Where we stand…
January 18th, 2009
If there was any doubt in peoples minds about how bad things are in the economy, all you need to do is watch the latest batch of advertising coming out of Madison Avenue.
Launch: Most Cheated
January 13th, 2009
Cheat sheets are a very convenient way of remembering syntax or shortcuts for your favorite language, framework or application.
Your favorite web design or development blog will have no doubt posted a list cheat sheets for you to use, Most Cheated takes this one step further providing a database of links to cheat sheets.
The cheat sheets are collected into 5 main categories: Design, Development, Server Software, Application and other, with tagging for further classification. The format of the cheat sheet is also noted.
The Problem With: Twitter
October 16th, 2008
Twitter‘s technical woes have been well documented. Although the seem to have gotten a handle on the issues, with little downtime lately, they have done so at the expense of certain resource intensive features.
There has been much speculation as to the cause of Twitters problems, was Ruby on Rails to blame, or was it just a poorly architected system that would have had problems regardless of how it was implemented?
I don’t think Ruby on Rails was the cause of Twitters problems, any services that grows as fast as Twitter did is bound to have problems. I don’t think Ruby on Rails help either though. Twitter reached Ruby on Rails related performance limits, which are generally lower than with other development platforms, and instead of having the time to rebuild and re-architect their core system they ended up having to focus on short term.
The real problem behind Twitters problem though can be traced back to intended usage. Originally built as part of the Odeo site, a way for members to send updates to each other. Since becoming an independent service, Twitter has morphed into a general purpose messaging platform, where people follow and update thousands of connections. The top twitters users currently have nearly 100K followers, with them most active users have sent over 500K updates. Well beyond the scope of its intended usage.
Even from a user interface viewpoint the was not designed for this, the sidebar of a users homepage at one time listed all the people following you, this has since been changed to show just 36 friends, but demonstrates ways that Twitter has had to change itself as it has grown.
Given the traction that Twitter has, with a very loyal user base, that refused to abandon it during the technical issues it had, Twitter is not going anywhere, and as it rebuilds itself to match how people are using it, I expect Twitter to continue to be a huge success … as long as it can find a way to monetize its users.
Depending on how they do this, it might turn its loyal user base against them.
Do I need a .com
October 6th, 2008
Must a website for your business be a .com, or can a .net, .org or one of the other tlds be sufficient?
When you are starting out, the majority visitor will come to your site either via a search engine or a link from another website, and once they know your site will probably use a bookmark in their browser rather than typing in the name in the browsers address bar. So your .com, .org, .net will have little impact on your traffic.
Once your business becomes a huge success you may start advertising more on radio, television and in print. The .com issue may now become relevant, as a matter of branding and the level of type in traffic grows.
Why GaragePowered?
October 5th, 2008
GaragePowered sounds like a bad idea. You work a full job during the day, then you come home and work another job! Should you do things GaragePowered, or use the traditional Venture Capital approach?
Read the rest of this entry »
When is the best time to start a new company?
August 15th, 2008
As some one running on Garage power, what is the best time to start a new company? Is there a bad time?
There have been many discussions as whether you should start a company during a recession or during a boom time, but I think most of those discussions are targeted more at companies looking to raise money from a VC.
Do you want to be an Entrepreneur?
August 10th, 2008
You’re thinking about starting your own business, but are you really sure you want to be an entrepreneur?
The dream sounds good. Start with nothing, and create a business known the world over and retire next year when you’re brought by the large corporation worried about your pesky business, or maybe you’ll have an IPO instead and keep running your business to world domination.
You probably know the the stories of Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Steve Jobs and many others starting with nothing to create successful businesses. Gates & Dell dropping out of school to pursue their dreams, why not you?
Running a company is not for everyone. There I said it. That should not be a surprise, but people often appear offended when I say that, like I’ve stolen their dreams.
Welcome
August 8th, 2008
I have owned this domain for a very long time, and wanted to develop this blog just as long. I’m not sure the exact reason for not developing, but I’ve been blogging more on my other sites and feel good about adding this blog to my network.
What exactly is GaragePowered? GaragePowered is a reference to the early days of Silicon Valley, where entrepreneurs from now world famous companies like Hewlett Packard, and Apple, toiled in garages creating the next great technological products. Even the mighty Google can trace its roots back to a rented garage.
But rather than an physical location GaragePowered reflects a frame of mind. Entrepreneurs working hard, often in their spare time, bootstrapping their way to the next great invention.
This blog is written by one of the next generation of Garage entrepreneurs working to create the next big web based businesses, bootstrapping all the way.
I’ll be blogging about all aspects of building a web based business, from web design and development to the state of the industry.
I’m working on a custom theme for the website, in the mean time the default theme will serve me well!
Enjoy your stay and feel free to leave a comment.