Mike's Tech, Business and Life Report - @mikebz

Who are you selling yourself to?

2012-01-22T11:45:00.000-08:00

I just had a quick exchange over twitter in regards to Redbeacon being bought out by Home Depot. First of all I want to congratulate Yaron, Aaron and the rest on starting a great company that got great traction. Secondly why the hell did you sell to Home Depot?

I understand that a lot of folks in this world right now do startups and want to cash out. If that’s why you are starting a venture – great! You are basically running an R&D department for a big company, but if you are really passionate about your space selling to a company that sells 2x4s is a sure way to get marginalized and become irrelevant.

I have spent time in companies big and small. I have created new features, new marketplaces, worked with partners and developed products. In order to become a great company sales, marketing, development and executive sponsorship need to be in sync.

I can understand that a small product can be absorbed into a bigger offering and accelerate because of that acquisition, but when a company’s missions are so different it’s hard to imagine how the executive sponsorship, marketing and sales are going to rally behind the new lines.

Even when the company’s mission is aligned with your product’s mission it’s still hard to get the right support. I’ve developed several projects that ended up going nowhere because the company was not aligned behind them. Engineers put everything together and then… nothing. It’s demoralizing and you can’t get folks to work hard on the next revision.

I think in a pinch Home Depot has to compete with Lowe’s on the best home improvement hardware and materials, not a web 2.0 solution for locating contractors. My guess is that pouring money to market and evolve Redbeacon is going to be less of a priority than the core business. Let’s hope I am incorrect.

New Year Resolutions 2012

2012-01-01T19:22:00.000-08:00

Before I get into the New Year resolutions for 2012 let’s recap how I have done with my 2011 resolutions. Thankfully they are easily found on my blog:
http://www.mikebz.com/2011/01/new-years-resolutions-2011.html

How did I do? I had just five things on my list: dribbling better in soccer, dropping my body fat percentage below 10%, taking jiu-jitsu classes, take meditation classes and go on a Zen retreat.

I actually did pretty well. I have been consistently going to meditate at the San Francisco Zen Center and even went on a retreat to Green Gulch farm. The jiu-jitsu ended up getting punted on. Body fat percentage is stuck stubbornly at around 12% and won’t go below 10%. Soccer got taken off the list because I just can’t find a good soccer league close to my house. Instead I picked up tennis, I think it’s a fair trade.

Now on to my 2012 list:

- Consistently take Yoga and work on the flexibility of my body
- Figure out a good travel diet so that my time on the road doesn’t kill my stomach
- Use Ruby on Rails in at least one project
- Write blog posts every two weeks
- Try Jiu-Jitsu (2011 resolution carried over)
- Take Tennis classes

Let’s see how it goes! Wish me luck!

Are you in Software Design or IT?

2011-12-22T06:17:00.000-08:00

Different engineers have different calling, some create mass-market products and some create local solutions. There is a problem when you use the wrong personality for a wrong project. More specifically if you apply “solution mindset” to a product problem you end up getting crap.

I love opening up Apple packages. Over the years I’ve been spoiled by Steve Jobs’s drive to deliver amazing out of box experience and intuitive interfaces. I open up the box, the device is most likely going to be charged and within minutes will start making my life better and more fun.

I also like putting stuff together. I learn new computer languages, model airplanes, do-it-yourself electronics kits. It’s really awesome to pick up a new language, start playing around with tools and let my creative side go nuts.

My suspicion is that I am not alone. Most of the people have two modes – have fun because things are intuitive and easy, and have fun because things are flexible and powerful.

In my engineering and design I have always tried to be mindful of those two sides. Things have to be fun because they are intuitive or they have to be fun because they are powerful. Creating the right products and the right designs is what gives someone a title of “Software Design Engineer” (feel free to add whatever hierarchy prefix you want – director/manager/VP). Software Design Engineers create mass market products and platforms.

There is also another type of engineer out there. This type of engineer is more responsive, more accessible and is good at putting together solutions. This engineer is no more or less important than the software design engineer but his tasks are about a deep dive into a particular problem and coming up with a solution. The solution engineer shines in IT. You love having those guys that put together products, processes and make the Legos fit together.

The danger lies when you get the “solution guys” into the product business. What happens is they start solving every customer’s problem with adding small features that address every single edge case. The solution guys want to make sure that they solve a particular problem and the product starts having a bunch of different personalities. Those personalities start growing without any rhyme or reason and sooner or later you get a monster with a bunch of heads. The new customers are intimidated and their experience sucks.

Thankfully with modern software you can address this issue. In todays applications you can create easy and intuitive user experience and then supplement it with a powerful API. This is the best of both worlds design. It gives people what they want without creating a monster.

Your Enterprise customers are probably going to complain – “but why don’t you put a button in your software that solves a problem for my department of 50 sales reps” The answer is to challenge this request and figure out if that same button can be useful to 5,000,000 sales reps. Don’t let your product lose it’s personality and let the solution engineers take your API and solve the edge cases.

So you got a couple of job offers, how do you negotiate from here?

2011-11-25T08:04:00.001-08:00

I just interviewed a solid QA candidate. She seemed qualified for a job and had the right experience. It was no secret that she was interviewing in multiple places and got several offers because she deserved it.

We started putting together an offer on the upper end of where we felt that she would land. The other company being a less exciting startup came in with an offer that was greater than ours because, frankly, they had to.

That is the awkward situation where the candidate has to call someone back and say: “I am getting a better package from another company, what can you do on your end?” The moment is awkward because we, engineers, generally are not used to going back and forth. We have an answer and some data to back it up, the negotiation game makes everyone uncomfortable.

What happened next? Next, we matched the offer.
Later on we got another call: the other company is beating this offer by $8,500. The candidate said that she thought that we were a more exciting company to work for, but the eight grand made it a difficult choice.

At that point I made a decision that we are not going to enter a bidding war and said that the more interesting job was there for her, but the numbers are going to stay the same. Internally we actually became a little indifferent to her accepting the offer and already started scheduling interviews with the other eight candidates we had in our pipeline.

Why did that happen? How can you handle it better in your own job search? Number one thing to do is to understand what happens on the other end of the table.

After interviewing multiple people the hiring manager generally has one or two best candidates to move forward with. While interviewing can happen in parallel with multiple folks, once you start the job offer you are operating serially. You can’t have two outstanding job offers and have both of them accepted.

The hiring manager goes to HR and they get an approval to put together a package. If the package exceeds the budget for a particular position you generally need to get an executive approval for expanded budget. Exec approval takes time and follow-up. If you need to do it several times over several things happen: first - you are going back for more money constantly, second – you start wondering if you are being taken advantage of. Lastly you start wondering if you are getting a technology enthusiast or a professional negotiator.

I understand and fully support people getting what they deserve. So what’s the best way to handle multiple offers? My advice is to say this: “Hi, I want to let you know that I am getting multiple job offers. I don’t want to go through several rounds of negotiations – you probably don’t either. In the interest of making this easy on everyone could you please put together your highest and final offer? I am asking other companies to do the same. By the way, the general range for a person with my experience and knowledge is: X to Y.”

This makes the exercise a blind auction, which is a better overall experience for people involved.

If you have a better strategy, let me know – feedback is welcome on twitter @mikebz and elsewhere.

CSS design guidelines for offshore outsourcers

2011-11-17T07:30:00.001-08:00

My struggle with outsourcing of design continues. A couple of weeks ago I told all of you guys about the issues I was having with getting offshore designers. Some of you told me that I should cut my losses and just find someone in San Francisco who can meet with me and bang out a design in a day. I figured that I am going to keep working through it because I already had too much vested interest with these fellas. On top of it I am also using Elance Escrow so I already have a deposit that I can’t easily get back.

These guys finally came up with an acceptable design and now it’s time to actually slice it and put it into CSS. I can already tell that it’s probably going to be amateur and crappy so I figured I’m going to save a few round trips by writing up some guidelines.

I am not a full time web designer, however I’ve been managing engineering teams for close to ten years now so I think that general engineering principles and some basic SEO understanding can be helpful.

Here are the rules I came up with and found on the web:

1) All the text besides the logos should be in text - no text via images.
2) No styles in the HTML files - all styles should be in CSS. Search for font, color, and alignment; make sure there is nothing like that anywhere besides CSS. If there is a need leave a comment behind for why that was necessary. Having those elements without a good reason will result in your work getting rejected.
3) All the logical elements should be together - font information together, height width together within the individual style instructions.
4) Add comments to sections explaining the logical grouping
5) All the values should align for readability using tabs. For example

.smallBox {
height: 100px;
width: 200px;
background: white;

font-family: tahoma;
font-size: large;
}

6) Do not use tables - just DIVs. If you had to use a table leave a comment for why it was necessary.
7) Most if not all of the DIVs should have corresponding classes. If you can't think of a class for the div, then you probably shouldn't have a div for it.
8) Combine elements if they are totally duplicate styles for example:

h2, h3 {
color: blue;
}

9) Test CSS instructions on IE 8+, FireFox 3.5+ , Chrome and Safari 4+, style and XHTML validators.

Of course I tried to leverage as many things on the web as I could. A lot of these rules are borrowed from the following sources:
http://woork.blogspot.com/2008/11/useful-guidelines-to-improve-css-coding.html
http://wiki.songbirdnest.com/Developer/Articles/Style_Manual/CSS_Guidelines
http://groups.drupal.org/node/6355
http://ngocthuytran.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/30-css-best-practices-for-beginners/

Did I miss anything? Feedback is welcome. Post comments here or find me on twitter @mikebz

Why do so many technical recruiters suck?

2011-11-12T13:45:00.001-08:00

It’s Tuesday, I get a call from an unknown number. There is a little hesitation, but I finally pick it up. My number is listed on my business card and I feel like I should get these calls unless I am in a meeting.

- Hi, is this Mike?
- Yes, speaking….
- Hi Mike! How are you today?
- Fine…
- I am calling from XYZ Co, and we deal with recruiting and staff augmentation. I was wondering if you are looking for software developers.

We are in San Francisco and it’s late 2011. Every tech company is looking for developers. If they were not looking… just wait till one of their devs gets recruited away. Now guess what? You are looking!

Yes, I am on the market for some developers and this guy bought himself a few minutes…

- Have you looked at the website?
- Honestly I have not had a chance to yet, but I have a couple of Ruby candidates that are really good.

Hmm…. so you don’t know what we are looking for. You didn’t care to open up our website and look at the career page, and I have a feeling that it doesn’t even matter what we want. You have a couple of people you are trying to pitch to every company you can.

- I can’t really source candidates from agencies that are not on the vendor list. You have to go to HR first.
- Okay… in that case why don’t we have coffee or lunch next week?

I am thinking – does this guy not want to hear me? I am detecting a pattern: not only he doesn’t want to listen, he actually doesn’t care to consume any information at all.

I know that type! He probably refers to himself as a “people person”. On Friday in the Marina when drinking with his buddies he probably talks about people he barely knows using their first name only. I bet he claims to have known people from LinkedIn for a long time and reiterates the values of connections.

This is why on a very basic level we can’t work together: I am at my core an engineer and a scientist. He is at his core a connector. I want facts, due diligence and real value. He thinks that as long as he is nice and interesting we can do business. One of us is going to have to adjust and since he will, eventually, want $15,000 - $20,000 for his services - it ain’t going to be me.

I do value having an agent out there who can source and screen candidates, but somehow this industry has fallen to some amazing lows. People who don’t know what they are looking for, what they are looking at, and why they are looking, believe that pounding the pavement and setting up a boiler room is the path to make some money.

So what do good tech recruiters do? They get into the details! They figured out that they are dealing with some detailed folks. We (other software engineers) want you to do what we could do if we had more time. As it stands right now a lot of these “people persons” can’t compete with the most connected person of all – Craig from Craigslist.

-mb

PS: by the way I am hiring web and iOS devs, Tech PMs and QA. Apply here: http://jobvite.com/m?3m2Xbfwg

Using Offshore Designers

2011-11-05T18:56:00.000-07:00

I am working with a new design firm and this time to save some cash I decided to go offshore. The guys I am working with right now are in India and I seriously think they don't get it.

In 2001 I had an offshore project management firm and we had partners in India, Belarus and Ukraine. Honestly all of them sucked. The best offshore designers we worked with were in Argentina.

I can already hear a bunch of voices complaining about generalizations, however I am not the only person to notice this. Today I decided to go a step further and figure out: "why is it that the guys in Ukraine or India do not wow me with their designs?"

Let's dissect this latest project and figure out what has been going wrong. I believe it's indicative of design issues in general.

the designer didn't have an overall strategy for the design. For example: are we going to go with vector graphics, photos, straight edges or rounded edges? A lot of those types of decisions need to be done on an architectural level and the rest of the design flows from that. What you get in the end of consistency in the application. Can you imagine if Facebook all of a sudden had a big round beveled button somewhere?
the designer doesn’t have the confidence or the genius to suggest something innovative. A good design is innovative enough, but familiar enough that users are not confused.

Let’s take my last project for example. I am trying to put a new skin on the projet I created during the DreamForce Hackathon – www.twitter2chatter.com. I gave the designers the overview of the solution and I gave them some designs I liked. What I got back were three starting designs.

The designs were a variation on the same theme. One of them actually mixed photographic and drawn images in a way that didn’t work. Another one had a bunch of colors. All of them had all caps text everywhere.

I decided to give the designers more direction and wrote out the text, while pointing out all the obvious issues like – please don’t put anything in all caps and keep the colors consistent. What came back were three variations with all caps and a color scheme of an Indian rug.

The next iteration I got one design with a bright yellow color, which is nowhere to be found in Twitter or Chatter. So I basically decided to lay out the front page in OmniGraffle and see if I can get these guys back to something normal.

Another iteration, better but not there – repeated elements on top and bottom, again new colors appearing out of the blue and still ALL CAPS everywhere...

So what now? Is it a language barrier? Is it an attention deficit? Is it that people don’t understand the value of consistency and small things? Who knows, but I bet its not the last time I am struggling with these guys.

Humor in XCode 4

2011-10-30T09:41:00.000-07:00

I love product teams with a sense of humor. This is what you get in Credits.rtf when you create a brand new application in XCode 4:

Engineering:

Some people

Human Interface Design:

Some other people

Testing:

Hopefully not nobody

Documentation:

Whoever

With special thanks to:

Mom

So you want to be the boss?

