Left Justified

SitePoint Raising Funds for Bushfire Victims

Andrew — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 05:00:06 +0000

You’d have to be living under a rock to not know that Victoria (where I live) has been decimated by bush fires in the past week. The worst natural disaster in Australia’s recorded history.

Such events spark a feeling of shock, horror and utter helplessness in me. So many deaths, so much destruction, and it’s all practically on my doorstep. It’s for that reason that I was so impressed to hear around the office that we would be doing the best book deal SitePoint have ever offered to raise funds for the Australian Red Cross Victorian Bushfire Appeal.

Any 5 books (in PDF format) and for the price of 1, with 100% of proceeds going to charity. It’s a great offer, for a very worthwhile cause.

What hasn’t been publicized is our goal for this fund-raising effort – $50,000 USD (~$75,000 AUD); which at first struck me as a lofty goal but one I was hopeful we’d surpass. As an employee a SitePoint, I have access to the sales figures and let me tell you the response so far has been astronomical. As of right now, less than 24 hours since launching the offer, SitePoint has raised USD $61,277 for bushfire victims.

Fuck yeah.

And that’s with two more days to go. If you’re a web geek (and if you’re reading this you probably are), then take advantage of this offer and know that every cent is going to help people who desperately need it.

New Project Added - “The Big Amp”

Andrew — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 11:27:24 +0000

If I wait until finishing this one before adding it to The Lab I may never get around to it, so here it is - KT[XX] - The Big Amp.

If you’re here looking for internet nerdery, stick around. Amongst other things, I’ve got a massive project brewing at work that will be unveiled mid March.

Back From The Dead

Andrew — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 08:43:10 +0000

After almost 2 years without activity this site has received a facelift and some new direction. I felt pigeonholed by trying to keep to a theme, so stuff that noise. This site is now about whatever interests me this week.

To that end, I’ve begun adding some of my guitar-related projects to The Lab, more of which will be coming as I find time to write up details.

Intarwebs!

Pump up the (web) Jams!

Andrew — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 15:55:37 +0000

Lachlan and Anson did a brilliant job of putting together the event. I wasn’t able to make it last time, but I was never going to miss version 2. Cameron and I presented last and unveiled a little something we call Tim Would Lick It. Working with Cam was pure hell, something I’ll never consider again — except for the fact that I fear his JavaScript-powered wrath. Our little joke on Tim was well received. So well received in-fact, that we came second — and in doing so, won a ticket to Web Directions! Woooh!

As I watch Lachlan fetch some Scotch and wonder how much fun BarCamp with a hang over is going to be tomorrow, I must remind all challengers — Team Stoopid takes no prisoners!

A Doctype is not a badge

Andrew — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 03:33:45 +0000

A doctype will not save the world.
A doctype will not fight world hunger.
A doctype will not help you sleep at night.
A doctype will not ensure fame, fortune, or success.
A doctype does not give you a moral or technical high ground from which to shout down at others.
A doctype is not a badge.

Wisdom of The Masses

Andrew — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 10:47:34 +0000

Over late night IRC and IM conversations, the concept was fleshed out with lines like “OpenID is a pipe dream”, “more useful than Twitter”, and various other digs at the latest bubble on the block. While I was eating lunch yesterday, a very excited Jim messaged me via MSN to say that Useless Account had been mentioned on TechCrunch. I was in immediate hysterics. Wow, people were obviously finding this far more amusing than I had expected.

The account tally quickly grew from the low teens to 50-odd, and then the server started to choke. Dreamhost were having some hiccups (their email went down at the same time), so I offered to host the 700+kb of images to lessen the load and hopefully stabilize the site. What’s the point of a parody site that times out when you try to create an account? Little did I know that those images would use approximately 5.5GB of bandwidth over the next 24 hours.

As the day progressed, traffic continued to increase and the account tally kept rising. Once it passed 500, the joke was officially a raging success. Jim was absolutely wrapped and I was blown away that his “silly little joke” had been so warmly received.

Then Digg got onboard.

By this morning, there were over 3000 accounts created and Useless Account had made the front page of Digg and del.icio.us. Things were out of control. Truly, the crowds had spoken. Stupid is good.

The peak is now over, but it looks like the account tally will make it to 5000. That makes my original estimate of 200 off by a long, long way. Congratulations to Jim, and his 15 minutes of fame!

So, who wants to buy a database of 5000 email addresses? JUST KIDDING! Jeez, talk about paranoid.