Friday, November 28, 2008

Putting Pieces together

Comparing the google IM tool versus the yahoo one, there is certainly a crisper delivery of the google one. Plus the responsiveness is better, whereas I see some lag-time in typing into the yahoo tool. The UI is also rather cheap looking. Google really understands crisp clean interfaces.

My team development and contacts seem to take a step forward, then another one back. I have a couple of reasonably firm collaborators, but my guy on patents has taken ill, and so I'll need to drum up someone else.

Going to try to move things along enough today that I will be able to a) get a collaborator to try my app remotely, b) get a better version of my biz overview presentation together c) polish my biz plan enough that I can start to share it and get input.

Finding time for some outdoor walking is getting tough with crappy weather - it's snowed continuously and things are slushy. Not great for my productivity when I can't walk outside.

Researchinator walks to window to see what the odds are for a walk today...

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Pieces of the Biz Plan

Market assessment work and proforma revenue reports, there's a world of assumptions wrapped up there. And though everyone puts up their slide showing $B with a few numbers around them for the market size, it's still gotta be there. Truthfully, though, with a few active brain cells, if you describe a product, one should be able to estimate for themselves whether the market is a few million, or billions. That's mostly the deduction that needs to be made. But I've seen some crazy perceptions from the start-up crowd, so, nothing can be taken for granted I guess.

My other big challenge is to start to weasel my way into my designated market area in the community. I need to scan the events calendar for sessions where these people get together, and find out what they're up to, then go and horn in on those activities. A few charity dinners perhaps, and a few hand shaking opportunities, and I can hopefully start to build some contacts. That could be tough, but I need to find out where the deep pockets are. I need contacts not only from a potential funder point of view, but also potential partnering opportunities.

On the patent side - still no call on my write up, but at least a ping from my guy saying he's out of the office ill, and will be in touch in a few days. Just as well I didn't see him in person. That's my first test point, and it will be interesting to see if there's anything salvageable (ie fileable) in my disclosure.

To be able to refer to patented technology will be a big help.

Talked to an foreign affairs guy today - he had suggested they were super helpful for startups - but as a test, I asked for some source of market sizing information in US and Europe, and he came back with suggesting a website and a google search. Duh - thanks for the professional assistance.

I've already got some good estimates, though they are a 3-5years out of date. That's not a big issue really, and it's enough to have put together a first draft biz plan. I couldn't help but feel a bit pumped and optimistic after completing that. It sure looks positive - no doubt I'm horribly misinformed. Sadly if the venture fails, I'm sure (as has happened so often before) I'll see the business emerge elsewhere 5 years from now, and swearing will ensue.

Anyway - off to an industry talk tonight and again an opportunity to chat and press the flesh.

Researchinator practises his hand shaking with the cat...

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Making User Tools a Delight, Not a Pain.

The fateful day that the snow arrived. It's white outside, and the forecast sounds pretty relentless at providing us with a constant replacement for anything that melts during the near zeroC temperatures. I'll have to find some time to go do some shovelling. And it's the heavy stuff too, at this temperature, and with drizzle mixed into the rain. The sound of the obsessive guy's snowblower is rumbling outside. This is the guy that mows his lawn and his neighbours lawn every day during the summer. In winter, the slightest dusting of snow means he's blowing as well. He's a one-man green-house gas king. Still, it's not helping with shortening the winter for us at all.

Yesterday on my project I started into a next phase. Planning the evolution of my tools to make them more functional, now that I've got a basic proof of concept in place. I'm employing a technique that works very well for application design in the past, so I'll share it.

Assuming you are an experienced user of applications of the type you are designing, you have expectations about how such a tool will work. Thus, to help the user discover that the tool responds as he would expect, a good approach is to think of the task you want to acheive - the end goal you are shooting for- and then imagine opening and using a finished tool to accomplish that. Write out each step, ignoring whether its possible or easy to program it or not, until you've described a full funciton.

