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Thursday, June 5, 2014

A Maker In the Making Has Moved... Sort of!

I have reached 5000 views so I am moving my site to bigger and better things. I am keeping the same domain but I changed the hosting to Amazon and am using ghost as the blogging platform. I will be leaving jbloomapps.blogspot.com up until I have a chance to fix up all of the links.

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Signal vs Noise

I hate Facebook. Well, hate is a strong word. I really dislike Facebook. I have a lot of reasons some of which I have talked about before. However, lately the biggest reason has been the signal to noise ratio has been really low.

Everyone knows what signal to noise ratio is, you might have never heard it that way. Suppose you are driving on a road trip and you turn on your favorite radio station or perhaps are listening to your favorite basketball team on a local station. As you get farther from town you begin to hear a little bit of static since you are further away from the tower. After a while the static gets really bad and you can barely hear the station and at some point the signal is so bad you have switch the station. The signal has been completely overtaken by the noise.

So what do I mean when I talk about signal to noise ratios as it relates to Facebook or other places where you go to get information? Signal is anything that provides meaning to your life. Pictures of your new nephew, results of your mom's surgery, or even inspiring quotes from your best friend. These all have a really high "signal" because they are providing you value. Other things like link-bait, candy crush invites, and status updates from your high school friends that you haven't seen in 15 years have really high "noise" because they provide little meaning to you.

Now that we have a definition we can ascribe values to something based on its signal to noise ratio. Say you follow 1000 people on twitter and you are just scrolling through your feed of tweets. If every tweet was somehow meaningful to you you would have an extremely high signal to noise ratio and you could say your twitter feed is very valuable to you. However if you spent 10 minutes scrolling through your feed to find something you cared about you would have a really low signal to noise ratio and you could argue that your twitter feed is not very valuable.

Ok, why does this matter? In this day and age everyone consumes so much data and often times the data we consume has little to no value to us. It is just noise. The problem is that the internet is tricky and often times we perceive value in things that don't have much value at all. This is one of the problems with pinterest. Spending an hour pinning feels like you got something accomplished but really there was probably a high signal to noise ratio, meaning you had to go though a lot of pins to find the ones you like and who knows if the ones you found are even valuable to you. Facebook also gives the perception of value but has a really low signal to noise ratio.

I say it is time for a digital makeover. Go through your Facebook feed and unfollow all of the noise you see on a daily basis. Go through your email and unsubscribe from the junk that you have to wade though to find your actual emails. Go through and delete half of your pins and then go through again and delete the other half. Unfollow those people who tweet the dribble you have to scroll past to find the gold.

Finally define what is meaningful to you and then try and boost your daily signal to noise ratio.

-jb

Monday, May 26, 2014

Gamify your life with HabitRPG

Sometimes I get into a place where I got to stop talking about doing things and start actually doing them I have got a lot of things accomplished over the last month but my list is longer than ever. I am, however, back to blogging about getting things done. The latest is HabitRPG.

A while back I read an article about how companies were increasing their results dramatically by gamifying the work environment. They added achievements, levels, and turned tasks into quests. While this may seem a little silly to some, this seemed awesome to me. I even began writing a system for this myself but didn't get very far.

Two weeks ago I stumbled upon a site called Habit RPG. It is a game when the things that you are trying to accomplish are actual things in your life. Lets say you want to say write a blog post. You can just add "Create Blog Post" to your todo list and once it is done, BOOM! You get experience and some gold. You might even level up. It is surprising how effective virtual rewards are.

A couple of us have formed a party which increases adherence even more as you see your friends leveling up and getting cool stuff. After you reach level 10 you can declare your class, be it warrior, mage, rouge or healer. I am close to level 10 so my productivity of late has been higher. As a group you can get quests from a random drop when you do a task or by purchasing them with in game currency. We are all excited about going on a quest but we have yet to get the drop.

Drops can happen when you complete a task. These tasks fall into 3 different categories: Habits, Dailies, and To Dos. A habit is anything that you want to do on a regular basis. This is also an easy way to farm points. I have things like drinking a glass of water and doing pushups. Dailies are things you want to do every day like taking vitamins or clocking in at work. These give benefits as you do them multiple times in a row. They can also hurt you if you miss them. To Do's are your list of unique tasks to accomplish like replacing a headlight or writing a letter. If you leave a To Do on your list too long it will start to take away hit points but it will also be worth more points so thus a bigger incentive to do the older things first.

Finally there are rewards. These are things that you can either set yourself, so you can reward your own hard work, or purchase from the game. If you are a gamer you understand that it doesn't matter if it is digital, having sweet gear is awesome! The only way to get the gear is to actually get things done... IN. REAL. LIFE. This is a win for me and for my wife. Cleaning the house is a great way to farm up some levels.
 
I have found that keeping tasks small is the best way to keep the game fun so I put little tasks on the list and feel good when I get to check a bunch of them off. Especially as the levels get longer. This keeps me focused on the small pieces that make up the whole. I also use this for work and feel doubly good about my day when I get things accomplished and level up! There is so much more but you should discover it for yourself.

Check it out if you like and get ahold of me if you want an invite to our party. Maybe we could do some questing together.

Time to check off a To Do!


-jb

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Final Recap of Startup Weekend

Over the course of the last few weeks I have been blogging about my experience at the Boulder Startup Weekend. You can read part 1 and part 2. Now I would like to talk about what we did and what we were able to accomplish. Here is the story of Helpmore.

After the initial pitches I found a guy named Lorne who was trying to help the homeless. While it would have been fun to be on a team that was trying to go viral and make tons of money this seemed like a hard problem to solve and a worthy one. His main pain point was that he wanted to give money to the homeless but he didn't trust that the money would go to a good cause. That has been a pain point for me as well. My other problem was that I have stopped carrying cash and so I was hoping to solve that as well.

Along with Lorne we had an guy named Satyah who joined the team as well. We set to work trying to come up with an idea. We spent all Friday night coming up with a plan on how to work with homeless shelters to provide goods for people and went to bed.

