OddThoughts

What does this mean?

A Note: -> a “promise or certificate” that an amount will be paid to you. as apposed to a Draft (ie: cheque), which is an order that an amount be paid to you.

So the “idea” is this. Orginally if someone did a “service” for you, or provided you with a “product”. Then you would be in debt to them.

The barter system is the exchanging of one form of goods/services for another. Later things like gold and silver were traded for goods and services (to pay of this debt).

Legal Tender is the “forced requirement” for a person to accept the bank note (cash bills) as payment for debt.

So if you go to the store, and purhase groceries totalling $50.00, the grocery carrier has to accept your cash as payment for the goods. (They are not required to accept cheques, credit cards, debit cards), but they must accept cash. The currency of the nation as defined as “legal tender”.

(it’s double quote day “” for everything)

Reference:

What is a negotiable cheque? 

A lesson in economics

What it is:

Simple Blog is a framework for both PHP/ASP that allows the “once-in-awhile” blogger to maintain an ongoing list of entries on a regular basis.

Background:

Many people are interesting in blogging, but don’t have the time to devote to it on a regular basis, it is just a small hobby, something to pass the time.

The problem with this is simply it is hard to get people interested and addicted to your blog when you write on a semi-regular basis.  Most people like to be able to count on regular entries that they can ‘count’ on. Would you subscribe to a newspaper if it only arrived once in a while at random times?

The Solution:

The simple blog solves this problem by keeping regular posts to your site from other contributors. So you are free to write whenever you feel like it, meanwhile you blog continues to grow from others content (who also are probably writing only on a semi-casual basis)

Now Wait!

Before you get all high and mightily telling me how those magazine selling businesses are a \”waste of time\”. Just please give me 2 minutes of your time.

I’m not suggesting that you sign up for Avon, or Tupperware, and try to sell their products.

I’m suggesting you create your own product line and have others do the selling for you!

Why be at the bottom of the pole, when you can start at the top?

First you create a simple website, that lists all of the products you want to sell, perhaps it’s a custom T-Shirt business, or eccentric geek gadgets, or even a book club. Decide what your buisness will be, (once you get it up and running you can then lauch others!)

Create a set of instructions and marketing materials to give to people explaining on how to sell your product. This should include

a) A catalog of items available for purchase

b) A price list containing prices for your sellers to “sell at”. Give you sellers the ability to customize this list and include their own customized ‘mark up’ to their situation.

c) Instructions for hosting a “party\ for your sellers to sell the wares.

You don’t have to actually have your own product list.  Instead you create a special site that lists the items in your catalogs and uses affiliate links to other products.

You seller buys the items from your affiliate pages (which are made to look like your catelog) and you get the commission. They then buy the items from the items collected and keep the difference (or pay you a %age of the sale as well).

Yep, it should be obvious right?..Well not always, especially if you’re trying to start a new business, or part-time business.

Let’s start with the basics:

A Job -> You make money

A Hobby -> Costs you money

Makes sense right?

Here’s what happens when someone tries to start their own business for the first time (ie: it happens to me and I’m sure I’m not alone)

You have an idea - it’s a great idea, you’re motiviated to work on it, and your all gung-ho so you start working hours on end, you put your blood sweat and tears into it - hopeing, waiting for others to pick it up and for it to be the huge success that you just know it’s going to be.

The problem — In this heightened state of \”busy-ness\”, you don’t really think about measuring the effectivness of your work. In particular, you spend what you think you need, probably go over your initial budget, and you have yet to actually get any earnings.

In this initial state - you simply have an expensive hobby - until you start actually making money (profit) it is not a business. Perhaps you have loans, and investors, perhaps it’s not your money that you are spending, never-the-less, if you not making money it’s a hobby. Most (if not all startups) begin simply as hobbies.

This is not too big a deal, except when several years have gone by and you have convinced yourself you have a good business but you are still not making any money at it. You caontinue to justify all of you hard work as \”fruitfull\” and \”valuable\”, you take time away from family in friends and convince yourself that it is because you are working at trying to make some money, all the while you are really just working on your hobby.

