Category: Random Thoughts & Going Ons

What I've Been Up To

Posted on by Dusty Reagan

So my last blog post was in November 07! What can I say, I’m a geek not a writer!

Lack of posting excuses aside, since November a lot of great things have been going on. I started Jelly in Austin, a casual coworking group. That has been going great. I’ve met tons of really smart and interesting people at Jelly and I’ve made a lot of friends.

Spawned from the Jelly meetups, me and a few new friends have co-founded a venture that we’ve dubbed Conjunctured. Our goal is to create a company based around coworking and the values found in commons-based peer productions. We’re calling our endeavor a co-company and have started a co-company Google Group to solicit feedback from the community at large. We’re interested in any feedback you may have about the idea, so drop us a line at the Google Group if you get a chance.

I’ve also begun work on some web applications that have been rattling around in my head for awhile. The first being MileTrackr.com. The premise of the site is to leverage Google Maps to calculate your business travel mileage for tax deduction purposes. I imagine the site shining if you don’t log your miles daily, but you keep records of your hours and/or client meetings. You can then use the calendar view on MileTrackr.com to retroactively log your miles, letting Google Maps calculate the distance for you. The site has a lot of work to go, but I’m pleased with the progress I’ve made so far.

Floating Head Studios, the brand I have developed for my personal web services work has been sailing steady. However, I’m considering dividing my branding efforts into 3 segments. Floating Head Studios for the web applications I develop, Conjunctured for technical and marketing services, and Dusty Reagan as an independent consultant. Yeah, I consider “Dusty Reagan” a brand. I’m that guy. 😛

And most recently I’ve upgraded (emphases on the upgrade) my blog from Blogger to WordPress! Woot! Hopefully I’ll have a post about the process up soon. (Aka, within the next 3 months! No, I’m kidding. Hopefully this week.)

The Seven Computing Wonders of the World

Posted on by Dusty Reagan

In response to this ridiculous list in PC Magazine. Here is my take on The Seven Computing Wonders of the World.

#1. The Microprocessor – Because without the Microprocessor the rest of this list wouldn’t exist. Vacuum tubes and transistors will only get you so far.

#2. The Internet – Do you really need a reason as to why the Internet is a computing wonder? I mean, you’re reading this list aren’t you?

#3. The Personal Computer – Computers were original built for scientist and mathematicians. The Personal Computer brought immense computing power to everyone from small businesses to my 8 year old nephew.

#4. The Mobile Phone – The mobile phone gave us untethered connectivity. As long as you have your mobile phone nearby you’re never alone.

#5. Global Positioning Systems – Because GPS has given us real-time navigation. Flight systems, in car navigation, even cell phones can tell you exactly where you are and how to get to your destination.

#6. Object Oriented Programming – Because OOP has allowed programmers to build systems that would have otherwise been too complex to manage using older programming methodologies. (Think: Most of the modern software you use.)

#7. Clustered Computing – Because Cluster Computing makes massive number crunching cost effective and you can achieve performance that would be unachievable using one machine. (Think: Super Computers)

…
#563. Flat Panel Displays
…
#20,023. The iPhone
#20,122. The Nintendo Wii

What I learned at SXSW Interactive 2007

Posted on by Dusty Reagan

2007 was my first year at SXSW Interactive. (Despite the fact I have lived in Austin for over 3 years now). It was a fantastic experience. The panels were packed with tasty bits of information and the social scene was equally as enriching.

Typically, around 3pm each day I felt my brain had hit its capacity for new information, and I really wanted to pause to research all the things I just learned. But, SXSW had other plans for me… more panels and parties of course! Ah, SXSW giveth and SXSW taketh away.

I did manage to jot down some key points that I wanted to remember and/or research after the event ended. So, here for you, are my notes from SXSW. Enjoy 😉

For those short on time

General SXSW Attendance

  • Bring good business cards to the event.
  • Goto the after hours parties. (Admittedly, I didn’t do enough of this. But I will next year.)
  • Ask questions in panels. (This I did do. It’s a little intimidating going up to the microphone, but it gets easier the more you do it.)
  • Know what to say when someone asks the question “What do you do?”
  • Travel light to avoid trips to the car or hotel.