2011-10-21T21:40:00.000-07:00

Nowadays a lot of people feel like they need to move up in order to claim “growth” in their professional life. Once they master something they think that the next natural thing is having a few folks “underneath them”

I think at the core of this is a failure in American corporate culture. The fact that you are a director actually does not mean that you are smarter than all of the people who report to you. In the position of a director you are concentrating on different things.

If you are a good engineer you should actually continue being an engineer because if you become a director you are probably not going to engineer anything. If you are a director that still writes code you are probably missing some other important responsibilities.

What are the issues you are going to deal with as a director?
1) recruiting and talent retention
2) defending your team from external interruptions
3) being an external and internal champion for your project
4) dealing with under performers
5) stroking peoples egos
6) conflict resolution
I am not suggesting that as a director you should be completely oblivious to the details of how things are done, but most of your time is actually spent selling and using other “soft skills.” You are selling the opportunity to candidates, selling the fruits of your team’s labor to your sales/marketing team and so on. If you are an engineer and dealing with dense people irritates you, or you take rejection personally, or if you like getting deep into technical problems – you are probably not going to be happy being “the boss.”

How do we keep engineers happy at engineering so they don’t desire to be promoted to the maximum level of incompetency? Simple – recognize that products are really their creation. For example a couple of guys on my team just shipped a product. I made sure that they were the ones who were mentioned in the internal announcement – not “the team,” not “my team,” but Dave and Mike.

-mb

PS: I picked engineers here because I am familiar with this topic, but the same thing goes for marketers, sales people, artists and all other individual superstars.

What did Steve Jobs mean to me?

2011-10-05T19:59:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I saw a tweet that Steve Jobs passed away. I thought it was a joke. I thought that @AP is going to include a follow up apologizing for a hack... that message didn't come. What came was an article in Seattle PI and then a page on Apple.com simply stating "Steve Jobs, 1955-2011"

I wasn't there when we lost John Lennon, but now I know how it feels. A visionary who has propelled the entire world with his ideas is no longer here. Who knows what would happen if...

Now we, in the tech industry, are left to carry the torch of innovation and uncompromising focus on user experience in our products. Steve proved everyone wrong time after time and built a company that has disrupted so many things we thought could not possibly change.

Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains

Thank you Steve! I will now go do that.

Getting early sales

2011-10-04T09:57:00.000-07:00

I wrote this to a friend of mine who is creating a startup and I figured that it's worth sharing:

...My advice to get early sales is to figure out what your market really is:1) who is willing to pay for this stuff2) where are those guys spending their time?3) are there partners who are in the same verticals who you can leverage?I would suggest getting hands on with people and investing into good flexible sales people first. Early in the game you don't know how people feel about your software. The best way to find out is to meet them in person. When you do a demo you can sense when people start drifting off. You can see how people react when you present them pricing options. I don't believe you "create a market" as a startup. I believe you find a market that emerging or that already exists. What is your market? Until you can put quotas on sales people you probably don't know for sure. Once you have an educated guess for question #1 and #2 I would suggest that you find a trade show. That's a great way to get in front of a lot of people right away. You can get a modest booth or a table top space and also walk the expo floor. Meet people, talk about your software, set up some meeting for after the show. 70% of communications is non-verbal and you can get a pretty good scientific sample at a big show.

CloudSpokes Video from DreamForce Hackathon

2011-09-23T13:49:00.000-07:00

I am about 2 minutes in...

Dreamforce SF 2011 from CRAZYCHRISFILMS LLC on Vimeo.

Have you checked your Google Plus Page Lately?

2011-09-20T16:20:00.000-07:00

I have not. You probably have not either. What happened? After the initial big push, the redesign of Google’s online properties and everyone’s almost automatic enrollment in the service, it has fizzled.

When I meet people in real life and I want to socially connect with them I don’t ask them if they have a Google Plus account. Most of them have Facebook and use it.

Google Plus has come out with Circles, which were really nice but it sort of stopped there. Facebook in the meantime added some simple ways to protect your privacy. It’s not as elaborate as the Google Plus Circles but enough to stop an average Joe from switching.

In the meantime Facebook has also released subscriptions, dynamics lists, changed their UI around photos and that’s just the stuff we know.

It sure looks like right now Facebook is moving a lot faster. That paired up with already built in Social DNA and a massive lead leaves Google Plus in the dust. What happens now? I think Google Plus needs some killer features that tie it in with other popular Google Plus services:

- Google Maps for mapping your friends

- Google Reader

- Google Voice

- Profile analytics and company pages.

Not only Google Plus needs to do this type of stuff, it also needs to do it pretty fast or it will go by the way of Orkut.

My presentation at DreamForce 2011

2011-09-07T11:36:00.000-07:00

DreamForce 2011 is over. In few words - it was incredible. There were thousands of attendees. The energy was incredible at the show as well as at the after hours activities.I loved the Metallica show and the Appirio's party. The fact that SF MOMA was open to attendees was a great benefit as well.I wanted to share the deck that I have used for my presentation in the developer theatre.Paperless business process with docu sign esignature v2

View more presentations from Mike Borozdin.

New Wallpaper for iPhone

2011-09-05T14:28:00.001-07:00

Zen Pond for iPhone by ~ezxs on deviant ART

A Mac OS X Lion Feature that developers will appreciate.

2011-07-22T17:14:00.000-07:00

This is a follow up post to my 1 day review of Mac OS X Lion. After using it for a couple more days it still is a very positive experience. I did find an interesting feature that I believe calls for another blog entry.

When you shut down your machine OS X Lion asks you if you’d like to re-open all the windows. That is very handy because often I am using the same several apps all the time Chrome, Mail, iCal, Word and maybe an IDE.

Yesterday I was using terminal windows for my development and wanted to reboot my machine. To my surprise when I rebooted the machine my Terminal windows opened and I had the history of my shell commands and outputs still in the buffer.

Even though I don’t reboot my mac often it was useful to regain the context of what I was doing. This is another example of small but useful improvement done in the latest version of OS X.

1 Day OS X Lion Test: Three Favorite Things and One Small Problem.

2011-07-20T22:01:00.000-07:00

Today I downloaded OSX Lion from the Mac OS App Store. The entire installation went flawlessly: the system upgraded and booted up as expected. I wanted to share the things I noticed as a person who does business communication and software development. For those of you who do not want to read the entire post I have to say that there are good reasons to upgrade, but you have to watch out for a couple of quirks.

Number one most favorite upgrade is the Mail App. It got a complete makeover. Conversation threading really works now. It’s a pleasure to use.

Mac OS X Lion Mail App

The app also seems to be a little faster to start up and that’s always a good thing.

My second most favorite improvement is the way multiple desktops work. Sliding desktops side to side feels more intuitive. The dashboard as a desktop of its own seemed like a brilliant idea as well. I seldom remembered to use my dashboard before but now I pop into it frequently.

Another productivity tool that I very much appreciate is iCal. I connect to multiple calendars and iCal is one of my most used applications. I have it linked to Meetup.com, Microsoft Exchange, Google Calendar and Facebook. In the new iCal I found a nice surprise a port of iPad Day view:

Mac OS X Lion iCal - Day View

It shows the full day agenda and also gives you a way to scroll through the appointment timeline on the left hand side.

All my applications that were installed on the Snow Leopard continued to work with the exception of NetBeans. NetBeans silently stopped launching. I had to go look at the logs to find out that Java runtime has been uninstalled. Issuing java from the shell prompt started an installation and addressed the problem, but I guarantee that if I wasn’t in the tech field I’d never figure this out. Once I have got the Java runtime everything worked as expected.

In Summary I believe Lion is a worthy upgrade. None of the features were particularly breakthrough but Apple showed continuous innovation and polish in a lot of places where it mattered.

Why work at Microsoft

2011-07-19T22:39:00.001-07:00

I spent a total of 5 years at Microsoft. 2 years as a contractor and 3 years as a full time Engineering Lead. My time at Microsoft had its ups and downs but overall it was a very valuable experience. I am tough on Microsoft, but that’s primarily because I think they can do a lot better. I want to devote a few paragraphs to why one would actually work at Microsoft, because even with all its flaws Microsoft can contribute a lot to someone’s growth.

First thing to remember – Microsoft is a very engineering driven company. It is the best place to learn how to be a great developer, tester or program manager. Most of the groups at Microsoft know exactly how those roles play together and how to train and execute in those disciplines. Microsoft has had some issues delivering breakthrough products lately, but it’s rarely an engineering issue. Windows 7, Windows Phone 7, Xbox, Office, Windows Servers and Visual Studio are stable, extensible, responsive and are a pleasure to use. In the interest of full disclosure I do use an iPhone and a Macbook Pro, but it’s mostly a hardware issue.

When you join Microsoft as an engineer they will train you how to write secure code, how to test it, how to grow in your role and invest in yourself.

Being at Microsoft as an engineering manager or a lead is also a great experience. Microsoft will invest into training you how to hire and terminate, how to deal with various personalities and how to drive your team to excel.

The time I did spend at Microsoft I shipped products, did bug triage and gained intuition about how to manage a release.

There are plenty of reasons not to be at Microsoft and that’s why I left 5 years ago to join DocuSign, however that’s a whole different blog post. I do consider my time on the Windows Team as a Masters in Software Engineering (as opposed to Masters in Computer Science). The curriculum consists of taking classes, doing a lot of homework, working hard, coming into the lab on the weekends, and passing your finals by shipping software.

Google Plus could be the first PRM (Personal Relationship Manager)

2011-07-08T10:15:00.001-07:00

My toolkit

Last night I was at a great API meetup put together by Shanley (@shanley) from ApiGee. There were a few interesting presenters including SalesForce.com and Context.IO. Thinking about CRM, extracting useful content out of e-mail and playing with Google Plus gave me an idea:

One thing that I love in the corporate world that is not yet in my consumer arsenal is a relationship manager. By that I mean the organized view of: e-mails, phone calls, meetups, personal meetings, group affiliations, shared documents and shared pictures all in one view.

I really don’t need a relationship manager for people I stay in close contact with. I know exactly what my relationship with my mom is about and I know what’s going on with my close friends. However there is a distant fringe of people that I come in contact with every once in a while. It would be great to have a view of our history together. Under that category I would put: ex co-workers, tax accountants, dentists, doctors, car repair people, some of my college buddies and technical affiliates.

There are only a few companies out there that can actually gather that information and organize it. I believe Google is in the position to do it well. In fact creating the PRM would elevate the value of using Google voice, sharing Google docs, joining Google groups and, of course, using Google Plus.

Google Plus exposes the Achilles Heel of Facebook

2011-07-04T11:46:00.000-07:00

Last week I’ve got an invite to Google plus last week (thanks @iein) and had a chance to play around with it. We have gone through many waves of social networks. Friendster, Orkut, MySpace and every new social graph addressed a major annoyance of the previous one.

I used Friendster and Orkut for a bit, but both of those didn’t catch people’s attention enough to keep them sharing information every day. MySpace saw real mass adoption but it completely failed with its design. I remember being frustrated with people’s pages, the auto playing videos, bulletins that were over run by club promoters and the rest of cheap design. Then came Facebook and it addressed some of the things that MySpace refused to fix.

For me Facebook was a big winner because you had to prove your affiliation to a certain college. You also didn’t have crazy designs on people pages. You didn’t have limitations on pictures and you had the news feed. MySpace reacted to those features way too late and it was probably afraid that it was going to lose some of its users if it became more strict and less customizable.

Now we are seeing people’s frustration with Facebook. The number one frustration is privacy. If you let people into your network they are free to see everything. If you don’t then they feel like you don’t want to associate with them.

People have gone around this issue by creating several profiles. Some just stopped sharing personal information altogether. Facebook has continuously erred on the side of overexposure of your data. Overexposure of your personal life is what kept people who are in your circle coming back therefor Facebook had no reason to fix it.

Google Plus holds a promise to fix the oversharing mess. Alexia’s Tsotsis’ article describes the difference between Facebook social networking and real world social networking. Facebook better react quickly or soon I will only share my personal info only on the network that promises to keep it to my inner circle of trust.

Philosophical Questions as of July 2011

2011-07-03T20:41:00.000-07:00

After reading Gurdjieff by John Shirley I have constructed the word cloud of the highlights and keywords. The results were a little surprising but they gave me an insight into the philosophical questions I am currently pursuing.

I have excluded things like "our, their, the" here and here is the top of the report

Total words: 1022
Unique words: 628
Score: 61.4%
Words and frequencies:
love 10 1%
life 8 0.8%
real 8 0.8%
consciousness 6 0.6%
machines 6 0.6%
personality 6 0.6%

Going back to the highlights that match to these keywords the topic philosophical topics for me right now are:
- Understanding of Love
- Meaning of life
- The best way to experience reality and be conscious through the journey
- How do external influences make humans into machines
- How do I know who I am - what is essence and what is personality I have developed.

I did not anticipate this order but it does seem that these topics are both interesting and engaging.

Apple Love - Wallpaper

2011-06-28T22:53:00.001-07:00

Apple Love - Wallpaper, a photo by Ben Adamson on Flickr.

Blog Post on the DocuSign Blog: NetBeans IDE + DocuSign API. The easiest way to connect from Java yet.

2011-06-23T11:42:00.001-07:00

Reblogging:
http://www.docusign.com/blog/2011/06/23/the-easiest-way-to-get-going-with-docusign-api-with-java/

What will make me use SkyDrive

2011-06-21T17:51:00.001-07:00

I saw the UI updates from SkyDrive team a few days ago. It reminded me that I had a SkyDrive account. I actually used SkyDrive for a couple of years. It was really never my go-to solution for sharing.

It didn't have desktop tools. Supporting Mac was an afterthought and in general there was nothing special about it. In comparison Box.net had great plugins and corporate sharing. DropBox had a great folder that I could use, but SkyDrive has been kinda neither here nor there.

SkyDrive was also very confusing with Live Mesh and its still competes in a way with Windows Live Sync.

In my test of Windows Phone 7 it was nice to see that you could upload photos to SkyDrive automatically, but again it wasn't really enough for me to say: "wow, I really should move my photos to SkyDrive"

There is one place in my house where I would really LOVE photos off SkyDrive and that is on my XBox.

