The Real Company vs. the Sterile Cockpit

Running a company is hard, especially when you’re the only one in it. I’ve been trying to think of witty things to say about this and the current state of Jetrecord because I wanted to keep that “Real Voice” going at all times but right now nothing comes to mind. Maybe by the time we get to paragraph six or seven I’ll have something funny queued up. For now I’m just going to use my best CRM skills and say things like they are.

Jetrecord, the application, is running great and has been for several months. Almost everything is automated and it’s a rare occurrence when something fails. The last time I saw a showstopping error on the site was a few months ago, I think. I couldn’t even tell you for sure when or what it might have been. I’m just guessing.

The application has never lost any data. Never had any corrupt data. Never had any security incidents. It runs pretty fast as far as web applications go. It’s hosted on a great system. In short, I’m really happy with the way things have gone and I see no reason why it can’t continue running for years and years to come.

The one thing that has bugged me to no end is the design. I’m a freak about design even though I’m not a designer. I really care about the way something looks and feels and the type of experience you have when you use it. I care because I use tons of products every day, both physical and virtual. The ones that are bad make the ones that are good really stand out. You tend not to notice great products and great design until you use something that sucks. And then you blame the company and all the people working for that company. How could they let such a crappy product out of the warehouse?

I also care because I believe when you have the knowledge and power to make something good, you should make it good. I know how to build web applications. I know what makes them tick. I know where the pitfalls are across browsers and operating systems. I speak usability, accessibility, findability, and lots of other -bilities that make web sites and software do what they do. Therefore, I MUST make a great web site. To not do so would be disrespectful, dishonorable, and selfish.

So last summer I started working on a new design on paper. I was pretty happy with what I came up with, but not happy enough to make we want to build it. It was lacking that oomph, much as the current design is good, but lacks that oomph. You know what I mean? That oomph? It’s sort of indescribable in English. I kept at it but ultimately moved on to implementing new features. I kept telling myself that I would revisit the design at some point but I got swamped with other details.

Then, in November, my family and I had to make a hard decision. We had reached the end of our cash window which had allowed me to work on Jetrecord full time since April of last year. There has always been a plan to have premium features on Jetrecord for paying accounts, but really, I’ve just never felt like the time was right. I know, I know. It’s a business and a business needs to make money to survive, right? I’m not so sure anymore. I think a business, and really, a product, needs people who care about the product more than it needs money. But that’s beside the point.

Back to November. I took a contract programming gig to help us pay the bills. I kept working on Jetrecord on the side. This continued until February when we decided that I needed to put all my effort into finding a full time job. Long story short, I have a job. I’m a senior software engineer at PublicEarth in Boulder, Colorado and we’re making a really cool web application. The company has, at its core, the one thing that all companies need: people who care.

What does this mean for Jetrecord? Truly, nothing, really. But that’s also the bad news. I have not much free time now. I’ve really hesitated in writing this because I’m afraid that everyone will cry Vaporware!, grab their data, and run. “The End of Jetrecord!” in large type on the front page of The New York Times. At the same time I’ve realized that running the company in secrecy and with trepidation is not me. I refuse to do that. You, the users, deserve better. You deserve to know what’s going on. If you’re trusting me with your data, or if you’re considering trusting me with your data, you should know what’s happening here.

As I’ve stated before, Jetrecord runs great and will continue to do so. There will be new features added from time to time. Maybe with a job I might even be able to afford the services of a real designer. But improvements will definitely be slow to come. Being realistic really sucks sometimes. If you’re building a competing product (and I know there are several) now would be a great time to launch and kick ass. I would welcome it.

The flip side of all this is that sometimes saying “no” actually frees you up to do really great things with the free time that you do have. It may turn out that this next year of life for Jetrecord will be even more fruitful than its first. I can only hope.

As always, cheers.
Harry

Pilots, Post Your Flights to Twitter!

Finally! I’ve been wanting to add this feature for so long, but up until a couple days ago, there was no secure way to go about it. However, Twitter has finally opened up access to their OAuth authorization service making it possible for third party services to interact with Twitter without compromising user security.

That means you can now post your flights to Twitter when you log a flight on Jetrecord. If you’re a Twitter user, you know what I’m talking about and you’ve probably seen similar postings from services like Brightkite, Twitpic, and others.

On Brightkite, for example, when you “check in” to a location, you have the option of posting your check-in, notes, photos, and more to Twitter to let your followers know what you’re doing at your present location. The premise is the same for Jetrecord. When you log a flight, Jetrecord can update your Twitter status to let your followers know about your flight, including the duration, the route, the type of aircraft you flew, and a direct link to your flight on Jetrecord.

Setup

The process is very simple and secure:

1. Go to your user page on Jetrecord
2. Click the Settings link
3. Scroll down to the Twitter section
4. Click the “Authorize Jetrecord” link
5. This will take you to Twitter
6. Login to your Twitter account if necessary
7. Click “Allow” (see screenshot)
8. You will be returned to Jetrecord and you should see a “Success” message
9. Done.

Now just add a flight on Jetrecord. It should simultaneously post an update to your Twitter status with a message like the one above.

Notice that Jetrecord never asks for your Twitter password. All of the authorization takes place on Twitter’s website.

Teardown

If, at any time, you want to revoke Jetrecord’s access, just follow these steps:

1. Go to your user page on Jetrecord
2. Click the Settings link
3. Scroll down to the Twitter section
4. Click the “Revoke Authorization” link
5. This will take you to Twitter
6. Login to your Twitter account if necessary
7. Click “Revoke Access” underneath the description for Jetrecord
8. Done.
9. Unlike the authorization process, you will not be returned to Jetrecord

That’s it. I hope you find it useful and fun. If you have any comments about the feature, please speak up. Could the process be improved? Do you want to see a different format for the status message?

Cheers,
Harry

Flight Hours and Maps Widgets

Two more widgets are available on the widgets page. One displays your flight hours for several categories, including total hours, PIC, solo, XC, dual given and received, and more. The second widget displays a Google map of your most recent flight with a link to that flight on Jetrecord.

For all widgets, click the “Get Widget” button below each widget to customize the details and get the code you need to display the widget on your own web site.

An example of the map widget is below. Cheers!

We’ve Got Widgets!

Today marks the reaching of another milestone. It’s long been a dream to push Jetrecord beyond its borders and today I’m happy to say the dream has come true. Thanks to Widgetbox you can put a widget of your most recent flights on your own website. See the sidebar of this blog for an example.

Just about everything on the widget is customizable, including how many flights to display, the font, text size, even whether to show the logo or not.

More widgets are in the works but if you have a specific request for a certain type of widget, just say the word and I’ll see what I can do.

Visit the Widgets page on Jetrecord to see more.

Cheers,
Harry

Episode 4 of The Building of Jetrecord

I’m trying to do the right thing by my customers by writing automated tests that prove my code does what I think it does. In this episode I set up my application to run acceptance tests with Cucumber and Webrat.