Blogger is not my friend today. Can't seem to go to my Dashboard and get into other blogs. I've been trying to use a blog as my work log, keeping notes that I would otherwise write in a lab-book. However, today, I am getting error screens from Blogger, and I can't even see my stuff. That's not a good thing.
Now I'm wondering if I should be keeping a local copy. Or maybe not using blogger at all? I mean what assurance to I have that all my records will not disappear? Does blogger do punitive stuff if you keep your blog private? I wouldn't think so, but who knows.
I'm sure it will sort itself out - er, I hope so anyway. I don't want to have to get into an argument thing with Google to get my own research notes out of their system.
Meanwhile I'm working on application build process, and associated file management. Not the most fun or glamorous stuff, but a necessary evil. Tomorrow I have some meetings about getting some student collaboration on facets of my project. Not sure it will lead anywhere but seems a good opportunity. We'll see.
Researchinator is grumbling about tools that let you down sometimes...
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
Days of Change
These are the in between days, I can feel it. Things are a-changin'. Compare now to 6months from now, and a bunch of things will be different. I'm going to give up my office at the end of the month, and switch to the home office.
Mostly it saves money, and as well, achieves a change of venue, which is always good to energize me a bit. Barring sudden access to funding, I will need to shift my work into background mode so that I can keep it going if I find some contract work or a salary somewhere.
But the good thing is that after achieving first prototypes and patent filing, I can progress at a lower burn rate, and move the concept into a demonstration that will get some attention down the road.
It's been a good year of intellectual exploration and realization. Hope it gets some traction beyond that though.
Researchinator is looking at the calendar creeping towards autumn.
Mostly it saves money, and as well, achieves a change of venue, which is always good to energize me a bit. Barring sudden access to funding, I will need to shift my work into background mode so that I can keep it going if I find some contract work or a salary somewhere.
But the good thing is that after achieving first prototypes and patent filing, I can progress at a lower burn rate, and move the concept into a demonstration that will get some attention down the road.
It's been a good year of intellectual exploration and realization. Hope it gets some traction beyond that though.
Researchinator is looking at the calendar creeping towards autumn.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Something Works
Wow, a strange morning on the internet, as it seems everything I try to do involves a failed website. Twitter is down. Who'd have thought we'd become so dependent in such a short time. Like probably a million other people I googled "twitter competitors" to see what else there is.
Plurk is another option, I think I even registered a few months back, but it seemed to be a sad convoluted attempt at the same game, without much success. My login attempt was even less successful. Entering my credentials as they should look if I had in fact registered, didn't bring me a failure to log on, but rather to a 404 page for the Plurk site. Have they been hit with the same alien death ray?
I google within Google news to find that Facebook is also having some problems. I spend very little time on Facebook, as it seems a bit irrelevant to me now that I've been on Twitter for almost 2years.
Well, at least Blogger is working just now. I'm cumulatively posting this entry paragraph by paragraph in case it is next to crash.
Finding out when Twitter is really down is a bit of a challenge. There is the Twitter Blog, but that seems to be strangely idle, with the last entry over a week old. There is also the Twitter status page. That one, at least is up to date, and not taken out when the service packs it in.
Meanwhile I have real work to do I guess. First phase of my sideline consulting gig is in the bag, and so I have a bit of breathing room for two weeks or so. I've also lined up a meeting with university folk to discuss some project research to move things along.
The big thing on my plate though, is to ensure my house is in order, and do some intensive shopping around, cold calling of VC's and angel groups. This is a push to see if there's anything out there... though my sense is that there isn't.
The other thing is a chain of stuff that has to happen. I have to sell or otherwise dispose of some junk from my garage so that I can get my office contents moved into there. I'm going to give up the office and conserve that money, as I shift to a three way press: look for salary paying work, scan for funding opportunities, and incrementally continue the advancement of the venture's core software.
As that evolves, and my patent bakes towards granting, I will at some point perhaps entertain shopping the patent around for licensing or sale as well.
Such is my plan moving forward. Not the optimal path that I had hoped for, but certainly not expected given the current economy.
Researchinator thinks it's about time to check Twitter again, and if still dead, turn back to some Javascript work...
Plurk is another option, I think I even registered a few months back, but it seemed to be a sad convoluted attempt at the same game, without much success. My login attempt was even less successful. Entering my credentials as they should look if I had in fact registered, didn't bring me a failure to log on, but rather to a 404 page for the Plurk site. Have they been hit with the same alien death ray?
