The Black Art of Data Recovery
Posted by: Owen on Monday, 5th May, 2008
I came across a great post today that brought back so many memories. It’s a blog post on a data recovery blog that goes into detail about what the Master Boot Record on a hard disk looks like. It took me back to the days of messing around with Norton DiskEdit and finding out how [...]
FON raises $9.5 million
Posted by: Owen on Sunday, 13th Apr, 2008
Just read that FON has raised more money to help it grow. Here’s the press release:
Great news! We’ve raised another $9.5 million to grow the movement! We’ve got lots of great plans for the money. We’re going to Launch FON in Russia, launch the Fonera 2.0 (the fonera that uploads and downloads stuff to and [...]
Elements of Sustainable Companies
Posted by: Owen on Friday, 21st Mar, 2008
I came across this great list of attributes that are critical to the success of a start-up. Check these out:
Clarity of Purpose - Summarize the company’s business on the back of a business card. Interesting test of how clear your objectives and targets are.
Large Markets - Address existing markets poised for rapid growth or change. [...]
Optimising for the Long Tail
Posted by: Owen on Thursday, 14th Feb, 2008
What is the Long Tail and why is it important for Search Engine Optimisation. Well, the term “Long Tail” was coined by Chris Anderson in Wired magazine and relates to the impact of focusing on niche strategies and how this is a viable competitive model. I came across a great post that applies this to [...]
The Art of Seduction
Posted by: Owen on Sunday, 2nd Dec, 2007
One of the great things about the Internet is that it provides a window onto all sorts of activities that you may or may not come across in your normal day to day life. Case in point was a website I ended up on today. I was looking through some website relating to programmes that [...]
Happy Birthday DesignQuote.net
Posted by: Owen on Saturday, 1st Dec, 2007
Wow, I’ve just found out that DesignQuote.net has just celebrated it’s 1st birthday, and has been used to post over $3.5 million worth of jobs for their clients. If you haven’t come across them before, they provide a marketplace for web design jobs allowing companies to advertise their web work and companies, contractors and individuals [...]
Paid Search is a lot like Dating
Posted by: Owen on Friday, 30th Nov, 2007
Just came across an excellent post that compares Paid Search to Dating and draw some interesting conclusions. The analogy seems to work pretty well, putting forward some great advice like, including realising that listening (campaign monitoring) is important and usually many guys are after that one attractive girl (keyword competition). I particularly like the “meeting [...]
Microsoft looking to buy a chunk of Facebook?
Posted by: Owen on Tuesday, 25th Sep, 2007
I’ve just read an article in the Wall Street Journal that almost sounds as speculative as a Search Engine Marketing blog. It talks about how Microsoft is try to acquire a stake in FaceBook as part of their ploy to wrest Internet dominance from Google. Now I’m not sure what WSJs articles are normally like, [...]
Facebook goes large
Posted by: Owen on Friday, 20th Jul, 2007
The news in the press today is that Facebook has just acquired Parakey. For those who haven’t heard of Parakey before, they’re an outfit working on closing the gap between the Internet and your desktop. The founders of this “Web-OS” company are Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt, the two people responsible for bring us Firefox. These two individuals [...]
It’s all about perception
Posted by: Owen on Saturday, 16th Jun, 2007
Small businesses have a lot to gain from pulling together a good trade show. However, all too often, small businesses are the ones who do most badly, and it’s usually a problem of image, how they are percieved by others. I’ve seen way too many stalls at trade shows that looks rubbish, and when they’re [...]
Microsoft vs The Little Guy
Posted by: Owen on Wednesday, 6th Jun, 2007
Have you ever used TestDriven.Net ? If you’re unaware of it, it’s a Test Driven Development enhancement for Visual Studio written by Jamie Cansdale. And Microsoft thought that it was such a great product, that they even awarded him their MVP - Most Valuable Professional - an award for the “exceptional technical community leaders from [...]
Why companies fail
Posted by: Owen on Tuesday, 15th Mar, 2005
Some more reading material which I picked up from FT for when I have some time:
Why Great Leaders Don’t Take Yes for an Answer: Managing for Conflict and Consensus - Michael J. Roberto
The Nature of Managerial Work - Henry Mintzberg
Only the Paranoid Survive - Andrew Grove
The Incompetent Manager: Management Failure: Causes, [...]