I've been one of those cord cutters who uses Comcast purely for internet now and my XBox 360 reigns supreme in my living room. I don't have a stationary desktop and there is no way I am going to create a "home server" which will be collecting dust somewhere in the corner. My photos are on my laptop, flickr and Facebook. What would be really killer is if my XBox natively connected to SkyDrive and I could show my friends photos directly from SkyDrive.

User Experience would be very key. It would be nice if based on my XBox Live ID my SkyDrive photos folder was automatically available and I could easily go and show slideshows from the folders. XBox is powerful enough to do caching of the images on the local drive and pre-fetching to make slideshows and browsing through folders very simple.

If that was in place I'd use SkyDrive all the time. I think I am not alone.

Samsung Focus Review from an iPhone 4 user

2011-06-11T15:37:00.000-07:00

Last week I was able to get my hands on one of the Windows Phone devices - Samsung Focus. I have been an iPhone user from iPhone 1 and prior to that I used to use Windows Mobile devices for years. Even though there are abundant reviews of both devices I felt like I should create a review of my own.

For those of you who do not want to read through the whole post I'd like to say: iPhone 4 is still the best smartphone I have ever used. Samsung Focus is not terrible, but there are a lot of little things missing and after an accumulation of all the little things you end up with a strong desire to switch back.

I wanted to construct this post not as a way of knocking on the WP7, but rather as a roadmap for the evolution of the device and the OS. First the good things about the WP7:

1) Windows Phone 7 OS got the GUI right. It's a pleasure to use and it works well on a mobile device.

2) Integration with Facebook is a great. I love the linking of contacts and updating of information.

3) I like the fact that I can get to the camera right away - that's very handy.

4) The lock screen has information about schedule and e-mails. That is very useful.

5) Speakerphone on the Focus is great, I think it's better than the iPhone 4.

6) The fact that Calendar, Contacts and E-mail are all integrated with Windows Live was a step towards iCloud before the iCloud.

Here are the things that need work:

1) Get a better device.

You can tell the difference between the actual hardware when you hold a Samsung Focus and an iPhone. The first is a Ford, the second is an Audi. Attention to hardware detail is just not present in the Focus. It's plastic, it's bigger than the iPhone and it not well polished.

Microsoft launched with 5 different phones and not one of them was better in hardware than the iPhone. What they need is nice metal and glass that are tightly fit together. They need retina display. They should have screws that are polished and tight. Microsoft needs to press on their hardware partners to produce a beautifully polished device. The device needs to feel like a Swiss watch in order to compete with the iPhone. The phone has become not only a mini computer but also an accessory. If the phone doesn't feel like an ESQ watch - I don't want it. The bar is already that high.

2) Apps

Windows Phone 7 apps are seriously behind. There are a ton of apps that are missing. I couldn't find Mint, DailyBurn, Skype, Evernote, Chase and other apps I use all the time. Some of the apps that were there, such as Facebook and Twitter, were subpar. For example: twitter didn't have a way to search or load my saved searches.

Microsoft needs to take the strength of its evangelism team and apply it to the leading iOS applications. They should seriously just build a Facebook application that beats the iOS Facebook application. They should create a Twitter application that is faster and better than the iOS equivalent.

I understand that the reason those apps are non existing or subpar is not Microsoft's fault, but it is their problem.

3) Marketplace

I could not effectively find things on the Marketplace. Apps, PodCasts, Music are all collapsed into one search result list. There is no way to filter that. For a person who is switching from an iPhone its important to find a particular application. When I am looking for Zen podcast I accept that the first result set might be everything including music, but I need to be able to zoom in on podcasts. That was not possible.

4) Search

I am using Bing as my search engine on my iPhone and I've been very happy with it. However I can't say the same about the Bing Maps built into the Samsung Focus. For example: the map has ignored my current zoom area and proceeded to give me results that were outside of the zoom.

Another example is when I searched for SFO while being zoomed out to see the entire Bay area the San Francisco International Airport (SFO) was not in the first ten results.

Overall I have to say that the strategy of catching up with the iPhone is failing. Apples fantastic hardware design and a myriad of apps that are being built for iOS first make that an uphill battle. I believe this strategy is going to get Microsoft close:

1) Get Nokia to create a fantastic device. Swiss Watch quality metal, glass and precision.

2) Use the Billions of dollars to fund or create amazing applications. Fund promising applications so that they are polished and beat the iOS ones.

3) Fix the Marketplace and get a freemium Zune subscription.

4) Use the phone data to provide better, precise search that tailors things to the device.

I believe there are a couple of other things in motion that might give Microsoft an edge by addressing another Market.

1) XBox - if they follow step #1 from the strategy above and create the best gaming phone that connect to XBox they have a chance to capture that niche.

2) Skype - adding the capability of calling overseas at a reduced rate and to start using SkypeIDs instead of phone numbers would be a great differentiator. This could make Windows Phone devices the most valuable device for an international caller. The question is of course whether the carriers are going to go for it.

In closing I'd like to say that WP7 is a great step forward. If they follow the strategy they did in the fight against Sony and Nintendo I think eventually it might take the lead. They do need to keep in mind that Apple is very sharp competitor and the recent iCloud announcement shows it.

Firefighter's Memorial - High Resolution Shots

2011-06-10T13:58:00.001-07:00

mikebz's photostream on Flickr.

San Francisco - 2 months in

2011-06-04T17:19:00.000-07:00

I believe I owe a lot of my friends an update on my first couple of months of my life in San Francisco.

First I'd like to say that I really love it. Moving here from Seattle was absolutely the right move for me. This city is a combination of: better weather, cutting edge technology and more culture than what I previously had.

Japantown in Lower Pac Heights

I ended up settling in Lower Pac Heights right next to Japantown. It's a quiet oasis right in the middle of the city. On one side I have Polk Street with a bunch of bars and restaurants (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polk_Street) similar to Seattle's Ballard. On the other side I have Fillmore with a rock concert venue (The Fillmore) and a bunch of restaurants there. Less than a mile north is the Marina with Union and Chestnut streets which are full of activity as well. A mile South is the Mission district and a mile east is downtown and SOMA clubs.

There are a few things that my Seattle friends have asked me about SF and I'd like to address them for everyone:

1) Is SF all gay?
First I'd like to address the people who are reading this. My friends are not homophobic. In fact some of them are actually gay themselves. The question is legitimate for a heterosexual person. Obviously a big part of young adult life is availability of eligible partners, let's not start getting offended for no reason.

San Francisco Nightlife

Now to the answer - the answer is NO. There are definitely a bunch of gay guys here, but there are a ton of straight girls here too. In fact even some mundane places as Bus #2 and Bus #3 that I take every morning consistently has 2-3 good looking and elegantly dressed girls every time I take the bus.

Being a straight guy in SF is better than being one in Seattle.

2) How are the people in San Francisco?
People in SF are very friendly. I think I've made friends here at an amazing pace. People take the time to listen to each other and are generally very cordial.
The hotel up the street where my folks are going to stay this upcoming week has lowered their rate because they heard that I am a neighbor.
So far the people I have connected to stayed in touch. I have not experienced anything close to "Seattle Freeze"
People went out of their way to ensure that they help me find gyms, doctors, parties etc.

3) Is San Francisco really expensive?
Yes it's more expensive. I have noticed that things on average cost 10-20% more. A haircut that cost me $25 in Seattle now costs $30. I used to spend $6-7 on a sandwich or a burrito for lunch and now it's $8-10.

That said a lot of the costs are really up to you. You can get nicer things or cheaper things. The is a flexibility in there. Of course that money means that people in general make more money and that's true as well.

Asides from social on the business side things have been great. I have been doing more business and getting more exposure here. The most notable achievement so far has been putting together the DocuSign Hackathon and it got coverage in AllThingsD (WSJ) and other premier publications:

http://allthingsd.com/20110522/early-adopter-autograph-a-book-or-sign-a-permission-slip-all-electronically-at-the-docusign-hackathon/
http://blog.programmableweb.com/2011/04/21/25000-e-signature-hackathon-from-docusign-coming-in-may/

Windows 8 Impression

2011-06-03T20:26:00.000-07:00

The big news this week was the unveiling of Windows 8. There is plenty of coverage of features and the video that shows the new GUI. Here is coverage from the site that I use for my hardware news: http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/01/microsoft-unveils-windows-8-tablet-prototypes/

Here is my take on Windows 8:

The new GUI is fantastic and is borrowing heavily from the great work that was put in place by Windows Phone 7 team. I like that interface because it's elegant, minimalistic and it actually doesn't require heavy 3rd resources so that those can be used for processes that actually need them.

I also love the fact that OS supports HTML5 and JavaScript. I think Microsoft finally learned from WPF and other proprietary frameworks - people don't like them. HTML and JavaScript are adopted by millions of developers and it is going to be an easy adoption curve.

What I don't like is that the new GUI seems like it just sits on top of the old desktop. I suppose it makes a lot of business sense and Microsoft did do that with Windows 3.1 when it was sitting on top of DOS. What I'd prefer is that if they actually switched the whole thing around. The native OS would be using Metro and HTML interfaces and a Virtual Machine would pop up to run your legacy applications if you ever needed those.

A couple of things that I didn't see but I was hoping to see:
1) an application store that had curated Windows8 applications
2) a cloud integration where OS heavily relies on Live services. Synchronization and data sharing should be built directly into the new OS and work between my XBox, WP7 and W8.

Those features might still be coming but something and I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Thanks CloudSpokes and Appirio for helping us out

2011-05-17T17:57:00.000-07:00

DocuSign Hackathon 2011 - Scored by CloudSpokes from sal partovi on Vimeo.

The goofy guy on stage is me.

Cosmic Game: start with a creative destruction of your understanding of yourself

2011-05-08T11:45:00.000-07:00

My previous blog post on the Cosmic Game got some quick twitter comments. Thanks @rzeligzon and @siguy for not letting me be lazy.

Fair warning:
if you are content with the Newtonian physics and the hierarchical view of the world with a Creator on top - stop reading now. Just like discovery of the theory of relativity, some of this knowledge will have a ripple effect that will force you to re-examine your values. For the rest I'd like to start with a little creative destruction of your own sense of "I".

The "I" as you know it is at best incomplete. Number one exercise that I tried was an observation of my mind. I have not yet successfully been able to control my thoughts for more than a few minutes at a time. As you become an observer of where your thoughts go you quickly realize that your mind is actually not you. This is contrary to the western notion of "I think" and "I reason." The control of one's mind is generally worse then their control of their pinky. Because of that you can safely say that your mind is as much you or as much not you as other organs in your body.

The second exercise is an attempt to describe yourself without describing your environment. Try to convey what it is that you are by just sticking to your physical body parts. For a complete description: very quickly you will start involving your environment. In order to describe what you are you will need to pull in information about what you do, where, with what.

These two very basic exercises challenge the normal notion of an "I". An "I" is neither your thoughts, nor is it your physical body. The things that surround you, other beings outside and inside of you are also a part of the "I". There is a way to understand the more complete "I" and evolve the "I" beyond the basic machinery that has reflexes to internal and external forces.

Part of the danger of disclosing this knowledge is that you start getting the power of interacting with other "I"s in non-obvious ways. Some of that is touched on by Bandler and Grinder in their work on the Neuro Linguistic Programming. A simple example of mis-use of this kind of knowledge is the following: someone who learned how to interact with you in non-physical ways, and influence your mind which you don't control can take advantage of you and still be completely within conventional legal boundaries.

My research on the Cosmic Game

2011-05-08T08:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had a very engaging discussion with someone about the research that I've been doing. The topic of the research is very hard to boil down to just one sentence. If I had to do it it would be: "a worldview of awareness"

Some of my sources have been works by Alan Watts, G. Gurdjieff, Buddha and other philosophers. Without going into any detail that is probably not going to do any subject justice I want to warn any like-minded "Seeker of the Truth" that the world is not what you think it is. Taking into consideration our sources of information you can say that the world is not what people tell you it is.

In the midst of this discussion a question was posed to me: "So why is this useful." While I don't know the final answer to this I can tell you that for me knowing is better than not knowing. There are some good side effects to having a small glimpse of this new worldview, but it is hardly justified if you are not ready to wake up. The general population is actually not ready to wake up and given the rules of the "Cosmic Game" would probably be harmful to itself.

My little program from the Factual.com Hackathon

2011-04-25T17:31:00.001-07:00

This weekend I was hacking away at the Hacker Dojo.

It was awesome. I was no match for the actual hackers who came out with teams and designers but I did accomplish two things:
1) learned more python
2) hung out with some cool folks.

here is my project if someone wants to use it or just see how to access Factual.com API from Python scripts:

https://github.com/mikebz/factualshell

@mikebz

Highway 101

2011-04-17T11:26:00.001-07:00

Highway 101, a set on Flickr.

Here are some pictures I took when I drove down the beautiful Highway 101

I took the scientific personality test

2011-03-11T19:27:00.001-08:00

This is what the test results are:

Your result for The LONG Scientific Personality Test ...
ESTJ-The Supervisor
You scored 91% I to E, 71% N to S, 86% F to T, and 5% J to P!

Your type is known as the supervisor, as you are not hesitant to give your stamp of approval on others - or tell them how they are lacking if they are. You are surprised when others don't seem grateful that you have set them straight. Your type also belongs to the larger group called guardians. Experience is what matters to you, not experimentation or conjecture. You often take a lead role in the many groups and organizations you belong to. You worry a great deal about society falling apart, morality degrading, and what the world is coming to. You share your personality type with 10% of the population.
As a romantic partner, you communicate very clearly your strong opinions so your partner always knows where they stand. You are dependable, responsible, and rock solid. You can be rather infexible about giving up any control and insist on keeping a schedule, although you have great energy and enthusiam for planned adventures. You have difficulty seeing other's points of view and your biggest downfall in a relationship is dismissing your partner's feelings as illogical. You feel most appreciated for being trustworthy, efficient, and productive. You wish to be thanked tangibly for the ways you keep your lives on track.
Your group summary: Guardians (SJ)
Your Type Summary: ESTJ

Gurdjieff, A Beginner's Guide: How Changing The Way We React To Misplacing Our Keys Can Transform Our Lives

2011-02-20T18:03:00.000-08:00

I just got done reading the introduction to Gurdjieff’s Work. I have to say that it is a very good read. The last couple of years I have studied meditation and Buddhism and I can say that there are a lot of parallels.

