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Ignite, Gratitude and Erotic Squirrels

4 Dec

My last post, which was basically about having gratitude for the amazing technology we are surrounded with and not taking it for granted, came back to bite me a few hours later. I found myself in a cafe with my friend Steve, both of us moaning and complaining that we couldn’t get onto the free wireless there. I’d become a hypocrite in such a short space of time!


But that’s beside the point. I’m currently sitting in the office, watching the rapidly fading winter light outside, absolutely shattered after hosting the latest Nocci event. It was a “co-production” with Cardiff Web Scene, and was an Ignite event. As explained in one of my recent posts, Ignite is a rapid presentation evening. We had six speakers, all of whom had just five minutes in which to get their idea/passion/thoughts across to the audience.

We had a great turnout of over 90 people, all of whom seemed to enjoy the free beer (thankyou Skillset!), had a great laugh at the presentations, learned some genuinely fascinating stuff, threw paper airplanes (see video below) and networked and chatted late into the night. Check the Nocci site over the next 24 hours for all the pics.


Thanks to everyone who came. We hope you had as much fun as we did (but without the stress about getting a microphone to work!). If anyone has any thoughts/feedback/ideas then please let us know, as we’re already starting to think about the next one. And if you’d like another presentation on “erotic squirrels” then you really should drop that particular presenter a line…. ;)

Before I finish I must particularly mention my co-conspirator, Claire Scantlebury, for being a joy to work with. And Wayne Full from Skillset for all his help. He’s a star.

Oh, and if you’re having a tough week then maybe you fancy slapping someone around the face with a fish…? Or you might prefer to go water zorbing with some glamour models. Anyone fancy buying this one for me?

Another fine Mesh!

30 May

I think I’m in love with Microsoft’s Live Mesh. It’s made things a lot more easy for me.

For those of you that have not heard about it, it’s a program that sits on your laptop/PC/phone/whatever and automatically syncs your files and folders across all those devices. Or, to quote the Wikipedia page on the subject: “Live Mesh is a data synchronization system from Microsoft that allows files and folders to be shared and synchronized across multiple devices. Live Mesh consists of a software component that allows synchronization relationships to be created among different devices. Once a folder is set for synchronization, it will be available in all devices, and any changes made to the content of the folder will be reflected across all devices.”

So, this morning I was working in my office. I made some changes to a document in Open Office (not Word, sorry Microsoft!) and when I saved them Live Mesh sent the changes over the internet to my account in the “cloud”, which were then very quickly downloaded (in the background) when I logged on via my laptop in my local cafe. Meaning I didn’t have to do any file transferring before I went out to work remotely. It was done quietly, quickly and silently in the background.

A few important things to note about Live Mesh*:

- All the files are stored locally, on the machine you’re working on, as well as online so you only ever download any updates to files. The files open instantly and normally. You don’t have to wait for them to download.

- This is basically like having a local network where you can access a folder from any computer on that network. But it’s done over the internet.

- You can invite other people with Live Mesh to have access to particular folders. So collaborative, remote working is a breeze.

- It’s done really, really well. Once I’d uploaded all the files I needed to be available from anywhere (and then downloaded them to the other machines too), I was pretty much ready to go. It’s been a dream for me because I work from a couple of different machines and often find myself in a cafe, realising that the document I need is sat on my machine at home.

Many thanks to Microsoft’s Steve Clayton for highlighting it. For more info on Live Mesh you should check out all his posts on it. There’s loads of writing and videos about it on there. And it’s a cracking blog, full-stop. Ideal for people like me who like to think they’re techie, but they’re not really! Sign up at the Mesh homepage for a chance to preview it. Or nudge me for an invite. I haven’t found them yet, but apparently I have them…

*It needs to be noted that I’m making assumptions about much of this stuff. I really have no idea how it works technically!

Another fine Mesh!

30 May

I think I’m in love with Microsoft’s Live Mesh. It’s made things a lot more easy for me.

