Pioneer Programmer Shaped the Evolution of Computers

U.S. Tech Probe Nears End

Today I came across this article from the former CEO of Intel, and he agrees with me.  This is a little absurd as Intel is a multinational company, but the article definitely has some lessons.

How to Make an American Job Before It’s Too Late: Andy Grove

Consider this story from the article and apply it to your job, your environment, your company, and others that you know.  Is it chiming for you now?

“The story comes to mind of an engineer who was to be executed by guillotine. The guillotine was stuck, and custom required that if the blade didn’t drop, the condemned man was set free. Before this could happen, the engineer pointed with excitement to a rusty pulley, and told the executioner to apply some oil there. Off went his head.”

With raging unemployment, and superfluous government spending that could increase inflation ten thousand percent, we are sitting on a nuclear bomb.  Figure out how to be successful, because no one is going to pay your supermarket bill when a lamb chop costs fifteen dollars.  Make no mistake:  Apple and other highly successful companies do not care one bit about the country that made them great.

What will drive your startup in the long run?  Profit margin?  Some semblance of doing the right things perhaps?

The biggest issue is addressing oil that has washed to the Gulf shores. In damaged areas in Alaska, oil still exists in large quantities just below the ground surface, and it seeps up with any mild disturbance, such as rain. We must consider novel actions for eliminating this oil.

The first experiment that comes to mind is to farm large amounts of oil-eating bacteria. Apply this solution to the shoreline via manual sprayers or boat-based powered sprayers. We can use the bacteria to thoroughly eliminate all of the oil that has reached shore.

A major factor to consider is any dangers a solution of bacteria presents to to the applicator (use chemical protection equipment) and to humans and animals that come in contact with the area in the short term (high concentrations present) and long term (little bacteria left.)

The army core of engineers and BP should be heavily experimenting right now to obtain a safe and effective solution. On the news I saw fisherman swabbing up the oil with rags by hand. This is pretty medieval (only the rags have improved since medieval times) and we must apply much more effective solutions.

If you have not received a response to your e-mail, please re-send it. We did receive e-mail but it may have gotten lost in the scramble for sanity.

Thank you,

John

6 Things a Non-Engineer Should Know Before Founding a Web Startup

I have a degree in EE. Many of my casual friends can be heard saying, “Well you are an engineer…” I am not an engineer, my full time role is administering an open systems software product. My real title includes “Analyst” (which I always thought was weak.) However I do not correct my friends because I know what they mean. People equate a degree with a profession and a mindset, which is not necessarily true.

Professional Engineer: A state licensed engineer is the only one who should be called an engineer. (A non-licensed engineer should probably be called engineer in-training.) Anywhere there is a license for a profession, calling oneself the same title without a license is misrepresentation. Of course, it would be rare for a state authority to prosecute abusers. A “software architect” is not proactively trying to pass themselves off as someone who designs buildings and assures the safety of people who use the building. So we continue to live in this quasi-land of terms, the thinking being live and let live.

Despite the legalese, personally I agree with Jim Norcal. My partner did not have a degree until after he had been programming for thirty years. He is one who can figure out any system that involves code, fix it and modify it. We were just discussing titles and I was just telling him that I think Systems Engineer is an appropriate title for him considering his experience. Even agreeing with the poster above that engineering studies are infinitely more difficult that CS studies, programmers who reach the level of Jim Norcal and my business partner, they do in fact create and modify coded systems on a level similar to that of an engineer who works with mechanical, chemical, and electrical systems.

I suggest a state license for Systems Engineer. The testee would have to modify or repair two or three disparate systems. This license would distance individuals on that higher plane from POP (plain ol’ programmers.)

Onto some comments about the post itself. I like the first rule, “Don’t be helpless.” When forming our Startup, I felt somewhat helpless. My partners are highly skilled programmers. With my skills and expertise, I envisioned my role as GUI design, B2B relationships, service, advertising, and marketing. I originally questioned the importance of my role in a web & software development company. Now I have grown to understand that the skills I bring to this startup are excruciatingly important in creating success. I round out an otherwise overly-technical group of founders. Like the author implied about his experience, I get ribbed dramatically by one of our founders. Which is okay, because as far as our users go, I am the ultimate “user”, sometimes the only who looks out for their interests!

One of our clients we are programming for was astounded. They thought we would meet, they would give us the web site specs, and we would program it. We brought many marketing and design ideas to the table. From that they decided, even though our schedule is behind other programmers they can hire, that we must do the site for them because of all of the good ideas that we bring to their project.