From various sources I hear that Gil Friedman distills the information too much and maybe to the point that it lost some of it’s original detail. Obviously for someone who has never read anything else by or about Gurdjieff it’s hard to judge. Regardless of the being true to the source there are some really interesting things in the book. The Law of Three, the Law of Seven, Pendulum, attention to yourself and separating your personality from your essence. All of these ways of structuring the world and improving yourself can be applied to improve one’s understanding of the external and internal state. The book also gives some practical ways to get started on the path of self improvement. I would definitely recommend that people read this.

Hiring: Technical Evangelist in San Francisco / Bay Area

2011-01-31T13:57:00.000-08:00

Technical Evangelist

DocuSign, Inc.
San Francisco, CA, United States
Full-Time

A successful TE would be able to articulate the benefits of DocuSign service to a wide variety of audiences from CTO to an individual Software Engineer. Internally TE’s responsibility would be to influence DocuSign product strategy through knowledge of software vendors, system integrators and technological landscape.

The position will be measured by:
1) DocuSign API and protocol adoption in the marketplace
2) DocuSign service awareness among outside software developers
3) Partner satisfaction
4) Revenue resulting from integrated solutions

Position Requirements:

1) Self-direction and proven ability to identify technical trends.
2) Passion for learning new technologies in various technology stacks: Linux, Force.com, iPhone, Android and others.
3) Existing knowledge of how to create a solution in 2 or more of the technology stacks using various programming languages such as: PHP, Python, Ruby, Java and Apex Code.
4) At least 3 years of commercial experience as a Software Engineer, Product Manager or Program Manager.
5) Communication experience with a record of public speaking, writing, Facebook, twitter and blogging on technical topics.
6) Personality: positive attitude, ability to energize software developers and IT professionals, fair and balanced approach to technology.
7) Education: Bachelor of Science in Computer Science or Computer Engineering is required. Graduate degree in business or computer science is a plus.
8) Language: Must be fluent in English both verbal and written.

http://jobvite.com/m?3AIf1fwi

Videos of my CloudStock and DreamForce presentations

2011-01-18T16:02:00.000-08:00

Hi all! These are the two presentations I made at CloudStock and DreamForce. Thanks for everyone who attended!!!

Integrating DocuSign eSignatures into Your Force.com Apps without Writing Code

DocuSign is the global leader in electronic signature. DocuSign accelerates business processes by replacing slow, expensive paper transactions with fast, simple and complete digital solutions. We will show you how to use DocuSign for Salesforce and get the benefit of eSignatures and paperless processes without writing any code.

API Basics to DocuSign-enable your App in 45 minutes

Learn how to connect to DocuSign eSignatures from your Force.com application in this hands on session. We’ll walk you through a sample application that relies 100% on printing documents which will become 100% paperless!

Implementing Standard Protocols

2011-01-10T08:52:00.000-08:00

I am writing this while waiting for the new version of XCode to download and install on my MacBook. This 3.5G install gives you time to run errands, grab coffee, or in my case - write a blog entry.

I often spend time talking about new APIs with executives and engineering teams. Most of the time executives and engineering managers understand the value of a well-designed interface, but when it comes time to fully supporting some standard you get some resistance. Today I'd like to dissect my experience in trying to convince people to sign up for the work it takes to fully support a standard.

90% of the time an enhancement to the API happens because a customer comes in and has an issue that can't be solved with the current set of interfaces. Features creep in one by one and in general the default behavior is to add just enough to solve the problem at hand. From a cost perspective it also makes sense to avoid building things you don't need right away.

In addition to the internal inertia there is also a school of thought of iterative design, except that iterative design is not such a good thing with the API. Companies that have integrated with you aren't so keen on going back and refactoring that piece of code on your schedule.

Signing up for the work to fully support a standard needs to be broken down into dollars and sense. First supporting a standard rather than adding a couple of features has its costs:
1) Standards have elements you don’t immediately need.
2) Standards take away some flexibility
3) It takes longer
4) Someone needs to read and understand the standard in order to implement it.
What are the benefits? Here are some benefits that go beyond engineering purism:
1) the design time put into a standard doesn’t need to be replicated internally
2) a lot of times there are test kits you can use to do automated testing
3) standard protocol generally have a good deal of documentation which eases the burden on the internal doc team.
4) Helping people implement a solution based on a standard will require less support and professional services involvement.
5) Implementing a good standard is good for developer marketing.

While the time it takes to understand and develop full support of a standard are very obvious costs. The benefits need to be explained. The things that worked best for me are #2 and #5. If you find a test kit and can shave time off the release in the testing department it’s a slam-dunk. If there are some apps or companies that already know how to work with a protocol and because of that are going to integrate with your service – that’s another easy win. Still depending on the cost of supporting a standard you might need to consider all five benefits and put a dollar or time value on those.

Good luck defending standards implementation. Remember – it pays off in the end!

New Years Resolutions 2011

2011-01-05T15:09:00.000-08:00

These are the resolutions excluding the work related ones which are obviously secret:

- learn how to dribble better in soccer
- drop from 12% body fat to below 10%
- do meditation classes at least once a month
- go to a meditation retreat
- take jiujitsu classes

2011 is going to be a GREAT YEAR. Let's go!

Technology Predictions for 2011

2010-12-31T09:06:00.000-08:00

There are a lot of predictions floating around for the new year. From
what I read most of them are pretty much more of the same "This will be
the year of the mobile and social networks" To that I say: "The year of
mobile has happened"

We have crossed the chasm and now more often than not you expect people to
have a connected device and to be plugged into the social media network.
It's a rarity that I find someone who doesn't have a Facebook profile. We
need *real* new predictions! Here are the new things changing the way we
live our life in 2011:

1) AppStore for your desktop
I think the first thing is an easy prediction - desktop computers are
going to start getting AppStores. We already know that Apple is working
on one. I don't think Microsoft is going to be far behind. The new
AppStore for Desktop is going to revolutionize curation, updates and
billing for desktop applications and I expect the desktop innovation to
spike up again in 2012.

2) Enterprise online identity and access management
Enterprises are buying into the Cloud. As they are getting systems like
SalesForce.com, Box.net, Freshbooks, DocuSign and moving their exchange to
the BPOS hosted solutions they are quickly finding out that access control
and identity management is a real headache.

My prediction is that in 2011 we are going to start seeing enterprise
adoption of online identity management tools with biggies like Microsoft
and Oracle offering a solution that integrates their directory services
and provides an OpenID or similar interface to them online.

3) Custom Built Enterprise Applications for Tablets
iPad is entering the mainstream, but its heavily tilted towards the
consumer problem space right now - e-mail, Internet access, some general
purpose apps and a lot of games. Companies are figuring out that iPads
and the like are very powerful devices that are also a lot easier to
support and build for.

Don't be surprised when by the end of 2011 your physician is carrying an
iPad instead of a clipboard. The delivery guy might also be using a
tablet instead of an antiquated devices that was probably based on the
original Palm.

4) Comcast (and others) is going to introduce a better cable appliance - a
small network computer
I have disconnected my cable over a year ago and never looked back.
Netflix, Hulu, CinemaNow all give me access to the shows that I want, at
the time that I want. They allow me to do ratings, see recommendations
and the most important things is: they are a pleasure to use. When I was
visiting my parents in Louisville Kentucky I remembered how much I hate
the slow, kludgy cable box. I will not re-connect my cable even they
lower the price. I just hate it! Unless of course they change their
strategy had create an excellent cable box that will be a pleasure to use.
How amazing would it be if instead of the current Comcast box you got a
Boxee with all the shows from the cable TV and HBO? That's worth thinking
about!

But they can do better: they can take a concept like Apple TV and lease
you a little computer that connects to the internet, does e-mails and
streams your shows. For a lot of people a leased computer with a
guaranteed internet connection is all they need. This could be really
breakthrough.

One of my presentations at DreamForce - Partner ISV success

2010-12-18T00:03:00.000-08:00

This is one of the presentations I did at DreamForce. My part starts about 37 minutes in.

The theme of the panel was "Taking Your Software Business to the Cloud: The Insider's Guide to ISV Success"

Seattle Force.com Developer Meetup at the DocuSign headquarters!

2010-12-10T04:12:00.000-08:00

Join us for a developer meetup at the Columbia Tower in Seattle, WA on December 15 starting at 6:00pm. This event lets you learn and explore the Force.com platform, as well as learn how to connect to DocuSign eSignatures from your Force.com. You’ll also get a chance to meet our evangelists and tech experts. We'll supply food, drinks, free t-shirts and an opportunity for you to enter into a random drawing to win a Samsung Galaxy S Android Phone!

More info/ Register here: https://www.developerforce.com/events/seattle_developer_meetup/registration.php?d=70130000000Fkg2

CloudStock Recap

2010-12-06T19:53:00.000-08:00

Cloudstock was a very special event. I hope that salesforce.com puts one together next year. DocuSign team did extremely well. We have had several hundred conversations with cool developers and hosted three sessions on Cloud computing and the eSignature API.

Several things that I thought were interesting:
1) It's amazing how many of the cloud developers have their sights on international solutions. I talked to a guy who was doing loan servicing in France. There was a group of consultants that were doing a supply agreement application for a Chinese partner. There were many other people who are taking their US based solutions world wide. This is great!

2) Mobile is entering enterprise computing. I talked to a developer who is doing a medical records system that will need to be rendered on the iPhone and iPad. Fields sales organizations are now getting connected to the cloud. The trend is undeniable.

Overall there is another big shift that is happening - people are creating apps faster and getting feedback from customers faster. I talked to a great cloud billing company and we agreed to do a prototype together. Our estimate is that we can put something together in half a day. That's right - half a day. In half a day people didn't even put requirements together in the past.

The success of CloudStock proves that our decision to go all in to the Cloud in 2003 was the right one!

-mb

PS: Don't forget that we are hosting a developer meetup in Seattle on 12/15. Register here: https://www.developerforce.com/events/seattle_developer_meetup/registration.php?d=70130000000Fkg2

MiKandi

2010-11-23T10:04:00.000-08:00

Congrats Suby and his team on launching this video:

10 Reasons I’m Going to Cloudstock on Dec. 6th

2010-11-18T10:08:00.000-08:00

Cloudstock, an all day event for developers focused on developing in the cloud, will welcome a large number of thought leaders and business leaders in the cloud as sponsors and presenters! Cloudstock is on the day before salesforce.com’s annual user conference, Dreamforce.

As a sponsor of Dreamforce, we’re busy gearing up by creating new samples, developing a new integration with a key partner and creating new presentations to show how developers can use electronic signatures in the Cloud. While the pressure will escalate up to the very last minute, we’re setting aside the last day before Dreamforce for Cloudstock.

The top 10 reasons the DocuSign technical evangelists are taking a full day for Cloudstock:

John Musser’s evaluation of the Cloud API landscape: John and the entire ProgrammableWeb team keep their hands on the pulse on most of the web services – we’re looking forward to a big picture view.
Session from Box.net’s Hieu Nguyen and Jeremy Glassenberg: Sometimes we get so caught up in the web services that it’s good when an expert like Jeremy steps out and shares a holistic approach to integration. You will definitely see me at the “Connecting Services Inside & Out: Thinking Outside the API” session.
Dave Carroll’s deep dive into using the Force.com database: Accessing Force.com database through the web services has been on my “to-learn” list for some time. Who better to get an overview of Force.com technology from, than Dave?
Learning about the interests of the PHP community: Many PHP programmers have joined the DocuSign developer program and it looks like Amazon has invested into showing how PHP can be used on their Amazon Web Services platform. I’d like to see what kind of questions interest the PHP community.
Insights from Google: Google will discuss the Google Marketplace and since we just launched an e-Signature Marketplace, I’d love to hear what guys at Google pitch to their potential and existing software developers.
Amazing demos: I’ve heard about Twilio’s amazing presentations, and though I personally have not touched phone technologies in ten years I am curious to see John Sheehan create solutions on stage right in front of the audience.
Hackathons: I love hackathons; and while I am not the fastest coder, I enjoy seeing what other people can come up with in a short time. I also like to think that it’s just great to be in the running.
Java + Force.com: I always loved Java. I enjoyed being part of the Java Community Process 10 years ago and defining some of the interfaces. The ability to use Java with Force.com is an amazing combination of winning technologies. VMForce.com is a promising solution for our customers and partners; I need to see what it’s all about.
Networking! I am a natural networker – I like meeting new people especially if they are sharp and have good ideas! My first job ever was handing out flyers for my dad’s vet clinic at a dog show – ever since, going to expos and meeting people in the industry always puts a smile on my face. Cloudstock will be great for that.
Someone mentioned there will be food… I just want to let everyone know that it still works, even years after college.

See you all at Cloudstock! Look for the DocuSign DevCenter team – Mike Borozdin, Julia Ferraioli, Craig Smith and Veronica Lentfer.

Creating a startup culture within Google and Microsoft

2010-11-14T16:29:00.000-08:00

When I left Microsoft at the exit interview I told them that the major reason I chose a startup over them is because I am an overachiever.

I was expecting that they'd try to drill into that and figure out how to keep the overachievers at Microsoft... they didn't. They HR person told me that I wasn't alone.

Big tech companies never figured out how to keep talented engineers on staff. They recognize some of them as "principal architects" or something similar, but it's generally given to people who were there for a while. With the current pay packages of base and stock options they can't possibly give everyone an opportunity to earn millions so they are OK targeting 66th percentile of talent.

I think to resolve this issue the tech industry has to look at the financial industry. Through bonuses and partnerships even if you join a well established firm you still have a chance at fame and wealth. Splitting the company into smaller units and tying their pay to performance of a product is one way. Of course some of that will face resistance from engineers that just want a reliable and steady job.

I think the solution is a hybrid: one part of the enterprise is run like a utility company and the other part of the company is an incubator. The conditions in the incubator should mimic the ones in the startup - lower base pay, smaller teams and a large bonus if the product catches on.

For now Microsoft and Google try to get the overachievers by buying companies and doing some great campus recruiting, but this well also runs dry aver a while. I know some companies now that are openly against getting acquired by slow giants and some of the best college recruits are raising money instead of joining the corporate ladder.

PS: the topic was brought on by reading this fine blog post: http://informationarbitrage.com/post/1574002431/the-challenge-of-being-google

Seattle as a "One Industry Town"

2010-11-09T16:30:00.000-08:00

I recently came across a technical blog post that described Seattle as a "One Industry Town."

