Jason Champion

My task and to-do list management website, Got-It-Done.com, came out of beta today.  It also became 100% free.  Initially I had planned to have both free and paid versions, but it’s the sort of thing that should probably just be free.  So, instead of limiting non-premium accounts to 2 lists of 25 items each, anyone can create any number of lists with any number of items now.

I created the site because I needed a way to keep track of my “todo list” and made it multi-user in case other people would find it useful.  It seems that a solid handful of people do, but it’s not really much of a commercial venture considering the proliferation of task management websites out there. Still, it’s the one *I* fine most useful of all, so others might too.

If you’ve got stuff to do, but it’s too much to keep track of easily, sign up on Got-It-Done.com.  It may just make your life easier.

Of course, the option is still out there to generate a little revenue by creating mobile-phone-based adaptations of the site.  That may just have to happen when Sprint finally releases their first Android phone next month.

For the past couple months I’ve been working on a new website, I-Collect-It.com, which will be a reference and community for collectors of various collectibles, such as stamps, sports cards, coins, bank notes, stock certificates, and other ephemera.

Unlike most of my other sites, which have been just a few static pages or a Drupal install with some modifications, I-Collect-It is a custom-coded site written from “scratch” using the Django web framework. I learned a lot about Django while building Got-It-Done.com. I didn’t learn all there was to know, but I gained a foundation solid enough to start building something on a much larger scale.

So far, there are more than 2000 images totaling about 1.9 gigabytes. Ultimately the site may grow to 100 times that, or more, so it’s important to have a solid design for the database and filesystem. I spent a lot of time sketching out how I wanted data management to work for the site, and I feel like I have something pretty solid and scalable to work from.

Since there is a massive amount of data that needs to be added and a pretty sizeable codebase that needs to be written, it will be a long process to get the site fully built and launched, but for now one can at least browse some of the items that will be shown on the site.

There’s not much CSS or layout yet since I’ve been so focused on the data portion of the site (in other words, it ain’t pretty), but it should give you an idea of what I’ve been working on.

The first “web 2.0″ site I have built from scratch, Got-It-Done.com, has just gone into public beta today.  It is a web-based task and to-do list management application with the ability to set up email reminders.  It’s free to use for 2 lists with up to 25 tasks per list — plenty of room to keep track of the things you need to do.  It’s quick and easy to use, so give it a try.  It may just help you get things done.

It was written using the Django web framework and the jQuery Javascript framework.

Anyone who has spent more than five minutes writing JavaScript knows that dealing with cross-browser issues is far more trouble than it’s worth.

It’s also really not a good idea to roll your own widgets for common things such as date pickers, tabs, and other UI elements.

That’s why JavaScript frameworks exist — they exist to solve the same problems every web developer must face.  If there wasn’t a need for them there wouldn’t be more than a dozen: Dojo, Echo3, ExtJS, Google Web Toolkit, jQuery, Midori, MochiKit, MooTools, Prototype, Pyjamas, Qooxdoo, Rialto, Rico, script.aculo.us, SweetDEV, YUI, and ZK.

These frameworks have varying levels of maturity and popularity.  I like to judge them by the number of books have been written.  A good rule of thumb is that a technology is mature if it’s been around long enough to have a how-to book published.  For the other thumb, you can judge a technology’s popularity by the quantity of books that have been published.

By this standard, it looks like Dojo (7 books), ExtJS (3 books), Google Web Toolkit (10 books), jQuery (9 books), MooTools (2 books), Prototype + script.aculo.us (4 books), YUI (1 book), and ZK (2 books) are all mature.  Since Dojo and jQuery are among the most popular, I decided to try using both and sticking with whichever works better.

It turns out that Dojo and jQuery have a very similar set of capabilities.  The ones I were most interested in were tabs, streamlining of AJAX calls, a slider, and a date picker.

After spending a bit with the docs, all of those tools were easy to implement in both frameworks.  I liked the way Dojo used attributes on page elements (dojoType=”dijit.form.HorizontalSlider”) more than the way jQuery creates elements (in the document.Ready() function).  It turns out that jQuery’s method results in smoother page rendering.

After I finished figuring out how to use each of them, I compared the rendered pages in a few browsers.  Dojo’s tab control doesn’t quite work right with IE, which makes it a deal-breaker.  jQuery’s the winner, at least for my future projects.

This week I attended the first meeting of the International Bootstrapping Association as a guest.

The topic of the meeting was “legal issues” and it had an interesting interactive format.  It was definitely not one of those “sit back and watch the action” type of things.  I had to think and I had to listen, no way out of that.  I didn’t learn as much as I had hoped to (I must admit, I’ve probably over-studied legal issues related to business), but I did take home a bit of useful information.  The best part was that things were set up in a way where people were encouraged to find solutions to help you with whatever situation you were concerned with.

The meeting was ran by Kevin Gadd from TechColumbus.  He makes a great MC and does a very good job of moving things along.

I haven’t yet joined the IBA, but I’m very likely to in spite of the fact that I’ve never been much of a “joiner”.  For those curious about the IBA meetings, you do get to attend one meeting as a guest before you have to join up.

