Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Step 4

OK, today was the day I was going to release whatever was checked in to the world.
  • Moved the CVS repository to a public (util2) server
  • Did the deployment used:
    • lighttpd
    • had a fucking tough time figuring out how to connect to a remote mysql server. Punted it and did a "yum install mysql-server" on util2 and simply used the local mysql server
    • User capistrano -- Man understanding capistrano took some time. I still do not fully understand why I need to create ssh logins into my DB servers also!!!
  • Gunned out the deployment finally -- saw some minor quirks betweek mysql 5 and mysql 4-- which is what we were using initially. (NOT NULL BS)
  • Fixed the shit and we are ready to go.
It's not yet time to go full live -- We'll have to wait for another week before we can go live!

Time Spent: 4 Hours
Investment: $5 (Bought the DirectDNS service for DNS hosting for gamefui)


Step 3(b)

This weekend (Oct 14) got a little more done. Finished up the relationships -- Got really confused, but figured shit out.

Time Spent: 6 Hrs
Investment: $0

Step 3 (a)

On Sunday (Oct 8th) Charlie, myself and Chad spent about 6 hours learning RoR and getting the basics working.

Highlights:
  • Charlie got frustrated with some lame Login/Welcome Shit
  • He rolled in db:migrate operation
  • Uncle Ryan designed some logo/image for us. We did not like it ;-)
  • Game up with the basic Model -->
    • Events
    • EventInstances
    • Users
    • Votes
  • Gunned out some narly ruby code ;-)
Time Spend: 3 Dudes x 6 hours
Investment: $0

Saturday, October 6, 2007

Part 2 : Gettting Shit Done...

Allright, this weekend is the weekend for getting shit done. I've had 1 dude piss about GameFUI and almost everyone else encouraged me to continue. As with any venture, you'll find at least one dude pissing and moaning. But then, you now know who NOT to listen to for future advice.


Charlie and I spent a couple of hours on Ruby/Rails and simply understanding the Ruby model and "way of doing things" on Friday.

Time Spent : 2 Hrs x 2 Dudes
Investment: $24 (Mommy did'nt give us lunch money)

I am now setting up Ruby and the base infrastructure to get a Hello World App running.
Here are some quick hits:
  • Install RUBY
    • I use fedora so I use YUM
    • yum install ruby ruby-devel rdoc irb
  • Install RubyGems (Ruby Package Manager -- Similar to yum, apt-get etc.)
    • tar -xvzf rubygems*; cd rubygems*;ruby setup.rb [Do this as root]
  • Install Rails (the framework)
    • gem install rails --include-dependencies [Do this as root]
    • I had some weird errors crop up, but nothing seemed too dangerous
Game on - I had the RoR installed and running.

Time Spent: 20 Mins
Investment: $1.24 (1 Starbucks Mocha from my fridge)


Ok, I FuBar'd -- I forgot I had IPtables installed on my dev, box and it took me some time to open up port 3000. I first thought that WEBrick was only listening on the localhost interface, and went down a rathole of trying to get WEBrick to listen on all the interfaces on the box. But then I found out it was IPtables -- Opened up Port 3000. Game ON....

Sunday, September 30, 2007

GameFui Experiment

Gamefui is an experimental project by a few Seattle based Techies to see how fast a Web 2.0 application can be developed from concept to realization and monetization -- Yes, you read right -- We are actually interested in monetization!

This blog will chronicle issues and comments about this experiment every step of the way. Without wasting more time, here are the basics:

  • Web 2.0 Application (Big Fonts/AJAX etc.)
  • $0 in funding and real investment (Screw the VC's)
  • Real-Life Requirement (Of course -- Screw the business analysts)
  • Every hour spent on this project will be publicly documented in this blog (Screw the bean-counters)
So, WTF is GameFUI?
Before, I explain what is gamefui, a little background on the "real life" requirement.

Me and a few of our friends play flag football during the fall season. We call it the "Wes Walker" league named aptly after (10 point for guessing) Wes Walker! As you probably see, we are not terribly creative. Our current process involves:
  • Sending out an email on Monday to everyone in the mailing list (Will you play next Saturday?)
  • Waiting for response (Yes or No)
  • If we get more than 7 "Yes" votes, we decide to play the game.
  • We then send out an email to everyone to tell them if "Game ON" or Game Off.
  • This email goes out on Thursday or Friday.
  • Repeat this every week....
The funniest part of this process is that we've been doing this process for about 7 years now, and the process is still the same. Almost everyone on the mailing list is a techie who works at Microsoft or techies like me who run their own software companies or other techies who work at startups -- and surprisingly we've not been able to come up with a better process.

Gamefui is about to change that! We are going to develop a Web 2.0 App that does _exactly_ that process above -- In 16 hours. Well, we'll see how long it really takes.

So, there you go -- that should answer the question -- WTF is gamefui!

What have you done so far (other than create this blog?)

Step 1: The Concept:
Well, yesterday evening (at Sammy's Birthday Party) we talked about it while getting cocked. Sammy wanted to call it a Web 3.0 Application (whatever) -- He immediately scope creeped and started talking about Facebook integration blah blah..

Time Spent : 20 Mins x 1 Dude Talking and 3 dudes listening
Investment : $0

Step 2: Talk to Charlie (Rails Guru):
Charlie came over for brunch and we talked about it. I explained the concept and he came up with the name "gamefui" -- That's a nice web 2.0 name.

Time Spent: 30 Mins
Investment: Purchased gamefui.com, gamefui.net and gamefui.org ($15 / Yr from directnic for 5 yrs : $225) -- Yes I know I can get domains for $2.99 from godaddy, but I do not have the time or patience to deal with another fricking set of usernames and passwords.

Step 3: Create a Blog

Time Spent: 45 Mins -- As you can see, I am posting this blog entry about this experiment.
Investment: $0 (Google Blogger is free)

Can I participate in this experiment/venture?

Well, if you are a programmer/techie/geek and have bad ass hacking skilz, contact Vivek. He' the Uber-Dick who can give you commit access to CVS. (Fuck SVN.) You need to know Java and/or Ruby. I've not (yet) decided what to write the application on. If you have a strong feeling one way or the other, take this poll below:

http://www.questionpro.com/akira/MicroPoll?mode=html&id=56955


I am not a techie -- I do have comments on the requirements though -- Can I still participate?
Not at this time. We may start asking for more requirements as we finish off the current requirements. We'll call you. Don't call us.

I am a VC/Dude with money to burn -- Can I participate?
No - Stop wasting my time. I have more money than you.

I am a dude at MSFT and I am bored that Steve Balmer is not taking my company anywhere. Can I join? Please?
Yes, as long as you don't evangelize how stupid Microsoft technologies "will change the world." Stupid shit like IPV6, Silverlight and .NET crap is exactly that CRAP. Oh, it also depends on how hot your wife/girlfriend is.

Game ON!

PS: Check out the layout:
http://www.web20generator.com/generated.aspx?l=FFFFFF&b=6699FF&g=00CCFF&n=gamefui