This post and my simplified webdesign was inspired by this post Start With Words .
I've decided that my days of configuring, updating, and maintaing my WP site on the weekends are over. I am hav moved to a static blog format!
I have had severalfriends who haved moved off from self-managed Wordpress sites to Jekyll.
My reasoning is that I'm tired of updating my blog software, I am bored of wordpress bloat, and I wanted to learn something new.
Jekyll Rears it's Head
Jekyll, is software that compiles pages into a set of static files. It all happens on my machine. I either sync it to github, pull it down on server (via a webhook), and compile or copy it over.
Dangerous
I know just enough ruby to be dangerous. I think that's all that is needed.
I used jekyll to run doge4water's website. I realized how easy it is to build html by hand. Writing posts in markdown is much more raw and feels closer to the metal. I want to extend the same power to the rest of my work.
Projects
I have several data driven projects in the works. I plan on releasing a couple projects. Since the data on these sites is unlikely to change frequently I can use Jekyll to generate a static site.
I recently shut down simplehoney's free wishlist service and mobile app. I tried my best to get word out that the service was going down. However, a month after taking the servers offline, users continue to send us messages trying to get their wishlists to load or find out what happened to their data long after we took down the servers. As CTO and co-founder I wish I had handled it better.
If you ever find yourself in a position where you are deciding to shutter your service, be it an acquisition or simply because you decide it's time to take the service down, here are some tips:
Host a static copy of your site
For all public facing data you should generate a static version of the content. This allows users to access their content long after your service is taken down, but without the need to keep an entire infrastructure online.
I suggest using Jekyll to create versions of your website that can work as simple static files.
For us, we ratcheted down our services from larger Amazon instances to smaller instances over time. However, a static site could be hosted on small instances and minimal hardware (I am a big fan of Joyent micro instances, they can serve many thousands of pages an hour).
Basic steps for generating a static site:
Generate a sitemap of all public facing pages
Start a fork of your code base and modify your presentation and navigation code so that the site works as a series of html files
Traverse your sitemap and pipe the urls to curl or wget to generate the static pages.
Store all images on a small or singular instance machine. Try to keep file hierarchy to one or two folders deep.
Install caching using Varnish to prevent an unexpected surge in traffic
Try to be Self sustaining
If you've built a consumer site, hosting static files gives you a secondary benefit by allowing the site to continue generating affiliate or ad revenues. This can hopefully allow generating enough revenue to keep the minimal site running.
Backup user data
For each user in your database, export all their data in a simple format (JSON). Zip it up and store it securely for the duration of the holding period.
Try to host the data for more than 60-90 days
Once the service is switched to static files, you can host it for a fairly long time.
In 6 months or so, the site will generate little to no traffic and you can finally switch the server off.
If your product is cyclical, then try to hang around for at least a one full year cycle.
Having launched on Black Friday last year many of our users will begin contacting us trying to gain access to their wishlists.
Clean up the database
Once all user data has been exported and prepared for the users, you should delete and destroy all user identification, personal information, and data that is tied to a user's identity.The remaining data could then be used for postmortem analysis and might even become the basis for a new idea.
Final thoughts
As founders I hope you learn from my lesson and err on the side of the helping the user access their data.
We had over a million products in our database, tens of thousands of searches, and hundreds of thousands of products wished for.
It was a a lot of fun to build, and I hope people give me another chance to build stuff they love.
Have you ever shut down a SaaS or consumer product? How did it go? Is it still running?
Japan is fun. Planning ahead will help you get the most out of the trip. If you are going shopping for clothes try to figure out what your style is. Japanese have a store for everything, for every interest, for every fetish. Study up on what you want. Find stores to visit. And plot them so you can visit and see it all.
Visiting each town can often take up your entire day. Food is pretty easy to come by. There is nothing wrong with drinking soft drinks from vending machines or eating from a Lawson/AMPM/711.
This Tokyo Guide covers all the major parts of Tokyo.
