Author: topherPedersen

by topherPedersen

Why You Should Never Register a Domain with Finnish Domain Name Extension (.fi)

This blog post is brought to you by the developer of BitBudget. BitBudget is an automated budgeting app for Android and iOS which syncs with your bank account and helps you avoid overspending. If you’d like to quit living paycheck-to-paycheck and get a better handle on your finances, download it today! https://bitbudget.io

Well this is sort of a strange post, and I’m not sure if it will make any sense to anyone that happens to stumble upon it, but nevertheless, I have something to say about Finnish domain name extensions! I had this great idea the other day to create a web-app that saves all of your Google search queries so that you can blog about the answer after you find it. Think Quora, the question and answer site, except you answer all of your own questions.

Since I’m sort of into domain name hacks, I decided on the name proli.fi/c for my new blogging tool, as the idea for the tool is to greatly increase the number of blog posts that users of the tool write. However… several days later my Finnish domain, registered through 101domain.com, still isn’t ready to use! So if by any chance someone looking into registering a Finnish domain happens to stumble upon this post, don’t do it!
UPDATE: Eventually everything was resolved. For some reason 101domain.com needed to verify my date of birth with the Finns.

 
by topherPedersen

h.appening.me/ow's Terms of Service

Terms of Service

1. Terms

By accessing the website at http://h.appening.me/ow, you are agreeing to be bound by these terms of service, all applicable laws and regulations, and agree that you are responsible for compliance with any applicable local laws. If you do not agree with any of these terms, you are prohibited from using or accessing this site. The materials contained in this website are protected by applicable copyright and trademark law.

2. Use License

  1. Permission is granted to temporarily download one copy of the materials (information or software) on Christopher Pedersen’s website for personal, non-commercial transitory viewing only. This is the grant of a license, not a transfer of title, and under this license you may not:
    1. modify or copy the materials;
    2. use the materials for any commercial purpose, or for any public display (commercial or non-commercial);
    3. attempt to decompile or reverse engineer any software contained on Christopher Pedersen’s website;
    4. remove any copyright or other proprietary notations from the materials; or
    5. transfer the materials to another person or “mirror” the materials on any other server.
  2. This license shall automatically terminate if you violate any of these restrictions and may be terminated by Christopher Pedersen at any time. Upon terminating your viewing of these materials or upon the termination of this license, you must destroy any downloaded materials in your possession whether in electronic or printed format.

3. Disclaimer

  1. The materials on Christopher Pedersen’s website are provided on an ‘as is’ basis. Christopher Pedersen makes no warranties, expressed or implied, and hereby disclaims and negates all other warranties including, without limitation, implied warranties or conditions of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement of intellectual property or other violation of rights.
  2. Further, Christopher Pedersen does not warrant or make any representations concerning the accuracy, likely results, or reliability of the use of the materials on its website or otherwise relating to such materials or on any sites linked to this site.

4. Limitations

In no event shall Christopher Pedersen or its suppliers be liable for any damages (including, without limitation, damages for loss of data or profit, or due to business interruption) arising out of the use or inability to use the materials on Christopher Pedersen’s website, even if Christopher Pedersen or a Christopher Pedersen authorized representative has been notified orally or in writing of the possibility of such damage. Because some jurisdictions do not allow limitations on implied warranties, or limitations of liability for consequential or incidental damages, these limitations may not apply to you.

5. Accuracy of materials

The materials appearing on Christopher Pedersen’s website could include technical, typographical, or photographic errors. Christopher Pedersen does not warrant that any of the materials on its website are accurate, complete or current. Christopher Pedersen may make changes to the materials contained on its website at any time without notice. However Christopher Pedersen does not make any commitment to update the materials.

6. Links

Christopher Pedersen has not reviewed all of the sites linked to its website and is not responsible for the contents of any such linked site. The inclusion of any link does not imply endorsement by Christopher Pedersen of the site. Use of any such linked website is at the user’s own risk.

7. Modifications

Christopher Pedersen may revise these terms of service for its website at any time without notice. By using this website you are agreeing to be bound by the then current version of these terms of service.

8. Governing Law

These terms and conditions are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of TX and you irrevocably submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts in that State or location.

 
by topherPedersen

h.appening.me/ow Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

Your privacy is important to me. It is  my (Christopher Pedersen) policy to respect your privacy regarding any information I may collect from you across my website, http://h.appening.me/ow, and other sites I own and operate.
I only ask for personal information when we truly need it to provide a service to you. I collect it by fair and lawful means, with your knowledge and consent. I also let you know why I am collecting it and how it will be used.
I only retain collected information for as long as necessary to provide you with your requested service. What data I store, I will protect within commercially acceptable means to prevent loss and theft, as well as unauthorised access, disclosure, copying, use or modification.
I don’t share any personally identifying information publicly or with third-parties, except when required to by law.
My website may link to external sites that I do not operate. Please be aware that I have no control over the content and practices of these sites, and cannot accept responsibility or liability for their respective privacy policies.
You are free to refuse our request for your personal information, with the understanding that I may be unable to provide you with some of your desired services.
Your continued use of my website will be regarded as acceptance of our practices around privacy and personal information. If you have any questions about how I handle user data and personal information, feel free to contact me (chris@topherpedersen.com).
This policy is effective as of 1 February 2019.

