Archive → Author
Startup Entreprepreneurs and their Billion Dollar Ideas
A quick message about entrepreneurs and their brilliant ideas… and the “dumb” investors who don’t get their brilliant ideas.
The New Web – Fragmented, Censored and Costly… but Really Pretty
For anyone who knows me as a technology guy, you know that I have always been a fan of Open Source Software (OSS). When I first started using OSS professionally at Anode, I fell in love with the idea of having free access to all of the LAMP software I needed, and being able to lean on a community for assistance. From the code, to the forums, to the free tutorials, all of it was open and extremely progressive because of that. That year, I became aware of the power that the Web possesses. The Web was the conduit by which the open source world had connected and advanced their movement, and the freedom it offered to collaborate and exchange was incredibly powerful to me.
That love extended from open source and the Web to social networking when I attended my first SXSW in 2007. I was there when Twitter first took off, allowing all of the attendees to update their new found friends with their location and a status update. It was amazing. I’d meet someone (eg. @baratunde), we’d exchange twitter handles, and then I’d know what that person was doing for the rest of the time I was there. And even better, I’d know what they were doing when I left SXSW. And it didn’t matter if you had a smart phone, or an old school phone, or a browser. Twitter was truly open, and worked with you where you were. Everyone got to play.
As amazing as these two experiences were, I had one experience before either of them that was more profound and retrospectively much more disturbing. It was the transition of Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X. At first, I recognized OS X as a wonderful improvement that immediately made both OS 9 and Windows feel decrepit. Smooth transitions, beautiful windows, big bright icons. It was just gorgeous. Then, I learned that it was based on Open Source Software! OS X was actually a port of the Darwin operating system, a variant of BSD/Unix. In that one moment when I understood what that meant, I pledged allegiance to Apple and didn’t look back. Until now.
Continue reading →
and… I’m back.
I’ve been threatening to return to social media in a meaningful way (ie. with a blog) for two years. Since leaving Emma in search of, well, myself, I’ve had so many life changing events take place that if it weren’t for the pictures I have with my two amazing kids, I would hardly recognize myself in 2007. Most of those changes were difficult, but have resulted in a better, wiser me, and I’m now ready to share again.
A blog is a personal thing. To me, much more personal than a Facebook page, because it’s not cluttered with anyone else’s influence. All that you see here is driven by the author.
Continue reading →
