So after a few months of hem-hawing around, I finally implemented a respectable backup solution for my Mac. It’s getting old enough (almost 4 years) that I’m starting to worry about random hardware failures, so having a reliable backup is very important.
At home, I have a computer running Ubuntu Linux that I use as a file/media/print server. It has four 250 GB drives in a RAID5 configuration. Since RAID5 can be rebuilt if a drive dies, I feel like this is a pretty safe place to store backups, although eventually I hope to have an offsite backup (ex: Amazon S3) as well.
A while back a little command that would let TimeMachine use network drive started floating around the Internet:
I already had SAMBA set up, but I had some problems, so I ended up follwing this tutorial — which I highly recommend — and setting up netatalk so I could share the volume over AFP. Looking back, I don’t think SAMBA was the problem, I think the issue was with creating the initial backup disk image. I had to make the image locally and copy it over, as is explained in the troubleshooting section, but after that everything worked perfectly.
I do believe the old adage that absolute power corrupts absolutely holds true in most cases, but I am also an optimist, and I’m trying to hold back cynicism about Barack Obama. I think you can tell a lot about a person in the way that they deal with strangers. Here are three stories about Obama’s interactions with normal people that make me hopeful for the future of his presidency:
Obama gave a speech today in Berlin near the Brandenberg Gate. Tens of thousands of Germans were cheering and waving American flags. This is how we regain respect in the world. We elect a president who has a clue.
These are the aspirations that joined the fates of all nations in this city. These aspirations are bigger than anything that drives us apart. It is because of these aspirations that the airlift began. It is because of these aspirations that all free people – everywhere – became citizens of Berlin. It is in pursuit of these aspirations that a new generation – our generation – must make our mark on the world.
People of Berlin – and people of the world – the scale of our challenge is great. The road ahead will be long. But I come before you to say that we are heirs to a struggle for freedom. We are a people of improbable hope. With an eye toward the future, with resolve in our hearts, let us remember this history, and answer our destiny, and remake the world once again.
So last night I took my parents to the Eagles concert at the new Amphitheater in Alpharetta (it was my Mother’s Day gift to my mom). The show was pretty amazing despite my preconceptions about the band.
I like to buy vinyl records, and I’m sure I’m not alone (the vinyl purchaser for Criminal Records says sales are way up), but I hate digitizing them. I have to:
1) Find the cables to hook the turntable up to my laptop.
2) Wait for the entire length of the album while it records into Audacity.
3) Chop the recording up into individual tracks
4) Compress the tracks down to mp3
I shouldn’t have to do all that when the record company already has the files in mp3 format.
Every new record you buy should come with a link to download the mp3s for free.
Finally got an Internet connection. I wanted to post pictures, but I broke Rebecca’s camera in an unfortunate luggage accident last night. Sorry, Rebecca! I’m going to buy you a new one.
Greg McAdoo is talking now. Here are the notes I have from the previous speakers.
9:00 AM PDT
david lawee
-Launch early
-Don’t take capital or make hires that you don’t need.
9:30
sam altman
-don’t raise money that you don’t need
-make exec summary and deck
-run fundraising process in parallel
-meet each firm 2-8 times or until get a monday meeting
-help through due diligence process
-demand by proxy
-ride someone else’s wave (need 10 - 100x return)
-”customers with hair on fire”
-an unfair advantage
-Story for investors
1) exploding market
2) all current solutions suck
3) we have best solution
4) no one can catch us
-super pro rata (scares off new investors)
-talk to as many VCs as possible (2-firm deals are good)
-talk to CEOs funded by your VC firm whose company failed
-every company has a rocky beginning
-tell an exciting story
10:00
jack sheridan
-4 basic questions
1) Who owns the company?
no oral promises
2) Who owns the technology?
-confidentiality and assignment agreements
-know where your employees come from
-narrow the risk of IP exposure (don’t hold up fundraising until IP is completely nailed down)
3) Who controls the company?
-The board
-the shareholders
-section 2115 of the california corporations code (different from delaware corp)
4) Who gets what if the company has a liquidity event?
