better living through python

No post from this past Tuesday as I was rather busy with training at my other job. Nevertheless I am back again, and with exciting news!!

FlamingLunchbox will soon be moving into some office space. In the hopes to fully separate our home space from our office life, we’ll be moving our various office equipments into a space within the next month.

I know I’ve chatted a fair amount lately about how having your office space and your home life congealed makes for serious difficulties in ever feeling truly at home. Hopefully this new arrangement will take care of that stress (in a perfect world of course).

Otherwise life is really rather busy at the moment. I’m making slow but steady progress on my game and I’m almost finished with another unrelated project I had been working on. This means I should have more time to devote to programming, graphics and other business related items. We also have some other cool news about FlamingLunchbox updates that should be coming your way here real soon.

What’s a favicon? It’s an image file that contains several images. It was originally implemented by Microsoft with IE5, but has since grown to be a part of all browsers. It’s that small icon that is located on the tab of every browser page, but is also known as the shortcut icon, Web site icon, URL icon or bookmark icon. Not everyone creates one for their page.

Creating a favicon isn’t very difficult, if you know how to use Gimp and have an image already created. I always use this egressive page as a reference when I need to make one. It’s fairly detailed so I’ve written a much more simplified version below.

Create your initial image file (I use .png because it’s easy) and make sure it’s square. The image itself doesn’t have to be, as long as the transparent space surrounding it creates a square canvas. Then scale that image to be 128 by 128 pixels, save it as favicon128.png, then scale it again until you have 5 different image files with sizes of 128, 64, 48, 32, 16 saved as favicon128.png and down respectively.

Then create a new file with a canvas size of 128 and load all the other files in as layers. Starting with the smallest image on the top and largest on the bottom, order the images by size appropriately. Once complete you’ll see all the images on top of each other.

To finish, save this new file as ‘favicon.ico’ and make sure to indicate .ico as the file type. Save the ico file in the root directory of the website you want it to appear in. Now you’re done.

As I said above it’s a simple description of how to make an ico file, so if you have any issues you might check out the egressive page I linked above. It’s much more exhaustive. There are also some useful links on the wikipedia page.

Something every small company needs, is a good way to spread the word about their products and services. Luckily with social media, most small companies have found easier ways to reach out to more people. Unforunately ads and more specifically Google Adwords isn’t able to help you, unless your market is only your local community.

Because Google can focus on advertising for people who live in your local community, Adwords can be a very effective tool for independent businesses such as nurseries, bakeries, bars or basic services. It’s not as effective when you’re trying to, say, market a puzzle game to the entire world from the state of Oregon.

Thus I found myself discussing my proposed venture into Advertising with one of the Google Adwords ‘support people’ only to learn that unless I spent closer to $1500 to $3000 dollars a month we probably wouldn’t see any increase in traffic worth noting. Definitely encouraging for those trying to make an online business work.

What has worked for our business, at least in regards to advertising? We’ve seen significant increases with twitter traffic, Stumbleupon, forum posts. The best source of increase traffic comes from being mention on well-known blogs by people in the industry. We were noted on the Casual Gameplay Blog at jayisgames.com. The traffic we garnered from their post was better than most, because they people who came to play our game were actually interested in the kind of game we produced.

But it seems that advertising, at least for those on limited budgets of something akin to a phone bill, is not an option. Other bootstrappers out there…you’ve been warned.

I recently read an article about Bootstrapping. Bootstrapping is basically a startup company without any money and lots of hope. A Startup company is something with a little money, lots of hope, and serious possibilities. I follow a blog called AVC, and you can read the Bootstrapping article on their site.

What struck me about the article is that I’ve been under the impression that FlamingLunchbox is a Startup company. What I slowly realized via this and many other blogs, is that we are Bootstrapping it. All this talk about being a Startup and we aren’t even technically in the club!

The article was enlightening. It talked about many companies and how they transitioned from Bootstrapping it to being a Startup, but only after many years of simply trying to make ends meet.

There are so many great things out there, amazing things. These creations and dreams didn’t simply happen overnight. I hear the voices in my head that tell me…“It’s not working, you need to move on” or “There are so many problems that I don’t know how to handle, maybe they can’t BE handled”. Robey and I, we’re both coming up with difficult problems, and sometimes they’re personal. Sometimes they are our own demons.

