One - Jud Valeski's blog (Page 8)

Greplin: I so want this to work

This is a quick post to the Greplin [https://www.greplin.com/] crew. If you follow this recipe you will win and win big. This is a huge problem plaguing all of us. Go forth and conquer. While I don't necessarily like it, the fact is that search

technology

City of Boulder, DBI & Tech Firms

Trada [http://www.trada.com/] hosted a meetup today that included downtown Boulder tech firms, and representatives from Downtown Boulder, Inc [http://www.boulderdowntown.com/], and the City of Boulder's Economic Vitality [http://www.bouldercolorado.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13707&

company

Business & Technology; Yin & Yang?

This conversation (errr spirited debate) has come up too many times in my world over the past week to not blog about it. It's the age-old discussion around what is the most critical component when building a software product/company; the "business" end of things, or

bppv

My Brush With Personal Disaster

I'm 37 years old, and until five weeks ago, I was invincible. I'm addicted to body work. Shutting down my musculature and letting an experienced massage therapist take over my body is one of my vices. Five weeks ago I had a session that changed my

construction

Software & Remodels

A couple of weeks ago we moved back into our home after a six month renovation. Unlike 90% of renovations ours was very close to on budget as well as on time. How did we do it? Now that it's over, I realize we built it similarly to

startup

Nice Guys Finish Last?

When it comes to reputability, honesty and intelligence, you see quite the range in the entrepreneurial & startup world. Unfortunately, a lot of what you see isn't pretty. As a relative "nice guy," I've tried to carry the "nice guy" torch through

software

Sticky Logins

One of my biggest issues with the web today is authentication. OAuth and OpenID aside for a moment (both of which are cool), the iPhone app model has largely gotten authentication right. I'd like to see user expectations around mobile app login, carry through to desktop browsing as

startup

Want An Independent Board Member?

Board composition for a VC funded tech startup is usually, rightfully, heavily tilted in favor of the VCs that have invested in your company. Several months ago my firm, Gnip [http://gnip.com/], added an independent board member on the recommendation of one of the existing board members. I'

psychology

Facebook vs. Twitter

I was having a conversation with someone the other day about Facebook vs. Twitter as "reach" platforms within the context of advertising. I was about to send this to them via email, but thought it might make for good blog fodder. We were comparing how many people had

location

Location Labs & Non-GPS API based LBS

I'm a heavy FourSquare user and am intrigued by Location Based Services at large. LBS related stuff will lead to the most significant behavioral changes on Earth since the network came online 15 years ago. Just The Beginning While we're all basking in what feels like

apple

The Future: My Kids & Computers

We have a 5 yr. old girl & an 8 yr. old boy. They've grown up with a lot of technology around the house. Some notes on how they've engaged. We're an Apple/Tivo house; iOS/OSX/*nix only. Our Son - lives on

Decline of Tweet Density?

After seeing a threaded tweet conversation for the first time the other day (something both Twitter for iPhone, and #newtwitter support), the impact of lacking threads hit me. For years we've been replying to tweets without much prior context. Each tweet has had to stand alone, and that

mountain biking

Cross-training & Travel

A few weeks ago I was jogging on a treadmill in a hotel and a light bulb went off. Why was I running a drab hotel workout room, when I had beautiful San Francisco right outside my door? I hopped off the treadmill and ran outside. A few days later

exits

Exits; You're Doing It Right

When it comes to startups, the notion of "exit" is key. You take big risks, often with high dollar amounts of other people's money, and as a result, everyone wants big returns ("exits"). The old exit path (now just a statistical anomaly) was going

boulder

Feelin' It In Boulder

In the "counting my blessings" category, I've been trying to build a blog post about things I'm super excited about these days. That's resulted in delay, so instead I'm just going to do a random splattering of bullets. * Mountains -

boulder

Luncheon with Jared Polis

Photo by Todd Vernon [http://yfrog.com/g0g2rqxj]I was lucky enough, and honored, to be a part of a luncheon in Boulder today with Congressman Jared Polis, and a great sample of Boulder's startup community. There were roughly 30 of us around a table at the staple

parenting

Ambient Intimacy: Humans & Machines

I used to scoff every time I'd see a group of kids walking down the street talking/texting on their mobiles. How could they consider themselves friends when they're not even communicating with each other!?! However, I've found that my own addiction (as well

calendar

TimeBridge and Behavioral Change

Users rarely, if ever, change behavior. It takes unprecedented genius or beneficial workflow changes to get us to change our ways. We're lazy... bottom line. A service called TimeBridge/meetwith.me [https://app.timebridge.com/lp/meetwithme] changed my behavior. I use it religiously now. What's

ignite

Ignite Boulder: Morning After

Last night's Ignite Boulder [http://igniteboulder.com/] was one of the better ones. It was the first held at Chautauqua's auditorium which is a great venue; though the audio was a bit off for the sparks (music sounded solid). I hope Andrew sticks with Chautauqua as

programming

Can Google's Native Client SDK Fix The Web?

Modern life owes much to the Internet. Many proverbial thanks are due to the inventors at CERN (incl. Tim Burner's Lee) and to Netscape (Jim Clark; the money. Founding engineers; the know-how) for making it accessible to all of us. A recent visit to Google's Boulder,

programming

Development Process

Tonight I was asked some high-level questions about development process. I wound up responding w/ enough material that I thought I'd share the thoughts here for broader consumption. > Hey guys,Please feel free to ignore this email but I'd extremely appreciate some advice if you

recycling

I'm Done Recycling...

... at cafe's at least; sorry. I thought this get here, but after years of recycling I'm fed up. At home I can control the separation between compost, mixed materials, and trash/landfill. But... cafe's had made it impossible to recycle or compost anymore. Some

programming

Take 2: Amazon S3 file deletion FAIL

The S3 bucket key deletion saga continues. I had two Ec2 XL instances running 24/7 for about a month, running ~150 parallelized DELETE requests on s3 bucket keys (each machine), and dented my S3 usage by only 10%. I spent ~$1,500 (money went to Amazon obviously) on those

Twitter's Ad Model; It's All In The Fraud Baby

It's taken Twitter a long time to get where they are, and knowing some of their backstory has made watching the journey from the outside quite entertaining. A few things haven't changed: Biz pontificates and paints the "Twitter is a triumph of humanity" [http:

Get A Job! At Walmart.

This post inspired by a conversation I had with my mother this morning. My mom has been self-employed for decades via a small business she runs. Unfortunately her industry has been all but obliterated by the usual "faster/cheaper" competitive model. She refuses to acknowledge that the American