Asakusa #1DAY
Visit the giant lantern.
Eat a taiyaki (fish shaped pastry filled with sweet bean [anko]).
Have your fortune told.
Throw a coin into the temple donation box, clap your hands.
Akihabara #1DAY
Walk through Tokyo's world famous electronics town. Lots to see.
Shibuya - #1+DAY(S)
Find the Starbucks across street from station where you can people watch. The Shibuya crossing is one of my strongest memories of Tokyo.
Visit a Depa-to. Department stores can be 3-9+ levels dedicated specifically to many types of fashion. Many depato is actually a collection of smaller stores within it.
My personal favorite's for men are Takashimaya, Marui (OIOI), Isetan, but it's hard to go wrong with any. The most famous one is Shibuya 109. Almost all major depato serve food, groceries, and gifts (omiyage) in the basement. Some of the best food stuff can be found here. (Ginza and nearby Omotesando are the hi-fashion capitals.)
If you like clothes shopping, then you could easily spend lots of time here. Before you travel, go to Japan Town. Kinokuniya sells japanese men's fashion magazines (Stuff like LEON, Men's Ex). That will get you caught up on what may be sold -- showing the sales person a particular style will help you find the right stores.
Ueno #HALFDAY
Yamashiroya - This is an amazing toy store. They carry everything from domokun to ghibli. Nearly any sort of collectible can be found here. There is one in Ueno, right across the street from the train station.
Harajuku #1DAY
Street fashion. The streets are full of stalls selling street clothes. Everyone will dress up.
Shinjuku #DAY/NIGHT
Stay a night at the Park Hyatt Tokyo - $$$$ ($4-600USD/nt) -- but you get to live it up like Bob-san. Have a drink and dinner at the top of the hotel. There is an amazing restaurant with a killer cut of Kobe, and beautiful view. There is a really good dessert store. If you plan ahead you might be able to pull a reservation eating in the kitchen.
Odaiba #1DAY
Giant Ferris Wheel - There are lots of museums, and tourist attractions, you can also catch ferry/boat rides around.
Other places to visit:
Tokyo Sky Tree - the newest tower.
Tokyo-Edo museum - history of japan.
Other random things to do:
Roppongi! Go here with people who know the area. Have fun. But be careful.
Eat at a street fair - try: okonomiyaki, yakisoba noodles, corn, takoyaki
Visit a pill capsule hotel.
Ride the subway at night. Look out the window and try to spot the love hotels.
Notice the songs that play on the subway.
Eat fresh bread at a train station.
Karaoke bar with some new friends.
Wander the streets until trains stop running? You just might have to catch a taxi back to your hotel ($100).
Order food from a vending machine restaurant: Pay outside. Bring in ticket. Pass to waiter. Hot food ready to eat is made for you.
It got me to remembering how as a child there were an endless amount of steps to take. And that finishing too quickly and not showing your work was viewed upon almost like cheating.
We all live in the same world where time passes by at a constant speed. When we are younger or when we are fully engaged and in the zone time slows. I think itis this perception of time or ability to perceive time faster than 1:1 that helps some excel.
I feel that with the internet, kids today are given almost limitless resources. At the click of a button they could be learning anything from higher level mathematics and astrophysics, biology, finance, poetry, or philosophy. And yet they very often find themselves defaulting to watching youtube videos, using their phones to play games or Facebook, or window shopping for things they don't need. What a waste!
As a kid I taught myself how to program. The speed I learned was bound by the how fast I could acess information like game source code and tutorials (4800 bps) or by how fast I could get responses to my questions on C++ from people on usenet (1-2 days). Compared to today's real time responses, that is a glacial pace. At this very moment, a person can learn how to code a simple web app, host it somewhere for free, and launch it in less than a day. There is a slow transition of people from strictling being consumers to being makers. The gifted self-select and the cycle perpetuates so that only a few individuals stand out.
