So I had a lot of spare time and decided to email Steve Jobs. Here is what I wrote:
Hi Steve,
Webcams are cheap, but are low quality devices. You cannot manually zoom and electronic zoom causes loss of pixel. Camcorders and Video cameras are expensive because of the storage, battery and processing power needed. Why not build a quality webcam that can give as good a picture quality as a video camera? You could just plug it in to a laptop and get quality video utilizing the laptops battery, memory and processing power.
My Email to Steve Jobs
Freelancing as an Author on Constant Content & Associated Content
Freelance writing can be a great way to make some money and I am delving into this with all the heart and gusto of an adventurer. I can already imagine myself as the next great writer to grace the horizons, concocting new and earth-shattering new articles while making heaps of gold and silver.
Associated Content and Constant Content appear to be the best in terms of payouts. Let's see how this venture works out!
Does ExitJunction harm Google's Organic SEO?
I naively believed that Exit Junction was a cure all in terms of making ad revenues and not using website real estate. After a few days of using however, I saw my organic google referrals plummet. while, I do not have enough data to make a definite statement about this, I have a strong suspicion its because of Exit Junction. As a result, I've taken it down.
Essentially, with Exit Junction, you are f&%king with Google, and its just not smart to do that given how dependent everyone is on Google. When, by pressing the back button a googler does not go back to Google, you are crossing some kind of a red line. You are crossing into Google's territory, and google will react like the Arctic wolf in guarding it (the reference comes from my memory of the book Never Cry Wolf).
Looks Like Worthpoint Bought GoAntiques.com
I always thought GoAntiques.com was the stronger site, but as it turns out, Worthpoint bought GoAntiques.com! That should be very interesting. I think Worthpoint now has the weight to be viable in the marketplace in the foreseeable future. I also think that Will Seippel was smart in making this decision as Worthpoint had pretty much hit a dead end.
Personally, I'm still not happy with the format of Worthpoint.com. Everything "seems" right, but somehow the feel of the website is lacking. Goantiques.com, even if it looks half a generation behind, still has that "feel" of someplace people would go on a regular basis. I wonder if my feel comes out in stats. lets see.
And the verdict from Quantcast seems that I am correct! Gut instincts quantified. Monthly page views per person for Worthpoint is 3.0 for the US while for GoAntiques.com its a whopping 7.49 more than double that for Worthpoint.
From the little I know of the two personalities, Will Seippel and Jim Kamnikar, I think Jim would be better of running the day to day operations while Will doing the wheeling and dealing. But I think its worked out the other way round.
Anyways, random thoughts from a nobody!
Blogs I read
nevblog.com
Here is a blog I really enjoy reading of a young entrepreneur of South Asian origin. He works out of Austin, Texas and does everything from eCommerce (his forte) to investing (buy and hold type).
kirkreport.com
Here is a day trading guru who lives for day trading. Has some really in depth research. Interestingly, was never formally trained in this!
Lucky on Not Having PBR Yet
I think my strategy of waiting till Nov/Dec is paying off and not having joined the bottom callers in the past few months. I might even push it back further to the very end of December. Meanwhile, am also considering buying SBS - another Brazilian company into water and sewage. I think this could be a good buy given the climate.
Okay So Petrobras is Down and Out below $30
But I did say I'll wait till November / December which pretty much saved me some serious heartache. I think it will be fun to see where it is headed. I am tempted to buy it now but I want to stick to my original plans and buy it in November / December.
The valuation is crazy and its probably pricing in the Brazilian government taking serious steps to get to all that oil. Also, Oil prices of course! But I think that oil prices will get back to about $100 pretty fast. This is because demand for oil today is extremely diverse and developing nations are increasingly more important, particularly in their numerical strength. Stock market bubbles will not effect them too adversely and Asian economies as well as Latin American economies are bound to grow. I think though that Asian economies are likely to have a far harder time given their export orientation. I think its important for them to find their own market and trade between themselves more as their consumer base matures. If they can do this, they will be fine, if they can't then they'll go to the dogs. I am not taking that risk until I see improvement in those numbers.
I think I might look more closely into GE as a ballast for PBR in my portfolio.
Petrobras Explained
My take on Petrobras is this - the stock is fundamentally undervalued. Presently oil prices are falling, the Brazilian government is sending mixed signals about ownership of oil and the large investors are selling and selling fast - partially because of the end of year effect.
