This is all about my own entirely self-created projects, not the stuff
I'm specifically paid to do (more traditionally called "work" which you
can read about in my
résumé). By
"create" I really mean "have thought up but not actually
done anything about". Some people call this "wide-eyed
optimism". Other people call it "hot air".
The downside to this "work" business is that I spent my time at the
beck and call of other people rather than busily executing these. (The
upside of course is I have a steady stream of cash to eat, be
sheltered, ride fast motorcycles, etc) Still, they have occupied quite
a lot of my background thought and in some cases I've written code,
figured out viable-sounding business plans, and generally experimented
& tinkered.
The companion page is for this has some toys.
"Proper" projects
Stuff I have done
- UCEfree.com – Frustrated with having to provide your once
sacrosanct email address to onerous registration forms and then
wonder why you are spammed for dear life? UCEfree.com provides an
incredibly effective spam filter, quarantine system, sophisticated
domain management and other goodies. On the drawing board are
email addresses that expire, have receive limits, and more esoteric
bits.
- RealProgrammers.com –
my second domain ever, and also my current primary email domain.
Currently has a few random articles I've written. There's much more I'd
like to do with this; my magnum opus with probably most direct benefit to
humankind at large: check out Real Programmers.
Stuff in the pipeline
The sites that aren't linked basically have nothing useful on them
besides a content-free holding page.
- UberBlog.com – Open Source blogging system
matching & enhancing the functionality provided by Blogger.com. There are a lot of open
source single user blogging systems, many running in PHP. This is
not where this is aimed. Enhancements to Blogger.com
include: XML based, ability to store templates on your own server,
RSS feeds, multiple blogs on one page, more control over archiving
and formatting options, less browser dependence (e.g. Blogger.com's
JavaScript just doesn't work on many non-IE browsers).
Update, late 2002: truth is I'm unlikely to ever follow up on this
meaningfully since products like MovebleType are already so good.
Amusingly, while I merely talk about stuff my brother Nik actually did
something about it entirely off his own bat and wrote an online travelog diary (in PHP
:-) which is hosted under the uberblog.com domain.
- Wireless music consumer home audio device. Use your 802.11b/WiFi
network to transmit audio to your main sound system with a
configuration-free box. Very, very similar to SimpleFi who
are far ahead of me in terms of time-to-market. Heh.
- Music cataloging and playlist for radio stations. Enable a radio
station to keep track of its CDs in terms of inventory, how
frequently they're played, record sets, add notes, integrate
sets/playlists with their website. There is a ton of good quality
open source software that fulfills reasonable chunks of this. The
major missing part is a Windows client. An excuse to learn C#?
- Book swap – online book swap with
networking, ebay-style reputation, reviews, etc!
Update mid 2002: This is getting my full unemployed attention right now. Most of the
back-end mail filtering is working, two mail servers online, and the
webpages for reviewing caught spam are up. A bunch of people are
beta-testing it.
- GymDiary.com – a (yes!) gym diary online. This has a password-protected business
model and functional
overview. Contact me for access username/password.
- StatusKnow.com – (rhymes with "Status Quo") knowledge
management software development. This vagueness reflects how
much thought I've put into it. I liked the domain, hey. The realprogrammers.com content management
system will (heh :) be so good it could be spun off into a separate
company.
- freenet.realprogrammers.com
hosts (and I have nothing else to do with it,
so this isn't one of my projects per se) a Freenet server and proxy. Freenet is
a Java-based anonymous encrypted network infrastructure with no
centralized services at all. Check it out, worthy cause,
and usable and useful today.
– Update May 2002: I've disabled this now as it was generating too much
load on my machine
- PremierDNS.com – this is really a hack: become a registrar with no
DNS servers, no billing ability, no employees and not be ICANN
registered. This isn't a real business idea but more an integration of
existing web services with a neat front-end.
- myroaming.net/eblackbook.com – Online profiles inspired by my time
working extensively with LDAP. This tech is quite hard to do usefully
although Backflip have done a
nice job in parts and are in a similar space to what I was thinking.
- OSXphiles.com – Community-driven repository
of useful Mac OS X information. There is a OS X talk mailing
list only right now. This requires some ongoing effort to seed
it with information to jump-start it.
Update mid 2002: I let this domain lapse as I wasn't putting the
effort into it that is needed to create & sustain an online
community, nor continuing Mac development to be quite interested enough
in it.
