Working with partners or sub-contractors; you are bound to end up working with some very creative people. You have a vision that they need to fulfill; and you probably expect them to figure it out for you so you tell them “just make it happen; do whatever you like”.
When you give someone limitless possibilities, though, they are likely never to find a good one, at least not for you.
By giving even the most creative people just some constraints, you are doing them a favor and you are likely to end up a much happier participant in the interaction.
(via Seth)
Author: grant
Simple ideas make big money
Best Entrepreneur Books That You Never Expected
Our addiction to addition
Here is a great post about elegance.
Something is elegant if it is two things at once: unusually simple and surprisingly powerful.
— Matthew E. May
That makes me think of Scheme.
(via Guy)
Visiting the iPhone Dev SDK Forums
The iPhone Dev SDK Forums are just that; a collection of forums whose topics of discussion encompass just about every aspect of working in this market. Specific forum focuses range from low-level details of APIs and tooling to business topics like how best to market and support your product.
Having spent about an hour clicking around there; I got the impression that it was a pleasant community and look forward to spending more time there.
Simple online surveying
Wufoo is an online surveying tool that looks interesting. I haven’t used it myself, but, it is what my webhost uses and they have pretty good taste in the tools that I have seen them use so far.
Making it happen
Here is a good post about how some opera singers wanted to “start a new opera company in Baltimore, and do it in on a shoe-string budget”. It seems like a good example of “thinking outside of the box” and making something that they really love to happen: practicing their heart and making a living doing it.
Mini-malistic Mac development environment
It looks like the “non-pro” hardware is clearly the best place for me to start; the Mac Mini and Macbook fall into this camp.
My original thought was that the Macbook would be a perfect fit since I could hook it up to an external monitor at home and take it along with me when I need to go mobile. Then it dawned on me, I don’t really go mobile. I sure like to imagine all of the cool places I would go with it, but in reality such occurrences are few and far between. For when I really do need a mobile, I’ve go the XO and the ThinkPad, and who knows, if this Mac stuff pans out I wouldn’t mind picking up a Macbook or a MacBook pro. That said: Mini pricing seems very reasonable.
It looks like a Mini with a 2GHz CPU, maxed out with 4GB of ram, the default 120 GB hard drive, and an Nvidia video card that can drive a 1900×1200 display can be had for only $750USD. This seems more than adequate for setting up a Mac development environment; heck even Java would do fine here. What a steal!
The hard drive size upgrade prices are insane. If I need more space, I have a beautiful external LaCie hard drive that has been looking for a home!
Up the Benefits
While this post doesn’t tell you how to find the perfect ratio of benefit to price, it does espouse the value of doing so, and that is worth any product owner’s consideration!
Essential Tools for Starting Up Your Side Business
Here is a decent article about “startup” business tools. I didn’t find that much new material, but the following were interesting:
- MyCorp: A non-profit that sets up LLCs
- ScanSnap: An efficient paper-to-pdf scanner
- Adobe Acrobat: Make it easy for non-Windows people and fax less
- Basecamp: A simple project management tool. I’ve used it before, it is simple as it could be but no simpler and the UI is pleasant. It is surprisingly nice to use.