion repository

The recommended way of setting up deployment for a Ruby on Rails application is to use Capistrano. Unfortunately, by default your SVN repo must be accessible to the production server. Not good news if you've got your source code unaccessible to the outside world (behind a firewall, on your local laptop), like I do.

I did a little Googling for a solution to this problem and found this plugin. Thanks Wolfmans!

Setting up a server is fun!

Setting up a server is fun!

Not.

(That was sooooooo '80's.)

The last few days (nights actually), I've been working on getting my production server configured and ready to go for the beta. I hit a few snags, but with the help of the Textdrive forums (Thanks Justin!), Joyent's howto's, and some general Google-ing I'm on my way. I've currently got a default rails app running at ataraxispudding.com through Apache and a Mongrel cluster.

Apollo

For those of you that have been following my blog since the beginning, you'll remember when I was going to build something using Flash (via OpenLaszlo) as my front-end. I later switched to the Ruby on Rails platform, and decided on XHTML & JavaScript for my front-end.

I really liked the possibilities OpenLaszlo provided, but that particular technology (at the time) wasn't quite where I wanted it to be to build an app with. Macromedia (Now Adobe) came out with their Flex product (which some would say was a rip-off of Laszlo), and it's been steadily gaining in popularity. I see more and more mention of it these days then when it was first released. (The first version cost $12,000 - the 2nd has a free SDK!)

Adobe has finally made available to the public their Apollo project (in alpha form). From what I can tell Apollo acts as a bridge between XHTML/JavaScript, Flash/Flex, and your desktop. I saw this video of a guy using Apollo to make a mash-up app of his local address book and Google Maps. I totally freaked out and sent it to some friends. I was just amazed that we can finally start deeply integrating with desktop data!

I really think Apollo is going to be an amazing technology when the entire development community starts hacking on this thing.

Think of all the file-uploading web apps out there (like Pudding). If the web-app can reach out to your desktop, imagine the possibilities!

This is all the more reason to bust my ass this week to get the Pudding beta up and running so I can start experimenting with these new technologies to see what would make sense for the next version of Pudding. I've already got some ideas, and Apollo just gave me some more!

OSX Terminal Help (Weirdness)

Does anyone know why my OSX terminal is suddenly showing a number as the first character? It used to look (something) like:

#:~ michael$

now it shows stuff like this:

14:~ michael$

What the heck did I do?

Hosting Account, Joynet Accelerator

Joynet offers a hosting plan that gives each customer a Solaris zone. I just got access to my tonight and I spent some time taking stock of what's installed.

I was pleased to see most of the software I was planning on installing was already there (a typical Ruby on Rails stack, mysql, imagemagick, etc...), but some of it is a few versions old so I'm going to be upgrading it tomorrow night.

Now, I've just got to get everything configured and running!

Amazing Rails, Guest Post on mymicroisv.com

Bob Walsh, author of the book, Micro-ISV: From Vision to Reality, invited me to write a guest post on the mymicroisv.com blog regarding my choice of using Ruby on Rails for Pudding. It was published this morning!

Thanks for opportunity Bob!

Recommended Books 2007

This is my place holder post for all the books that I will read and recommend this year.

Since I've been busy working on Pudding, I wanted to read something small and simple. Getting Real fit the bill. (Read the free version.)

McConnell writes another good one. Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art.

Merchant Account, Finally

WOW, that took a hell of a lot longer than I was expecting. A full 2 weeks to get "approval" for having a merchant account and the ability to accept credit card transactions. Now I need to setup an Authorize.net account and hook everything up. I won't be stressing too hard about that until after my beta version is live. It's been my plan all along to implement my CC processing while I'm in beta.

I'm going to be at a friend's wedding this weekend, so I won't be able to do any work.

It's driven me nuts that all this business stuff has taken so long to sort out. (bank account, business credit card, merchant account...)

Designers, Managers, Clients

(Preface: I'm a Programmer, a Project Manager, and a Manager. I'm not a Designer.)

Dear Designers,

You know what's amazing about human beings? Every single one of them is an amazing Designer.

You don't agree?

Then why do Clients always tell you what color palette to use? Or tell you where to put their logo. How big the logo should be. When to use animation. How to use animation. Where the call to action should be. How many pages the web site should have. What goes on every page of the web site and the brochure. AND where everything should go on every page?

We're so blessed to be living in a time where every single person you work with is a genetic clone of Hicks, Zeldman, Rohde, Bowman, Cederholm, or Shea.

You know that woman with a Communications degree, but works as a secretary? AREN'T YOU GLAD HER BOSS GAVE HER THE RESPONSIBILITY TO WORK ON THIS YEAR'S BROCHURE? Or the guy with the Business Degree, who is a great BS artist, so he ended up in the Sales department and is now in charge of some marketing-related program. HE KNOWS EXACTLY HOW THE WEB SITE SHOULD BE LAID OUT! I mean, he's a sales guy, why wouldn't he know the best way to do design???

