Peak Progress: Category Consumerism

GOODCalc: Dangerously Close to Beta

Tim — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 00:09:11 -0600

I’ve been working on a little tool that I call GOODCalc. It is the Get Out Of Debt Calculator, and I’m having a great time writing it using TurboGears. The program lets people enter in important information about their debts, and the amount of money they have to get rid of those debts. It then provides an amortized payment schedule so that you can effectively stay on track while destroying debts.

A couple of years ago I decided that being in debt was not for me even though I didn’t exactly have much debt to speak of. I was reading a lot on wealth generation and management. The concept of good debt was discussed, but I realized that I was sitting solely on bad debt, and the first step in generating and managing some wealth of my own was to stop feeding the wealth of my creditors. I wrote the original GOODCalc in python as a little command line tool and I’ve used it ever since. It’s great for me because I’m a computer nerd, but not so great for the non-nerdly masses. We decided that the webification of GOODCalc would be a great way to dip our toes into the TurboGears pool while also giving away a valuable service to others who would like to get out from under their debts.

The program is starting to look and act quite nicely. I just need to clean up the rough edges and get it deployed. It may take a little while just because I’m planning on deploying it to a server whose parts have not all arrived yet, but I’d still love to hear from anyone who would like to be a beta tester. Leave a comment or contact me via email.

What can brown do for you?

Tim — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 18:19:00 -0600

Apparently they can deliver packages to your doorstep while you are home and not make a sound. You won’t even know the pacakges have arrived until you check the tracking information, and you won’t find the package after a complete walk around your house. Then they won’t assist you when you call their customer service line, they will only direct you to your shipper. Shippers can initiate a trace, customer service can not.

More to follow as the drama unfolds.

UPDATE: I ran into the driver yesterday afternoon. He recalled delivering two packages in my neighborhood, and the small box ended up at 1039 (instead of 1045). He told me to check with them, and then start the trace if they didn’t have my stuff. They weren’t home at the time, but my sister found the box sitting on our doorstep when she left for work this morning.

So in the end we have a helpful driver, a nice neighbor, and a paralyzed customer service desk.

Go Flickr, Go!

Tim — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 21:24:56 -0600

Remeber back when I wrote Immediacy Counts?

My only request would be for Yahoo to integrate the printing service with Flickr since Yahoo now owns them.

Well, now I can print from Flickr.

Happy days.

Immediacy Counts

Tim — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 02:16:00 -0500

Two topics, both of which concern the time between paying for and receiving goods.

Back on the 10th of October I ordered a lot of picture prints from Apple. I really dig the ease of ordering from iPhoto, and the prints usually show up in the mail within a week. It’s been ten days and I’m still waiting. Sure, that’s probably well within the stated range for acceptable delivery, but I’m very impatient after I’ve paid for something.

As I’m stewing over my delayed pictures and looking at some new pictures that I need to print I stumble across Yahoo’s photo service. They have teamed up with Target to create a print and pickup service. Prints submitted at night will be ready the next day, and I always have a reason to go to Target anyway. I still wasn’t hooked on the idea, but then I found the Firefox plugin that allows me to drag and drop photos into my purchase queue. Hooked. I lose mailbox convenience, but I skip shipping charges and long waits. My only request would be for Yahoo to integrate the printing service with Flickr since Yahoo now owns them.

On to my next tale of immediacy. My favorite monitor broke after a power outage a few weeks ago. I convinced myself that I didn’t need two monitors, but things didn’t feel quite right. I thought about buying the 24” monster widescreen monitor on sale from Dell. Kate even thought I should get it, and that’s yet another reason why she is incredible. I broke down on Monday night and shelled out sale price for the 20.1” widescreen model. I can research a purchase for weeks, but once I spend the money I’m in anticipation until my toys arrive. I resigned myself to the fact that the monitor wouldn’t arrive until next Tuesday only to have it arrive today—that’s awesome considering that I only paid $2.60 in shipping.

Seriously, this new monitor, the 2005FPW, is incredible. Very crisp and very big. My remaining 19” CRT looks dull and muddy in comparison. I want another. :-)