So am I suggesting that you quit when you reach a dip in the road? - Not at all - but I do have a few suggestions to keep you on the right track and learning the right thing to quit and keep from getting trapped/confused during this process.

1) Set your Goals Upfront ->

Be honest with yourself about what you are trying to do, and actively plan where you would like to be in the future. Set Metrics/Mesurables that you can compare to and be sure your keeping yourself on track

2) Watch your Spending ->

It can be easy to get trapped in (I’ll buy everything now, and get paid back later when the money rolls in). Especially if you have some angel startup investor giving your the intial capital to get yourself rolling. But, it’s better to invest only what you need and add funds slowely while keeping in the black (or at least close to it), and continuing to re-invest your profits into biulding your business, otherwise you can find yourself in a mountain of debt and worrying about this could ultimately lead to the demise of your business

3) Decide your “end-point-if” and re-evaluate as necessary ->

Are you willing to loose hundreds of thousands of dollars year after year, on your business? If so, you’ve simply picked a really expensive hobby. If your already a millionaire then you can probably even afford this hobby.

Ask yourself - at what point will I admit to myself that it’s just a hobby and not a business. If you don’t think about this upfront, you may continually tell yourself that “it’s going to get better, it’s going to get better”. But unlike the movies, you can’t just click your heals three times and everything will turn out alright!

Good Luck !

A dangerous post title to be sure. Hackers can’t back down from a challenge. I suppose it is part of the OCD or ADHD that causes them to try. When you put something out ther like “You can’t … crash, you can’t break in, etc. you just know your asking for trouble !

I however am not asking for someone to try and crash this post (or this server), as it would probably make the nice folks that host this blog for me very angry.

What I am wondering about is crashing simply by getting a lot of traffic. Blogs want traffic, lots of visitors reading what they have to say.

Bloggers may try techniques such as Digg, Technorati, or StumbleUpon. But it’s a 2 edged sword. If you get a lot of traffic, it’s great, lots of people are reading your content, perhaps you are actually making some money at it !

But what happens if you get too much? For example there is something called the “Digg Effect “. If one of you articles happens to make it to the front page of Digg, you may get so much traffic, the server that hosts your wonderfull content won’t be able to keep up and it will crash.

I am curious as to which sites/people have this “magic power” . Digg of course being one such site. But what if your site is spoken on various podcasts such as “TWIT “, or “Daily Source Code “. Can they crash their servers.

It’s somewhat like when Oprah brings a new book into her bookclub. The poor lady (or man) who wrote the book is probably blown out of his seats. It’s an immediate best seller, all because she spoke the name.

Who, then are the “oprah’s” of the internet. What are the people/blogs that can crash this post (or any post)? You’re suggestions of who can do this are recommened.

Some call them ‘crackberries’. Blackberries were one of the first mobile phones out there that had a) a keyboard and b) email through a mobile phone; as simple as text messaging.

This doesn’t make them the best. And for my fellow Canadians. I’m sorry that I’m not supporting the Canadian “RIM”.

I actually have nothing against Blackberries. I just don’t think they are the “best” device for mobile phone and messaging. I’m a swiss army knife kinda person and Blackberries just don’t cut it for me.

What tends to happen is a) a company releases a “new thing”. That new thing becomes a buzz word (eg: in business) and everyone buys one.

This company then gets the largest share of the market (you can call it ‘first to market popularity).

As other companies come out with perhaps even better products, the first product continues to hold the share. Usually because of popularity/loyality.

And hence the blackberry remains popular, though there are several other products that can do a better job

The Opportunity

Often, you want to have users submit a form with specific data and have that data emailed to you.

However, you might be on a host that does not support emailing automatically, or perhaps you can only write html pages for the website your have.

A simple script can be created that will allow you to give others the ability to email all form data they create to an email address of their choosing.

This program should incorporate specific security to prevent against attacks and spam, as well as not reveal confidential email addresses to users.

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