Entering Grade School
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...heh heh... with my 500th post I guess I leave kindergarten and enter grade school. But I don't really want it to be a statistic post so I guess I'll have to come up with some content. How many of your wonderful ideas for side projects have you succeeded with? I just realised that for that last decade I've had an idea that I just haven't gotten very far with. So its my 500th post resolution to continue work on it this weekend and increase my article contribution in the process. Honestly there's like five ideas I've had for the last decade but one stands out. So that's my question... how many ideas do you have on the bench, and how long have they been there?
What's in a sig? This statement is false. Build a bridge and get over it. ~ Chris Maunder
Well, my main outside of work project (well, my main project) is ditty[^] (a midi sequencer - records/saves/displays/loads/playsback music in midi format) Been workin on it since my first "real" job. I consider it my main project.:-> Jobs come and go. But this project has been with me for close to 15 years. And gives me MUCH more satisfactions than what I get at work X| ...Steve
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...heh heh... with my 500th post I guess I leave kindergarten and enter grade school. But I don't really want it to be a statistic post so I guess I'll have to come up with some content. How many of your wonderful ideas for side projects have you succeeded with? I just realised that for that last decade I've had an idea that I just haven't gotten very far with. So its my 500th post resolution to continue work on it this weekend and increase my article contribution in the process. Honestly there's like five ideas I've had for the last decade but one stands out. So that's my question... how many ideas do you have on the bench, and how long have they been there?
What's in a sig? This statement is false. Build a bridge and get over it. ~ Chris Maunder
Hmm, lets see...60. I keep a file for each one so I have a place for the idea to live, along with the paper and digital files it generates. I think five of them are complete, with another ten or so getting close. The others will sit until something comes along that makes them more relevent or easier to finish. They range from a custom cnc router machine and 16/8/Super 8 movie-film scanner to a wide array of software projects. Oh and congrats on the 500! Cheers, Drew.
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...heh heh... with my 500th post I guess I leave kindergarten and enter grade school. But I don't really want it to be a statistic post so I guess I'll have to come up with some content. How many of your wonderful ideas for side projects have you succeeded with? I just realised that for that last decade I've had an idea that I just haven't gotten very far with. So its my 500th post resolution to continue work on it this weekend and increase my article contribution in the process. Honestly there's like five ideas I've had for the last decade but one stands out. So that's my question... how many ideas do you have on the bench, and how long have they been there?
What's in a sig? This statement is false. Build a bridge and get over it. ~ Chris Maunder
What is grade school ?
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Well, my main outside of work project (well, my main project) is ditty[^] (a midi sequencer - records/saves/displays/loads/playsback music in midi format) Been workin on it since my first "real" job. I consider it my main project.:-> Jobs come and go. But this project has been with me for close to 15 years. And gives me MUCH more satisfactions than what I get at work X| ...Steve
Nice, so just the one? Maybe that's the trick. My mind wanders and daydreams and before I know it I've spread myself out a bit too thin to complete one. Although, this weekend, I'll work on changing that. FOCUS! Ditty looks pretty cool. I'll have to give it a go when I get a midi keyboard. Which I've got to do anyway. I'm mostly a drummer, but I like to dabble. Heh, and that's part of the spreading too thin. Coding in me spare time competes with playing music and a host of other favorites.
What's in a sig? This statement is false. Build a bridge and get over it. ~ Chris Maunder
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Hmm, lets see...60. I keep a file for each one so I have a place for the idea to live, along with the paper and digital files it generates. I think five of them are complete, with another ten or so getting close. The others will sit until something comes along that makes them more relevent or easier to finish. They range from a custom cnc router machine and 16/8/Super 8 movie-film scanner to a wide array of software projects. Oh and congrats on the 500! Cheers, Drew.
Drew Stainton wrote:
I think five of them are complete,
Cool, I've finished a couple of small items. Mostly little dialog apps. But its the big one I want to make headway with. I have designs fleshed out and some of the data dictionary modelled, but that's about it. The business idea is thouroughly thought out.. but I have to code it. I've gathered the hardware.. just need to code it. Programming oneself is a task at times.
Drew Stainton wrote:
Oh and congrats on the 500!
