My Very Own Url Shortener

If you’re not familiar with Url Shorteners…well, there are often circumstances where you want to share a url with someone and that url is really long.  The idea of a shortener (like tinyurl.com, biy.ly, is.gd, etc) is that you plug in the long url and they’ll give you a short one in return that points to the same place.  Pretty simple concept eh?  These sites have become especially popular given Twitter’s success and character constraints…

Given the plethora of shortener sites, I should say that I certainly did not need to create my own shortener.  I, however, thought it’d be a fun, quick experiment…  All-in-all this took an hour:

First I found a suitable domain - in my case, http://mat.tc/ — it’s short and has some relevance (Matt Chepeleff = Matt C = mat.tc).  Next, I had to wait for GoDaddy to process my order and set the domain to “active” so I could point the new site to my server.

After that, on my server I created a new folder for the site and setup IIS.  Then, I had to configure the site to use ISAPI_Rewrite (a handy tool that basically allows me to point http://mat.tc/[anything_here] to a single page.  Then it was a simple matter of creating a database table and telling the script to point certain url suffixes to the appropriate (long) url.

I ended up adding in a few handy add-ons, like Google Analytics tracking and a back-end interface that allows me to quickly add new urls to the database.

That’s about it.  You’ll notice my site doesn’t allow just anyone to shorten urls…for now, I plan to use it myself.  Kind of like http://tcrn.ch/ which techcrunch.com uses.  I don’t think there’s a ton of money to be made on this kind of stuff (given number of sites doing it and the requirement of needing thousands or millions of users to generate decent ad revenues), but it was an easy little project…

Against Socialism? Here’s why that’s Dumb.

Let’s get right into this - I’m not normally a person to push my beliefs on people (unless you disagree with me), or even to write about them like this, but I feel especially obligated to share my personal experiences in this case…so here we go.

To offer a pseudo-disclaimer, let’s all start by understanding that I don’t mean to offend anyone who truly thinks socialism is simply the worst thing that could happen to our country - I only offer my perspective based on recent experiences in hopes that you’ll come to your own conclusions that neatly agree with mine.

The Back Story & Personal Stuff

I got married back in July of 2008, and right after the wedding (literally the next day), my wife and I departed on our way to Sydney, Australia.  For our “honeymoon” we’d planned out an elaborate 3-4 month backpacking trip through Australia and Europe.  This kind of travel is something we both dreamed of when we first starting dating years prior - and we both worked hard for almost 2 years in preparation for the trip saving and planning.

The planning started with grandeur plans for a full year of vagabonding all over the world but quickly turned into a <6 month trip as the realities of dollars and expenses-we-didn’t-plan-for hitting us as we got deeper into preparations.  That was alright with us, perhaps a little bit disappointing, but offset by the realities of our once lofty plans.  What became more genuinely disappointing was where some of the money we worked so hard to save had to go - especially considering these were things we had little to no control over.

The Joy that is Health Insurance

Health Insurance was the biggest frustration here - because of two realities.

First - here in the US if you go for even a couple days with out health insurance (between policies and whatnot) you get to enjoy the status of having a “lapse in coverage.”  This status essentially allows your new insurance to place blame for anything that happens down the road on something that mysteriously originated during this lapse - all via the convenient “pre-existing condition” label.  So this is something you want to avoid.  If you’re healthy you can probably get lucky and skirt by this without complications, but it is still a gamble.  I know personally I didn’t want something to happen, have my insurance get out of paying for it due to the aforementioned scenario, and get stuck with huge medical bills sucking up our earned travel money.  My personal concern was compounded by the realities of my personal health: I got dealt the Type-1 Diabetes card several years back and simply cannot afford to gamble with this for the obvious reasons.  As a diabetic in the US, I’m lucky to be in a situation where the insurance companies can’t skirt out covering me.

So for us, all this meant my wife and I had to pay insurance premiums out-of-pocket to prevent said lapse for a few months (leave from work meant the job wouldn’t pay for premiums), which ended up costing ~$3200.  Now, I feel bad even complaining about this: (1) I’m lucky to have insurance at all, (2) I was lucky to be able to afford this premium, even if temporary, and (3) the fact that not everyone has insurance might make my comments here seem conceeded.  Either way, this was and still is a lot of money from my perspective.

Second - the travel insurance we purchased to cover us globally as we moved about had premiums that were at least 10x as expensive because our home country is the USA.  We paid roughly $650 combined - and while traveling we met people our age from places in Europe and Australia who in the past had paid/were paying a tiny fraction for similar coverage.

But, sadly, my only complaint about this insurance stuff boils down to money.  Insurance isn’t my only frustration though.

