I didn’t grow up with the Internet. It came after most of my learning habits had been wired in. But once I had access, I never looked back. My online days began wallowing about in Gopher at my college, getting happily lost in link layers, following my nose and reading… a lot. Learning a lot. Then came Compuserve, early in my career, the text-based network, I admit I still pine for some days…
I browsed four lines at a time on my very first laptop, where I met and collaborated with strangers online to write stories, follow movements in my profession, further my education and my career. The best of the Internet has not changed a bit since those early days — sharing what we know to further knowledge for everybody. That was the whole point when it began, and that’s still its strength. People who forget what the internet is in its bones fail fast.
And so it tickles me when I see people — millions of them — making stuff and putting it out there, whose reward is answering the impulse to serve, because it’s a good idea and because they can. Lots of kids. Lots of weekend code jockeys, writers, all sorts of people whose passions keep them up all night, putting stuff online for other people to find.
Case in point: I like graph paper. I bet you do too. But it’s rarely where I need it when I need it. Enter printfreegraphpaper.com. It’s not a promotional site from a company, not a piece of a bigger pie. I became curious about the site’s builder, and dug around until I found him. Here’s Jeremy Hughes, presently of the U.S. Navy, answering my questions about this site he began when he was a student:
Jeremy, why did you make a graph paper site?
I originally made the site to support and promote a now defunct dictionary website I created. If I remember right, the graph paper was to allow the user to make custom crossword puzzles.
When choosing my domain name, I wanted something easy to remember. Well, the site fared so well so fast, far outperforming my struggling dictionary website, I decided to focus solely on that site, expanding the selection and improving the layout.
I bought the domain on February 27th 2005, and moved it to its home on March 3rd. To show you how well it took off, a couple days later on March 14th (Pi Day), USA Today listed my site as their hot site of the day.
Are you in a graph-paper-using profession? Or, like me, you like to sit and color in the boxes?
Um…. neither. I was pursuing a degree in architecture at the time, so I knew how to draft with the computer. I love math (even though I’m not that good at it), so I enjoyed making something relating to it. It was fun researching all the esoteric graph papers.
How does the site work? Does it generate the paper through dynamic PDFs, or… what? I’m not fluent in code, and can’t tell..
Originally, and currently, the site uses predesigned PDF documents I created, each one-by-one. However, I did explore creating dynamically generated documents. That project ended up being a black-hole of time, and was making the site’s layout too complicated with all the nuances that were possible. After realizing how much time I was putting into the project, knowing only a handful of people would benefit from the custom documents, while confusing the majority of site visitors with a complicated layout, I decided to scrap to project. You can still see some of my unfinished coding here.
Any credits we should mention (designers, cowriter/coders who deserve thanks/credit here?)
I needed a custom javascript function to allow me to accommodate hundreds of distinct graph paper documents into a single page. I hired online a coder from Italy named Georgio for that. It was fun working with someone living in a completely different timezone and who speaks only limited English, but we both shared the language of computer code.
Later with the site, I had a concept for a promotional postcard I wanted to send out to school teachers across the country, introducing my site. The concept referenced Harold Edgerton’s work and showed how with math theres both a theoretical and reality side. Even though the number crunching might be considered arduous, the reality can be full of energy and fun. I hired Vincent Penmann, a friend I met through a photography class to translate my sketches into print.
What kind of response are you getting?
Its been very favorable. I love finding my address on math class syllabuses. I even found a document on NASA’s website referencing my site to download polar graph paper for a friction workshop.
Who uses the site most, do you think?
I can tell by looking at my logs that most of my traffic is school kids doing their homework. Nobody likes doing their schoolwork on Friday or Saturday, but there’s a big rush Sunday night. It’s pretty steady on the weekdays.
Are there enough graph paper geeks out there finding your site and clicking on the Google ads to make it possible for you to live comfortably in Alaska?
My site’s been good to me. One great benefit is I did most of the work awhile ago and now I just need to pay to have my site hosted. It’s basically cashing in royalty checks for previous work.
What is the internet good for, anyway?
I think the internet is for sharing and communicating. When one can harness that power to their benefit without infringing on others, that’s great.
Great story. Reminded me of two things.
1. My dad used to make custom graph paper for my brother and I so we could detail maps of the dungeons on Bard’s Tale on the ole C64.
2. diyplanner.com: I am not sure this is being updated anymore, but it sure helped me get started with a little hipster PDA, now converted to just a 3×5, paper clip bound, task list. Good PDFs of different planner sizes though.
This is very heartening Julie. Thank you.
I have an email with one more Jeremy story that is just so coder:
“Shortly before leaving for bootcamp, I wrote a script for my site to check traffic and how many documents were printing by different users.
The script would output all this information into written sentences, dynamically changing the grammer based on the results. “There were X printed documents yesterday but Y today” (if today is less). Then the script ouputed these paragraphs to a pdf document in the format of a letter, using a dynamic greeting depending on when the script ran (“Good Morning”, “Good Afternoon”…).
I made a custom font based on my handwriting which the letter used, too.
After I left, my mother ran the script, printed, and mailed me the letter each week. I think I was the one at bootcamp receiving letters from myself.”