Bottom line for me is that Petrobras is a great buy, and $40 is an insane price from a valuation perspective. However, it is now all a matter of timing, and we all know what happens when you try to time the market. Nevertheless, I'll buy, but not now - November/December sounds like ideal for me.
Nostalgic About Bangladesh
I was just thinking about all the different food I used to eat. Like the long palm-tree like tree that you cut into and got to juice of - don't know what its called in English. And the green coconut juice with the soft white middle. The jackfruit and later you could cook the seeds inside them. And all of this from our home in Shantinagar. Also, let me not forget the guava trees which is the best possible wood to make sling-shots out of!
PBR Being sold off by major institutional investors
I believe that the sell off will continue for for the next few months and only a major turn around after christmas. I think this period, particularly november - december might be a good time to buy in.
New Direction for My Blog
I have been neglecting my blog for sometime but want to come back to it now albeit changing directions. I am not doing a lot of IT stuff anymore, rather, working as a Financial Analyst in commercial real estate. I spend the little spare time I have thinking about cars. However, I do plan to keep at least the entrepreneurship component to me. As such, I plan to look at sectors I can invest in, local businesses I find interesting and anything else that comes up in my random searches.
How Useful is Methodology?
I often wonder how useful methodology is. Often there you have companies that spend a great deal of resources in a methodology and then find that their staff barely implement it. Then suddenly they run to a light methodology worked around Agile (some latest fashion) and it seems that this takes away the whole systems engineering approach out of it.
For me, all this conflict over methodology is decadent. I agree with Ivar Jacobson and feel that the source of the problem stems from the so-called conflict between software engineering approaches as one approach, compared with Agile methods. Jacobson writes in his blog that this conflict is unnecessary and that the ideas are in fact complementary. I wish him good luck to explaining that to all the consulting gurus and book writing gurus.
Definitely, his blog is one that I have been reading for sometime now and it brings out whole hosts of perspective and insight about the issues. Have UML and RUP really lost their momentum? In the East Coast financial domain it certainly has not! But we are laggards so perhaps the trend will be thus here as well over the next 2 years or so. But we definitely need far more documentation than the lightweight Agile!
I must confess I don't instinctively grasp it as well as I grasp RUP, or didn't and am only beginning to understand it. The aspect I was having trouble with is understanding what Jacobson calls the social engineering part of Agile. For me this takes us into management theory and away from the systems engineering core methodology. But then, maybe they are complements. Maybe like Scientific Management was replaced by Fordism, an increasingly social aspect is coming into software development methodologies. Which brings us to the question of whether this development is a pendulum swing and essentially circular, or if its linear. I personally feel that the essence of RUP will always remain, as will the essence of Agile. If we see the development of management theory over the years, the beginnings of Scientific Management were very "systems engineering" and the evolution over time moved towards increasingly behavioral methodologies.
Can this be the fate of our paradigm? I believe it is possible, and I give as proof the profusion of gurus in both fields!
Bloomberg Terminal Design
I personally think that the Bloomberg terminal would be better with a light background and dark text, but that's just me.
From Portfolio.com
In the unglamorous world of financial data and business news, Bloomberg is the closest thing to an Apple or a Google—an eccentric innovator that plays by its own rules, bringing imaginative and useful products to market.
But with those products can come features that exasperate even the most devoted customers. For owners of the sleek and addictive iPod, for example, that means having to use a proprietary cable to download music or charge the device. If you lose that cable, you’re stuck—at least until you can make it to an Apple store or order one from Apple’s website. Users of Google’s fast and functional email service had to wait almost two years for the search-engine giant to add a Delete button. And people who rely on Bloomberg’s data terminals have to deal with an interface that’s a throwback to MS-DOS.
Dreamed up by the current mayor of New York, Mike Bloomberg, after he got booted from Salomon Brothers in 1981, the Bloomberg terminal is used by traders, analysts, government officials—even the Vatican—to get real-time information on everything from plain old stocks and bonds to currencies and derivative products. The system also allows users to chart historical prices, read news, and communicate with other Bloomberg users around the world. More than 300,000 people use the terminals, which are so distinctive that the 2004 model, created by Antenna Design, even made it into the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. That souped-up black box—available only to customers who subscribe to the Bloomberg Professional Service, which costs up to $1,800 per month—has adjustable monitors, a fingerprint scanner, and a microphone for speaking to other users.
But, oh, those screens.
