Why think up new plans for your next product, when you can generate ideas !?! Enjoy

Forgot running a webserver on your computer, phone or pda. We have reached the epitome of low-fi webservers - SpudServer: a “12 core” potato webserver. (Brings new meaning to the webserver farm!)

Frederic White built a stripped down webserver powered by potatoes. He has written a full account of his experiment on his site. The server was capable of a whopping 0.2 requests per second!

Only a couple of drawbacks, potatoe power lasts about 14 days and then there’s what to do with all the rotting potatoes.

Just think Trade Me could place their server farm with 20,000 pototoes. No more sys-admin, just hire some farmers. That keep the costs down!

We’ve started to use video to help promote our company and advertise our initiatives were involved in. (PlanHQ have also been doing a great job of promoting the use of video to show how your business works.)

With modern editing tools like iMovie etc. its a breeze to create your own video and promotions. With Youtube, distribution is really easy. Some companies are starting to create documentaries to help raise their profile and promote their products. ie. Mojopages

If you don’t have time to make them yourself, then there are a huge pool of talented film students, who are waiting for the chance to show their skills. We were referrred budding film maker Pattara Jaikasemwong by PlanHQ, who have employed Pattara’s skills on Tim’s presentations at the Wellington Chamber of Commerce. Pattara did a fantastic job on our video for Summer of Code and we’ll be using him for more of our promotions. He’s looking for work, so if you’re looking for some help to make some video, let me know and I’ll send him your way.

Forget blog posts, roll on with more videos!

Rock on Summer of Code 2.0Big thanks to film student Pattara Jaikasemwong for his awesome work on the video.

Know any students who are looking for a job over the summer?

The Summer of Code 2.0 is open to any Computer Science or Information Technology students, who will be completing their 2nd year this year or above and want to work for a Wellington company this summer. We have over 20 companies signed up for this years programme and they’re eagerly looking for students to help them work on research and open source projects.

We starting the recruitment process this week. If you’ve already signed up on the site you would have received an email giving you instructions on want you need to do to apply. Its not too late to join up if you haven’t done so already. You’ll need to get your resumes ready as application close on the 31st of August.

This week, I’ll be up at the universities to promote Summer of Code 2.0. I’ll be giving an outline of Summer of Code 2.0 programme and providing help on how to apply to the Summer of Code. Here are the time’s that I’ll be up at the universities.

Vic Students: 6:00pm, Wednesday 15th August - Cotton 341
Massey Students: 12pm Monday 13th of August - Room 5C19

Come along if you want to know what its all about.

We have a lot of cool stuff planned for this years Summer of Code. Don’t miss out!

Summer of Code is looking for someone to give a seminar on database basics - a “MySQL 101″, so to speak.

We’re looking to prime all of the students for this years Summer of Code and we would like to accelerate their knowledge in databases, and SQL. We want to host a workshop / tutorial to students in September. So I’m looking for a Database guru who wants to share their knowledge.

If you interested in helping please let me know.

Alex Iskold at the ReadWriteWeb has cast another look at Geoffrey Moore’s “Crossing the Chasm”. The concept has been at the cornerstone of a lot of technology thinking. Even John O’Hara’s book “Commercialising Innovation” is heavily based on it. Alex has hit the nail on the head by highlighting the following problem …

The problem is that compared to a few years ago, the speed with which new technologies are coming to the market has increased dramatically. All these technologies are aimed at the early adopters. And they love it and they try it. But the question is what happens when your early adopters run off to play with a new great thing before you have a chance to take your technology mainstream?

Yesterday’s Friendster is today’s MySpace and tomorrow’s Facebook.



This is actually nothing new, Clayton Christensen’s “Innovator’s Dilemma” has a case study of the disk drive industry and shows how the disruptive innovations in the disk technology often left the current market leaders in the dust.

What is an entrepreneur to do ????