My Last Lecture

Today is the last day of my college classes. I woke up pretty excited, put on my amazingly pink plaid that has made me famous, and went on my merry way to class. As I write this, I'm just thinking about how many "lasts" I'm having today. Last time to eat Chick-fil-a in the new student union (new Foy). Last time to check out all the amazing college women that the South produces. Last time to watch someone run across the Concourse naked. Good thing its the last day for that one. (Side note: he should've tried wearing more clothes and some socks in the jock).

Today is also the first day of my new life. This is the life I've wanted and wished for. New beginnings are always refreshing to me. Its like January 1st for the rest of my adult life. So with that said, I figure I should attempt at some resolutions.

1) Finish more stuff.
College took me a while to finish. I took some time off to try to fix Softec and make it work and then ended up taking a great job with ACS. However, it took me longer than it should have and I wish I had taken it a tad more seriously in my beginning years. I don't regret any of the things I did, though. I think my experiences were amazing and one of a kind. It's just time to finish out some of these ideas I've had brewing for years.

2) Be smarter than you.
I'm rather competitive. I like to be better than everyone else. Knowing more about what I'm doing can only help me, so that will be my second goal. I'm going to branch outside of my normal teachings (mainly programming / computer science and philosophy). I'm thinking about trying to find a job completely outside of my comfort zone in hopes to get some more perspectives. Programmers seem to fall into the trap of only understanding how to program. I don't want to be like that.

3) Write more.
Until this past semester, I had never written an essay worth of an A. My thoughts seem to skip over many details that are important in essays. I understand what I'm writing, but the teacher doesn't. Since starting to write publicly (this blog), I feel like I've improved tenfold. I'm going to start with a small goal of writing 100 words a day and getting them online. I don't aim to make money or provide a true focus for this blog, so they'll go here. The blog will be turning into a blog about my life. You may find it interesting or you may not. Let me know what you like and I'll try to keep your suggestions in mind.

I'll go on and stop at three things to work on. They're pretty heavy duty and broad and I don't want to overload myself. I tend to over do things and burn out (read: not finish). This is the first step towards resolution #1. Pat on the back for Dave.

The future is pretty scary as of today, but good things will happen. I'll be moving down to Daupin Island, AL which is a great town. There's only a few hundred people that live there full time and I'm excited about meeting at least half of them. I don't have a full time job as of today and that's OK. I'll be there for two months and moving again come August. I'm just looking to support myself and my vices until then while I develop my ideas and try to get ItsTweetTime up and running. Hell, if it runs at a profit by the end of July, I may just stay at the Island.

I also want to thank everyone who's been reading the blog and coming up to me and saying something about it. It's been a huge step for me to write publicly and to know you're getting at least something from it has been a motivator in my life. You're all awesome and hopefully you keep reading.

And to Auburn, the source of many good times and even more great people, War Damn Eagle. We were meant to be (WDET and WDE? Perfect Match!) I'll be seeing you in the fall for a few games where the boys play the foosball.

Non-Free Beta?

Yes, the blog is full of stuff about ItsTweetTime and the ideas recently. Well, there's no blog for ITT yet so for now the ideas go here. This is something I'd like to try out and get some ideas about, so feedback is important from you, my hopeful Paying Beta Customer.

There's two phases and two sections of ITT. The two sections are free and paid; the phases within the paid section are not-free-but-cheap and not-free-but-worth-every-penny.

The problem: I want good, solid feedback from interested users to help develop the product from beta stage to incredibly useful stage.

While the beta is in progress, the price of becoming a beta tester will be $20 bucks. So, you may be thinking....Why would I pay for a beta product that isn't fully functional and still evolving? Because by being a paid beta tester, you won't ever have to pay a monthly fee for the paid-for version! It's a chance to get in early and cheap and help influence the direction that ITT will be heading. The other option is to wait until it gets released as a functional product and pay $X per month (which is TBD).

I think this will help both of us out. I get a little money to cover server costs and you get an incredibly cheap barrier to entry on the ground level to make the product better for you. I'll only be accepting a limited number of beta testers that way I can actually keep up with all the great ideas everyone has. If you really just feel that your $20 bucks to be a tester isn't worth it, I'll refund your money while the product is still in beta but you'll have to join up like everyone else later on if you decide that the mature product is something you're interested in.

Of course, you can just try out the free version and see how you like it, too. It will be a very simplified single feature out of the premium stuff. It'll have some solid functionality, but nothing earth-shaking that you couldn't do on your own without some basic programming knowledge. It's meant to be a teaser to get you salivating to have the cool version and do cool things.

I don't know that this model is used elsewhere. I can't remember coming across it before, at least. Feedback would be great and if you think this is just a shit idea, let me know. You're my Paying Beta Customer and I'd like to make something great for you.

Its Tweet Time!

If you're following along on twitter or facebook, you may have noticed that I'm combining my Merb, Twitter, Ruport projects into one and developing ItsTweetTime! I'm pretty excited about doing something a little fun here and hopefully something that'll be very useful for everyone in the twitterverse. As time goes on, there will be a blog and some more information. I'm still fleshing out some details and ideas.

Because twitter's API is having heart attacks, I'll post the productive ITT moment of the day: the first version of the logo! Please let me know what you think on here, twitter, facebook, text, anything. I would love some feed back!

Update: This is version 1.2 now based on a few suggestions. How was I supposed to know that a drop shadow wasn't very Web2.0? Bah.