As you probably don’t remember, I was last year’s resident word nerd at Software for Good. Since leaving, I’ve moved far from snowy Minnesota, enrolled in a software development school, and built some pretty wild programs that I never thought were possible.

I could write a whole post entirely about Software for Good’s support as I’ve journeyed down this web dev path. Instead, I’ll just say wholeheartedly that every success I have is thanks to their examples and encouragement. The team showed me that writing code is so much more than just cranking on keyboards. That building an app is a tedious yet enthralling process. That design should drive not only the front-end experience but also the back-end architecture.

Most memorably?

That tech vernacular is ridiculous, hilarious, and largely unintelligible to folks outside the know.

Below, I present to you a section from my official “Overheard at Software for Good” document, also known as the list that encouraged me to pursue software development because I legitimately had no idea what my coworkers were ever talking about.

On Unicorns

“Restart the unicorns.”

“So, it’s not just unicorns we’re talking about now.”

“Ahh, it was a zombie unicorn issue.”

“Kick the unicorns down!”

“In any case, it’s easy peasy. Just add another unicorn.”

“You need some unicorn action up in here.”

“Which unicorn?”

“I just kicked the unicorn. No good.”

“Unicorn kicked. Seems good now.”

“I haven’t bumped the unicorns yet.”

“Bouncing unicorns. I’m trying to bounce unicorns.” 

“Yeah, I bounced the unicorns. I bounce the unicorns about once a day.”

“The unicorns are sad.”

“If I restart the unicorns, it works fine!”

“The unicorns just don’t respond. They just sit there and do nothing.”

Yep. From an outside perspective, Software for Good is an office full of people who abuse unicorns. Sorry, Peter.

What can I tell you now about unicorns? Here’s what I gather:

Unicorn is an HTTP server for Rack applications. It makes fast things move even faster. From what I understand, the main crux of Unicorn is that it splits up tasks, placing the focus on one major port, then delegating all other client requests to forked worker processes.

Pause. Forked? Not the utensil. Basically, something that’s been forked is something that was created as an independent entity simply by copying the entirety of something else. So, if you take this blog post, copy it, post it to your own blog and make a few changes, you’ll have a kind of a “forked” version of the original. (Please don’t actually do this.)

Anyway, within those forks, Unicorn finds and restarts broken workers, thus eliminating the need for a non-magical human to manage that tedious part of an app.

Pause again. What’s a worker? Basically, it’s a (union-friendly) term for a something that automates a repetitive task. In technology, functionality breaks. Dependences change. All kinds of surprises arise. Something that can swoop in and not only tell you what’s broken but also fix it is your best friend. Unicorn is your best friend.

Sometimes the unicorns are slow, though. They require a lot of memory. Fortunately, you can kill the unicorns, which is a really awful way of saying: Fortunately, you can restart the unicorns. With a simple install of the ‘unicorn-worker-killer’ gem, you’re all set to go. The gem automatically restarts the unicorns based on the maximum number of requests and the maximum memory allocated.

That’s all I’ve got for now. I’m still a little unclear about those Software for Good zombie unicorns and unsurprisingly, Google’s not helpful. Hopefully I’ll figure it out soon enough, then I’ll swing back around for a Halloween-themed guest post next October.

—

Check out Sara’s fantastic Course Report interview about her experience at Turing School.

The post “The Unicorns are Sad”: Tech Talk and the Workers Overheard appeared first on Software for Good.

The end product? A free, publicly available JSON API. An API that (humble brag) hung out at the top of Hacker News for quite some time earlier this week.

It happened 1) because Eric is super cool and 2) because Casey founded a company that encourages super cool people to do what they love.

I’ll be the first to admit: it’s very easy to forget this second part. When I’m so focused on work, I get lost in the shuffle. I help to get some really challenging and exciting and do-good work projects out the door and into the world, and it’s great. Actually, it’s more than great. It’s a really awesome way to make a living.

But getting lost in the work shuffle makes it really easy to forget that I have my own interests, too. More importantly, getting lost in the work shuffle makes it really easy to think that by doing anything else, I’m being a bad employee.

Honestly, though?

Working on a side project doesn’t make me a bad employee. It makes me a much better one.