We had found an Airbnb in walking distance so while walking home I had an idea that we could use QR codes to create vouchers on the fly. Basically the user would scan a the code and it would give them a map of near by stores that accepted them. They could then pick items from a store and add it to the card. It would then . This would allow people to purchase specific items rather than giving cash. Also getting businesses on board would allow for a viral aspect since we could allow businesses to sign up on their own. Excited about the idea i got to our place and crashed.

I pitched the idea in the morning and Lorne liked it. We started going with it. Soon two more people, Trevor and Nick, joined the team and we were firing on all cylinders. We made a proof of concept app using Wordpress and paypal and hit the streets. The good news was that the homeless loved the idea! They felt the same pain we felt and were excited about something that would build trust between the homeless and others. We talked to two nice ladies who were down on their luck. They didn't want money for drugs or alcohol. In fact they were talking about how cool it would be to start a coffee shop when we walked up.

Getting businesses on board would be our hardest hurdle. It turns out they dont like homeless people hanging around. However much they want to help, it just ends up being bad for business. We had some who would be willing to use the service if it existed so we walked away confident that we could get them on board. I also thought if Helpmore could gain enough traction then businesses would flock to it to be seen as socially conscious. That is a pipe dream though because we hadn't got the first one.

We went back to base encouraged that we had an idea that people liked and began to talk to some coaches. All of the coaches liked our idea so we were feeling pretty good. After a good nights sleep it was time to get ready for the final pitch.

For the final pitch we had 10 minutes to present to some people who had created successful startups. They were very smart and had done this thing before. The winning team got $500 and some help getting their business off the ground, so there was something at stake. Lorne and I split up the presentation. I was very nervous. I am not usually that nervous talking in front of people but since we had such a strict time schedule we decided to script it out and go off a script. I don't do well with that so I feel like my pitch was a little stilted. We also ran out of time so we didn't get to all of our information. We were able to show our prototype in action and we got our idea across.

The judges rightly pointed out our most difficult hurdle. We had to get not one, not two but three parties on board at the same time to make this work. One audience is hard enough, two is really difficult, and three is darn near impossible. They said they gave us pretty high marks but  in the end we didn't win the event but I think we had a pretty good idea.

After the event we booked it back to Lawrence and arrived home at 5 AM. I crashed pretty hard and got up at noon to go to work. It was probably not my most productive day at work.

The big question still on the table is where do we go from here. To be honest, I am not really sure. We tried to get a google hang out together but our schedules were all off. I loved working on the team and we had a great group of guys. I think there is a key time period right after the event that can make or break a team and that time might be passed. Also there is something to be said about creating a business that can make money. I really loved the idea but startups are hard work and ones that don't make money are even harder. Like I said about the Lawrence Makerspace, sometimes money can be used as a motivator to do good things. Maybe a for profit business would have been able to get us going when a non-profit didn't.

-jb

Saturday, March 29, 2014

What Has It Got in Its Pocketses? Mar 29

It's time for another edition of, What Has It Got in Its Pocketses! It has been a while but I wasn't scouring the web looking for great content when I was in Boulder. Now that I am back I am getting into the grove again.

1☆
IT Crowd Soundboard - If you havent seen the IT Crowd it is on Netflix. It is very quotable and this soundboard has some of the highlights.
Cat Shaming - Maybe you have to be a cat person but I found these really funny.
Dash Plus System - If you take notes by hand you will want to read this. Great for todo lists as well!
The Web Is Changing - This was pretty interesting. Especially if you are just getting into web marketing like I am.

2☆
Hanselman on Productivity - If you like my posts on being productive then this is a must read.
Why Candy Crush Made it Big - Interesting thoughts on mobile gaming pricing models.

3☆
Web Design Links - A toolbox of sorts for web designers.
E-Commerce Toolbox - More helpful links linked from my post full of links.

4☆
Google Will Eat Itself - Pretty nerdy concept. But it has made a lot of money so far.

5☆
The Toolbox - This guy had an idea and whipped it out in 10 hours. He explains the whole process. Pretty interesting if you are a web guy.

That's all folks. Enjoy! -jb

Thursday, March 27, 2014

When all else fails, Pivot.

Tyler  Hansbrough, pivoting like a champ!
In case you didn't know I went to a startup weekend two weekends ago and I am slowly recapping some of my experiences, starting with the vocabulary of startup people. You can read part 1 about creating the MVP. Today is about pivoting. It seems that the startup world is just borrowing terminology from the sports world because when I was growing up, pivoting was something you did in basketball. When you picked up your dribble you could pivot on one foot. If you moved your pivot foot you traveled and turned the ball over. Once again I had to fake it till I learned the meaning of the word pivot in the startup world.

When starting a new business, failure is expected. Not only is it expected but in some ways it is encouraged. Obviously you want to hit on a good idea that will make money but it just so happens that the people who are good at failing are the people who hit on the good ideas. The real trick is to fail as fast as possible.

Here is how the starting a company in a weekend works. You start with a premise for a business. I'll use the one my brother came up with today:

Corporations have nasty fridges and need an impartial service to come clean them out and organize them once a month. 

Now you need to prove that this will make money as quickly as possible. So you send out polls to business owners and go door to door and see if someone will let you clean their fridge. You also need to see how scalable your models is if people liked it.

You come to the conclusion that, yes, this is a problem but not very many companies are willing to pay for your services. Not only that but if they did want to pay for your service it wouldn't scale very well since there is no element for exponential growth. If this took three weeks to realize, you failed too slow. If this took 4 hours, congratulations, you failed fast!

One important piece of information you found: dirty fridges are a problem in corporations. You now have validated that there is a business there to be had but you just failed to get it right. This is where you pivot meaning you tweak your solution a little to better solve the problem. Next you try to come up with a web camera system that displays on people's computer wallpaper. That doesn't go over too well, pivot. Fridge dishwasher combo? Pivot. Robots? Pivot. Public shaming? Pivot.

Finally you design a cubby style fridge with a glass door and a special squeegee that is the perfect size of a cubby so they can be cleaned with one swipe. Each cubby has a dry erase label for a name and a date. You get 100 companies that say they would buy it if it existed. It's production is easily scalable once you get the money to get it off the ground. So you kickstart it for 100,000 and tons of companies jump on board.

