Trash Vs Treasure - HitMyServer Blog

Great Read - Why I Sold Zappos by Tony Hsiegh

Jeff K — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 09:06:39 -0500

Over at Inc.com Tony Hsiegh wrote a good article about selling Zappos to Amazon back in 2009. While some companies sell to grab the money and go, Tony sold to keep the company the way it was.

Tony Hsieh built his online shoe retailer into an e-commerce powerhouse. But with credit tightening and investors eyeing the exits, Hsieh was forced to ask: Was selling Zappos really the only way to save it? - Inc.com

Read It: Inc.com - Why I Sold Zappos

Quick Review: Jing

Jeff K — Mon, 31 May 2010 11:05:03 -0500

Ever use Jing? I have seen other people use but had never used it in the past. So what is it? It is a screen capture program for Windows and Mac that can capture either a recording or just a screenshot. Who Made It? Jing was created by TechSmith more known for creating Camtasia Studio and SnagIt. TechSmith is a software company based in Michigan such about 30 minutes from me.

Pros:
1. It's free
2. You can select the area on your monitor to capture
3. Direct upload to screencast.com
��Free version is 2GB space, 2GB monthly bandwidth / Paid version is 25GB space, 200GB monthly bandwidth
�� Paid version can upload to several different sites

Cons:
1. Really the only thing I don't like is that the free version only allows you to save as a .swf. The paid version allows MPEG-4 which is much better and produces a smaller file size. If I used Jing enough to justify the $15/year cost I would definitely upgrade. Since I am mooching off of the kindness of TechSmith, the .swf format will stay until I upgrade.

What I used it for
I used Jing for both video capturing and a screenshot of an application I made for Mac that connects to a web server I am creating. Below is the screenshot.

THOUGHT: Email as Username Impractical?

Jeff K — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 22:04:36 -0500

With the last few projects built, I have solely used an email address for the username when logging in. With smaller internal projects it doesn't matter how you handle usernames, but it got me thinking about bigger projects. Are you a member of a social network / community that uses actual usernames instead of email addresses? How many of those have names like jeff10, jonny17, etc? I hate having several usernames and trying to remember which is which. Then, if my username is already taken, now I have to come up with a new one. While the idea of OpenID/OAuth is not necessarily to cut down on how many different logins' you have, I think it is effective in that area.

Since only one person/entity can actively own an email address, I like to authenticate users based on that. Now bob can continue to use his bob@aol.com address and not worry if he is "bob" or "bob1974". Using this approach there are 2 downsides:

a. If your email gets hacked and you used the same one for all your websites that's a lot of access the intruder has.

b. In a community your names are generally displayed so you know who you are talking about. If you were to display the email addresses then you are making your users easy targets for spammers (NOT GOOD!). In this type of website you could have display names but run into the problem of having 15 people named Mike. Therefore you would have to make them unique and your back in a situation of having usernames.

After thinking about this topic for a little bit I have concluded that if you are running a community site, it is impractical to use only email addresses, but for internal / non community websites it works out good.

Did this turn out to be a waste of my time? Not entirely. As I continue to do projects requiring authentication, I think I will take into consideration the pros and cons of using email vs. username.

For other developers out there, please do not assign random numbers as the username. There are a few big internet companies doing that and it's a pain. When I need to login to an account with these numbers assigned I always have to refer to an email or go through the "forgot your username" process. STOP IT!!!

Recent Internet Issues: Using external resources

Jeff K — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 21:03:14 -0500

Over sometime now, using external resources on your web page has been quite common. Whether it be using an analytic package, loading jquery from the Google servers, or even loading an image from a partner company, there is an issue.

The Issue

Since you are calling an external resource, you are relying on that service to be up. A lot of these places, especially companies like Google seem to have great uptime and are very reliable. However, I have noticed the "Waiting for ........." while waiting on a page to load. How many times have you waited on the content of page to load, only to have to wait on adsense to load before the rest of the content. In my opinion, this is not the fault of Google, or whomever external resource you use.

A Possible Solution?

So what is that I propose? I propose you load external resources at the end of the page and use either javascript or css to position it correctly. On kreitsoft.com I ran into this issue when loading my last tweet. So, I ended up using javascript to load the tweet into a div. The div is positioned using css. Twitter is notorious for having downtime in the past, and would it be fair to make a visitor wait on loading your last tweet? If I wouldn't wait on my own pages to load my last tweet, why should I expect others to wait?

This way, YOUR content will be loaded prior to waiting on your ads, tweets, or tracking software. While someone might want their ads to load quickly, I want the content of the page to load even quicker. If I see your page get hung waiting on a 3rd party resource you just lost a visitor and I will go to a different page.

Certified Developer AuthorizeNet

Jeff K — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 20:03:53 -0500

In the event you haven't noticed, HitMyServer has been accepted into the Authorize.Net® Certified Developer Program.

Over the past few years, I have developed several solutions connecting the gateway to websites. I found it fitting to apply and eventually be accepted into the program and today I received my acceptance letter. I look forward to building more web applications utilizing the payment gateway!

Whats Your Price?

Jeff K — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 18:02:05 -0600

Why is it that I run into so many businesses don't show the price of their software? Do they think listing such a high price will turn people away? If there is one thing that will turn me away from buying your products, it's not telling me how much it costs. If its listed at $4,500 I might think "eh.. probably not" however if its "contact sales" I just look for something else and won't remember your name.

Subversion

Jeff K — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 19:02:03 -0600

We Now Have Subversion!
If you want to grab the latest and greatest version of Summit you can do so using SVN (Subversion). The url is http://svn.hitmyserver.com/repo/summit. To get access the username is guest and the password is guest. Once enough changes are done to update the .zip file I will do so, until then you can grab any updates here.

Can you hear me now?

Jeff K — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 18:01:31 -0600

Recently I had a 3 way conference over AIM regarding some work being done. The AIM client I use is Trillian Astra. Its pretty good and I have used it for a few years now. It logs my conversations and shows them in the window so I can refer back to what I said yesterday. That is, until you do a conference. Now I can't see my logs as easily. Now I have to navigation to logs folder and start opening text files.

So! Why not build a text conferencing web application. That's what I did. Soon, I will stick it up for users to play with. It might be something I polish up or something I keep in the background. Only time will tell.. Oh yeah, and you can upload files to it too!

New and Improved

Jeff K — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 18:12:02 -0600

Welcome to the new and improved HitMyServer.com. The website has went through a major overhaul making it easier to look at.

The site is built on our toolkit Summit. The toolkit isn't finished yet but we released it so you can at least poke around. I am looking to add revision control. I haven't decided whether I will use Subversion or Git.