I have lived here for about 16 years, so I know a thing or two about the local industries. So what does Seattle bring to the world beside Microsoft (as this tech blogger probably implied).

#1 Seattle is still the center of American Aviation. Living here you hear about the Dreamliner, Boeing contracts and other things you don't really get to hear about in other places that much.

#2 Seattle is the home of Starbucks - the top brand in Coffee

#3 Seattle is where Costco was created

#4 The largest world retailer - Amazon.com is based in Seattle

#5 UW is consistently ranked as on of the top medical schools and facilities in the nation.

#6 Seattle is where most of the Waterskis and other water sports equipment is made by companies like O'Brien and H.O.

As you can see Seattle is way beyond just Microsoft even though Microsoft is one of the key components of our economy. Microsoft also plays an important role in importing some of the smartest people from around the world here. Seattle is often ranked as the #1 most literate city in USA.

So dear valley pundits - we are quite alright here.

-mb

PS: Last but not least - we are the providers of two out of four major cloud computing platforms here (Amazon and Microsoft) and there is no shortage of clouds here ;)

Are you frustrated by dropped calls on your iPhone?

2010-11-06T16:18:00.000-07:00

Check out my new application that allows you to tweet your location and time that you dropped a call.

Instead of just sending that information to AT&T - share the location with the world via Twitter and let people avoid the dead spots.
http://itunes.apple.com/app/dropped-call-alert/id400044044?mt=8

RE: Television networks block Google TV from accessing web-based content (update)

2010-10-22T12:36:00.000-07:00

Google, just like Microsoft a decade ago, has butted into a highly lucrative space where the business model is paying for content access as well as selling advertising.

Google TV essentially helps kill part of the revenue stream, which is the cable subscription. Just like with books Google has gotten ahead of its skis. This is bad business planning on Google's part and poor execution of this strategy. Again they forgot that just because something is technologically possible it doesn't mean it's going to be supported by the existing businesses.

I agree that eventually content is going to be distributed via the internet and people are going to browse linked television streams with hubs that aggregate the "channels"

If Google's model is to create a wide distribution of ad-only supported TV they are in trouble. A bunch of very important content is not sold for ad revenue only. Google has a choice - do they become the souped up YouTube distributor for the long tail of low value content or do they introduce a subscription model for TV. What happened below shows that they didn't really think this through.

Broader Discussion: http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/21/television-networks-block-google-tv-from-accessing-web-based-con/

DocuSign for Salesforce Enabled With Chatter

2010-10-21T08:42:00.000-07:00

Check this out!

The death of e-mail

2010-10-15T15:02:00.000-07:00

My response to Fred Wilson's original post: http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/10/the-impact-of-priority-inbox.html

This might be the end of e-mail as we know it. I think it's been a "catch all" dump for too long and now that it's being even less reliable other more configurable services will replace it.

A lot of the people in the younger generations don't use e-mail at all. They use Facebook to communicate with their friends and twitter for mass broadcasts.

Mike Borozdin

2010-08-13T09:28:00.000-07:00

Pretty cool service:
Mike Borozdin

Electronic Signature Code Walkthroughs are now on GitHub

2010-07-21T12:13:00.000-07:00

First two walkthroughs are written:

http://wiki.github.com/docusign/DocuSign-eSignature-SDK/code-walkthrough-create-and-send-envelope
http://wiki.github.com/docusign/DocuSign-eSignature-SDK/code-walkthrough-retrieving-documents-from-docusign

Reads and Writes are welcome!

Cheers!

PS: if you are looking to get started on eSignature Development check our DocuSign eSignature Developer Center

Software usability - its the small things

2010-07-15T17:09:00.000-07:00

Todays tweet:
Oh joy! Windows7 complains that it can't start programs because srvcli.dll is missing after I installed VS.NET 2010 #in

I decided to do a little follow up on that. First of all why did the OS let itself be broken by an application (forget the fact that its from the same vendor!)

Second I happen to be in the software business so I understand what to do with this information, but seriously if my refrigerator told me "winvlv is broken" I would never ever by the same brand. Computer software in large part still seems like it's written by computer enthusiasts for computer enthusiasts.

My Windows 8 idea: in case one the core SYSTEM32 DLLs can't load - immediately offer to repair it. Better yet, repair it during the idle time. Preferably all of this happens without me knowing or caring so it doesn't impact my day in any negative way. It could have been going very well until this pesky error message popped up.

Join my team - we are hiring a Technical Evangelist

2010-07-15T09:05:00.000-07:00

This is really a dream job for a technology enthusiast. Send your resume or LinkedIn profile to me here - http://www.linkedin.com/in/mikebz or @mikebz on twitter

Technical Evangelist Job Description

Location: Seattle, WA or San Fancisco, CA
Travel Time: 25%

DocuSign is looking for a technical visionary to join our Technical Evangelism Team.

The mission of a Technical Evangelist (TE) is to win adoption of DocuSign technologies through talks, articles, blogging, user demonstrations and creation of sample projects. TE is involved in mutually beneficial alliances that drive revenue growth and expand DocuSign usage in partners offerings.

A successful TE would be able to articulate the benefits of DocuSign service to a wide variety of audiences from CTO to an individual Software Engineer. Internally TE’s responsibility would be to influence DocuSign product strategy through knowledge of software vendors, system integrators and technological landscape.

The position will be measured by:
1) DocuSign API and protocol adoption in the marketplace
2) DocuSign service awareness among outside software developers
3) Partner satisfaction
4) Revenue resulting from integrated solutions

Position Requirements:

1) Passion for learning new technologies in various technology stacks: Windows, Linux, iPhone, Android and others.
2) Existing knowledge of how to create solution in 2 or more of the technology stacks using various programming languages such as: C#, VB.NET, PHP, Java, JavaScript, Apex Code and Ruby on Rails
3) Communication experience needs to include public speaking, writing and social media
4) Personality: positive attitude, ability to energize software developers and IT professionals, fair and balanced approach to technology.
5) Education: Bachelor of Science in Computer Science or Computer Engineering is required. Graduate degree in business or computer science is a plus.
6) Language: Must be fluent in English both verbal and written.

Latest Tweets on HTC Aria evaluation

2010-06-28T15:40:00.001-07:00

My friend Keith asked me to post these on blogger

- HTC aria and Android trial - some of my favorite iPhone apps are missing. No words with friends, no quicken #in
- HTC Aria drops calls just like my iPhone 3g used to so it is the network. #in
- HTC aria review - I can't figure out how to navigate folders on an active sync accoun :( #in
- Another interesting feature of the android OS - widgets you can place on the screen. It's pretty nifty when you want to tweet.#in
- More updates from my test drive of HTC aria - you can flag exchange and gmail messages. I don't think iPhone could do that #in

Commentary on "Tea Party ousts veteran Republican Bob Bennett in Utah"

2010-05-09T19:22:00.000-07:00

This was originally discussed on Facebook in response to my link post. The actual article is published in the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/09/tea-party-ousts-republican-bennett-utah

Keith Gabryelski
Does this ousting help the tea party? How? It seems the party is sacrificing a pretty reasonable conservative to replace him with someone slightly more conservative.

I'm not criticizing, I just want to understand the plan: replace any republican with libertarians?

Mike Borozdin

@Keith - This is a victory for the Tea Party for two reasons: first it shows a level or organization has matured as a political force, second it shows that the messaging has matured so that the public and the candidates understand what it takes to win the Tea Party votes.

"There is a mood that has swept across this country and has certainly swept ... See More across Utah that is demanding a new generation of leaders. Leaders committed to constitutionally limited government."

In the current state of American politics we are unfortunately stuck in the "playoff" structure with the final Republican vs. Democrat being the Super Bowl. The plan for Libertarians and the Tea Party is to get the candidates that represent constitutional values to this "Super Bowl"

For right now it looks like the route is going through the "Red" team. Of course it would be a lot cleaner to set up an infrastructure for the National Tea Party with fund raising, membership and all the other things that the "Blue Team" and the "Red Team" already have figured out... but that will probably set the movement back a number of years to just figure out pure logistics.

Keith Gabryelski first off, I need to whip out my Inigo Montoya photo whenever I hear the words "constitutionally limited government": those words don't mean what you think they mean.

Although I believe the two party system has a lot of problems, the alternative leads to a coalition system as seen in Germany where 10 parties split the votes and, generally, off no ... See Morereal solutions to problems because they must move to a middle ground to support all sides of the coalition.

I'm not sure which way is better, I'm guessing I would prefer a more moderate solution, generally -- I'm guessing the tea party is expecting a more radical solution (which doesn't seem at all likely).

And, yes, I agree (and we've talked about this in the past) that there are two basic ways for the tea party to proceed:
1) split the republican party and gain seats by usurping the republican name and replacing members as possible.
2) move from the house to the senate (over many years) all the while passing policies that are shown to work, gaining confidence from the people with every successful legislative act.

Obviously, the first is a more violent act and requires some work to ensure the backlash doesn't hurt the movement (that is, if it is shown that the split of the party loses seats or even the presidency, the tea party will be looked upon like the green party and ralph nadar).

My question, above wasn't about whether this was a victory or not for the tea party -- clearly it is a victory, and clearly it shows and ability of the party to get-out-the-vote. My point and question were along these lines:

Is removing a reasonably conservative senator an overall win for the tea-party? The party needs to work with other senators no matter what happens in the next election, right? Bennet was more likely to work with your agenda than, say, Scott Brown from Massachusetts, so it seems you have basically made an even trade (nearly).

Mike Borozdin

Keith, the two party system is here to stay. Working to change that will yield little results in our generation, so that's off the table. The most logical plan is to basically "win the the semi-finals"

What we just saw happen was a win in the semi-finals fueled by Club for Growth and executed by the Tea Party.

The article's subtitle is a bit ... See Moreconfusing. They claim that the guy was moderate, but he was moderate on the wrong issues like the bank bailout. His replacement is citing limited government and adherence to the constitution. The paper calls it "more conservative" without understanding of what kind of baggage that brings with it.

In terms of what will happen with the Tea Party. To become a formidable force it needs to (a) start getting political results at least in the "semi-finals" (b) get united with a strong leadership. The leadership actually needs to represent the constitutional values so people who are just looking to be famous and sell books, like Mrs. Palin, don't qualify. People who do qualify are Mr. Paul - but he might be out of energy.

There is certainly going to be an effort to hijack and neuter the movement. We've seen some of it - injection of racial elements, adding religious pretext to the ideas. Both the Blue team and the Red team aren't too thrilled about having a constitutional choice because of its energy and split effect that it might have on Washington. Note for example that Mitt Romney has campaigned against the Tea Party backed candidate. I anticipate a lot of these efforts to continue. The politicians can't benefit much from ideas that give them less power.

Keith Gabryelski

Ron Paul can't be your leader -- he brings too much baggage (although I think even the racial/antisemitic stuff people hang on him is just fallout from his ideology -- which you will all have to deal with withorwithout him) and has never shown an ability to lead in house.

I saw the recent backlash against Palin -- It's about time.

I like that the tea party is doing better at rejecting the racist elements that crowded the scene early on.... See More

The Red team cares a lot since they are figuring out they can't control you guys.

The blue team is rooting for you, because
1) if you win -- hopefully that means there is an honest partner to broker legislation with.
2) if you lose -- you take points away from the other team.

and, although I think it's funny you keep using words like "constitutional choice" like somehow you have a corner stone on interpreting the constitution (I understand it is just a marketing position, though), I think it would be great to have a change in the republican party that has honest positions.

Hopefully the tea party will drop the "Obama is socialist" and the like rhetoric so that we can at least have arguments based in fact.

Keith Gabryelski

btw, just a followup on my warning on Ron Paul.

I think the tea party suffers from similar problems and will become toxic (like Ron Paul is) if they don't take measures to correct the issues.

Letting Sarah Palin speak for you was a mistake, even if it brought you some tv time, you will not be able to get that stink off of you for a long time (if at all)....

My take on Steve Job's war on Flash

2010-04-30T10:26:00.000-07:00

I posted these thoughts on the tech media exchange listserv. Here is a copy of my opinion for the people who are not on that list:

Apple is shooting themselves in the foot by being picky about the way things are built for their platform. Flash after all is just an interpreted language that happens to have great tools and a following. What if someone likes Ruby, Python or Java??

Apple is notorious for making the life of developers harder then it should be, in the end they end up losing mind share.

Lesson from their last rise and fail - at a certain point you need to let go or forever be an appliance. They didn't want to let people develop native iPhone apps, but AppStore happened when they finally caved in. You'd think they would learn....

While I am an iPhone user I think sooner or later a combination of open source, tool flexibility and language choice is going to give room to another competitor. Wait it already has - enter Android.

Anniversary of Paperless Life

2010-04-09T16:26:00.001-07:00

In less than a month it's going to be a year since I stopped storing paper. Last spring before my move from Madrona to Capitol Hill I did a bit of spring-cleaning. As I was cleaning out my closets and the attic I realized how much old and useless stuff I had. Some of my old tech toys ended up with my friends. Most of my old clothes ended up at Good Will. And then I started cleaning out my files. For a guy who has been on the bleeding edge of tech for a bit I had a surprising amount of old statements and receipts. Consolidated it was three full boxes.

During my childhood my parents told me not to lose paper. I remember carefully storing and filing my bank statements “just in case something happened.” My car was hit in the late nineties and sure enough I had a full folder of papers for a car that was totaled a decade ago. I was torn: I had an emotional attachment to my old dusty paper, yet I was too lazy to move these boxes with me. I decided that I am going to go paperless.

I decided to scan some of the most important documents from my past and have them backed up online. I promised to myself that going forward I would not store any more paper. It seemed like in the age of Internet it should be pretty easy. After all Chase already offered paperless statements and Fidelity did too. My Comcast bill could be viewed and paid online and so was AT&T’s. Those were the first steps and they took care of a lot of my paper.

This seemed like a piece of cake and I lasted without accumulating any more paper for about a month. Then I had a dentist appointment. My dentist is great when it comes to my teeth, but his assistant still writes the bills by hand and stuffs them in little blue envelopes that cost 40 cents to deliver less than a mile. My accountant insisted on sending me things via mail and the worst was healthcare. Between the Polyclinic on Broadway and Regence I must have 5 letters for every visit to the doctor.

I had to counteract this somehow. I employed two services: for anything where people wanted me to sign anything I used DocuSign and for all the paper that people wanted to send me still I created an Earth Class Mail account.

