Conrad Decker

The Hacker Ethic

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 00:24:47 -0500

Steven Levy, author of “Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution,” outlined the hacker ideal at MIT as consisting of the following principles:

Sharing

Openness

Decentralization

Free Access to Computers

World Improvement

Pretty crazy he hit on that in 1984. I don’t think a single thing has changed.

Looks like it’s working! I was making my daily rounds...

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 09:26:00 -0500

Looks like it’s working!

I was making my daily rounds through Facebook this morning and caught a friend’s post asking “What’s with the Internet Blackout? Grrrr”. I took a few minutes to inform her of what’s going on, when it hit me. It’s working!

People, and entire websites, are “going black” today to raise awareness about the SOPA and PIPA bills that the Government is trying to pass. Raising awareness it is! If you happen to come across someone asking a similar question, please take a minute to explain what’s going on. “The more you know”, right? Here are a couple links worth sharing if you’re so inclined…

* https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/sopa-pipa/
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more

And here was my response to her question…in case you’re curious as well…

Good morning Kelly :) Annoying right?! A little background info for you…The Government is working hard to try and pass bills that would cause the same type of “blackout” that you’re seeing now. They’re aimed at stoping online piracy, but would have much larger and more damaging effects to the free and open Internet.

If these bills pass, a lot of the social media sites you use daily (see Facebook and Youtube) would be responsible for policing content and search engines like Google would be required to remove websites from their search results. Individuals like myself who make their living creating businesses and spurring innovation using The Internet could potentially be affected as well. Many websites are “going black” to protest these bills and hopefully raise awareness about the issue (in this case, I’m glad it caught your attention).

If you’re interested in learning more…take a look at these sites:
* https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/sopa-pipa/
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more

I’m never one to push on issues like these, but if you’re so inclined…definitely take a look and contact your representatives…or even easier, sign this Petition. It would only take a minute. https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

//End Public Service Announcement :)

A little motivation for the holidays… Great words to truly...

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 11:51:36 -0500

A little motivation for the holidays…

Great words to truly think about. Thanks Jason for sharing.

jasonsadler:

How Bad Do You Want It?

A fantastic inspirational video for anyone. You don’t have to be an athlete to appreciate the words being spoken from Eric Thomas. It gets really good around the 2:30 mark.

Terrible Labs - Ruby on Rails, Node.js & iOS Consultants in Boston/Cambridge, Massachusetts

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 11:17:44 -0500

Terrible Labs - Ruby on Rails, Node.js & iOS Consultants in Boston/Cambridge, Massachusetts

Basecamp Bulk Project Delete

Sun, 27 Nov 2011 21:59:41 -0500

I was recently working on an API integration between Shopify & Basecamp and found myself with a large number of projects in Basecamp that I had to remove. From what I could tell, the Basecamp API doesn’t have a way to delete projects (at least it’s not documented) and there’s no bulk delete functionality in the existing UI so I was forced to figure out the easiest way to do this sans clicking and confirming delete for every project.

Upon closer inspection, the confirmation process that Basecamp has in place is interesting. They show a javascript confirmation box which POSTs to a url along the lines of /project_url/project/delete_project. This means running a simple GET request on the URL won’t successfully delete the project.

After playing around for a little while I came up with this simple JS snippet that I ran in my Console in Google Chrome. It embeds JQuery on the page, and loops through the project listing and POSTs to each projects respective delete url’s.

Bulk Project Delete from Basecamp

This snippet is very basic and will delete every project in your account so I wouldn’t recommend utilizing it in it’s current state. With some simple adjustments however, you could easily limit the projects that it deletes. I only wanted to delete specific projects that contained “Order #” in their title. To do so I made the following adjustment.

Bulk Project Delete from Basecamp With Filter

Both of these could obviously be simplified and run without JQuery but in an attempt to spend as little amount of time as possible getting this working I went with what I knew best. If anyone has a way to simplify this, I’d love to see it. From here, you could even go one step further and turn the snippet into a bookmarklet. That said, I’d have to imagine it’s unlikely that this is something anyone would be doing often.

So awesome! Way to step up Tumblr…and everyone who...

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 22:58:29 -0500

So awesome! Way to step up Tumblr…and everyone who participated!

staff:

Yesterday we did a historic thing. We generated 87,834 phone calls to U.S. Representatives in a concerted effort to protect the Internet. Extraordinary. There’s no doubt that we’ve been heard.

So just to keep you updated: The well-intentioned, but immensely flawed “Stop Online Piracy Act” is still in the House Judiciary Committee. The hearing was yesterday and now members will debate and bring amendments to the bill. The Committee will reconvene in a few weeks — the date has yet to be scheduled. Nothing has been brought to a final vote. Everything is still very much in play. We’ll keep you posted on what’s going on and what you can do to help. But for now, we want to thank you.

