I’ve just completed a makeover of ComicHub, which is the fun, simple and free web comic hosting site that Huy and I made about a year ago. I’ve made a number of changes to optimise the site for search engines and for humans:

• The front page previously displayed all the features using an image. That’s been replaced by text so search engines can figure out what the site is about.
• Added the hook text at the top of the page: “Fun, simple and free web comic hosting”
• The sign up button is much more prominent.
• Removed the ads from the actual comic pages(!), and refactored the ones on the front page.

If you’re interested in writing your own web comic, if you’d like to check out those that are already there, or if you just want to check out the new and improved home page, head over to http://comichub.net.

It’s been awhile since I’ve had a personal software project to work on. Today I’d like to share how I’m slowly rectifying that to move towards a project that I’ll enjoy working on in my spare time.

In the previous post I mentioned that I have difficulty sticking with one project for long enough to finish it. That was certainly a problem with the previous software project I worked on, called TickTickDone. As a response to that, I’ve been leaning towards blogging as an alternative outlet. Since a blog post doesn’t take very long to write, I could easily blog about one topic as long as it interests me, then switch topics when a new interest comes along.

That idea seems great at first glance, until you consider where my skills lie. I’ve been interested (some would say obsessed) with computers since I was 7, and I’ve been programming for about the same period of time (16 years and counting). In contrast, I never liked English in school and was never a particularly good writer. Maybe you disagree? You are reading this… or maybe you don’t. Either way, I’m far more skilled at expressing myself through code than with words.

The second thing that I considered was that maybe my fluctuating desire wasn’t itself a problem. Maybe I was just bad at choosing ideas? If my idea wasn’t worth pursuing for more than a few weeks, then my intuition would let me know through my waning interest. So today I asked myself the question “What are the characteristics of an idea that I could commit to developing?”. I came up with a bunch of ideas, but here are the essential ones:

• It should address the most important need that I can identify in the world.
• No one else would be as perfectly suited to doing it as I am.
• There is a large enough market to make the idea worth pursuing.

Those sounded great, until I tried to come up with an idea that fit them. Nothing. I’m still holding out for an amazing idea to fall from the sky and enlighten me, but right now I think an incremental approach might be easier to apply, and a bit more trustworthy too.

I’d been looking at this as a venture that would make money, which was a big leap since I haven’t made a significant amount of money over the internet yet. At this point I loosened my grip and tried looking at this undertaking as an extension of a hobby instead of as a business that HAD to make money. I asked: “What would be fun and interesting to do next?”

The answer to that question was a little different. It was to “solve small, fun and interesting problems, and share the solutions with people”. In particular, I plan to give MissionMap and ComicHub a quick facelift and practice getting the word out to people who would enjoy using them. That will be great because I could really use the practice in marketing and promotion.

So that’s a summary of my train of thought. I’ll work on some small projects, build my skills where they’re lacking and gradually move on to bigger and more impactful projects, all the while keeping it fun and interesting. Stay tuned!

The other day I bought three hard-cover notebooks. I was thinking back to my 3rd year chemistry research project. I worked with a researcher from the ANU research school of chemistry for a semester. The contents of the project, although interesting, were not the main thing I took away from the experience. What I was left with was a taste of how to apply the scientific method.

When we were working, we would plan an experiment, write out the plan for it (in our hard-cover notebooks) then conduct it right away and analyse the results. From there we could pick a new experiment to try and progress the project, gradually peeling back the walls of our ignorance. I’d read about the scientific method before, but actually doing it was revolutionary to me, since up until that point the only experiments that I’d done were those planned and pre-tested by my teachers. Getting involved and actually investigating something was a whole new ball game.

Back to the hard-cover notebooks. I’ve been struggling for the past year with the challenge of achieving steady, stable, persistent progress. I’d read about something or come up with an idea for a project, and I’d be really excited about it. That would last for an hour, a day, or a week, then the enthusiasm would fade and something else would grab my attention. I’ve been aware of this problem for years since I’ve always had a pattern of short-lived passionate interests, but now I think I’m beginning to discover a solution.

So back to the notebooks. The first has become my lab book, but instead of chemistry experiments I’m using it to conduct life experiments. When I have an idea I want to test, I write up an experiment to test it. So far I’ve used it for experiments on goal achievement, responding to emotions and connecting with people. I structure it like a science experiment with an aim, method, hypothesis, observations and results. This is a little bit like a 30 day trial, except I’m free to set whatever time frame I think will be appropriate. Selecting a short time frame is far more motivating, since it can take a lot of preparation and commitment to do a 30 day trial. By doing experiments and recording the results, I can learn from my successes and failures. It’s also helping me to loosen up a bit when things go wrong. If my life goes a little bit crazy, it’s not a disaster, it’s just an interesting result to observe (if not one that I intended to create).

What about the other notebooks? I turned one of them into a journal when I realised I needed somewhere to put down my thoughts that glue the experiments together. I also realised that I prefer journaling on paper rather than on computer. On computer I find it too easy to treat my writing as something that will be thrown away, but on paper it’s more tangible, I can’t erase it once it’s written (I’m writing in pen) and I’m much more likely to read back over what I’ve written. I think that’s just a psychological thing, but it works for me.

So there you have it, a simple method to experiment with life a bit and see what you can make happen. I’m certainly keen to see where it will lead over the next few months. I’ll leave you with a quote from Hans Reiser that I find to be a great expression of the spirit of science:

“I am not a genius, I am just never satisfied and very very persistent. I approach science like a blind man with a stick who is determined to fully understand what is going on. The difference between me and my competition is that I poke more than they do. I observe, find something to be unsatisfied with, try something to fix it, most of the time it fails and I try again.”