Hotchkiss Consulting

It’s closing in on 6 months that I’ve been doing only freelance development– while I moonlighted and worked in an office for years, I love being my own boss, and part of that has been setting my own schedule. It seems like there are never enough hours in the day, but here is the pattern that I’ve found that seems to work, at least for the time being:

10am – Wake up, check and respond to email, deal with any urgent issues

10:30am – Breakfast time– grab a bite and dive in.  Morning time is multi-tasking time– I can do bug fixes, put together bids for projects, etc.  Anything that can be done in under an hour, this is the time for it.  Also, this is when I handle most of my phone and instant-message client communications with clients here in the states.

1pm – 7pm - This is my ‘me and my wife’ time– generally, Becky and I will voyage into town, go to the gym (we play racquetball every day, and we love it!), maybe watch a movie, have a nice lunch, and enjoy life.  It’s nice to be able to run errands and go to the gym while most people are at work– a real time-saver!

7pm – 3am – This is my focus and get things done time.  I’ll make a couple pots of coffee and get to work– This allows me to have fewer interruptions (I turn off my email alerts and chat and get down to business) and also allows me to communicate with my clients in Australia and, towards the end of the night, the UK.

So if you get an email from me in the middle of the night– don’t be alarmed, that’s just how I work!

Just a quick note to let everyone know that we went through and added some new sites into our portfolio at http://hotchkissconsulting.net/portfolio/, so go take a gander. Also, make sure to keep your eyes peeled for new sites, as we have a few major launches scheduled throughout September.

To all our customers: thanks for making this a busy summer for us.  To all our future customers: we can’t wait to check out your project!

Best,
Sam

The term ‘Bacn‘ has been around for a couple of years to refer to, according to wikipedia:

electronic messages which have been subscribed to and are therefore not unsolicited but are often unread by the recipient for a long period of time, if at all. Bacn has been described as “email you want but not right now.”^[1][2]

Bacn differs from spam in that the emails are not unsolicited: the recipient has somehow signed up to receive it. Bacn is also not necessarily sent in bulk. Bacn derives its name from the idea that it is “better than spam, but not as good as a personal email”

Bacn is, generally, non-urgent, not terribly exciting, but may still be information that you want and need.

So we’ve got Spam, Bacn, and then email that actually matters– personal email from one person to another (you!).  I’ll call that chops.  So, how do you keep current on your chops without getting distracted by the spam and bacn?

At Hotchkiss Consulting we use Google Apps to manage our email,  and it does a great job of removing the Spam.  But I can’t stand when I’m in the middle of a project and I get distracted by the constant inflow of Bacn, so I decided to get rid of it!  Since Google Apps is built on the Gmail core, these instructions should work for any gmail user.  Feel free to modify to fit your needs! (more…)

Hello everyone… sorry for the delay since my last update, Becky and I are both working on fighting off this killer cold that’s working its way through Colorado!

Last night, I cooked up a new service to allow you to manage notes via email. It’s free, and is really aimed at mobile email users (and, in particular, Peek users). It’s really easy to use, it doesn’t require signup, and I think it’s pretty cool.

To get started, all you have to do is pick a secret email box. The harder to guess, the better, because if anyone guesses it, they can get into your notes! This can be any sort of string you want, like “dahsgdjhab1234″. Then, after this string, add “@hdev2.com”. So your note email box would be dahsgdjhab1234@hdev2.com. Don’t tell anyone what it is! Not even me! Just start sending notes to it. When you send the first note, you’ll automatically get a message back with instructions on how to use the service. Here’s what that message might say, if you’re curious:

Hi! Either you just signed up, or you want some help, right? Well, you came to the right place! First things first, you should probably write down your notes email address. This is really important, as I can’t communicate with you without it! Always send your requests to:

THE SUPER SECRET ADDRESS YOU CHOSE!

Now, if you want to store a note, just send it to that address. It’s that easy! I’ll put it into my database and keep it safe for you. If you want to do stuff with your notes, just put one of the following basic commands at either the beginning or end of the subject line of your email, and I’ll act on it!

!a – All Notes. If you use this, I will send you the title and body of all of your notes. If you are a heavy user, this could be a big email!
!l – List of Notes. If you use this command, I will send you a list of the titles all of your notes (even the ones you deleted!)
!h – HELP!!! If you use this command, I’ll send you this email again

There are some advanced commands, too. For these, you have to put the Note ID of the note you’re talking about as the first thing in the body of your email. If you don’t know the Note ID, ask for the list of notes first, and that will have the IDs of all your notes!

!s – Single Note. If you use this, I’ll just send you the note you ask for.
!d – Delete Note. If you use this, I’ll delete the note you tell me to. (Actually, I won’t really delete it, cause I think you might want it back some day, but I will make it inactive so it doesn’t clutter up your workflow!)
!r – Restore Note. If you use this command, I’ll undelete your note. (See, I knew you’d want it back!)

And that’s that!

