One more thing.... maybe start an online comic. It's cheap to do... doesn't require massive art skills and will get you 1000x more publicity than anything else you could imagine.
Get in to writing for a Comic Publisher.... it's got everything you need to position yourself for Games, Movies, Novels, TV Series, Cartoons.. did I say Movies? Yeah those too.
Comic books are full of short dialogue, they rely on storyboards (quite literally) to tell the other half of the story (just like movies and games) and yet each issue isn't a multi-million dollar undertaking so the barrier to entry should be much lower (they'll give you a chance many more times cause you won't be screwing up the big bang).
While you're writing for a comic book, you can team up with an artist and put together some good scripts for game mods, maybe a graphic novel or two and a screenplay.
When you've got something looking nice see if you can get it in front of the right people.
Always start at the top - find out the home address of the people you want it to be seen by - not the most famous person, the one who looks at these things critically. Mail it to them with some nice packaging and a good executive summary. Then follow up with an email or two.
Regardless of the resolution all these small form factor devices need even higher ppi. 163 isn't enough... give me 600ppi and 72 dpi and I'll be happy no matter the screen size. You can only fit so many characters on a screen anyways. 480x320 is fine though a good 16:9 aspect for viewing videos would be better (just don't go any smaller than an iPhone).
Uh, web apps are being made for one reason. SAAS (Software as a Service).
Companies think there is a market for products that don't have a license, they have a subscription. Additionally there are savings to be had by updating features/bugs and providing support for a central repository of software rather than for a distributed user install base where the environment is unknown.
Throw in the opportunity for an extra revenue stream from Ad supported 'free' versions of the software (which is to provide an alternative to piracy) and you can see that companies have a genuine business model to work towards.
You're right that security is a big issue - but not for consumers.
Companies just need to offer VPN-like access to webapp VMs for customers with more than 20 users of an application (or individuals wiling to pay extra).
Very true... and the biggest asset you can provide is a user community. Got an open source product?
Set up the following free services:
1) Documented API... use Adobe's Doc format, it's really great.
2) User Forums... there's nothing better than providing a place for your users to connect and ask questions, provide answers and request features.
3) Bug Tracking... let your users submit bugs, they'll thank you for the opportunity.
4) Free upgrades. There's no good reason to charge for upgrades to an extension to an open source application. You upgrade it to get more users/client.
Set up this paid service
5) Commercial support services... aka Help Desk... provide a month to month or annual support package. Some bigger companies that use your software will sign up. This will pay for numbers 1-4 above.
And sell this product
6) Write a Recipe book where you show great examples of how to use your product in real world scenarios. You won't have that many buyers but if you sell via a print on demand publisher or via eBook you won't have much overhead either.
Hey I agree with you. I've been trying to get someone to do a weighted search for a long time... no takers... I'll have to do it myself. Works like so:
Put in two words... tell the search engine that the second word is WAY more important, ie: Bass (+0) + Fish (+10)
What you should get back is a whole lot of pages about Fish where Bass is the actual keyword within that subset. Almost works like a category. Really it's multiple searches... first a search for the highest rated keyword, then a second search within those results for the next highest rated, and so on until you get to the lowest rated keyword.
The ideal UI would be to use sliders for each keyword and use an AJAX call to update your results live. This way you could play with the numbers and see immediate results. Then you bookmark it.
hmm except that I'm reading it now and it says Interesting... so I'd say the moderation system works just fine - only not on a short timeline. It's like looking at an election vote too early... maybe only the no votes happened to be counted first... doesn't mean the voted on item won't pass later.
Why did the DOD not simply have a photoshoot. Would have cost very little to do. Bring in a photographer, set up a flag, sit her down in front of it - click click click.
Would have been a much better photo, no scandal and we'd have some other dumb story to comment on...
But of course... otherwise we'd be overrun with Mammoths...
Skinner: Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend. Lisa: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards? Skinner: No problem. We simply unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
Lisa: But aren't the snakes even worse? Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat. Lisa: But then we're stuck with gorillas! Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.
FYI the new Macbook's mentioned do not have an analog out port.
They only have DisplayPort.... so to connect to an analog display you have to use a converter. Unfortunately the converter can't tell the computer that you're not *really* using the DisplayPort capabilities.... so the computer just assumes that you've got a non-compliant digital display attached and duly refuses to provide playback.
