Archives ‣ August 2006

  1. August 23

    1. Introducing 24Zones!

      24Zones is one of the secret projects that I’ve somewhat half-mentioned in my last post. Last week, I was looking for another reason to dive into Rails when I noticed my dad using a certain other world time site. He likes it because it was a no-fuss way of checking on times in a bunch of places.

      I thought it could use some improvement. First off, the clocks were just static text, so you always had to refresh to get a new time. It also looked like 1996 InterNet, mostly unstyled text and table layouts. I decided it would be fun to build something that was a bit more functional and sophisticated.

      I think you’ll find a lot of interesting decisions on the site: I went with a cl1p-esque non-login scheme to be able to have people using the website right away. I originally thought it would be a good idea to automatically create an account for every visitor and just hand it to them at the root index. I ended up putting up an index page with a link to a new account. This gives a nice positive action to creating an account that is more user-friendly than hoisting one at them. The thing I like about 24Zones is that, at least to me, it’s already a success. My dad now has a nicer clock application he can use for day-to-day work. The hosting and domain costs are almost negligible. I’m really proud of how it looks, and it makes a good addition to my portfolio. If the ads help it turn a profit, then that’s icing on top of all the other good things it’s already done. Let me know what you think!

      EDIT: Ah it seems like Dreamhost and Apis Networks are still fighting over who really is serving the domain. If you see a rails welcome page, then you’re still facing the old servers, please hold!

  2. August 21

    1. What I’m up to…

      There’s a lot coming up in my life in the next couple of weeks. Here’s a sampling of what I’ve been doing these past weeks and months.

      • Travel: I’ve been globetrotting quite heavily since I left Olin. I’ve visited family and friends in Lima, as well as went on a 3-day cruise in the Bahamas. I think I must have spent upwards of a third of my time since graduating somewhere other than home. A lot of moving around without really stopping� is fun but also very exhausting!
      • Projects: My productive time nowadays is spent working on one of several websites I’m either running or developing. I’m teaching myself Rails and working on two “secret” projects that will be launching sometime in the next couple of weeks. In terms of what they actually do they’re kind of simple and straight foward, but they’ll form part of a portfolio of sites that I am building.
      • Fun: The thing I am having lots of fun with right now is a little thing I am doing called Million Linden Prim. It’s a very familiar idea, but it’s really helped me enjoy Second Life a little bit more and provides a focus for making cool things in the game.

      I’m really looking foward to my upcoming St.Louis trip. I’ve made it an unofficial deadline for the two unnamed projects above, so it really helps keep me motivated and productive throughout. It’s only going to be a couple of weeks, but I’m hoping to make a few important connections while I’m in town so that I can start to prepare for a longer stay.