GNOME Do is a similar tool to Mac’s Alfred App, it takes away several mouse clicks a day and is super helpful.  I look forward to seeing what their team has in store moving forward.

Check it out here: http://do.davebsd.com/

They have lots of plugins including Google Contacts, Docs, Search, Maps and Calendar.  I find it useful to open up tools like Calculator and other browsers and such, anything to reduce the mouse usage throughout the day.

I highly disagree.  It was far from a failure.  There are a few key devices in our homes that need innovation.  The cable providers have a dominating market position right now and they innovate at a snails pace.   We are content for whatever reason with the current god awful systems were forced to use.

The next generation of Google TV will come back with an approach more similar to Android, in which they inject superior software into the hands of the companies who make devices (and HELP these companies in the process).  I predict a similar strategy with the next generation of Google TV.

I personally purchased the Logitech Revnue.  It was a pain in the ass to set up, it took maybe 20 minutes and required looking up several codes from my existing set top box and tv.  It wasn’t the software, the day to day experience is epic, the switching costs were too high for most people with the extra device.  Google TV isn’t going away my friends.  The TV is a device that has a long way to go, with the exception of a few features, it hasn’t been drastically improved since it’s inception.

I can’t wait to get hands on the developer kit, I have several ideas that would improve this planet.  It would open the door to a revolution of consumer applications that could change the way we interact in our homes.

Full disclosure: I’m called a “Google Fan Boy” at least once a week by my co-workers.

I just finished up a 3 hour bug that ended up being because the hardware clock on my machine wasn’t synced with the system time, FML.  I find myself throwing things and slamming my keyboard about half the day.  I preach loving what you do to everyone I know so I’m seemingly stuck in a predicament.  The fact is that the joy brought to me by conquering a difficult or stupid problem far outweighs the headaches I go through and the hours I spend.

I won’t stop coding.  My love/hate relationship always ends up in me excited about my work.

We just walked away with $40,000 worth of office chairs, desks and supplies for $4,200, epic.  We went to a non-advertised office liquidation sale of a 200 person company that just went out of business.  We got the tip and were some of the only people there for the taking.

For future startups, I hope we can pull this trick again.  20 desks, 25 very nice ($800 a piece retail) chairs and a whole lot of little stuff that is going to furnish our entire new office.

Awesome.

I’m using PHP, JavaScript, and a MySQL data for example purposes.

• The text area users \n for line breaks.
• Store <br> in the database.
• When submitting the data to the database, replace some characters with <br> (example below)
• When getting data from the database and placing it on the screen, replace all the <br> with \n and life is good.

Storing the data
When you submit the data to PHP through a form, or whatever, pass the textarea’s text through this function…

I got this from PHP.net on this post.

Example of a it stored in MySQL: “The quick brown fox jumpes <br> over the lazy dog”

Retrieving the data

I’m did this example through a jQuery Ajax call, so the ‘replace’ is in javascript, but you could just as easily do this on the PHP side of things as well.

JavaScript:

There are a lots of solutions to every problem, this is just one of them

For some tech products developers are your best marketing tool.  Developers help tons of other people fix their computer problems.

Tech people recommend products that have solved their own issues.  You didn’t see any Firefox commercials on TV, fact.  As the “tech guy” for my friends and my family, whenever someone has a problem, I recommend a solution.  In the case of the browser, I’ve personally installed Firefox (and now Chrome) on probably 50 different peoples computers.

Chrome has done a great job focusing on solving developers problems and they’ve made a champion marketer out of me.  For certain products, focusing on the technical needs in addition to solving the mass consumers needs can create brand ambassadors that have far greater value than traditional marketing approaches.

jQuery Plugin

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/abefhanahjellfbchdmkjdcchkogijhk

Few people have the time to memorize all the functions in different languages we bop around in all day, this is the fastest way to reference the various functions in jQuery that Ihave found.

PHP Documentation Search

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pcojjgpcjjbgfpopdhnocfieacjpbnjc#

There are a few out there, this one is the fastest I’ve found.  For me, it’s all about how fast I can go from “what are the parameters of x?” to and example

goo.gl URL Shortner

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/iblijlcdoidgdpfknkckljiocdbnlagk#

Ok, maybe not specific to developers, but still the fastest way I’ve seen to shorten and share a url.

Make the users happy

Listen to your users, talk to them, and hear what they have to say. Get a feel for what they are saying about you, put in the work, spend the time. Here is the catch, don’t wait for them to tell you, understand where they are coming from and give them what they want BEFORE they know they want it. Steve Jobs in famous for this, innovation happens when people think ahead of the curve, think about what is to come.

The most successful marketing of our generation? Google. Did they spend a dollar advertising their search engine? No. How did you hear about them? I bet it was a friend who came up running to you because they were satisfied. Google focused on their users first and foremost. They had their hearts set from day one at solving a very necessary problem in people’s lives. They accomplished this in part because they never lost sight of why people were using their product.

As for your website, you have too many features, cut the crap and focus on what really matters. Do one thing really well instead of a million things half ass. 37 Signals (the company behind Basecamp) writes about this issue in their book, Getting Real. I’d suggest you read this book. Build sites that are “smarter, faster, and easier” than everything else out there.

It’s easy to sell out; people do it everyday to make a buck or two. The greatest sites, the sites where people remember it long after they visited, the sites where you find yourself going back to endlessly, focus on what their users truly need.

Don’t ever forget about the guy using your product. Everyday at CampusLIVE I’m presented with tons of seemingly minor situations where I have to put myself in the shoes of the user. What drives them? What are they trying to accomplish? What do they need to accomplish this?

Make the lives of your customer, user, tenant, etc easier. Strive to do that everyday and if done successfully, success in business will soon follow on an epic level.