markkoberlein

Thanks for the clarification.

I'm a Posterous user and I really like the service but it has been interesting to watch the moves they have made lately since Tumblr has been getting a lot of positive press.

I wonder if these changes have been influenced by investor pressure to increase their brand awareness and to start to press the revenue button in order to compete with Tumblr.

This is true if you stay up all night trying to finish a project and then you have to go into the office the next day. The only way to keep yourself awake and alert is by consuming a higher amount of caffeine and calories than you normally would.

This is the cheat sheet that I used to get started: http://home.uchicago.edu/~gan/file/vim.pdf

Learn the basics first:

1. Basic movement (h l k j)

2. Insertion mode (i), deletion (x), selections/visual Mode (v), copying/yank (y), pasting/put (p), and exit insertion mode (esc)

Once you learn those the rest is pretty easy to pick up.

I should warn you though, once you get used to the key commands it's hard to go back to another editor.

I agree that there is a lot more to it than price but it would be helpful when doing market research.

"The real number could be arrived by studying competition, market size, target audience, perceived value of your service and many other factors."

It would be helpful if someone did a study on pricing plans of popular web apps and could show how the pricing models affected the overall success of the apps in their own markets.

If you are interested in learning Python I would go through the Writing your first Django app tutorial on http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/intro/tutorial01/

This is another brilliant marketing move by Steve and an attempt to influence the news media's view of the Android phone.

If the news media starts talking about Android phones as "porn" phones then the iPhone will be presented as the shiny white alternative to that.

This could open up a very lucrative market for Python experts.

I use Cloud Servers on Rackspace Cloud. You have to know how to setup a server but the per hour costs are pretty good.

Accounting is one of those things that I drag my feet to learn and practice (along with taxes) when I would rather be coding.

Xero is the best app that I've found for keeping the day to day record keeping simple but you still need an accountant to have as a resource to ask questions and to check the books, especially around tax time.

I also wouldn't mind an app that's a virtual environment with bash, ssh, gIt, sqlite, django, a Safari tab, and Vim. If that existed I would buy an iPad tomorrow.

Whether it was for a feature or a demo, I like hearing about founders who turn into executives still coding and working on improving the code in their product.

I'm also impressed by the quality. I hope live streaming like this becomes the standard for tech events/conferences.

I agree, I don't think that Apple will go after products that have nothing to do with the iPad. Unless you make an accessory or app for the iPad I think your safe.

However, it would be fun to watch Apple go after Notepad and ask Microsoft to change the name because they now own "Pad".

"In the end, it really doesn't matter, because in Apple's little App Store world, they don't even need to pretend they have a trademark. They've given themselves every legal right to pull an app for no reason at all."

Crazy yes, shocking no. They did the same with the "Pod" in iPod. If you develop for Apple's devices you play by their rules. I wish Apple would embrace developers and their apps because they are the reason why people have stayed with the iPhone.

"If Adobe actually wants to persuade Apple to support Flash on iPhone (either as a plugin or compiled to native apps), I know how they can do it. They can get an awesome, high performance, Flash environment working on Android, and get a bunch of great Flash apps running on Android phones"

So true.

Apple has every right to do what they are doing with their new developer's agreement. It's their platform, they own it. Just like it's every developers right to choose whether or not to develop for it. Let's face it, if all the developers stopped developing for it Apple would change their approach.

Adobe should stop complaining and put all their efforts into other platforms like Android. I think they have rode the Flash wave for too long and have become too fat and lazy.

If Android gains a lot of traction and Apple either becomes stagnate or falls behind because of lack of Flash support then I bet you would see Apple either try to make a deal with Adobe or they would build their own SWF player.

You may be right about the profit sharing. I thought I remember him saying that it was divided according to how long you have been with the company, but maybe it's not apart of the same "formula".

I have to wonder if Arrington saw that the product wasn't turning out like he had hoped and quietly decided that he didn't want the TechCrunch name on it. Maybe that's why he didn't commit to a contract because he wanted the relationship to dissolve while also making it appear that he was the good guy by being pushed out of the relationship.