I google within Google news to find that Facebook is also having some problems. I spend very little time on Facebook, as it seems a bit irrelevant to me now that I've been on Twitter for almost 2years.
Well, at least Blogger is working just now. I'm cumulatively posting this entry paragraph by paragraph in case it is next to crash.
Finding out when Twitter is really down is a bit of a challenge. There is the Twitter Blog, but that seems to be strangely idle, with the last entry over a week old. There is also the Twitter status page. That one, at least is up to date, and not taken out when the service packs it in.
Meanwhile I have real work to do I guess. First phase of my sideline consulting gig is in the bag, and so I have a bit of breathing room for two weeks or so. I've also lined up a meeting with university folk to discuss some project research to move things along.
The big thing on my plate though, is to ensure my house is in order, and do some intensive shopping around, cold calling of VC's and angel groups. This is a push to see if there's anything out there... though my sense is that there isn't.
The other thing is a chain of stuff that has to happen. I have to sell or otherwise dispose of some junk from my garage so that I can get my office contents moved into there. I'm going to give up the office and conserve that money, as I shift to a three way press: look for salary paying work, scan for funding opportunities, and incrementally continue the advancement of the venture's core software.
As that evolves, and my patent bakes towards granting, I will at some point perhaps entertain shopping the patent around for licensing or sale as well.
Such is my plan moving forward. Not the optimal path that I had hoped for, but certainly not expected given the current economy.
Researchinator thinks it's about time to check Twitter again, and if still dead, turn back to some Javascript work...
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Where are my TIny Shoes?
Dealing with workers block is always a challenge, but the baby steps strategy seems to have worked. The last week has been tough to focus, but my goal of even doing a few of the smallest things usually mushrooms into actually getting some accomplishments under my belt.
I have a few days of technical document reviews on contract to an occasional client, which is nice to get a bit of cash into my pocket, though the billing cycle is quite slow. The opportunity to be productive on another topic is nice.
Then yesterday, I also managed to spend a couple of hours on some javascript/AJAX stuff that was buggy and solved it, so that felt progressive.
Today I've been cleaning up environment stuff, doing some system upgrades, security upgrades and trashing some desktop litter. But now I've managed to open Eclipse and PyDev and am soldiering forward on development stuff again. This afternoon I expect to put in a few more hours on the document review work.
These are the tough days of entrepreneurial life, finding a means to push forward when the opportunity turn it into a going-concern are still pretty nebulous. So I'll keep on trying with the small steps to get to my near term goals, and not let the big hill I'm on wear me down too much.
Researchinator plugs forward...
I have a few days of technical document reviews on contract to an occasional client, which is nice to get a bit of cash into my pocket, though the billing cycle is quite slow. The opportunity to be productive on another topic is nice.
Then yesterday, I also managed to spend a couple of hours on some javascript/AJAX stuff that was buggy and solved it, so that felt progressive.
Today I've been cleaning up environment stuff, doing some system upgrades, security upgrades and trashing some desktop litter. But now I've managed to open Eclipse and PyDev and am soldiering forward on development stuff again. This afternoon I expect to put in a few more hours on the document review work.
These are the tough days of entrepreneurial life, finding a means to push forward when the opportunity turn it into a going-concern are still pretty nebulous. So I'll keep on trying with the small steps to get to my near term goals, and not let the big hill I'm on wear me down too much.
Researchinator plugs forward...
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Kick in Pants
Just saw an article about the competition. Big corporate effort at solving some of the same issues as my venture is dealing with, but luckily they are going about it in what I think is an inferior manner.
The good thing is that there is some good data in the article about how much money is changing hands in that space. Plus it should serve to illustrate the poorer alternative to my scheme.
This creates both eagerness to deliver my offering to the marketplace, but also frustration that the odds of getting funding are so low in this economy. Grrr.
The other big frustration is that I've so often had good ideas, which were captured and even sometimes prototyped by my staff in other companies or fleshed out on paper, only to see them arrive 5,6,7 years later. I really don't want that to happen again with my current venture, but you KNOW it is going to if I can't get it off the ground.
Ah, the challenges of technology on a budget.
Researchinator faces the cold clammy truth of the real world...
The good thing is that there is some good data in the article about how much money is changing hands in that space. Plus it should serve to illustrate the poorer alternative to my scheme.
This creates both eagerness to deliver my offering to the marketplace, but also frustration that the odds of getting funding are so low in this economy. Grrr.
The other big frustration is that I've so often had good ideas, which were captured and even sometimes prototyped by my staff in other companies or fleshed out on paper, only to see them arrive 5,6,7 years later. I really don't want that to happen again with my current venture, but you KNOW it is going to if I can't get it off the ground.
