Alot of people recommend MaxMind or some other geoIP database, but really, thats a pain in the ass…there is a much easier way to do it.

On your landing page, just include the following in header.

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://www.google.com/jsapi”></script>

This script will calculate your visitors location for you….and all you have to do is pull the ClientLocation variable!
For example, if I wanted to display a popup with the users city:

alert(google.loader.ClientLocation['address']['city'])

Seriously, its THAT SIMPLE.

Have fun!

I’ve recently undertaken a personal project that I hope will make my day-to-day activities on a the web a bit more efficient. I’ve always dreamed of having the perfect home page for myself; one that had all my most crucial data at a glance. Unfortunately, all the services I’ve tried have fallen short (*cough* netvibes *cough*). So, I’ve decided that enough is enough; I am going to build my own dashboard.

The dashboard will take quite a few cues from the interface of The STAT Codex, in so far that it will be window/panel based and entirely modular, but it will be customized to my needs.

At the very least, I want the dashboard to pull the following data:

• email module (gmail and others, just reading, sending can open up  a new window in the email client.)
• twitter module (multiple accounts…send and receive tweets)
• a twitter favorites module that allows my to follow the favorited tweets of various twitter accounts
• instapaper module for items to be read
• remember the milk  module for to-do items
• major site statistics module (only for my most active web properties)
• new incoming backlinks module
• paypal module for showing paypal balance and recent transactions
• google calendar module
• log monitor module (would tail the server logs for most active web properties)

What else would you add to the list? What data would you love to have at a click on your home page?

Web Applications are EASY to build! Anyone can do it!

First, you need an idea. This can be the hardest part. Basically, you just want to think about something people do every day that you can do better.
Here are some ideas to get you started:

• web-based makeup mirror (requires a webcam)
• sea-monkeys…give them facebook pages, make them twitter…put them up for adoption.
• a calculator, with lots and lots of ajax….and really big buttons.

These are just a few ideas, but you get the picture. Take some time coming up with your idea, and be patient! You have to refine the idea before you waste time building something no one will ever use. Take at least 30 minutes to decide.

Once you’ve decided on what your highly profitable Web App is going to do, you have to build it! This is the easiest part. You don’t even have to know how to write code. Really! There are new programming languages that don’t even require complicated things like squiggly brakets {} or dollar signs $.  Thanks to the magic of Ruby on Rails, if you can write a grocery list, you can write a Web App. Seriously!

Do you know how to view the source code for an HTML page? Great! That means you know how to design a website! Now, I know, designing things is complicated, but don’t worry about it! NO ONE DESIGNS THEIR OWN WEBSITES ANYMORE! Seriously! All you need is a Template. There are even WEB APPS to build Templates for WEB APPS! Totally meta! Gnarly!

So, you’ve got your ruby, you’ve got your template….you’re almost done! Now, you need a LOGO! Most people say you should hire a designer to get a Logo done professionally, but you don’t want to spend any money out of pocket, do you? I mean, what are you, Mother Teresa?!? Hell no! I recommend you just rip one off for now, and once you make some revenue, you can buy some cheap stock Logo from istockphoto.com.

Remember, in order to maximize Web App profits, you need to always be vigilant so that no corners escape uncut. When building your Web App, you should be sure to try and burden yourself with as many of the details as possible. You need to be prepared to be the programmer, the tester, the designer, the marketer and the support staff, ALL IN ONE! But don’t get stressed out about handling a big workload, because it’s not like you have to do ANY of those things at 100% efficiency, as long as you’re the only one doing them. The people who will use your Web App are just nameless, faceless drones anyways; it’s not like you owe them timely responses to their emails. Always remember that your users are eternally indentured to you in exchange for access to your Web App.

OK, so you’ve got your Template, you’ve got your Logo……..it’s time to do some programming! First, you want to download as many plugins and gems as possible. The more the better, because the more gems you have, the less code you have to write. Remember when your teacher crushed your dreams and told you that there are no unique ideas left, that everything has already been done? Well, when it comes to Gems, its true! There is a Gem or Plugin for every possible thing you could ever conceive of wanting to do – now, or in the future. So basically, just get as many Gems and Plugins as possible, and just start plugging them in wherever you need content.