“It’s a great machine, in that it has information you can’t get elsewhere, but it hasn’t improved its interface in the past five years,” says a private equity associate in Chicago who regularly uses a terminal to check interest rates and historical prices. “It’s hideous.”
The main problem is its use of color, says Elliott Malkin, an information architect in the design group at NYTimes.com. The Bloomberg system is customizable, so no setup is the same. But a typical screen teems with charts and tables drawn in blue, yellow, and orange on a black background, creating a certain nightmarish quality. “The color should be used to make the screens easy to parse,” Malkin says, “to help the user break the screen up into digestible compartments of information.”
What’s a little beauty when millions of dollars are at stake? A well-designed interface can improve productivity, says Jakob Nielsen, co-founder of Nielsen Norman Group, a research firm in Fremont, California. A 2003 study he conducted found that when websites were redesigned to make them easier to use, their companies’ sales increased by 100 percent and productivity went up by 161 percent. While website and terminal design are not perfectly analogous, the results hint that Bloomberg has everything to gain from revamping its terminal’s look and feel.
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Interview with Alex Kosik of Gravitonus
Gravitonus is a small Russian technology startup that is now seeking to expand into the US. It has developed a proprietary technology called the “Alternative Computer Control System” (ACCS). This is a computer control peripheral that gives hands free access in operating computers. Gravitonus has a strong team that includes 2 medical doctors and 2 PhDs. They have won the Russian BIT Business Plan competition and the “Humanitarian Project of the Year 2006” award at the Intel Berkeley Technology Entrepreneurship Challenge (IBTEC).
Company president and founder Alex Kosik is a spinal cord surgeon in Russia. Alex has spent much of his career treating people with spinal cord injuries. Being troubled by how invasive depression was for his patients, he invented this most user-friendly and hands-free mouse.
I have met Alex Kosik and worked with him for a short period of time. Alex recently also participated at the Grubstake forum. I had the opportunity to conduct an online interview with Alex. Below is the Q&A session.
Q1. How did you come about becoming an Entrepreneur? Where you always one?
For more than 5 years, I was a spinal surgeon in the Central Scientific Research Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics – the leading Russian institution in the field of Spinal Cord Injury research and orthopedic treatment where I helped handicapped people to eliminate the distinction between disability and active life. Then we created some excellent hardware and software technologies for handicapped, I started the company and become entrepreneur.
Q2. If you could choose again on whether to pursue Gravitonus as a business, would you?
There is just one answer - unambiguously yes. It's fun after all.
Q3. What made you decide to bring your technology to the US?
The US market is "ready" for assistive technologies. Direct contact with customers is a primary source of information about customer satisfaction and quality of the product, essential for further development and sales. In addition, the best way to reach this target audience is to market ACCS devices to medical professionals and institutions evolved in treatment and rehabilitation of severely disabled. They can be reached through different associations (American Spinal Injury Association, National Spinal Cord Injury Association, American Paraplegia Society, to name a few), and are located in the USA.
Q4. Has the CRDF and George Mason University been supportive? In what ways?
http://www.crdf.org/newsroom/newsroom_show.htm?doc_id=579486 Please have a look.
Excerpt from the link:
“CRDF and the Mason Enterprise Center also provided Gravitonus with market validation research, business consultation and assistance with creating a strong business plan and presentation...”
And also:
“Gravitonus is receiving additional help in establishing a presence in the United States from George Mason University’s Mason Enterprise Center, which is dedicated to assisting non-U.S. companies establish a market for their products and services in the United States. Through the International Business Development Program, the Center is providing Gravitonus with temporary office space, assistance in tackling the diverse American market with a help of an onsite advisor and helpful seminars, and easy accessibility to the Washington, D.C. metropolitan resources...”
Q5. What made you choose the DC Metro region? What made you choose Virginia?
Significant share of our marketplace is projected to be through government sales, reimbursement and grants, D.C. is the right place to be in the vicinity. In addition, I like friendly atmosphere, I used to live in capital, and there is a direct flights to Moscow.
Q6. How has your experience been of applying for funding? Do VCs work in a similar manner in Russia?
It's a tough question. Look over here http://www.news.com/2100-11398_3-6217705.html I'd avoid sharing my own experience yet.
Q7. How did you come to know of the Grubstake?
From CRDF
Q8. What was your experience of the process?
I was there twice myself - good event, good presentations, always something new to learn.