That's the tough part - and many programmers are too close to their craft to pull it off successfully. You have to forget what you know ('everyone knows that file modes are set with control-alt-F9') and concentrate on making something that is as easy as possible for a non-programmer, intelligent, but novice user. Later, one can consider expert modes and such things, but concentrate first on the learning curve, and getting the task done effectively.

The next stage is to move those walk through steps into a table, and create another column for resources - these are UI resources. What things will be needed for what you
described. Mode menu entries, text entry areas, file open or file save capabilities, timer displays etc.

Make another pass through after that, to indicate how often each of those elements will be used. Is it a setting tweaked at the first use, and retained forever, rarely adjusted by the user again? Is it a button that will get clicked every few minutes. This will guide placement as to whether something can be in a pull-down menu or should be front and centre.

A good tip here is to think also about anything that is dangerous. Is there a delete-everything button mentioned? You'll want to remember to not place that beside the quick-save button. That's a rule violated by many UI's - yes I'm talking to you microsoft with your delete email button beside the send email button. "Yikes, what was I thinking I can't send that email to bob" *click* "Oh crap!"

Following that step, then create another column in which you can look over the previous column's elements and group things together into sensible places. IF you have 3 or 4 file configuration widgets needed, those might fit well into a "file config" menu, or a config menu under file, or into a configuration panel.

Lots of erasing and rejigging is useful there, and finally you have a rough idea. Then take a pencil and paper and sketch out a rough view, and imagine yourself following the steps laid out earlier. Some adjustments are likely.

Switch back to the programmer mode, and think about how you'd code it now. Are there some impossibilities? Sometimes a minor element might take 80% of the effort, so you have to rationalize the usefulness - but don't compromise on quality if you can help it. An elegant, intuitive user interface is a beautiful think. Nothing encourages a user more than guessing where a feature might live, and finding it there exactly as expected.

Some adjustments might be possible that both preserve intent and make programming easier, but be prepared to work a bit harder to preserve the user experience.

Anyway, that's what I'm into just now - and there's a whole lot of work ahead of me.

Researchinator returns to crafting a UI plan...

Friday, November 21, 2008

Job Creation Standing By

Friday leading into a cold weekend, but thankfully the snow remains at bay for now. I hope we can carry this on into December, and maybe even get a thaw in the interim.

I received my final paperwork from the oceanographic research behemoth, and so should swing by the employment office to register for the dole. The money isn't a really important factor currently, but given that I paid into it for a decades, it's good to get something out of it occasionally, at least until I can get something else off the ground.

You'd think that a government concerned with creating jobs would help small firms get started - I mean my intention is to create 15-20 full time, permanent jobs with this thing, and no doubt generate a lot of taxes. But nope - there's no path to help out on that front.

Meanwhile I've got a writeup on my intellectual property front in for scrutiny, and hopefully it will get some support to get filed. That could form the foundation of moving everything forward, or be some means to get a little revenue from my explorations in the past, or it could go nowhere and demoralize me so that I don't much pursue this thing any longer.

Researchinator says such are the challenges of the 9th week of freedom...

Thursday, November 20, 2008

The Finer Things Required

It's hardly morning, in fact it sure gets dark quick these days, and there's another month to go before we start to spin back the other way. These are the toughest days. Somehow, I think if we had a fireplace for a roaring wood fire, it would be less difficult - you gotta work the cozy thing I think to compensate. And lots of comfort food.

Hence I'm doing a long slow chicken bake today. 5 hours at 275F should about do it, with a jerk-style rubbed seasoning: Alspice, sage, soya sauce, salt,pepper and ginger. Then stuffing the cavity with star anise tarragon sage and garlic - lots of smashed garlic. Then half a can of beer in the roaster and let her rip for 5 hours or so. That should make for a decent supper and given the organic, local free-range chicken we are using up, it's pretty enviro friendly and healthy too.

Also nipped out and got a hair cut and picked up some new shoes. I've been thinking the wardrobe needs a bit of a refresh in preparation for more meetings on the project and selling the concept. I've been able to let the beard go a bit and wear the same old shirt and jeans for days at a time while coding like crazy, but I need to change gears and get ready to spend more time with the outside world.

