Caveat Utilitor

Blog readership is apparently up just lately, according to FeedBurner. So: Hey, new people! Thanks for dropping by.

Though my other analytics tell me nearly every one of you is using an RSS feed, and so you guys ain’t actually dropping by. Which is fine with me; I don’t care either way. But it makes me wonder, given that not all web denizens are RSS-savvy: should I set up an email newsletter with essentially the same content? Or is it ridiculous to put effort into getting more people to read this stuff? I mean, shouldn’t I be writing just for…I dunno…the sheer creative joy, the alternative to self-medication, the ability to tell myself I’m doing something worthwhile without actually working?

Ha.

Here are some changes coming in the next few weeks to our favorite website backup provider:

• A free level of Scarecrow’s site uptime monitor. Most likely this will be restricted to a domain’s homepage, and will not include checking the page for specific text (which is helpful when customers want to verify their database is functioning, if the text comes from that database). Also, I’m playing with the idea of asking for, and possibly requiring, a link to Scarecrow as a condition. But hey: FREE!
• Another level of service, cheaper than the standard Scarecrow package, that includes a single site plus content (or source code) monitoring.
• The current package (four sites, uptime & content monitoring, plus backup/restore to & from the cloud) will remain in place. Which means, logically, that this bullet point shouldn’t be in my list. It was supposed to be changes only.
• A somewhat more expensive option, which will be like the current package but will include only two sites. Instead of four.
• Wait…what was that again?

Okay, the more expensive package is aimed at web developers. Or possibly small-scale web hosting resellers. Excuse me a moment while I talk to them.

Hi guys! You’ll be able to add any number of additional sites on behalf of your customers, and the price will be lower than what your customers would have to pay if they bought their own subscription. I’m all about the interface between developers and business people, and so I’m building in a (very small, but present) incentive to encourage ongoing communication. This helps you, too, because you know they’ll be calling you when the site goes down, and once in a while that’ll turn into a discussion about more stuff they’d like you to build. Since they’ll call you first, I can charge less. Cool, huh?

Hi, again, to the rest of you. There’s more to say about all this, but I need to get to work. Talk to you soon.

Big news coming soon. But I can’t talk about it yet.

Unfriendly, isn't it?

Instead, let me ask you this: How does a community–by which I mean people actually living in reasonably close proximity–communicate?

Yeah, I liked how those words went together too. But it’s true. A community communicates, or it doesn’t. And isn’t.

I’m not sure there’s any real way for it to happen right now. Online? Well, it’s easier to talk to folks halfway around the planet than it is to say hey to a neighbor. In person? I guess you could get involved in local politics, if you don’t mind its essentially coercive nature.There are clubs for adults and sports for kids, but it takes real effort to go beyond that and connect with people. Why does it need to be hard? Why does it take a special effort?

I’m asking you this because I really want to know. We’re a much more mobile society than we used to be,which may mean we’re less of a society and more of an aggregation. I don’t know that it’s such a bad idea to be this way, either, but I do think folks used to talk to their neighbors more than they do now.

Now, me? I’m more mobile than most. I enjoy the communities of like-minded people I’ve found online. I like the debates, and I like the constantly-shifting technology. But, you know, the last place I lived was…different. Almost nobody was online. People stopped to talk to each other in the streets. To put it mildly, the place was less than perfect. But now I find myself in the Washington DC area, and…people don’t talk to each other. They barely acknowledge each others’ existence when passing on a sidewalk (not that people are on sidewalks anyway).

So…is there something missing? Is there a way to get it back, or (more likely) to devise a new way to connect and interact? Maybe even with people who don’t see things the way the same way we do?

Some days I think the interwebz are not much more than a giant echo chamber, where we all get to hear our own ideas parroted. There’s some distortion, and it’s fun to try to fix it, but…I think, amidst all the frenetic typing and ranting, we might also be getting just a little bit lazy.

Or maybe it’s just me. Thoughts?

Greetings.

I’m experimenting with social media. You may notice a new “Recent Tweets” section in the blog sidebar, courtesy of my new Twitter account, @CabinFeverSftwr. Cabin Fever also has a new Facebook page. And I’m all over LinkedIn lately too.

I’m getting some interesting results already. It’s clearly possible to engage people in conversations.

