I have a couple developers working on the Jables app. They showed me an application that I think is pretty cool. It’s Trello. Trello is “is a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards. In one glance, Trello tells you what’s being worked on, who’s worked on what, and where something is in a process. Made in New York City by Fog Creek Software.” So basically each board has three columns: To Do, Doing, and Done. You create “cards” which act like post-it notes. On the card you write a task to be completed. You can assign one or…
I think the prototype process is the first step to creating a great site. It is critical if you are making a custom site. It helps you think through the user experience and answer things like “what happens if I click on this.” There are a ton of tools out there. The method I used to create a prototype was really easy and created a prototype so good that people often think the site is already built when they look at the prototype. I think there are basically three steps to prototyping. Some people just do one but I think…
I was at a networking event last night and was telling someone that I wanted to build something similar to Yelp. His first question was, “I wonder if there is a clone script for that?” What the hell is a clone script? It basically turns a CMS like Drupal or WordPress into a popular site. Want your own Twitter? Get a Twitter Script. Want your own Facebook? There are almost a dozen Facebook clone scripts. There are sites like clonescripts.com that host hundreds of sites. It seems like if there is a popular site, there is a clone script for…
My first business was a convenience store that had two fast food franchises inside. So most of my employees worked for low wages. We didn’t pay minimum wage, but we were close. It was hard working next to these people seeing their daily struggle. Some were trying to support a family on that. To be honest, I was paying myself $35,000 and that seemed hard to live on. I can’t even imagine, really, what a life on minimum wage must be like. I don’t want to think about it. But that is a reality for many. Today, May 15, people around…
January 10th was my last day at Sabre after over 9 years. Almost a quarter of my life. I was actually grateful to be laid off because it came with a severance. I say grateful because I had been meeting with Charles Adetiloye to partner and develop Jables with. The layoff just maybe moved things along faster. We applied to Tech Wildcatters and didn’t get in. Soon after they were named one of the top 15 best accelerators in the US by TechCrunch. Their program director said they had over 600 applicants and they only had 15 slots, which made…
I think one of the most fascinating things going on right now is Bitcoin. What is Bitcoin? Don’t feel dumb. Even my aunt, who is in banking, hadn’t heard of it. The best explanation I have heard was on this Podcast on Vice. Sidenote, Vice is the best thing on YouTube. I have been interested in cryptography for some time. One of my favorite non fiction books is The Code Book by Simon Singh. In 2012 I was fascinated by an article in Wired that discussed The Silk Road and ones ability to buy just about any nefarious product using…
The trip up was pretty exciting. It was about as icy a journey as I have ever driven. Even though it was below freezing, it was raining, which I did not think that was physically possible. Ice and sleet covered the roads yet we maintained about 60 the whole way. We left about 9am and got into Quebec City around 7pm. We were stopped at the boarder and there was a great deal of speculation as to why they might have stopped us. I had pulled up too soon and possibly my eagerness or possibly perceived impatience was being punished. …
If you have seen Hugo and haven’t seen the documentary The Extraordinary Voyage, then you are missing out. The version I saw had the colorized copy of A Trip to the Moon play before the documentary started, which was a real treat. If you haven’t seen Hugo, I won’t spoil it for you, I will just say this: it is about a boy who rediscovers a famous movie director who has retired. The ex-director has lived an amazing life and is responsible for some if the first special effects ever made in the movie industry. The story is almost tragic…
I think there is nothing more frustrating and heart breaking than someone that tries to hold an honest job but is still living in poverty because they only make minimum wage or close to it. McDonolds only pays $7.25 an hour, which is currently the minimum wage in the US. I make as much as a whole crew and I struggle to get by. I can’t imagine how someone makes it on an income that low. God help them if they have children. The fact is, I can’t stop fast food companies from paying low wages, but I can eat…
Some friends and I took a stab at a YouTube channel. Check out Red Flying Horse if you haven’t yet. Ever since, I have paid more attention to online video metrics. Online video is growing tremendously. Every now and then I will check out comScore’s Online Video Rankings. In particular I think the Top U.S. Online Video Content Properties Ranked by Unique Video Viewers is really interesting. This is basically the biggest online sites based on the number of viewers. If you want the highlights, I came up with the top 5 facts. 188.98 MM Americans watched over 22 hours…
