Twitter DM Email Parser Script00:22:15
Aug2
Since I am now my own sysadmin for the various servers I have running, I have forced myself to learn how to setup and administer mailservers on linux boxes. Now that I have that under control, I can also write scripts to parse and interact with incoming/outgoing email. My first such foray into playing with email scripts was to create a Twitter DM parser which strips incoming Direct Message emails from Twitter and re-formats them down to the bare essentials and forwards the resultant information back to my main email address. After that was working, I had the idea to give myself the ability to reply to these emails in order to send a reply DM back to the original sender. This system turns out to be really handy, thus turning Direct Messages into another form of email.
Screenshots and more details follow the jump if you are interested.
Popularity: 99% [?]
The Daily Commute02:57:54
Jul5
I realize I have not made a substantial post in a while. Nothing substantial has really happened except that I have been working a ton of hours and have been making great progress toward launching my first product. There should be several interesting announcements to make in the next couple of weeks, but tonight I would like to write about a realization I made recently.
I like to drive my car. A lot. In fact, I have wanted to take a “driving vacation” to drive the whole length of the Blue Ridge Parkway and back again over the course of several days. It would be really cool to somehow sync up GPS data of my car and make a Google Maps mashup to track me as I drive. I could add pictures I take of overlooks and other points of interest and upload them to appear on the map in real-time (though cell coverage may be spotty along the parkway). Anyway, the time required and the price of gas have been prohibitive to this little adventure. I would also like to take my car on a racetrack, but that’s another story.
I like to drive my car for two reasons:
- It’s fun to drive a stick (yes, I am an unabashed snob about manual transmissions).
- I am able to clear my mind and let it wander to think about things without the constant distractions encountered elsewhere.
This second point is important. Being isolated in a car (without the interruptions from email, television, breaking news, twitter, other people, and a myriad of other such things that are now constantly demanding our attention) is a great time to just think. An added bonus of driving is that it forces you to focus on doing exactly one thing – driving. For instance, I cannot write any code or compose an email while I am driving. For safety’s sake, I do not text message on the road, and I try not to talk on the phone either, but I will when necessary.
The great outcome of this situation is that I can use this time to think about different ideas, projects, or problems without being able to take any immediate action against them. For example, I may have a problem I need to solve in my code somewhere. If I were sitting in front of my computer, I would think about it until I thought I had a solution and would then proceed to write the code. In the car I can think, “Well, that’s one way to solve it. Are there others? How do they compare?” I can refactor the ideas in my head until I have a much better solution than my initial idea. Then, when I finally arrive at a computer, I can put the idea into action.
The daily commute to and from work each day would provide me the requisite amount of time in my car to untangle the knots in my brain. On the way to work I would concentrate on tasks I was doing at my job. On the way home I would concentrate on my own personal projects. I had a job one summer in Atlanta which was about a 20 mile commute each way in and out of downtown. I did a lot of thinking that summer.
Well, seven weeks ago I ceased to have a daily commute when I resigned from my job and started this whole self-employment adventure. In fact, I hardly drive my car anymore. When I wake up in the morning, I have a 20 foot commute to my home office and the day starts. When I am done with the day, I have a 20 foot commute to bed. In between waking and sleeping I am constantly distracted by a hundred things.
Now, keep in mind that when I started working at home I did not appreciate the significance of having this driving-thinking time on a regular basis. After a few weeks my mind felt like a mess. There were too many things all jumbling around inside and nothing seemed to be getting sorted out the way I liked.
I am in a funk rock band with (now former) co-workers. We rehearse on Wednesday nights at the drummer’s house which is about a 30 mile drive each way for me. One particular Wednesday I was having a rough time figuring out how to implement my product so that it would scale once it begins to grow. I thought about it all morning and all afternoon, coding one solution after another with no real success. Frustrated, I left for band rehearsal. I got into my car and just drove. About half way there my mind started to wander freely and explore new thoughts about my scaling issues. This time I could not just simply throw code at it and see if it stuck. It was at this moment that it dawned on me what was happening. On the drive home that night I spent more time thinking about the problem and arrived at an idea that I thought would actually hold water. The next morning I woke up and put the idea into action. By the end of the day I had a fully scalable solution in place, and since then I haven’t been able to think of a better one. I may still, but for now it works exactly like I need it to work.