As a bonus, the SO has her xmas party coming up shortly, so that will be good shoe-break-in time.

Now, if I could just find a decent dark brown, quality jacket. I'm very particular about suit jackets. I do not care for the conventional navy blue, black and grey options. Well, a decent charcoal might be okay. But so many men wear the same marginal stuff - and there is way to much polyester out there. Nope - give me all wool or silk, natural fibres, and a 3-button blazer... though a decent 4button would be nice too. But finding what you want can take forever. And when I saw a decent suit in Paris last year, I didn't buy it and have regretted it ever since.

Oh well, so thus the hunt goes on. The many varied challenges of the modern researcher - from how to properly slow-cook a chicken to finding a good quality suit jacket, we have so many mountains to climb.

Researchinator sips a whole leaf ceylon-darjeeling blend and ponders his wardrobe options...

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Meetings and Presentations - the Pitfalls

Skipped an entry yesterday, due to a morning meeting. It was a meeting billed as a breakfast meeting, but turned out they didn't have any breakfast. Nice. They also said it was from 9:30 to 12:00, then it turned out they were serving a lunch after the meeting at 12:00 - also great, as it looked like a decent lunch, but of course, I had planned to get back to work for noon, and have lunch at home. Left-overs in the fridge can't always wait.

I'm not sure why they insisted on misrepresenting the meeting so badly, but I wasn't impressed. The content itself was related to international trade stuff, and two of the four speakers were pretty lame. It's hard to believe there are senior people in significant roles who are unable to put up slides and talk. They actually stand there and read the full text of their presentation. Not only does it show a lack of confidence in the subject matter, but an inability to think on their feet.

So not a stellar event - a bit of networking opportunity there, and I'll follow up on that I think. And really, that's pretty much the only reason for going there.

I like the idea of breakfast meetings - I just wish that they would involve breakfast :)

Researchinator goes looking for a second cup of tea...

Monday, November 17, 2008

Carving out some intellectual property

Each week loads up pretty much like the one before. A bunch of days ahead, so me huge goals that seem to never get closer, like mountains on the horizon. But once you dig into your projects and think more in terms of short-term accomplishments, it's easier to notice the changing landscape around your feet than the distant hills.

I was doing patent document stuff last Friday, and making good use of my tablet and stylus. It's quite surprising how much quicker things are when you don't need to move your mouse about. I bought a wacom Bamboo which is very thin, and about the size of an letter sized sheet of paper (the active surface a bit smaller). It works well with my 20" monitor.

Hopefully I can finish the patent document today and get it off to the legal folks for a go-over. Hopefully this will be economical. I'm used to big-corporate patent development - and this would be patent #5 for me... but it will be my first which I actually own myself, so it would be nice if it has some marketability, and some licensing potential.

The challenge with patent writing is keeping it focussed on solving a problem, and describing a well-bounded space. Not vague business plan stuff, but a series of functional elements and algorithms that comprise what can be called an invention. That is a little more difficult for an architecture than it is for a widget. But I think of patents for things like voice-mail, caller ID and IPTV and think about the structure of those. My own patents range from circuits to broad information presentation architectures for retail spaces, or failure control in routed networks. I need to keep focussed on how those came together to ensure my current system patent fits into a structure that is both valuable and defensible.

Researchinator returns to stylus and keyboard patent crafting...

Friday, November 14, 2008

Calendar Fixation

Morning ritual well underway, and this mornings distraction was the inability of my calendar (iCal in 10.4) to put a default alarm on new events. Wouldn't you know it, this was enough of an annoyance that someone (mr Blum) wrote a utility that integrates very nicely to take care of that.

Interesting as well though, is reading the comments. It's a good microcosm of the development process. Feedback, the odd bug, changes, upgrades, migration path issues, copious feature requests, a new environment from Apple kind of obsoleting the software, but still lacking, so the search for a way to bridge the add-on into a new life.

