Q: What is NYC Mugged?
A: NYC Mugged is a blog and resource for coffee lovers & enthusiasts in New York. The site allows you to find, rate, and comment on coffee all around the city.
Q: When did you have the idea for NYC Mugged?
A: I was working in midtown and struggling with the relative dirth of decent coffee available in the area. So each day I'd venture out and try a different cafe, deli, street cart, or whatever—all in search of a better cup of coffee. Sadly, there still aren't too many stellar spots in Midtown, but this experience was really what spawned the idea. Oh, and I wanted to learn me some PHP.
Q: How long did it take to build NYC Mugged?
A: As it was a personal project, and I was really only fiddling with it in my spare time, it probably took much longer than it should have. I think I spent a few months laying the groundwork, learning a lot of PHP basics along the way. I think the project could have been knocked out in a week or two with a dedicated team, and a lot of mistakes could have been avoided with some technically savvy devs on board, but where's the fun in that?
Q: How long has the site been live? How is it doing?
A: The sites been up for a little over a year now, and has sustained a fairly modest amount of traffic, but I wasn't really expecting anything crazy. It was more about learning something new, and when I'm able to combine that with something else I love, it makes the work a little more fun.
Q: What did you use to make your web site?
A: NYC Mugged is pretty much all poorly-written PHP. Whenever I'm updating the site and have to dig into the code, I cringe in horror. It's really a mess. If I had to do it all over again, I might use a framework like Kohana or Cake, or some very basic templating engine. For the blog I just used Wordpress, as I wasn't about to build a custom blogging platform.
Q: Tell us a little about yourself
A: I'm a designer first, a coffee nerd second, and then maybe last, a programmer. I've been working on the web for about 9 years now, trying to get my hands into the coding side of things whenever there's an opportunity. I was a big flash guy early on, but in the last few years I've preferred working with HTML5, CSS3, & Javascript - sorry Adobe!