• There’s a startup out there (I signed an NDA & don’t want to be more specific) with a really great idea and a partially-built product, and I may be jumping in to help.
• People keep telling me about jobs.
• In the process of figuring this stuff out, I’ve reconnected (to some extent) with people I haven’t seen or talked to in years.

But does this translate to success for Cabin Fever per se? Or Scarecrow? Maybe, and maybe not. I’m hoping I can ride this beast & get value out of it.

Maybe the trick is to keep an open mind and see what develops. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Also, stay tuned. I’m going to put up a site to showcase another kind of writing entirely. Here’s a hint: there’ll be a link to buy my novel from Amazon.

Hi again!

I hope this helps you guys next time you have to deal with wi-fi that’s a little short of fi. Or maybe its best function is as a warning to others. In the latter case, here’s the TL;DR takeaway: sometimes a problem isn’t worth solving.

Anyway: last night was…somewhat irritating. I tried to get some work done. Really, I did. However…

• Teenagers. In the hallway. (I just shot them. Nothing else would have worked.)
• “Free wi-fi” that redirects to a “You MUST agree to our terms AGAIN” page every 30 minutes or so. In that context, I highly recommend the iMacros extension for Firefox. A couple of hints: “WAIT SECONDS=1000″ introduces a useful delay when looping, and “SET !ERRORIGNORE YES” (although bass-ackward to my taste) will get around any slow-to-load page components. (The script will exit after waiting 60 secs for page load otherwise.)
• ssh 8080 -D username@my_server_address. Okay, this is for Linux people, but here’s the short version: it creates a tunnel to a server somewhere, assuming you have access to such a thing. Internet browsing then happens from the remote server–so the hotel can’t block sites. Otherwise maybe something like Anonymizer might work, though I’d actually recommend:
• Tor. Go read about it. It’s often slow, but try the Tor browser bundle anyway. You can combine the pleasure of being slightly subversive with actually helping others. Neat, I say. Just configure yourself as a relay, and it’s instant good karma.
• If you happen to decide to give up on the hotel wi-fi entirely, but you can make your iPhone into an access point to share its 3g connection–aka tethering–but you’re sharing the room with someone whose computer isn’t allowed to connect to an “ad-hoc” network…maybe you should give up. Watch a movie. If, though, you have what people call a wireless router, you can share your laptop’s wired connection via the router (turning off DHCP on the router) & connect your laptop to the iPhone’s wi-fi. Then that other person can connect to the “infrastructure” network provided by your router. Is this really how I spend my time? Why?

Okay. Did I actually need all of that last night? No. If I’d known what my final solution would look like, I’d have gone right to it. But next time you’re in a hotel room with lousy wi-fi, and you want to work, maybe these ideas will help.

Or not. Especially the thing about the teenagers.

Maybe tonight will be better?

Hi from Washington DC!

Where we were....

Or nearby, anyway. I’ve relocated with my family, and we’re looking forward to new opportunities.

So what’s next for Cabin Fever? Scarecrow is out there in the world, making its users happy. There are a couple of updates scheduled:

• I plan to begin offering two new levels of service. The $20/month standard will still exist, but there will be a cheaper ($5? Free?) notification-only version and a $50/month option for those who back up more (or larger) files.
• I want to make it easier to register/support multiple “sites” under a single account. A web development shop or hosting reseller should be able to support several clients.

Outside of that, though, I’m not planning many changes to Scarecrow per se in the near future. Unless, of course, you guys ask me for something specific.

Instead, I’m looking for paying work. Here are my options:

• Freelance stuff might be fun. If you’re a potential client, feel free to contact me. Lately I’ve been using Ruby, Ruby on Rails, and various open-source tools on Linux servers.
• Another startup (depending on how you count, that would be somewhere from my third to my sixth) would be very interesting. I really liked Eric Ries’s The Lean Startup, and that led me to Steve Blank’s The Four Steps to the Epiphany. They’ve convinced me that, yet again, I know less than I want to…even about the things I do every day. Cool!
• Some third option that presents an interesting challenge. This is a really fun game, and I never quite know what’s coming next. Got an idea? Try me.

So here’s my profile on Stack Overflow, and here’s another on LinkedIn.

But have no fear: Scarecrow will still be around, and so will I. I look forward to our conversations.