Thursday, June 29, 2006
Friday, June 23, 2006
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Cars
Last weekend I went I saw Cars, the new Pixar movie. I loved it!
I have to saw that its right up there with the movies they produced.
I would however, recommend you view it as late in the evening as possible, as the afternoon shows will be filled with kids (they can be more 'expressive' than grown-ups...).
These films are really a class of there own. I read, that on their render farm, each frame took 17 hours to produce!
It also reminds me why I really don't like anything coming out of Dreamworks. Its ALL about the story. Animation is second.
Anyhoo.. I see that Apple sponsored the piston cup (from the movie).
Also some interesting facts about the movie.
I have to saw that its right up there with the movies they produced.
I would however, recommend you view it as late in the evening as possible, as the afternoon shows will be filled with kids (they can be more 'expressive' than grown-ups...).
These films are really a class of there own. I read, that on their render farm, each frame took 17 hours to produce!
It also reminds me why I really don't like anything coming out of Dreamworks. Its ALL about the story. Animation is second.
Anyhoo.. I see that Apple sponsored the piston cup (from the movie).
Also some interesting facts about the movie.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Jonathan Schartz speaks
Its interesting to hear Jonathan talk on his blog about the use of product reviews:
Jonathan Schartz writes:
Which is why you'll see something very interesting next week start to appear on Sun's web pages and throughout our on-line store. You'll start to see product reviews written by users. You'll see user defined ratings, right on our products. Just like book or product reviews at Amazon. We're starting with just a few products, but it'll ultimately extend all the way up to our highest end enterprise offerings.
It's great to hear that corporations are willing to listen to their customers. There is great benefit in listening to the good and bad from your customers.
Jonathan Schartz writes:
Which is why you'll see something very interesting next week start to appear on Sun's web pages and throughout our on-line store. You'll start to see product reviews written by users. You'll see user defined ratings, right on our products. Just like book or product reviews at Amazon. We're starting with just a few products, but it'll ultimately extend all the way up to our highest end enterprise offerings.
It's great to hear that corporations are willing to listen to their customers. There is great benefit in listening to the good and bad from your customers.
Monday, June 05, 2006
Site launched
Although we've got clients and actively developing in the background, we just launched our corporate site to give a lot more details of what we are about. Wohoo!
If you have any questions or interested in using our service, please let us know. We have operators standing by! :-)
If you have any questions or interested in using our service, please let us know. We have operators standing by! :-)
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Tips to Start
Some good tips in starting a company. Part1, part2, part3.
Congrats to all at PowerReviews.com, we are 1 year today! :-)
Congrats to all at PowerReviews.com, we are 1 year today! :-)
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery
Our clients love our products. We GIVE them (for FREE!) a competitive edge in the hard world of ecommerce.
Steve Jobs has shown that innovation is the way to lead the market. Apple has consistently been the company that shows this industry the way to go. ie Vista sounds like an expensive knock-off.
I haven't had my coffee yet.. so please forgive the slight edge in my tone.. but today I've noticed that our competitor has managed to come up with a similar ideas that we have released a long time ago. I was responsibly for one of these pieces so I'm a little irked. Well I guess it will give me more material to blog about. :)
At powerreviews we are constantly thinking of how to make the review service the best if can be. Since we give our product away (our competitor charges a ridiculous amount) our interest is directly related with the interest of our clients. We drive traffic to our merchants site and we give away technology that they can't afford to create.
As our competitor charges a lot of money for review service.. its in their best interest that their clients do not write reviews. They already have the money. Every review costs them money. Their interest are not aligned.
We are in a brave new world.. its called Web2.0 :)
Steve Jobs has shown that innovation is the way to lead the market. Apple has consistently been the company that shows this industry the way to go. ie Vista sounds like an expensive knock-off.