In any case, you can be sure that Arrington is at least a little happy that the CrunchPad is not going up against the iPad.

Joel said in a stackoverflow podcast that he publishes the formula for the pay scales and profit sharing amounts so if an employee really wanted to know someone else's salary they could figure it out based on their position and how long they have been with the company.

I like the idea of transparency with salaries as long as the company pays well. If an employee decides he/she wants a higher salary than is afforded by a system like that they can look for another job or start their own company.

I wonder if Leo Laporte is going to be right about how he thinks that will Apple eventually stop making macs so that they can focus on more closed or controlled platforms like the iPod, iPhone, and now the iPad. They seem to be pretty good at making money with the closed systems.

Maybe the next iBook will just be a foldable iPad with the same closed OS.

I would agree that the lack of support of SSL on custom domains and the size limitations (my main issue is with the upload limits) have kept GAE from really taking off. I have used it for a small non-profit app and I host my personal consulting site on it. However, because of the limitations I'm building my startup on rackspace instead of GAE.

I really love GAE as a development platform, especially as a single developer, but I hope they will work through their roadmap faster.

I initially thought the same thing, but then I realized that the iPad may actually inspire more kids to become hackers and programmers.

They may start with the iPad because it's the number one tablet but that doesn't mean they will stay with the iPad.

Future hackers will probably be inspired by the iPad and want to figure out how it works and how to program for it. Then these hackers may get tired of Apple's tightly controlled platform and may move to an open platform like Android to hack on.

I have worked with multiple Indian groups on projects while working full time at different companies and I also have some experience outsourcing tasks for my startup through Elance.

Here are my rules with for working with Indian companies:

1. Never outsource the whole project or even a majority of it. I've seen companies do this because it's cheaper than hiring a staff of full time in-house developers. The projects usually fail.

2. Never ask them to do a task that you wouldn't know how to do yourself. You should never outsource a key piece of technology just because you don't know how to do it. You should only outsource something if they will get it done faster than you can or you want to work on something else. You will still have to review and test every line of their code to keep the quality up.

3. Expect communication issues. From my experience, Indian consulting firms try to communicate the best they can but you do have to stay on top of them.

4. They are much better at coding than they are at design. I've always been happy with the code they produce but not with their graphic design abilities. Never leave the UI design up to them.

I'm a single founder of a startup and the only way that I'm going to get my product off the ground in 30 to 60 days on a shoe-string budget is to outsource pieces of it. If you want to keep up with my progress then go to http://sqlmover.com to sign up for the private beta that is going to be launching next month.

I would agree, that felt like a little link bait to me.

I tried to write a business plan with the intent of developing the idea. I wrote about half of it but then I gave up on it so that I could focus on building the product.

I will make money if people use my product but I won't make any money if people read my business plan.

I agree. Focusing on trying to figure out what your “best idea” is because you want to optimize your time and only work on that is not always the best approach. Sometimes this can lead to procrastination and self doubt because you are not sure what your best idea is and you don’t want to waste your time working on anything else (which then causes you to waste time).

There is value in starting on any idea that you have and working hard on it because often you get inspired while working and a better idea will present itself. Then you can choose to integrate that idea into what you are working on or drop what you are doing switch to the better idea.

I would agree that there isn't that much value here but the Virgin Money US loan link was good. I didn't know that kind of loan service existed.

I have found that the easiest way to keep my day job and startup separate is to have a separate laptop for both so that I'm not tempted to work on startup tasks on the company's computer while on the clock or off. Not too difficult to do during the day but it can be during the off hours when the company's laptop is better than your own.

I think the harder issue is trying to avoid answering emails that are startup related while on the clock. Even if it's webmail they still own the internet at work.

This is a smart move by Google. Hopefully, they will take this model and apply it to an apps marketplace for consumers so that anyone with a Gmail account can add third party apps to their Google account.