Ah, the challenges of technology on a budget.
Researchinator faces the cold clammy truth of the real world...
Monday, July 20, 2009
Perseverance and a Cuppa
I've been expecting this period for the year it took to arrive. I'm feeling low on motivation, and staring at the funding gulf trying to make the leap from concept to active venture.
Concept proven, patent filed, but a whole pile of work to do, and it's mid-summer, the bank account is getting lower and I have to think about probabilities.
I've recently got a line on a short term consulting contract - interestingly enough for a funding agency for whom I'll review some business plans. Of course, they are not in the area in which I'm searching for funding, so it's not to perverse, but still a bit ironic.
My concept has a pretty good shelf life, I think, and there are many things I can do while trying to get it to catch hold, little nudges forward I mean, so perhaps there will be something that comes out of it in the future.
For now, I'll dedicate myself to the next 6 weeks, but after that I may be forced to step back from the venture. Perseverance pays off sometimes, but for every story I know of someone who persevered to make their business succeed, I know 10 who threw their money and years away on something that never caught.
Regardless of the potential given the money to make it go, without the money the chasm still sits there, no matter how much you walk back and forth on the far side. Or in the more common parlance of the start-up world, no matter how much I taxi around my patch of asphalt, without the runway, there's no flying today.
Researchinator opts for a cup of tea...
Concept proven, patent filed, but a whole pile of work to do, and it's mid-summer, the bank account is getting lower and I have to think about probabilities.
I've recently got a line on a short term consulting contract - interestingly enough for a funding agency for whom I'll review some business plans. Of course, they are not in the area in which I'm searching for funding, so it's not to perverse, but still a bit ironic.
My concept has a pretty good shelf life, I think, and there are many things I can do while trying to get it to catch hold, little nudges forward I mean, so perhaps there will be something that comes out of it in the future.
For now, I'll dedicate myself to the next 6 weeks, but after that I may be forced to step back from the venture. Perseverance pays off sometimes, but for every story I know of someone who persevered to make their business succeed, I know 10 who threw their money and years away on something that never caught.
Regardless of the potential given the money to make it go, without the money the chasm still sits there, no matter how much you walk back and forth on the far side. Or in the more common parlance of the start-up world, no matter how much I taxi around my patch of asphalt, without the runway, there's no flying today.
Researchinator opts for a cup of tea...
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Designing for Humans, the Technical Innards
So, part of the venture is this app I've been mentioning. Python apps under their AUI frame appoach (a set of tools that lets you make applications more easily by giving you all the common pieces - windows, menus, and mix-match capability within the window of other subwindows) are versatile, but complex.
The graphical elements are provided under a superset of tools called the wxPython suite. There, you create panels of stuff, and on those panels you use sizers which deal with all the flexible positioning hassels that other programming languages make you do by hand.
THe behaviour is not always obvious. And hierarchies of sizers within sizers, panels within panels all give you size setting opportunities, and all try to impose their own as well. So you can easily get behaviour you don't expect and can't easily deal with. So many hours of my programming life hve been dedicated to trying to meke these things behave how you think they should. Mostly I've made it through, but the effort...
THis morning, with my year of experience behind me I'm looking at juggling around buttons and panels on the infamous app. There's that dread you sit with before committing to it. When you start to rip stuff up, you want to be sure you'll be able to recover from when things go awry. And you know they will.
But the result should be a better organized app, so I have to do so. That will be be journey today and likely tomorrow as well.
Researchinator delves into the challenges of the geometric positioning and human factors sensitivity...
The graphical elements are provided under a superset of tools called the wxPython suite. There, you create panels of stuff, and on those panels you use sizers which deal with all the flexible positioning hassels that other programming languages make you do by hand.
THe behaviour is not always obvious. And hierarchies of sizers within sizers, panels within panels all give you size setting opportunities, and all try to impose their own as well. So you can easily get behaviour you don't expect and can't easily deal with. So many hours of my programming life hve been dedicated to trying to meke these things behave how you think they should. Mostly I've made it through, but the effort...
THis morning, with my year of experience behind me I'm looking at juggling around buttons and panels on the infamous app. There's that dread you sit with before committing to it. When you start to rip stuff up, you want to be sure you'll be able to recover from when things go awry. And you know they will.
But the result should be a better organized app, so I have to do so. That will be be journey today and likely tomorrow as well.
Researchinator delves into the challenges of the geometric positioning and human factors sensitivity...
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