I haven't had my coffee yet.. so please forgive the slight edge in my tone.. but today I've noticed that our competitor has managed to come up with a similar ideas that we have released a long time ago. I was responsibly for one of these pieces so I'm a little irked. Well I guess it will give me more material to blog about. :)
At powerreviews we are constantly thinking of how to make the review service the best if can be. Since we give our product away (our competitor charges a ridiculous amount) our interest is directly related with the interest of our clients. We drive traffic to our merchants site and we give away technology that they can't afford to create.
As our competitor charges a lot of money for review service.. its in their best interest that their clients do not write reviews. They already have the money. Every review costs them money. Their interest are not aligned.
We are in a brave new world.. its called Web2.0 :)
Friday, May 19, 2006
Waffles
It's quite refreshing working in a startup. There's lots of freedom and initiative is often encouraged.
Case in point, my office buddy decide to do belgium waffles for everyone! No cheating with mix, real ingredients.
We had fruit, chocolate and several syrups. Superb!
I would like to see that at my old investment bank on Wall St. :-)
Nice article about people and their segways.
Case in point, my office buddy decide to do belgium waffles for everyone! No cheating with mix, real ingredients.
We had fruit, chocolate and several syrups. Superb!
I would like to see that at my old investment bank on Wall St. :-)
Nice article about people and their segways.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Tags
Tags are a real big thing for web2.0. It's a simple/clear way of seeing what people think of a product. Its one of main features here at powerreviews.com and our customers love it and see the benefit of it.
We've just created a press release about our TagSuggests (among other cool things). This is autocomplete (google-suggest functionality) for tag completion which yours truly battled with javascript/ajax.
Hopefully our fans will like it as much as I do.
We've just created a press release about our TagSuggests (among other cool things). This is autocomplete (google-suggest functionality) for tag completion which yours truly battled with javascript/ajax.
Hopefully our fans will like it as much as I do.
New retail store on 5th.
I've been using my 12'' powerbook for the startup I've joined. It's such a pleasure to get off windows. :)
Here is an example why I like the mac. I recently wrote a little bash script that determined what files had been modified from our source code repository (by me), zipped them up , dated the file and scp'd it to my unix home directory on our development servers.
I've been thinking of even keeping a log of the work I do (daily) and including this on the zip.. Hmm.. maybe I can create a little shareware app. :-)
Every day this thing gets kicked off and I have my daily changes (remotely stored) just in case something bad happens.
I contemplated doing something like this for my fellow windows collegues, but what am I going to use? VB? or do I have to get them to instal perl on their boxes? No thankyou.
Theres talk about buying tools that keep 2 directory structures in sync, but it wouldn't maintain history, which is useful.
Anyhoo.. I've been doing a lot of the web development technologies (ajax/css) as well as backend java. Off the top of my head, tools that I have found invaluable (and which I've registered) are CCSEdit, Xyle, GraphicConverter and TextMate.
We use Intellij to do our java development, which although is a very good IDE takes a lot of resources and my 12'' is pushing it.
Apple's release of the reasonably priced MacBook has sparked an interest. It's something that will definately make my work day a lot smoother.
Apple is opening a new retail store in New York on my street! Well when I lived on the east coast a year ago.
It reminds me of that scifi film: Cube2-Hypercube. :)
Here is an example why I like the mac. I recently wrote a little bash script that determined what files had been modified from our source code repository (by me), zipped them up , dated the file and scp'd it to my unix home directory on our development servers.
I've been thinking of even keeping a log of the work I do (daily) and including this on the zip.. Hmm.. maybe I can create a little shareware app. :-)
Every day this thing gets kicked off and I have my daily changes (remotely stored) just in case something bad happens.
I contemplated doing something like this for my fellow windows collegues, but what am I going to use? VB? or do I have to get them to instal perl on their boxes? No thankyou.
Theres talk about buying tools that keep 2 directory structures in sync, but it wouldn't maintain history, which is useful.
Anyhoo.. I've been doing a lot of the web development technologies (ajax/css) as well as backend java. Off the top of my head, tools that I have found invaluable (and which I've registered) are CCSEdit, Xyle, GraphicConverter and TextMate.
