I have a Zune. 

Yes, I am the one guy who bought one, and I love it for one reason... podcasts.  The updated software is great for podcasts and the wireless rocks.  When I pull into my driveway my Zune spots my network and syncs itself.  Let's see your iPod do that!  For a lazy ass like myself, it's worth every bit of the ridicule I receive.  ;-}

TTFN

The apps that I develop are mostly large scale, multi-tiered apps and I'm afraid that I've lost my edge for developing the small but useful apps that have a direct impact on people's day to day work. 

Part of this realization came when I first heard about Amazon's new SimpleDB service.  I've been waiting for this one to come out and when it did I immediately signed up to be part of the limited beta (I'm still waiting for my invitation '-})  While reading up on it I realized that it wasn't a relational DB and was thrown for a bit of a loop.  My first reaction was "What good is a DB that I can't perform joins on?"  I tossed this around in my head for a couple of days before realizing that it did serve a purpose, that it made perfect sense as to why Amazon would choose to implement this style of DB, and that if used correctly could be extremely valuable.

What I recently began to reflect upon was not the DB but my reaction to it being different, and my difficulty in groking the difference.  The reason I believe I had difficulty "getting it" was that all I do are enterprise applications.  Because of that I've fallen into a bit of a rut in the way I approach problems.  Things like memory, CPU and disk space are mostly afterthoughts to the design, after all if the design is right you can always scale the system right?  I've come to take for granted things like a messaging system and don't give it more than a passing thought beyond the ability to use an existing one or the need to implement a home-grown version.

I think it's time for me to step outside my comfort zone a bit and start looking at alternative ways of implementing solutions.  Perhaps I need to take a stab at implementing something like USuxBallz or HornsAndHalos using some different (not necessarily newer) technologies to try to expand my mind a bit... that's assuming I ever get time to work on anything new ;-{

TTFN

It's 2:30 in the morning and I'm still grinding away on a really screwed up concept of search... And you didn't think it was possible to screw up something as simple as search... fool.  The discussion of geek movies came up today at work so I thought I'd start up my list while I take a short break:

First off here's a few via Amazon's Unboxed service (just because it looks cool):

And here's a few more.  Just for the heck of it let's try a different format:

TTFN

I have five kids.  Three of them are currently enrolled in a catholic school.  It costs less to send all three of them to a catholic school than it does for the state to pay for one of them to go to a public school... which we also have to pay for.  Both my wife and I are willing to except the extra financial burden because we both feel that our children benefit from the experience.

In addition to the financial responsibilities, each student's family is expected to "volunteer" a number of hours to help out around the school.  The volunteer hours are mandatory, and even if they weren't most parents are more then happy to lend a hand because it give us a chance to further contribute to our children's education. 

That being said, I have a problem.  Because the school runs on a fraction of the per-child money of a public school (roughly a third), the school lacks many of the niceties of state sponsored institutions.  For example, school wide air conditioning, wall-to-wall carpeting and up-to-date computer labs.  The school also has a number of areas that have fallen into disrepair such as the parking lot and the (asbestos lined) cafeteria floor. 

In order to attempt to make up for the shortcomings of the less than adequate tuition the school supports many fund raising activities.  A few of these are fairly profitable and it is only through them that the school is even able to function.  Most of them are however less than optimal.  In many cases the amount of effort that volunteers put into making them profitable far outweighs the low rate of return (many of them produce less than $5 / hr of work).  Those that do have a nice ROI most often derive the bulk of their revenue through sales of goods to the very same people who are already footing their children's tuition bill.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that anyone but me pays for my children's education.  What I'm trying to determine is if there is a better way to raise money for the school.  It seems to me that some of the constraining issues on the ability to raise capital is the amount of time which can be invested by a small group of volunteers and the size of the market into which that group has exposure.  These are the same issues that most small businesses face and that the web can help alleviate.

So to cut to the chase, if you had a small group of very dedicated and resourceful employees and a very limited budget, what do you think is the best approach for raising a moderate amount of money?  Would you devote time to seeking out donations?  Attempt to produce content in exchange for ad revenue?  Create an online store partnering with the likes of an Amazon?  Resell used goods on Ebay?  What?

I'm looking for answers here.  Having 10 volunteers spend four hours a piece to net a total of $180, while better than a stick in the eye, isn't going to raise the $70K to remove asbestos from the lunchroom floor where our kids eat everyday.

TTFN

Just upgraded my blog software to DasBlog 2.0.  The process was fairly painless and appears to have worked out just fine.

TTFN