Categories
Business Development

Responsive Developer

Red Sweater Blog: “In this case, I discovered a bug in MarsEdit 3.5.2 (and 3.5.1, as it happens) that would cause the blog settings editing panel in MarsEdit to fill up all of a blog’s settings with default values when you opened it to tweak a blog. Then, if you innocently click “OK”, wham, all your blog settings are updated with default settings. Not good.”

I use MarsEdit to manage this weblog as well as the Apple Core Labs weblog. It’s a great piece of software and I have a lot of respect for its creator: Daniel Jalkut. Every developer makes mistakes. It comes with the territory. Daniel made a mistake and fixed that mistake as soon as he discovered it. It’s nice to see a developer be so responsive. Hats off.

Thanks for the great software, Daniel.

Categories
Business

Pop! Goes the Bubble

New York Times: “When this next bubble pops — and it will pop — the idea to make no money can finally pop, too. Then investors can start working with companies to build businesses that have long-term financial goals, instead of just building a short-term mystery.”

We’re trying to build our little “mom and pop” shop into a real business. It will be an uphill battle, I have no doubt, but, as long as we’re able to pay the bills and have a good time doing it, we’ll be just fine.

I love my job.

Categories
Apple Core Labs Business Indie iOS iPad iPhone

Diving into the deep end

Anyone that knows me, knows I love movies. I love to watch them, talk about them, I even quote movies. What in the world do the movies have to do with this post? I’m glad you asked.

In the movie The Sandlot there’s a young man in love with the beautiful older woman. His name is Michael “Squints” Palledorous, her name is Wendy Peppercorn. To make a long story short, one day while swimming with his buddies at the local public pool, Squints, reaches the point where he can no longer stand watching Wendy, a lifeguard, from afar. He decides to take a drastic approach to get Wendy to notice her. He jumps in the deep end of the pool, sinks to the bottom, and waits for Wendy to rescue him. She does.

“Michael Squints Palledorous walked a little taller that day. And we had to tip our hats to him. He was lucky she hadn’t beat the *crap* out of him. We wouldn’t have blamed her. What he’d done was sneaky, rotten, and low… and cool. Not another one among us would have ever in a million years even for a million dollars have the guts to put the move on the lifeguard. He did. He had kissed a woman. And he had kissed her long and good. We got banned from the pool forever that day. But every time we walked by after that, the lifeguard looked down from her tower, right over at Squints, and smiled.”

Squints and Wendy go on to marry and live happily ever after.

Get on with it man!

All that backstory, for what? Three years ago I formed Apple Core Labs to go indie. At the last minute I got cold feet and decided I’d do it on the side. In July of that year my brother, Jay, and I released RxCalc. Later I worked with my friends at Hundred10 to deliver the Fresno Grizzlies app and more recently I’ve done some work for a company in Washington state to help them create their first iOS application.

What I’m trying to say is, I’ve loved every minute of it. The thought of going indie has been my Wendy Peppercorn. After three years, I’ve finally decided it’s time to leap into the deep end of the pool.

Beginning May 1, Apple Core Labs will be my full time job.

If you need an iOS developer, get in touch, we’re open for business.

Categories
Business Weblogging

Posterous, writing on the wall?

Sachin Agarwal : “Hi- I’ve been emailing the support link for help RE the 100MB limit for a few weeks and haven’t gotten any replies. Does anyone do support anymore? Trying to figure out if there is a way to increase my total allowed uploads for the preschool blog I started to share photos/narrative with families of children I teach. Love the interface/look/functionality but not feeling the 100mb limit! help! thanks,”

This is a comment from the announcement of the Twitter acquisition of Posterous. I couldn’t find a permanent link to the post, so you’ll have to scroll to find it.

I like Posterous, it took a while, but I warmed up to it. It’s trying to compete with the hipster juggernaut, Tumblr. That is quite the uphill battle.

I really do hope Twitter does something interesting with the Posterous platform. It would be nice to see some sort of tie in between the two. This comment leads me to believe it’s going to go the way of the dodo bird.

I still think it was a talent acquisition, but I hope for more.

Categories
Business

Big Oil doesn’t need subsidies

Big OilLos Angeles Times: “Even if Congress can’t pass a bill to end them, those subsidies are worth focusing on. After all, we’re talking about somewhere between $10 billion and $40 billion annually (depending on what you count) in freebie cash for an energy industry already making historic profits.”

Exxon recorded $41 billion in profits. I don’t think we need to handout money to a company that is clearly on its feet and doing well.

Categories
Business

Goldman Sachs is Toxic

Zombie GirlNew York Times: “To put the problem in the simplest terms, the interests of the client continue to be sidelined in the way the firm operates and thinks about making money. Goldman Sachs is one of the world’s largest and most important investment banks and it is too integral to global finance to continue to act this way.”

Ah, the state of our financial system. Makes one proud.

Categories
Business

Hunter To Hunted

New York Times: “Which is why Barnes & Noble, once viewed as the brutal capitalist of the book trade, now seems so crucial to that industry’s future.”

I was bummed when Borders declared bankruptcy. Kim and I loved to visit the Visalia Borders, and we actually bought books!

Kim has been using a Kindle for a few years now and I just don’t read much.

Categories
Business Mobile

RIM?

New York Times: “Not everyone feels the same way. Over the last year, RIM’s share price has plunged 75 percent. The company once commanded more than half of the American smartphone market. Today it has 10 percent.”

This article is worth reading just to see what can happen to market leaders when the get too comfortable.

Categories
Business

Free, at what price?

David Barnard: “Ultimately, the users become the product, not the app. Selling users to advertisers and pushing in-app upgrades/consumables is a completely different game than carefully crafting apps to maximize user value/entertainment. It’d be a shame if the mobile software industry devolved into some horrific hybrid of Zynga and Facebook.”

Categories
Business

Twitter, Pot, Kettle

Dave Winer: “It’s not news, and certainly not surprising. And it’s not surprising either that Twitter is upset, but what is surprising is the sheer chutzpah of Twitter complaining about Google shutting them out after Twitter unilaterally reversed course and put most of their developer community out of business when they announced they wanted to completely own the Twitter client business.”

It seems like we’re headed for a bunch of walled gardens. Facebook is already a walled garden and moves like this seem to indicate these guys are desperate for eyeballs. Captive eyeballs. Let’s just keep making the Internet more and more proprietary! Yay!

Oh, don’t worry, SOPA will be the real nail in the coffin of the Internet.