One encouraging thing we heard yesterday:

I don’t believe this bill has any chance on the House floor. I think it’s way too extreme, it infringes on too many areas that our leadership will know is simply too dangerous to do in its current form.

— Representative Darrell Issa

We also want to express our tremendous gratitude to our friends at Mobile Commons who, on 30 minutes notice, hooked us up with their amazing platform (and provided their expertise) to automatically connect callers with their Representatives.

Are you kidding me?

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 02:18:16 -0500

Are you kidding me? :

This kid is in the sixth grade and has a better public speaking presence then most adults - significantly better then myself! And he’s got apps in the app store :)

Kudos to him. I can only imagine where he ends up, and how he influences younger generations to embrace technology.

Grind | Work Liquid | A workspace for free-range humans

Sat, 15 Oct 2011 00:13:00 -0400

Grind | Work Liquid | A workspace for free-range humans

Sense.

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 22:30:41 -0400

Sense.:

Looks like a cool little group.

New Puppy Mill Legislation: How You Can Help

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 09:52:07 -0400

New Puppy Mill Legislation: How You Can Help:

Saw this in my twitter stream this morning and did my part. Please help support the Puppy Uniform Protection and Safety (PUPS) Act!

Link: http://www.petsitusa.com/blog/?p=4406

No rest for the weary == false

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 07:39:28 -0400

No rest for the weary == false:

I posted a link to a TED talk not too long ago about The Power Of Time Off. Along those same lines I came across this posting through a tweet from a fellow entrepreneur @tedserbinski. I thought it was a great reminder of how important rest is and I wanted to make sure I had it archived for future reading.

As entrepreneurs we all know that working non-stop takes a toll on our minds and bodies. As a recent work burnout, I’ve experienced it first hand. I was working almost around the clock, trying to stay ahead before I lost all motivation and completely broke down.

The article makes some great points about rest being vital to staying clear-headed and healthy, but more importantly the author notes that rest is “an important component of hardcore achievement and productivity”.

If you want to be more productive, you need to give yourself time to rejuvenate.

I wonder if I’ll be able to look back on these horoscopes...

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 14:22:16 -0400

I wonder if I’ll be able to look back on these horoscopes one day and say…”Damn, they were right”. Here’s to hoping so :)

Coworking Lesson Learned

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 19:08:15 -0400

As some of you know I’ve been working hard to get The Bungalow up and running here in Jacksonville Beach. As we get closer and closer to opening to the general public I’ve been giving a lot of thought to membership plans, branding, website content, how to schedule desk time, etc. One of my main sources of inspiration through all of this has been Alex Hillman and what they’ve managed to do with @indyhall over the past 4 years. Last week I happened to catch this tweet from Alex about their membership counts and I was really intrigued.

I was intrigued because their basic memberships accounted for almost 60% of their total membership. My first thought was maybe that $25/month is worthwhile for individuals that don’t really work out of the space very often but like to make it out for the extracurricular activities they have. So I asked Alex if they attributed that to all of the “events” they put on. Alex ended up laying it out plain and simple with this tweet…

…and this blog post.

Brilliant. I’ve heard Alex mention it time and time again. Coworking isn’t about the desks or the space, it’s about the people. I’ve been so focused on the space as we’ve tried to get it ready for public consumption that it was easy to forget that. Thanks for the reminder Alex.

So, what is the lesson learned?

When it comes to coworking it’s easy to focus on a space and it’s amenities, but it’s not about the space. The space is just a catalyst…a catalyst to collaboration, social interactions, and hopefully meaningful relationships.

If you’re looking for a space to cowork or if you’re organizing a coworking space…keep this in mind!

Yahtzee! The horoscope gods are being generous again :)

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 12:30:17 -0400

Yahtzee! The horoscope gods are being generous again :)

Pivotal Labs: Talks

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 02:22:30 -0400

Pivotal Labs: Talks

The quick website launch checklist - The Agiliq Newsletter

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 03:51:18 -0400

The quick website launch checklist - The Agiliq Newsletter

Sivers

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 09:38:22 -0400

Sivers

Seabourne | Welcome

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 10:27:15 -0400

Seabourne | Welcome

Coloft: Office Space in Santa Monica, Meeting Rooms, Virtual Office, Community

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 10:57:13 -0400

Coloft: Office Space in Santa Monica, Meeting Rooms, Virtual Office, Community

The Dusty Programmer: 5 Alternatives to GoDaddy

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 07:08:47 -0400

The Dusty Programmer: 5 Alternatives to GoDaddy:

dustyprogrammer:

I am sucker for marketing as much as the next guy, so when I am being bombarded with Go Daddy adverts everywhere, where do you think I am going to go, when I want to buy a domain?

So, like the sheep I am I end up going to Go Daddy and before I even give them my money, I feel like I am signing…