Umamiblog

View a website as a nodal graph. Fascinating to watch it spawn and grow – then rearrange itself slowly to be less visually complex. Amazing.

Hint: Compare blogs to more static websites.

These are my notes from a talk Rod Drury gave us at a recent UP event. Rod got up at the start of the presentation and basically asked for questions. It was an excellent approach and worked really well with a wide range of topics broached. Rod answered honestly and directly to the questions and it helped to give an insight into Aftermail and what it might be like to repeat that success in Wellington.

Working towards successful exits. Entrepreneurship, it doesn’t automagically happen – it’s a progression that takes a good length of time.

Why are we here? To earn cash? To amass wealth? What are the levels of wealth? House without mortgage? Cars with more than 400hp? Multi-millions sitting in the bank?

Need to find a partner for a sale: for Aftermail it was Quest.

Ideal customer? Whoever gives you the most cash the quickest.

Patents? Waste of time.

Cash flow: Profitability vs. cashability – needing cash to fund growth.

Cheap R&D: we don’t have any big software companies in NZ. As a country we are really good at starting and growing companies to the about the 60 employee mark. Don’t lament it, use it. Grow lots of companies to that mark and flip them – then start on another one.

Nerds seeing nerds and nerds talking to money.

Isolation and small size – always noted as our disadvantages. They’re also our advantages as well. Small size means we network through the industry quickly.

CASH CASH CASH CASH CASH. Single most important thing.

Get your proposal/plan/presentation/whatever down to 2 pages. Be clear and concise – don’t waste anyone’s time. An angel wants to look good in front of their group – think about it.

Where do I find these people? Network.

Get your shareholding sorted at the beginning.

No. 1 rule for software companies is to have a name starting with ‘A’.

Aftermail getting shafted by MED/Govt.

Failure and having the courage to stop.

“Some people say you need to fail to be successful – I think that’s crap”

Going from services (low barrier to entry) to product (high barrier to growth) companies.

Broadband – might get here one day but there still aren’t any applications to use it.

Vista is a trainwreck…

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In my little corner and circle of the world Ruby on Rails has been getting a lot of airtime. I first came across Ruby sometime in early 2005 and began hearing of this insanely great framework. For those of you who have still to hear of Ruby on Rails (or just Rails, RoR), its a web app framework that started life with the 37signals crew and has some strong philosophical points. It strives for simplicity and from what I’ve been hearing makes development incredibly quick which apparently makes for happier developers.

The thing that has really struck me with Rails are the people who find it. It seems to be special above-average people who find it, they’re those people on the edge (of the company or project or class or bell-curve or whatever). And then they rave about it, with passion. I’ve seen this trend with Rails a lot. That more than anything is what has made my head turn and start to pay attention.

We’re lucky in Wellington as we have one of the Ruby on Rails core team residing here. Michael Koziarski gave a short presentation on Rails at the recent Webstock conference. He presented really well (especially for a developer) and exposed people to Rails that otherwise wouldn’t have had the chance.

There are the beginnings of a Rails user group starting in Wellington. Head on over to the WellRailed group and signup. A few weeks ago there was the first informal rails meeting at Syn Bar and it was really interesting to go to. Two things really struck me. Firstly, was the sheer number of punters who turned up. I’d hazard a guess somewhere at the 40+ range – that was awesome to see. Secondly, it was really interesting to see that there were lots of people from all ends of the spectrum, not just freelancers and students (aka “the fringe”), there were plenty of corporate employees there also.

JD decided this week that it would be a good idea to start some Rails related discussion on his blog. He did this by detailing what his concerns with using Rails are. I don’t really know or care enough to debate those points or to have my opinion swayed wildly but plenty of people have joined in on the discussion which is good to see. It was enough to make Andrew Peter’s post the first article on his blog…

Kathy Sierra asked in her presentation at Webstock “How do you know when you have passionate users?”. The answer was when you have a cult (ie. the cult of Mac). A lot of the trends we’re seeing with Rails are very similar and cult-like. I think that’s really positive because we always need more passion in the world.

I’m going to get into playing with Rails when I get back from my trip in August. I’ve been meaning to do this for over a year but as per usual life got in the way. I’d encourage anyone in IT, from testers through to salespeople to acquaint themselves with Rails and just have a look. There’s a really good chance we’ll be hearing more about it in the future and it definitely wouldn’t hurt to be on the right side of the bell-curve!

One of the keys to being a happy productive person is that you need regular sleeping patterns as well as simply making sure you get enough. It is something my father is very passionate about and believes organisations should be focusing on ensuring they are aiding their people to get good healthy sleep.

Not only does your body undergo intensive repair and rejuvenation when you are asleep, your brain is busy at work as well. Storing and sorting data, committing memories from short to long term, and so forth. Researchers are still discovering how important this phase is – especially for remembering and recall in the future. Of course, this coincides with society as a whole getting (and accepting) less sleep.

So, we all use alarm clocks to help wake us up (and ensure we get to work on time). Why not use an alarm clock to help you get to sleep?

For the last month I have had my cellphone alarm go off at 10pm. This reminds me it is time to start my ‘going-to-sleep’ ritual, which includes having a shower and a small amount of preparation for the next day. Not only has this helped me to remember to go to bed, my body has now started to associate the alarm going off with the need to prepare mentally and physically for bed. This means I’m now getting to sleep faster and in a more relaxed manner.

The payoff being good and happy productive days, try it out for a week and see how it helps.

Tehehe, happy happy joy joy.

Big ups to Threadless. Their whole operation is awesome, the website, the community driven aspect, the ordering process, even the delivery is good.

Not to mention the t-shirts themselves

I was struck and my curiosity aroused when Zeldman proclaimed on ALA that “wireframing AJAX is a bitch”. I made a note then to look into this a little further and write a wee article on it.

As per usual, 2 (of the busiest ever) months have passed by meaning I didn’t get onto it in time. But the cool cats at Particletree beat me to it:
* A Designer’s Guide to Prototyping Ajax
* Ajax Wireframing Approaches

The first article contains a number of links that explore the idea/issue even further.

This is too cool, via Dave5:

Have a look at the video associated with this story at TVNZ. The story is about a personal outbreak Dr Cullen had in an interview with Guyon Espiner where he blames the media attention on tax cuts soley on journalists (such as Espiner) who are wanting tax cuts for themselves. Ok, that’s cool – he’s entitled to his own point of view…

For me, that wasn’t the most interesting thing in the video. Look at Cullen’s mannerisms when he speaks, especially at his mouth and lower lip. I think there is also a difference in the tone of his speech as well, it sounds a tiny bit lispy to me. I’m no doctor but it reminds me alot of my grandmother who suffers from Parkinsons. Has public office has taken it’s toll on Dr Cullen and is he starting to succumb to something? Which begs the question, is he still fit for public office?

I hope for his (and our) sake that I’m wrong and he’s fine. I had to look it up but was surprised to learn that he is only 61 years old.

Note: I’m loath to create a “Politics” category so this gets stored under Life…

“as for all those freaks from Intergen with their identically styled hair…”

– Aquaboogie on Webstock

LOL!

I’ve been noticing for the last month that my scroll ball on my Might Mouse was becoming slightly less reliable until it finally stopped altogether last weekend. I could scroll up, left and right – just not down (which is probably 90% of it’s use). So I pulled it apart with only a minor snap in the outer ring – this could’ve been avoided if I was a little more careful and patient.

Cleared all the grime and dust out of the ball mechanism and put it all back together. Works much better now only I need a little spot of glue for the outer ring.