Steve Betts' Weblog

Watch these

Fri, 27 Apr 2007 17:20:10 GMT

I'm watching the Democratic candidates debate on MSNBC.

All the candidates sound excellent, if not presidential, the kind of people I'd like to see as Cabinet members. A refreshing change.

However, to make an informed vote, to even understand the context that the United States exists in today and in the near future, we need a lot more information about terrorism and the war in Iraq. Luckily, PBS has produced an excellent series that's eye-opening, and fills in a lot of blanks in the picture that's been created for us by the press and government.

You can download all 11 episodes via BitTorrent, and I highly recommend we all do that, watch the shows, talk about them on our blogs. Let's have a great discussion about the future of our country, and have an equally great election in 2008.

And if you get something out of these programs, as I'm sure you will, please give generously to your local PBS station.

Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10, part 11.

[Scripting News]

Things to remember about a startup

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 12:26:44 GMT

15 Startup Commandments.

Your idea isn't new. Pick an idea; at least 50 other people have thought of it. Get over your stunning brilliance and realize that execution matters more.
Stealth startups suck. You're not working on the Manhattan Project, Einstein. Get something out as quickly as possible and promote the hell out of it.
If you don't have scaling problems, you're not growing fast enough.
If you're successful, people will try to take advantage of you. Hope that you're in that position, and hope that you're smart enough to not fall for it.
People will tell you they know more than you do. If that's really the case, you shouldn't be doing your startup.
Your competition will inflate their numbers. Take any startup traffic number and slash it in half. At least.
Perfection is the enemy of good enough. Leonardo could paint the Mona Lisa only once. You, Bob Ross, can push a bug release every 5 minutes because you were at least smart enough to do a web app.
The size of your startup is not a reflection of your manhood. More employees does not make you more of a man (or woman as the case may be).
You don't need business development people. If you're successful, companies will come to you. The deals will still be distractions and not worth doing, but at least you're not spending any effort trying to get them.
You have to be wrong in the head to start a company. But we have all the fun.
Starting a company will teach you what it's like to be a manic depressive. They, at least, can take medication.
Your startup isn't succeeding? You have two options: go home with your tail between your legs or do something about it. What's it going to be?
If you don't pay attention to your competition, they will turn out to be geniuses and will crush you. If you do pay attention to them, they will turn out to be idiots and you will have wasted your time. Which would you prefer?
Startups are not a democracy. Want a democracy? Go run for class president, Bueller.
You're doing a web app, right? This isn't the 1980s. Your crummy, half-assed web app will still be more successful than your competitor's most polished software application.

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Startupping is a community for Internet entrepreneurs.

[Startupping Blog]

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 21:05:29 GMT

Improve Your Blog's Reach With These 20 Essential Web Utilities.

Youâ€™ve spent hours setting up your blog on your favorite blog platform just right. Good for you! So how do you maintain your blog so that it remains at the top of its game?

It turns out, there are a large number of free web utilities useful for improving your blogâ€™s effectiveness outside of your blog engine.

Everytime I come across one of these useful utilities, I bookmark it to my Blog Utilities folder. This folder is my blogger utility belt, full of tools to meet every need when composing blog posts or optimizing my site for bandwidth and speed.

Iâ€™ve chosen to focus on web utilities as they are quick and easy to use â€” no installation required. This is not a comprehensive list by far, as I am sure there are many others out there. Let me know what I missed in the comments.

Optimization

The first three tools in this category are all website speed testers, but each offers something different, so Iâ€™ve listed them all.