-Liquidation preference
-Participating preferred (VCs get their money back and stock)
-Dividends - noncumulative, or cumulative
-Acceleration of vesting?
-Other payments due on change of control
10:30
paul graham
Make Something People Want
Don’t worry too much about money
very successful startups look like nonprofits
craigslist doesn’t worry that much about making money
-upwind of enormous revenues
google looked a lot like a non-profit in the beginning (no ads for first year)
behave benevolently to people who have money
when you’re small you can’t bully users; you have to charm them
-you grow big by being nice, but you can stay big by being mean
if you feel like you’re helping people, you’ll keep working even if you feel like you’re doomed
maybe most important effect of launching early is that you build user base you need to support
if you’re benevolent people will rally around you
11:30
Greg McAdoo
-look for “hair on fire” problems
-don’t try to create waves, ride them
-get on a wave that is small and ride its growth
-no time for rambling; come up with 1-liner to describe your business
-small companies’ advantage are stealth and speed
-figure out how to leverage disruptive opportunities (big companies can’t compete because of their structure)
12:00
David Heinemeier Hansson
-talk is called “The secret to making money online”
1) Great application
2) ??? (Price!)
3) Profit
-everything doesn’t have to be free; people will pay for good services
-37signals, fogbugz, faxitnice are good examples
-chances are much better of creating a small, profitable subscription business than creating a large, advertising supported business
-lots of space for medium size businesses on the Internet
-start a business that you will grow gradually; don’t be obsessed with flipping
-zappos another good example (”they sell fucking shoes!!”)
12:30
Paul Buchheit
-Pay attention to what users really need, not just what they’re asking for.
-Try to find at least 1 person who’s enthusiastic about what you’re building
-Listen to yourself
2:30
Jeff Bezos
-ZDnet quote “Amazon will be like a bookstore that sells cocaine out the back door. Books will just be a front to sell cloud computing.”
-shorter Jeff Bezos: “Can you believe how fucking awesome AWS is?”
-Why does this guy get an hour to pimp his business when everybody else got 25 min? He must have helped to sponsor this.
3:25
Mike Arrington
-tactical advice for getting press for startup
-interested in stories people don’t want ridden
-”purple cows” by seth godin; “innovators dilemma”
-yank the leash (don’t become background noise); one big event to get press, not constant nagging
-use twitter and digg, write a blog, be a part of the discussion
-embrace critisizm
Q&A
-Arrington seems genuine
-findmyphone guy asked funny question about being trashed on techcrunch
-Everything that he says seems to come back to, “If you stop doing what you love, you will fail.”
4:15
Marc Andreessen
-this one is done as an interview, cool
-doesn’t think current credit crisis will affect startups that much since they don’t use a lot of credit
-”be so good that they can’t ignore you” - advice from Steve Marin
-attract good people by being on track for a good product; be engineering-centric
-how to keep mediocrity from creeping in as company grows:
-each level of company is as bad as the worst person at that level because rankings are relative
-hiring and promotions are in reference to worst person on team
-always try to raise average quality at any level of company with a promotion or hire
-luck is very important;
-book “fooled by randomness”
-success is often random
-timing is critical but hard to judge
-biggest mistake made by technical entrepreneurs is not focusing on the product
5:00
Peter Norvig
-slide
-start small, leverage what you have
-go fast
-build in positive feedback
-data is more agile than code
-leverage other people’s data
-use known learning algorithms
(lots and lots of examples of this)
-iterate
-start now and go fast, but constantly re-correct your course
I’m a little late in posting this, but I found out last Friday that my application to Startup School was accepted. The entire slate of speakers is phenomenal (some of them are Web legends), but I think I’m the most excited about DHH. I’ve been using Ruby on Rails for about a year and a half now, and meeting its creator is going to be awesome.
I’ve also always wanted to visit San Francisco. I won’t have a lot of time to do the normal tourist thing, but hopefully I’ll at least be able to meet up with my former co-worker turned Silicon Valley whiz kid Paul.