Are the vast resources of the internet, then, wasted on the young? If it is possible that there can be no speed limit, then why is it still the case that only a subset of teenagers and young adults actually engage in expanding their minds at feverish paces? At "achieving" great things? Why is it so rare and delightful to find someone engaged, driven, and bright? I'm still missing the full picture, but I believe that the solution exists with more community involvement via mentorship, peer teaching, and educators being more sensitive to allowing students to reach the upper bound of their ability to learn.
I think we need to start valuing impatience.
I'm trying to write more frequently. When posts get past a couple paragraphs I find myself spending lots of time revising posts that often get ditched in the drafts box. For the following weeks I want to work on posting shorter, free-flow reflections that are longer than a tweet, shorter than an essay, but still long enough to be a blog post.
Inside was what appeared to be a functional Zip disk drive.
I hadn't seen one of these since college ca. 2000.
I have lived all over the pacific rim: Honolulu, Seattle, Tokyo, LA, San Francisco. Throughout all of those destinations, I have kept a keepsake box. In that box I've had an old Zip disk.
The mysterious disk!
I have been dying to find out what has been on this disk... Is it the first MUD I hacked to pieces? The first chat server I wrote in highschool? My first HTML pages or my 3D art made in Clarisworks ca 1997?
Anyway, I snagged the drive. Jogged back home. Wiped it down with some clorox wipes. Let it dry then plugged the device in.
The drive
It lights up!
Disk goes in
Drive reading the ancient disk.
Success! The disk shows up on my machine, labeled by college years
UNFORTUNATELY, The contents of the disk were not what I had expected. I found I had erased my project files and used it as some sort of data shuttle from my college job running a computer lab.
Good news, though. You can borrow the drive by requesting it here on Neighborgoods.
Update: I ran data recovery tools on the disk, however I was again unable to recover any old code projects. Time to go through my old 1.44mb disks!
Update: A friend suggested that this experiment isn't entirely honest because helping someone and the feeling associated with helping someone can be seen as an intrinsic reward. However, the spirit of this experiment mainly to consciously put myself in a position where I am not hoping or expecting to be owed a future favor.
After reading this post "Why You Should Give Before You Get" I decided to start a new personal project to test the validity of helping people without expectations.
I call the project: "No Future Favors" or NFF for short. The end goal of this project is to successfully connect people, give helpful feedback or advice, or simply do something that someone asks without expecting anything in return.
I will:
Introduce you to someone you want to meet (assuming I know them)
Give constructive and honest feedback on a product or idea you have
Simply do something you ask me to do (as long as it doesn't include hurting someone, potentially getting injured or hurt, or buying something).
This #100kidea is an personal exercise for generating and sharing possibly zany ideas. It allows you to look at a problem and come up with a hypothesis for further exploration.
PokeIt
Problem: Men want to pop a zit, or pop out a blackhead without using dirty fingers.
Solution: A device you could use on your face, or back to remove a blackhead, or pierce an ingrown/infected pore after shaving. single use, sterilized. use once then toss.
Business model: Sell the devices in a 10 pack for $3.99
Oh God I'm Starving - 4HB Edition
Problem: People on 4HB diets are sick of eating mexican food day in and day out. We already eat egg whites and lentils, give us one attempt at eating something different.
Solution: An iPhone app that lists the 5 nearest restaurants that serve low-carb meals, mexican restaurants are enabled if nothing is found nearby. Pulls in yelp reviews, open table if needed. Analyzes menus of top restaurants and provides a %-indicator of chance a person on slow-car/low-carb diet could find something to eat.
Business model: none
Wi-Tape
Problem: Measuring body composition changes with a normal measuring tape is a slow process, has no digital method for analyzing data without first being typed in/written down, and is a big pain in the ass.