Look at you! You go-getter! You’ve just programmed your first Web App! It’s going to be the BEST CALCULATOR EVER! Don’t worry about scaling it up. If your users ever start calculating pi, you can just use the Cloud, man! The Cloud is where it’s at! In case you haven’t heard of the Cloud yet, I’ll tell you a bit about it. The Cloud is this place in the Amazon Basin, a humid, godless, no-mans-land inhabited by under paid savages (Amazonians). Anyways, the Cloud is like this giant parking garage, but instead of cars, they’ve parked hundreds and hundreds of servers which they’ve woven together with millions of long, tangled fibreoptic wires (hence the name ‘the Cloud’). Anyways, you just email your program to the Amazonians, and they’ll put your program on a piece of the cloud, giving you the ability to add as many mongrel instances to your server cluster as your heart desires. Scaling?!?! What Scaling?!?!

Now that you’ve got your Template, and your Logo and your Program on the Cloud, you’re ready to start marketing!!! This part is really really easy. You just need to stir the pot a little bit, & kick up a little media interest. For example, let’s say one of your Virtual Sea-Monkeys ends up having to see a Substance Abuse Counselor…..that’s marketing gold! Big-mouthed bloggers love stories like that! The more sensational the better, especially because people will put your media story on sites like Digg, or StumbleUpon. These sites will send you visitors who will really take the time to read your story, visit your site, interact with your product, and develop long-lasting, meaningful connections with your brand. You just have to keep your eyes open for marketing opportunities!

By now, thanks to your Web App, you’re probably well on your way to dealing with your delinquent mortgage payments and are no longer dodging your relatives. Congratulations! Feel free to send your former boss a cruel and insensitive e-card from someecards.com, because You’ve Arrived!!! You’re a big web success story! Expect to hear from Inc. Magazine within minutes.

But! But! But! Don’t stop there! This is just the beginning! Now that you’ve seen how easy it is to create one Web App, create more! Don’t worry about the Web Apps that you’re already managing, it’s OK to let them slide. If you want, you can start an affiliate program and get affiliates to keep marketing your old, stale Web Apps while you’re busy building new ones! You’ll want to get an Email Autoresonder so that you’re not burdened by time consuming support requests to have subscriptions canceled, you’ve got better things to do! You’re an entrepreneur!

Show me one business
that has achieved
dominance in its
industry through
good decisions
careful planning
unrelenting diligence
and I’ll show you
one hundred
who have thrived through
directionless and
unplanned ways

Show me one writer
who has attained greatness
through higher education
cultural savvy
bald nepotism
and I’ll show you
one thousand
uneducated hacks
who whisper
into eternity
with effortless grace

The facts are clear

The Genius regularly fails

The Moron regularly wins

And the bookshelves
of the world
bend low
ready to teach
us why
and how
this is so

It seems the only
thing left to do
is to do the thing
as best you can
and leave the rest
in your overstuffed
suitcase
on your rented porch
as you walk out to
do it again
tomorrow

And the day
after

And the day
after
that

Until
your lot in this life
and
your concern for it
are no
more
forever
(via http://www.knifegunpen.com/genius-book/)

———————–

I havent written a post here in far too long. I apologize for that, sincerely. It’s not my intention to let this blog fade away. I have simply been busy working on some very exciting new projects, as well as growing my business. Between my business obligations and my social obligations, I’ve been left with very little time to nourish this blog. That’s not to say I don’t have anything to talk about (ask anyone who follows me on twitter), it’s just that I rarely take the time to sit down and put my thoughts into a format you all would enjoy reading.

That said, I was galvinzed into writing a post by the above poem. Now, I’m not much for poetry…most of the poems I know have to do with places like Nantuckett, and bodily sounds, but this poem resonated with me.

As an entrepeneur, I’ve witnessed the truth in those verses, first hand. The best man rarely wins, but all you can do is keep your mometnum, day after day after day, of doing the best you can.

Currently we have two big ultra-modern leather couches in our media room. We have been thinking that they’re a bit too stiff, a bit too cold. Basically, you have to be a contortionist to perform any kind of cuddling while watching a movie…so…it was time for a new couch.

