Quote – Business

“It’s easy to make a buck. It’s a lot tougher to make a difference. “
- Tim Brokaw

This quote stood out to me today as it scrolled across the top of my Gmail window, if I were purely driven by the desire to make money then I think I would have made some already. My desire is to make a difference, hopefully financial freedom follows.

Google App Engine

The Google App Engine was unveiled yesterday at Campfire One and it’s a really cool idea. In a nutshell it allows developers to build their web applications with the App Engine SDK and deploy them onto Google server infrastructure. Everything is covered, from web servers and load balancing, to data persistance and security. The idea has me excited, because the free accounts enable you to store up to 500mb of persistent data and provide enough bandwidth and CPU power to host roughly 5 million monthly hits. The engine turns resources on and off for you as your application needs it, so peaks and troughs in traffic to your application are in theory handled flawlessly.

This release has also got my mind racing about the potential of this service, specifically for enabling a larger group of people to see their ideas come to fruition where they might have otherwise not had the resources. Of course you still need to be able to code (in Python – which is also great!) or at least know somebody who can (and is willing to help).

I look forward to hearing some feedback from some of the lucky 10,000 users who were quick enough to snap up a free account before everyone else. Hopefully they give away some more accounts soon.

Do schools today kill creativity?

This is an amazing talk by Ken Robinson for TEDTalks. His delivery is almost flawless, he is so witty and articulate I was enthralled by what he was saying for the full length of the talk. My opinion is somewhat biased as one of my side projects at the moment deals heavily in education, however I think that anybody would find this talk very compelling.

Beware the Believers’

I got my domain name back

Previously I had owned the domain “quietprogress.com” however about 6 months ago I let it lapse because I wasn’t posting to this blog anymore and I couldn’t see any reason to keep paying for it. I bought this domain back again today and this blog, although still hosted by WordPress is now visible by pointing your browser to http://www.quietprogress.com.

Why this domain name? Whenever I’ve been successful at something in my life, it hasn’t been something I or anybody else has ever made public. I’ve slowly been learning, and making mistakes, and growing. I’m quietly progressing toward my dream of financial independence and a good life not just for myself, but for my family also.

Atomic Espresso

I had breakfast here with my girlfriend this morning, it’s in a great location on Mends street in South Perth, just up the road from the jetty and it’s a very popular place based on how busy they were.

I have a complaint though, although it took me only about 5 minutes to go up to the counter and order our food, it took about 50 minutes for it to come out. I know they were busy, but it didn’t seem like they were THAT busy. I have friends who work as chefs and kitchen assitants so I was ok with the wait time simply because I know how stressful things can get back there.

I ordered the big breakfast, and I was looking forward to it! I could have left a happy customer despite the wait time, but when I received my meal the chipolatas were more or less raw. To the credit of the wait staff, I was promptly attended to and was given some new sausages.

So I don’t really have too much against the place, I just don’t think I’ll be going back anytime soon.

Starting your own business

A friend of mine is battling with the idea of starting his own business. He has had a lot of experience at developing property through subdivision and has a knack for spotting great deals that others might miss. I consider myself somewhat of an entrepreneur, perhaps very immature, but still an entrepreneur. So I wanted to try and give him some advice which would help him to get past his fear of losing the stable income, and anything else he might be concerned about.

The way I see it, he has two options facing him, he could come up with a brilliant idea which is very innovative and creates value for people, develop it as a product or service and reap the rewards of having a low marginal cost of sale for each additional client. The other option is to be a consultant and charge people for his time and advice on an hourly, or per project basis.

I’d love to find out if anyone out there has some advice for my friend. He is 24 years old, has a wife and a job that suits his skill set.

• How do people our age get over the fears that face us when thinking of starting our business?

• Is it best to start small, keep your day job and grow your business on the side?

• What are your experiences?

I look forward to reading your advice!

A quote by Walt Disney

“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”
- Walt Disney

Great advice, especially for someone like me.

More South Park News

I was just reading this slashdot article, and found the quote by Matt and Trey quite amusing:

Parker and Stone said they were inspired to start the site when they got “really sick of having to download our own show illegally all the time. So we gave ourselves a legal alternative.” – The original Wired blog post is here.

I think it’s a good move for them.

Funny Quote

“The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.”
- Lily Tomlin

Anyone interested in understanding this more, should read Robert Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” series of books.