Hello. My name is Harry Wolff.

I am a web developer working at GetGlue.

I enjoy tweeting, taking pictures, and making movies.

This is where I write.

An Update in Haiku

Posted on 03/23/2010 by Harry

Without internet-
Weathered, tired, and busy:
Still obligated.

My interpretation of my haiku: I was without power for the past week. Although I regained power on Friday my internet access is still down. This makes updating a blog extremely difficult. In fact I’m posting this from my BlackBerry Tour (thank goodness for 3G).

In any case expect fuller posts when I regain internet access. Until then I hope you’ve enjpyed my haiku.

Update: Internet access has been restored! Praise Cablevision! More posts to follow.

Mother Nature Bests Technology

Posted on 03/16/2010 by Harry

It’s very hard to post anything new when there isn’t any power.

My hometown was hit very badly by the storm that passed through New England this past weekend. There were 80mph winds and lots of rain. Although I I was out of town and didn’t see the storm myself I saw the aftermath when I arrived home Sunday night. My entire town is in disarray.

It was (and still is) very surreal. It is also an extremely humbling reminder of Mother Nature’s tremendous power.

I’ll keep you updated.

New Design, Same Direction

Posted on 03/10/2010 by Harry

In case you haven’t noticed I am now using a new design. I changed it this afternoon but I haven’t had a chance to gab about it until now.

This new theme is called blog.txt and is the hard work of a fellow named Scott. Thanks Scott for your work!

I hope this design makes for easier reading. I also hope this design encourages me to make more unique pages instead of just updates.

Whatever the case may be, I hope your Thursday is sunny and cheery. I just love sunlight.

Mid-terms take up a lot of time

Posted on 03/02/2010 by Harry

I should be studying for my Geology mid-term right now. I’m not, obviously.

Right now I am going through mid-terms – and they suck. They take up so much time to study for them – not to mention all the time I spend simply stressing about them.

This is why I haven’t been posting regularly. Well, I guess I have, but I feel like my post contents have been lacking. Expect some new music reviews later this week.

On a related-note: Did you know that Connecticut is an earthquake state? Did you know that Connecticut existed on the equator during Pangea? Did you know that there are hundreds of amazing and rock-solid puns one can make in a Geology class? It’s like a Rocky Horror picture show in there at times!

The Great Internet Paywall

Posted on 02/23/2010 by Harry

On Sunday I got a funny idea for a website. Inspired by The Wall Street Journal’s decision to require users to pay to access their articles I created this satirical website.

Nothing there works, it’s just a static page, but I’d be seriously curious how many people would pay to “access the internet.” I think it’s all hilarious – to access that webpage you already need to be accessing the internet. The irony kills me.

Fall’s Going to Change Things

Posted on 02/21/2010 by Harry

Last Thursday I received some awesome news. Let me back up first: Currently my full-time job is a college student. I am finishing my college career and was expecting to graduate in December of this year. Last Thursday I met with my guidance counselor and found out that I can graduate this summer. I’ve been on Cloud 9 since.

That was until I began thinking about what I was going to do this Fall. I’ll be a college-grad, living at home, and without a job. I’ve never encountered this before. Any other times I’ve had off were in-between college semesters. This is the first time I’ll be without school – and it’s a weird feeling.

Best thing I can do is to live today as today. If I get to thinking too far in the future I end up tripping over myself in my haste to force the future to become the now.

I’ve been working on an original song. When I get it better polished expect for it to be published here. I’m eager to get feedback but frightened of harsh criticism.

Disregarding everything above: here’s an up-and-coming band whose going on tour soon with the Antlers. They call themselves Phantogram and they got good grooves. My music doesn’t sound anything like this (yet) but I still love these sounds. Hit play and give them a listen.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Juggling

Posted on 02/03/2010 by Harry

Although I never promised that this blog would be updated regularly I still feel I should explain (to anyone reading) why updates occur haphazardly.

Let’s start with this blog as Commitment #1. (Although I feel it’s too early for this blog to be considered a ‘commitment’ – it hasn’t been around long enough that I feel I have committed to it. I intend to commit but time will be the judge.)

Before I began this blog I immediately ruled out the possibility that it would be updated daily. Not only would that be immensely time consuming but I don’t have enough worthwhile things to say.

College is Commitment #2. Right now I am taking five different classes at my university – no small feat. And in order to stay current with my studies I must attend class and produce whatever homework is required. Continue reading →

A Rule to Live By

Posted on 01/29/2010 by Harry

“Nothing good happens after 2 a.m.”

This idea comes from the TV show How I Met Your Mother, and is an idea which I think is pretty self-explanatory. Although I found the idea funny when I first heard it, I didn’t really consider it to be ‘true.’

However, as time progresses, and I analyze and evaluate my adventures past 2am, I have come to whole-heartedly agree that nothing good happens after 2am.

This can be true for many reasons. To name a few: people are more tired after 2am.

Ok, that wasn’t a few reasons. It was only one.

I’m sorry, I’m a little tired myself.

It’s after 2am. I’m up, restless, and hoping this entry serves as proof:

Nothing good happens after 2am.

Amazon Makes Selling Fun

Posted on 01/25/2010 by Harry

Right now I’m surrounded by old textbooks.

Textbooks from the previous four years of my college life. Some textbooks I don’t think I ever opened. Some textbooks I think I used at most three times. Some textbooks make me recoil with bad memories of professors (who weren’t the greatest teacher [but I may not have been the greatest student either]).

So what’s a college student to do with so many old textbooks – gathering dust and taking up space?

Sell them on Amazon Marketplace!

This has been on my to-do list for the past two weeks and this night the time was finally right. I did some brief reading over the past two weeks about how Amazon Marketplace works — gauging the level of difficulty and time it would take.

There was no way I could predict how easy Amazon makes it to sell things. It’s so easy it’s almost fun.

Almost fun – this post was written 3/4’s of the way through listing all the textbooks. It’s super easy, but also super monotonous and this is a nice break.

So, to all my college and ex-college friends out there: If you have no more use for your college textbooks and have a free evening: List your books! Aint nothing so sweet as making money. Except lollipops. They’re sweeter. (It’s because of the sugar.)

[Update 1: Less than 24 hours from listing my textbooks one has already sold! That was time well spent...]

To-Do List

Posted on 01/23/2010 by Harry

Now that I have a new blog there’s a few things that I gotta do. These things are gonna let me have the most fun blogging. I figured it’d be interesting/fun for you to read what I usually do when I start a blog, mine or someone else’s.

Download WordPress and install it on server
Install theme of choice (after scouring hundreds of choices)
Find plug-ins that I want to use (install & configure)
- Make a Google Analytics account to track traffic
  - Debate between the Google Analytics and Google Analyticator plug-in (went with google analyticator b/c of more frequent updates to plug-in)
- Askimet to catch spam commenters
- Install a better discussion engine: either Disqus or IntenseDebate (went with IntenseDebate, better compatibility with theme)
- SEO – Search Engine Optimization plug-ins
  - Google XML Sitemaps
  - All in One SEO Pack
- Feedburner (to handle RSS feeds) (burned feed)
Modify existing theme to allow for micro-blog style formats (so that I can make little ‘twitter-esque’ updates such as “Listening to new Hot Chip album – digging!”)
- Or figure out a way to slip-stream twitter updates into the blog

Can’t think of anything else right now. I’ll update this post as the ‘to-dos’ become ‘dones’.[update: added more to-dos, crossed out completed tasks]