Featured on BusinessWeek.com... ME!!!

So I really hope this is not my only 15 minutes of fame, because there is still quite a bit I have yet to do, but its still really exciting.

About a week ago in an effort to promote my property management application startup, I commented on an article on BusinessWeek.com about maintaining your day job and being the founder of a startup. Within about 6 hours of me posting the comment, I received an email from Ron Cassalotti, Director of User Participation with BusinessWeek.com. He was emailing to inform me that one of the editors saw my comment and wanted to use it in a piece about reader participation. I sent him the headshot that he asked for and waited.

He responded today to inform that they used it and gave me the link to where my comment was featured... right on the Business Week homepage. I am not sure how long it will be there, but it is sure neat to see.

Finding the Right Color Scheme

It is some times hard to find a color scheme that works well and it can be sometimes very time consuming. Here is a little tool that I found that may help in that quest. I have used it myself several times and it definitely helps in quickly picking images that help smoothen out a design.

http://www.colorspire.com/color-schemes/creator/web-layout-1/A13034/A13034-431416-4A2A2B-FFC1C4-431416/

I will add this link to the links page.


Chris

Save A Developer. Upgrade Your Browser.

I recently came across a website with a distinct cause, one that I support 100%. That site is savethedevelopers.org and their purpose is to improve the health of developers across the world by decreasing the stress involved in developing cross-browser compatible websites.

For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about when I say cross-browser compatibility. Web browsers, like Internet Explorer, FireFox, Safari and Opera read code, the code that web developers create. Each web browser renders the code differently, basically converting the text into a website you can view and interact with. Cross-browser compatibility is basically developing a website or web application that operates properly on all of the major browsers. Here is the major problem, Internet Explorer 6 never played by the rules, the rules in place to make it easier for developers to make one website that looks and works the same on all browsers.

Here we are nearly 2 years since Internet Explorer 7's release and roughly 25% of all of the internet users in the world still us IE 6. Which leads us to the purpose of savethedevelopers.org is to decrease that percentage to a number that would allow developers to spend less time focusing on making their website cross-browser compatible and more time on features that enrich and improve the user's experience.

You can help the cause like I did, by visiting the site and copying code onto your site that will prompt users browsing with IE 6 to upgrade their browser. So that leaves me with my closing statement...

Save a Developer. Upgrade Your Browser.

Windows on Linux??

One of the main things preventing me from going Mac was the inability to run Windows on it. With that obstacle now out of the way with my use of VMWare Fusion I can live a bit more of a windows free life. But then I learned something new that made me even more excited... Windows on Linux!

Lifehacker has posted how you can run a virtual windows installation on your linux box just like how you run virtual windows on your Mac. It is not as easy to accomplish than using VMWare Fusion, but for a techie like me, I am not shy at all.

Over the next few weeks I will grab a spare box and begin my tinkering and will post my results here.

Chris

Review: ApartmentRatings.com Should Find a New Developer

I came across a news feed that apartmentratings.com had accidentally displayed their source code on their homepage, so I ventured over to take a look. I have never visited the site before and unfortunately by the time mozilla loaded the page they had fixed the error. Darn.

Seeing as apartmentratings.com serves a similar audience to my startup property management software website I decided to have a further look. I did a search for Buffalo, NY and the above picture was my search results...

I was quite disappointed to see that their sql developer does not know how to write a proper sql query. Somehow his query had populated search results with one record being populated 10 times, in no respectable order either. To make matters worse, is this site has no 'beta' stamp on it giving it some leniency for errors and it is covered in ads... slightly destructive to the websites appeal.

In my opinion, the vision behind apartmentratings.com had merit, until they decided to execute it poorly.

Chris

A Geek in Politics???

Congressman Bill Foster is a geek. Foster, a physicist with a PhD from Havard won the 14th Congressional District of Illinois this passed week. People were surprised to find out that he enjoys to program. Read the full article at CNet.

Just a shame he is not republican...

