I’m currently developing accounts for TickTickDone. The main concept here is to bring all your co-workers together to make interaction even easier than just using groups. Here are some of the features:
I’m hoping to get accounts done by the end of next week, I’ll post another update when it’s out.
Hey all,
Last week saw the preliminary release of groups for TickTickDone, and this week we’ve fleshed out the features some more. We’ve also made a number of visual and usability improvements (including comments on goals!). It’s great to see the site coming together, and I hope you’re enjoying it too. If you haven’t seen the site yet, you can check it out at http://ticktickdone.com.
Next week I hope to develop the long-awaited step and milestone reordering feature, and get started on the accounts and billing system. I’ve been investigating Paypal and found out they offer a recurring payment system, billing should be easy once I figure out how to interface with it. Launch should only be a month or so away 
Hello world!
At the moment we’re working on getting groups implemented for TickTickDone. The groups feature will let people form groups, share goals and collaborate on them. Here’s some early screenshots of what to expect:
I’m hoping to get that implemented and online by Friday (fingers crossed)
Here’s a little bit of info about NiftyKit and TickTickDone, with the questions coming from this post on IttyBiz:
NiftyKit (that’s Huy and I) make web applications for freelancers and micro businesses. At the moment we’re working on TickTickDone, a goal planning web app that makes it really quick and easy to plan ahead.
I love building web apps - I can build something and get anyone to try it out almost instantly with minimum fuss from their end. I also love being able to choose what I work on. I’ve completed a bachelor of software engineering, and have a knack for (and really enjoy) taking something from an idea (”Wouldn’t it be cool if…”) to a finished product that actually helps people. If that weren’t enough reason, I have a penchant for personal development, so writing software that helps me get organised comes naturally. Huy has a knack for taking whatever we’re working on and making if far, far prettier than I ever could, and making it easier to use too.
Our ideal customers are freelancers and micro businesses of about 1-10 people. These guys don’t need heavyweight tools with hundreds of features and complex interfaces capable of organising large teams, which is good since I love simplicity.
We keep it simple - with TickTickDone, you get the tools you need to plan your project / business / world domination attempt without all the clutter you don’t need. Because it’s simple, it’s possible to fit an overview of your plan on one page. In general, our software is friendly, and we are too. We’re small enough (2 people!) to care about our customers.
In about a month’s time we’re looking to release TickTickDone into the wild. In fact, you can see our plan over here
If you’ve been watching closely, you’ll have seen that the preview talked about in the previous post is online now at http://ticktickdone.com. Go fourth and try it out! At the moment there’s a few features missing, but there’s enough working for you to try out the core concept.
I thought I’d write a bit today about the ideas behind TickTickDone. First off, there’s the concept of a goal. If you’ve used 43 Things, this part will be very familiar. A goal is anything you want to achieve, which might be related to fitness, finance, business, your relationships and many, many more categories. TickTickDone lets you record all your goals and keep track of whether you’ve accomplished them or not. That part’s so similar to 43 Things that we’re considering integrating with the 43 Things API (stay tuned!).
Where things get interesting is when you want to make a plan to achieve a goal. A common method of planning is to set a number of milestones (which you could also call sub-goals) and then divide those milestones into the steps you need to perform to reach that milestone. This is what TickTickDone does, in what we hope is the simplest way possible. After creating your goal, you can create a number of milestones, then add steps to each milestone. As you make progress, you can tick off your steps, milestones and eventually the goal itself.
There are quite a few project management systems (eg. Trac or Unfuddle) that use the same system of goals (or projects), milestones and steps. TickTickDone provides the same foundation, but in a light-weight form suitable for working with personal or small business goals, where all the extra features are just a distraction. If that sounds intriguing, have a look at the beta, which is online at http://ticktickdone.com.
Here’s a few ideas we’re throwing around for TickTickDone:
Keep an eye out for these and other features over the next few weeks!
I’ve been procrastinating on this post for long enough, so here’s a preview of what we’ve been working on to improve TickTickDone.