Least of all I hope this inspires some of you who are stuck in a roomful of highly technical people who think they do it all, but who rely on you for things they sorely lack, like PEOPLE skills. (No offense to my partners…)

Here is the article:

Seven reasons to avoid using Flash on your website

And I responded:

Mikal,

“Flash development is highly specialized” I disagree. Real programmers are language agnostic and can use any tool at their disposal. Flash development does mean someone has to design the content, but this no different than a well-planned .html web site.

“Flash sites are s-l-o-w.” This is not a problem with Flash it is a problem with the programmers. We have developed internal web applications that fly as though they are completely running natively on our local machines. I am talking about querying information from a huge remote database, and the app responds nearly instantaneously. Gee, how can this be?

You are right about accessibility and you can include the blind or other handicapped people who inherently cannot use a Flash site. Web site owners should understand this and provide alternative content or direction for users.

“The boredom factor” Web sites with long animations should always offer options to skip the animations or disable them for future visits. A little planning goes a long way, but this problem does not indicate that the language itself is a problem.

For programmers who maintain Flash web sites (or any sites!) I suggest learning everything they can about Steve Wozniak. The guy was obsessive about building computers with fewer chips and at a lower cost. His motivation was probably due to the extravagant cost of parts at the time, but he is also plainly brilliant and thus took the correct approach to design. Today, programmers have gobs of CPU power, massive memory, and corporate budgets that let them putz around developing bloatware over several years that should take six months. They do not address optimization because they do not know how, they do not care, or they do not have political control over the design.

In conclusion, always use the right tool for the job. If Flash is the right tool, use it, and optimize the heck out of every step the program takes. Certainly do not accept gigabytes of graphics for content that is being viewed on the web. Get the graphic designer in the habit of compressing to the optimal size!

John,

Thank you for your email message. While I agree with what you wrote, it is still going to cost more to work with a programmer who knows what you know (when it comes to using Flash). People such as yourself charge a premium for the skill set you describe, and rightfully so. At the end of the day, that’s a simple truth (in my experience, and I’ve been producing websites since 1997).

Mikal

JB

If you represent investors, and have great vision and the ability to understand the widespread effect of a business from a generalized overview, please contact us at blog@joroto.com.

John C. Boukis

Always keep this in mind: If you are buying Joroto’s products, you will be contributing to this morbid lifestyle. You are helping to provide too much money to too few people, and usually they are programmers. Those are the last ones who will know what to do with their success. Here is an expose displaying the effects of success on Joroto:

JB

@Astro_TJ Are you experiencing flashes due to cosmic rays? Tell us another unique space experience that we may never have heard of. 35 mins ago

“Astro_TJ @joroto Yes,I do see flashes occasionally,when I close
my eyes.Another unique story?The noctilucent clouds are both mesmerizing & beautiful.”

Wow, this IS neat: Noctilucent Clouds in Wikipedia

Chinese Web Users Plan Tech Workarounds

A funny thing about network security is that people are always working around it. Someone is always trying to hack into a restricted system. With this in mind I would like to present a a contrarian argument about doing business in China. Keep in mind that this is from a guy who believes in treating people with dignity, paying above market rate wages, and creating business and thus jobs in the United States whenever that is possible.

I ask the question: Is it so bad to do business in China as an Internet services company if one must filter content to comply with the government’s rules? Clearly from the above article we see that people have been able to access content outside of China’s filters. Eventually China may decide it is fighting a losing battle and remove its restrictions. However, Google, or any other company, must pursue business in China first, in order to push the boundaries, and gt the Chinese people excited about the web.

I would never condescend to the Chinese people and think that they are clueless about the restrictions put on their Internet. Emigrants from China may occasionally return to family and inform all of their family and friends of what the rest of the world is seeing on the web. Again, the inevitability of an open web in China seems to be sneaking up on the government whether they like it or not.

I argue to you that all of us technology companies should keep pushing the boundaries with communist countries. At a minimum we can introduce the people to new things and help lead them down the road to eventual information freedom. That freedom may never happen, this is a possibility. However if we segment ourselves from these countries,we remove any chance the people have of discovering the freedom that others enjoy.

July 13, 2010

I am seeing more articles lately about protectionist policies in China. As their economy grows they may restrict outside businesses even more. At the risk of eventually losing China as a marketplace I think we need to strive more than ever to market U.S. products and services there.