That's the gist of it. Failure is not bad unless you are not willing to part with your idea. If you can't adjust, it can be disastrous because you will spend hundreds of hours working on something that nobody wants. When you fail, learn what you can and move on. This idea is very central to developing a process over a goal. The process of pivoting allows you to move on where the goal of starting your business might have had you beating your head against the wall trying to make your idea work.

So remember when all else fails, pivot.

Sunday, March 23, 2014

Baby steps... This is the last bus to Winnipesaukee Bob!

I am back from the Startup Weekend Boulder! Well I have been back for a week now. It took me a while to recover from the weekend since I got back at 5 am on Monday morning! I have seemed to be in a creative vacuum ever since. I think it is a combination of the intense creative marathon, some really hard workouts at Crossfit, and of course march madness. Whatever the reason I have been feeling lethargic and unmotivated this week. This brings me to a key concept I learned from the startup weekend and a lesson about getting things done in general. You need to focus on the MVP!

So I went to Startup Weekend knowing nothing about how startups work or the lingo that they use. Everybody was saying that we needed to have an MVP by the end of the weekend but nobody was saying whether or not they were willing to step up and be the MVP. I kept wondering what it took to be the MVP of a nerdy weekend like this. Maybe l33t hacker skills or something like that. About halfway through the weekend I started understand that what they meant by MVP isnt what I understood MVP to mean. I eventually had to ask since I couldn't quite figure it out from context. In the startup world MVP stands for "Minimum Viable Product". It is the simplest form of your product that somebody is willing to buy. There are big props to you if you can sell some of that product before the end of the weekend.

The concept of MVP is so important and I got it right away. You see I have a history of starting projects and working really hard on them for a week and then stopping. The idea of the MVP is: what are you able to make that is worth value today. Once you define that you need to stick to that and only that. My github is filled with the code of good ideas that got too big too soon. Programmers like to think big and while that is good it gets you into trouble because if you cant get people using it you will lose interest. And if an idea is too big you will become overwhelmed with the amount of work that is needed to be done to finish.

If the idea is too big I see two problems. First of all you wont be motivated to start and secondly you will lose interest before you finish.

What is the solution? Baby steps Bob, baby steps. I love this scene from What About Bob. It captures the very essence of what it means to break big tasks into the tiniest of steps. Keeping the steps small is so important. Lets deal with these two issues on their own.

Getting started is probably the biggest battle. It is for me, I know that. 9 times out of 10 I will finish a job if I can just get it started. I put off writing this post all week and now that I am doing it I am really enjoying it. I just had to start. Getting started is so important for big things like starting a business or doing something you don't normally do. You will be tempted to do tons of research before you start to make sure you don't fail (I will talk about the benefits of failure in another post). With the internet we can spend more time researching our tasks than we will actually spend on them.

I strongly disagree with the research heavy approach. You don't know any of the problems you are going to face until you face them so you may waste a lot of time researching something that in the end would not have been an issue for you.  Some research is ok but you have to start at some point. A popular saying is that you can't steer a ship that is not moving. Research should be done while you are in motion trying to do and not too much before you start. Is there something big you have been wanting to do? Take a baby step and just start it.

The second problem is scope. Here is how my ideas often go, "Oh I should write a little program to remind me to water my plants. Oh better yet I could write a program to water my plants. Then I could add a sensor that lets me tell if they have gotten enough enough sunlight. Oh then if they dont it could turn on a grow light and give them more light. I could then package this up and sell it to home gardeners. Wow that would take a long time. Ill just watch another episode of Archer." We all love to dream but when the scope grows too fast it can kill a dream. Keep your ideas super small. Something you could do in an afternoon.

It's ironic that we are told in school to dream big but the best way to be successful is to dream just a little bit bigger than where you are. I could write an app that could be sold to home gardeners that keeps track of their plants but it would start with the first step of just having it remind me and then build from there.

Focus on the MVP and get that done. That can be a launching point to keep going. Baby steps.

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Crunch Time!

So this is a quick post from the Boulder Startup weekend. I am learning a ton. I will have a ton of posts after the event to unload what I have learned. We have 16 hrs to go and we are trying to validate if our idea is worth doing. I made an info graph basically explaining our problem and solution.

We have launched a site helpmore.co and we will be getting some more content up soon so be sure to check back on Sunday. We have a survey here and a poll here. The poll is to get quick responses and the survey is to get a more in depth response. Please fill these out as they will validate some assumptions we are making about how people interact with the homeless.

Sunday, March 9, 2014

Startup Weekend!

I have decided to take a day off work this week and go to a Startup Weekend in Boulder Colorado. I am really excited and nervous at the same time. 

A startup weekend is an intense 54 hr block of time when you create a company from scratch and try to come up with a finished product or service by the end. It all starts with pitch night. Everybody has one minute to present their idea. All of the participants vote on which ideas they think will be the best. Everyone gets divided into teams and the weekend starts. Fueled by coffee and an impending deadline the teams work like mad to create a product. All day Saturday, teams are heads down working on the product. There is free coffee and meals are provided so there is not a lot of reason to stop and go anywhere. On Sunday night at the end of the weekend you demo your business to a couple of CEO's who judge the competition. Then if it feels like this was a good thing you can keep going and start a business. If it flopped? Well, everyone can go their separate ways and cry in their pillows. As part of my Make 2014 Initiative this event is right up my alley. 

Apart from the trill of just attending the event, I have been wanting to see if a startup company is for me. This will be an great way to try it without getting too committed. Even if my team keeps going with the idea I am free to walk away. I also really want to find the areas in my skill set that are lacking. There will be lots of coaches around who will be great people to bounce questions off and feel what I am lacking. Plus we never pass up an opportunity to go to Colorado.

Another benefit of  this trip is we are trying out Airbnb. We were going to couch surf but since I will be busy the whole weekend we thought it would be better to have a nice rented space so Kara doesn't have to sit in somebody's house all weekend by herself. Airbnb is also something we will probably use in our travels so it is good to figure out the process now. We ended up finding a place in walking distance so I can get to the event and back without needing the car.

I might not have time to blog during the event but expect a lengthy couple of posts afterwards. I will probably be tweeting so be sure to follow me on twitter @johnnybloom. -jb

Saturday, March 8, 2014

What Has It Got in Its Pocketses? Mar 8

This issue of emptying my pockets has butter coffee, learning new languages and food from the matrix. Click the links precioussss.

