Techknowlogick's Blog

Starting

techknowlogick — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 08:38:32 +0000

So today I took complete control over a site I have been helping out with. It is weird. I feel in complete control of over 16K people’s files. With one movement I can end everything. but I won’t ever do that on purpose.

Now that I have this position of power I also have many more responsibilities. I have to release new things, make sure ads are solid, things are still running, finances are in order, among other things.

I have now entered the world of web apps. Needless to say my site isn’t up to snuff with others. It soon will be.

More updates about what it takes to start a website that people actually use to come.

The Final day of the host-a server being at this location

Human Nature

techknowlogick — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 02:23:24 +0000

Hobbes and Descartes both have views on how humans are different from animals. Starting on page 32 of Descartes’ Discourse we can find his argument on why we are different. He starts off with saying that we have the ability of genuine use of language. This is saying that we can actually understand that words have more than one meaning, and that we can have conversations about things. Where as to animals words are just signals. For example, apes have a sound for when snakes are coming to let the others know, and they also have one for “danger from the sky”, but they can’t talk about that snake that is coming they can only signal that is coming. Descartes’ second reason why humans are different from animals is that we have “rational flexibility”. By that he means that we have a “capacity for genuine learning” (Quote from Prof. Borman, Friday May 21st). In layman’s terms, we can actually learn things. In comparison, animals find out what things are through repetition. An example of how using these two points separate us from animals is the example of my dog. In regards to point two, where humans can learn things as opposed to animals, my dog had to be repeatedly told what “Treat” was until she understood that it meant she is going to get a treat. That leads me into point one, where humans understand language and animals don’t, that my dog can’t go over to the other dogs and talk about how wonderful her treats are, this is because “treat” is just a signal for her that she is going to get a treat.

Hobbes’ view on the difference between humans and animals has some of the same points as Descartes’. As an example, for both of them language is the big one that separates us from the animals. One of the main differences between Descartes and Hobbes is that Hobbes wants to show that humans are not social; where as for Descartes being social does not matter. Hobbes’ first point is that we as humans compete, he also says that animals compete, but for humans we are specifically after honour and dignity, which in turn leads to war. Hobbes’ second point is that the individual desires of social animals line up exactly with what is good for the group, but for us, humans, our individual desires are for power and superiority. If by chance our individual desires benefit the group in any way Hobbes would say that is purely coincidence and we are only doing that so we can become more superior to our peers. An example of this is philanthropy, the only reason why we do it is to support our individual desires and use it as a sign of power, and not just for the reason of contributing to the group. Hobbes’ third point is that we as human have reason, and that reason allows us to criticize others. At this point in the argument this point by itself does not help the argument much, but when we get to point five, we can see why Hobbes included it. Now, point four, Hobbes’ states that humans have language, and we use that language to lie and manipulate. The fifth point, where Hobbes wraps up his argument, declares that we can be offended, but animals can only be injured. Now we look back to point three, and we see that language allows us to criticize others, and with point five it is shown that we can be offended. In class it was joked that if a dog was hit he would not go and carry a grudge and make a plan to get revenge, but if a human were in that position, we probably would.

If I were to choose whose position is more adequate I would have to choose Descartes’ view on the matter. This is because I don’t agree with Hobbes on the basis that humans are just out to become more powerful, and Descartes does not even touch on power in his argument. Instead, Descartes argues that reason, learning, and language separate us, not for the reason Hobbes put forth, but as an alternative so that humans can be social.

One hour sites

techknowlogick — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 05:22:31 +0000

I become bored very easily and so I must find something to counter that. One thing that I have found to be very helpful is to practice coding. When I am in the mood I feel that challenging myself to make a fully functional site is a great way to sharpen my skills.

My latest project of this nature is Hashle. Hashle is an interesting take on a pre-computed hash DB. What it does is instead of just running through all the possible combinations of letters numbers and every othertype of character, Hashle takes input from the user and adds just those hashes to the DB. This is important because who would use “fsdfshgfh5g756dc45fsfbae” as a password, it is just impractical to calculate all of those passwords that have a very little chance of being used, whereas users can input words that are will most likely used. Also users are more likely to try typing in their password to see what their password would look like as a hash.

If you don’t already know what hashes are you can check out this wonderful video made by the IPTV show Hak.5 here.

You could write a book on this

techknowlogick — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 23:56:14 +0000

I probably should.

So you want to know how to get your site or startup noticed. There are a few things that you should do.

First of all you should find a niche audience. Nothing irritates readers like something that is not relevant to what they need. Then you need to find as many blogs in that niche as possible. Your next step will be to write a proper pitch to all of those blogs. A lot can could be written on writing a proper pitch, but I will leave that up to your discretion. Make sure it is personal, there is nothing worse than a pitch that will annoy someone. Remember not just to pitch big blogs, smaller ones have less people writing to them, and they will want to develop some of their own original content. As well, the smaller ones are more likely to help you out if you are friendly to them. People love to help people who are friendly.

Once you have pitched some blogs, you now have to notify your social network. You have one right? Make sure all of your Facebook friends and twitter followers know what you are up too. Find some areas where users of the other applications like yours join up. These can be locations like Google Groups, IRC, forums, etc. Slowly work you way into their attention. Do not push it, I repeat DO NOT PUSH. People will become hesitant if you force it down their throats. Then you can see if there is a ‘sub-Reddit’ that is specific to your niche. You can find more people to charm there, and you can post links regarding your app. Again, this is a place not to over do it.