What you need is for someone to engineer a dongle of some sort that sends the proper HDCP signal and passes through the video/audio to whatever is on the other side.
you use a janitor class or just a Dictionary to hold references to all of your objects so you can delete them and any listeners or timers or other objects that are not removed automatically. Google memory management for as3 and you should find a few good examples.
I think that is the problem... they only get paid if their computer logs on to the network. It's a bad system. What happens if your PC is down? Do they send you home or move you to another PC...
What's wrong with a sign in sheet? How about a magnetic card that you swipe when you get there - if you want it to be all technology and stuff...
Regarding 'gaming' the comments, certainly there is room for this to happen but in all fairness this already happens - it's called Lobbying, except that it happens behind closed doors and out of the public eye. If people were to attempt this type of activity the Press would be all over it digging up the commenters background info and discovering who was trying to moderate up various views.
The idea was in fact exactly as you say regarding the FCC public comments... except that it would be centralized and available for all legislation.
What's great about a moderated comments system is that you get comments on the comments, and those are usually even more interesting than the original... so someone hits on a good topic, then others iterate on it.
Ah but can you do the same thing while on a beach in Fiji?
WIth a portable reader you can sit on a resort beach while the waiters bring you a cigar and a nice cognac or whatever... and read until the sun goes down - oh wait, it's backlit as well, so nix that.. read until the waiters stop bringing you drinks;-p
Only members of congress ( or their staff ) can make changes, but anyone can add a comment to any change. Use a moderation system like on/. to hide frivolous comments and to ensure that insightful comments rise to the top.
Use an issue tracker for existing legislation. Have a problem with a law? File a bug. It may be marked as trivial or may get fast tracked as a patch. Either way you know it's status and can organize to get that status changed if enough people agree with you.
Use RSS feeds to distribute Congressional hearing notes, comittee transcripts, and legislative votes.
Ah but maybe those tests were manufactured just to keep you believing.... In fact some group of illuminati could have created all of that just to keep nerds under control, through the belief that females exist, and that if they work hard enough they will eventually see one.
Uh the entire Black community (99.5%) are Christians. The entire Catholic community are Democrats. You can tell because the ban on Gay marriage came back in California.
Retrain retired professionals to be teachers. They are going to need to re-fund their retirement anyways after this economic dump.
Provide college grad students with opportunities to be teaching aids in local elementary schools, taking some of the stress off the teachers. All they have to do is show up and be decent human beings. They can get work credits towards tuition. I say grad students because they are more likely to have gone past the stage where they need to party every night.
Cameras are going to be equipped with Geo-Tagging in the not so distant future (some already are)... unsuspecting individuals won't realize that when they upload a photo with all the meta data intact that it will be possible to extract their location and possibly address.
Still you are correct, even with this it will be rare occurrence: a picture with keys visible, geo-tagging intact and you happen to be at the location where the key is useful.
I'm sure there is a list of advisors for each candidate somewhere. Go look at it and see if you like what they say.
Same on any topic that comes up. No man has a vision for every topic. Neither of our current candidates has a single driving platform issue, which is how it should be in a time like this. Each will need to subscribe to advice from experienced professionals in whichever field of study is needed for a topic.
Oh great, now Google will get involved. We'll have space elevators within 5 years, they'll always be in beta - and we'll be at Google's advertising mercy for 36 hours while we ride up.... thanks buddy.
Don't forget to use a generic email account from your work for any online activity.... don't use your own work email address (definitely not a personal address) as they will try to use that to put the burden on you as an individual....
So use things like it@company.com then use it2@company.com or something similar.
If you go with a web based app.... use a WURFL library + DB to discover phone capabilities. It's a really easy library/class you can get for PHP, JAVA and.Net
Basically it runs a User Agent detection routine on the phone and does a look-up in a DB table which contains all known capabilities (dimensions, video codec support, html support, image support, etc.) and returns an object that you can use to turn on or off features in the web app.
Slashdot Mirror
One more thing.... maybe start an online comic. It's cheap to do... doesn't require massive art skills and will get you 1000x more publicity than anything else you could imagine.