I might have to turn down the sarcasm to continue.

Please hold.

...

Thanks.

Now back to your regularly scheduled blog post, "Designers, Managers, Clients".

...

I've managed quite a few projects that involved working with Designers (and managed Project Managers working on projects that involved Designers). So I've noticed a few things through out the years and I'd like to make a few observations and give some advice. (I know, you've been dieing for it.)

In a creative project, everyone has a responsibility. If you've dealt with the types of "Clients" I have in the past, then you can assume that they have NO IDEA they have a responsibility.

Before I tell you what everyone's responsibility is, I'm going to tell you what I believe the Client and Manager's job is NOT.

The Client's job is NOT to

• sketch out what you want
• tell artists where to put things on the screen
• pick colors without getting buy-in from the Designer or picking colors before talking with a Designer
  
• act like you're Steven Spielberg. Mr. Client, you're not Spielberg. Please don't act like you know when and how animation should be incorporated into a marketing web site. Flying logos are soooooo 1997, and they weren't cool back then

The (non-Designer) Manager's job is NOT to

• act like the Client I listed above
• pretend like you're a Designer, you're not. That's what you hired the Designer to do.
  

The Client's responsibility is to explain what the goal of the creative piece is - to explain what the organization is trying to accomplish with the piece. (You should remind them of this, they end up focusing so much on where to put stuff on the screen that they forget why they're even talking about it.)

Your Manager's job (you can show him this, its ok, he'll learn something) is to 1) protect you from becoming a trained monkey. "Put this here. Make this, this color." 2) Push you as hard as he can so your design is AWESOME. 3) Only allow you to show your best work to the Client.

You, as the Designer, must produce jaw dropping work.

Not "not to bad" work.

Not "good" work.

You need to create "OMG" work!

Because here is the secret to working with design-impaired Clients.

They've seen amazing stuff. They want their stuff to be amazing. They want to show it off to their manager, co-workers, colleagues, etc... And if you bring anything less than your "A game", they get scared because they know it's not awesome. This was their chance to have something AWESOME, and you've lost their trust so now they start dictating what needs to be done. Because they care so much about the project that they honestly believe that if they just give you better instructions the piece will turn out better.

If you blow them away, they'll be gasping for air to long to nit-pick over where the logo is, or that the page is "lacking" animation.

No more mediocre designs.

Continue to push yourself design-wise.

Your Clients want to go "aaahhhhh". If you can't do that, keep pushing yourself.

I've worked with a few Designers on projects where I've pushed them through several rounds of mock-ups. You know what happens?

In every single round the work improves.

I didn't tell them what to do. I told them it needed to better, and to stop constraining themselves to the pre-conceived notions they've created regarding working with the Clients. Don't let your previous work, or what the Client has previously approved (or "allowed to be delivered") stop you from creating the next great piece.

Push yourself.

New Blogger Template

I've update my blogger template to have a similiar color scheme as my upcoming Ataraxis Software and Pudding web sites.

Small Business Finances

I've been spoiled by the world of consumer credit and a good credit score. Need a credit card? No problem, here you go. Need a mortgage, car loan, etc...? No problem, here you go.

The small-business-with-zero-credit-history world is a little different.

I actually got turned down for a (Visa) credit card from Suntrust bank last week. (I had to wait a week for them to tell me that.) I was going to use that credit card to setup all my hosting services for Pudding. You can imagine how crushed I was when it was denied!!! I don't want to put the business expenses on my personal credit cards for obvious reasons!

The same day I got rejected for the Suntrust Visa credit card, I applied for an American Express card. They couldn't "verify my business name" through their online application so after a couple of days of phone tag I finally reached some one on the phone, and got it sorted out. I'm now approved!

Unfortunately, the card won't arrive in the mail for a while so I'm still waiting on that in order to get the Ataraxis Software and Pudding web sites up. I actually finished the "beta" site for Pudding, and created the (ultra-lame) placeholder for ataraxissoftware.com. But the ataraxissoftware.com site will have the "sign up for a beta" system in place. Something which I wish I had setup about 15 months ago.

I'm still waiting for approval on my merchant account, again I'm going with Suntrust. Hopefully, I'll hear back from them this week. That's really the final puzzle piece toward launching. (I still have to write the code to interface with the payment gateway, but I was going to do that during the beta testing.)

My programmer personality type

My programmer personality type is: PHSB

You're a Planner.
You may be slow, but you'll usually find the best solution. If something's worth doing, it's worth doing right.

You like coding at a High level.
The world is made up of objects and components, you should create your programs in the same way.

You work best in a Solo situation.
The best way to program is by yourself. There's no communication problems, you know every part of the code allowing you to write the best programs possible.

You are a liBeral programmer.
Programming is a complex task and you should use white space and comments as freely as possible to help simplify the task. We're not writing on paper anymore so we can take up as much room as we need.

Thanks Don.