A breif intro to this lab, the founder and the current project

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
  • HTML, CSS
  • Haml, Sass, compass
  • Javascript, jQuery
• Backend
  • PHP, WordPress, Codeigniter, Symfony
  • Ruby, Rails
• Operating System
  • Windows, Linux Ubuntu, Mac OSX

Entrepreneurship log Expand all Collapse all

• Mid 2008 ~ 2009 Jan Collapse
  • 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
• 2009 Feb Collapse
  • 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
• 2009 Mar Collapse
  • 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
• 2009 Apr ~ May Collapse
  • 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
• 2009 Jun Collapse
  • 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
• 2009 Jul Collapse
  • Started to build our first product, a social networking site about night life in Taiwan
  • Started to use my first MVC framework – Symfony
• 2009 Aug ~ Oct Collapse
  • 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’
• 2009 Nov ~ Dec Collapse
  • 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
• 2010 Jan Collapse
  • 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
• 2010 Feb ~ Mar Collapse
  • 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
• 2010 Apr ~ May Collapse
  • 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
• 2010 Jun ~ Jul Collapse
  • 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
• 2010 Aug Collapse
  • 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
• 2010 Sep Collapse
  • 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
• 2010 Oct ~ Nov Collapse
  • Start learning git
  • Kept working on project Juicie
  • Finished prototype of site Juicie
  • Demonstrate Juicie to people for the first time on Ruby Tuesday
• 2010 Dec ~ 2011 Jan Collapse
  • 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’
• 2011 Feb ~ Mar Collapse
  • 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
• 2011 Apr Collapse
  • 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!!!

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