I know this sounds crazy, but I miss my daily commute. I could just get in my car and drive in a big loop for an hour each day, but somehow I don’t see that going over well with my budget or the tree-huggers. At this point (seven weeks in) I am using rehearsals as my “weekly commute” to do the really hard thinking. I know I need to find a more regular substitute, something on a daily basis that will isolate me from distractions where I can just think. Perhaps sitting on the couch for 30 minutes in the morning and night with nothing but a pad of paper and a pen will do the trick. When I find a viable solution I will let you know. Maybe I should do some driving to figure it out.
What do you do to just let yourself think?
Popularity: 40% [?]
Cryptonomicon23:13:30
Jun3
I don’t read a lot of books.
Most of the books I have read are technical manuals, programming books, science textbooks, and math textbooks. I really enjoy learning, and there’s nothing like a good physical book to teach me. I don’t usually like to read fiction because in my mind it seems like my time would be better spent learning something else. I also don’t read a lot of non-fiction because most non-fiction texts are based on history, a subject I sorely neglected in favor of math and science.
I pride myself in being a pretty big nerd, but I will risk losing major nerd points by openly admitting that I have not read nearly any of the essentially nerdy SciFi books that all nerds are assumed to have read. The only ones I can think of straight away that I have read are Ender’s Game and Watchmen. I read Ender’s Game about 9 years ago, and I honestly enjoyed it a lot. I meant to read the rest of the series, but I never made time for it. I just read Watchmen this year right before the movie came out. I also really enjoyed reading that (along with the movie, which did a great job staying true to the source).
So, clearly I can enjoy reading fiction, it’s just that I don’t take time to do it. I think it stems from being forced to read countless books in school, most of which I did not enjoy (there were a few exceptions – Catcher in the Rye being the most notable one). I kind of got turned off by the idea of investing a lot of time in something I might not like.
About a month ago, I took a trip to California and stayed with my aunt, uncle, and three cousins. My uncle has recently started a company of his own (with a few partners). He is a brilliant business man, and I have a lot of respect for his insights.
My uncle, one of my cousins, and I took a trip to a bookstore. I wanted to get a book about Scala (a semi-new programming language). While I perused the Programming section, my uncle directed my cousin over to the Children’s Fantasy section (which was adjacent to the Science Fiction section). After discovering that they did not have my book in stock, I wandered over to meet my uncle. He was walking up and down the SciFi aisle pointing out to his son the books he had read and how great they were. This left me a little confused. My uncle is a History major and works in the finance industry. When (and more importantly, why?!) had he read all of these SciFi books? I never quite got the answer because before I could ask, he was quizzing me on the books that I had read (incidentally, he had lent me that copy of Ender’s Game I read). After about my fifth embarrassed reply of “No” to his “Have you read … ?” questions, he gave me the familiar incredulous glance I have come to expect from fellow nerds who learn my dirty little secret.
“You really should read these books!”
For some reason, this assertion really struck a chord with me. If he, a very busy (and successful) businessman, could make the time to read all of these classics, then so should I. It was at that point that I decided to start then and there. I bought two books: Foundation by Isaac Asimov, and Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson.
Foundation was at my uncle’s suggestion, and Cryptonomicon I picked of my own choosing. I am a huge cryptography nut, and I had heard of Cryptonomicon several times since its release and thought now is when I would finally read it.
Each day since I started out on my own, I have forced myself to take one or two ten-minute breaks and read a few pages. So far I am up to page 215 (out of 1100 or so), and (surprise!) I am really enjoying it. There is a big focus on World War II era cryptography, which is very cool because the Enigma machine was something of great interest to me, and I have done lots of research on it out of pure curiosity. There is also a story line about two guys starting their own company in the information technology business. This was a happy coincidence, and it has been fun to follow along with their story line as my days progress.