Get in to writing for a Comic Publisher.... it's got everything you need to position yourself for Games, Movies, Novels, TV Series, Cartoons.. did I say Movies? Yeah those too.
Comic books are full of short dialogue, they rely on storyboards (quite literally) to tell the other half of the story (just like movies and games) and yet each issue isn't a multi-million dollar undertaking so the barrier to entry should be much lower (they'll give you a chance many more times cause you won't be screwing up the big bang).
While you're writing for a comic book, you can team up with an artist and put together some good scripts for game mods, maybe a graphic novel or two and a screenplay.
When you've got something looking nice see if you can get it in front of the right people.
Always start at the top - find out the home address of the people you want it to be seen by - not the most famous person, the one who looks at these things critically. Mail it to them with some nice packaging and a good executive summary. Then follow up with an email or two.
Regardless of the resolution all these small form factor devices need even higher ppi. 163 isn't enough... give me 600ppi and 72 dpi and I'll be happy no matter the screen size. You can only fit so many characters on a screen anyways. 480x320 is fine though a good 16:9 aspect for viewing videos would be better (just don't go any smaller than an iPhone).
Uh, web apps are being made for one reason. SAAS (Software as a Service).
Companies think there is a market for products that don't have a license, they have a subscription. Additionally there are savings to be had by updating features/bugs and providing support for a central repository of software rather than for a distributed user install base where the environment is unknown.
Throw in the opportunity for an extra revenue stream from Ad supported 'free' versions of the software (which is to provide an alternative to piracy) and you can see that companies have a genuine business model to work towards.
You're right that security is a big issue - but not for consumers.
Companies just need to offer VPN-like access to webapp VMs for customers with more than 20 users of an application (or individuals wiling to pay extra).
Very true... and the biggest asset you can provide is a user community. Got an open source product?
Set up the following free services:
1) Documented API... use Adobe's Doc format, it's really great.
2) User Forums... there's nothing better than providing a place for your users to connect and ask questions, provide answers and request features.
3) Bug Tracking... let your users submit bugs, they'll thank you for the opportunity.
4) Free upgrades. There's no good reason to charge for upgrades to an extension to an open source application. You upgrade it to get more users/client.
Set up this paid service
5) Commercial support services... aka Help Desk... provide a month to month or annual support package. Some bigger companies that use your software will sign up. This will pay for numbers 1-4 above.
And sell this product
6) Write a Recipe book where you show great examples of how to use your product in real world scenarios. You won't have that many buyers but if you sell via a print on demand publisher or via eBook you won't have much overhead either.
Hey I agree with you. I've been trying to get someone to do a weighted search for a long time... no takers... I'll have to do it myself. Works like so:
Put in two words... tell the search engine that the second word is WAY more important, ie: Bass (+0) + Fish (+10)
What you should get back is a whole lot of pages about Fish where Bass is the actual keyword within that subset. Almost works like a category. Really it's multiple searches... first a search for the highest rated keyword, then a second search within those results for the next highest rated, and so on until you get to the lowest rated keyword.
The ideal UI would be to use sliders for each keyword and use an AJAX call to update your results live. This way you could play with the numbers and see immediate results. Then you bookmark it.
hmm except that I'm reading it now and it says Interesting... so I'd say the moderation system works just fine - only not on a short timeline. It's like looking at an election vote too early... maybe only the no votes happened to be counted first... doesn't mean the voted on item won't pass later.
Why did the DOD not simply have a photoshoot. Would have cost very little to do. Bring in a photographer, set up a flag, sit her down in front of it - click click click.
Would have been a much better photo, no scandal and we'd have some other dumb story to comment on...
But of course... otherwise we'd be overrun with Mammoths...
Skinner: Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.
Lisa: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?
Skinner: No problem. We simply unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
Lisa: But aren't the snakes even worse?
Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
Lisa: But then we're stuck with gorillas!
Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.
FYI the new Macbook's mentioned do not have an analog out port.
They only have DisplayPort.... so to connect to an analog display you have to use a converter. Unfortunately the converter can't tell the computer that you're not *really* using the DisplayPort capabilities.... so the computer just assumes that you've got a non-compliant digital display attached and duly refuses to provide playback.