Solution: A measuring tape that wirelessly records body measurements. would measure body parts in succession: right arm, left arm, chest inflated, deflated, thinnest part of waist, widest part of waist, over belly button, over hips, right thigh, left thigh. This information would be combined with a withings scale and graphed visually to show body composition trends -- a picture of a human body/torso would show green/red body parts where measurements have increased/decreased. Users would be able to set whether growth or reduction was positive/negative -- waist: shrink = positive/green, biceps = grow = positive. Work with a company like Orbi-tape. USB and Wifi enabled. Would also have a measurement averaging system (MAS) -- the system would work by taking a series of measurements over 3 seconds, remove 10% highest and lowest deltas (tension on the measurement apparatus) and then provide the filtered number.
Business model: Get the device built for <40$, patent the MAS and process. Produce the units in China. After successive branding campaign, white label the technology or sell units for 79.99 1 mm increments, and sell a pro version with finer measurement increments of 0.1mm, stretch-resistant tape, and a built-in measurement averaging system. Make a deal with Withings corporation and license technology, synchronize with their apps.
Recancel
Problem: People hate looking over their credit card bills. Hidden within a household's credit card statements are at least two recurring payments that could be removed or reduced. Analyzing, calculating how much could be saved, and the process of canceling these subscriptions is a time consuming task.
Solution: An iPhone app that analyzes all your credit card bills and tell you what recurring charges you have, the frequency of the charge, the amount of the charge (or average), and provide a button you could click to cancel it if refunds are pro-rated -- or schedule to cancel it 7 days before end of next billing cycle. Would be useful to track down wasted subscriptions for people who don't pore over their credit card bills with a magnifying glass. Results are shown in $ you will save if you cancel right now, estimated time it will take to cancel via customer service: ex: "Save 300$ by end of year by spending 25 minutes via phone".
Business model: Recancel makes a 4.99 fee by canceling on behalf of you. Credit card analysis is free for first credit card, 4.99 for next 3.
LazyWalker
****Problem: Walking around a hilly city is good for your health. But sometimes you're tired, carrying something heavy, or just plain lazy.
Solution: An iPhone app that, given a departure and destination will show you the route that requires the least amount of energy. Would have two options for results: by least energy required, best suggested route. Best suggested route would suggest the lowest energy routes, while still having the route make general progress in the direction of the destination.
Business model: Makes money via the Lazy Adnetwork, all those super lazy gadgets you see on tv that you think no one would be lazy enough to buy... well, these users might.
A 100k idea, not something meant to make anyone insanely rich. It's an idea for solving a problem that I see. If you build it. Please send me an early invite. I'm going to try to post up a 100k idea each week.
Grandmas love sending email forwards, inspirational photos, powerpoints (wtf?), religious stuff, stuff about supporting our troops. So why not give them a place to do this?
Introducing GrandmaMail: The world's most simple email system, with over 50,000 forwardable emails baked-in.
Four simple functions:
A simple large-button UI built for grandma's who wear reading glasses.
A gigantic gallery of forwardable emails : cat pictures, dog pictures, religious forwards, uplifting quotes. You sign your grandma up for categories she likes and she'll get a new email each day from each category.
WRITE and SEND - Would function like any normal email editor. Except everything is in large text. A super simple photo adder, with a search bar, and giant photos they click and it gets added.
OOPS button - Undoes whatever they just did, and explains what it undid in simple english.
SOS - Sends an alert to the Techie Grandchild, daughter-in-law whoever is the families go-to computer person. This sends an IM, and email with a link that lets you see the exact screen your Grandma is on. It's like a screenshare of their email where you can guide your grandma and make whatever change/fix is needed.
GrandmaMail offers a safe environment: blocks out all types of email scams that prey on grandmas/grandpas like Nigerian princes, people in distress, anything that could even be considered fishy.
Advanced pay features:
Smart block: a filter that prevents forwarded mails from being sent to you. Only legitimate written mails make it out of the system.
A schedule and visual indicator on your Grandma's mail that lets her know you're available for SOS (free users ALWAYS get emailed when they're grandmas click SOS).
Update:
New features: Automatic Snopes true/false analysis.
The drive
It lights up!
Disk goes in
Drive reading the ancient disk.
Success! The disk shows up on my machine, labeled by college years