Web Page Analyzer - This tool is fairly comprehensive and may be the only one you really need for website speed analysis. Includes stats on every file and object downloaded and provides approximate download times for different connection rates.
OctaGate Site Timer - I didnâ€™t find this one to be as accurate as the first one because it attempted to download images referenced in my CSS files that were commented out. However, it provides a nicer graphical output that marks when the request was started, when it connected, and the time when the first and last bytes were received. It also highlights 404 errors in red, which is handy for finding missing files or bad URLs.
HttpZip Compression Checker - Use this to check whether files from your website are being served with HTTP Compression on or off. Thanks to Jeff Atwood for pointing me to this one (among others).
Dynamic Drive Online Image Optimizer - if youâ€™re hardcore about your image compression, you should check out Ken Silvermanâ€™s Utility Page. But if youâ€™re like me and just want a quick and easy web based utility for compressing images, this is your site. It can convert gif, jpg, and png files up to 300kb. It will also do conversions to other image types and display multiple results at various color levels and compression rates so you can pick the best one for your needs.
Javascript Minimizer - This is an extremely simple tool. Paste in your javascript and click the button and reduce the size of your javascripts.
CSS Minimizer - Just like the Javascript minimizer, but for Cascading Style Sheets.

Statistics and Search Engine Optimization

Get a handle on your web traffic with these sites.

Website Grader - Gives your website a score in an attempt measure its effectiveness. Shows your PageRank, meta info, domain info, technoratic stats, etc... It generates a really neat report card for your blog.
Google Webmaster Central - An absolute essential tool for those who care about users finding their site via Google. Especially pay attention to the Webmaster tools which include Sitemap support.
Google Analytics - A free and full featured analytics package for your blog or website. Add some javascript to your page template and youâ€™re in information overload land, but done up with nice charts and graphs.
103bees Search traffic analysis - Unlike other stats packages, this one is focused purely on natural search engine traffic analytics. What are users searching for when they land on your site? This is a nice complement to Google Analytics. And itâ€™s free! One caveat is that the script can be slow sometimes, which can play havoc with CSS based designs.
Technorati - Itâ€™s so obvious, I almost forgot to list it. Register, claim your blog, and find out who is linking to you. You can add a little script to your blog that displays how many other posts link to yours.
Alexa.com - The beauty of this site is that you can easily compare your websiteâ€™s reach with several other websites on a single graph, thus starting a huge pissing contest.

Spicing Up Your Posts With Images

Wikipedia Public Domain Image Resources - Images can bring a blog post to life. But rather than worrying about receiving a cease and desist letter for misusing copyrighted material, why not use images that are part of the Public Domain? This page is chock full of links to resources for free images.
PicFindr - Despite itâ€™s â€œOh so Web 2.0â€� name (must everything end in a consonant plus â€œrâ€� these days? At least it doesnâ€™t have BETA anywhere), this tool is really great. It will search a set of free photo sites such as Stock.xchng, for free photographs.
Flickr Creative Commons - Still havenâ€™t found that picture that just hits the point youâ€™re trying to make? Try the Flickr Creative Commons search engine. Remember, these photos are not public domain. You do need to abide by the license. But for the most part, the licenses are pretty lenient for you to reuse the photos in your own blog.
Open Clip Art Library - Maybe you want your image to be iconic rather than photographic. Check out this free Public Domain clip art library to find an icon for every occasion.
WP Clipart - Another Public Domain clip art library, though the quality tends to be less than the Open Clip Art Library.

Create and Improve Your Content

Cliche Finder - Try to avoid using too many tired old cliches by running your post through this web based utility.
HallwayTesting.com - This is a fantastic site for basic hallway usability testing. Just submit your URL and real people will post comments with criticisms and praise for your site. The more specific you are about what you want testers to focus on, the better quality the feedback. Try it out.

Syndication

FeedBurner - This one gets special mention because it fits in so many categories. Itâ€™ll help optimize your bandwidth by serving your RSS feeds for you. Also, it includes a basic free stats package as well as a premium stats package that can replace Google Analytics. FeedBurner can also provide features your blogging platform might not, such as subscribing to RSS Feeds via email.

Special Mention

As I mentioned before, this post is focusing on web utilities. However, these two utilities are so essential, I just had to break my own rule and list them.

Firebug Firefox Add-on - Ok, this breaks my rule as it isnâ€™t technically a website, but it is a FireFox browser plugin so it might as well be a website, right? Well in any case, this tool is too important not to mention. It has it all. It can be used to time your websites download speeds, view the underlying HTTP information, measure the size of each file. Add to that a great Javascript debugger and CSS and DOM explorer. This is a must have tool.
Windows Live Writer - I broke my rule again. This tool wonâ€™t help you write better content, but itâ€™ll help you have fun doing it. Also, all the plugins available make it easy to add a little extra oomph to your blog posts by including Flickr images, formatted code, etc...

