Quietly drowning in interesting things... »

So I've had a busy couple of weeks that's been packed full of interesting things that I've been hoping to share around here. But, as is generally the case when interesting things are going on, I just haven't had much time to spare on sharing the details (and now I've probably forgotten half of the really interesting things).

Anyway since officially leaving Catchafire I've been keeping busy with:

1. bit.ly - Starting last week, I'm doing a month-to-month contract gig with one of my favorite internet companies out there! So far the two weeks I've been there have been super fun, and also somewhat challenging (since they are primarily a Python shop and until recently I haven't done a ton of actual/production Python)...in addition to picking up Python 2.x I'm also just getting used to their development process and learning all the ins-and-outs and who's who around the BetaWorks offices (BTW very awesome group of people).

Of course, in those two weeks I have managed to get a few little things done...the best of which is I've implemented the core of XAuth support to the bit.ly API (it will be a while before it can be released though as it still needs to go through internal testing and approval first -- and there's that whole SSL thing that needs to be set up for it)...I also built a quick and dirty Chrome extension as a front end for another REALLY awesome project Hilary has been working on for Bit.ly (not sure if I'm allowed to share details on that just yet)...and I did a few other little quick hacks to test some spam services.

More recently I'm working on some more back end pieces to the API and the reg. bit.ly web site (though I haven't made too much progess with that just yet).

2. When I'm not spending my time on bit.ly I've mostly been hacking away on the Android version of the FluWatcher app (a paid-client project)...which I *finally* got a dev. version done tonight (though I've already found a small list of bugs/tweaks to work out).

I now have dev. versions completed for the iPhone, BlackBerry, and Droid...and am really just waiting on final graphics/name approval from the client to be able to really close out the project and submit the apps to the various stores (and collect the rest of the payment - YEAH!).

Overall, it's been a really interesting (and somewhat frustrating) process building the same basic app for all three platforms...I have a lot of tech. things and opinions to share related to this experience but I'll save them for future posts.

3. Last week bit.ly actually hosted a hackathon (hackabit technically)...which was the perfect chance for me to throw together another quick wow.ly related tool...this time I started to build instapaperfeed.comwhich basically pulls the most popular links from your twitter feed once a day and dumps them into your instapaper account (so you can read them later if/when you want).

The project isn't actually ready for release yet (so this is the first public mention I've done for it, and I only do that because I know no one really reads this blog)...but the basics already work (actually everything but the daily scheduling and a pretty front end is in place -- right now you have to manually tell it to execute, and you have to know what it's all about because there's no help/information on the site).

When I get a few more minutes, I'll finish out those last few things and then start pimping it out to people to see what they think (so stay tuned!)

4. I'm still debugging a few little things with whotoget.com that have been pointed out to me (haven't really had any time to close this out yet).

5. My friends over at NFLDraftScout chose last week to move to new servers...and they hit a few snags that I had to jump in and help out on (luckily nothing too major).

6. David and I have continued to bounce around ideas and details about creating a new sports-related casual game company (my current plan is to stick with bit.ly as my main thing until we are ready to make a run with the ideas/team we are putting together on this)

...there's probably more but those are main things off the top of my head...oh yeah, throughout all of this I also took the past weekend off to jump out to MN to visit some friends and catch a Twins game in the new stadium (awesome!)...and the week before all this started we (the Marshall family) were on vacation in Williamsburg VA (also awesome!).

Long story short...it's been a busy but extremely fun couple of weeks. Right now, I'm ready to crash for a bit...but can't wait to see what the next two weeks brings!