Andrew Jaswa

So I have a twitter addiction. That’s right I like tweeting. I recently surpassed my 2000th tweet and my 100th follower (that wasn’t a spam bot). In fueling this addiction I’ve created 2 twitter bots: Acropoll and SandCTweet. Last night I put the finishing touches on a plug in for WordPress that I started a long while ago. This morning I submitted it to WordPress.org.

The point of Bird Feeder is simple. Nearly all the twitter plug ins I’ve tried do more then I’ve needed. So Bird Feeder does the one thing I wanted: tweet about a new blog post. That’s it nothing else. It probably won’t ever do anything else. Though I’m sure I’ll keep it updated with bug fixes or better ways of doing things when I get the time.

Speaking of bugs, one of the first users found something I over looked: It tweeted every time a post was updated. Even if it was already published. It was a simple mistake that has now been remedied.

Jeremy Sanchez, owner of Metaicon also runs a URL shortening service called shortna.me. He set up a API for me to call when tweeting so that it doesn’t use the full URL in the tweet. Of course this is to help keep the character count down.

So head over to WordPress.org and check out Bird Feeder.

It’s been a while since I switched over to Dreamhost for my hosting needs. I must say it’s been a very good experience so far. Though my experience with Media Temple was also good until I actually needed help from them. Alas, I don’t want to get on a tangent about my past problems with Media Temple but rather talk about how well Dreamhost has worked for me so far.

For starters all my cron jobs are running nicely and have been running without any problems since I set them up. Pretty sweet.

Next is communication. Dreamhost has a twitter account that updates when something is broken or upgraded or just a status update. It’s not overly useful to me but it says something about Dreamhost: they want their clients to know what’s going on. We all know stuff breaks and rather then making me call/email them to figure out why my site is broken they make it known what’s going on. Each tweet I’ve seen links over to the Dreamhost Status website that gives a more detailed explanation as to the current issue.

Support. Ahh yes. I’ve only put in one support ticket. Granted it was more of a question about how something worked rather then something being broken. But the support rep got back to me within one hour, gave me the answer and pointed me to the documentation I missed. I’m not sure I can express how awesome that is. Speedy and helpful!

The admin console is pretty easy to understand. Some of the things don’t make sense to me. For example: the mysql screens are under a section called “goodies”. Not a major issue but a little confusing if you aren’t expecting mysql to be a goodie.

The one issue I have with Dreamhost is the One-Click installer for WordPress. You have two options: the first being they manage the install, do upgrades and what have you, the other you manage it yourself, they’ll install it but after that you maintain it. I haven’t done the first option as of yet, but the second one is kinda annoying. Dreamhost seems to know what you will want when they install it for you.</scrcasm> They’ve seem to think installing 50+ themes and 5+ plugins with your WordPress install is a good idea. Well it’s not. So now when creating a new blog I have to go in and delete the themes just so I can make sense of things. It makes sense for the “they manage” option but if I’m going to be doing it, I’ll decide what I want, thanks.

Overall Dreamhost has done a good job of making me a happy customer. That on top of the discount I got from a friend is just awesome.

I don’t like coffee. I don’t think I ever will. But I do love Starbucks. If you haven’t read “The Starbucks Experience”, don’t understand how a great experience can mean a whole lot or just don’t like Starbucks, then you won’t understand what I’m about to write. Stop reading. Go somewhere else.

Today is the 26th of December, the day after Christmas (this is important). I’m scheduled to work and couldn’t get in the building. My card didn’t work and there wasn’t a security guard at the desk to let me in. So I headed over to Starbucks in Larimer Square in downtown Denver to get something to drink and eat for a few minutes, then my plan was to head back over to my building to see if the security guard was there. I walked into Starbucks, one other customer and two baristas greeted me. Not feeling like my usual hot chocolate I decided to get an iced tea lemonade. Since this Starbucks was closed on the 25th, they didn’t have anything made from the night before. That is to say they didn’t have anything that was perishable. This included the iced tea component of my drink. This resulted in having to wait a few minutes and since I couldn’t get into my building I didn’t see this as an issue (not that having to wait for a drink to be made would ever be an issue). The barista apologized no less than four times for not having my drink made as quickly as she wanted it to be made.

After a few minutes my drink came out accompanied with another apology and a card for a free beverage:

This inside said: “We apologize if your Starbucks experience was anything but wonderful. We want to know how we can make things better and always invite you to share your thoughts with us.”

Gee, Starbucks. I don’t know what to say…

Thanks!