The site I’m working on now, deploys as static files. I haven’t put up a non-server-side-dynamic site since high school, so I’m exploring my options. I thought I could just throw the whole thing up on Amazon S3, but was surprised that it was slower than the current setup (nginx on Linode). I have been reading about the importance of fast load speeds on conversion, google ranking, etc (for example), so speed is a big priority for me. Here’s how I cut my site’s page load time down from around a second to around 500ms. Continue reading »
Patrick Schless
Feb 132012
My Etsy store has been doing well, but I’d like to overcome the friction of requiring an Etsy account. To reach a wider audience, I’d like to additionally offer my products on a site that wasn’t specific to a community. To that end, I created a tool which generates a static HTML + Javascript eCommerce site. Here’s the result: Creative Retrospection. Continue reading »
It’s hard to say what sort of sales rate is reasonable or average for a new Etsy store. I spend a fair amount of time in the team forums, and the general consensus I’m getting is that it’s really hard to make any/many sales for smaller shops, but that larger shops (100+ items) tend to make several sales per week. Given that understanding, I have set a goal for myself that I think is aggressive but achievable. Continue reading »
Celtic Knot Mirror
Laser Cut Flower
Oct 162011
Here’s a quick post to show off my first project using the LED canvas I have been working on (nicknamed Square Wave). It’s based on the old snake game, where the player controls a snake that slithers around looking for apples that appear and disappear. When he finds (and eats) an apple, he grows. When he crashes into himself, he dies. Continue reading »
Oct 072011
Arduino is awesome, but using their IDE is uncomfortable for people that would prefer vim or emacs. There is an option in the IDE to allow you to use an external editor, but you still need to use the GUI to get access to the compile & upload tools. Here’s my setup, for a vim-only setup (would be similar for emacs). Continue reading »
Sep 232011
As prep for future projects, I’ve built a simple 2D array of individually addressable LEDs. This canvas will ultimately serve as the platform for some games (snake, pong, etc), but I’m hopeful that other people will find this useful and come up with some cool applications. Continue reading »
Sep 222011
I picked up a telegraph sounder on ebay this week. I don’t know much about its heritage, but it definitely looks vintage. I wrote some code (see below) to get my Arduino to clack away on it. In the video, the sounder is tapping out the Gettysburg Address, which is the example text in the code. Continue reading »
LED strips are growing in popularity and ease of use. I’ve been playing around with them lately (with my Arduino), and, for the uninitiated, here’s an overview of what’s available, and how much it costs. Continue reading »
I'm a software engineer in Chicago, working at 
