Hours worked: 47 hours (programming 31, website 10, payment processors 6)
Lines of code: 2226
Classes: 14 major classes (.java files), ~25 named classes, ~50 total classes (anonymous inner classes used for input listeners add up quickly)
Most expensive line item on budget: $17.20. One 10 page fax of a contract from Gifu Prefecture to Nebraska. My bosses would be so proud I’m helping to digitalize two rural regions at once :)
I got out of this morning and started making some improvements to my site suggested by the Joel on Software crew (thanks guys!), especially fixing one critical display bug with Internet Explorer (that required me to remove a nice visual effect but the jarringness of it was worth taking the hit). I also tinkered a little bit with my AdWords campaign. Then my phone rang and a friend of mine invited me out to the mall. I haven’t seen the sun in seven days, so I figured, “Let the business run itself for six hours”. And while he came over, I wrote some Google ads. I was sort of proud of one of them — its almost guaranteed to hit either a reading teacher or a homeschool mother because nobody else knows one of the words in it. The text offers a freebie in the ad title, and the next two lines are “Tired of paying $10 each for vocab cards? Try out a better way for free.”
Ever heard the old saw “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?” This has a lot of wisdom for uISVs, who often are their own worst competitors. We’re all sitting by the side of the road with a big sign saying “Get your free milk!” Sometimes somebody ambles down, sees our sign, and says “Sure, I’ll take some free milk.” And then he drinks it and leaves before we can even tell him how well-tempered of a cow she is.
