dumbmatter.com

Online home of Jeremy Scheff

An 18 year old bug

I got a fun email earlier today - a support request for literally the second piece of software I ever wrote, back in 2001 when I was a kid with a couple months of programming under my belt.

It's a click tracker that I called Click Manager. Pretty simple stuff - a Perl CGI script that counts how many times a link was clicked, storing the data in a flat file database.

Eventually I even added a nifty UI to view the stats. Check it out, in all its early 2000s glory:

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My previous life as a programmer/entrepreneur - Part 6: The shadier the SEO, the bigger the profit

This is part 6 of a series of articles. If you missed the previous articles, you should start at the beginning.

At this point, I had a pure gold SEO tactic. I used this to make some quick cash and promote various side projects that I eventually sold off. That was all well and good, but I thought it was time to try a slightly more bold moneymaking approach.

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My previous life as a programmer/entrepreneur - Part 5: Getting fucked over, but still making a profit

This is part 5 of a series of articles. If you missed the previous articles, you should start at the beginning.

Previously, I discussed my website iTopsites (a remotely hosted version of my Aardvark Topsites PHP software). The software running iTopsites was quite unique at the time (and possibly still is today), so naturally there were people who wanted to license my software to make clones of iTopsites. My most notable customer was TopSiteLists.com.

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My previous life as a programmer/entrepreneur - Part 4: Avatic

This is part 4 of a series of articles. If you missed the previous articles, you should start at the beginning.

In the last article, I wrote about how I got into search engine optimization (SEO) and then had my first success ($$$) followed by my first failure (getting banned from Google). Subsequently, after recovering from that failure (getting back in Google's good graces), I began a more cautious SEO strategy. Instead of promoting random spammy websites, I created my own legitimate websites and used SEO to gain footholds in different markets. Imagining myself running an empire of websites, I decided to call my entire web development business Avatic.

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My previous life as a programmer/entrepreneur - Part 3: First steps into the dirty underworld of search engine optimization

This is part 3 of a series of articles. If you missed the previous articles, you should start at the beginning.

Last time, I wrote about my first failed attempt to make money, and my second somewhat successful attempt to make money. Even though it may sound fancy because it's on the Internet, all of that stuff was very honest, traditional business. Either selling a product for money, or selling a service for money.

But as we've all learned in recent years, only suckers try to make money that way (see: Wall Street). The real money is a level removed from honest business.

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My previous life as a programmer/entrepreneur - Part 2: Software development, business development

This is part 2 of a series of articles. If you missed the previous article, you should start at the beginning.

In the last article, I went from being an 11 year old with no clue about anything to a 15 year old with half a clue when I publicly released my first piece of software. In this article, I talk about acquiring users, getting unexpected contributions through the wonders of open source software, trying (and failing) to make money, and not trying to make money but actually making a little bit.

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My previous life as a programmer/entrepreneur - Part 1: Origins

This is the first in a series of articles about (broadly) my experiences as a web developer. I plan on having the whole series range from my adolescence, where I began building websites and learning how to program, and ending as an undergrad in college when I decided to try to sell as much of my stuff as possible and move on to other things. So, I don't know if anyone will find this series of articles interesting; maybe I'm just writing them to reminisce more than anything.

This being the first article in the series, it starts with my first forays into programming and ends with the seemingly benign beginnings of what would eventually become a fairly profitable enterprise.

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