1) Go to the SSL link at your Internet Provider. If you are using secure e-mail, this is the POP3/SMTP link in your e-mail configuration.
example: http://host271.hostmonster.com/

2) Click on the “lock” icon in the web browser, or choose SAFETY/SECURITY REPORT, or figure it out for your browser.

3) VIEW CERTIFICATE

4) COPY TO FILE

5) Save the certificate to the hard drive as *.P7B
a) Enable “INCLUDE ALL CERTIFICATES IN THE CERTIFICATION PATH IF POSSIBLE”

6) In your e-mail client (instructions here are for The Bat!)

a)Right click on one of your accounts and select PROPERTIES

b) Select EDIT PERSONAL CERTIFICATES

c) Select IMPORT and choose the certificate file

d) When the certificate entries are displayed:

1) Double click each entry

2) Select ADD TO ADDRESS BOOK

7) Send some e-mail and bask in the glory that you have overcome either your software vendors intelligence or your provider’s pride.

Mr. Know It All can tell us who the culprit is.

In the above article Joel Stein nails how many of us have come to hate the telephone. I bring this up because Tom was just telling me how ubiquitous teleconferencing will replace travel for corporations in the future. While that may be so, most telephones are owned by individuals, and I might suggest that telephone communication among individuals could completely evaporate. Read the article and tell me what you think.

Funny I should come across the above article as Tom was just telling me about a book he just read on Tesla, about Tesla’s amazing inventions and his great understanding of how electricity works. From our discussion it sounds like Tesla had some understandings and accomplishments that have been completely lost in history.

Here is my letter to the Wall Street Journal writer of the above article. I could not let this one slip:

Daniel,

Some facts: God made the human body fairly insulated. We have all heard of people being struck by lightning and surviving. In such cases, the lightning flowed on the outside of the person’s body, then directly into the ground. Their skin would be burned because the electricity penetrated to some level. However to live is a great gift as lightening consists of a current that may be as large as 100,000 amps. Unlike static electricity, this current is quite dangerous as it has the power to penetrate through the body, given the right (or wrong as it may be) circumstances.

Pennsylvania Tax Incentives Questioned

I am not sure if there was a time when I was a true proponent of tax incentives for business growth. There are too many problems with such policies and as the article states, the results can be minimal, even negligible. Number one, if tax incentives become a competition among different states, where does the race end? One state offers a two year tax abatement, so the next state offers five, then next twenty years, and so on. In the end the citizens get hosed as each new deal assures they will get less tax revenue for their area irrespective of how much the area grows with new businesses.
Additional examples of the people being flattened by the corporate steamroller include corporations receiving sweetheart deals from local communities, only to move elsewhere when the deal runs dry or when another deal comes along.

Note the article’s point is that tax incentives are used by companies looking for a location but they are the absolute last factor considered. Labor rates are a priority for location selection. Apply this to a real situation: A company chooses an area with extremely low labor rates. The area then gives the company a tax abatement. I think that this is a slippery slope, a self-perpetuating industrial slave machine that lowers wages and reduces the municipality’s income. Consider that this may be one of the cycles, (another being offshoring) that has helped reduce America’s standard of living, even assuring that generations x, y, z, aa, and bb have a lower standard of living their their baby boomer parents.

Looking at a top down view of taxation, I do not think that corporations should be taxed at all. Such tax gets passed onto the consumers in the form of higher prices, and reduces employee compensation and stock holder returns. (Lest you think I am a proponent of the wealthy investors, many of us average people own stock.)

What actions can increase technology development with no side effects? Individuals starting companies, angel investing, venture capital, and new business partnerships among others. I personally like to leave the government out of the equation completely. Every action the government takes results in even greater negative reactions. Just watch as a health care plan crafted in the name of providing health care to more people actually results in significantly increased costs for us citizens.

Software patent vote delayed

February 13, 2010 update

Here is an interesting blog entry, the title speaks for itself:

Debunking the ‘Patent Troll’ Myth

The name “Shark Tank” is apropos in that the cast offers “puny” amounts of money to the entrepreneurs in exchange for a large percentage of the entrepreneur’s business.  The idea that the millionaires convey is that the entrepreneurs will become millionaires themselves if they take one of the highly aggressive deals offered to them.  Of course the investors are bound to make a great deal of money also, or they would otherwise not offer funding.