First up there’s a semi-legible sketch (taken with my phone camera, as if reading my handwriting wasn’t challenge enough :p ):
And here are some page mockups:
The previous idea for the site (the one online at ticktickdone.com today, but soon to change) was a wiki-like collective of practical step-by-step instructions. Everyone would be able to input their instructions of how to achieve some goal into a massive database of knowledge. The problem is, there’s not much incentive to put your data in there, and it takes a fair bit of effort to prepare it for the site.
The new system is a bit different. Instead of donating to a global pool of knowledge, you’re just tracking your own goals by deciding what you want, setting milestones and steps, then ticking them off as you go. The social networking side of things can come a little bit later. I’m way more enthused about this idea than the previous one, because I can really see myself using it.
I’m hoping to get the new version up on Friday (25th April), but then I also made the rather ambitious decision to make the goal view/edit interface entirely AJAXed, which might take a bit more time since I’m still learning jQuery. Stay tuned!
I recently got a Sony Vaio CR laptop with the intention of installing linux on it, which was a bit of a leap of faith since there wasn’t much compatibility info on the web. But it went ok, since I’m typing this on it right now from within Ubuntu Here’s what I did:
I started off by burning the system restore partition to DVDs, using the VAIO Recovery Utility. The system restore data resides on an 8G partition at the start of the hard drive, so once it was backed up I could format it and use it as my linux root partition.
I originally planned to use the following partition scheme: 25G windows, 10G linux root, 60G linux home, 2G swap. However, I couldn’t find a way to resize the windows partition (NTFS), since the GParted live cd wouldn’t boot and Partition Magic is not yet compatible with Windows Vista. So instead, I reformatted the 8G recovery partition and used it as my linux root partition, giving me the following partition scheme: 8G linux root, 25G windows, 60G linux home, 2G swap. After install I’m now using about 2.5G on the linux root partition, so 8G is still plenty of space.
When I went to install Ubuntu (Version 7.10), the graphical installer failed to start, since the standard VESA driver isn’t compatible with the graphics card (ATI Mobility Radeon X2300). To get around that, I followed some instructions for the Asus Z53Jr/F3Jr laptops that have the same graphics card as the Sony.
The instructions are here:
Ubuntu 7.04 on Asus Z53Jr F3Jr
That page also mentions a driver for the built in web cam. Unfortunately, the driver didn’t work when I tried it, probably because the Asus laptop in that article has a different camera.
Things that worked:
Remaining issues:
I’ll update this post as I iron out the remaining problems.
Update: After upgrading to hardy, sound works. I got the camera working using the r5u870 driver. Suspend works if I first “sudo rmmod uvcvideo”. I think that’s everything!
Welcome! I thought I’d kick this blog off by posting a few resources I found useful to getting started with NiftyKit.
Development
I’m developing NiftyMap using Django, the python web framework for perfectionists with deadlines, as they say. I’ve used it a little in the past, and found it very friendly and satisfying to work with.
Web hosting
We’ve got our site hosted on WebFaction. They provide instant-setup Django hosting amongst a bunch of other web frameworks, blogs, wikis and the like. What’s more, their support is fast and helpful, and their plans are cheap, too
SVN hosting and project management
I recently discovered Unfuddle, a SVN hosting and project management service. Their service is a little like Trac, but with a very nice looking and highly usable AJAX interface. They also score highly in the support department, usually replying to my emails well within an hour and often faster.
Wiki
I’m fond of TWiki, except for its painful setup process and convoluted admin system. MoinMoin was offered as a quick install by WebFaction, so I tried it out and found it easy to setup and quite friendly. I still prefer TWiki’s markup, but not enough to make it worth the effort. Update: Unfuddle now has its own wiki, so a separate wiki is not required.
All of the above will set you back $US18.50/month, which is pretty cheap when you think about it. As long as you have a willing partner or two, venture capital shouldn’t be necessary to start a startup.