For those of you that have not heard about it, it’s a program that sits on your laptop/PC/phone/whatever and automatically syncs your files and folders across all those devices. Or, to quote the Wikipedia page on the subject: “Live Mesh is a data synchronization system from Microsoft that allows files and folders to be shared and synchronized across multiple devices. Live Mesh consists of a software component that allows synchronization relationships to be created among different devices. Once a folder is set for synchronization, it will be available in all devices, and any changes made to the content of the folder will be reflected across all devices.”

So, this morning I was working in my office. I made some changes to a document in Open Office (not Word, sorry Microsoft!) and when I saved them Live Mesh sent the changes over the internet to my account in the “cloud”, which were then very quickly downloaded (in the background) when I logged on via my laptop in my local cafe. Meaning I didn’t have to do any file transferring before I went out to work remotely. It was done quietly, quickly and silently in the background.

A few important things to note about Live Mesh*:

- All the files are stored locally, on the machine you’re working on, as well as online so you only ever download any updates to files. The files open instantly and normally. You don’t have to wait for them to download.

- This is basically like having a local network where you can access a folder from any computer on that network. But it’s done over the internet.

- You can invite other people with Live Mesh to have access to particular folders. So collaborative, remote working is a breeze.

- It’s done really, really well. Once I’d uploaded all the files I needed to be available from anywhere (and then downloaded them to the other machines too), I was pretty much ready to go. It’s been a dream for me because I work from a couple of different machines and often find myself in a cafe, realising that the document I need is sat on my machine at home.

Many thanks to Microsoft’s Steve Clayton for highlighting it. For more info on Live Mesh you should check out all his posts on it. There’s loads of writing and videos about it on there. And it’s a cracking blog, full-stop. Ideal for people like me who like to think they’re techie, but they’re not really! Sign up at the Mesh homepage for a chance to preview it. Or nudge me for an invite. I haven’t found them yet, but apparently I have them…

*It needs to be noted that I’m making assumptions about much of this stuff. I really have no idea how it works technically!

Developer trouble….

28 Mar

I was chatting to a friend from America recently about the problems I’ve had over the last couple of years with web developers. I’ve worked with a couple who’ve both let me down really badly and put me back to square one with my web-based startup. Admittedly much of this was my own fault for not being tough enough with them when it seemed like they weren’t committed to the project. And also my lack of capital meant that I had to engage the developers with equity stakes instead of cold, hard cash. The problem with this, as I wrote about in this post, is that developers don’t often see the potential future value of things. So giving them a share of the company didn’t excite them into action in the way I thought it would, and I slowly drifted down their priority list until I wasn’t hearing from them for weeks at a time.

I understand that a freelancer’s gotta eat, and so therefore will have to take other jobs that offer to pay upfront. But if you have been given a substantial stake in a potentially very lucrative business that you would find the time to make it work. Where are all the programmers out there that have developed the sites for the multi-million dollar businesses out there? I don’t believe that all of those were funded by entrepreneurs backed by Silicon Valley funders. Surely some of them must have been started by geeks in their bedrooms with groovy ideas – like these guys who had to quit the UK and head to the States?

So what’s the solution for cash-strapped entrepreneurs like myself?

Sadly i can’t say I can think of many ways other than using shares / equity as “payment”. A good chat to my developer friend Paolo (who’s one of the rare breed of “geeks” who’s also a great creative entrepreneur – check out his spendamillion.com project) has clarified a few possible steps to consider in the future:

  • Networking events to bring geeks and entrepreneurs together – but will the geeks still be as potentially unreliable? Maybe I should organise one…
  • Using sites such as elance and getafreelancer to find cheap labour – quality and reliability an issue?
  • Break the design, wireframing, development etc into smaller chunks so that it’s less daunting for the entrepreneur, plus developers are less likely to go AWOL at any given stage. Especially if you give each stage to a different developer.

Sadly I think the ideal solution is to find a good, well-respected freelancer or small company, pay them for however long you need them for and make it clear that for that fortnight, or whatever, they completely belong to you and you expect twice daily updates. Now, finding a freelancer with the necessary skills and time….. That’s another matter!

I’d be really interested to hear from anynoe who has any thoughts on how best to get quality web work done with as little capital outlay as possible. Any ideas?

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