Business

  • Development costs are the most expensive costs for creating a startup application.
  • Reviews were mixed about outsourcing application development oversees. It seemed like those who were hesitant about outsourcing oversees had plenty of venture capital and worried about communication problems.
  • Company transparency is great for developing customer loyalty and is good PR.
  • Great customer support is the new marketing.
  • Research who your market is, segment them, and then market directly to each segment.
  • Virtual gifts, such as the flower on hotornot.com, are an interesting way to monetize social web applications.
  • Subscription fees that unlock advanced features of your web application is a good alternative to adding ads to your site.
  • Ads on subscription based sites can be used to encourage and remind non subscribers to subscribe.
  • Adding “We will never sell your email address” to your form is a simple way to gain user trust.

SEO

  • One method to test what keywords work for your site is to purchase a bundle of pay per click ads using the keywords you’re speculating on. Then look at the metrics to see which keywords outperformed the others.
  • SEO using keyword ratios is overrated. Quality link backs are the key.
  • SEO is not just good for search. It also helps deliver more accurate contextual ads from ad provider networks such as Google AdSense.

Technical

  • Microformats are simple to implement and add extensibility to your content.
  • After seeing the Microformat panel at SXSW, I’ve become such a big fan of the concept that I’m adding another bullet point here to encourage you to go research the topic.
  • Operator Firefox add-on is an interesting tool to take advantage of existing Microformats.
  • Selenium is great for testing AJAX. (I already new that, but it was nice to have it verified.)

Miscellaneous

  • Laughing Squid Web Hosting comes highly recommended. (I recommend NearlyFreeSpeech.net if anyone cares.)
  • Feedburner rocks for gathering site feed statistics.
  • Geni.com looks like a pretty cool genealogy web app.
  • Tacoda.com seems like an excellent ad sharing network.
  • Everyone is in love with the Firebug Firefox add-on.
  • Bruce Sterling’s rant was awesome. He mentioned several interesting topics and people I intend to research further.
  • Ryan Carson seems like a good entrepreneur to model. I’ll be checking out his wittings and ventures.

Austin Tech Events Calendar

Posted on by Dusty Reagan

I usually keep up with the geeky technology type events that are going on in Austin. I recently started doing so using Google Calendar, so I thought I’d make my Austin Tech Events calendar public to anyone who is interested.

If you’re signed up with Google Calendar you can add this calendar to your account by subscribing to it.

There’s also a Google hosted page of this calendar here.
And a RSS feed you can subscribe to here.

If you know of an event that I need to add, let me know.

** Update! 3/29/2008 **

Scratch all that!  I’m no longer attempting to keep my own tech events calendar. There’s an awesome tech event calendar at Door64.com. It even comes in Google Calendar flavor, so you can overlay it onto your personal calendar.

Personal Productivity for Geeks

Posted on by Dusty Reagan

Over my Christmas vacation I discovered some great topics for increasing my personal productivity. They go a little something like this:

  • GTD: From a book by David Allen. A basic flowchart and framework for personal task management.
    (This is the equivalent of the .Net framework for your life.)
  • Life Hacks: Any clever way to make your life more manageable and efficient.
    (This is equivalent to the ASP.Net tips you’re always looking for to make you a better developer.)
  • Moleskine: A well crafted journal made in Italy with an air of romance and a legend of many intellectual owners.
    (This is the fancy computer you justify purchasing because, hey, if you’re gonna’ be a programmer you need good tools.)
  • HipsterPDA: This is bunch of 3×5 index cards and a pen you keep in your pocket.
    (This is part of your IDE.)

Programming analogies aside, the aforementioned topics above have greatly enhanced my personal productivity. I know some of you may be skeptical, but not unlike hypnotism, if you’re skeptical, it probably won’t work for you. 😉 You should continue your quest for enhanced personal productivity. However, if you’re interested in digging deeper into the geek’s productivity toolbox; I present to you:

Dusty’s Life Hack #1
How to Really Get Into “Getting Things Done”

  1. Goto D*I*Y Planner and download and print a pdf of the GTD workflow.
  2. Purchase the abridged audio version of “Getting Things Done” by David Allen on iTunes
  3. Turn the speed of the audio book up to “Fastest” and actively listen with the printed workflow in hand.
  4. In a little over 2 hours you will cover all you need to know to get started “Getting Things Done.”