A couple of weeks ago, I posted I finished my author’s blog application. And it nearly was. You are looking at it now. Honestly, I’ve built this site a few times over the years. This uses Rails 8-alpha. After looking at 37 Signal’s first two Once products, they impressed me with how few gems (external libraries) they used to produce an application. They also created a new authentication approach. I took their lead and am relying on eight gems. One is required to export CSV and another to integrate with my email delivery service. Two gems relate to time-series data display (you will see the results in the Writing Projects and Dashboard views). Three relate to ordering, deleting and listing items. And one displays icons (mostly on the admin side). I stopped using Tailwind and other frameworks, though I incorporated some Open Props. I’m amazed at how far web technologies have come. DHH released Rails in August 2004, the same month I officially hung my developer spurs and started law school. The same month that one of my children was born. Back then, I had to roll just about everything. This application is as close to Rails vanilla as I could get it with the features I wanted. There are a few screenshots below to show some features at the end of this post. I’m leaving a few details out, such as the ability to add links to distributors (e.g., Amazon, Barnes & Noble). Advice given to entrepreneurs is to build something that solves a problem you have. This was my problem. I wanted a minimalist blog that showcased my books and let me track my writing progress; bonus if...

Besides tracking my progress in a 5x8-inch Field Book, I also use Basecamp. True to its word, it is simple project management. I use it with the family, with my writing and programming. One feature I enjoy is the automated question. At a period you choose, an email is sent for you to respond to its question. Every Monday morning, I’m challenged with what I’ve done the prior week. When I have one of my frequent periods of “didn’t do enough,” scanning through the prior weeks’ responses is encouraging. I’m still charging with finishing ScribUnity. The basic application works, and I have an instance in production. There were a lot of pivots with the internals (user management, etc.), and I have a question or two about sending the emails. I have two ways of shipping it, either as a SaaS (Software as a Service) or self-hostable PSaaS (Perpetual Software as a Service). I’ve coined the latter phrase as the type of application that is a SaaS where the licensee holds a perpetual license. This is inspired by the Once product line. Until about a month ago, I was heading down the traditional path before accepting that I did not want to be a SaaS provider. I’m building these applications because I want to use them. But if others want to use them, I’m happy to share. It looks like it costs $6/mo to host SU on Digital Ocean, but I’ve not stress tested it.  Following the Once inspiration, I have to figure out how to install the application on a production server. My plan for SU was to get it production-ready by 15 June, and I got there the week...