In the first store we stopped at, we immediately saw a modular sofa set that was perfect…it had modern leather-clad frame but big comfy fabric cushions, and throw pillows instead of stiff leather cushions for the back…it was, in short, the ideal couch for us; especially since we were able to buy separate pieces and put them together in the arrangement we wanted (I love modular furniture). So, long story short, after we checked the dimensions, we were a firm sale (probably the easiest sale our salesman got all day).

Now, when we were checking out and paying for the sofa, the salesman did something that got me thinking: He didn’t up-sell us. He didn’t even TRY to up-sell us into add-ons, warranties, teflon stain-proofing, etc etc. No, he didn’t up-sell us, because he just put it all on the bill anyways without even asking us. Basically, he breezed over the itemized list on the bill and drew our attention directly to the total and said, “so that will be $____ dollars.” Now, I had been calculating the whole thing in my head, so I knew what to expect in terms of a final total. When I heard his total, I said, “Let me see that bill….O.K, you’ve put Teflon on here for 25.99 per module, coming to 181.00.” and he says, “Oh you want that, you definitely want that. I put it on there because you’d be crazy not to want that.” And Randy, standing next to me, said “Oh yeah, let’s get that! You’re always spilling your wine!” (sadly, it’s true). So I went on down the bill to the next item, “Now, whats this 125.00 steel base item?” and the salesman says “Well, of course, you want the steel base right? It looks a lot better than the wood. Everyone is going steel nowadays.” And Randy was there saying “Oh yeah! I love that style.” So, we got the steel base, too….

This debacle went on, item by item, until I was completely defeated and had no choice but to accept every add-on item on that bill except for one thing: the rug underlay (no joke, that was on the bill…) After we paid up and left – my wallet hurting alot more than I expected it too – I said, “We certainly bought alot more than we bargained for”, and Randy replied, “Well we knew it was going to be expensive, and besides, we didn’t end up paying as much as he initially tried to bill us.”

And there it was, the brilliance of not up-selling your customers. We never even saw what the price would have been without all those add-ons, we only saw the total price with all the add-ons included. The psychology of the situation is that once a customer sees an expensive base price, their wallet tightens up and they don’t want to spend anything more, even if it is just 25.99 per module for teflon coating, or 125.00 for a steel base.

Think about what would be more difficult: showing your customer a total price and then convincing them to spend more on upgrades? or showing a customer an upgraded price and letting them remove what they don’t really want? The answer is obvious. Chances are, the latter method will tend to get more customers to spend money on upgrades than the former method.

This lesson applies to the web as well, especially if you are marketing any kind of web-application. If you are selling something that has upgrades, why not include the upgrades automatically at checkout? It’s a win-win situation: The customer always feels better when they see their total price decrease as they customize their purchase to their needs, and chances are you’ll sell more upgrades than usual.

I thought I would embed a really great playlist below for you all to enjoy

Check out Seeqpod.com!!

SeeqPod – Playable Search

So, a few days ago, I’m laying on my friends sofa, smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer. This particular friend of mine is a master tailor (very handy guy to have around when you want to get your pants hemmed). Anyways, he had just recently given himself a nasty needle wound on his thumb, and him being the kind of guy that he his, he was trying to gross me out by shoving the disgusting bloody stump in my face and saying “go on, lick it, go on lick it!!”

Now, I’m not the kind of person to be deterred by a flesh wound, so when he shoved his nasty thumb in my face, I simply grabbed it and gave it a SQUEEZE. Little did I know that what was about to happen next would take two years of my life.

As I grabbed and squeezed, the tip of his thumb erupted in what can only be described as a fine mist of blood spray that spattered himself, the couch, and his Macbook.  In all my years, I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

So, without further ado, I present what I believe to be the first pictures ever recorded of MacBook Bloodspray:

I am contacting all current friends (former-lovers and family members included) on each of the many social networks to which I belong, to let you all know some difficult news.

My current capacity for servicing and maintaining a reliable friendship-service is quickly reaching its limit. I am having problems coping with the current social-load that my friendship-service platform is experiencing.

I simply do not have the resources at my disposal to adequately service each of your friendship needs; the rate at which I am currently amassing new friendships is not sustainable, given the standards to which my friendship-serving platform has been built. In a nut-shell, I’m having problems scaling.

