GleepLog

laughingsquid: Teaching Koreans How To Swear In English

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:32:20 -0400

Teaching Koreans How To Swear In English

I kept seeing a reflection of my hands in the reflective DELL...

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 12:05:47 -0400

Before

After

I kept seeing a reflection of my hands in the reflective DELL logo on my monitor and it was making me thing something in my dock was bouncing in my peripheral vision.

It was driving me stark raving mad.

The solution?

Scotch tape and a receipt from Flying Biscuit!!!

david: Beefwood? is that even a WORD? :P

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 12:01:29 -0400

david:

Beefwood?

is that even a WORD? :P

Great Article about Starting Up in Atlanta

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 17:00:00 -0400

I just stumbled across this article in my TwitterStream..

http://www.inc.com/guides/2010/07/how-to-find-commercial-real-estate-in-atlanta.html

It’s a pretty good article that covers a lot of the dimensions of starting a business in Atlanta. It has a few issues though…

The title of the web page says “How to find Commercial Real Estate in Atlanta” and so does the URL. Doesn’t anybody go back and fix that during editing?
The navigation inside the article says there are 4 pages but when I clicked on page 4 I got a page with no content - just navigation and ads.
The article talks about restaurants and technology startups. It seems like those 2 types of companies have drastically different needs to me. Maybe the article should have focused on one type?
In the middle of reading page 3 my browser leaped to a different page on the site with a bunch of random garbage on it. Some kind of SEO black hole page maybe? Very confusing.

Mobile Banking Should Be Easier w/ Android

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 11:40:47 -0400

I just opened an account with Suntrust a couple of weeks ago and I was checking out the “mobile banking” options on their website.

Unfortunately, to get the right “app” you have to tell them which wireless provider you use and what model phone you have.

Well, T-mobile wasn’t listed so I lied and said I used AT+T. Then, of course, the myTouch3G wasn’t listed so I said I had an HTC. That page said my download would begin shortly and it gave me a confirmation code. Hmm…

So I guess because I didn’t really have AT+T that the download thing was destined to fail. I decide to do a search for “suntrust” in the Android Market and VOILA! A mobile banking app!

I downloaded the app, entered the confirmation code (so glad I left that page open) and it worked.

That would have been so much easier if they had just said “Oh, if you have an Android phone, scan this QR code.”

Don’t ya think?

fred-wilson: artist pleading with his label to release his...

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 08:24:03 -0400

fred-wilson:

artist pleading with his label to release his music. something’s wrong with this picture

You're wrong to tell me I'm wrong to say you're wrong!

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 22:22:59 -0400

I’m tempted to write a long post that gets into some controversial topics but I think I just haven’t had enough caffeine today and I’m itching for a fight.

Social Music

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 17:28:10 -0400

is rdio too social? is Pandora social enough?

I hooked my Pandora favorites up to friendfeed which gets tweeted. that’s only one way though.

your thoughts?

"Once, my friend Simon was rushed to hospital to have his appendix removed and I visited him the next..."

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 14:22:01 -0400

“Once, my friend Simon was rushed to hospital to have his appendix removed and I visited him the next day to find his bed empty. I immediately sacrificed a goat and burnt a witch in his name but it turned out that he had not had appendicitis, just needed a good poo, and was at home playing Playstation.”

- http://www.27bslash6.com/easter.html

James Siminoff: Stalker Ads

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 12:49:06 -0400

James Siminoff: Stalker Ads:

Online advertising relies heavily on the concept of relevance. The better a company can figure out the relevance of a ad to you, the higher percentage they will convert.

I am heading to Monterey, CA for a weekend trip so yesterday I was looking for rooms on Expedia. Afterwards I went to …

"white people like the World Cup because it allows them to pretend they are European for a few weeks,..."

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 11:55:30 -0400

“white people like the World Cup because it allows them to pretend they are European for a few weeks, and more importantly, it allows them to get drunk at odd hours.”

- http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2010/06/01/133-the-world-cup/

David's Log: Michael Pollan's Food Rules

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 15:26:18 -0400

David's Log: Michael Pollan's Food Rules:

Eat food.

Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.

Avoid food products containing ingredients that no ordinary human would keep in the pantry.

Avoid food products that contain high-fructose corn syrup.

Avoid foods that have some form of sugar (or sweetener) listed…

siminoff: I am going to do a few posts around this in the next...