1
Bullet Proof Coffee - Coffee with butter. The new high performance drink!
Soylent - Eating food is so inefficient. "all the protein, vitamins and carbs of your grandma's best turkey dinner" -Jayne Cobb
Frozen Skate Park - Pure Awesome!
Be More Magazine - Online magazine with beautiful pictures and interesting articles about being healthy!

2
Create Better Content - 5 ways to become a better blogger.
3D printed Board Game - That's right. Print your own games is coming!
The Art of Learning - Learn how to learn and you will learn faster.
Learn a New Language - I might try to pick up some French with Duo the owl. Bonjour, mon nom est John!

3
Human Task Switches Considered Harmful - Pomodoro to the rescue!

4
Jorge Regidor - Another developer trying to do the blogging thing. We will be friends. :)
Why Hard Developer Interviews are Good - Time to hit the books!

5
Animate.css -  Just add water.

There you have it! Less heavy on the tech articles this week. -jb

Monday, March 3, 2014

Vagabonding

Big news! Kara and I have quit our jobs and are going vagabonding in Europe! No seriously last Friday we both quit our jobs. I think it was like national quit your job day or something. I cant remember.

Anyway, at this point you are probably wondering... What is vagabonding? Here is a short explanation from a book I have been reading.
Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel.
Vagabonding involves taking an extended time-out from your normal
life—six weeks, four months, two years—to travel the world on your own
terms. 
But beyond travel, vagabonding is an outlook on life. Vagabonding is
about using the prosperity and possibility of the information age to
increase your personal options instead of your personal possessions.
Vagabonding is about looking for adventure in normal life, and normal
life within adventure. Vagabonding is an attitude—a friendly interest in
people, places, and things that makes a person an explorer in the truest,
most vivid sense of the world.
Let me explain, no there is too much, let me sum up. We have been wanting to take a trip and this year happens to be our 5 year wedding anniversary. So rather than scrape together a few weekend getaways we decided it needed to be a long one, maybe a month or two. We haven't traveled out of the country since we have been married so I think it is time we left. We will probably go to London since we both loved it there and have been wanting to go back. We may drop down into other parts of Europe. That is the thing about vagabonding. You never know till you get there. Vagabonding is meant to break all of my efficiency, pomodoro system mindedness for a few months to give me a fresh, new perspective.

You might think that a trip like this would cost tons of money or if not we would be eating out of trash cans and sleeping on the street. Welcome to the new age of travel. With couchsurfing locals put you up for free and often take you around if they have time. If we cant find a host there is always airbnb where people rent out their rooms or their houses. Hostels are great places for travelers. Some of them look really creative and fun. You just have to be creative when you travel.

The real truth is that my job doesn't end till September. So we have some time. I will be needing a job though so let me know if you have a connection. Or maybe, if you are the kind of person who throws milk away according to the date on the jug we can come and live in your alley. -jb


Saturday, March 1, 2014

A System Over a Goal and the Art of Saying No

So I've decided to make this year the year of doing things. Now I have run into a problem:





Do not be confused! I have plenty of ideas and I don't think I will run out soon. I have also started about 10 of my ideas and some of them are pretty big and could take a long time. This is not suppose to be the year of starting things, I have been doing that forever, this is the year of doing things. So I'm already going to have to cut back. Which brings me to today's post. Developing a system over a goal and the art of saying NO!

A while back I was introduced to a concept that has really blown my mind and the more I think about it the more I like it. We have developed this concept that people who get things done are "Goal Oriented" people. Scott Adams, the author of Dilbert, doesn't think so. In an article he wrote for the Wall Street Journal he said this:
"To put it bluntly, goals are for losers. That's literally true most of the time. For example, if your goal is to lose 10 pounds, you will spend every moment until you reach the goal—if you reach it at all—feeling as if you were short of your goal. In other words, goal-oriented people exist in a state of nearly continuous failure that they hope will be temporary.  
If you achieve your goal, you celebrate and feel terrific, but only until you realize that you just lost the thing that gave you purpose and direction. Your options are to feel empty and useless, perhaps enjoying the spoils of your success until they bore you, or to set new goals and re-enter the cycle of permanent presuccess failure."
I have noticed that with myself I have succeeded the most when I have a system. Take breakfast for example. I blogged about my breakfast habits last week. I have known that eating breakfast was important and it has been a goal for a few years. It wasn't until I threw out the goal and developed a system that I actually start being consistent. In fact I don't even think about how I have "achieved" my goal of eating breakfast I just do it. I don't have a count down chart or a reward system and there is no guilt in failure. I just tweak the system and repeat. 

Its time to kick the goals to the side and develop systems that help me keep going even when I fail.

The other thing I need to do is to prioritize and learn to say no. This starts by making a list of things that are important to me and then learning to say no to the things that are not on the list. In all of the studying I have done on being productive this is usually near the top. 

There are millions of things that we could be doing and we need to decide which are the things we want to do. I am not going to look back over my life and say boy I am glad I watched 3 hrs of tv a day when I was 27. That sure enriched my life. We watch Netflix together but we have been getting better at watching just one episode and then turning it off to do other things.

Another thing not on my list is Facebook. While I agree Facebook is not the devil and it is useful for some things, it can be a very dangerous black hole. Millions of status updates that you don't really care about can suck your life away. Real relationships are the people in front of you. Don't pass that up to keep in touch with your old high school friends.

So what is on my list? Well today is the day that I make it so stand by...

-jb

Friday, February 28, 2014

What Has It Got in Its Pocketses? Feb 28

So I mentioned a while back that I have been using pocket to keep track of links that I want to read later. The problem is if I dont set aside time to read my links then it becomes a list of things I should do some time. So I am going to try to empty my pockets at the end of every week.

I am a programmer so I read a lot about programming. If you happen to not be a programmer I am going to break this down with a 1-5 Star nerdiness rating where one star is the least nerdy so you can skip the stuff that you might not care about.

1
Soma Water Filter - Cool little water filter
Hemingway App - Helps with your writing. Just paste in your text and it will tell you what's wrong.
The Chemistry of Good Coffee: The Syphon - New way to brew coffee for the people who have chemistry equipment laying around.
Brewdega - A website devoted to keeping track of the beers you drink. Still in alpha or something.

