About TheJoey.Net
TheJoey.Net is the weblog of Joe Casabona, a web developer who attends the University of Scranton, now for Graduate Studies. He is real bad at writing these about pages and hates writing in the 3rd person...more
**The layout is new and there might be some bugs. If you see any, please email me at Joe@Casabona.org
It was in October of last year that I went to a couple of my friends and mentioned to them that I wanted to start a t-shirt company. I felt I had a couple of good ideas and enough business know-how to do it. They were the creative ones that could be the personality of the company.
Then nothing happened for a while. We kept track of ideas, but nothing more than that. Finally in February, we put out our first product for Scranton’s widely celebrated Parade Day. We did pretty well, especially considering the competition. But then we all got busy and put pursuing anything further off. Until now.
We decided to finally launch a site with some flagship designs, which you can find here. The site has been what I’m calling ’soft launched,’ which I guess you can equate to a beta. But everything, as far as I know, is working. You can order shirts! Now it’s time to promote and generate enough cash to pursue some other designs we’ve come up with.
If you’d like to help out, you can find all kinds of stuff on our Promote page. And as always, any feedback is welcomed. Since this is probably the most involved site I’ve done, I’ll be doing a write up of the design/programming in a later post. For now, let’s cross our fingers and hope for the best!
On a final note, we also want our company to be the middleman between people who want shirts and people who print shirts. So if you want to have shirts done, please fill out this form. We will do the artwork, and take care of ordering. We can also work something out for distributing if you’d like. Just let us know!
Update:
Special thanks to Bring Back the Stache! and Consumer Whore for the links. Much Appreciated.
posted on August 6th, 2008 in Business, News, Websites| No Comments »
About a week and a half ago I decided I wanted to start a new blog with something fun to post daily. I got the idea from Sean Blanda, who started the website Consumer Whore, a blog with something new to buy every day. 101 Things is simply a website that posts some activity to do every day- whether you are looking to pick up a hobby or are just plain bored. There are also featured posts that will change weekly and take a little longer to do.
Hopefully this takes off- I think it could be a fun website where people can try new things and share their experiences. This week (and next week’s) featured post is about how to start a blog. Today’s daily is “Solve the Rubik’s Cube.” Check it out- and if you have any suggestions, you can make them here.
posted on August 1st, 2008 in Websites|
During the school year, I was very busy. Between running the business, TAing, and well, actual classes, there wasn’t a lot of free time. But I made due. I worked on weekends but made sure to take time for myself. I thought things would slow down a bit in the summer. No classes to teach or attend- just the business. But as it turns out, I am one of those people who always needs to be busy.
Even with a lull in work (up until yesterday things were pretty slow), I was doing work every day. I am launching a t-shirt company with my friends (more on that later). I am launching a new blog (announcement Friday). I came up with a new gimmick to make money. I’ve realized my mind is constantly going. Even on the days I say I’m not going to work, I do work. When I am away from my computer, it’s usually because I make work related trips. When I am in front of my computer, I work as much as I can.
Don’t get me wrong, I do take time to myself. I hang out with friends and go out once in a while. But the last time I took a full day off- no work at all - was…well I can’t even remember. Even when I went to see Rush a few weeks ago, I was discussing a website for my friend’s dad. I was calling my t-shirt printer to make sure things were set with our first batch of shirts. He said they were. They weren’t. And I was thinking about a lot of things related to work. But this realization brings me to a serious problem. I don’t know if I can take one full day off.
Even when I’m not working I’m scheming. I’m thinking of my next big thing, or how to get more clients. Or how to make money while doing little work. I’m constantly checking email. When I take a normal work break, it usually consists of surfing the net for new things.
So, why did I write this post? Oh I don’t know. To warn people thinking about freelancing to not be like me? Not really. Mostly to get it off my chest. I think I should make it a goal of mine to take one day a week to do no work. That will be a challenge though. You see to me, some work is also play.
posted on July 30th, 2008 in Business, Thoughts|
The buzz today has been about Cuil, a new search engine that is challenging the current champion of the interwebs, Google. Pronounced “cool,” Cuil makes the claim to have indexed more pages than Google, and in a better way too! That’s quite the claim, and IMHO, Cuil needs to heat up a bit (sorry).
Even though I am pretty biased towards Google, if you’re going to challenge them, you better come up big. Cuil certainly does not. My first search was my name, Joe Casabona. The first five results that came up were comments I made on sites, or my name mentioned on another page. The next one was finally my personal site and Google’s first result, Casabona.Org. But as you can see by the pic on the right, they botched that too. The photo with the result, while it kinda sorta looks like me, is not me. I don’t even host that picture. In a Google Image Search of my name, that pic isn’t in the first three pages. What gives?
The design isn’t that great either. My eyes bounce back and forth between the columns of results, making it difficult to easily find what I’m looking for. And the site is pretty slow. I understand maybe you’re getting more traffic than you expected, but I’m holding you to the fact that you’re claiming to be better than Google.
Over all, I didn’t have a great experience with Cuil. Besides, since they are ‘changing search,’ what does that mean for my current sites and the way I Search Engine Optimize?
posted on July 28th, 2008 in Software, Tech| No Comments »
Dear Yankees,
If you acquire Barry Bonds, I will be very, very disappointed. And beyond pissed. I will lose a lot of respect for you as a franchise. In short, we’d be fighting. I’m still kind of pissed at you for slapping Torre in the face. So to Brian Cashman and the brothers Steinbrenner, do the right thing.
Your Fan,
Joe
posted on July 25th, 2008 in Sports| No Comments »