Sometimes ‘starting’ a company is difficult. You have to learn how to ‘start’ a company, learn to do all the odd jobs. You have to learn how to train and pace yourself, and learn how to work together with others when it really matters.

If you have a chance read the comments in the article I mentioned above as well as the article itself. The article and especially the comments were very heartening for me. They told of stories of now successful companies that had to wade through several years of trials just to make something work. Articles like that give me hope to keep trying, to keep pushing. Many great things are made by people who simply don’t give up.

I bet everyone has been wondering where I’ve been. Several things have happened. It’s been a while since I’ve posted, partially because I was sick for part of last week. Secondly, after much thought and discussion I’ve decided to cut back on my weekly blog entries. From now on I’ll only be posting about twice a week, mainly on Tuesday and Thursday. This decision is due to a couple of things.

I’ve taken on some extra responsibilities lately in my work life which are taking some of the focus away. It’s not the main reason, but it’s part of it. I’m also focusing on some other life things for a while. I want to get some other aspects of my life on track. I’ll still be working on my game, working on projects for FlamingLunchbox, and learning to program. I’ll also still be blogging.

I know many of you have read about how I’ve been having some rather large family problems crop up lately. This is another reason I’m cutting my blog entries down. I want to make it a priority to be a bit more involved in one particular relative’s life.

Part of all of this is also that I want to focus on programming. Instead of worrying about posting every day I’m going to work on getting more programming work done. There will be more focus on learning and reading about graphic techniques. I also recently bought a new camera for the business, to help with this learning process. My posts may be a bit more involved now, but as I said before I will still be posting.

See you on Thursday.

This past January I made a page action called CSP Schedule Converter. It creates downloadable ics and csv files that you can import into Microsoft Outlook, iCalendar, and Gmail Calendar. At this point the chrome web store says I have 27 users. About two weeks ago the Corvallis Sports Park posted their own version using their site, thus fulfilling the same action.

I’ve already tooted my own horn on facebook about how I helped to influence this change when I attempted to provide a solution on my own. They recently sent out emails noting that their option was up and running when the new indoor soccer season started. It was super exciting to hear.

Do I care that they made something to replace my creation? Yes. As far as I can tell, their product is much easier to use and far superior to my own. I would hope it would be, as I’m still a very inexperienced programmer. It makes me excited that I helped to highlight a change they could make, and that they took the initiative to solve it on their own as well.

This example shows me just how much change a person can help bring about by simply taking some initiative. I’m excited they made the update to their site. They created a better solution than me. They did nothing to desparage me or my work, but simply took it as a cue to make their own change. Their response is by far the best outcome I could have expected from my foray into page action creation.

Simply phrased: This means that people can make a difference. They simply have to take action and attempt to make the changes on their own. Find a way to make a difference, even if small. Sometimes those with the power and influence needed to make your dreams a larger reality will take notice.

It’s amazing how much a person can convince themselves that someone else doesn’t care for them. It’s even more amazing that often the same person is at fault, because they simply don’t trust the other person. They think they do, but they don’t. I am guilty of this.

We are all so different that sometimes it’s difficult to realize just how much. At least, I think so. Afterwards to find yourself able to still be accepting of other people when you realize how different they are, that’s a real feat of wits and strength. It’s something that was never a big issue for me, until I started working 8 to 5.

As I’ve mentioned off and on, some rather big life stressors have been happening lately. They are rather upsetting and sad, and also things not to be delved into here. However one amazing thing has happened throughout this whole episode. I’ve learned to trust more deeply in those close to me. I’ve learned to trust that what they say is what they feel.

I’ve had some rather strong passive-aggressive influences in my life, and I definitely can react passive-aggressively towards others. I also have a horrible habit of stress eating. Today, for example, I had a serious craving for cake after an event related to all of this stress. I ate some cake, I admit it.

Sorry, what I’m getting at is that learning to actually trust other people, and not think they are acting passive-aggressively towards me, that has been one of the most difficult goals of my life. Lately I’ve started to feel like that stress, that pain, has been lifted off of my shoulders.

It may have been something else, it may have been the weather. I don’t know. What I do know is that for some reason, I’ve started to trust people again. At the end of my last job my ability to trust was shot. I don’t think I realized how much until I started working again on site.

