My benchmark for non-technical users is my father: he's 60-something and he started using computers & internet 3 years ago when I bought him a laptop.
I can recognize in him pretty much all the behaviours described in this article, especially the fear of setting everything up on fire with a click, but I've also noticed that he tends to use the machine with a weird sequential approach.
Click the fox icon, go to thataddress.com, click there, type this, click yes etc.
For some complicated tasks (such as burning a DVD) he's got all the buttons and actions he needs to perform written down on a piece of paper.
The amount of struggle and effort he puts in it always fascinates me.
Java is now deeply-rooted in enterprise software, and in this field, once a project have been developed, radical technology changes occours on a 10-year+ basis. You won't believe how many big businesses still relies on Cobol development for manteniance. So, imho, Java isn't going away anytime soon.
That's something I often thought myself, phpBB/vBulletin type of forums have been around for 10+ years now, and they haven't changed a lot since then.
I think there might be lots of things to rethink on the UX side now that we have so many new frameworks available.
If you aim to build a 100% hosted service, I feel like suggesting to let the client keep ownership of the database at least. I wouldn't like to give total control of all the posts on my forum to somebody else.
I'd say simplier & better looking interfaces + open customization features is the path to follow. Just my 2c.
I'd be an anti-apple zealot if I were telling you how bad the iPad is, or how apple suck at doing things.
But I don't.
Actually, I think Apple makes good devices, but I get a bit irritate when I open up a link expecting to read some insightful analisys of the smartphone industry growth of the last decade, and instead I get some kid yelling out how the iPhone/iPad 'kick-ass', or how it 'revolutionized' the nature of the human kind.
It didn't.
Apple makes very good devices based on market trends. that's it.
You can't call me a zealot for simply disagreeing with you.
Just one note from myself. I don't think your career depends on your 'brain development' or self taught mad skills. It all comes down to gaining experiences imho.
What I'm trying to say is that you shouldn't endeavour in a startup just because you like coding, and you like learning new languages and whatnot. Being a great technical person most of the times doesn't suffice.
I got my first VPS with them too, and the articles there have been really useful and straight-forward. Once you've completed all the steps you're pretty much able to build up a functional webserver. Their chatroom is really useful too, if you have any question there's always somebody to help you out. Generally speaking, this is my favourite approch, Do lots of stuff, and learn to do only what you need to do.
I am a blood donor, but I never really donated money to any charity. After witnessing a huge ONG meeting (non-governative organizations) and all the businessy-feel that accompanied the whole event and how people managing small/middle tier charities were visibly more interested in their personal wealth rather than the cause they were working for, I came to the conclusion that I'm not in favour of putting my hard-earned cash in their pockets, charity shouldn't be a job. I'm sure not all of them are like that, and maybe one day I'll change my mind, in the meantime I stick with blood donations only.
Seems to me that joe the plumber dosen't really care that much about privacy nowadays. I don't really see how it could be that harmful, if not for a bit of more targeted advertising. I have the feeling that people would give up a bit of their privacy in exchange of a more comfortable shopping experience, or maybe I'm completely wrong, only time will tell.
These days there isn't really need to keep using traditional currency anymore. Since I don't get charged for using them, I use cards even for <5€ payments now and I hardly carry real money with me anymore. It's also much easier to monitor your expenses this way. There are still an enormous amount of shops/businesses that only accept physical money, but I think the world will be ready for electronic-only currency in 10-30 years time.
I'm looking forward to hear from people who's had direct experiences, but in general I'd be more than skeptical towards someone significantly older than me, with no technical skills, asking to "partner" in a startup project. Chances are that he is somehow using your technical baggage in order to achieve his personal goals, with no real interest in creating a true partnership and using your status of so-called 'cofounder' as an expedient to get the job done almost for free.
It might not be your case, but I'd stay with the eyes wide open anyway.
When I was 15 I coded a basic WYSIWYG editor for WAP pages (early days mobile internet pages) as a freeware, and I got contacted by a company willing to acquire all the assets and hire me to work full time on a branded version of my editor.
They bailed out once they realized how young I was (and still in school).
Probably much more than 50%. I've never heard my grandparents speaking any italian at all, but I guess they could understand it to some extents.
Italian as a language started to spread among middle/lower classes only in the 60's when most of the people bought TV sets for their living room.
I still use my regional language (a variation of venetian) everyday with family and friends.
The so-called 'hype cycle' is the biggest contributor to social network's success, at least at the very early stage. People join social networks because other people are there, not because it guarantees more privacy, faster communications, or special features. An unfunded/unknown startup is more likely to lack traction and fade out quickly, no matter how good it is.
I may be completely wrong here, but sometimes I fail at recognizing the real ROI of such conferences, especially in terms of knowledge that I don't know yet. Also, having the speakers being some kind of rockstars (Peldi is been 'on tour' all summer so far, does he ever work on Balsamiq?) might create a huge gap between you and them, and this dosen't help creating solid connections in most of the cases.
I'm not sure if the 'you've got to spend money to make money' motto applies here, but again, I may be wrong. Any real-life experiences on this kind of events?
That's naive of you. You can't just fly in the states and interview for a job. Without a green card, you can only stay in US with a tourist visa for 3 months max, or with a student visa if you enroll in some university over there and pay their thousands-dollar tuitions (but you can't get a job), they're very strict on immigration policies. Oddly enough, it might be easier to get a full permit if you start a company, but I guess you'd have to prove that you're investing (bringing in) a substantial amount of money.
In my experience in Accenture I've seen several people 'benched' during a re-assignment, in some extreme cases for as much as 3 weeks - 1 month, but eleven months is utterly exaggerated. This is obviously bogus.
Plus, when you're in stand-by you're supposed to be at the company's main offices (normally, you'd be working at the client's premises) doing online or offline training.