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 15:23:58 -0400

siminoff:

I am going to do a few posts around this in the next few months but I could not resist posting this when I saw it.

America Is Mostly Made in China via laughingsquid

David's Log: Life Improvements

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 15:22:48 -0400

David's Log: Life Improvements:

Things I’ve changed this year:

I added a bunch of mail filters.

I don’t use a computer at home. I keep an eye on my Inbox (and occasionally browse the web) with my iPad.

We don’t turn our TV on unless we’re watching something with undivided attention.

We replaced all of our big…

having stuff blows. indeed. do you own things or do they own you?

"The final thing I’d say about optimism is this. If we took the loopiest, most moonbeam-addled..."

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 13:23:34 -0400

““The final thing I’d say about optimism is this. If we took the loopiest, most moonbeam-addled Californian utopian internet bullshit, and held it up against the most cynical, realpolitik-inflected scepticism, the Californian bullshit would still be a better predictor of the future. Which is to say that, if in 1994 you’d wanted to understand what our lives would be like right now, you’d still be better off reading a single copy of Wired magazine published in that year than all of the sceptical literature published ever since.””

- Clay Shirky: ‘Paywall will underperform – the numbers don’t add up’ | Technology | The Guardian (via thewavingcat) (via rafer) (via thegongshow) (via bijan)

Initial impressions of RDIO

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 00:19:21 -0400

Image by Gubatron via Flickr

I’ve had an RDIO account for a couple of days now so since my 3 day trial membership is about to expire I thought I’d share my thoughts on it.

The Model

The model is interesting because you can put any music you can find in your queue. It’s not like Pandora’s “we play songs and you have limited control over what gets played” model. I find this interesting… but annoying.

I was not comfortable with Pandora at first. I fought the control mechanism. I eventually relented and became used to it. Now I pick a station and just run with it for hours unless the selections start repeating or veering wildly.

With RDIO you have to fill the queue yourself and manage it like your Netflix account. It’s great that you can do this but I just wish I could put it on autopilot. My queue keeps draining and I have to got put stuff back in.

Interface

My first reaction to the Web UI was that it was fairly slick (although I did get a weird error the first time I logged in which is probably fixed for future signups) and I was able to figure out where to go to get to the major features fairly quickly. I had to poke and prod for a while to get to where I could “manage” my queue, however. I’m still not sure what I should add to my collection and what to put in my queue, either.

The desktop apps for RDIO and Pandora frankly suck. The Air platform may have a lot of appeal for developers but it’s a memory pig and it’s convoluted. The RDIO app has a slight edge over the Pandora app in that it has a few more options.

Prices

I like the idea that RDIO features content you can buy and download from them instead of the affiliate model Pandora uses. I haven’t actually bought any music though because their prices seemed very high! I like the fact that there are two price points and would probably be fine with the web only tier for $4.99 a month even though that’s a big jump over my Pandora One subscription.

Discovery

I like the idea that the discovery mechanism in RDIO is based on a social graph instead of a computer algorithm. My network is rather limited because I just joined recently and invites are slowly spreading. I’m curious if the discovery will work better as my network expands but so far I prefer the discovery process on Pandora. I’ve discovered a fairly large number of artists because they have a sound similar to a band I already listen to.

I suppose if it works right, the social network could achieve the same effect. Only time will tell.

Summary

I think RDIO shows a lot of promise but I think its different enough from Pandora that they can co-exist. It has the ability to scan your iTunes library (which resulted in this interesting bubble graph that shows that my wife has been loading music on my computer…) and add songs to your collection.

I can’t say for sure I’ll start paying for it when my trial ends but I’ll seriously consider it. If you want an invite, hit me up on Twitter.

Rdio’s Silence Ends As Skype Founders Launch Music Subscription Service (gigaom.com)
Rdio - false advertising? (annetteholland.com)
1,000 Trial Invites For Rdio (techcrunch.com)

bijan sabet: Leap of faith

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 23:25:07 -0400

bijan sabet: Leap of faith:

Here we are in the early days of summer.

Lots of things come to mind each summer. It’s a time when we spend a lot of time outdoors as a family. Our weekends are beyond crazy. Every summer we get to see friends from out of town and we have a few vacations planned. Our firm makes a number of new…

Virtual Telephony Changed Today

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 22:09:14 -0400

What Happened?