It took a little getting used to. Not for me, but for all the people that all of a sudden were shocked that I resisted their attempts to send me pages of stuff in the mail. My accountant was probably the most shocked. I kept telling her that I really don’t want my tax return sent to me. I kept reminding to send me things in a PDF file via some secure delivery service such as our own DocuSign, but she kept on trying to give me paper. Thankfully EarthClassMail would scan it in and then, if there were signatures required, I would DocuSign it and send it back to her via e-mail.

So after 5-6 months of constantly attempting to fend off the influx of paper at my door I finally ended up getting most of my important mail electronically. My life has altered a bit. I stopped going to my mailbox to see if there is anything new. The only new things were junk mail from Pizza Hut and Office Max. I tried taking that stuff out and putting it into the recycling bin but then I got lazy about that too. I stopped going to the mailbox altogether. On the eleventh month I went to clean my mailbox one more time and to my surprise it was completely clean with just a yellow note from my local post office. It read: “Your address has been marked as vacant.” According to the old paper world I might no longer exist.

Calling all System Integrators and Independent Software Vendors!

2010-04-02T14:20:00.001-07:00

Good day everyone! Over the years we have been very fortunate to grow a community of SIs and ISVs that utilize our web services. We now have a way for you to earn commission on the customers you send us!

Become a DocuSign Partner!

Who? Have you mastered the DocuSign API or built electronic signatures into your application?
What? Become a DocuSign System Integrator or an official Independent Software Vendor.
Why? Earn commission on the business you refer to us!

http://www.docusign.com/partners/partner-application/

How did healthcare get so broken?

2010-03-19T13:39:00.000-07:00

I wrote this post in one of the discussion threads. I figured I'd share it with the rest of my friends. The topic is how did we get to this terrible place in healthcare and the two choices we have:

The system got out of whack when employers were encouraged to provide medical insurance to their employees. Two problems resulted from that - #1 the market for individuals to purchase health insurance got marginalized, #2 - since consumers didn't pay direct costs for their care OR for their insurance there was not incentive for anyone to keep the costs down. Over time what happened is you got the "haves" and "have nots". People with health insurance and a job are enjoying some of the best care in the world. People without a job are paying extremely high costs and since the billing relationship is only between insurance companies and hospitals its impossible to figure out what stuff costs.

Both insurance companies are hospitals are not interested in keeping the costs down either because no one with a comprehensive insurance ever chooses based on price.

I actually had an experience just recently when I needed to go to a doctor who was not in Regence network. Her office was not interested in telling me what the treatment might cost and the insurance company "couldn't" tell me what their coverage rates are. Basically we are stuck in a system where you have to pay the "protection money" to the insurance machine.

There are two ways to start untangling it. #1 is to start introducing competition into this market - give the consumers choices to buy insurance, not the employers. #2 way is to take the insurance service and give it to the government to run (directly or through heavy regulation). The choice between #1 and #2 is the difference of opinion between for example Dave and I. #2 is what is currently proposed by our government. Libertarians and Constitutional Conservatives would like to propose #1, but often times are portrayed as advocates of status quo, which is incorrect.

From: www.brettandmandydatenight.com - $35 massages at Cortiva

2010-02-25T15:45:00.000-08:00

Full article: http://www.brettandmandydatenight.com/2010/02/this-weekends-splurge-vs-steal_25.html

You deserve to be pampered. Bottom line. But who in their right mind can afford to fork out $100+ every time you have a kink in your neck?

Luckily, every masseuse has to start somewhere. This where just happens to be Cortiva Institute (425 Pontius Ave N, Suite #100, Seattle, WA 98109) in the up-and-coming South Lake Union.

logo Massages are only $35 AN HOUR! and available by appointment only. To make an appointment please call 206-282-1233 during normal reception hours, Monday – Friday 9:00am to 5:00pm.

Their clinic provides Cortiva students the opportunity to gain the kind of practical experience they will need to be successful as professionals, while still under the supervision of experienced Licensed Massage Practitioners. Cortiva supports the health and wellness of the local community by offering relaxation and treatment massage at a reasonable cost. By utilizing the student clinic, you can afford to maintain your health and wellness while supporting student learning and growth.

Save an extra $5 by booking online HERE! *(not sure they offer “couples massage” but never hurts to ask!)

A weekend project - codingpuzzles.com

2010-02-22T09:05:00.001-08:00

I created a small collection of coding puzzles on Google host and provided an RSS feed to them. This could be used to torture interviewees (I know Igor likes that) or maybe just solve those for your own pleasure.

A lady in Hungary scoured all over the net and found over a hundred of small coding problems all for $80 :)

So anyhow - you are welcome to use it and if you have any of your favorite problems I can post them there too.

DocuSign Developer Workshop #2: Setting up DocuSign .NET Samples Wednesday, February 17

2010-02-04T14:23:00.000-08:00

Hey all!

I am hosting a free developer workshop that shows how to connect to our webservices using WCF.

WS-Security standards like User Name Token and XML Singature will be covered.

If you are interested - check it out:
DocuSign Developer Workshop #2: Setting up DocuSign .NET Samples Wednesday, February 17, 2010 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM PST

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/336746345

Mike Borozdin - DocuSign Professional Services

Job Alert - Technical PM

2010-01-31T21:07:00.000-08:00

Hey all! I need help! Here is the job description:

Technical Project Manager
Location: Seattle, WA
Travel: 25 - 50% travel as needed. Travel is mostly within the US market.

DocuSign is the leader in electronic signatures. We are looking for a technical project manager (TPM) to join our Professional Services team. The DocuSign Professional Services team manages customer implementation and integration projects. The goal of the Technical Project Manager is to ensure timely, successful completion of Professional Services projects. The TPM will schedule consulting engagements, ensure proactive communication to clients and internal staff, and manage enhancement requirements and escalations. The TPM drives projects to completion by anticipating the needs of the clients and ensuring the alignment of the internal and external teams focused on the implementation. The TPM will play a critical role in success of the Professional Services team.

We are expanding a world class Professional Services organization that already has a proven track record of working with Fortune 500 IT departments, systems integrators, independent software manufacturers and open source communities.

Client Engagement Job Functions:
• produce and manage proposals and other sales-related documents
• produce client-facing documentation
• identify use cases, roles and other business requirements
• create workflow and system data flow diagrams
• provide recommendations to clients and management including upsell of Professional Services offerings to existing clients
• train new clients on the essentials of DocuSign systems to get them started on implementation
• configure settings in DocuSign systems

Internal Job Functions:
• manage schedule, scope, risk and cost across the entire project lifecycle
• develop and manage project plans and risk mitigation plans
• ensure accurate billing in coordination with Finance Department
• conduct implementation pilots and help customer envision final solution
• ensure DocuSign sales and support have appropriate tools to sell and support the Professional Services offerings

Metrics and Goals for the Position
• completeness and success of implementations
• consulting revenue
• customer satisfaction
• utilization of the professional services staff

Candidate Qualifications:
• 5+ yrs of experience managing commercial projects
• experience with project management methodologies (RUP or MSF)
• ideal candidates would have a background in software development and Software-as-a-Service systems
• experience working with code (C# or Java) and data in SQL or XML data stores
• experience working with bug tracking systems
• experience working with source control systems (SVN, SourceSafe etc.)
• experience using a CRM solutions such as SalesForce.com
• strong verbal and written communication skills
• ability to identify and resolve ambiguity
• ability to adjust personal style to different situations

Supervision:
This is an individual contributor position in a growing company.
The candidate is expected to be self-motivated and self-directed.

Education:
Bachelors or Masters degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering or equivalent

Conversion to Google Reader - Complete

2010-01-31T10:49:00.000-08:00

...and I've done it.

I used to love the modifiable my.live.com, but somehow those guys decided to discontinue that service in favor of my.msn.com.

Well, I converted to another tool that allows me to quickly browse my blog subscriptions.

I thought that this lesson was well learned in Redmond - if you don't create a clean upgrade path, people might upgrade to something completely different.

How Live.com is losing customers

2010-01-27T09:53:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I wonder about certain tech companies. This morning I saw this on my my.live.com page:

Thank you for using My.live.com. On March 15, 2010, My.live.com will be discontinued and all users redirected to My MSN. Please note that your settings, feeds and gadgets will not be migrated to MyMSN. To make MyMSN your homepage today, click here.

If I have to do work to migrate stuff from your various products manually I will most likely migrate it to a more stable portal. Enter Google Reader...

About Seattle

2010-01-18T16:40:00.001-08:00

From Men's Health:

Researchers at Central Connecticut State University ranked Seattle the most literate city of America's sixty-nine largest cities in 2005 and 2006, second most literate in 2007 (after Minneapolis), and tied with Minneapolis in 2008. Additionally, survey data from the United States Census Bureau indicate that as of 2003, Seattle had the highest percentage of college graduates among large American cities, with 51.6 percent of residents 25 and over holding at least a bachelor's degree. By 2008, this increased to 53.8 percent.

Democrats in Senate: All Animals are equal, but some are just...

2010-01-14T11:17:00.000-08:00

"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others"

Basically all Americans are being taxed *unless* you belong to an organized union that can bargain with Obama & Co behind the closed doors.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704281204575003040695279432.html

Reward Travel

2009-10-31T18:41:00.000-07:00

I seriously can't stand reward travel and airlines points. They make you feel like you are getting all these points and how it could really be something. However when you try to book an actual travel reward - nothing is available on the dates that you want.

I used to have American Airlines rewards. Let me tell you - unless I traveled at the most inconvenient times with the most inconvenient layovers there was no way for me to use my points.

I switched to United and now when I have to be in MIA around the 20th of December - there is no travel available from Dec 13th till Jan 6th.

Now I am using my Fidelity Investment Rewards card. For every 5,000 spent - I get a $75 check. No questions, no blackout dates, no problems.

America's big mistake - believing that politicians can "create jobs"

2009-10-09T17:50:00.000-07:00

Dear politicians on Capitol Hill,

Before you spend any more wealth that has not yet been generated I’d like you to start a business. Please try to get it to the point where you have at least one employee.

Instead of revolutionary schemes that someone will pay off I’d like to see you create enough wealth to support just one human being.

You will find that it’s probably not that easy. Most of you have never created a business; most of you don’t realize what a modern day entrepreneur goes through.

One has to create a business, market and sell the product, and then deal with all the obstacles that you have created over the past 100 years to just keep the business running.

Here is the main problem facing most of the startups right now:
1) How do I get people to buy something new when their budgets have greatly diminished?
2) How do I service the few customers I have to make sure that they are happy?
3) How do I not lose a bunch of money doing this?

Your mandates, your regulation and stimuli are distractions and obstacles because an entrepreneur needs to concentrate on the following things “make the product, find customers, have some operating capital”

Then you come around and the first thing you want to do is collect some taxes for something that is barely working.

You think that you protect employees by all the laws but generally you just scare infant businesses into delaying hiring someone.

You have all the codes and all the regulation and if you ask an entrepreneur who is just trying to get things done – this person is trying to figure out a way to avoid as much of this garbage as possible and figure out a way to make the idea work.

I happen to be in information technology. Thank God you have not figured out a way to regulate much of it. That’s why we still create new products, new jobs and we give America hope.

Last year I went to China and I understand why China is taking away our manufacturing jobs. It’s not the cost of labor. It’s really the ease of creating a factory.

When I talked to manufacturing entrepreneurs in China they all had a really simple story: “I bought a machine, I hired some people I knew and we looked for a contract to produce widgets.” Some of those factories survived and grew, some died. Increasing or decreasing labor force is not something that a Chinese factory owner has to sweat over.

The end result is what we see today – rapid growth of the manufacturing sector and soon we will see manufacturing innovation coming from China.

Mr. Government Official, please understand: you are not helping – you need to stay out of the way for as long as possible. We, the common people, know pretty well how to interact with each other – you come in and use fringe cases to make blanket rules. Most of the time you won’t be around to see the long term affects of your policies.

- the guy who created one job today.

Open Letter to Senator Patty Murray

2009-09-15T21:38:00.000-07:00

Just sent to her today:

Our President and you are mortgaging our future in order to socialize medicine.

The real problem in medicine are high costs. Those high costs are generated because a lot of people don't pay for health care directly. Most of the people don't even know how much their insurance premiums are. That is the reason that our healthcare has unchecked runaway costs.

We have the haves - people who get insurance through their job. We also have "have nots" - people that don't have employer provided insurance. The haves don't care about the costs of treatment and make it very expensive for the uninsured.

Socialized insurance is going to further create this separate and decrease the natural market forces that keep our other essential things in check.

In addition to that government usually kills innovation, adds waste and bureaucracy.

It's clear that we don't have one decent economist advising our President right now. The keys to affordable healthcare are (a) reduce barriers to entry for people who provide health care (b) increase competition by allowing insurance companies to compete across state lines (c) sell insurance directly to individuals (d) pass tort reform.

None of these things increase the government size or mortgage our future. Please consider them.

A funny healthcare joke from J.N.

2009-09-15T13:57:00.001-07:00

The phone rings and the lady of the house answers.
"Hello?"
"Mrs. Sanders, please."
"Speaking."
"Mrs. Sanders, this is Dr. Jones at St. Agnes Laboratory. When your husband's doctor sent his biopsy to the lab last week, a biopsy from another Mr. Sanders arrived as well. We are now uncertain which one belongs to your husband. Frankly, either way the results are not too good."
"What do you mean?" Mrs. Sanders asks nervously.
"Well, one of the specimens tested positive for Alzheimer's and the other one tested positive for HIV. We can't tell which is which."
"That's dreadful! Can you do the test again?" questioned Mrs. Sanders.

"Normally we can, but the new health care system will only pay for these expensive tests just one time."

''Well, what am I supposed to do now? "

"The folks at Obama health care recommend that you drop your husband off somewhere in the middle of town. If he finds his way home, don't sleep with him.

Public Announcement - No alcohol bet

2009-09-02T16:15:00.000-07:00

Public Announcement

Luke, Mariko, Mike B and Will Prater have a wager going on and *all of you guys* need us to help.

We are giving up drinking until Halloween. Who ever loses is going to buy dinner for the other 3 people.

The only exception is trips outside of WA - Vegas, LA etc.

If before the night of Halloween you see either one of us drinking alcohol you need to report that infraction to the rest of the people ASAP.