Experiences and Learnings while Abroad

My wife and I learned a lot while traveling.  We got to see amazing places, meet wonderful people, and enjoy a sense of carefree, pure living that I wish everyone could experience.  I set the stage here not to brag in any sense, but rather, to explain that while we had a wonderful time, we also had our eyes opened to some sad realities about our country.

In our month in Australia and over two months touring Europe we met and talked to loads of fellow travelers from all over the world while sharing train rides, flight delays, and other experiences together.  We only met two fellow Americans though, in the form of another traveling couple.  That struck us as a bit odd in contrast to the seeming bus loads full of Brits (they were everywhere!), French, Australian, German, Italian and other Europeans we met everywhere.

Now there are obvious (and unfortunate) economic restraints on citizens of many countries which explain why you don’t see many Zimbabwe-ians backpacking the world.  (I only pick Zimbabwe as a quick Google search for “Countries by GDP” revealed they are at the bottom of the list - link)  I understand the realities here.  But acknowledging this and moving on: I’d like to compare our country to places like Western Europe and Australia…

Here’s where the frustration and realizations about the USA come to bear.  Why, if we call ourselves a the richest, most powerful, free country on the planet - a place where democracy and freedom are the foundation of our government - can so few citizens afford to explore our planet?  The bar is set pretty high internationally for the US - and in many ways we’re supposed to be an international leader.  Even the Dalai Lama thinks “…America is a champion of freedom, democracy, liberty…” (link).

Now I’m not suggesting that every American ought to be able to takes months off to galavant around the world, but the amount of time and energy Americans spend working far out-weighs our Australian and European friends.  We get 1-2 weeks vacation time when we start new jobs (often, not always of course - I know this varies) and our foreign friends get up to a month.  In return for the hard work what do we get?  Not much.  

This is just one example of the work and lifestyle differences between Americans and Europeans.  Let’s not even get into the 7am - 6pm work day many of us experience (or worse, I know some people working 14+ hour days, and then spend their nights/time off with the blackberry attached to their hip — and that’s what those fortunate enough in this economy to be working have to do to keep the status quo).  Internationally, however, things are different: the Italians, for example, have got this life thing figured out.  They, as a single example, take a few hour break every afternoon to eat and nap.  Brilliant.

Back to traveling: it’s disturbing to hear about what other countries pay for health care and college degrees.  I don’t want to come across as a Michael Moore fanatic here, but the realities of the quality of care and $0 direct cost for health care are undeniable (ok, here come the comments: (1) I know it’s not $0 - I said direct costs because you don’t pay for care as you go or for premiums in many other countries - I understand taxes do fund socialized medical systems; (2) “Canada has crappy health care, so see, it’s not worth it!” - true, partially - you can get stuck at the bottom of long queues for certain procedures etc, but for pennies compared to US costs you can supplement your public/standard coverage with a private policy to fill the gaps and get really great benefits for a fraction of the US cost…).  Why can’t the US have affordable health care.  Scratch that, why can’t we be on par or better than other countries.  I know why we’re stuck in our current system, but we need to get out of it and into social health care - free for all (through tax funding).

Education expenses are reasonable too - we met loads of students from the UK, France, Italy, Australia and a few other countries who all paid a few thousand equivalent US dollars (always under $10k) for a year of school.  Today in the US a private school will almost always be more than that, a public university will usually be more unless you’re going in state, and a community college program is the best bet to save dollars.  But internationally, comparing apples-to-apples our community college degree costs the same as foreign degrees from top universities.  (The kicker, foreign students studying abroad here in the US often pay less for their time in US schools than US students pay!)

The reaction to telling fellow students about our personal student loan requirements to fund our educations yielded a consistent, shocked, and confused reaction.  “How can you afford that?!?” and “Why?!?” were common reactions.  It’s not fun to realize you’re on the wrong side of genuine shock and disgust at the situation you’re in.  Again, my wife and I know we’re lucky to have college degrees and comparatively low loan balances compared to some…but the brutal realization of the international take on education in the US was rough.

Wrapping It Up - The Frustrations

Now I know I’m covering a lot of very deep topics in a few comments here, but I want to get the extent of my feelings about this stuff across.  The bottom line in our realizations and revelations during our trip were that we (Americans) pay a ton for education and health care, and we work really, really, really hard to get and pay for this stuff.

Now across the Atlantic (or Pacific) students and young adults our age don’t deal with this kind of stuff like we do.  Health care is never a concern, because everyone has it.  Education is less of a concern as it costs much less too.  Traveling around the world for a few months is easier too (not even getting into the foreign currency advantages many enjoy, especially those Brits!) for many reasons - and I think that’s why so many do it!!