2
Making Games Fun - Easy to learn, hard to master.
The Hacker's Guide to LinkedIn - Good advice on getting more visibility on your profile. If you care that is. :)
Ghost.org - Beautiful blogging framework. I'm probably going to be moving to this!
Learning Shelter - Teaching homeless people to be makers.

3
Why Net Neutrality Matters - In case you were wondering.
Makers - Tons of links about Makers from the Northeast Kansas Library System
Building your personal programmer brand - Good advice about the fact that as a programmer you in are your own business.
Githubiverse - Since thingiverse changed their EULA.

4
Allaboutcircuits.com - Everything you need to know about circuits.
Learning SVG - It is kinda like Canvas.
Replacing User Stories with Job Stories - Yeah we never used them anyway.
How We Made GitHub Fast - Pretty interesting in a wow dont know that I will ever need to do that sort of way.
What is takes to run StackOverflow - Just the numbers alone are crazy.

5
Zombiejs - A headless javascript unit testing framework. Haha!
Javascript promises... In wicked detail - In case you were wondering about them promises.
Build your own Google TV Using RaspberryPi, NodeJS and Socket.io - Pretty awesome!

There you have it. Things that I thought were worth reading. You shouldn't click on them all. Seriously if you feel like you are interested in every link call me because you are probably insane.

Saturday, February 22, 2014

Hacking Breakfast: Sausage, Vegetable, and Egg Breakfast Bowls in 10 Minutes


One of the problems with breakfast and bloggers who blog about breakfast, is they only talk about the food. I have seen tons of recipes that I would love to try. Like this one from Smitten Kitchen (I don't eat carbs very often but when I do I make them count). What they never talk about is the state you are in when you try and cook the recipe in the morning, the time constraints you might have, or the process to do it quickly.

I stand and stare at the clothes in my closet trying to pick a pair of pants so any recipe with more than 3 steps cannot be processed in the morning. They want me to bake something for 30 minutes!? I don't even wake up until 30 minutes before I need to got to work. If you have to measure something it should not be done in the morning. There are some the recipes that leave your kitchen a disaster so you always come home to a ton of dishes and you dread the fact that to get a good breakfast you will have to do it again tomorrow.

I created a recipe that I can cook in under 10 minutes, requires no measuring, there is really only 3 steps, and should leave only 4 easy to clean dishes for two people (This can be reduced to two if you are creative). It also is extremely high in protein and has lots of fresh food. Tim Ferris in the 4 Hour Body says to get 30 grams of protein within 30 minutes of waking up. This will get you close depending on how many eggs you use. Protein for breakfast is amazing because it is a slow burning energy source so this should keep you full and energized all morning. If you eat any processed carbs like muffins or cereal you will be hungry again at 10. The carbs will jump start your metabolism but burn off way faster than the protein. Since they jump start your metabolism you will be hungrier than if you didn't eat breakfast. That is why you hear people say, "I dont know why I'm hungry!? I actually ate breakfast today."

Lets start. The key to this recipe is the prep and to optimize everything for the morning. Every Sunday Kara and I have a prep party. Ill explain more about our prep days in another post. Part of my job on prep day is to make sure I have all of the ingredients for my bowls chopped.



I chopped bell peppers, Kale, Mushrooms, and jalapenos. Sometimes I do onions, cilantro, squash, spinach, and other vegetables. Go for sturdy vegetables because these are going to be in your fridge for a week and you don't want them to go bad. For example I have put avocado on our breakfast bowl but I cut those up the day of because they oxidize too quickly in the fridge.



Put all of the vegetables in their own bowls.



Choose your protein. I like aidells chicken sausage and some pork sausage. Try to have at least two different types of meat. This is a good way to mix up the flavor if you cook this most every morning like I do.



This is a very important part. Find a Tupperware container that fits in your fridge and can hold all of your ingredients. This will make the morning easier. Remember optimize for the morning. Shaving 30 seconds off your morning time is worth it even if it requires a trip to Target.



Done! The box is in the fridge and ready to go. If I cook this every morning the vegetables will last me a week. The meat will probably be enough for two weeks.

Now that the prep is done lets walk through the morning. Everything has a purpose but you can adjust it as you like. Here is my process. Immediately when I wake up I go to the kitchen and put the pan on the stove at medium heat (around 6 on our stove) and start a kettle of water for coffee. Then I go and freshen up a little. All the food is ready so I don't want to be standing around waiting for my pan to heat up.

When I am done freshening up I pull out the breakfast box and throw the meat in the skillet. I use a nonstick skillet because the cleanup is the easiest. I like to cook the meat a little before I throw in the vegetables. Especially the raw sausage. I don't wait too long though because the vegetables will need to cook.



I throw a handful of all the ingredients I have in the box. I don't measure I just go with the flow.



Once you get to this point you have about 3-4 minutes to do something else. I first put away my breakfast box, next I add garlic powder, cyan, salt, and pepper, and then I whisk 4 eggs in a separate bowl. You can skip this part to save cleaning a bowl and just crack the eggs into the pan. If I'm cooking for myself I do that but with 4 eggs I use a separate bowl. I usually have time to grind coffee and get it steeping in our french press. You really have a lot of leeway here as far as time goes so if you get busy with something and you don't get back to your pan right away don't sweat it.



I scoot the meat and vegetables over to the side because I have found that the eggs taste better if they can cook by themselves for a bit. Scramble them up but not for very long because they will still cook even after you remove it from heat.



I mix everything together and I'm done. I usually go get dressed so the coffee can steep a little longer and the food can cool a bit. After getting dressed I come back and dish up the bowls and eat. Here is another dish saver. If while I am cooking Kara is getting ready she can eat while I am getting ready and when I got to eat I just use the same bowl. The non-stick takes seconds to clean and I just put the bowls in the dishwasher. There is really no mess.

I have timed myself and I really can do this in about 10 minutes. The key is to optimize for the morning. If you are like me you don't want to have to make any decisions in the morning and so make them the night before or even in this case at the beginning of the week. I am also working on some 5, 20, and 30 minute recipes so that depending on when I wake up I have a meal that will work. This will also allow me to switch it up since the same meal over and over can get old.