Again, Iâ€™m sure I missed someoneâ€™s favorite tool hear, so please let me know what I missed in the comments. And if you do, let me know which tool youâ€™d remove from this list in order to add yours. Iâ€™ll try following up at a later time with an improved list.

[you've been HAACKED]

Lexapro day 10

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 02:43:18 GMT

I wanted to list my symptoms so I don't forget.

Initially, I had dizziness, sleepiness, intestinal upset, unable to sleep at night, waking up at 4:30 am every day, and jaw clenching. None of it was too bad, except when I had a margarita last Tuesday and I got so dizzy I had to sit down.

Most of the symptoms have drastically reduced now. I have almost no dizziness, and my sleepiness is gone. I still wake up early, but now it's at 5:45 am. Hmmmm, time change? :)

As far being happier, I don't have visions of me throwing myself down the stairs every time I pass them anymore. That's a good sign. But I don't feel very different.

Lexapro Update

Tue, 06 Mar 2007 20:06:41 GMT

Well, it's been 4 days. I'm still feeling a little tired all the time, and my eyes are sort of itchy/scratchy, like I haven't slept in a long time. Other than that, I'm not feeling significantly different. I got an email today with some work and was pretty happy about that. More so than usual, I think. Meanwhile, no real side effects.

Lexapro update

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 02:43:43 GMT

End of the first day of Lexapro. Just wanting to say what's going on. I'm not quite feeling myself, in that my brain seems not to be fitting in my head quite right. It's almost a little dizzy. It's the dizzy feeling without the nausea. It's been hard to concentrate, sort of like a hangover.No pain, just a little out of it.

Antidepressants

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 12:12:45 GMT

Just a tiny bit of health news. I started taking Lexapro last night. I am going to track my progress and the effects here.

Magic trick for the kids

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 19:30:48 GMT

And Ten For Good Measure.

Here's a self-working card trick my dad showed me when I was but a wee lad. It sounds pretty mathematical and uninteresting in the telling, but try it out -- in practice, people are amazed at the outcome.

Take a standard, 52 card deck and randomly discard ten cards. I prefer to do this before the trick starts and never tell the audience, but you can do it in the middle (step 6) if you're feeling honest. These ten cards will play no part in the trick.

Deal the 42 cards into piles using the following method: Flip the top card from your deck face up, announce the value aloud (e.g., "seven!") and place it on the table as a foundation of a pile. Now continue to deal cards onto that pile, counting upwards with each card, until you hit thirteen. So after putting the 7 face up, you would deal five cards onto it, counting "Eight", "Nine," "Ten," "Jack," "Queen," "King!"). If the foundation card is an Ace you will create a 13-card pile; if it is a King it will constitute a pile unto itself. When a pile is complete, turn it face down and start a new pile with the next card. If the final cards in the deck do not make a complete pile (e.g., you flip over a "Three" but only have five cards remaining) set them aside for the moment.

Ask your audience to pick three of the face-down piles. Take all the unchosen piles, combine them with the remainders from step 2 (if any), and hand the deck to your audience.

Tell your audience to flip over the top card on one of the three, face-down piles. After he has done so, tell him to discard that many cards from his deck. So if he flipped over a 9, he would discard nine cards from his deck.

Tell your audience to flip over the top card on a second pile and, again, discard that many cards.

Only if you did not remove cards in step 1: tell your audience to discard ten more cards "for good measure".

Tell your audience to count how many cards he has left in his hand. Then tell him to flip over the top card on the last of the three face-down piles. If you've done everything correctly, the value of the card will equal the number of cards he holds.

The best thing about this "trick," I've found, is that there's no trick involved -- it's just math. So when your audience asks you how it's done, you can say "I just showed you -- try it yourself." This is especially good for kids because, requiring no slight of hand or misdirection, it is virtually un-screw-up-able, so long as they follow the recipe.

[defective yeti]