PC to Mac Switching Pains (Part 2)

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PC to Mac Switching Pains (Part 1)

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Where has the workmanship gone?

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The cost of hiring the wrong person, a cautionary tale

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Waiting for web 3.0

It’s been awhile since my last post, I suppose that I’ve fallen victim to the old “not enough time in the day” cliché. Now its true that I did declare Social Network Bankruptcy, I have come to terms with a balance that works for me. I use Facebook to keep track of friends around the world, but I rarely do more than read the news feed. I do maintain an active LinkedIn account to keep track of my professional contacts and networks.

I flirt off and on with flickr.com (mostly with the addition of children to the household). I have recently reconciled with Twitter.com and was waiting for Pownce.com (which will has since gone dark) to take it to the next level. What I came to realize is that all things web 2.0 can be distilled down to a metaphor of a garden. Each web site has huge upside potential if tended, but if left fallow, is nothing more than a staked off area of the interweb. I now have to go back and take stock of my web 2.0 footprint on the web, and see if I can free up some of my web 2.0 land grab.

What does Web 3.0 have in store for my presence on the interwebs, and how much of my time it will monopolize, will be a topic for an upcoming post (or maybe someone can write a white paper I can link to?).

Canadian prices for 3G iPhone released

Rate plans announced by Rogers for upcoming introduction of 3G iPhone to the Canadian market.

read more | digg story

Don’t like the way the ump is calling the game, just bean him

I’ve been playing baseball for close to 30 years now, and have never seen anything so blatant in my life. The pitcher did not like the way the umpire was calling balls and strikes, so he serves up a “curve ball in the dirt” (see how the catcher drops to block) and actually delivers a fastball straight to the umpire’s head. The high school was fined $1000 and the catcher had his college scholarship pulled. Maybe its a clear lesson. I’m curious to see how good the umpire’s lawyer turns out.

read more | digg story

Goog-411 finds way to Canada

Google Inc. launched a Canadian version of its voice-recognition local search phone service GOOG-411 (1-800-GOOG-411) on June 20th. Canada becomes the first country outside the U.S. to gain access to the service.

Will this give Bell another reason to gripe? This move, a free service from Google, attacks one of Bell’s cherished cash cows – 411 directory assistance. This is a parallel move to the craigslist.org assault on newspaper classified ads. Newspapers are still reeling from the losses to their classified business.

I often wonder how old media and established corporations could serve their established customer base by improving their service, as opposed to fighting to resist the change in the marketplace. Over the years, I’ve found myself more and more drawn to the alternative offerings, as my recent experiences with the incumbent “old-world” corporations have been less that satisfactory.

Innovation breeds competition. Competition benefits consumers. I like lower prices and better service. Any guesses as to where I stand on the Google 411 service?

read more | digg story

NDP to introduce ‘net neutrality’ private member’s bill

The federal New Democrats will introduce a private member’s bill on Wednesday that would entrench the principle of “net neutrality” and enact rules to keep the internet free from interference by service providers, an NDP MP told a rally Tuesday in Ottawa.

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Why start a company?

I’ve been thinking lately of how some companies are run, and got to thinking more specifically as to why they even came to be.

All companies (OK maybe not the “not for profits”) are created in order to generate revenue and maximize profits. So the founders either figure out a way to provide a product and/or service to a market segment, or the truly inspired create a space or carve out a niche.

Software companies fall into two categories:

1. The visionaries that want to stamp out a piece of the pie and hope to expand that piece to its greatest potentials
2. The I hope Microsoft buys us in 2 years companies. These evolve a product (usually an incremental improvement on a preexisting technology) to a point that it has made some inroads, and look to cash out.

The companies looking to be acquired fast are usually plagued with bad decisions:

• Lets not use that technology, its not on the Microsoft stack.
• Let’s integrate with Sharepoint, its all the rage
• Don’t worry about porting the software, one platform is enough
• Features are added as a result of someone else’s priorities in a reactive manner
  • how many ways has Microsoft changed the best practice for talking to databases in the last 10 years?
  • WCF
  • Sharepoint
  • Silverlight
  • …

Joel Spolsky refers to this last point as companies that react to cover fire (See Fire and Motion), effectively stunting innovation, in the pursuit of keeping up.

I much rather the approach of conceiving and executing a vision and setting the bar. If you provide new functionality or innovate, you force people to either keep up or copy you. Either way, you are ahead of the game, and (guess what?) your company’s value increases.

It seems obvious to me that starting a company with goal of selling leaves you only one opportunity to strive for. Option 2 provides you the option of creating a business people will probably fight to buy, as well as the luxury of being self sustaining and profitable (it goes without saying that you need a combination of good management and a reasonable amount of sales in order to make either “work”).