As you might have heard, Twilio launched a massive new product this morning that’s going make a huge dent in the Virtual PBX market. It’s called OpenVBX.

A little history

Twilio flew me out to San Francisco in March to get a look at an early version and I was very impressed. We had a weekend hackathon and created plugins for it… but more about that later.

The advent of VBX changed the course of my startup, OtherNum, drastically. We had been constructing, for almost a year, a platform very similar. We had some features VBX did not but over the course of that weekend I was able to start filling in those gaps.

Jeff and the team at Twilio had wanted me to come out and see VBX because they knew about OtherNum and were aware of the overlap between the products. When Jeff first told us why we had been brought to SF (we didn’t know until that first morning) I was a little stunned but as we learned more about the platform the more I realized this was a very good thing for us.

Some of the things we had struggled with or were about to tackle (like a drag and drop call flow editor) were already in VBX. It didn’t make sense for us to continue building OtherNum anymore. Instead I chose to pursue some sub-niches instead of primary PBX-like functionality and to work on plugins for VBX.

So what is VBX?

VBX is an open source web application that interacts with Twilio’s API to implement advanced telephony functions normally found in expensive equipment.

It’s exactly the right solution for businesses with virtual offices, remote personnel and startups.

Here’s why:

1. It never goes down

If the power goes it in your office your $10,000 PBX is going to go offline. You’ve got battery backup? Are you sure? What if a construction worker cuts the phone lines?

With a hardware PBX, your entire phone infrastructure depends on its physical environment. With a virtual PBX

2. It never fills up

With a hardware solution, the memory available is finite. Sure, you can upgrade it but that costs money and takes time. VBX uses cloud storage for recordings so you’ll never have to shell out cash to add extensions or voicemail boxes.

3. It takes 5 minutes to get started

You’ve heard of the famous 5 minute WordPress install? Yeah. It’s like that.

pull down the code
create an empty database
change permissions on two sub-directories
pull it up in a browser and enter your Twilio credentials.
done.

Plugins

So what else is so great about VBX? Plugins.

You want to have your PBX interact with your Twitter or FourSquare account or change its behavior based on time of day. You want your PBX to interact with Chirbit, MyCaption.com or BART. If you had a hardware PBX it would NEVER happen.

VBX makes it possible to write a plugin that does that and more.

My Plugins

I wrote the plugins for Chirbit, FourSquare and MyCaption during that weekend in San Francisco. The FourSquare plugin caught the attention of a bunch of people including TechCrunch, GigaOM, Albert Wenger and Fred Wilson. My head was spinning all morning!

My Other Favorite Plugins

Mark Condon wrote a plugin that allowed you to define prompts in English and used Google APIs to translate your text into French, German and other languages and then speak it to the caller.

Jonathan Kressaty wrote multiple plugins, one of which allows you to change the behavior of your phone system depending on the time of the day.

In Conclusion

I’m very excited to have been a part of the VBX community from such an early stage and I look forward to working with it going forward. I think it’s a great product in a really cool space and it’s going to push the virtual telephony world forward a few notches and in a hurry.

"A second plugin (which was actually created by a third-party developer) hooks into Foursquare,..."

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 14:04:32 -0400

“A second plugin (which was actually created by a third-party developer) hooks into Foursquare, allowing you to change your telephony settings depending on where you’re located. For example, if you checked in at work, it would know to route any incoming calls to your office number rather than your house.”

- Twilio Releases OpenVBX, An Open Source Google Voice For Businesses (via fred-wilson)

I should have just coached soccer instead of getting an MBA.

Sun, 02 May 2010 00:44:33 -0400

As some of you know, I’ve been coaching my daughter’s U10G soccer team this spring. I’ve played soccer off and on but hardly ever in an organized fashion and I’ve never coached ANYTHING.

I didn’t know what to expect exactly when I signed up to coach the team. I was worried I would screw it up for these girls and do a terrible job coaching them.

I have been working in IT since 1999 and I’ve worked at companies with 4 employees and 350,000 employees and held different managerial titles at most of them. I have an MBA from the Georgia Institute of Technology that cost me $60,000 too.

All garbage.

These 9 girls have taught me more about leadership, motivation, teamwork, dedication and persistence than any of that.

I’ve learned how to better channel their energy towards productivity and how to earn trust. They’ve taught me patience and humility.

If you want to become a better leader, don’t take classes. Get out on the field and coach.