It's a great case-study if someone out there is looking at the socio/cultural aspects of software development... which nobody does of course, but interesting none the less. In big companies this all happens, but with many more people, a much more complex ecosystem and big pallet loads of money involved.

Researchinator looks to clean up his calendar...

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Catch Phrase Research Ensues

Chatting with the neighbours this morning, doing garbage day chores, looking at the looming sky with freezing-rain on its way. It's the urban living experience in a Northern clime - but I'm glad the heading to work process doesn't involve getting in a Buick and driving down a freeway. Instead, just a brief walk upstairs, and no worries about the pending ice-coating headed our way. My SO is already into the office, so should be no issues with that drive (a long one) either.

I've got a thousand other things to do, but I'm still plugging away on the technology. I guess I'm motivated to see that working smoothly as a fire beneath the pot that is the business side.

Meanwhile the worldwide recession and economic crisis (wrec) is winding up. Hey, I should go and broadly scatter that acronym to see if it catches on. There is no handy catch phrase being used yet - maybe I can be the infamous creator of an historical phrase? I came up with that as I made my morning tea, listening to the radio and realizing they didn't have a suitable moniker yet. Hmmm, sounds like a project. I still feel burned by my "span of green cables." I came up with that just after the bridge to PEI was built, and threw it around liberally in the work place and with friends. Then when I heard it on the radio a few months later it floored me. Is it possible that it could travel so widely so fast? There was no question that I came up with it on my own. I remember the thought process thinking first about joking that Anne of Green Gables could now take the bridge and get the hell off the island, 'they should call the bridge Anne's bridge of green cables I thought - then I noted the rhyme between "Anne" and "span" and the phrase came together with a laugh of discovery. I suppose others could have come up with it on their own as well, but I like to take credit for it still :)

Now if we could only get the WREC acronym started. First I should google to ensure it doesn't exist already - trying a search with quotes...
Ha! Google comes back with: No results found for "worldwide recession and economic crisis". The acronym? Only places like "Withlacoochee River Electric Cooperative" and "World Renewable Energy Congress" are using it currently. Sounds ripe for the coining to me!

I can check that again later and see if it catches on.

Researchinator imagines global catch-phrase domination [evil laugh on].... [evil laugh off]

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

The Mediocrity to Which We Must Conform

I fear that the cold weather is on its way. There is definitely an extra chill to the air, and if some precipitation comes this way, we could be in for another bout of snow. Tomorrow is sounding like freezing rain - one of those days that it is great to be working in a home office.

Yesterday I had some good success. I was trying a new structure of content on the web-side of my project. Microsoft's terrible Internet Explorer product doesn't support the canvas entity, so I needed a different means to do the graphical things I need to do on the browser. I managed to do some javascript that creates, styles and moves graphics as per my desire. Took lots of googling and querying experts, but I think it is potentially usable now. Just need to try it out with a PC.

It's an ongoing weirdness that something so bad still has such a dominant place in the world. I guess the power of pre-installing the browser and the fact that people won't take 15seconds to find out how to install Firefox or Safari or Opera is overwhelming. So mediocrity rules. I call this the Tempo effect. A crappy car if ever there was one, but it was the best selling automobile in Canada for years, and that was used as an argument about how good it was. Meanwhile they swarmed the roads - rusty, unreliable hulks of chugging mediocrity. Such is IE, and with 80% of the users, we need to ensure they can use your product, or you are toast. Hence mediocrity is further spread into our world.

I had hopes of a get together last night for a certain software interest group meeting, but it seems to be a random occurrence. Events like that and others are good networking opportunities, and I really need to do more of those. As the technical challenges get put to bed, the organizational ones and business ones will take more precedence.

Researchinator plans the morning's tasks....

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Pat-a-Cake Pat-a-Cake

Squeezing in too many things this morning I think. Noticed the bread is getting low so started a couple of loaves worth of 8grain stuff, which is now rising. Up to the office to get started on some coding for the day, but planning to zip back down in about 15min to move the bread into pans and then get out for a brief walk while it proofs. I hope I can make all that happen.