Eric’s API was an excellent reminder that the very best projects stem from passion. He had an idea. He legitimately didn’t know if a solution was possible. He decided to give himself the challenge. He found a way to make it happen, then he worked until it did.

There are a thousand different ways Eric grew from the project, both as a software developer and as a soccer fan. (He wrote about them all here, by the way.)

It’s rare to find people who have Eric’s kind of drive—people who seek out difficult challenges and take them on willingly, with grace and enthusiasm, without assignment or promised reward.

These are the people who come up with the most interesting answers. The people who focus on finding long-term solutions instead of quick fixes. The people who have the guts to embrace complicated issues with diverse perspectives and toolboxes. The people who mentor. The people you want to be around. The people you want to work with. The people you want to learn from.

Here at Software for Good, we want these people. We want an entire office full of these people. We’d be crazy not to, and we’d be crazy not to support them the very best we could.

The post Find Cool Projects. Run With Them. Run Far. appeared first on Software for Good.

Big thanks to mentor Jared Mehle for the photo.

Ruby on What?

Before this past weekend, I didn’t really have too much exposure to Ruby on Rails. I’d been working my way through Codecademy lessons, and I’d met a few times with a local “let’s teach ourselves to code” group. Actually, my best preparation was the fact that I’d been overhearing Ruby vocab words like “gems” and “arrays” and “migrations” and “hashes” and “shitshitshitshitshit” since my very first day at Software for Good. Never underestimate the amount you can learn just from sharing an office with a bunch of developers.

Building a Web App

RailsBridge encourages students to jump right in, and the curriculum’s introductory lesson walked us through the process of building a web application. The curriculum was super approachable, and it certainly helped to have so many mentors available for questions. It was so cool to watch my code come to life—to make a push to Heroku (but not before committing to Git) and then see my changes up on the web.

Not So Fast, English Major

I knew I had a lot of technical concepts to grasp, but I wasn’t expecting that my English major background would be the world’s most obnoxious double-edged sword. I could chat for days about the importance of clear communication and the benefits of having strong writers on every team, but I won’t. Instead, I’ll just whine about that one time at RailsBridge when I spent a solid five minutes staring at this code and wishing I could just move those stupid little commas inside of those stupid little quotation marks.

Or that one time at RailsBridge when I hit a stupid roadblock because I legitimately had to consult a few different dictionaries to check if the plural of kiwi is, in fact, kiwis.

Lesson learned? There’s a lot still to learn. And I will always prefer “kiwi fruit” as the plural of “kiwi.” Or, I mean, I will always prefer “kiwi fruit” as the plural of “kiwi”. Period outside of the quotation mark because tech talk, y’all. See, I can do this!

For Real, Though

Enormous thanks to the entire RailsBridge community and to the local folks who helped out in Minneapolis this past weekend. It was a fantastic event with so many great mentors and great lessons and great food. Also, thanks to the Minnesota Population Center for letting us crash in your offices for the weekend. It was one I’ll never forget, and I’m so excited to join the intermediate RailsBridge track on the next go-around.

The post RailsBridge Reflections appeared first on Software for Good.

The discussion?

We talked about what the Affordable Care Act means for us as a small business, and a few folks shared their stories about navigating through the new MNsure site. Climate change came up, and we shared some of the sustainability goals and concerns we have here. And, of course, we talked about net neutrality.

As people who all really love the Internet, we had a lot of things to say about net neutrality. Lucky for us, Congressman Ellison was totally receptive and really seemed to appreciate hearing all of our perspectives. He asked plenty of good technical questions and said that he’d be in touch again (!) should he have more.

Heard about net neutrality but not totally sure what it’s all about? We could try to give you a brief rundown, or we could just show you this:

[youtube id=”fpbOEoRrHyU”]

Having the Congressman here in the office was so cool for so many reasons. As a small company with the mission of using technology to make the world a better place, it was an honor to chat with someone who’s in a very real position to bring about big change. Our representatives often feel so distant from us, but they are just that: our representatives. Congressman Ellison’s visit was a pretty cool reminder.

The post On Politics and the Internet appeared first on Software for Good.

Why is the name so great?

“Good” can mean a lot of different things, and we love that. Our design and development work spans dozens of sectors, and we’re constantly learning about what’s going on in so many important fields. Better yet, we feel great about the work we’re doing every day. Here at Software for Good, we really do believe that by helping great organizations to do great things, we can, by proxy, make the world a better place.

