Software, Digital Content, Geopolitics, Economics & More from of a Libertarian Serial Expat and Entrepreneur
I’m a fan of services neatly packaged as products that answer a very well defined need. A good example is psd2html: you know what you put in the box, and you know what you’re going to get at the other end. Great way to complement your own resources. We’re coming to a point where our [...]
In: web apps
30 Jan 2008As of early 2008 besides the basic LAMP stack we use the following to run our business: Salesforce.com, Trac, Subversion (hosted at CVSdude.com), Basecamp, Fusemail (don’t run your email off your web servers), Authorize.net, WordPress, Feedburner, OpenAds, Bronto, Google Analytics, Google Web Optimizer, Cacti, Nagios, and I’m probably forgetting a couple other services we may [...]
In: business models
25 Jan 2008A few months ago, a rep at Rackspace (one of our two hosting companies at the time) laughed at me when I unfavorably compared their bandwidth rates to Amazon’s. I mean, he actually laughed. I probably got started in the IT business before the brat even got out of high school. They chose to have [...]
In: fun
25 Jan 2008This WowWiki entry explains well the utter silliness of most discussions in the main public channel in the beginner’s area for the Horde faction in World of Warcraft. What is really interesting is that a confluence of factors in the game (for instance geography, player level) lead to very similar chat patterns across servers, from [...]
Jon Udell has a good conversation (with very good audio quality) with Neil Giarratana, the president of a small web shop based off Keene, NH. This stroke very close to home (so to speak!) since our HQ is based in Vermont but we have people all over the place: Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Georgia, Montana, [...]
In: music
20 Jan 2008The key with digital music gear porn is to only wank to it and resist buying stuff you’re likely to play with for 30 minutes then forget in a closet. Still, here’s some fun stuff: Zendrum (grand father of them all) Mandala Pankat (I own an old DK10 from the same vendor) Handsonic Trigger Finger [...]
In: politics
16 Jan 2008Kudos to Jeff for standing publicly against the French Union of Expensive Books and France’s illiberal laws. He’s reading from the book written by Virgin retail stores kept open on Sundays even if that means paying a fine. Just the cost of business in a communist country where Guaranteed Unemployment is a dogma supported by [...]
In: music
15 Jan 2008Pitchfork’s review of Burial’s Untrue is mostly on point, though it’s funny to see a music reviewer struggle (or at least only intuit around) with well-known concepts such what a half-time beat is. If you play half-time on the drums, then by definition your accented snare or rimshot will fall on the third beat. That, [...]
In: politics
13 Jan 2008I had a whole weekend rant in draft but Movable Type, obviously objecting to my Austrian economics, ate it. I don’t care to write again why and how Italy is going to start a domino chain that will push half of the countries belonging to the Euro out of it; or why Germany has better [...]
In: web services
11 Jan 2008We’ve been working in the Paypal sandbox and Authorize.net test account lately and neither really feel like the real thing. Paypal’s sandbox is slow as molasses, among other very irritating foibles. Testers need to login separately in the sandbox, while this really should be done through code and be transparent to the users testing the [...]
I'm CEO of an online trade publishing firm in the marketing and defense verticals. We try to make news and data digestible and useful in an environment that is more noisy each day. This personal blog mixes my thoughts and interests on politics, business, software, and more, based on my business and personal experiences. Over the years I have posted items that turned out spectacularly wrong, and a few posts that stood the test of times better. Personal views only.