Obviously this is an important issue that must be dealt with before it comes to a head. Decisive action must be taken now in order to avoid any disruptions in my friendship-services, or any kind of roaming social blackouts. I am sure you are all applauding my foresight. Thank you.

It has been suggested that I might outsource to a team in India so that I could delegate surplus friendship-service-requests to them for handling. I have given this option serious and thorough consideration. At the cost of $0.03 per pleasantry-exchange, $0.07 per reassuring-comment, and $0.10 per flattering-remark, it did at first seem like a viable option. However, after bringing in an expert team of statistical-analysts to review my companionship-logs, I have discovered some inconvenient truths about the most common uses of my friendship-services. It appears that the greatest consumption of my resources are the constant ‘drinking-buddy’ requests that my friendship-serving platform has to handle. Unfortunately, I cannot rely on a team in India to adequately fulfill these requests to the current level of sophistication to which many of you have become accustomed. My research has shown me that the only way I could outsource the same high quality ‘drinking-buddy’ service would be to contract out to an Irish Rugby team. Unfortunately, this is not a financially viable option.

It has further been suggested that I might adopt a tiered service model; offering several low monthly payment options through which friends could access different tiers of service. Although it is my duty (as a trusted long-term provider of companionship-services) to make you aware of the options available, I want to reassure you that I do not consider tiered service to be a viable option to solve my capacity issues. I am a firm believer in friendship-neutrality. I will not accept money. Such a thing simply goes against the principals on which my platform was built.

Speaking of my platforms construction, I wish to briefly address many of you who have claimed that my friendship-service platform has been built on a language and architecture that are inherently flawed. I have received assurances, from both whats left of my development team and some of the smartest (and most erratic) experts available, that my capacity issues and inability to handle high social-loads are not related to the language or architecture of my friendship-service platform.

My friends, it is my belief as an experienced and dedicated purveyor of the finest friendship services available, that there is simply no physical way to scale my serving upwards and still maintain the high level of friendship-request-fulfillment to which you have all become accustomed. The only option before us may seem unsettling – and somewhat extreme – at first glance, however, I assure you that it will be for the greater good, and the community will continue to thrive because of the sacrifices we make today…

My friends, I am afraid that some of you are going to have to be ‘let go’.

If you wish to continue to send requests to my friendship-serving platform, I require that you prove your appreciation of my high quality friendship-services by buying me a gift of your choosing (not less than $20.00(CAN) value). I am sure you will agree that I really deserve it, and although I will not be able to contact each of you personally to express my gratitude, I’d like to tell you that I ‘really appreciate it’, and ‘thanks’. In return for your one time gift of appreciation, I will continue to provide you with access to my friendship-service platform and will continue to meet your social-needs without disruption.

As for those of you freeloading social-parasites who elect not to show your appreciation of my services, I am afraid you’ll end up on the chopping block. I want you to understand that there are absolutely no hard feelings. We had a great run, you and I. We’ll always have the memories. It’s important that you understand that it’s not you; it’s me. I wish you all the best, and if you ever decide to change your mind, don’t hesitate to buy me something pretty.

In friendship,

If you were the head of the Marketing / PR team responsible for the QuickBooks brand, would you not lay an egg upon seeing http://weallhatequickbooks.com/ ?

This is a great example of how Twitter can be used to impact brand reputations on the Internet. It’s reminiscent of the @TechCrunch vs./ Comcast incident. Regardless, it’s a brilliant promotion for the folks at less everything

What part of reality is governed by this inconsistent constant?

One time I took the time to write down all the terms about time I could remember, in a timely manner of course. I filled two pages, and from time to time I still remember a phrase about time that I forgot that time I wrote the list of terms about time…time is of the essence and essentially a waste of time, I mean most of the time, time is wasted time, waiting for the right time to make the timing right.

Time is, in one sense, immeasureable, and in another, measured down to the slightest nano-second. Time is nothing, and it is everything. Time is all we have, and we never have enough time. It is our most important resource, and the most fleeting.

The most basic lesson to take away from all this rambling is that you simply don’t have enough time to put off to tomorrow what you should take care of today.
(Thanks for the inspiration Kerry)