This Lab
DreamersLab was founded in Feb 2009, our goal is to bring desktop user experience to the web.
MacFlickr
MacFlickr is our current project which has already had a running prototype. “It is a browser base Mac desktop for flickr” if you want me to describe it in a one-liner.
You can take a look at some screenshots here
What makes this website so cool?
- You can use it in any operating system with a browser, no extra software needed
- While people is pouring all the data to the could, without a good interface those data is worth nothing to the users
- I believe the best user interface is the interface that people does not need to learn how to use
- Convince me google, microsoft or facebook does not want to build a web desktop
- Come on, It’s about Mac :3
Some ugly truth
- We are not planning to support IE, which means around 50% of the users need to download a new modern browser
- Windows users : “I do not use Mac, what kind of best UI is that?”
Anyways, I believe in both technical and practical point of view, it will be very interesting and useful :)
The Founder
Ben is an ex-mechanical engineer who just turn 30. If you are interested in why he start his own company you can read this article here.
Professional Skills
- Frontend
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Backend
- PHP, WordPress, Codeigniter, Symfony
- Ruby, Rails
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Operating System
- Windows, Linux Ubuntu, Mac OSX
Entrepreneurship log Collapse all
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Mid 2008 ~ 2009 Jan
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- Getting sick of the repetition of life, trying to find something interesting
- After research I found the entry level of web startup is not high. However, forgot to consider I have to compete with the most talented people in the world
- Notice there are only a few people use facebook in Taiwan, it might be a good timing to start
- Study about HTML, CSS and the web
- Prepare to start a company
- Bought my first iphone and was surprised how terrible for a phone it is
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2009 Feb
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- Established DreamersLab and focus on developing social networking site and facebook apps
- Looking for both frontend and backend engineers
- Realized there are only few to be called by PROFESSIONAL in all different field
- Found frontend engineer and start to design business card and website
- Realized it is very difficult to be successful unless I can find a good engineer as my partner or turn myself to be one
- Start to learn web frontend development
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2009 Mar
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- Company website finished
- Unable to find the right backend developer
- Engineers couldn’t fix my problems and kept through them back to me. It push me to learn programing by myself
- Understand it is impossible to lead a team without knowing the technical knowledge
- Inappropriate engineers just come in and out
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2009 Apr ~ May
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- Made a new friend Max who taught me to write my first script while recruiting engineers
$( '#go-somewhere' ).click( function(){ $.scrollTo( $( '#somewhere' ), 1200 ); }); - First time heard of MVC and did not understand what it is all about
- First time to know about version control system
- Found out that half ass employees only waste company resources while I solved more and more problems that my employees suppose to solve
- Rewrite the company website and really understand it is such a pain in the ass to make it to work cross-browser
- Inappropriate engineers just come in and out
- Made a new friend Max who taught me to write my first script while recruiting engineers
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2009 Jun
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- Notice it is impossible to recruit good engineers at the mean time, shifting the direction to pay someone to build websites
- Lay off all the employees for the best benefit of the company and start to train myself to be more skillful and competitive
- Getting in touch with some companies and freelancers and luckily I found a partner
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2009 Jul
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- Started to build our first product, a social networking site about night life in Taiwan
- Started to use my first MVC framework – Symfony
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2009 Aug ~ Oct
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- Start using svn
- Kept working on the product website
- Improved a lot on frontend developing skills
- Realized this social networking site is not able to make enough profit by advertisement; project dropped
- Planed to take the photo management part of the dropped project to be the next project site ‘Juicie’
- Planed to use ‘windows’ interface to manage photos on a browser for ‘Juicie’
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2009 Nov ~ Dec
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- Finished scratching the layout of ‘Juice’ and pass the case to a freelancer
- First time to use third party APIs
- Kept working on ‘Juicie’
- Having trouble with debugging my js code as I write all my code in one file all under document ready function
- Getting request from other company to build websites for them
- Stop making our own product and start to work on the requested projects
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2010 Jan
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- Kept working on the requested projects
- First time using asp.net, didn’t like it
- First touch with Rails and was pretty impressed. Somehow the learn curve looks steep
- Getting to know the awful parts of being a freelancer
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2010 Feb ~ Mar
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- Kept working on the requested projects
- Getting to know more of the awful parts of being a freelancer
- Improved a lot of my frontend development skill while working on the requested projects
- Bought my first Mac and try to migrate my development environment on it
- While co-operate with my partner, we found our goal is different
- Start attending Ruby Tuesday
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2010 Apr ~ May
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- Start to study how MVC framework works
- Got a glance of how MVC framework works by study Codeigniter
- Finished all the requested projects and stop the partnership
- Decided to use Rails as my backend development framework and start learning
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2010 Jun ~ Jul
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- Restart the project Juicie
- Replace website UI with Mac Cocoa style
- Getting to know Ruby & Rails
- Replace Symfony with Rails for project Juicie
- Realized that the most valuable part of Ruby & Rails is its community and ecosystem
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2010 Aug
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- Getting to know why we need OOP
- Rewrite the whole js for project Juicie
- Trying to modularize my js code and build a micro framework for this project
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2010 Sep
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- Gave my iphone to my bro
- Bought a new Sony Ericsson mobile for $40
- Found that it is not only cheap but also shockproof, the best part is it can even delete the call history :3
- Kept refactoring my little js framework and try to find the best way to implement MVC for js
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2010 Oct ~ Nov
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- Start learning git
- Kept working on project Juicie
- Finished prototype of site Juicie
- Demonstrate Juicie to people for the first time on Ruby Tuesday
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2010 Dec ~ 2011 Jan
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- Plan to make a new company website and start to draw scratch
- Change its name to Macflickr for better understanding the use of the site ‘Juicie’
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2011 Feb ~ Mar
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- Redesign company logo and business card
- Study how to setup a LAMP system
- Start to learn Sass and compass
- Start to lean Codeigniter and use it for building this company website
- Redesign MacFlickr logo and layout
- Start to write some open source project to fill this site
- For connecting to this industry I bought my second iphone which suck less compare to the first one
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2011 Apr
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- Kept working on some open source project to fill this site
- This company website finished
- Start to look for Javascript Ninja & Rails Hacker
Time flies. This year is going to be a turning point, go kick some ass ben!!!