Enjoy and let me know if you have any suggestions. -jb

Friday, February 21, 2014

2000 Hits!

2000 Hits!
So I realize that for some blogs 2000 hits per day would mean a slow day but this is a work in progress. I was sure excited to see my total hit meter pass the 2000 mark. That's 2000 hits for all time in case you were wondering. So I decided to reward myself.

I have purchased a domain name and you can now find me at www.amakerinthemaking.com! This was a sign of commitment for me. I have also made it past the two week mark which is when I usually broke up with my blog in the past. I think we are going to make it.

To ensure that I do make it, I have a set of milestones to keep me looking forward. Here is my plan:

     5000 - Hire a designer to help with the design of the blog
     10000 - Purchase a subscription to a stock image service
     25000 - Design a logo
     50000 - Buy a nice scotch and a cigar
     100000 - Buy a Go Pro camera
     500000 - Go to a Maker Faire

So if you, dear reader, are willing to help here is what you can do:
  • Subscribe to the blog so you know when I post updates
  • Tell other people about the blog
  • Suggest content and let me know when what I write is interesting or if it falls flat
  • Share posts that you find interesting on Facebook

My excitement about writing the blog is directly proportional to the amount of people who read it. I check the stats often so every hit counts. --jb

Lawrence Creates

So I went to the makerspace here in Lawrence. Here are some of my thoughts:

Lawrence Creates is still a relatively new makerspace so they lack a lot of the things that I had been hoping to find in a makerspace. They are about to get their wood shop up and going and so that will be a big plus. I think that Lawrence Creates' greatest weakness and greatest strength come from the same thing and that is that they are non-profit.

Lets start with being non-profit as a strength. There is a great attitude that comes a long with being an organization that is designed to just meet the needs of the community. There is no CEO to come down on anybody. New members feel like they have a share in what is going on. The donations and grants that are available to non-profits are pretty substantial as well. Being non-profit also keeps the overhead really low so the grants and donations are reaching their maximum benefit since all of the money is being funneled back into the space. Another benefit of this is that membership fees are really low since there is not a payroll to fund. A lot of makerspaces are nonprofit so this can work.

The major drawback that I see about non-profit is the drive to really succeed. Granted I have only met these people once so this is not a criticism of them since I dont know them really well. Just from visiting the KC makerspace and thinking things through I can see this problem. In a for-profit makerspace somebody is putting their livelihood on the line. This sink or swim atmosphere will cause constant evaluation of what is keeping people from walking in the door and signing up. Somebody will always be making sure the right tools exist and that they are shown off so that people can connect their ideas with the tools that provide the solution. I can see this in my own side projects. If there is no real threat to me if I dont get a project done then I am more likely to put off that project if I dont have time for it. That is probably why this is my 8th start at blogging.

This is what I noticed at the space. It has a lot of potential and there are a lot of people putting time into it. Yet there is no one who can do it full time and so as people get busy with life the progress at the makerspace will slow.

Lawrence Creates shouldn't count me out though. While I want to be honest about my first impressions I am also willing to help be the solution even though I too will be short on time.

Here are my goals:

  1. Develop a class that I can teach. The space provides advertising and a place to do it and 25% goes to the makerspace. I want to be able to make 50% of what it takes to buy a 3D printer. I will match my own efforts with the other 50%. 
  2. Get the CNC router working and a first class citizen. This might even correspond to my class.
  3. Figure out a way to get a laser cutter. I heard rumors about 
That's it! If anybody from Lawrence Creates is reading this sound off in the comments and let me know what you think. If you work with micro controllers lets meet up and start something.

-jb

Monday, February 17, 2014

Maker Homework: Prepping for My First Visit to a Makerspace (Part 2)

If you haven't read part 1 you might want to start there. This is a continuation of my tool analysis.


6. Vacuum Forming Station
Vacuum forming is basically molding a piece of plastic to a set mold. This video shows the process pretty well. I could see this being useful if I were prototyping a product and wanted to get the look of it even down to the packaging. It would also be a good way to create signs with some depth to them.



7. Injection Molder
I am learning all kinds of things about manufacturing that I have never knew before. Injection molding is the main way to make a plastic component. We now have 3D printers that can make simple prototypes but injection molders can be used to make the same piece over and over again and rather quickly. Here is a good video about it. Basically it has a hopper and a screw drive that pushes the melting plastic into the mold. The plastic drys and you have a solid plastic piece.




8. 3D Printer
If you haven't heard about 3D printers yet you are missing out. The first time I saw one was at a conference and it was cool but 3D printers on display are always printing toys. People are using 3D printers to prototype real products and in fact most 3D printers were themselves built using parts that were 3D printed. I have been wanting to build a 3D printer for a while now but the most affordable ones are still $500. I basically works by melting plastic and placing it in layers to build up a 3D object. As always here is a link to a video that shows one in action.



9. Laser Cutter
This stuff just keeps getting better. So Kara doesn't see all the potential that I see in these tools. However even she admitted that a laser cutter looked pretty cool after she saw this video. A laser cutter is exactly how what it sounds like. A laser that cuts things. But since it is controlled by a computer you can cut very specific things. It can actually cut all kinds of mediums and not just paper. It cuts plastic, wood, paper, ceramic, and probably more. I really hope they have a laser cutter because this is pretty cool stuff.



Ok that's round 2. Time for bed. I plan on taking pictures of the makerspace tomorrow and i'll report back. If you find other cool tools or videos of cool projects post them in the comments.

--jb

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Maker Homework: Prepping for My First Visit to a Makerspace (Part 1)

I'M GOING TO A MAKERSPACE!!!!

So I've been talking about how I want to be a maker and if you read my review of the Maker Manifesto you will know that access to tools is one of the key components of the makerspace movement. I have basically been spamming the people at Lawrence Creates asking them when I can come and take a tour. They informed me that they have an open house on Tuesday so I am going! I think I have convinced Kara to go as well. Ill talk more about Lawrence Creates after the tour. Today we are talking about tools.