Now I’m just saying…this sounds like a pretty good lifestyle.  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t proud to be an American and all that (insert patriotic jingle here), but I’d also be lying if I said I wasn’t jealous many-a-time of fellow travelers who weren’t burdened with the realities of paying for Insulin and student loans.  Much of this jealousy stemmed from the policies that America does or does not employ - things that I had never been able to provide my input on.  (Hence my desire to write this and share this, I feel like I’ve got to share my frustrations and help present what I think could be a better solution…)

America does a lot well, and sometimes we’re leading the world and at the top of our game.  But health care and education are not in these arenas.  We’re pretty crappy at this stuff, really.

Personally, I feel like the liberties and freedom we’re supposed to enjoy and model for the world ought to include education and health care.  Education should be reasonable and affordable while also enabling Americans to compete globally.  Health care should be available to every. single. person. in. the. country.  Invoices, bills, and money should be banned from hospitals and doctor’s offices and no-one should ever, for any reason, at any time profit off of my health.

And it’s time for my last rant.  This is tied to a recent tweet I threw out there, which said “Fox News should be dragged out into the streets and shot. I want my cable company to start paying me to let this crap into my cable box…” (on May 1, 2009)  I’m sick of the propaganda and BS that surrounds socialism in the media - they all paint it in a horrible light.  I believe that accepting this common thinking is silly anyway, because even modern capitialist systems include some socialist elements.  America does in dozens of ways right now…today…already, which is fine with me.  But somehow when you mention health care (especiaaalllllllyyyyyyy health care, holy crap) some go bonkers and call you a socialist nut.  It’s interesting to think that many countries with literacy on par or higher than that in the US have more socialized systems in place than we do.  I think we ought to explore why a bit more.

All I know is the people my wife and I met traveling seemed especially proud and content with their countries after hearing about this crap going on in ours.  They were happy to be on their side of the fence after hearing stories from our side.  So while all my fellow Americans are out enjoying their freedom, I hope and pray for change, and look forward to mine.

RateButler.com Launched!

I’ve been working part time over the past few months with a new client to launch RateButler.com - and now we’re done with development! The site is aimed at connecting Limousine companies across the country and allowing them to share rate, fleet, and company information with each other. My work was primarily focused on developing a database schema, creating custom business logic, and integrating an existing design into the site.

Apparently, it’s common for limo companies to “farm out” in cases where clients are flying from a locally served airport to somewhere across the country (meaning a client will be picked up and dropped off locally by a limo company, and then picked up/dropped off at their destination by an affiliate company). But in order to setup reservations that use affiliates, companies need to know details about each affiliates rates and fleet in addition to having proof of insurance and other legal documents…

RateButler does all that and more. Visitors to the site can upload their company information, build a network of affiliate companies, create and accept affiliate agreements, and track important documents and other information on a client by client basis. The site alerts user’s when information is about to expire, new companies join, and when affiliate information gets updated.

All in all, it’s pretty slick. Technically speaking, the site makes extensive use of AJAX, and it’s all cross-browser/cross-platform friendly too (though my distain for Internet Explorer has grown deeper through the process)!  JSON is used to move information to/from clients and there aren’t any “save buttons” - it’s all saved on the fly. The site features a lot of front end javascript logic including a custom “Rate Builder” which allows custom fee and rate definition. The flash intro and page header, as well as the page design were purchased from a template site and the design was integrated into the site framework.

I’ve added a few screenshots below for you to check out - as I’m assuming the majority of my visitors don’t happen to own a limousine or transportation company!

Introducing…Photos! A few every week…

I love to travel & last year my wife and I took a trip around the world - mostly through Australia and Europe. Out of the 20k + photos we came home with, we’ve found a couple hundred real money shots. It’s taken a while to go through them all, but I’m going to start posting a half dozen or so photos every week to share with everyone.

Here’s a link to the Flickr set. Enjoy.

TheIdeaStartup Is Finally Here!

Yesterday afternoon Ray and I launched TheIdeaStartup.com to the world. TheIdeaStartup is all about ideas and creating businesses. The site combines the power of social networking, online team collaboration, and business planning software in an online environment friendly towards teams. We really make it easier for students, entrepreneurs, and teams to write business plans and refine financial projections.

I encourage everyone to check out the site - if you or anyone you know needs help validating ideas or developing business plans, I think our site can help you.

We’ve launched the site as an Invite-Only Beta - so drop me a line if you’re looking for an invite and I’ll get you in as soon as I can!

I’m sure I’ll have more posts on TheIdeaStartup in the future - we’re just getting started!