Brilliant Thinking

I’ve been using Live Mesh recently, through the alpha (tech preview) and now into the public beta. In general I am very pleased with the way it works and the fact that it does work (see previous post “Cloud Storage: On SugarSync, DropBox & Live Mesh“).

However, there is one feature I have struggled with as it’s not entirely intuitive - and that is synchronising folders between two (or more) computers and being able to retain the same directory path to the files on all machines.

This is something that SugarSync did well - it assumed the same path on connected machines. DropBox worked beneath its own equivalent of “My Documents” and achieved the same.

However, Live Mesh requires more user intervention to achieve the same results which is a tad frustrating.

In order for Live Mesh to correctly synchronise the same folder path on multiple machines you have to follow these steps: continue reading »

I have been using mobile phones for years, but innovation seems limited to design, convergence and being able to access the web, stream videos, download music, access Facebook, MySpace, network, etc, etc. The basic way we use phones as a voice tool hasn’t changed, and sadly hasn’t been challenged until now.

However, there are enabling technologies out there that can make the dated mobile telephone more accessible.

One is already in place - visual voicemail on the iPhone.

continue reading »

Image via Wikipedia

A few years ago I listened to analysts talking about the “virtual business.” They envisaged a world of mobile workers who could tap in to their corporate networks from anywhere. There wasn’t much substance on this future vision, and certainly not to the extent that mobile workers now enjoy with technologies enabled by Cloud Computing.

Back in 2001 when I set up my first web company, it was always my ideal that the company should be truly virtual and not be tied specifically to any physical office space. While it is important for people to come together to build ideas, this can be done in any space that provides the correct tools - which for us means whiteboards and notebooks.

I still value physical interaction with people for certain meetings as you get a visual feedback which you cannot get on the Web. You can see all of the participants’ body language, and it is much easier to be completely inclusive in such arrangements. Virtual meetings - using Skype and whiteboarding technologies - are OK in some situations, but not all.

However, these meetings do not make up the bulk of the day to day work - this is spent with the computer either writing, desigining or programming. And, as long as the computer is present with the right tools, this can be done anywhere. As long as the files are there also.

This is where the Cloud comes in (see also previous post: Cloud Computing vs Dedicated Servers). continue reading »

This is an unusual post as it’s on a topic not technology related. However, as a business owner like some of you who read this blog periodically, I thought it was essential reading for anybody experiencing one of those panic attacks at 4am on a Sunday, or looking to the bottle …

OK, these are extreme cases, but being aware of the (natural) cycle of emotions that being an entrepreneur embodies helps in understanding and managing their effects instead of letting them manage you.

Here’s a precis:

Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape, once wrote:

“First and foremost, a start-up puts you on an emotional rollercoaster unlike anything you have ever experienced. You flip rapidly from day-to-day – one where you are euphorically convinced you are going to own the world, to a day in which doom seems only weeks away and you feel completely ruined, and back again. Over and over and over. And I’m talking about what happens to stable entrepreneurs. There is so much uncertainty and so much risk around practically everything you are doing. The level of stress that you’re under generally will magnify things incredible highs and unbelievable lows at whiplash speed and huge magnitude. Sound like fun?”

The Emotional Transition Curve

• Stage 1: The first stage of the concept is called “Uninformed Optimism”. At this stage on a rollercoaster, just getting to the top of the rollercoaster, you experience feelings of an adrenalin rush, characterized by excitement and nervous energy.
• Stage 2: The second stage is called “Informed Pessimism”. As you ride over the top of the curve you now have a bit more information. Feelings of fear, nervousness, and frustration begin to set in. Perhaps you even want to get off of it.
• Stage 3 – The third stage is called “Crisis of Meaning”. You’re past scared. You feel despair. It’s as if you’re standing on the edge of a cliff ready to jump, and you begin to think “Today the rollercoaster’s going off the bottom of the track for the very first time.” You feel helpless and you’re both terrified and frozen.At this point, you face a critical juncture. You can come off the bottom of the curve and crash and burn, which is when your business goes bankrupt, you lose your marriage, you start drinking, or you end up in a doctor’s office because of stress. Or you can come around the corner because you’re getting support at “Crisis of Meaning” and you can enter an upward swing call “Informed Optimism”.
   
• Stage 4 – Informed Optimism. You’re calm. You’re informed. You might even say you are cautiously optimistic.

The article on the blog (link below) goes on to discuss activity pairing - ie what to do in each of the 4 phases - to help you capitalise on (benefit from) each emotional state. Essential reading for any business owner.

Read the original post on Tim Ferris’s blog

I’ve been tweeting for a month or so now (see sidebar for latest tweets) and just launched a mashup of Twitter’s public RSS feed and a 3D Flash tag cloud as a “what if” experiment. This is a simple demonstration of the ability to pull information feeds together and create a visual representation of them (in this case).

Here’s the link: www.tweet3d.com

The visual tool allows you to view any user’s tweets as a floating tag cloud. The engine filters the posts to create an emphasis on the topics the user is tweeting about so you can quickly get an idea of the topics they have written about recently.

Thanks to Roy Tanck for the open source Flash cloud.

UPDATE 30 Sept: You can now link directly to your own tag cloud using the ‘twitterid’ parameter. The link is generated dynamically for you when you use the site and you can bookmark it or send it to your friends.