What you need is for someone to engineer a dongle of some sort that sends the proper HDCP signal and passes through the video/audio to whatever is on the other side.
you use a janitor class or just a Dictionary to hold references to all of your objects so you can delete them and any listeners or timers or other objects that are not removed automatically. Google memory management for as3 and you should find a few good examples.
I think that is the problem... they only get paid if their computer logs on to the network. It's a bad system. What happens if your PC is down? Do they send you home or move you to another PC...
What's wrong with a sign in sheet? How about a magnetic card that you swipe when you get there - if you want it to be all technology and stuff...
Regarding 'gaming' the comments, certainly there is room for this to happen but in all fairness this already happens - it's called Lobbying, except that it happens behind closed doors and out of the public eye. If people were to attempt this type of activity the Press would be all over it digging up the commenters background info and discovering who was trying to moderate up various views.
The idea was in fact exactly as you say regarding the FCC public comments... except that it would be centralized and available for all legislation.
What's great about a moderated comments system is that you get comments on the comments, and those are usually even more interesting than the original... so someone hits on a good topic, then others iterate on it.
Where do you resell that it's worth the hassle? Online or at a used book store?
Ah but can you do the same thing while on a beach in Fiji?
WIth a portable reader you can sit on a resort beach while the waiters bring you a cigar and a nice cognac or whatever... and read until the sun goes down - oh wait, it's backlit as well, so nix that.. read until the waiters stop bringing you drinks ;-p
Wikis for pending legislation.
Only members of congress ( or their staff ) can make changes, but anyone can add a comment to any change. Use a moderation system like on /. to hide frivolous comments and to ensure that insightful comments rise to the top.
Use an issue tracker for existing legislation. Have a problem with a law? File a bug. It may be marked as trivial or may get fast tracked as a patch. Either way you know it's status and can organize to get that status changed if enough people agree with you.
Use RSS feeds to distribute Congressional hearing notes, comittee transcripts, and legislative votes.
This shows a dramatic reduction in spam as of yesterday 4PM EST.
Will be interesting to watch it climb back up....
Ah but maybe those tests were manufactured just to keep you believing.... In fact some group of illuminati could have created all of that just to keep nerds under control, through the belief that females exist, and that if they work hard enough they will eventually see one.
Uh the entire Black community (99.5%) are Christians. The entire Catholic community are Democrats. You can tell because the ban on Gay marriage came back in California.
I'd vote for your platform.
I'll add this bit.
Retrain retired professionals to be teachers. They are going to need to re-fund their retirement anyways after this economic dump.
Provide college grad students with opportunities to be teaching aids in local elementary schools, taking some of the stress off the teachers. All they have to do is show up and be decent human beings. They can get work credits towards tuition. I say grad students because they are more likely to have gone past the stage where they need to party every night.
Cameras are going to be equipped with Geo-Tagging in the not so distant future (some already are)... unsuspecting individuals won't realize that when they upload a photo with all the meta data intact that it will be possible to extract their location and possibly address.
Still you are correct, even with this it will be rare occurrence: a picture with keys visible, geo-tagging intact and you happen to be at the location where the key is useful.
I'm sure there is a list of advisors for each candidate somewhere. Go look at it and see if you like what they say.
Same on any topic that comes up. No man has a vision for every topic. Neither of our current candidates has a single driving platform issue, which is how it should be in a time like this. Each will need to subscribe to advice from experienced professionals in whichever field of study is needed for a topic.
Oh great, now Google will get involved. We'll have space elevators within 5 years, they'll always be in beta - and we'll be at Google's advertising mercy for 36 hours while we ride up.... thanks buddy.
You just had to put 2 and 2 together didn't you.
Don't forget to use a generic email account from your work for any online activity.... don't use your own work email address (definitely not a personal address) as they will try to use that to put the burden on you as an individual....
So use things like it@company.com then use it2@company.com or something similar.
If you go with a web based app.... use a WURFL library + DB to discover phone capabilities. It's a really easy library/class you can get for PHP, JAVA and .Net
WURFL on Sourceforge
Basically it runs a User Agent detection routine on the phone and does a look-up in a DB table which contains all known capabilities (dimensions, video codec support, html support, image support, etc.) and returns an object that you can use to turn on or off features in the web app.