Questions, comments? Post em below…

I know I’ve been promising these for a while, but here are the three PHP scripts that make up my PHP -> Email integration.  I’m still working on converting this to a full multi-user system.  You can see I already started with the conversion on the schedule dispatch email.  Full scripts after the jump!

(more…)

This weekend, we launched Becky’s new photo blog, http://sureshotphoto.net/.  This was a quick launch, and Becky hasn’t started posting yet, but we got the gorgeous slideshow of her photos going, and man oh man, does it look good.

The WordPress theme is from http://graphpaperpress.com/.  We are big, big fans of WordPress for a lot of simple to moderately complex sites (like this one you’re on right now).  Wordpress allows a lot of flexibility and customizability, and a well developed CMS backend.

What are the upsides of developing with WordPress?

1. Quick development.  With WordPress you’re building your site on top of a solid base that takes care of a lot of the basic stuff, which means less testing is necessary, and less new code is necessary.
2. Less expensive.  This ties into number 1– as it takes less time for us to develop your site on top of Wordpress, you pay less.
3. Easily extensible.  Because WordPress has such a large user base, there are thousands of extensions available.

(more…)

I’m always interested in what setups other people use, so I thought I’d give you guys a peek at how I work…

MacBook Air

As a developer, I’m pretty demanding when it comes to my computers.  I type hard and fast, I run a ton of programs simultaneously, and I work from just about everywhere.  Not just my desk or my couch or my bed, but from coffee shops, airports, the library, with clients, in cars, on trains…

For the last three years I’ve worked on a trusty 15″ MacBook Pro which had been a great machine, although with its quirks.  It made a number of trips to the repair shop, but never left me in a pinch.  Finally, this winder, I decided it was time to upgrade, and picked up a MacBook Air, with which I have been nothing but impressed.  I opted for the solid state drive, so there is no spinning drive, and this machine is sweet.  Fast, tiny, and light.  And I haven’t missed having an internal CD/DVD drive for a second!  The backlit keyboard is a major improvement over the MacBook Pro, and it’s great to type on, too.

The MacBook Air gets an A+ from me! (more…)

UPDATE: Scripts are available here: http://hotchkissconsulting.net/177/remember-the-milk-email-scripts/

So, in accordance with my plan to switch client communication from phone to email, I have decided that, instead of a Cell Phone, I will carry a Peek with me.  While it has been a rocky road so far, I trust that the people at Peek have some good updates coming down the pipeline, so I’m going to stick it out for a couple months and see how I like it.

The thing about the Peek is that it’s eMail only.  And I really do mean only.  No calculator, no games, no web browser, and no calendar.  For me, that just won’t do– I am an avid fan of Remember the Milk.  I keep it in my OS X dashboard and on my desktop email screen (I use GFYD, Google For Your Domain).  Having my RTM to go is a must.

Currently, RTM offers a couple email-based options.  You can email in new tasks, you can receive a list of your tasks for the day every morning via email, and you can receive an email reminder before a task is due.  This is a good start, but there are some problems:

1) With the daily schedule emails, you can only see what’s going on that day, you can’t see your entire schedule.  This information is crucial for setting appointments.

2) Reminder emails don’t have the task name in the subject line, meaning you have to open the email to see what you’re supposed to do.

3) You can’t do anything with the tasks– no marking them completed or postponing, you have to do this from the computer.

So, I wrote my own email interface, and will go over it and include my source files so you, too, can build your own (if you’ve got some PHP know-how).  If there’s enough interest, I will build a standalone, hosted solution for everyone of every skill level. (more…)

Hey everyone– this weekend, Becky, my beautiful fiancee and the better half of Hotchkiss Consulting, pulled off a first.  She’s been a great designer, but, for the first time, she designed, coded, and launched a site 100% on her own.  You can check it out at MommyAndMeDanceOfDurango.com.  I am so proud of how quickly she learned everything, and look forward to the many sites she will be producing in the future!

To celebrate, we’re offering a new product, the new business branding package.  For only $1,000, as a new business you will receive:

- A custom vectorized logo and color scheme for your business

- 250 Full Color business cards

- 200 Full Color tri-fold brochures

- A 3-page basic website advertising your business

This is a great package for new businesses to get started.  In addition, we can also design and build advanced web sites, ecommerce solutions, print ads, or anything else you can think of to market your business.  If you can dream it, we can help you make it reality, because we know that Anything Is Possible.

Happy New Year, everybody! To bring in the new year, I am making a couple of operational changes to Hotchkiss Consulting which will go into effect on February 1. These should be beneficial to everyone in the coming year!  I will be posting these separately over the coming weeks.

The first change is in communication.

This is a biggie! I know that it’s important to you to be in touch throughout the process. You expect and value quick responses to your questions and concerns. However, for me, interruptions kill my momentum when I’m working on your site.  What may be a 5 minute phone conversation can take a huge chunk of working time out, because, after that 5 minutes, it takes a while to get “back in the groove”, so to speak, of getting your site ready to launch. (more…)