 
by topherPedersen

Making Your Own Rules in Startups & Life

“If you’re creative you can come up with your own damn dominance heirarchy, which is exactly what you’re doing if you’re creative. You spin up a game that’s your game, and then you make the rules. And that’s hard because if you make a new game with new rules it’s hard to monetize it. But you can be the best at playing that game. So that’s a huge advantage to being creative if you can pull it off.” — Dr. Jordan Peterson


Love this quote from Dr. Peterson about making your own rules and playing your own game in life. Personally, I abandoned the whole corporate rat race game sometime ago. However, I hadn’t really come up with a game to replace it until recently. But now I think I’ve discovered a new game that I can win: Be the person who creates and launches the most software into the world. In other words– be prolific. Create web and mobile apps that you personally use and have value regardless of whether or not anyone else uses them, and then launch those products out into the world as fast as possible.

 
by topherPedersen

Google Killed my App Today, RIP RoboStop

This blog post is brought to you by the developer of BitBudget. BitBudget is an automated budgeting app for Android and iOS which syncs with your bank account and helps you avoid overspending. If you’d like to quit living paycheck-to-paycheck and get a better handle on your finances, download it today! https://bitbudget.io

In October 2018 Google announced Project Strobe, a new initiative to limit app developers access to users data launched in response to the recent Google+ data breach discovered back in March 2018. Essentially what Google is now doing is removing every app on the Play Store that accesses users’ contact books, call logs, or use SMS. The Google Play team notified me a month or two ago and stated that I could submit my app for review to be granted a possible exception, but today I received a notice from Google that my request for an exemption had been denied. RIP RoboStop. My app had reached 5,000+ active installs since launching less than a year ago in March 2018 at SXSW, and was growing at a rate of 7.2% week over week at the time of this post. So to end this sad announcement, I would like to post this dope photo of RoboStop’s hockey-stick growth curve just before Google killed it:
robostopfinalgrowthchart
However, I really want to keep using RoboStop and would like others to be able to continue using it as well, so I plan on launching robostop.org and will have the app up on the web available for download here in the future. The only problem is that users will have to manually go into their settings to allow app downloads from “unknown developers” and this will undoubtedly kill RoboStop’s exponential growth curve.
Sometimes things in life don’t bounce your way. But there isn’t any reason I can’t do it all over again and create something else with an exponential growth curve. So here’s to 2019. Write code. Get users. Make money*
* Still working on the making money part 😉

 
by topherPedersen

WARNING: POSSIBLE DNS SPOOFING DETECTED!

WARNING: POSSIBLE DNS SPOOFING DETECTED… what an annoying error message! This error tends to pop up whenever you point a domain name a new virtual server, or if you happen to rebuild an existing virtual server instance. Every few months or so I end up running into this problem, so I decided to write up a short little blog post on how to fix this for my own personal reference and to help others that may run into this problem. At the moment I’m using a Windows machine, so this blog post is going to be Windows specific:

  1. Type %USERPROFILE% into the address bar of the File Explorer program
  2. Then press the ENTER key
  3. Double click on the .ssh folder
  4. Open the known_hosts file with your text editor
  5. Delete the entry for your server/domain-name and save the file
  6. Close your command prompt program if it is still open, and then relaunch it
  7. Log in to your virtual server via ssh

REFERENCES:
Where is the known_hosts file for OpenSSH for Windows?

 
by topherPedersen

How to Save Money on Domain Name Registration

Last year I had to do a little accounting for my startup, formerly a Delaware C-Corporation, and was shocked to discover that a large amount of my expenses for the year went toward registering domain names! At the moment I own 71 different domains, all bought with good intention, none purchased for the purpose of domain name squatting. Crazy right? That’s the thing about being creative in the web and mobile app business, you are going to have to work through many ideas only to have a few come to fruition. The end result? You end up purchasing 71 domain names a year!
So… I’ve discovered a little hack that I want to share with my internet friends on how to save money registering domains: Don’t purchase a .com (or worse an expensive .io) domain name first, start with a $0.99 .xyz domain. Then make sure to un-enroll in auto-renewal so you don’t get billed $15 or whatever when the new year rolls around. So there you have it. Save money buying $0.99 .xyz domains and your dollar will far 🙂

 
by topherPedersen

Resisting the Urge to Find a Co-Founder

This blog post is brought to you by the developer of BitBudget. BitBudget is an automated budgeting app for Android and iOS which syncs with your bank account and helps you avoid overspending. If you’d like to quit living paycheck-to-paycheck and get a better handle on your finances, download it today! https://bitbudget.io

I saw this post on Hacker News today and felt compelled to write a short little post on the subject– Ask HN: How to found a company as a single founder? 
Here is my reply:

If you know how to program, don’t force the cofounder thing. It’s really easy to end up bringing on crummy cofounders. Look at Facebook and SnapChat. In my experience it’s typical to end up bringing on an Eduardo, a Winklevoss twin, or a Reggie Brown, then you have to get rid of them because they’re terrible and literally aren’t capable of contributing anything.