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I'd like to see more eye-tracking software available to people for use with games. For quadralegics or for people with limited mobility of their extremities, eye-tracking would be pretty useful. I did some work with eye-tracking in college.

I started making C/C++ reference cards for programmers and students. It brings me about $10/week. It has the potential to be very profitable, but it needs more marketing...

Thank You Slashdot!

I agree, I have tried writing software on my own. I first started by writing a scheduling/record keeping system for doctors offices. I thought that since the offices often pay around $1000 for their systems, if I was able to sell it to them for $100 and give them features they wanted, that I would be successful.

My marketing and investment in it were not enough to sell anything. I put an ad in JAMA, and sent out individualized letters and surveys to doctors in my area. NOTHING. It would've taken me too much time to create what people would've been able to use. Plus the market was already saturated with systems. Most were expensive... but, they already had relationships with doctors, knew what they wanted, had their trust, and had a product ready to sell to them.

I found a better business model was to sell something that was smaller, more manageable, and could be built up more slowly, requiring little capital. Also it was something I liked doing. I decided to start it because I found there were no other products available that had what I wanted. A C/C++ reference card. I sold some, and began to get suggestions, and I've begun to create more cards. Then I found ways to reduce the cost of making them, allowing me to sell them for less, and gain more customers.

Slowly is what I've found is the best way to make a business work. All the time you put in is worth it, and its nice to be able to realize little gains as you go along.

I agree, I have tried writing software on my own. I first started by writing a scheduling/record keeping system for doctors offices. I thought that since the offices often pay around $1000 for their systems, if I was able to sell it to them for $100 and give them features they wanted, that I would be successful.

My marketing and investment in it were not enough to sell anything. I put an ad in JAMA, and sent out individualized letters and surveys to doctors in my area. NOTHING. It would've taken me too much time to create what people would've been able to use. Plus the market was already saturated with systems. Most were expensive... but, they already had relationships with doctors, knew what they wanted, had their trust, and had a product ready to sell to them.

I found a better business model was to sell something that was smaller, more manageable, and could be built up more slowly, requiring little capital. Also it was something I liked doing. I decided to start it because I found there were no other products available that had what I wanted. A C/C++ reference card. I sold some, and began to get suggestions, and I've begun to create more cards. Then I found ways to reduce the cost of making them, allowing me to sell them for less, and gain more customers.

Slowly is what I've found is the best way to make a business work. All the time you put in is worth it, and its nice to be able to realize little gains as you go along.

I've tried this, but not with software. I've created educational and reference materials for programmers. It's tough to start out, you need to establish a customer base, and that is the hardest part. Once you have customers and a stream of money, you begin to invest in things to make your operation more efficient and be able to sell your product for less.

Since I'm talking about a product that costs money to produce each time, the cost of production is the most expensive thing. Creating new reference cards is inexpensive. So for me, finding ways to reduce my cost of production is important.

This is slightly different than software. I beleive the bulk of cost is in developing software, and it costs virtually nothing to sell. However, your software can become outdated quickly and will not be worth much. Selling a product where the majority of investment is in producing each product is different than producing one that can be copied and sold cheaply. Software is a business that I think I would have trouble making money in.

The best input device is one where you dont have to move your hands to control something. If you can move your hands and eyes/head to control the computer...

Makes me want to continue researching eye-gaze tracking.

I certainly think the word 'internet' was synonymous with 'google'. Especially as it exists as toolbar in internet explorer. My Google searches have become more frequent, common, and I realize that most of things I would've looked in the newspaper, encyclopedia, dictionary, or library are all available online, and I'm able to find them.

Like the original question, I sometimes forget that these other sources of information exist. So when looking for a bike shop near me, and google and other directories didn't turn up anything useful, I remember that I had a Yellow Pages! and I found what i was looking for in there.

I've also searched for a used car over the internet, which had it's own pitfalls.

I register for classes online, pay bills without writing a check, find sources of books for 90% off the cover price. and many other things that I would have had to do in seperate places or had great difficulty doing them before.

This is very similar to a project I worked on in college. We were working on getting a webcam to track eye-gaze and to allow a user to control the mouse with their eye. I have always wanted to continue development of the gaze tracker, but never had the time after graduating. The website is here: http://www.gbook.org/projects/index.html

About a half year ago i was doing some C++ programming, which i haven't been doing as much as of as i'd like to, and I had an idea. It seemed each time I started programming something in C++, I would have forgotten some of the details of the language. I wanted a reference card for C++. I searched all over the internet for free ones, and even some I had to pay for. but there weren't any!

So i wrote one. It includes all the common syntax, plus a lot of advanced reference such as library functions.

gbook.org/refcard

This post is going to get modded down, but I wanted to say how much I like the concept of a one sheet reference card better than reference books.

I've created a C++ Reference Card... but i'm actually selling it. I wasn't happy with the reference cards already available, and I wanted to make one. There is something very good about having a paper copy of something, or in this case a laminated paper copy. eBooks are nice, but any book that you can actually hold and flip through is much easier to use than something on the computer screen.

There are other open source reference cards out there as well.

Its very interesting to be able to fit thousands of nodes on a screen and to be able to focus on just a few that are of interest. pictures of the system are available here.

This is similar to some work I did on Eye Gaze Tracking in my senior year at University of Connecicut. The project page can be viewed here.

I wish I had done more with it, there are more applications for this than just tracking people in public. They can be used for keeping the laser in the correct position if a person moves their eye during lasic eye surgery. It can be used to by a paraplegic to use a computer. And most importantly it can used to target in Quake3.