Also it's remembrance day, so I expect to alter my morning walk to swing by the local memorial area with a nod to those who gave it all up for what we've got.

My project moved forward somewhat yesterday. I keep expecting to spend a big chunk of the day on patent polishing, but always have another pressing thing to do. The good thing, I suppose, is that the wheels are turning and there are additional ideas in mind.
But at least I've satisfied myself (I think I have), that I should be able to make the craptacular MS IE work with my concept. We'll see for sure sometime soon.

Okay, off to further flesh that out. Hope it all comes together and I can again shift my attention from the client side back to the application side of the project, with a bit of business thrown in there for good measure.

Researchinator smells the bread a yeasting, while tapping out some magic...

Monday, November 10, 2008

Motivated to Proceed

Watching some TV this weekend I saw a news bit where a university research group was exploring an area very close to my concept. The result is a bit of enthusiasm deflation, but I think it's passed. I had been unable to find anyone treading in my space much, but have been expecting a stumble across something soon. Sure enough, this is such a discovery.

But at closer look I see that they are focussed on single potential application of the concept which is not my primary market. I have the space charted already, and think I've got the more attractive niche. Plus I'm focussed on a full solution, rather than a component technology. Plus I can potentially acquire or license some of their stuff if it holds any promise later on. For now, they seem to be doing something very compute intensive. And if my past experience with univ researchers holds up, usually they take an approach that is overly complex when some easier path will suffice.

Anyway, a walk out in the cool sunny morning and an few hours of hacking done, I'm still moving forward, slaving in obscurity towards a goal. If nothing else, I'm keeping my skills up and will learn some stuff along the path to my next adventure. After all, it is the journey not the destination - to haul out an old cliché.

My focus right now is trying to find an alternative means of doing some web-based stuff given that Microsoft, whenever they get involved in an area, generally screws up everything. It's quite interesting how they are so good at wreaking havoc on all things they touch. Anyway, as all web-developer types know - there are ways to do things, then other things you have to do to make them work on IE. Such is my challenge now, since, though I have proved my concept works, I know have to find a means to make it work with an IE front end involved. No doubt lots of bailing wire and chewing gum.

Well, I'm on a cliché roll today, so I'll stop there for now.

Researchinator pulls out the Rube-Goldberg toolbox.

Friday, November 7, 2008

Snipping Wires

Foggy again today. Yesterday was a tough slog - I'm glad I got out for a walk in the morning. I'll do so again shortly. Made some good process on my software, but also had to change my approach in one application for the second time. I preserved most of the code, but re-arranged it in a big way.

It's kind of like opening a hole in the ground where there are hundreds of wires going through. You want to connect them differently, but once you get started, it's pretty tough to do a one at a time cut and splice. Each time you cut a wire four others are getting disconnected as well. Pretty soon you have dozens of cut wires and you need to keep in your mind that the blue one's going to connect with the green one, the striped one will get ripped out, you'll run a new yellow one. Oh, and each wire needs to have a connector wired into it to connect it into its new partner.

So with all this stuff in your mind trying to not to forget it, soon the end of the day is creeping nearer, and you really don't want to try and leave it half completed overnight. The odds of remembering anything the next day seem slim.

I got most of the connections made, and today I just have to test all the connections and see if the desired result is the outcome. So far, just tidying it up, and its not working yet, but I talked it through out loud as I was feeding the noisy cats at about 5:30 yesterday aft, and I think it makes sense. We'll see in the next couple of hours.

This is the hairy edge of research, where a vision of a capability is tried with a few different approaches, and you always seem just on the verge of the breakthrough that makes it all work. Fingers crossed.

Researchinator seeks to preload brain before going for a walk&think...

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Type and Trail

Well, some additional success yesterday, making some substantial changes and they were working out okay. I'm not sure whether to be positive and expect that to continue today, or pessimistic and expect a major issue to arise. My expect the worst, hope for the best typical demeanour suggests the latter tack.