TechShop has a list of tools that they think every TechShop should provide for their members. Lawrence Creates is not TechShop so I don't expect them to have all of these. However, let me go through a few of them to get an idea of what they do. I'm picking the ones that aren't obvious because, hey, I'm learning these things myself.

1. Sand Blasting Cabinet
I really had no clue what this was. It is awesome though and I can already think of times in the past when I would have used something like this. Basically it is a chamber to shoot compressed air and sand at an object to clean it up. The two holes are where you put your hands and there is a spray nozzle inside that you can control. You can remove rust, paint, and really anything that is stuck to a piece of metal that you want to clean up. Apparently the model shown here has a foot trigger because having a trigger on the hand sprayer can get tiring during long sanding sessions. So if they have one with a foot pedal I can sound like a pro, "Oh good it has a pedal, man if you have a long sanding project you need a pedal or your hand will cramp up."

2. Computer controlled vinyl cutter.
This is for Kara. She loves working with vinyl stencils and lettering but is frustrated with the selection of fonts at Michael's and Hobby Lobby. Kara also loves stickers so if they have one of these it is going to be a big hit. Basically this machine cuts vinyl into the shape that you provide it on the computer. We have spent hours peeling and placing vinyl lettering and this machine could have printed the exact words we needed all lined up. Amazing!

3. Cold Saw
When I read this it reminded me of the first Spiderman and Bone Saw. This machine should say that when it turns on. If it doesn't I will figure out a way to make it. Ok what is a cold saw? Well as usual I had no clue so here is what I learned. A cold saw is basically a metal cutting saw. It uses oil to help keep the blade and piece you are cutting cool. It looks like people mostly use it to cut metal pipes. When I searched for "cold saw" Google thought perhaps I meant cold sore and so I got a pictures of people's cold sores. When I found the cold saws, to my surprise one company was using a scantly clad woman to model their saws. I guess sex sells even in the industrial tooling industry.

4. Overlock Machine
Yes! I love sewing! I use our sewing machine all the time. But I have always wondered how they got the stitch around the boarded of bags and shirts. We have all seen it we just don't think about the tools needed to create it. That is until you create something yourself. If you are dealing with fabrics I can see how this would be a pretty valuable tool to have.

5.CNC Milling Machine
Ok now we are getting into the big tools. Again I was pretty clueless about this. CNC means "computer numerical control." It is the idea that you can take a 3D image and turn it into computer commands that the machine understands. CNC machines work with all types of mediums. This one happens to cut metal to the exact shape you specify on the computer. I don't have things in mind that would need this but i would love to know how to run this machine. Check out this video if you are curious about what it can do. I have no clue what they are building but who cares! If you need a special metal part you need access to this machine. I don't know if they have one of these but if they do ill report back about how hard they are to learn.



Ok that is part 1. Ill get part two up before I head out on Tuesday. If you are in the area and want to come along let me know. We will be getting there at 7:30.

--jb





Saturday, February 15, 2014

Eye Fi With My Little Eye

We have a problem in our house. We saved up money 2 years ago to by a nice DSLR camera. It was bottom of the line but still took really cool pictures. We were both interested in blogging at the time so we wanted a camera that could take good pictures. While we never started blogging, we would go on photo shoots and upload the pictures to our computer and share them on Facebook. Soon after that Kara got a new phone and Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter were all super easy. When posting images to social media was that easy, getting pictures any other way was a hassle. Our camera began to gather dust as it sat being unused. We now both have new phones so I thought it would be time to see if we could get our SLR back into action!

I did some research and found the Eye-Fi Mobi. I ordered it on Amazon and have been waiting for it to come in the mail. I woke up this morning and stood in the cold while I waited for our office to open up so I could get my packages. The card came along with a wireless usb dongle for my Raspberry Pi (more on the later).

Happy Valentines Day to My DSLR!
What the Eye-Fi does is it creates a custom wifi link between the phone and the camera. I downloaded an app onto my phone (works on a tablet too) and it syncs with card in the camera. It takes about 30 sec from when I take the picture before it shows up on the phone. The pictures are available to all of the social media apps and I can even push them to my Google Drive and they are available for this blog. There is a version of the card that will work with a computer using the wifi as well if you dont have a smart phone. I didn't get that one because it was $100 and I really only needed it to work with mobile. I got mine for $44 on Amazon. At first I balked at the price since that is the price of a 64GB regular SD card. Then I realized that really this was saving me from having a really expensive shelf ornament/paper weight.

If you are using a newer DSLR there is a setting in the camera itself to enable to wifi on the card. Took me a few minutes to figure that out. --jb


Wednesday, February 12, 2014

3 Tools That Keep You Getting Things Done

As you may have gathered productivity is pretty high on my list. Because of my Make2014 initiative, I don't want to mess around with things that will get in the way of productivity. I removed all of the games on my phone because I am easily addicted they. I just have to beat everything I play and most mobile games are designed to be almost unbeatable without in app purchases and to me that is more of a challenge. So i waste away playing Temple Run trying to get enough gold to purchase something that most people pay the 5 bucks to get. However I have been experimenting with some new apps and tools.

I am not very good at writing things down but I am even worse about looking at what I wrote down. I do check my phone throughout the day as I get messages and things. Since I check my phone a lot, I have been using Google Keep on my home screen. I have a widget with today's todo list. It takes up a big chunk of my screen but I have found that I have been much more diligent about doing the things on my list. Google Keep has a limited feature set and that it on purpose. It is to keep you from spending too much time fiddling with your lists so you can have more time to do the things on them. I was turned off at first by the simplicity. I thought, this is Google they should have these exportable in a million different formats, be able to be shared between different people, and have tons of customization. They kept it simple and I am now content that simple is better.

If ADD is your problem then the Pomodoro app for you. Well, really there are dozens of apps that basically do the same thing. They set a timer for 25 minutes in which you are to focus on a single task and on that task only. If an interruption happens you write it down and deal with it later. After your 25 min are up you take 5 minutes to deal with distractions, go to the bathroom, or grab a snack and then you are back to 25 minutes of complete focus. You might think that working for 30 minutes casually would equal out to 25 minutes with a 5 minute break but it doesn't. The problem with allowing interruptions is that they cause a context switch in which we need to completely stop thinking about one thing and think about another. Then we have to switch back to the thing we were thinking about. For simple tasks this is not usually a problem. I can context switch when I am doing the dishes. But if you are working on anything that requires concentration minimizing context switches will make you much more productive. There is more to the Pomodoro Technique so check it out.