HowTo: Marketing Efforts of a Startup -- Part I

Ok, so Property Stampede LLC is still in its infancy. We don't have a finished product nor an office. We are working on setting up the mail server and have not decided on a design for our business cards. And yet, we already have users signing up for our early beta. We must be doing something right...

Before I go on with this post I would like to tell you a bit about my experience and knowledge in marketing. I have been self employed for 3 years. Being self employed I have learned a great deal about word of mouth marketing and first appearances. I have learned that customer service far surpasses technical expertise. Not to say that anyone can be an IT Consultant, but what I am saying is that by no means am I the most decorated consultant out there. I have no formal training, I have meet people that blow my mind away when it comes to technical expertise, but I have been extremely successful with my clients.

I have had my blog for almost 4 years, actively writing for almost 1 year. I have learned a great deal about online and offline social networking through my involvement in BNI, local chambers, linkedin and others. Building networks is important and essential to marketing a product, services or yourself.

The two things that I have learned is that great customer service and strong relationships with friends, family, colleagues and other complimentary professionals will build a great foundation towards a successful marketing campaign.

Now to our marketing efforts for the soon to be #1 Property Management Application on the web.

Step 1: Tell Everyone
Hey we are starting a company! Tell everyone! Tell family, friends, co-workers / colleagues, and clients. You may be surprised who is and who isn't interested.

Step 2: Get Domain Names
Its hard to find a good domain name... but guess what? You have to. You have to find a domain name that makes sense but contains at least one of your top keywords. Once you find a domain name, find one for your blog. Once you have those two, think about if your business is one that will go global in the future, if so register those domain names in the countries you think you would expand to first.

Step 3: Update Social Networking Profiles
For those of you who are knee deep in social networking sites, this is a no brainer. But for those of you who are just getting your toes wet, go sign up with linkedin, facebook, myspace and twitter just to name a few. There are hundreds more, many that surround specific industries. Pick the best ones to match your startup and be thorough. Fill out the entire profile and begin networking. If there is a Q n A section, join in the discussions and share your expertise. Don't be a slouch and don't just spam plugs of your startup the whole time. Provide valuable information and people will learn about your startup.

Step 4: Focus on Your Easiest & Cheapest PR, Your Blog
Be transparent. Tell your audience how your progress is going. Tell them what you are trying to do and your planned time line on completing it. Remember proof read and stay professional... but keep it personal.

Step 5: Tell Everyone! Again...
Tell everyone again. Point them to your blog. If you wish you could select the people who you think would be genuinely interested in your startup and sign them up for email subscription to your blog. Let them know that you signed them up and that they could unsubscribe at any time. Get traffic to your blog.

Listed above is just some of the things that we have done up to this point. I will post part two sometime next week.

Chris

The US Navy Makes a Much Needed Move

The US Navy announced this passed week that they are no longer going to purchase non-open systems and technologies for their IT infrastructure. This is a bold move, and one that I think is long overdue. I think tax payers deserve to have government agencies make purchasing decisions based on what is best for there agency and its customers, not because of the perks and free meals the sales rep from Microsoft provides you.

I commend government agencies that force users to use office solutions like OpenOffice, StarOffice or google apps. I commend government agencies for building their own servers and workstations and taking the time to load them with FREE Linux / Unix based operating systems.

I hope that more agencies follow in the Navy's lead, its about time that revenue from our hard earned tax dollars is spent more effectively.

You can read the full article at FCW.com.

Chris

New Google Product: Google Ad Manager

With Google's recent approval by the EU to acquire DoubleClick, there are combining their efforts to provide publishers with more advanced and intuitive tools to manage the sale of ad space. Google announced the beta of Google Ad Manager. Google Ad Manager will be a tool to manage small sales teams that focus on selling ad space on websites. This is really being created as a new feature from within Google Adsense and will be accessible from within the setup tab of your Google AdSense account. I am interested to see what power this feature will offer and will post more as I get to see the tool myself. The full announcement can be found at Google's Official Blog.

Chris