thedob

There are a couple of comments on here to the tune of "Why didn't he charge more?" or "Why didn't he sell them on the internet?"

The article was written on an alumni web site, and the author lists his MBA as attained in 1984. It's likely that he attempted this business shortly thereafter. Probably would've been harder to sell on the internet 15 years before Viaweb. May have been harder to sell key chains for more than $1.50 too, though who knows.

I'd like to emphasize how well Dropbox works as a collaborative tool. Never having to attach and download shared files from email is a great help in staying organized.

A co-worker can simply shoot you an IM or shout across the office that a document has been updated, and it's already on your machine ready to be opened.

I hope people don't get this confused with a source code repository though, as it definitely isn't optimal for working on shared source code. Stick with documents, images, and media, and you'll be fine.

Abstract Base Classes will finally allow us some semblance of an interface. Glad that this is one less reason to look to java when teaching the principals and benefits of OO-programming.

Frameworks are about creating reusable, stable code that simplifies development. I would say this is exactly the type of thing that "real programmers" strive to create.

The author does mention that frameworks may be the "best choice for rapidly prototyping your startup." This is certainly true, but the model of rapidly iterating gets cut down when you create your 1.0 with a framework, begin getting customers, then pause for a 4 month rewrite for the sole purpose of eliminating a framework.

If it's necessary to eliminate the framework in order to optimize (I don't believe it is), let it work itself out over time and many evolutions of the product. Don't aim to start your project without one.

Interesting use of the 20-second cookie. What happens when they scale to data centers in Europe, Asia, and South America? Does it become a arbitrary-second cookie depending on where the user is?

Nonetheless, I can appreciate how a simple approach solves the problem. If these are the most dramatic scaling issues that facebook faces, then this provides strong support to the argument that you shouldn't focus too much on scaling and optimization when first building your site. There are probably better uses of your early time.

Let's say that a township little league wants to put its foot down and take the stance that there's no way they'll ban sliding into bases, as that's not baseball, and as a result it just isn't American.

The insurance company says that for the little league to get insurance it's going to cost twice as much if they allow sliding. Hence the little league has no choice but the pass on the cost of participation to the parents of the kids in the league. Or...the kids won't ever know what it's like to slide into a base. What an unfortunate situation.

The rising costs of insurance are preventing children from getting enough exercise, and hence leading to health problems in the future costing the insurance companies more money in health related payouts. If this is the case, then they should be able to offset any short term liability payouts by the long term gains of a healthier society.

Alternate link - http://dob.posterous.com/the-404-test-wildly-brilliant

Apparently the blog.dougpetkanics.com DNS may not have propagated yet. Sorry!

The whole key to this idea will end up being the music, and not the 'getting paid for downloading the music.' If the site does a good job of promoting quality artists who you may have never discovered otherwise, then that's reason alone to buy Popcuts. When a band gets big, people will buy the music off of ITunes anyway, but if Popcuts identifies a quality band early, then it saves hours of internet search and digging to find good new stuff. And that's something worth paying .99 for.

Trying to beat Android to the punch, eh? I wonder how long T-Mobile will keep this on the shelf after this big push:

http://www.moconews.net/entry/419-t-mobile-betting-on-androi...

Haven't seen any API yet, but add it to the list of mobile items to hack.

I present to you, the best of the best...

$ - Big Money

% - Double-O-Seven

& - Pretzel

{} - Left Squirrely, Right Squirrely

; - Weenie

# - Pigpen

Anybody work in a startup using solely the above vocabulary? Power to you.

This seems a bit analogous to the Chris Rock "Always asking for credit for things you're supposed to do" routine.

Nonetheless, impressive they stayed up so well on Monday, despite the recent issues.

Wow, was that more or less slow that 14.4 baud modems?

Interesting choice with the routine. I'd argue for the CMOS, without which none of this would be possible...but let me know if that's too much on the EE side to fit the title.

Gimmicks work well - http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/