Thanks! :)
What's in a sig? This statement is false. Build a bridge and get over it. ~ Chris Maunder
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What is grade school ?
Are you in the US? Here its elementary school. 1st through 6th grades. Or grade school. As Kindergarten is for the 5 year olds to get acclimated (sp?) to school and isn't really a grade. Elementary is where the grades begin.
What's in a sig? This statement is false. Build a bridge and get over it. ~ Chris Maunder
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...heh heh... with my 500th post I guess I leave kindergarten and enter grade school. But I don't really want it to be a statistic post so I guess I'll have to come up with some content. How many of your wonderful ideas for side projects have you succeeded with? I just realised that for that last decade I've had an idea that I just haven't gotten very far with. So its my 500th post resolution to continue work on it this weekend and increase my article contribution in the process. Honestly there's like five ideas I've had for the last decade but one stands out. So that's my question... how many ideas do you have on the bench, and how long have they been there?
What's in a sig? This statement is false. Build a bridge and get over it. ~ Chris Maunder
Chris S Kaiser wrote:
So that's my question... how many ideas do you have on the bench, and how long have they been there?
Too many to count... so I'll just tell about one: my vector-graphics-based control library. Themes, adaptive automatic layout, highly customizable data presentation, easy and powerful data binding, animation of just about anything, etc. Sort of like WPF but will be more performant, extensible, and flexible, and less convoluted. I've got a lot of ideas that can't just be built on top of WPF. This project has been in the design phase since before Avalon was announced - so over 3 years ago. And it's finally starting to become a reality! :-D
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...heh heh... with my 500th post I guess I leave kindergarten and enter grade school. But I don't really want it to be a statistic post so I guess I'll have to come up with some content. How many of your wonderful ideas for side projects have you succeeded with? I just realised that for that last decade I've had an idea that I just haven't gotten very far with. So its my 500th post resolution to continue work on it this weekend and increase my article contribution in the process. Honestly there's like five ideas I've had for the last decade but one stands out. So that's my question... how many ideas do you have on the bench, and how long have they been there?
What's in a sig? This statement is false. Build a bridge and get over it. ~ Chris Maunder
I have three applications currently that are pretty succesful. - A management program for assigning computers to users. - Small size application to create shipping papers and invoices - Sharepoint portal for the company I work for (Just released a few weeks back) I really can't complain :)
WM. What about weapons of mass-construction?
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...heh heh... with my 500th post I guess I leave kindergarten and enter grade school. But I don't really want it to be a statistic post so I guess I'll have to come up with some content. How many of your wonderful ideas for side projects have you succeeded with? I just realised that for that last decade I've had an idea that I just haven't gotten very far with. So its my 500th post resolution to continue work on it this weekend and increase my article contribution in the process. Honestly there's like five ideas I've had for the last decade but one stands out. So that's my question... how many ideas do you have on the bench, and how long have they been there?
What's in a sig? This statement is false. Build a bridge and get over it. ~ Chris Maunder
Probably around 140 ideas. I start a lot of stuff and don't get around to finishing it. I got in the habit of writing down any ideas I come up with. Most of them are probably not that good any more, or might have been done by plenty of people already. And some of those ideas are just small concepts to experiment with). As for actually sticking with a project and continuing ongoing development, I don't have time for many at this stage. My ScrollingGrid article[^] was pretty unique, and has had ~77000 views in just over a year. I only completed that CP article a couple of years after I did the initial proof of concept. I'm a bit of a slacker when it comes to following through with stuff. :sigh: Some apps are just utilities that I write to accomplish something, e.g. - password protected knowledge base app that sits in windows tray (useful for storing all my ideas :)) - regex tester - ID3 tag editor to mass update MP3 files - FTP app that publishes updated files to webserver (i.e. without going into each directory to transfer files) - print screen app to save a PNG of the active window - HTTPeep[^] to create custom HTTP requests - web sql utility (see my sig) - app to show bar graph comparing size of folders (help find big files etc when freeing up space) A lot of my apps were done in the first 2 years when learning .NET and I just wanted to experiment with as many different things as possible, and create stuff that I would actually use. Over the years I've improved some of them, and still use them regularly.
"For fifty bucks I'd put my face in their soup and blow." - George Costanza
~ Web SQL Utility - asp.net app to query Access, SQL server, MySQL. Stores history, favourites.
