ahsonwardak

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We already do that at ShareMeme - http://sharememe.com/welcome/quickmode. You have to a be registered user to use this, and we also offer up the simple forms as well.

Luc Castera is quite possibly one of the best RoR hackers out there. I should know. We're co-founders :)

My friend, I think you're more than set to get into CS grad school. Though please understand, the PhD enterpreneurs are few and far between. Most PhD students in CS and engineering don't understand how to develop their own great ideas, and they don't want to. PhD's are mostly for academics. Exceptions include places, like Harvard, MIT, and Stanford.

The upside is that you'll have lots of free time during a PhD curriculum to chase down your own ideas, and find the handful of like-minded people around campus. A PhD is a free time to pursue your own intellectual pursuit, and if you're already so energized, you'll do well.

From our experience, this has been correct. It may be better said that a lot of time with one user walking through and testing the UX of a site is worth more than several shorter tests with more people. If you start multiplying that deep dive with fewer users, you'll quickly see the major UX fixes that are needed.

Additionally, the most obvious UX fixes are the ones that will greatly improve your site anyway. As more UX fixes that are suggested, you'll find that they are a product of differentiated user preferences than needed UX fixes. That's not a UX fix. It's having certain parts of your site customizable in look and feel.

It was a great experience in DC. We met many nice people. I don't know that the startup will survive, and there were less than a handful of exceptions. But in the end it was good to feel the energy and connect with other like-minded people. I recommend it.

When I started reading voraciously, I started having better ideas. Reading is a conversation with an author. Most business and entrepreneur-themed books don't offer new ideas, but they're new to you. When you swirl them around in your own head, you'll have better ideas. For me, I always need to visualize ideas to, so I paper prototype a lot.

Though I know it may not be a single biographical book, Founders at Work is a great series of short biographies/interviews. If you're more interested in any one of them, you can probably find a biography on them or even their personal blogs.

The great thing about Gandhi is that he openly recorded his flaws - not many autobiographical writings do that.

While by no means is Dubai going to be Silicon Valley, there are very encouraging signs for business in Dubai. I have spent about a month or two there over the past two years.

As it has already been eluded to, there's tons of money there. In the last five years, every major consulting firm has an office in Dubai. Every major tech company has an office in Dubai Internet City. The city is organized into economic industrial units - Festival City, Healthcare, International Financial, Sports, Media, etc.

From the tech startup side, if you have a financial, native backer, you're fine to startup a company. There is a booming business for networking, like Cisco and Cisco partners. The market exists there for tech startups, but probably not for web startups as censorship of the Web varies.

As for lifestyle, it doesn't get much better than Dubai. It's a fantastic place to live. When you think about falseprophet's post, a lot of the same applies to LA, yet millions call it home.

As for local skilled labor, there are many people out there seeking jobs in Dubai from neighboring Gulf countries, and the growth of the Doha campuses are contributing to a young tech talent pool in the area.

If I had known that this would devolve into a public shouting match, I would not have posted this in a public forum. As far as I am concerned, I only intended to vent on my blog and this forum about something that upset me. I am disappointed that we didn't raise the level of discourse, instead it ended up being a free-for-all. I'm over it. It's a dead issue.

It was stupid that they thought they could get him. Of course, he's good. They should have wanted him, but he also barely knew my partner during undergrad. And we were actually pretty good friends before this incident.

Fine, it's not unethical, but it's stupid. Did they think they had a shot after one run-in at a bar? Would you join another team after running into them at a bar with no knowledge of their idea?

Ummm... if you've read about any entrepreneur types, their personal lives suffer at the hands of their passion for their idea and startup. Read Founders at Work. It's a recurring theme in the book.

But tomorrow holds no promises. There's no promise you'll be alive tomorrow. No one can guarantee that. My objection is that it does take some blind passion to work more today for more relaxing time later, but there's no guarantee that you'll be alive.

And of course, not everyone is going to run a series of successful technology startups. Newsflash, I'm not Paul Graham! I'm sure that he's more competent than I am.

Get a little perspective.

I have to fiercely disagree with that point. Tomorrow is never ever promised, as this story about the CMU professor shows. It's impossible to bank time, when you may never have a chance to withdraw it. The original post quote does a good job of keeping life in perspective.

Chase dreams. Take risks. Fail often. But love the whole process as it unfolds.

Most of us probably blog, isn't that writing?

Agreed. For me, the worst piece of writing is:

That has several implications. One is that playing violent computer games can have beneficial effects.

Ummm... seems like a really rash conclusion based on scientific article.

You are correct. Always, check your sources:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Hudson_Institute

It's kinda funny. Apple users are realizing that they should wait until the next release for something better. I guess it's true for any piece of technology.

For a technology company in a consumer electronics market, it's so rare to see them take their product off the market at its peak and then replace it. This is a common practice in the computing world, but not for consumer electronics, like TV's, etc.

It's taking some getting used to, as the market penetration for the iPod and related product is increasing. Are iPod users willing to consistently shell several hundred dollars every 1 to 2 years to keep up with newer, cooler products? The answer is yes if they can see the benefits.

Who knows? Maybe, this is the major move from iPod to iPhone.

Wow, beyond Facebook and YouTube, this has to be the first major use of the social-networking website towards a targeted group of constituents. Could more creative social-networking campaigning be coming? What would it be?

<em>Lesson Five: You don't have to be a genius to do creative work.</em>

Creative work is not the providence of genius alone. It's part luck, part risky personality, and part intelligence.

I've begun to write on this extensively on my blog: http://myphdblogged.blogspot.com

In my experience in nanotechnology, green technologies and/or clean tech are the new buzzwords for VC's. I would be really interested in leveraging web applications for this up and coming industry. One great application might be a way to use the web for carbon credits. You bid on carbon credits, real-time. Think EBay goes green.

Another more cynical side of me thinks that this is "green-washing". Big companies want to appear friendly to the environment, when they really aren't.

Well, I need this explanation. Do Facebook Apps need to drive revenue or page views on the sponsor's website to be valuable? Aren't they valuable enough as a matter of branding?

Great point. It reminds of a lot of scholarship applications. It sounds good, until you realize your chances. In some cases for scholarship money, you're better off trying to create your own wealth through a job or business idea.

Better said, I think it's for people that need to find time and resources. Temporarily, this is a great approach to get up and running. As the ideas flow and product proves itself, it should move away from this approach.

At some point, this sort of fundamental software app. (Office-related software) won't need support. How many times has a Google search helped on a task in Word than conventional Microsoft support? The next move will be to make software self-supporting in some way.

I've also heard that a classic way for speed-reading is to then focus on the middle of each line of test. This minimizes eye movement and relies on your peripheral vision to read faster.

As a PhD student in engineering, this is not only true in business school research but most other disciplines. There are typically two arguments against this though:

1. Research isn't meant to be applied all the time, but it's academic for academic's sake.

2. Research is relevant, because incremental gains can be picked up by the next researcher. That next researcher could make it relevant for managers and other practitioners.

I also find this troubling. Who said B-School research was ever relevant? Aren't MBA's for networking with the future business world's best and brightest?

I hate to be so Covey's Seven Habits, but you gotta find someone that has the passion, skills, ethics, and temperament. These are the leadership skills needed to avert the worst situations.

They've gotta be able to communicate and be open-minded. And most of all, they have to have these qualities in lieu of a big ego. Sometimes, we 20-something's think we know a lot more than we actually do. I think the best of us are those that can listen attentively to contrary opinions.

Great idea. You're making money off of temporary hype, but the pricing structure has to reflect the variable costs. At some point, you can't make one t-shirt with Twitter on it and make any money, right?