I start to worry about things, like I did at my old job, and then I realize just how silly I’m being. How different other working environments were. I’m starting to have faith in myself again, and all because I’m starting to believe what other people say. Trust is key.

Robey’s been working on this neat project lately. It’s a web application very similar to Dark Scroll.

It’s a basic writing application that saves text files to an online storage system. It uses Dropbox and soon also Google Drive and SkyDrive as your login and file storage systems.

This project began as a side project of Betwixt, our Kickstarter. Betwixt will be saving and creating files using a very similar method to the one used in this application. One of the main differences is that Betwixt will use WebGL to display the text whereas WriteSimply will be using the current standard methods (contentEditable and text boxes).

With spellcheck built into the browser, and some color and font options, WriteSimply will be almost complete. I will be creating the main icon here in the next week. Personally I’m rather exicted about this projects near completion, mainly for selfish reasons.

I currently use text files for writing my blog, and I write them using Sublime Text Editor. This was the application I originally used when learning to program. While still a very good application it’s distracting, not only because I have to open up a different program to access it but I have to manually save it each time. WriteSimply deals with those concerns by being web based and auto-saving, as well as providing you a clutter free screen to write in.

Over the next week I’ll be finalizing an icon for the project. Did you know there are tons of images for writing programs? How on earth does one rehash a common idea of using a pencil, pen or paper while still staying original? I’m not quite sure myself, but I’ll be giving it a go anyways.

This past week I’ve been working my game Science Fiction Tower Power. Most of my work has been on the code for the game.

Now that I’m finally working on it again, I’ve decided to redo how a person starts a game. I choose to go with a full screen cover instead of a dropdown menu. While I’ve just wasted the work I did, at least I know how to do a drop down menu now. The main screen is far from finished, but it’s definitely on it’s way.

I guess that’s how most programmers do it. Create possible fix, realize there is a better fix and adjust the code appropriately. Even if you just solved the problem twice, learning how to do the first bit of code was still an education.

I’ve also been working on some graphics for the game. A main hope is to get the stars in today or tomorrow. At the very least I want to finish transitioning over all of the game selection pieces to the new layout. After that I’ll be working on an icon for Robey’s new piece, WriteSimply.

Bonus for this week so far? I’m actually programming a fair amount after I’m done with my morning shift of 8-12 translating. Biking home/having coffee at the local shop seems to provide a fantastic transition. Hopefully this trend will continue for a while, as I’m feeling incredibly productive. Also, check out my awesome work station from earlier this week.

Some changes are happening to my normal work week. Prior to this I was working as a contracted employee through a local temp agency as a part-time translator. I’m changing over to something a little more, with a stricter schedule and a requirement to be on site versus work from home.

My work schedule will be changing so I’m unavailable in the mornings, however in the later evenings I will still be working on FlamingLunchbox projects.

Despite the fact that I’ve gotten much better at organizing my time during the week, and designating hours for translation versus programming appropriately, there have been other things cropping up. One of the things I recently noticed that I missed quite a bit, was talking about my work day and what happened with Robey.

That’s one thing that working from home with your significant other will change. When you try to chat about your work day with your business partner in the evening you end up rehashing all the things you’ve already talked about. Not to mention bringing up projects that did or did not get finished. Such things can make life more stressful than they should be.

Working from home means you are home most of the day. This means that cabin fever is more of a constant threat instead of a faint acquaintence. I had found working at coffee shops to help rather well in this instance, however there are simply some things not as easily done with only one monitor. Two monitors are a programmer’s best friend, and most laptops cannot solve that issue.

When you come home from a work day you can see all the chores that you need to do sitting there for you. When working from home they are constantly staring you in the face. Favorite past times are also rather obnoxious teases. I often find myself randomly weeding a section of the garden when I walk outside for a moment. Such weeding escapades can sometimes last up to an hour, which is hardly a useful way to spend my day.

If any of these items I’ve mentioned make you hesitant to work from home, simply choose not to. They’re consistent, and they don’t go away. I’m still working on dealing with all of them. Learning to tune out chores and finding ways to get out are weekly necessities for me. Learning to not talk about work after the end of the work day was probably the hardest lesson of all.