One thing you can do to get people interested in your site is stumble into interviews, podcast and more things of that ilk. A lot of people who create those are dying for new and interesting people to talk with, to freshen up their content if it is starting to become stale. Who knows, you might make a great person to interview. A great place to interact with people who could put you into an interview or a podcast are events. Events can be as big as conventions or as small as a meetup with a few people from the industry. When you go to these events you need to make sure you have an elevator pitch handy. An short explanation of an elevator pitch is a short pitch that you can give in the time it takes to ride an elevator. Also, when you go brand yourself from head to toe. In other words wear your schwag with you logo plastered on it. Like before, don’t just focus on the big names, go after those who might use your site and find it interesting, they have pull as well. Don’t stress out though, have a good time, get excited about your site, and people will find you.

If you are proud of how your site looks, and you should be otherwise you are doing something wrong, then get out there. Get on sites that show case design. There are countless ones. Something to remember is that you won’t get the greatest exposure from them, but the more places that link back to you is better than nothing. Who knows something who follows a link from one of those sites might become a big asset for you. Something else you should do for your site is to start a company blog. Make it interesting. Also don’t fake it, in other words don’t rehearse what you are going to say, be candid. You can show of new features, your team or technology. Build up a group of followers. Your followers will make or break you when it comes to posting you to sites like DIGG, Reddit, delicious, etc…

Be nice. When answering support emails do not talk down. Also make sure you respond in a timely manner. Potential users might test you with e-mails, responding quickly and as complete as possible can make the difference between a user or no user. It could even affect the life of your company, if it stays afloat or not. Users will post about their experience on your site to places like DIGG, etc. Try to get your site mentioned, in a positive light, as much as possible. Find reasons to get your site mentioned in tutorials and blog posts. An example would be if your site was about a robot that folded your socks , you need to have tutorials out there that recommend your service. Get those tutorials and posts on to DIGG, etc. If people do write about about your site, promote that content, even if it is not yours. People will more likely believe a positive post about your site if it is not from you, this is because they feel you are biased towards your site, which should be the case.

Big site love exclusives, at least if they are applicable to your site. Some examples of these sites are TechCrunch, ReadWriteWed, etc.. Don’t spam all of them, pick and chose one or two of them, whatever one your can get the best mutual trust with, and offer and exclusive. You have to have a great site if you want this to work.

Write a press release and release it. This will not be much help, but your name will end up with a lot of results in Google. This can make you look bigger than you actually are. You may even get some non-internet coverage if the press release is somewhat decent. This also will be cheap to do. Make sure you know as soon as possible when someone writes about your site. To do this you can follow a twitter search of terms related to your service, do not forget to search you name. You can even do a simple Google search. Respond to these posts ASAP. Comment on their blogs, not in a spammy manner but to get your name out there. Respond to their tweets. It is really easy to do. If someone needs to do something your site offers, you need to be there.

If you are a SaaS site, build a free app that ties into your main service. Make it fun and frilly, let your playful side show. Perhaps it can relate to site that people find interesting. For example if your site makes shoes, perhaps you could create an app that lets people submit customs designs that can be voted on. It will be separate but it has to promote your main site.

To get more ideas on what to do you can read material written by the community. There are a lot of great resources out there. If anyone would like for me to develop these ideas in greater detail, just drop me a line.

Annoying Code

techknowlogick — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 05:52:50 +0000

When I code there are several things that I run into that annoy me so very much. These things will make me foam at the mouth when I see them. Some of them are simple such as errors in tools, such as incorrect syntax highlighting. Where as others are more complex to solve, for example coding for an internet browser that does not conform to standards. *cough*Internet Explorer*cough*. So I have decided to list them off just so that people know what there are and can start to fix the problem before it arises.

Things that annoy me include

-having to code something very complex so that it can preform something simple (hello world can be tough in some languages)

-having to include bloated libraries for just a little part of them (people when you are making libraries BREAK them up into smaller parts)

-internationalization (not everyone has the same spelling of words even if they do speak the same language)

-encoding problems (UTF-8 is great but not for everyone)

-when including a library, that library makes references to another library that does not exist (make libraries self-contained)

-poor/no documentation (don’t be afraid to comment your code)

-legacy code (there is no solution for this problem, unless people want to start coding from scratch everytime they want to update a piece of software)

Most of these things can easily be solved. We just need to stop the problem at its source. It just steams my brocolli at how easy it is to not make these mistakes, but yet the volume of examples that I could show you still exist That however is life, and you have to deal with the bananas that the monkeys throw at you.

Clean up your act

techknowlogick — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 00:15:11 +0000

Every so often my desk becomes a mess. So every so often I need to clean it. Over the years I have found no way to keep my desk from becoming a clutter after a few late night coding sessions. I however have come up with a way to keep my desk as clean as possible for as long as possible.

Step 1: Get rid of paper holders, cup holders and anything of that like.

Step 2: Digitaly record everything that can be, and sort all papers that do not pertain to what is currently important

Step 3: Make two piles of paper, one for unimportant papers and the other for papers that need to be sorted. When something comes your way that in not critical put it in a pile. Do not keep the piles on your desk, put then in a drawer or a cupboard. Paper should not be needed for much, try to keep everything on the computer.

Step 4: Hide you cables or better yet get a mac so you can reduce the overall amount of cables needed.

Step 5: Brighten things up with better lights. Seeing how much of a mess things are might get you to clean more often.

Step 6: Get a stress ball or something that you can play with while you are thinking that will not distract you. I like to chew on my pen, and if my pen were not durable I would have gone through many pens.

When you work with a clean desk things will feel a lot more organized. Only keep things on your desk that are of up most importance. Like I said before, get a mac, they will be less clunky than that desktop of yours.