In the end, will my new found desire to read more books be worth my time? I do think so, though I’m not quite sure why yet. If nothing else, it has been nice to take a couple short breaks during the day to let my mind concentrate on something else, if only for a short while.
Oh, and even though I haven’t finished it yet, I highly recommend Cryptonomicon.
Popularity: 36% [?]
No Thurs or Fri Summaries… Yet.23:20:59
Jun0
Between working 16 hours yesterday and battling The War on TweetGrid today, I am wiped out. The two days are full of interesting things to report, but I am just too exhausted to do them justice by writing about them at the moment.
Tomorrow I will be attending WordCampRDU. I might pick up a few good bits of advice for this blog. I have done lots of WordPress codex hacking in the past, so it will be fun to see what’s presented during the camp. It will also be nice to meet up with some friends in the area and have some human interaction.
I plan to give a recap of the past few days when I am a little more coherent. I just didn’t want my loyal readers to think that I vanished 
Popularity: 54% [?]
How I Will Respond To Comments12:43:29
Jun3
As previously stated, I will be responding to comments along the way, especially ones with questions. I have seen few other authors do a lot of responding, so I didn’t have a lot of examples on which to draw for the mechanism by which to do it.
One way is for me to create a new comment and reply to the user by starting it with “@ Name – blah blah blah.” I never liked this format because if you are another reader coming to the page to read the comments, the conversation looks completely fragmented. You would have to scroll up to see who exactly I am addressing. Also, if you were the one asking the question, you would have to read every single comment below yours to see if maybe I responded.
I think instead, a better way is to manually edit the original comment and insert the reply immediately following. For example, see my response to Bryan’s question on the “Day 1″ post. This way the question/answer are immediately paired and you (as the person posing the question, and also as an interested reader) know exactly where to look for the response.
What do you think? Is this a good system?
Popularity: 48% [?]
My Grandfather’s Computer11:00:58
Jun0
When I was very young, my dad bought a computer for the family. I remember being immediately attracted to it. I also remember my dad explaining to my feable mind that this was some sort of brand new “technology” (whatever that meant) and that we were very lucky to have one. I started learning how to navigate around DOS and started programming in BASIC when I was 8… but I digress.
One day, shortly after the arrival of the new computer, we took a trip to my grandparent’s house. As they started to ask the usual “What’s new?” questions, I rambled on and on about the computer and how neat it was. My grandfather looked at me and laughed.
Then he asked, “Do you want to see my computer?”
“Sure!” I said.
“I’ve had it for 30 years, and it’s sitting right on my desk!”
Now, this confused me since I was sure my dad has just told us that computers were a very new thing. My grandfather led me to his study which contained a very well-stocked book shelf, a large wooden desk with a lamp, and a high-back leather chair pulled up next to it. I certainly did not see any computer.
“Where is it?”
“There on the desk, go and see.”
I walked up closer and hopped up into the chair. The desk’s surface was devoid of anything except for the lamp and a legal pad with a felt tipped pen sitting neatly beside it.
“That’s it!” he said.
The legal pad had many pages torn off of it. The date was written on the top line followed by “TODO” written in block letters beneath. Below that was a whole list of things he was going to do that day; some of them already had check marks beside them. He certainly was a busy guy!
“This is my computer,” he joked. “Every day I tear off the top page, copy over everything I didn’t get done the day before, and create my new list. It’s a great system.”
You know what? He wasn’t lying. It wasn’t until several years later, but eventually I started using the exact same system for my daily routine (both on legal pads and electronically). I am hoping to incorporate the system on this blog. You may have already noticed a couple ToDo lists floating around here. I have a private copy of my official ToDo list that nobody else can see, but I think by making some of the items publicly viewable that it will a) keep me accountable for actually completing the tasks, and b) give some insight into the activities performed by starting a company.
I suppose that in an era when personal computers were used for little more than basic word processing and spreadsheets, considering a legal pad with a ToDo list to be the equivelent of a computer wasn’t too far off. To this day I have a certain respect for legal pads and the fond memories of going to visit my grandfather and his computer.