Q9. Do you think you would apply again?
Quite possible - for Series B
Q10. Personally, how does the US compare with Russia? If given a choice, would you like to settle here? Why or why not?
Personally, it's pretty much the same with one exception - We are talking about Moscow, not Russia. Moscow is a big country itself, with 16 Millions people (incl. nearby areas). This country is very rich, it is second to London, with the most expensive real estates and cars. I would not settle yet, At least - not now.
Q11. If things do not work out, is there a possibility that Gravitonus might go back to Russia? (Particularly given the improving economic conditions there).
Failure is not an option.
Q12. What was personally your single biggest achievement?
http://gravitonus.com/2007/04/imaginecup.html
I made this presentation, but people were applauding to Eugene, and I figured out that at this moment something changed in my perception of the world as I managed to show this little girl (who was born without hands), that she could be the queen. And the biggest achievement - there was no one objecting...
Haier "Black Pearl", World's Smallest MP3 Phone?
Here are some additional pictures:
firsttoyou.com describes this product as "a lipstick case sized luxury phone". Its not a half-a$$ed phone but a fully functional phone and has the "conventional" head phone pin sized point. Features include MP3, FM Stereo, BlueTooth, Voice Recorder and full color OLED display. (benefit of the last is generally, lower power consumption at the (great) expense of lifespan of the display).Some other details from Haierelegance.com:
- Up to 1.128GB Memory
- Blue Tooth (for Black Pearl)
- Games, Alarm, Calendar, Messaging, Calculator
- 3D Full Color Display
- USB 2.0 (really?) connectivity and charging
- Holds over 250 songs
You can buy one here and then come and post back to me how you like it.
Meinhaj's Crystal Ball: This Black Pearl is going to be popular.
WebbAlert - Morgan Webb, Gixen Sniper
Morgan -Angel- Webb
Here is someone I really like: Morgan Webb. This beauty with brains (or should I say brains with beauty) runs a really nice website called WebbAlert.com Her website is one of the few news spots I do make it a point to visit. Its a daily roundup about all that she finds interesting going on in the techie world. Definitely helps stay abreast with what new things are coming out in the technology biosphere, particularly to see if something major has passed me by.
Gixen
Gixen is an awesome website! its a free, web-based eBay Sniper, and a good one at that. Simply constructed, but perfect for its purpose! Further, often these free services tend to be unreliable, but not Gixen! Gixen, in my opinion, beats many other paid services hands down. Here are some features of note from the website:
Gixen features:
* No download required!
* Gixen automatically places your bids on eBay at the last moment.
* Entirely automatic - your computer doesn't have to be on.
* Group bidding: first successful snipe cancels all the others.
* You can schedule up to 10 snipes at the same time.
* Gixen is provided to you completely free, no catch.
* Gixen is completely secure.
* Gixen is 99.5% reliable.
check it out at gixen.com
My Bumble Bee Life - Update
I've had an extremely busy schedule for the past 2 weeks. I haven't been able to workout properly, have had less than optimal sleep, and been just busy all round.
A Futuristic Tele-Medicine Center?
Ever heard of a tele-medicine center? I hadn't until rather recently. It turns out that one of the problems they face is how to make such a center both futuristic and psychologically acceptable to clients as an alternative to a more conventional doctors' office. It seems that attempting to make it both the former and the latter is pulling the issue in opposite directions. However, here is my solution to the problem, and my attempt in resolving this particular celestial tug of war:
My first thought is that it may not be in the best interest to make it futuristic. tele-medicine being a new thing, would one not want to create psychological continuity with potential patients? Thus, I'd argue that it should not be explicitly futuristic with funny shaped chairs and tables, but "almost ordinary" with "sudden" "surprising" devices that do not dominate the conscious landscape, and yet make it futuristic. Thus, my thrust in general is in a more conventional arrangement with an overlay of futurism.
For instance, a tasteful but normal looking chair, that has a small innocuous device on one arm where if you put your hand a small screen gives your heart and pulse rate. Other thoughts: Laptop friendly, wireless internet, outlets.
About waiting places and rooms, I personally believe that anywhere you want a person to wait there should be a mirror somewhere. Humanity remains incredibly narcissistic. Now, if one had
> > the budget for it, for such a tele-medicine center I would have a mirror somewhere in the waiting room, with an interesting twist (budget allowing) - a true mirror where if you raised the right hand it would show you raising your right hand rather than the conventional mirrors left see:
http://www.truemirror.com/Ordering.asp
How cool is that?