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Hmm, lets see...60. I keep a file for each one so I have a place for the idea to live, along with the paper and digital files it generates. I think five of them are complete, with another ten or so getting close. The others will sit until something comes along that makes them more relevent or easier to finish. They range from a custom cnc router machine and 16/8/Super 8 movie-film scanner to a wide array of software projects. Oh and congrats on the 500! Cheers, Drew.
For a few years now, I've made a habit of recording my ideas - no matter how small - in a little knowledge base app that I developed (sits in my tray). That's also where I keep snippets of code and general notes etc. And for most of my projects that I actually kicked off I keep a TODO list of bugs, feature ideas etc. I haven't actually released many apps though - it takes a lot of extra work to document them, and review the code (especially when you know it's going to be scrutinised by other experienced developers). Mostly they remain usable-by-me, but unpolished.
"For fifty bucks I'd put my face in their soup and blow." - George Costanza
~ Web SQL Utility - asp.net app to query Access, SQL server, MySQL. Stores history, favourites.
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Probably around 140 ideas. I start a lot of stuff and don't get around to finishing it. I got in the habit of writing down any ideas I come up with. Most of them are probably not that good any more, or might have been done by plenty of people already. And some of those ideas are just small concepts to experiment with). As for actually sticking with a project and continuing ongoing development, I don't have time for many at this stage. My ScrollingGrid article[^] was pretty unique, and has had ~77000 views in just over a year. I only completed that CP article a couple of years after I did the initial proof of concept. I'm a bit of a slacker when it comes to following through with stuff. :sigh: Some apps are just utilities that I write to accomplish something, e.g. - password protected knowledge base app that sits in windows tray (useful for storing all my ideas :)) - regex tester - ID3 tag editor to mass update MP3 files - FTP app that publishes updated files to webserver (i.e. without going into each directory to transfer files) - print screen app to save a PNG of the active window - HTTPeep[^] to create custom HTTP requests - web sql utility (see my sig) - app to show bar graph comparing size of folders (help find big files etc when freeing up space) A lot of my apps were done in the first 2 years when learning .NET and I just wanted to experiment with as many different things as possible, and create stuff that I would actually use. Over the years I've improved some of them, and still use them regularly.
"For fifty bucks I'd put my face in their soup and blow." - George Costanza
~ Web SQL Utility - asp.net app to query Access, SQL server, MySQL. Stores history, favourites.
Yep, so far to date, its been small utilities. Most of which have snuck into production at one place or another. But that big idea that keeps getting written into the NDAs still hasn't progressed much. I wonder if making it more public will actually fuel the fire... :suss:
What's in a sig? This statement is false. Build a bridge and get over it. ~ Chris Maunder
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I have three applications currently that are pretty succesful. - A management program for assigning computers to users. - Small size application to create shipping papers and invoices - Sharepoint portal for the company I work for (Just released a few weeks back) I really can't complain :)
WM. What about weapons of mass-construction?
Are those for work or personal apps that turned out pay? I have to admit the idea I have is a bit idealistic, and might not be able to make money.
What's in a sig? This statement is false. Build a bridge and get over it. ~ Chris Maunder
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Nice, so just the one? Maybe that's the trick. My mind wanders and daydreams and before I know it I've spread myself out a bit too thin to complete one. Although, this weekend, I'll work on changing that. FOCUS! Ditty looks pretty cool. I'll have to give it a go when I get a midi keyboard. Which I've got to do anyway. I'm mostly a drummer, but I like to dabble. Heh, and that's part of the spreading too thin. Coding in me spare time competes with playing music and a host of other favorites.
What's in a sig? This statement is false. Build a bridge and get over it. ~ Chris Maunder
Just the one project, but several apps in it. midi sequencer, wav editor (still pretty crappy), patch editor, soundfont splitter, etc, etc. I've still got quite a ways to go on it, but it's comin' along. Someday my goal is to not be a crappy keyboard player. Although I've gotten sidetracked by drums. Cuz you really can't play drums well with keys. I'm 41 now. Maybe in my 50s when midi guitar technology actually isn't crappy, I'll try my hand at guitar. But maybe not. Keyboards and drums will be enough I think. ...Steve