Thank you!

After installing Mac OS X 10.6

2009-08-31T17:50:00.001-07:00

I took a plunge and I don't recommend it for a dev right now. My zend server, my mysql, live mesh, VPN and anti virus all stopped working.

I did a clean install and now starting to restore things slowly. MySQL is working after re-install, Zend has a work around... and so on.

Mail integration is nice but it's great that I am not doing any serious development at the moment. I could have been losing some serious time.

interesting stats site - http://www.nationmaster.com/

2009-08-26T00:27:00.000-07:00

I found this site where you can see all kinds of stats organized. Some interesting stats like total spending on Education (US is in the top 3) and Healthcare are statistics that we almost always see filtered from biased sources. This is an easy way for someone to see the complexity of things. For example while we are big spenders in dollar amounts we are tied for 25th in literacy rates and #18 in mathematical literacy.

You also always here stats like "we are #37 in healthcare". It turns out that the enormous number of stats out there can be sliced in every way possible. We are tied for #1 in accessibility to drugs, we are also unfortunately #1 in obesity.

We donate over two times more to the Red Cross then any other country. We also #3 in years lived in poor health for females and #8 in males (being number one in this stat is bad).

So in any case I enjoyed looking at some data here, hopefully you will like it too.

Software Experience Design

2009-08-13T11:45:00.001-07:00

I used to get frustrated because my users didn't read the carefully crafted documentation I created. I have become much happier since I gave up on documentation and I actually realized that I rarely read documentation myself.

Why? Documentation is usually not easy to navigate, sometimes it's out of date and then on top of it I actually have to figure out it maps to the program. It's too much work.

Software needs to guide people to the right decisions. Here is the general flow of a user with a new piece of technology:

1) Installed... can I start using this to do what I need to do? If the user can be walked through the set up and can get the job done - perfect! If not go to step 2.
2) Something is not working... I bet I can just figure it out. Let me click around and see if I am missing something obvious. If I can't figure it out go to step 3.
3) See the documentation - if it looks like something I can read in less then 5 minutes I will do it. If not then I am going to Google for another program that does something similar and in 5 minutes I can download it and go to Step 1.

All the software and web designers need to keep this flow in mind when they create their software. In today's world of Twitter, Facebook and instant electronic mail you need to design for the shortest attention span you can imagine.

Friday Night Clunkers

2009-08-07T08:36:00.000-07:00

President Obama has extended the "cash for clunkers" program. We are doing our part to make sure you don't get stuck in that "same old" Friday night routine! Upgrade your clunker of a plan to something new and cool - Copper Cart Ultra Lounge!

By the way if you haven't seen Sean Majors spin VIDEOS. You should really check it out! It's mesmerizing!!!

Quick reminder - if one of the hosts put you on the guest list please be sure to be there before 11PM. Since there is a line I suggest something even earlier then that.

Of course if you are late that's not the end of the world. The cover is only $10 (All my friends from DC, Miami and Europe can't believe that it only takes $10 in Seattle to get into a top notch club)

See you guys tonight!

Empty Handed Guests

2009-05-26T22:49:00.000-07:00

Perpetually empty handed guest usually stops getting invitations. I grew up with this kind of etiquette and I would like to tell everyone that it pays many dividends.

The situation at hand is boat invitations. Boats are expensive and most of the time consuming. When people invite you to go boating with them - you are benefiting from thousands of dollars that are spent maintaining and mooring the vessel. I highly advise absolutely everyone to grab something to bring to the boat. That something can be alcohol, food, water, snacks or whatever else you think fits the situation. In US you are not required to bring anything "to the party" however I haven't heard anyone complain about a guest having something that adds to it.

In Russia showing up empty handed is guaranteed to raise some eye brows. Couple of situations are exempt:
1) if you are a little kid and have no means of income
2) if you are known to be going through a tough time (in this case you are still obliged to apologize for showing up empty handed).
3) if you show up somewhere all the time so the formalities are forgotten (I am sure Cramer used this clause)

If you are having doubts about what to bring it is customary to call ahead and ask. Most likely you will get 1-2 "no you don't need to bring anything" that's just the Asian influence on Russia where a ritual is required to ensure that everyone is fully comfortable with bringing a gift.

People that might think that adopting this Russian custom is impractical are very mistaken. Over the years I have received repeated invites and made great first impressions by staying true to this rule. Let me tell you that no one ever complained about a bottle of wine or desert.

Stuff just creeps up on you!

2009-04-19T22:39:00.000-07:00

The past two days I have been packing, sorting and dumping stuff. I am donating over a thousand dollars worth of household items, furniture and clothing. The amount of stuff that accumulated is insane! I actually have been resisting purchases for the longest time. I can't believe the number of things that gradually crept into my life.

I see a lot of similarity between belongings and mold. They make their way into your house and settle into the corners.

You scrub them out, you toss them but they keep coming back one little corner at a time.

Innovative government? Yes it's possible

2009-04-11T18:37:00.001-07:00

I finally see a government that is actually looking to use electronics to stop killing trees. Thanks Ann Arbor City Attorney for stepping into the 21st century!!!

http://annarborchronicle.com/2009/04/09/more-zoning-nope-street-repaving/

The city and county have already combined their data centers (hardware). On Monday, council authorized a contract worth $263,371 to integrate document-management software as a part of the “City/County IT Enterprise Content Management Partnership.” Based on the cost breakdowns, this particular contract appears to involve city departments.
Chronicle inquiries with the county yielded the insight that the county uses the OnBase system and that the city will be building their applications on the same technology infrastructure. This allows the city to pay for licensing, but not have to buy new servers. Descriptions of the work the individual city departments will be undertaking:

City Attorney Scope: Implement workflow for contract tracking. Will initially use professional service contracts as the starting point. The developed process will provide visibility into where the contract is at all times. Includes eSignature process from Docusign and full routing for approval, including external signers.
Purchasing Scope: Requesting Accounts Payable workflow for invoice coding and approval and simple workflow for Purchase Order requests.
Accounts Receivable Scope: For storage and retrieval of scanned or electronic documents.
Clerk Scope: Configure OnBase to store and retrieve the following scanned document types: Annexation, Ordinance, Council packets, Minutes Contracts, Easements/Deeds, Liquor licenses and Traffic Control Orders.
Project Management Scope: Replace eCabinet process and convert existing eCabinet documents to the OnBase platform.
Assessor Scope: Bulk load of Assessor property cards into OnBase.

Comcast Economy Internet

2009-04-11T15:16:00.001-07:00

I am paying over $50/month for my high speed Internet through Comcast. Since I am moving I started looking around and there are some interesting offers out there.

As I was calling Comcast to possibly cancel my service they proposed an economy offer which is $27/month!

They also told me that they will move the moving fee for me so I can stay with them.

The economy package has a cap of 1.5 Mbps. I tested my current speed with the CNet broadband test and with my current subscription I don't get much more then 1.5 Mbps anyway.

They switched me immediately and now I am saving close to 50% off my Internet costs.

21st Century Shopping Experience – Apple Store

2009-03-15T18:00:00.000-07:00

This weekend I went to the U-Village Apple Store to check out some MacBook bags. I walked in and was looking at a few bags for my 13” MacBook.

An Apple Genius came up and asked me if he could help. I told him that I am wondering if I should get a 15” bag to allow for a bit more room.

The Genius told me that a couple of people he knows used the 15” bag and it worked fine.

Since I didn’t have my MacBook with me I figured maybe they could put one into the bag and let me try the whole package.

The Genius took me to the 13” MacBooks and we tried putting one in the bag. Everything worked great!

I was sold and I was ready to buy. I looked across the busy store and thought to myself “it’s going to be a drag to wait in line in the back”

The Genius proceeded “Are you going to be paying with a charge card today?” I was going to use my credit card. The Genius said: “I can just process everything right here”

I couldn’t believe it. I handed over my credit card and the Genius swiped it through a little device he had with him. “Would you like me to print your receipt or just e-mail it to you?”

Wow! E-mail the receipt? Perfect! I almost started to give him my e-mail address and then… the Genius told me that he has an e-mail address on file.

That was the best shopping experience of my life. Way to go Apple!!!

Seattle Coffee Shops

2009-03-08T14:12:00.000-07:00

Seattle is known for its coffee, but I don’t believe enough has been said about its amazing coffee shop culture.

I am sitting at Café Vita on Pike Street. It’s a very clean outfit with about a dozen wooden tables and a free WiFi. Almost all of the tables are taken by creative looking individuals, students and young professionals. People are sipping on their lattes, eating their pastries and typing away on their laptops. Rolling stones are playing in the background. There is definite creative static in the air.

Internet Explorer 8

2009-02-28T09:39:00.000-08:00

If you are wondering what Internet Explorer 8 has for you... my answer is *NOTHING*

I am writing this on blogger using IE8 and there is absolutely nothing in this browser that makes me want to launch it over Firefox or Chrome.

Assuming that some alarming bugs are going to be fixed before release it's still not interesting. Talking about bugs - Microsoft's own product Outlook Web Access doesn't work right with this new browser.

If you want a very fast browsing experience - go with Chrome.
If you want customizations or plug-ins - go with Firefox
If you like hiding what you are doing on the internet - Chrome again.

There are some catch up features that IE8 has, but those features have been out on other browsers for a bit.

IE8 says that "web slices" is the next big thing. Honestly I think Microsoft designers have missed the mark on that. I don't want to learn what Web Slices do for me, just like I didn't want to learn what Active Desktop could do for me.

What people want is:
- predictable browsing due to standards compliance
- compatibility
- speed
- customization

I believe more or less in that order. So if you haven't got IE8 on your machine you can safely skip downloading it.

What I have been working on for the last couple of months

2009-02-26T21:02:00.000-08:00

For those of you who are wondering what the heck kept me super busy over the past several months - today the PR wire has a release about DocuSign Dev Center.

As a platform company we needed a developer center. This is a place where people can download the SDK, discuss features on the forum and a centralized center for information.

Check it out!!!

http://www.docusign.com/news_and_events/press_releases/2009-02-26.php

February 26, 2009
DocuSign Releases New Developer Center for Electronic Contract Execution (ECE)

Free Resources, SDK and Forums Enable Developers to Integrate and Test Drive Electronic Contract Execution for Third-Party Applications at No Cost

SEATTLE - February 26, 2009 - DocuSign Inc., the industry leading provider of on-demand electronic signature and electronic contract execution solutions, today announced the launch of the DocuSign Developer Center. This comprehensive portal provides software developers, enterprise architects, systems integrators and independent software vendors with free resources to learn about, create and test solutions powered by DocuSign technology. Complete with an SDK, open standards-based application programming interfaces (APIs) and a Developer Forum, the Developer Center is available to the public now by visiting http://www.docusign.com/devcenter/.

Despite the focus on business process automation, organizations mail or express ship millions of documents for signature every day, relying on a slow, expensive and inherently non-secure paper-based process. DocuSign's on-demand electronic contract execution automates this business process and enables companies to eliminate the antiquated "print-ship-sign-copy-return-scan" cycle, dramatically reducing costs and accelerating business. With the new Developer Center, DocuSign is providing developers a fast path to integrate DocuSign's online contract execution into applications including existing ERP, CRM and HR systems. Now developers can quickly offer their company and clients the power and productivity of electronic contract execution.

"In today's economic climate, corporations are clearly focused on three critical and essential activities: cutting costs, securing revenue, and retaining customers. Our customers tell us daily they have slashed operating costs, raised revenues, and improved customer retention by closing deals electronically which may not have happened otherwise," said Tom Gonser, founder and vice president of product strategy. "We are excited to provide developers the tools needed to drive the critical benefits of online contract execution into their organizations."

The DevCenter At-a-Glance

The DocuSign Developer Center provides developers access to the most robust and flexible electronic signature and electronic contract execution APIs available today that can be used to reduce costs associated with contract execution processes, while driving untapped business opportunities. DocuSign APIs adhere to the latest version of the WS-Security (web services security) protocol to ensure the integrity and confidentiality DocuSign-powered web services messaging. The cornerstone of the Developer Center is DocuSign Connect, a suite of integration services designed to extend DocuSign service capabilities into existing systems or new applications. DocuSign Connect includes:

* DocuSign Connect API - Enables the exchange of information between the DocuSign platform and enterprise business applications, allowing developers to create custom DocuSign enterprise Web applications.
* DocuSign Connect Service - Is a standards-based web service that pushes DocuSign contract transaction data into disparate applications over HTTPS protocol.

"Open APIs like the new DocuSign Connect are becoming the essential glue that makes the best SaaS services a truly integral part of enterprise IT, said John Musser, founder, ProgrammableWeb. "Enterprise and third party developers can use this new breed of APIs in the cloud to tailor solutions to work with existing corporate systems from CRM to ERP. DocuSign's just-launched Developer Center has the key elements that we''ve seen make a difference in getting developer's the resources they need to succeed.."

DocuSign Developer Community members receive access to all of the tools, tips and resources needed to develop and deliver a DocuSign-powered solution. For more information about the DocuSign Developer Center, visit http://www.docusign.com/devcenter/. To start using DocuSign Connect, sign up for a free developer account at http://www.docusign.com/devcenter/sign_up/register.php

About DocuSign Inc.
DocuSign is the DocuSign Inc., the #1 provider of on-demand software services for electronic signature and online contract execution, empowering individuals, small business and global enterprises to operate faster, more efficiently and profitably with enhanced security and compliance. DocuSign is the only Web-based service to fully automate the entire contract execution process. To date, more than 16 million signature events have been executed using DocuSign. Experience the service at www.docusign.com, and for regular updates go to blog.docusign.com.

DocuSign and the DocuSign logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of DocuSign, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. All other marks are property of their respective owners.

Open Letter to Swedish

2009-02-20T13:16:00.003-08:00

Dear Swedish Cherry Hill Hospital,

This is an open letter to you since you have no e-mail or web form to communicate with you.

First of all I'd like to thank you for admitting me to the ER on January the 6th. I thought I broke my rib and was in a lot of pain. I didn't have any surgery done and just had a CT and XRays to make sure that there was no internal damage. Thankfully I didn't break anything and by now the pain is gone.

A few days ago I got your bill and I honestly thought it was some sort of a mistake. Your fees for admitting me and doing two diagnostic procedures were over $11,000? All of that, by the way, was not broken out into any items but just was one line.

