For the past three days Kristopher Tate and I have been working on releasing the next version of Zooomr, Zooomr Mark III. It’s actually been a lot harder on Kristopher than it has for me. Although we’ve collaborated on a lot of the ideas for this next version of Zooomr he’s really the one who does all the work. He’s the one who knows how to code things and I think is the most brilliant software developer I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing.
After being up for three days straight working on our conversion Kris finally hit a wall last night. Normally Kristopher sees a screen of code and just starts typing non-stop. Last night, after three days of no sleep the lines of code just melted into jibberish.
So we caved and both got some sleep. It’s amazing how wonderful sleep can feel when your body really needs it, when you’ve gone through extreme levels of sleep deprivation.
Back in college I edited my college newspaper. It was one of the most fulfilling things I’ve ever done in my life. It was really the fact that I missed that part of my life so much that got me into blogging. Back in college we’d publish the paper once a week on Fridays. I’d begin every Wednesday morning fresh enthused. We published the paper on a bunch of old Macs. Mac Pluses, Mac SE/30s, and boy were they slow in comparison to the firepower of the MacBook Pro that I’m writing this on right now. Then 48 hours or so later I’d drive the paper to Goleta where they printed it up for us in a few hours, then drive back and get it out.
Anyways, this has been Kristopher’s life for much of the past six months. Working 18, 20 hour days trying to build something that we both love and our passionate about. But last night was just too much and so after three days he crashed.
So a few minutes ago I woke up on Kristopher’s couch and looked outside his window and saw the most beautiful colors over the San Francisco Bay. And so I did what I do and went out on the balcony and took this self portrait. My hair’s a tad messed up, but I think it shows the beauty of not only what a San Francisco morning looks like, but what a fresh start and a new day looks like.
Kristopher is back inside coding like mad right now. Both of us with a renewed sense of purpose and dedication and intense desire to build something really cool for the world of social photo sharing.
Hopefully we get this puppy out today.
You all deserve it! Can’t wait for Mark III.
Thank you both for your hard work. I’m completely impressed with what Kris has done with Zooomr already, and am very excited to see what Mark III holds.
I know all your hard work is about to pay off!
I said this over at flickr so I wanted to post my comment here to:
Good things come to those who wait!!
I am sure Zooomr Mark III is going to be awesome and glad you guys got some sleep finally–you deserved it.
Cannot wait to see what it is like once it is done 🙂
Oh by the way sweet picture too!!
Take Care,
Thomas (aka tmv32)
Can’t wait to take a look Thomas. The last version was impressive in itself so I can only imagine this one. Best luck to you both!
Sleep comes when the dream is realized.
Thomas & Kristopher – thanks for the hard work!
Great post…
Work smart, not hard. Burn out is not something to strive for. Either get some more people on board or take your time. Pick one or end up in a sad place at the end of it all.
When I saw your morning photo in my RSS reader, I immediately thought, “Hey, he’d better not have been able to upload that into Zooomr yet!”
Then I thought, “Well, I guess it’s OK, since he’s important.”
Oh well, glad you got rest.
Goleta!? Does that make you a Gaucho and a former editor of the Daily Nexus? Ah the memories…
Catch up on some sleep and best of luck with the launch.
I am one of the fortunate ones who does not need that much sleep. I can normally survive on around 4 hours per night (currenrly writing this at just after 4am)
Good luck with this one guys – I’m sure the commmunity will love it.
And then you guys can sleep till June 🙂
Nige
This post just makes me like you guys.
Having worked for a small company, I understand the problems that can come up. However, I also understand how important it is to communicate with your customers. Now, while many of us aren’t ‘paying customers’ exactly, we will be very influential in recommending Zooomr to our friends and family. I really want to recommend Zooomr, but there is nothing right now to recommend.
So, those things being said, is there anything the you guys can tell us? Maybe not an ETA, but how about general status, what’s working, what’s not, etc?
And, is there anything that the Zooomr community can do to help?