Stepping on the scales this morning, I noted that I've hit a new high weight! That coupled with more aches and pains from simple weekend chores means I've got to put some effort into staying active. I've been lamenting my serious drop off in daily steps since moving to an office a few metres from bed. My stepcounter,which my SO and I have worn for the past few years, has been down in the 2500-3500 range for a few weeks, with a few forays into the 10k range when I can do something in spite of weekend weather.

Trying to find a good timing for getting walks is hard. Walking for lunch in the neighbourhood worked a bit, but even then, only gets me into the 5k range that a sedentary work-day used to give me. I'd like to keep my days over 8k, with a couple of 10k days where possible. I'm already eating well, so a diet change isn't a big priority. I suppose a smaller volume would be good, as the energy output below the neck has been pretty low.

Maybe one of those exercise ball seats would be a good start - though I don't know if my bad back would appreciate it.

Well, out for a walk then - my theory is that rather than start my day with a walk, I'd do a little work first. This avoids an issue I found before. You'd get out and start thinking about what stuff you'd need to do today, then cut the walk short 'cause you were eager to get to the strategy developed in the first 10min of walking. Plus, if you do a bit of work, your thinking should be more focussed on the details of what you are going to do, problems you may immediately be facing and such. That should make for a more productive return to the desk.

So I'm going to shoot for 20min of walking, following the first 30min of work.

Researchinator laces up his trainers...

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Yes They Did

Well radio this morning was a bit repetitive. Last night I began to doze off just before the big acceptance speech, but I did hear the gracious concession speech, with that chilling threat about not having seen the last of the Palin chick and her biker dude husband looking husband.

The Obama speech, having heard it this morning must not have lent itself well to sound bytes, as the ones I heard are fairly lackadaisical. Predictably filled with 'yes they can's', but never the less, it's still inspiring and positive. Now comes the tough part, but hopefully they will make good use of these next few months to figure out how to pull this off. Their country is pretty well screwed financially, morally etc, and 50% of the people still have that huge deficit of being able to look at a couple of weeks worth of Sarah Palin and still think to themselves - "yup that would be a good thing for our country - that's the most capable person to fill that role." That's a huge issue for them. When you've got half of your people with that kind of a judgement impairment, you have to wonder how well they will do with other decisions.

But it's quite inspiring to see them having made a positive choice, and ready to try and move in a positive direction. Not sure what it will mean for their neighbours to the north, or for the global financial markets, but I guess I'll find out about the latter at least in the next couple of minutes.

Meanwhile, I've got work to do for my own project. Yes I can!

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

A Very Ordinary Day

I reached my first major milestone yesterday, able to do an end-to-end system walk through on my concept. There's much that remains to be done, but having that path through is an accomplishment. Today I hope to make it cleaner, and enhance the experience somewhat, and plan the path forward.

But there's something much bigger going on today. Something that has a lot of attention and will change things from how they've been to how they will be. Yes, that's right, I'm speaking of the change I need. The change from my summer tires to my winter ones.

Oh yeah, there's also that crazy spectacle to the south. It's a battle where on one side, people think that it's best to have 'someone like me' running their country, though they would readily admit that they have no skills or knowledge to run their country. 'I'm a plumber, a soldier, or a housewife or a hockey mom, and I'm so happy to see someone like me running for office.'

On the other side people are excited to a frenzy because they have someone who can form a complete sentence, and whose skin is a different colour. 'Yay,' they exclaim 'I think we can actually do this. It's 2008, so we can almost, just maybe, allow another human with a different skin pigmentation to be considered for a leadership role.' Pretty crazy stuff, but very entertaining when you don't have to live there and have day-to-day decisions made by these folk.

Oh yeah, then there's the other element of the challenge today. Big teams of legal experts will work to try to stop people from the other camp from disenfranchising many voters in areas based on their perceived preferences. Also, big teams of party workers have been working on schemes to jam phone lines of the democratic party, to send notices telling voters that if it rains, they vote next week, to tell them they can get a discount and vote or register for only $49. Others have been working at purging names from voters lists in a hope that they can reduce the numbers in certain areas. 'If we can just stop or destroy or disallow enough voters in certain areas, we can win this thing, and our freedom and liberty will be safe!'

