Ipso Facto

Test of jpg upload

So how do you upload an image.

Back From Europe

Interesting trip.  8 days in Paris and 6 in Ireland.  Paris was more fun than I anticipated.  I got to watch the "Riots" up close and personal.  This stuff was blown way, way out of proportion by the Media.  For me it was Deja Vu all over again since I was a wide eyed freshman in Chicago in 1969.  Trust me.  The recent stuff in Paris was a sunday school picnic compared to 68/69. 

Parisians are a lot like New Yorkers.  A gruff exterior but once you get past the "ice wall" you can't shut them up.

Ireland was equally interesting.  As a country they are trying to figure out how to deal with a massive wave of immigration from the new EU countries... particularly Poland, Latvia and Lithuania.  They have scooped up most of the lower level jobs in the construction and service industries.

I finally ran into the prototypical Irish maiden who was tending bar in Dingle.  Stunning redhead.  That beautiful Irish accent.  A real Maureen O'Hara type right out of "Quiet Man."  Her name was Maglosia.  She was from Krakow.  Oh well.

The worst thing about my Europe trip was the ride home on Air France.  I got stuck at the back of the bus with a bunch of whiney blue haired old ladies who were coming back from one of those good forsaken guided tours.  For 7 friggin hours.... Edith! Edith! did you get peanuts.  Edith!!!

WebInno Meeting - Boston 3/20/06

I went to my first Web Innovators Group meeting last night in Cambridge.  Many thanks to David Beisel of Masthead Venture Partners and his co-conspirators for organizing the event.

Deja Vu all over again. Lot's of buzz.  Shades of Web 1.0 circa 1995.

Good mix of people.  It ranged from some techies with just an inkling of an idea all the way to some fairly mature operations.  Lot's of VC's... some angels.

I met and remet a lot of good techies.    I had highlighted 10 or 15 people on the open sign up sheet that I wanted to meet but didn't get a chance to so I guess I'll have to go to the next meeting which is tentatively planned sometime in May.

Y Combinator's Valuations

Y Combinator (YC) gives its prospective entrepreneurs $6,000 for 6% equity in their fledgling ventures.  In standard VCspeak, that gives the startups a post money valuation of $100,000.   Some, myself included, have questioned the fairness of this valuation.  Seems a little low.  Might Paul Graham be taking advantage of these geeks?

After watching the class of Summer Camp 05 muddle through the startup process, I've come to appreciate some of the intangibles that Y Combinator brings to the table.  Some include:

1.  Incorporation: YC forces the startups to go through a Delaware Incorporation.  Wise move.  If you want to raise subsequent financing, the VC's won't touch you unless you are a "Delaware C."  A lot of startups use their brother-in-law as their first attorney and incorporate in XYZ state.

2.  Patent advice:  Now I don't know how good the patent advice is that YC gives to its startups but any advice is better than no advice.   One of the first questions a VC will ask is "How's your IP portfolio" or "Is it propriety."  You also want to make sure you are not violating someone else's patent.  Research in Motion found that out the hard way.

3  Exposure:  Most, if not all, of YC's candidates to date appear to be Web 2.0 plays, which depend on a lot of people using the software application quickly.  Carrying the YC brand means that a lot of people will kick your alpha/beta tires when you announce the launch.  Quick exposure means you will succeed (get to the next level) of fail quickly.  This is good.  This means you can go back to grad school. Your parents may even willing to finance it.

4.  Cross Polination: You get to see what other geeks are doing and how they're doing it.

5.  Exposure to Angels:  YC runs a one day Angel event towards the end of every camp session.  This is good.  Angels can be hard to find.

6.  Safety Valve:  If your idea "sucks" or you "screw up" the implementation,  you may be able to "merge" with one of your peer startups and still avoid going back to school  e.g. Reddit <> InfoGami.

So after giving it some thought, I'm willing to assign YC's intangible contribution at $6,000 and maybe even as high as $12,000 which would give their startups a post money valuation of $200,000 to $300,000. Whew!  Now when I look at it, the vaulation may be a little rich for a geek and the inkling of an idea.

American Inventor

This I have to see.  Thurs April 16th 2006 is the premier. 

Americal idol style only for the inventor.  I wonder how they handled the patent issues for the contestants.  A low rent patent attorney could make a lot of money by hanging out at this stage door.

Back from the Dead

Back from my most recent alien abduction.   Damn, I wish they would stop.

Typepadders.. Don't Blog for Awhile

Here's a major annoyance.  If you are using FireFox as your browser and Typepad as your web authoring tool, then you might want to consider subspending your blogging for awhile or at least until the boys at Mozilla come up with a fix for the most recently discovered security holes.

Just the other day two security breaches were discovered within Firefox.  The technical details are a little gnarly so I'll leave it to the experts to explain.  In any case, if you really want to make sure that someone doesn't exploit these breaches and steal your "secret" banking passwords off your computer, you really should disable the Java scripting language on your computer.   

When and if you disable Java, your editing toolbar in Typepad will go away.  Yes, folks!!  Major bummer.

Photo Post - 10%

No software is immune to defects, also called bugs, as the latest critical vulnerability for Firefox shows. Once thought and reported to be a typical ‘trademark’ of Microsoft, Firefox shows it can introduce critical vulnerabilities with regular intervals as well. The advice at this point is to turn off Javascript in the browser, which can be done via the menu Tools->Options. Then select Web Features from the icons on the left, and remove the checkmark from Enable Javascript. This will have impact on the functionality of some web sites, since Javascript is commonly used for providing interactivity.

Photo Post - Default Thumbnail

No software is immune to defects, also called bugs, as the latest critical vulnerability for Firefox shows. Once thought and reported to be a typical ‘trademark’ of Microsoft, Firefox shows it can introduce critical vulnerabilities with regular intervals as well. The advice at this point is to turn off Javascript in the browser, which can be done via the menu Tools->Options. Then select Web Features from the icons on the left, and remove the checkmark from Enable Javascript. This will have impact on the functionality of some web sites, since Javascript is commonly used for providing interactivity.

Photo Test at 15%

No software is immune to defects, also called bugs, as the latest critical vulnerability for Firefox shows. Once thought and reported to be a typical ‘trademark’ of Microsoft, Firefox shows it can introduce critical vulnerabilities with regular intervals as well. The advice at this point is to turn off Javascript in the browser, which can be done via the menu Tools->Options. Then select Web Features from the icons on the left, and remove the checkmark from Enable Javascript. This will have impact on the functionality of some web sites, since Javascript is commonly used for providing interactivity.