David Potsiadlo

Designing web products at GoDaddy. I like to play guitar and enjoy listening to podcasts.

Find me on Twitter or shoot me an email at [email protected].

The main thing I work on:

Song Notes

Video guitar lessons & PDF chord sheet library

Since 2013 I've been sharing songs I learn on guitar through weekly video lessons and illustrative PDF chord sheets. Over the years I've amassed 300+ lessons, 200k+ YouTube subscribers, and 3k+ supporters on Patreon.

Browse my videos & PDF library →

Other stuff I've made:

Firefly Grove

Personal songwriting project & SoundCloud playground

Firefly Grove is a personal songwriting project showcasing 9 lo-fi folk songs I wrote & recorded dating back to 2008-2009. From a technical viewpoint, I used this project as an opportunity to introduce myself with the Soundcloud API & SDK while also writing some jQuery layout solutions from scratch.

Listen to my original songs →

Wisp

Ultra-lightweight HTML/CSS starter kit

Wisp is an ultra-lightweight HTML framework to help you quickstart any project or rapid prototype. Quite simply, it sets up a generic project directory with an index.html file already linked to the usual CSS and jQuery resources. For simple projects where Rails or the HTML5 Boilerplate is overkill, Wisp helps you hit the ground running without any overhead.

Start a web prototype →

GIF Parade

Combine multiple animated GIFs with YouTube audio

Inspired by Garrett Miller's LoudGIF, I created GIF Parade to figure out how to display not one, but multiple animated GIFs in succession backed by audio from a YouTube track. This also served as a terrific playground to further my Javascript skills while also delving into using the Bit.ly and YouTube APIs for the first time.

Combine some GIFs →

PodCrawler

iTunes podcast search, made easy

Inspired by Marco Arment's Preview.fm project, I created PodCrawler to give users an elegant and no-nonsense experience for searching iTunes podcasts. PodCrawler was built on Rails, using the Feedzirra and iTunes-API gems to retrieve and parse feeds. If you are ever in quick need of the website, RSS feed, or iTunes address of a podcast – there's no better tool for the job than PodCrawler.

Find a podcast →

FretMonster

Interactive web-based fretboard for guitar, ukulele, and bass

In summer 2014, I decided to build an Javascript-powered interactive fretboard as an instructional aid for playing guitar, ukulele, or bass. This tool lets users view intervals, tones, triads, and scales in a quick and accessible manner -- easily useable on devices of any size. This project continued my deep-dive into learning Javascript, as well as extending my experience using SVG elements in truly responsive layouts.

Practice your scales →

Pots Podcast Picks

A curated podcast mixtape of my favorite episodes

In early 2015, I built Pots Podcast Picks in order to more easily share my favorite podcast episodes with friends and family. My curated selection of favorite episodes is available not just through a website, but also through an RSS feed and even the iTunes Podcast directory. Using Jekyll as a publishing tool, any new episode I add is immediately made available through these means. Now, friends and family need only subscribe to my curated feed once with their podcast app of choice – and can easily find the latest episode I can't stop raving about.

Listen to one of my favorite podcasts →

Writing

Here is a collection of occasional blog posts & random snippets I've written in the past. Many of the front-end posts below are aimed toward those initially exploring the world of rapid prototyping using Rails, Git, Heroku, Jekyll, etc.

Practice Tip for Hammering on with G and Cadd9
April 26, 2017

Practice tip: walking between E & A & B7
February 26, 2017

Practice tip: playing the A-chord with one finger
February 13, 2017

Guitar lesson for Get Well Cards by Conor Oberst
September 17, 2016

Ukulele lesson for the The Man Who Sold The World by David Bowie
April 16, 2016

Ukulele lesson for the Gravity Falls theme song
April 13, 2016

Ukulele lesson for 'Take On Me' by A-ha
April 2, 2016

Ukulele lesson for 'Waltzing Matilda'
March 8, 2016

Ukulele lesson for 'Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters' by Elton John
February 18, 2016

Ukulele lesson for 'Surrender' by Cheap Trick
February 9, 2016

Guitar lesson for 'Dark Side of the Moon' by Chris Staples
December 31, 2014

Ukulele tabs for 'Wake Up' by Arcade Fire
September 1, 2014

Ukulele tabs for 'Hook' by Blues Traveler
August 18, 2014

Ukulele tabs for 'Sweet Home Alabama' by Lynyrd Skynyrd
August 12, 2014

Overcast Reactions from Day #1
July 17, 2014

Heroku Setup for Static HTML
April 8, 2014

Guitar Fretboard: from ASCII to SVG
January 23, 2014

Heroku Fork! How to run a Staging and Production server at the same time
December 19, 2013

Setting up Jekyll, Compass, and Github Pages
June 24, 2013

Rails Basics: Adding a Dropdown Resource to a Model
April 4, 2013

Rails Basics: Intro to has_many :through
April 2, 2013

Rails Basics: Nested Models
March 30, 2013

Rails Basics: Adding a Column to a Table
March 29, 2013

Git Basics: Adding a Rails Project to Github
March 21, 2013

Rails Basics: Setting Up a Homepage
March 19, 2013

DC Metro Widget for Android
October 3, 2010

Hacking the Washington Capitals Logo with Illustrator
May 13, 2009