The entrepreneurs asking for money need to seriously consider the next funding step in their businesses.  Take for example Marian Cruz, inventor of the Turbo Baster.  She accepted $35,000 from Kevin Harrington in exchange for a two percent royalty on all sales.  The first question to ask is what can this amount of money accomplish?  I would say that $35,000 would build a prototype baster, and allow the start of the manufacturing tooling to manufacture the baster.  Of course, this is all in China, as costs in the U.S. would be far higher.  So what happens when this money is quickly burned through?  Marian will need more funding.  She will approach Kevin for the money, and Kevin will state that he needs something in return.  He will forward her some cash, and take an even larger stake in her company, leaving her with practically nothing.

Of course, Kevin may be willing to give this product to his existing manufacturing resources and cover the cost of development.  He might also take the initial manufacturing costs out of Marian’s paltry two percent commission.  None of these details are hammered out in the parts of the show that are shown on television.

Here is a more recent interview with Marian Cruz where she does give us more detail of the business deal.

AfterShark: Why isn’t Marian Cruz’s Turbo Baster cooking yet?

[Check out this cool web site billed as "After Shark" with interviews with the entrepreneurs who appeared on the show.]

In this interview Marian states that she made a licensing deal and that Kevin is going to create the prototype.  If it is a pure licensing deal, and all other costs are covered by Harrington, that answers more of the issues that I presented.  Apparently there is a lot of the show that is not shown on television, and also they may do several takes for each entrepreneur.  This format of only highlighting the major negotiations leaves me uncomfortable as I want to see and understand the entirety of these deals.  That is television for you!

I am not so worried about the inventors being under capitalized seeing these after show interviews.  It does sound like the millionaires are willing to see these projects completely through.  Only time will tell as we continue to keep an eye on the show participants’ lives.  I know that I want to see products such as the Turbo Baster making one billion dollars and offering these budding entrepreneurs massive amounts of cash.   Now that would be cool.

I am working in Excel 2000. Hey, why upgrade? Any feedback on the options in later versions of Excel is certainly welcome.

INSTRUCTIONS:

1) Right click the field(s)

2) Select FORMAT CELLS

3) Select CUSTOM.

4) In the TYPE field, type this: ##.#[$%]

* Use your symbol of choice in place of the percent sign.

The pound signs represent the numbers in your data, so adjust the number of them before or after the decimal as necessary. The period is a decimal, of course. The bracketed expression is telling Excel that “In this country, we use a percent sign rather than a dollar sign.”

Ah, I feel better now.

This will be fun.

Today Tom continually iterated how much he hates people and there is no way he is going. Therefore, if you are interested in talking high-level tech talk with our lead developer, I must apologize. That is okay by me though. At least Tom will not embarrass us by showing up at this posh event wearing the same green polo he has worn to work for the past three months.  Instead, we should send him to CES the next round. That is, if he can bear to sit next to a human being on the plane ride.

July 22, 2009 Update

The event was very cool.  Seven hundred-something did I hear?  More accomplished people in one area than I have ever seen.  Real tough to do this sort of thing at the end of the workday, but well worth it.

Rest assured, Tom is not duplicating the efforts of either of the above shady characters. He is taking a rare break from developing device drivers all day, and developing web apps all night, to spend some time with his family.

I do not miss the twenty-something e-mails a day that each details some new, advanced system or method that gets Tom all excited, but which I could care less about. For one week I have been able to spend most of my time communicating with magazine editors, developers, and users in the tech blogs, continually trying to figure out what we can do for them. People are awesome. Life was never better.

Alas I fear the honeymoon is over, and I will be chastised for my marketing prowess and lack of high level tech insight any minute now…

JB

Here was our promotional video for our game Trisaic for the iPod.

VIDEO

We were hoping for responses such as “Awe, that’s funny.”  Along with some positive comments like that, we immediately began receiving comments like this:

“LOL, I thought it was funny. Sad thing is, there is probably some truth to it. My nephew had a friend who was a XXXX developer for XXXXX and told me stories of some of the things they would do to meet dead lines.”

Okay, so we are now as worried about you all as we are about our developers.

What comes to your mind as you view this?

JB

Thank you for coming!

John Boukis
President

blog@joroto.com

Send us information on your capital investment company. Once we research your company, we will provide a generalized design and monetization project plan for your review. If you are able to visualize our concept, work from a  generalized overview, and you show an interest in our project, we will provide a detailed CV for each Joroto employee.

John

Co-Founder & President, Joroto, Inc.