We use Intellij to do our java development, which although is a very good IDE takes a lot of resources and my 12'' is pushing it.
Apple's release of the reasonably priced MacBook has sparked an interest. It's something that will definately make my work day a lot smoother.
Apple is opening a new retail store in New York on my street! Well when I lived on the east coast a year ago.
It reminds me of that scifi film: Cube2-Hypercube. :)
Monday, May 01, 2006
The monster awakens
Just read in techcrunch that yahoo has launched Yahoo-Tech.
There going after CNET, but also offering product reviews which is in our playground. Hmm..
There going after CNET, but also offering product reviews which is in our playground. Hmm..
Sunday, April 30, 2006
A bicycle made for one.
Woo-hoo.. With raible always talking about how he rides to work on his bike i've splashed out on a very nice bike from rei.
My commute is around 10 miles, which may be a little far. I really need to shed some extra pounds I've gathered over the year and this may be just the ticket.
Hmm.. maybe I can throw some technology at it.. :-) I've been think of the Nuvi 360 for the car, but its probably an overkill for the bike. Anyone know of a nice wee GPS unit ?
My commute is around 10 miles, which may be a little far. I really need to shed some extra pounds I've gathered over the year and this may be just the ticket.
Hmm.. maybe I can throw some technology at it.. :-) I've been think of the Nuvi 360 for the car, but its probably an overkill for the bike. Anyone know of a nice wee GPS unit ?
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Virtualization Software
Been a busy week. Apple announces that the macbooks can now boot windows xp with a piece of software called Boot Camp. They said they will be available in Leopard, the next version of macosx.
Also just read on eWeek about a company called Parallels which does this in a window. (no pun intented). Take a look at the screenshots or the video. Interesting..
Also just read on eWeek about a company called Parallels which does this in a window. (no pun intented). Take a look at the screenshots or the video. Interesting..
Friday, March 31, 2006
Happy Birthday Apple! (30 tomorrow)
Bill Thompson a technology commentator, from the BBC argues "The hardware punks at Apple have changed the world more than the Sex Pistols"
Apple tomorrow will be 30 years old. Started in 1976 on April 1st in a garage, IMHO they have radically changed the whole computer industry for the better. Whether you use a Mac or not you can't help see how they have contributed to tech for the last 30 years.
Apple tomorrow will be 30 years old. Started in 1976 on April 1st in a garage, IMHO they have radically changed the whole computer industry for the better. Whether you use a Mac or not you can't help see how they have contributed to tech for the last 30 years.
Friday, March 24, 2006
TechTalks at Google
Google has very kindly posted their TechTalks on GoogleVideo. These are presentations by Googlers or guests on a wide range of subjects. I've just watched the Second Life video which I found fascinating.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
PowerReviews on CNN/Fortune
The startup I'm working for (powerreviews.com) got a mention on cnn/fortune. Yeah!
For me, I make most of my buying decisions based on reviews. I want real testimony from people explaining how they use the product, what was good and what was bad. I then aggregate, take them with a pinch of salt and make an informed decision.
The article explains that our competitor charges as much as $8000 per month for the service. People have said our software is better and FREE. Yes... FREE! I guess they are after a different size of fish.
For me, I make most of my buying decisions based on reviews. I want real testimony from people explaining how they use the product, what was good and what was bad. I then aggregate, take them with a pinch of salt and make an informed decision.
The article explains that our competitor charges as much as $8000 per month for the service. People have said our software is better and FREE. Yes... FREE! I guess they are after a different size of fish.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Monday, March 06, 2006
Oscar Night
Although I'm not a big fan of the Oscars, both Rachael and myself made the effort to dress up and went to see it at the Castro theater. She was Willy Wonka and I was an Oompa-Loompa. We actually WON(!) the costume contest and got a mention in the State Uni paper.
Pictures are here, here and here.
Pictures are here, here and here.
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
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