Popularity: 54% [?]
JazzyChad Network, LLC09:00:32
Jun0
As you can probably tell from the title, I have decided to name my company JazzyChad Network, LLC. Yes, that’s Network singular, not plural. I filed the official Articles of Organization with the state a couple weeks ago, and they were officially put on file with the Secretary of the State of North Carolina on May 27, 2009, which just happens to be my birthday. So, my company and I can grow old together.
What’s in a name? I’ve already been using the tagline “This site is part of the JazzyChad Network” on the footer of my various websites strewn about the net, and I already had http://jazzychad.net/ stating as much, so I figured I would just make the name/brand official. Right now the site does not look very official, but eventually it will.
So, what exactly will I be doing with the JazzyChad Network? I have several ideas for “Software as a Service” (or SaaS, for short) products that I have been mulling around in my brain for several years. Each product will have its own identity/brand, and will most likely be labeld as “Acme Widget Product – A Subsidiary of JazzyChad Network, LLC.” So, in effect, I am using the LLC as a parent company for the different products/services I will be creating. This also has the added bonus of being able to sell off a product/service (if I should be so lucky) and still retain my company name.
What’s first in the hopper? Many of you probably know that I have been an active participant in the Twitter developer community for the last two years or so. Along the way I have dreamed up several Twitter related services that I think have lots of added value over the millions of free apps already out there, and I think people/companies would be willing to pay for them. This may sound like an incredibly crazy idea, and it probably is. Twitter itself has no business model, and to date they have pulled in exactly $0.00 in revenue. I learned at an early age to diversify my portfolio (thanks to my 3rd grade teacher letting my class play the Stock Market Game), so I am in no way banking my entire startup venture on building some services on top of Twitter. Do I think they have a large upside? Absolutely. But, I also have several other completely non-Twitter related services lined up should my first few attempts crash and burn (or worse yet, should Twitter vanish or otherwise cut off developers from their API).
I am not quite ready to fully disclose the nature of my first project(s), but when they are getting closer to actual launch they will be discussed here first.
What do you think of this plan? Good? Bad? Ugly? Let me know!
Popularity: 37% [?]
Welcome To Bootstrap’d08:00:48
Jun1
Hello, and welcome to Bootstrap’d – the chronicle of my journey into the wonderful world of creating a startup!
My name is Chad Etzel, and I have decided to do something incredibly insane: quit my awesome, corporate, salaried, full-benefits jobs and start my own company. Why? Because, creating and running my own company is something I have been inspired to do since I was a little kid. Don’t ask me how, but when I was a child I got this crazy notion that when I grew up I wanted to have my own software company. I never imagined I would be attempting to do it so soon after becoming a “grown up” – but there you have it.
After announcing to the world that I would be starting my own business, I had a lot of interest from friends and family about what exactly I would be doing. I polled them and asked if I were to maintain a blog of my new venture, would they read along? The answer was overwhelmingly “YES!” So, this blog has been created for your benefit as well as mine. Hopefully, it will benefit you by my writing, and perhaps I will post a few nuggets of value (and you can learn from my mistakes, of which I’m sure there will be many). It will benefit me as a creative outlet and serve as a break from the work side of things. It will also be a nice way for me to track progress so I can look back and see how far (or short!) I’ve come since starting.
Why “Bootstrap’d”? Well, I am attempting to “bootstrap” my company, which means that I will be using my own money to fund my business and not use any outside investor funding. That is the goal, anyway. It may come to a point where I need to ask for funding, and maybe then I will have to change the title to just “Strap’d”. Time will tell.
I fully intend for this to be an interactive blog, by which I mean that I fully encourage and appreciate comments. I will try my very best to respond to each comment which contains questions. It always irks me when authors of blogs don’t bother to respond to their readers; I find it quite rude, in fact. I am hoping to not be one of those people, so please feel free to comment on anything and everything.
The next few posts will give some background info and actually describe what my business will be, so please keep on reading!
Well, here goes nothing…. wish me luck!
Popularity: 38% [?]