What “good” means to us.

Of course, we’ve got the familiar kinds of good work: health care, green tech, education, nonprofits. These are always really solid, undeniably good projects. We’ve partnered with teams working to fight hunger, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, cystic fibrosis, ovarian cancer, diabetes, pediatric congenital or acquired heart disease, and more. We’ve helped to connect the region’s network of green tech champions. An app we built is helping to bring music education to thousands of students. The list goes on and on, and we like to think that the world gets just a little bit better with each one.

But let’s be real. So many things are good.

We dive into so many other kinds of good, too. Working on development for a “name that tune” game show? Awesome. Working on sites that aggregate social networks to provide a one-of-a-kind social media experience? Love it. Helping to build up the digital experiences for sports teams and their fans? Ballgames for Good.

Basically, there’s lots of good going on out there, from fighting diseases to cleaning up the planet to providing folks with great ways to connect with others, kick back, and get some quality entertainment. And here at Software for Good, we want to be a part of it all as often as we can.

What else can be good?

We shoot big. Last month, we submitted a parking payment mobile app proposal to the City of Minneapolis. Our team here loves to think about all the ways we can use technology to improve our community, and we couldn’t resist throwing our name into the ring.

Regardless of who wins the bid, we’re so thrilled to be at the point where we’re able to respond to RFPs like this. Lots of big, good work in our future here.

A few non-Software for Good good projects?

There are so many great things going on in technology right now. Two of my favorite ideas?

Play Magnus chess app: Test your chess chops against Magnus Carlsen, the 23-year-old reigning World Chess Champion.

Big data for literary analysis: Folks at the Stanford Literary Lab are using big data tools to discover some fascinating information hidden in classic works of literature.

The post What We’re Talking About When We Talk about “Good” appeared first on Software for Good.

It’s take your kids to work day. What that means is that today, the office has transformed from Software for Good to Kids for Good. The office is bursting with children.

First things first: getting to work. It’s a rainy April day. Not our favorite weather.

Thomas says that when he got to the office, he sat down at the spot of somebody who wasn’t coming in today. He went over to the lego kit. At first, he just took out the ultrasonic and light sensors. He looked through the manual and noticed that the batteries were corroded. And then he built a hand-operated ball shooter.

Next, we played Minecraft. Did you know that between the time Minecraft was released and 2013, it has had around 20 million game sales? Thomas is very good at Minecraft and likes Redstone, and he had a very fun time showing Rory how to play. (It was Rory’s first time playing Minecraft.)

Next came lunch. We took a walk in the rain down to the grocery store and bought some food to eat. Rory had a ham, cheese, and lettuce sandwich, and Thomas had barbecue turkey, macaroni and cheese, and mashed potatoes. Yum!

After lunch, Thomas attended his very first client meeting. He said it was okay. Not his favorite, and not as exciting as he had hoped. Hopefully he’ll get a chance to attend fun meetings in the future.

Rory believes work would be better with nap time.

While Thomas was attending the meeting, Rory got to take a trip downstairs to Sebastian Joe’s for ice cream. He reports that the chocolate chip ice cream is very tasty. Thomas has yet to have ice cream this afternoon, but rumor has it that an ice cream trip is in his very very near future. 

One of the coolest things we’ve learned at our day at the office is that you don’t have to wear shoes here!

Of course, we can’t forget to mention this blog post! We brainstormed, sitting down and thinking about what we might want to share. We typed out our thoughts, proofread, checked for typos, and published.

Overall, we’ve had a fun and interesting day at the office. There might have been a touch of boring at the meeting, but meetings are important. All in all, it was a great day. We’ve learned a lot about the routine here at Software for Good, and maybe… we’ll get a chance to come back soon!

The post Kids for Good appeared first on Software for Good.

A few reasons why we love submitting proposals for projects like this:

• It’s good. Our name says it all. We love building great apps for organizations doing great things. Making the city’s on-street parking payment system more efficient and cost effective while improving user experience is so the opposite of Software for Bad.
• It’s local. As much as we love the thrill of working on projects for clients all over the world, there’s something truly special about building something that’s going to effect change right here in our own community.
• It’s so full of potential. We proposed ideas like the use of sensors built into smartphones to offer reduced parking rates for carpoolers, integration with snow emergency messages, energy-efficient vehicle discounts, and pre-payment services.