Not long ago I spent a few weeks learning ASP.NET MVC, Ruby on Rails, and the Django web framework. The idea was to get deep enough into each to figure out whether I wanted to spend more time building things with them.

First was ASP.NET MVC. I was a bit apprehensive about diving in because classic ASP is the most disgusting thing ever to hit the web, and ASP.NET isn’t much better.

ASP.NET turned out to be quite usable. In fact, I would even say that it makes web development with Microsoft technologies not totally suck. It takes away almost all of the clunky ham-handedness that is inherent to ASP.NET, gets out of the way, and just lets you build a site.

I used it to build a DMOZ-like link directory site (yes, I know link directories are completely obsolete and the web doesn’t need another one — don’t worry, I built it to throw away). All I used to learn the basics was the “nerd dinner” sample book chapter from Scott Guthrie.  That’s all it took.

Next up was Ruby on Rails.  I took out a library book (can’t remember which one) and started working through it.  It was pretty straighforward and I built a simple blog-type site with it.  After spending a while with it I came to the conclusion that Rails is awesome but I don’t particularly care for the Ruby language.

After that I tackled Django.  I worked through the tutorial to build a polling site and it was also fairly easy to work with at first.  Although the database integration wasn’t quite as buttery-smooth as Rails, I really like working in Python, so that’s a major plus.  It also integrates very well with PostgreSQL, which is my favorite database engine.

Ultimately the winner for me ended up being Django, with ASP.NET MVC being a close second.  The deal-breaker was the fact that I use Linux as my primary web hosting and don’t care to switch to Windows.  All in all, scripting languages  and web frameworks are so similar as to just be a matter of personal taste anymore, and my taste runs to snakes and jazz rather than gems and trains.

I might like to try a Java framework, but I have no idea where to start in the world of Java.  I can write Java code (it’s almost identical to C#, which I’m a ninja at), but I have no idea what’s “out there” for Java.

I’ve been known to (in)frequent StackOverflow.com, a Q & A site for programmers.  It’s pretty handy, but doesn’t seem to have results turn up in Google too often, so I can’t imagine they get all that much organic traffic.

So, here’ s my badge, piece of flair, whatever ya call it:

In an earlier post I mentioned that some domain ideas just aren’t right for me to develop.  They’re not necessarily bad ideas, just not something I have the right combination of knowledge and motivation for.  I have a batch of those up on eBay right now.  Here’s a breakdown of what they are and why they’re not something I can build:

allpossibleworlds.net:  This was the science fiction magazine I was publishing.  It’s a great domain name, but I just couldn’t turn it into something else while it was still owned by me.  Maybe there’s an interstellar travel agency out there that can make use of it.

champion-analytics.com:  This was meant to be an investment analysis site, but I just don’t have the know-how to build it into something that provides actual value for people.

equitysavant.com:  Same as above.

forexsavant.com:  Same as above.

investor-advocate.com:  Same as above.

fmycompany.com:  Might as well just read the auction description on this one.

poll-vote.net:  I really don’t know enough about what mainstream people are interested in to build a polling site.

veygoth.com:  I’ve had the domain for ages, but have no idea what to do with it.

vlacis.com:  I’ve also had this domain for ages, but also have no idea what to do with it.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if someone took one of these domains and built something big and important with it, and I hope they do.

I have just finished creating the Roland JX8P .WAV + Soundfont Sample CD.  It’s now available through the Zeta Centauri website and an eBay listing.

The sample CD is a product geared toward people who produce sample-based music.  I have no idea how many copies will sell, but it does feel very good to finish and release a product, especially when it required a large amount of effort to create. I’m quite happy with the quality, so I imagine others will be too.

I have other sample CDs in the works, but I want to see how this one does before I finish assembling the others. After all, I may need to refine something in my editing, packaging, or production process.

I hope to release a digital download version at some point, but I have yet to find a good solution for secure digital delivery of files larger than 360MB in size.  5-10 MB is easy.  If someone reads this and knows of a good solution, feel free to mention it, but I suspect that I’ll have to build something myself.

Conventional wisdom says that in order to get anything done and to build anything significant you need to have a single-minded laser focus.  You need to eat, sleep, and breathe whatever it is you’re trying to accomplish.  Spreading yourself too thinly means that you’ll only be mediocre at a bunch of things rather than excelling at a particular goal.

In general I believe that’s true.  But what happens when you focus all of your energy on something that turns out to be a completely bad idea or something that really wasn’t worth doing in the first place?  You fail.  Failure isn’t necessarily bad, but it is a little annoying to part with all that wasted time.

That’s why I think it’s OK to keep trying new things until one thing becomes “sticky” enough to focus on.  That’s what I’ve done with the significant number of domains and ideas I’ve experimented with — each one of them was really a marketing test.  Then again, the wasted time for that approach might be about the same as just running full speed with one idea would have had.

It’s also interesting to think about the fact that there is a “zoom factor” involved.  Does working on one thing mean only building one business at a time?  Or does it mean focusing on one exact thing at a time to the exclusion of all others, such as getting the CSS perfect for a web page?

I think the point with the conventional wisdom is that once you find something good enough that it will work on a larger scale or with a greater intensity you should run with it.  I’m pretty sure it’s still OK to experiement with more than one thing at a time until you know what works.