All this from the self-professed bastion of democracy. Then those who do get through to vote, face a sheet the size of a billboard, and crazy, wonky apparatus that is different in every county. The ballot has confusing voting schemes like completing a line with a break in it, or punching a hole with a sharp pin. Of course, the idea of putting an 'X' in a box is unworkable. How people with little or no education, the most marginalized in their country can figure out the process is beyond me.

Security precautions are in place, to avoid violence at polling sites - much like Zimbabwe, or Haiti for example. The leading candidate will be protected by bullet proof glass when he speaks. The other one will do it over a CCTV link rather than face humans.

Where is the UN in all of this? If ever there was a country that needed UN observers during an election, this is surely one.

Oh yeah - freedom. That's the other claim to fame. Freedom of religious perspective, of thought, of assembly, of speech. Yet they can speak with derision to dismiss half your nation as 'liberal' - what a dirty word that is; what unacceptable thoughts they have! People who espouse ideas based on political principals considered 'liberal' seem as though they truly could be rounded up for special 'camps' if some of their leaders and pundits who speak with such hatred had their way. How is that one word label to categorize and reject a group of people any different than a racial word?

Oh and those that consider using tax money to guarantee health care to everyone, social programs for the poor, and structure that stops banks from failing - those ones are socialists. We can similarly indicate our hatred for those thoughts with a single word.

And someone who doesn't put a flag on their house, or lapel, well, we'll force them to put one on. 'If they don't want to embrace our freedoms, we'll make them. That's how free we are here.'

I hope their election goes well, and hope that more than the usual 30% show up to get all free and democratic on us. It will certainly be great TV entertainment with drama, craziness and shenanigans. Once it's all wrapped up they can get back to spreading freedom and democracy to the third world. Maybe they'll be ready to adopt a bit of it themselves...

My one day of political ranting. I sure hope that stuff doesn't get across the border and erode our society like it has theirs.

Researchinator returns to apolitical software development...

Monday, November 3, 2008

Thinking Connections and Progress

A freezing rain warning morning - it's a start to your day like this that makes work from home a positive thing. Meanwhile, I adjust my position in my seat due to a sore back, exacerbated by the lack of exercise I get with not having to walk around much to get to work. After today's rain, some good weather, so I can really step up my getting out for a walk I think.

I've lost track of a few contacts recently, so I made the effort over the weekend to pull out an old Outlook Mail pst file and try to get it incorporated into my Mac environment. The procedure that seems to hold promise, according to some googling, is to use Thunderbird on a PC to import the outlook messages, then get them onto the mac in that format. I've done half of that, but we'll see if I can push it the rest of the way through to see the results. That will revive some connections.

A big goal in these last two months is to dig deep into my previous contacts and try and get some semblance of a team together. I'm nearing the point where I can sit down with someone and walk them thru the vision that lies behind my venture. Meanwhile I see local tech media talking about the total lack of venture funding in the area.

That's not totally a bad thing - in that I was hoping to avoid the VC for this project. I think my current concept lends itself much better to angels, or novice angels in a field that produces wealthy people who may be low on other skills (ie sports) and also lends itself well to strategic funding, ie investments from firms who have a vested interest in my target market.

VC's are a strange lot. Following the bubble of the 2000 era, they have a bizzare approach of investing only in 'ventures' that have customers and revenue already. My perception is that if a company is in that situation, and needs VC funding, they probably lack the ability to make a go of it anyway. If they have a compelling business proposition, I'd think a frugal, innovative team could make a go of it as soon as they some people to put in a bit of effort. So there they are, looking for risk-free companies who don't need money to show up and ask for money. Meanwhile, nascent companies that need initial bootstrapping have no avenue to get off the ground.

Oh well, I'm still optimistic that 'our' concept will fly without those risk-averse, idea-less 'captains of industry'.

Researchinator contemplates who knows who...