Often come across articles that I want to read but don't have the time to right away. I may be in the middle of a pomodoro and can't be interrupted.In the past I would bookmark things in Google Chrome and having my bookmarks sync across my Google accounts has been really nice. But recently I have been using pocket. Pocket is a bookmarking app that has the look and feel of Pinterest but without the hundreds of people looking at your stuff like guests snooping through your house while you are away. This list is just for you. It organizes them really well with a picture and and the start of the article. It is available on the web and as an app so you can have it at work and on the go. Give it a try.

Sorry for the title. I promised myself I would never use the ubiquitous enumerated list to grab people's attention. It is just too tempting.

Further reading

Sunday, February 9, 2014

The Maker Movement Manifesto

The current title of my blog is "A Maker in the Making" and I have talked about one of the sparks that caused me to realize that being a maker is what I wanted to do. I feel like i need to define exactly what a "maker" is and what I am talking about when I refer to it as a movement.

I originally learned about makers from a wired magazine article that described workshops called makerspaces where people were matching their knowledge of electronics and computers to make things. Things like tweeting house plants, home automation systems, and a various assortment of flying and moving objects. It seemed like a place for nerds and DIY people to get together. I love learning new machines and nerdy DIY projects are right up my alley. However, nothing like that existed in Topeka, Ks.

Fast forward two years and my friend Jared invited me to go to a makerspace in Kansas City. I was blown away at all of the stuff there. However, I still saw it as a place for DIYer's to tinker and make the stuff that they would be making at home anyway. I didn't realize the impact that places like this were having on our lives.

A few weeks after my trip I went to the library to find a sci-fi book that a friend recommended. On a whim, as I was walking out of the library, I saw "The Maker Movement Manifesto" by Mark Hatch and decided to pick it up to see what this maker stuff was all about.

Here is a quick review of what I found:

Hatch blends a lot of stories in with what I would consider a really good argument for why the maker movement will change the way we develop and manufacture goods. My only critique is that while the content of the book was really good the flow was hard to follow. So here is my breakdown of it.

Chapters 1-3: Introduction
Chapters 4-6: The 3 pillars of the maker movement (my words)
Chapters 7-9: Examples of people, companies, and schools that are getting involved
Chapter 10: A call to action


Chapters 1-3 present an overview and are the intro to what being a maker is all about. This includes the manifesto and its tenants: Make, Share, Give, Learn, Tool Up, Play, Participate, Support, and Change. I appreciated his point about people were created in the image of a creative God and thus creating is part of who we are.

One of the key components to the success of makers is the idea of free innovation and the ability to fail fast. With tools like 3D printers and computer controlled mills and routers people can built prototypes for a few hundred dollars where in the past they would have get engineering firms involved which could cost upwards of $100,000. With this low barrier to entry people are willing to try ideas that they never would have in the past. This allows them to know if an idea will make it or fail rather quickly and cheaply. While a few hundred dollars is not free, compared to $100,000 it might as well be.

Lastly as part of the introduction Hatch explains how important the community of people is to the success of an idea. While some people can go it alone most of the success that people are having is through communities that provide connections to other people and an atmosphere of creativity.

Chapters 4-6 are the real meat of Hatch's argument. I call this the three pillars, better yet the triforce of the maker movement. They are: Access to tools, access to knowledge, and a delivery system to reach an audience.

Access to tools is important, really important. What tools you might ask? Well here is a list. We are talking laser saws, 3D printers, plasma cutters, industrial sowing machines, computer controlled routers, and much more. This thing is these tools are now cheaper, more powerful, and easy enough to use that the average person can do it. You can literally download the plans for a couch, tweak them to fit you style and space, pickup the wood at a hardware store and run them through a set computer controlled tools. YOU CAN PRINT YOUR OWN FURNITURE. This can only happen if you have access to the right tools. Places like TechShop are providing access to these tools to anyone who wants it.

Access to knowledge is just as important as access to tools. We are living in an age where if you want to learn how to do something there is an example on the internet. Never before have we had this much access to general knowlege. Not only that but makerspaces provide classes where you can learn how to use a new tool that might help you get your project done or maybe done faster. They also provide a place for people to collaborate. Makerspaces are full of engineers, programmers, artists, accountants, business people and more. Finding someone who can show you how to get past a problem or who is even willing to partner with you is not only possible but likely.

Access to a delivery method is also important. People are not only able to create really cool things but they are able to get them to customers in ways we have never seen before. Need funding? Kickstart it or put it on Indiegogo. Need an online store? Etcy gives you are store for free. Need a cheap manufacture? Alibaba will deal with you and handle you manufacturing needs. You can even outsource your HR and payroll if you get big enough to hire help. You bring the idea and every other part of your business is handled for you.

Chapters 7-9 give examples of people, companies and colleges that are embracing this. For example Jack Dorsey used a makerspace to prototype the first square. People have prototyped incubators for children in the third world and are saving the lives of kids world wide. The worlds cheapest drip irrigation system, folding kayaks, and even certain jet packs were all developed in makerspaces. Companies like ford have set up 40,000 sq ft sites and have partnered with TechShop to set up these kind of spaces.

By chapter 10 I was hooked. I didn't need a how to get involved section because I was already planning on how to move to San Francisco and beg Mark Hatch and TechShop to give me a job. Since that is unlikely I have found a makerspace here in Lawrence that I am going to check out. If you haven't figured out what to do at this point he has some tips about how to get involved.

Here is the first chapter of the book in pdf if you want to read some of this for yourself.


Indigo Dying

So Kara literally hates winter and this winter especially. Her creative juices have just seemed to frost over. But since I declared 2014 the year of making things she decided to get started. A while back she had bought these napkins and she found some blogs where people did some pretty creative tie dyes. We went and got some indigo dye at Hobby Lobby. I was surprised at how many steps it had. I had assumed it would be dump the powder in and go. Kara figured it out and in the end she had a great finished product. 

Inspecting the dye kit.

The finished product.