Selling off my Saab
Currently selling off my Saab 9000. My Corolla gives me much better mileage and two cars are just an extra insurance headache. I do love to drive this one better than the Corolla, lot cooler. The best thing I liked about it was the sunroof / moonroof. IF I wasn't downsizing I'd definitely keep this car. I get a lot more feel of the road with it and love turning corners with it as well. Very well balanced. Last but not the least - its a hatchback and if you fold the back seats (you can't totally do that with this car) you have a mini pick up truck! Saved a great deal of hassle.
Here are some pictures of my car:
Recognition At Last!
My blog was visited by none other than Jim Kamnikar, CEO and President of GoAntiques, Inc!
That's remarkable, and he had nice things to say about my analysis too. Here is what he said:
Enjoyed the Wikiality article. You are spot on - community building and social networking is our IT focus for 2007. A little slow on the draw, but certainly the proper direction. Keep up the good work. Jim Kamnikar, President and CEO, GoAntiques, Inc.
This gives me some "street cred" :-). I have been analyzing traffic patterns of a whole host of sites including GoAntiques. Just when I was feeling demoralized for not being able to land a coop for the summer, I have something to huff and puff about. Cheers to Jim Kamnikar, one of the most colorfully dressed CEOs out there!
INVESTING IN Petrobras, PBR
Investing in PBR, Petrobras on the company being undervalued. It was fluctuating around 80 now its way up at 120! too bad I didn't stick around for all the gains (still made 20% for about 3 months of sitting on the money). but thats not my fault, I knew there was more to be made but needed liquidity to funnel into my ebay business.
I actually still think there is hope for PBR, except that the global financial markets is probably going to take a good beating, and the brazilian stock market will go down with it. I think one would be better off staying on the safe side, even though there are likely to be huge fluctuations. In my opinion, therea are two major problems with the present global environment - the US and China. In my opinion China has overheated beyond the point where they can turn back and they are either going to get burnt, or some maverick maneuvring will save them. In either case, the shit will hit the fan. The US is also going through a major crisis with major fiscal mismanagement, consumer demand falling, inflation and empire building all eating up. With two of the vital legs of the global economy foundering, I don't see a pretty picture ahead. The present situation is being preserved by heavy government intervention, mostly under the table - Note the so called Plunge Protection Team in the US. But you can't force the market, as Nick Leeson found out, so will these giant economies. Eventually they will lose to the market and it won't be pretty.
One way of using the plunge protection team to your advantage would be to invest in blue chips, as these would be the "commanding heights" that they would want to prop up. Thus, its safer to invest in blue chips. Also, precious metals may not be bad either. While from a technical analysis point of view, gold may have peaked in its natural cycle, I think it could bump up and go further rather quickly. Oil stocks will remain very very attractive, particularly those that cannot be blocked by Iran in a coming war over nukes. I'd think PBR would do real good there.
Enough free stock advice that nobody will listen to anyways, and for a contrarian like myself, thats not a bad thing.
More Coins
Here are some of my other coins that I want to get rid off:
Country Coin Quantity
South Africa: 5 Rand 1
2 Rand 1
1 Rand 1
0.5 Rand 1
5c 1
20c 1
Singapore: 1Cent 2
5 Cent 2
10 cent 3
20 Cent 3
50 Cent 4
1 Dollar 9
Euros: 2 Cents 3
5 Cents 2
10 Cents 7
20 Cents 8
50 cents 3
1 Euro 3
2 Euro 1
Bangladesh: 1 taka 2
5 taka 4
Canada: 2 Dollar 2
1 Dollar 3
25 cents 1
5 cents 1
1 cent 2
UK Pound: 2 pound 1
1 pound 7
50 pence 3
20 pence 4
10 pence 6
5 pence 2
1 pence 5
Thailand(? not sure): 20 coins
India: 7 coins
Malaysia: 41 coins
Pakistan: 6 coins
Australia: 2 coins
Papua New Guinea: 4 coins
Indonesia 1 coin
France 5 coins
Jamaica 2 coins
China (?): 2 coins
UAE (Dubai): 6 coins
Sweden (?): 1 coin
Ghana: 1 coin
Confederatio helvetica (?) 1 coin
Barbados: 31 coins
Not a bad collection if I do say so myself :-)
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