I attended the Facebook developer platform meetup in Boston tonight. I met a bunch of interesting people and startups in the process.
Niels Boegholm - Wupima - Bringing Chinese content to American mobile phones.
Natasha Chatilo - Going.com - Online event planning.
Steven Bao - Organizer of the facebook event and amazing developer
Zachary Allia - iheartgifts.com - Creator of “Free Gifts“, one of the most popular facebook applications.
Alix Holder - Profile Linker - Aggregate all of your social networking accounts.
Check out their projects, they are really bright people.
Luna Bars are protein bars targeted at women. On the bar it reads “The Whole Nutrition Bar for Women”. They also have great flavors. Chocolate Pecan Pie, Dulce de Leche, Lemon Zest, Chai Tea, Chocolate Peppermint stick. (more…)
Vishen at mindvalleylabs gave me some fantastic tips on how to get you, the reader to stay on my blog a little longer and come back for more! The advice is great. Look for some modifications to my site design in the next couple weeks. Check it out!
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Nicklas Zennstrom creates technology revolutions. Kazaa, Skype, and Joost all have his name on them. The below video gives unique insight into his thinking:
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Ben and I are looking for a roommate or two for Sept 1, 2007 in the Boston area. Check out our Craigslist ad. Are you interested?
Powerset is the next Google. They are set to revolutionize the way you search. Think: Ask Jeeves that actually works. The product is not yet out, so testing it is right now is out of the question. If they are the next google, then they must be smart, right? So, what software tools are they using to build it? I found a list on a Powerset job posting for a project manager:
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Damn that Ben Casnocha for being so insightful AGAIN. His blog helped me understand something about my blog. I don’t like my writing style! I got it through Ben Casnocha, but the original advice came from Scott Adams (the Dilbert guy). (more…)
Many people are misguided about how to behave when meeting new people or reuniting with old friends. Many people fear looking like a failure in front of their peers, and because of this will puff out their chest and tell tales of how wonderful, exciting, extravagant and successful their life is. This is a sure-fire way to alienate yourself from all of the people with whom you are trying to reconnect.
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I hope so! Since I moved to Houston, I’ve been using Continental Airlines primarily. As a carrier they service a lot of cities, offer competetive fares, have good customer service and don’t do a lot of the crap other airlines do. Now Virgin America has approval to launch and will be flying San Fran to New York first. Boston is a city they are considering too. Please pick us!
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I like to help other people succeed. I find it exciting to connect different people together, brainstorm on your problems, and discuss strategy. If you’re unsure what you want to do with your life, how to get more traffic to your website, how to get over an ex or any other problem over which you’re scratching your head, give me a call:
(All numbers go to me, so don’t worry where I am in the world)
US: +1-617-379-0726
UK: +44-2071-934-419
Skype: sud0n1m
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I attended the Open Coffee Club meeting in London today and met some very interesting and inspiring people. If you’re thinking about starting up a business and you’re in the London area, it’s well worth a trip. I wish I could go next week, but I’ll be back in Boston. Expect to see me at the meet in Boston!
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While traveling, I experienced something interesting. I won’t try to stretch this example out too far to talk about the German and French airbus airplane that brought me there or the Italian coffee I was drinking.
While in Doha airport, Qatar, I purchased a coffee from Costa Coffee (english) from two Filipino girls whom I noticed speaking Tagalog, the Filipino national language.
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I met a good friend of mine for dinner tonight and we got to talking about life goals and ambitions. It turns out that he is a fantastic cook and lots of people who have tried his food tell him he should open his own restaurant. We talked a little bit about the specifics. My friend wants to combine all of his interests and has a vision for a really fantastic restaurant. He was discouraged to do it because of the high failure rate of restaurants. (more…)
My friend Melissa’s husband Lee Briggs has a site out there - eLifelist.com . I’ll be adding my life goals to my elifelist soon.
Family and friends will always have opinions on what you should be doing differently. The struggle, is knowing when they have good advice and when they are spouting crap.
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When travelling to Bali 2 weeks ago, I was stopped by the immigration official because I had no space left in my passport. The Indonesian visa on arrival takes an entire page in the passport and cannot be placed on an “endorsement”. After the immigration official looked through my passport a couple of times, I was whisked off into a room to see the supervisor.
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The guy is 19 and just finished writing a book called 
“My Start-up Life“. He started his first venture when he was 14. I think it is great that it’s possible in the US for young people like Casnocha to become a CEO of a business at such a young age. Casnocha started a company called Comcate to provide “a better way for city governments to communicate with constituents on the Web”.
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I recently did an analysis on Bali broadband prices. Im now looking at UK pay as you go rates. Im here for 2 weeks, and want a provider that does the following things
- Sim only (I have my blackberry from the US)
- Cheap rates to the US
- Cheap calls to UK mobiles
- Inexpensive data is a plus, but not essential
UK mobile phone providers make it really difficult to understand their tariffs and price out how much it will cost you per month for your usage. Some providers give you incentives if you top up with at least 10 pounds a month. I’ve ignored the incentives from all providers. I want to find out who gives me the best rates for my usage, minus the confusing bulls**t.
The Rates
Summary
As you can see, for my usage, I’ve assessed Mobile World as the best deal. Fresh Mobile is basically the same thing, minus the international calling. These are both in-house brands from The Carphone Warehouse. Im off to get my sim card!
Broadband in Bali
Bali Internet service providers (ISPs).Here’s an industry with reasonable competition but very high prices. The main problem is the lack of a fat pipe between Bali and the rest of the world. There’s no undersea fiber direct to Europe and the US. From what I understand, a lot of the internet providers go by satellite to Singapore or Hong Kong and then from there to the rest of the world. My current traceroute shows a similar path. A server in the middle of the US would go California - Hong Kong at a fast speed and then off to Jakarta, Indonesia via Satellite sloooooowwly and then from there probably by cable to Bali.
The Baseline
So, you have a lot of users competing for a relatively limited transpacific connection which makes broadband internet pretty expensive. As a comparison, my 8 Mb / second comcast connection in Boston costs about $50 a month for unlimited internet. I could theoretically download 3.5 gigabytes an hour / 84 gigs a day / 2.5 Tb a month.
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It’s always great to talk to other people about what they’re doing. In addition to contacting people on the internet, sometimes it’s great to get out from behind your desk and see someone face to face! Why not join an Open Coffee Club meeting
Im going to check out the one on June 7th 10 am - 12pm in London at Waterstones, 203 - 206 Piccadilly, W1.
See you there!