Here’s some of what we pitched:

Regardless of who wins the bid, we’re so excited to be at the point where we’re able to respond to RFPs like this. With top-notch full stack tech chops and the ability to offer a personal experience with a small, local firm, we’ve hit a perfect sweet spot here at Software for Good.

The mobile parking payment app for the City of Minneapolis is exactly the kind of work we want and exactly the kind of work we’re ready for. Bring on the good work. We can’t wait to hear your thoughts about using technology to improve our amazing city.

The post Parking for Good appeared first on Software for Good.

Also great? The info that came out of the beer rating app we built for the party. Some highlights:

• Total number of ratings: 561
• Total number of 5-star ratings: 98
• Total number of indecipherable rating comments likely written after more than a few beers: 18
• Only beer that got a comment written in emoji: Three Tree American Rye, Badger Hill Brewing
• Beer with the most ratings: Gateway Park Lager, 612 Brew (average 3.91/5.00)

And, most importantly, some of the popular brews with consistently high scores:

• Freewheeler, Sociable Cider (average 4.61)
• Hop-a-Wheelie, Sociable Cider (4.44)
• Rated R, 612 Brew (4.36)
• Lonely Blonde, Fulton Brewery (4.33)
• Amigo Grande, Big Wood Brewery (4.21)
• Blueberry Blonde, Boathouse Brewpub (4.21)
• Furious, Surly (4.21)

The post Brewer’s Ball Beer Results appeared first on Software for Good.

We’re thrilled to be building a beer rating app for the Minnesota Brewer’s Ball. Called the “best nonprofit craft beer event” in the state, the party’s being thrown by the Minnesota chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation to raise money and find a cure for CF.

Rumor has it more than 20 of the area’s best craft breweries will be represented. Just a quick glance at the list, and I’ve found Fulton, Third Street Brewhouse, 612 Brew, and Barley John’s, along with a bunch of others.

To rate the brews, we built a native app for both iOS and Android. Partygoers will be able to use the app to decide which craft brewery wins the night at the Brewer’s Ball. More importantly, after the event, the anonymous beer ratings will be used to help to create a dynamic story about the event to be shared with publications across the Midwest.

The deets:

• Friday, March 28th, 2014. 7pm to 11pm
• Casual dress
• DQ Club Room at TCF Bank Stadium
• 2009 SE University Ave. Minneapolis, MN 55455
• Tix here: http://mnbrewersball.com/tickets/

Drink up, and together, let’s find a cure for cystic fibrosis.

Important note from the Minnesota chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation:

“The health and well-being of people with cystic fibrosis is our top priority. Medical evidence shows that certain bacteria can be passed between individuals who have CF and can lead to worse symptoms and speed decline in lung function. To limit the serious risk of cross-infection between people with CF, only one person with CF may be invited to attend any indoor CF Foundation-sponsored event. Please note: People with CF and their families should be aware that individuals with CF might choose to attend Foundation events or meetings without notifying event organizers. We strongly discourage this; however, we cannot guarantee that only one person with CF will be present at any indoor Foundation event. For more information, please call us at (651) 631-3290.”

The post Beer for Good appeared first on Software for Good.

What that means? Our offset donations have neutralized the same quantity of emissions as created by a standard passenger car driving almost 600,000 miles. And in return, Carbonfund.org has planted 50 trees in our honor.

We’re proud to put our money where our mouth is, and we’re even prouder to put our work there, too.

Last month, we built a new site for RE-AMP, an online networking system dedicated to connecting climate change and energy policy efforts across the Midwest. The new site pushes for a big increase of user engagement and participation, along with easier site management and maintenance. As Tom Elko, director of the RE-AMP Media Center at Fresh Energy said, the new site is “a sustainable long-term solution” that can adapt to RE-AMP’s own organizational changes.

Not unrelated, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the fact that it’s almost (knock on wood) spring, and the cycling season has officially begun again! A good number of our team members bike into the office every day. Better air, health, and commuting for everyone involved.

People Planet Profit, folks. Read more about the Carbonfund.org partnership here.

The post Reduce & Offset with Carbonfund.org appeared first on Software for Good.