I think from my initial wait until the time a cab picked me up I spent about 3 hours at the ER. It was hard to believe that being that would cost me $60 a minute. Yes, this is not a miscalculation: it's $60 a minute, $1 a second, north of $3600 an hour.

I have been to the ER before and I usually expect a bill for $1000-$1500, but an order of magnitude difference with no warning from anyone?

And here is the tragedy of US Medical system. No one talks to anyone about options or pricing meanwhile these kinds of fees can seriously bankrupt an ordinary US Citizen. The second part of the tragedy is that once my insurance got a hold of the bill I instantly got a $9,000 reduction. I am almost certain that if I wasn't "represented by Premera" this discount would be pretty hard to get.

Just to add insult to injury it turns out that your radiologist and the physician will all bill me separately on top of the $11,000.

This is not an attack on any of the personnel that helped me. They all seemed to be great people. I come from a family of doctors and my mother is currently an MD working in urgent care - I know MDs are great people that care! This is some honest feedback to the way you run your business.

The business is being run on a principle of surprise charges. How does anyone know that going to your ER will result in $100, $1,000 or $10,000 in fees? There is absolutely nothing on your website that gives any indication of any of the fees you might try to charge me. All the costs and fees are carefully hidden. If you don't have a big insurance company on your side you could really be screwed.

Can you do something about it? I believe so! I work in software and some very complicated procedures can be grouped together and priced at a predictable level that makes sure that your business operates and patients don't get $11,000 bills they don't expect.

iPhone can now get Hotmail

2009-02-19T13:21:00.000-08:00

Oh joy oh joy!!!

I've had my hotmail address forever!!! Now I can get that mail on my iPhone via POP3.

It's still not as nice as GMail which supports IMAP. The main advantage of IMAP is that I can make things as read or unread and they will be marked as such on the GMail server.

Still this is a lot better then before.

In my iPhone 3G I just typed in my full hotmail address and it figured everything out.

Here is a Microsoft blog post for those who want to go to the source:

http://mailcall.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!CC9301187A51FE33!49799.entry

One week on a Mac

2009-02-04T16:19:00.000-08:00

It’s been a week since I’ve switched to the MacBook as my primary machine for work.

For a long time Windows user (since the DOS days) and having worked at Microsoft for 5 years I would say that I am a Windows Super User. There is something in Windows that I don’t know but it ain’t much ☺.

So after a week my productivity is still down. The coolness factor is up. I actually like taking my computer around with me again. It’s very light and it makes my DELL Latitude look and feel ancient.

Positive emotions come from:
- Spotlight which is absolutely awesome!
- Installing/uninstalling applications is amazing.
- Unix shell and all unix things installed.
- Doc
- Application management – I actually like the fact that you can see which applications are loaded and that closing a word document doesn’t quit word.
- Super fast startup and shutdown time
-

Negative emotions:
- Outlook is the best e-mailing and scheduling program ever. I miss it.
- Not being on the Windows domain is an inhibitor.
- I like pushing alt and seeing the shortcuts, I also like being able to use the keyboard for menus.
- Ctrl+Del is a great shortcut that allows me to delete a word at a time.

Couple of must get items I found so far:
- Firefox with a del.icio.us plugin.
- Windows Live Mesh to keep my documents synched up.

A couple of cool items that I found on the Mac:
- Aquamacs – a nice looking emacs.

I still use Windows for my development because I know Visual Studio and .NET better then all other stacks, but for Office use MacBook is a pleasure to use.

Lessons from Donald

2009-01-25T22:28:00.001-08:00

I am very fortunate to be surrounded by some amazing people. Some of them I learn something from. These are lessons from Donald.

#1 Help if people are asking for your help.
There is one pattern I see Donald do that continuously makes him a great resource. Donald will help you if you legitimately asks you for help.

#2 Don't correct people's mistakes before they make them.
This one goes hand in hand with #1. When Donald told me about this it was in a context of football, it went something like this: “a smart blocker doesn't take the ball away form a player because he is scared of a fumble, a smart blocker just gets ready to jump on the ball the second the fumble actually happens”

#3 Ask people for help if you can use it.
Asking people for help gets them bought into your goals. If they don't like your agenda you will hear it early, if they do then they will feel like a part of the team.

#4 People don't like surprises.
Marriage proposals and occasional flowers notwithstanding people don't like surprises. Prep people if you can prep them. It's best if they are bored in a meeting instead of defensive or scared.

a new SIM card for my iPhone

2009-01-19T08:14:00.001-08:00

I have been experiencing numerous dropped calls with my iPhone. I think I was not alone. You heard this all over the place: "iPhone is great for everything but the actual phone conversations"

I called AT&T numerous times and numerous times we went through the pointless drill of:

"can you please turn off your phone, give it a minute, reboot it. I am going to push some updates to it. Give it two more days and see how that works"

That never did anything for me.

Right when I was about to quit they told me to go get a new SIM card. This seemed like another pointless move to me, but as I was preparing to cancel my contract I figured I will everything they tell me.

It's about 3 days later and instead of having 4-5 dropped calls a day I am down to 1 over 4 days! That's something I can live with!

If you are having problems with your iPhone reception I strongly suggest you call AT&T and see if you can get a free SIM card upgrade.

Why am I not boxing in January?

2009-01-13T09:42:00.001-08:00

From my letter to Angie:

What happened:
I was sparring with a guy who was a golden glove contender. We haven't sparred in a while and I have improved so he was going at a 100%.
What I didn't estimate right was that after 8 days of partying in PR and not working out for 3 weeks my body was probably not ready to start taking championship punches.
I breathed in and had my abs relaxed. Jason landed a clean shot on the ribs at the same exact time.
Next thing I know - sharp pain and I had to stop sparring. I immediately felt that something underneath my ribs starting swelling up. While I drove myself home and took a shower after about an hour I felt like the sharp pain was getting worse and the side was swelling up.
I ended up going to Swedish ER to get my ribs checked out. The first two initial theories were that I had a broken rib or that I had some major internal bleeding. Thankfully after XRay and CT confirmed that the injury is not that serious. I am not able to box for probably a month, but I hope that I can start playing soccer and snowboarding next week.

About 2008 and the 2009 resolutions

2009-01-06T07:40:00.001-08:00

It's 2009... It's 2009 already!? 2008 was the fastest year of my life. I am glad that I had this blog and photos to remind me of what has been happen.

I think this is the first year when I started looking at life more globally. It's really not about doing this or that but stepping back and trying to figure out. "Here I am. Here is what I can do. What do I want to do with all that? What can I defer on?"

For the first time in my life I started actively taking things off my plate. I used to go along with any activity that seemed interesting. Now I literally begin with an end in mind. I guess Covey's habits did sink in.

Enough about the things that happened and the things I am not going to do. Let's talk about the things I am going to change in my life in 2009. Here are my New Year's Resolutions.

1) My primary drink of choice is going to be wine. Reason - I am cutting down on drinking even more for health reasons. Wine is generally healthier then doing shots or drinks mixed with soda. Wine is also something people don't ask you to pound.

2) I am going to start meditating. That's just good in and of itself. In this ADD world of ours meditation can help one balance and make the right choices.

I hope you guys are all going to be my support group!!!

Awesome weekend

2008-12-07T19:20:00.001-08:00

This has been one solid and awesome weekend. It started with my co-worker Eric finally coming out to hang out. The poor bastard has been worked to death and had a lot socializing to catch up on. The guy went all out to the point that he got cut off at the last bar we visited. It will most likely be another three months until we see him again.

On Saturday I went out for drinks and for the first time in a long time had an engaging conversation about global development with a total hottie!

At 5AM on Sunday morning I was woken up by my roommate and her friends. I came out and saw a MMA fighter - Butch - on the floor of the living room. The 40 year old Butch got KO'ed with an overhead right and had the right side of his face cut and swollen. Next day I had a chance to catch up with Butch. He had to be the craziest person I've met in a while.

Butch left his village in Alaska to fight full time in Seattle. It was quite a change for Butch who got used to spending time in a settlement of 150 people. Butch used to be a logger and spent a good part of the year at the logging camp with 50 other loggers. This is the first time I talked at length to a person who could be a character in a Stephen King's novel.

Free money to any failing business with a lobbyist!

2008-11-14T15:41:00.001-08:00

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122669115342629051.html

"Complaining about what it termed partisan "gridlock" in Congress, the White House late Friday called on lawmakers to let U.S. auto makers get quick access to a $25 billion federal loan program, by easing a requirement that the money be spent on converting to fuel-efficient vehicles."

My commentary:

The current administration used to have a sound business policy which was all about limited government intervention. Now we are giving money out for any failing business whatsoever?

My Vote 2008

2008-11-01T13:18:00.001-07:00

I am proud to say that the same principles that guided me two years ago are still valid and I recommend everyone applies them still. For your reference I copied my guide:

The elections are coming up and I hope that everyone exercises their right to vote. My realization is that most of my friends do not take the time to understand the issues and choices we are presented with. That is why I am writing a short writeup of what the right choices are.
I will not use my personal opinion on the matters but will use the following guiding principles about the government and economics:

NO TALENT. Innovative people do not go into government. Government does not allow them to reap the full benefit of their work and makes them jump through a bunch of hoops to do what they could do a lot easier in the private sector. From this fact it follows that the more processes we leave to the government officials the less innovative and efficient they are going to be. The exceptions to this rule are few and far in between and you stand a better chance of finding money on the street rather then finding a maverick government official.
FREEDOM. People achieve their happiness when given maximum freedom. People choose what they want to do and what makes them happy. The less someone else (i.e. a government official) tells you what you should like the more happier you are on a day to day basis.
PRIVATE PROPERTY. In order for us to continue economic growth and investment into our country and our state we have to respect private property rights. The second you start taking private property away or limiting what people can do with something that people have already paid for you are ruining the incentives for the next generation of hard workers, entrepreneurs, explorers etc to take risks. For example so many people are trying hard to come up with new products on the Internet and software because they would like to be rich and famous like the founders of Google and Microsoft.
FUTURE. Any law will live and affect people beyond the people presently in government or people who are the present subjects of this law. So for example if we give the government official a right to detain someone without a cause the fact that the current official will not take advantage of that doesn't guarantee that someone won't take advantage of this in the future.
ENDORSEMENT. By the time politicians make it into the office they are already in debt up to their earlobes with favors to special interest groups. Endorsements and donations are given to candidates with one reason only because there is a return on that investment. The less a politician can do the less people ask him or her to do something for their private gain.
BIG BUDGET. Government officials always want more money and bigger budgets. That is their measure of success. Bigger department means a bigger mover and shaker. This is a fact. I actually worked with a software engineer who designed software for the Department of Defense that made sure they used up every penny of their budget. Saving and economy is not something that government specializes in. If someone asks for more money it is always wise to make sure that they are ready to report on where the existing budget went.

So let's start with the main selection McCain/Palin vs. Obama/Biden.

While I think Obama is a great guy and I will not move to Canada if he is elected :) my principles guide me towards the McCain/Palin ticket. Why?

Obama/Biden want to expand Federal government that goes against my BIG BUDGET and NO TALENT principles. I don't believe that the government can solve anything but the commons and externalities problems, so involving more government in Healthcare or Education just won't work long term. We have seen it over and over in Europe and my birthplace Russia. America is no different - socialism doesn't work. Let's not try it here.
Today the main issue on the ballot is not Iraq. I am against the Iraq war and if that was the biggest problem facing USA today I would probably go with Obama. Today the biggest problem is our economy. The Democratic party was the one that got us in a lot of today's mess with their support of Fannae and Freddie, now they resorted to class warfare to get votes. The reason why US is still the best place to start, own or run your business is because we have the utmost respect for PRIVATE PROPERTY. I don't need the government to say that it's fair to "rob Peter to pay Paul". What Mr. Biden and Mr. Obama need to understand that in the global economy you can kill the golden goose - Peter might move somewhere else. I don't make over $250,000 but I don't want anyone who does to split their money with me. I will try to make my own fortunes.

The mass media tried to link McCain to religious extremists but we have not heard John say one thing about abortion, right to choose your religion, prayers in school or anything else for months. What we have heard John say is: less pork, less government, more direct link between you and your health insurance. That's the way to win in the long run.

INITIATIVES

985 - NO

This initiative looks way too complex. Some parts of it are good: transportation tax revenues should go to transportation, but there are other mandates here and transfer of money from one municipality to another one. I reject that on the basis of

FREEDOM - let the local governments pick the best use of local money.

BIG GOVERNMENT - establishing mandates will complicate things more.

I also think that having HOV lanes open during various hours just complicates things. How are drunk drivers going to keep track of all these new complicated rules? (this is a joke, everyone can relax)

1000 - YES

If someone wants to end their suffering we do not need the government to help them make that decision. Individuals need to be able to do what they want to do with their life. I fully support this initiative on the basis of FREEDOM.

1029 - NO

Increased barriers for new people in long term care? I don't think so. We need FREEDOM, we need less BIG GOVERNMENT. What will happen is our seniors will probably get less long term care because of this initiative. Let the market decide!

Representative, District 7 - Steve Beren

Steve got me at "Let’s sharply reduce government spending, cut taxes" and then solidified my vote with "Reliance on constitutional principles – not more government bureaucracy – best protects our nation’s future."

I support any candidate that wants more FREEDOM and less BIG GOVERNMENT.

Governor - Dino Rossi

We need someone to finally break into the Teachers' Union here and figure out WTF is going on!!!

I'd like a candidate who wants to cut government spending in the office. Remember governments have NO TALENT. Let's not pretend like they do.

Dino has also run a business - please help WA be competitive again. My latest business venture was registered in Nevada for a reason...

I don't think people really care about other positions so I won't write about them here. Happy Voting!

I love America!

2008-10-19T13:56:00.001-07:00

After two weeks in post communist Russia I have to say that I was absolutely ready to come back home. While I do love seeing my family my feelings towards visiting Russia for vacation have changed a bit. The main reason behind it is due to the disparity in the value of experience you get form Russian businesses.

Prices for services, dining out and clothing in Russia have risen and now exceed American equivalents. The service is in many ways inferior. Let me emphasize that again - you get less for you dollar. The inferior service is what kills it. In the two short weeks that I was there here are some experiences that will help me show you what I mean.

Experience #1 - The chocolate pastry

I am sitting at coffee shop called "Coffee House" with my friend and his girlfriend. This is a knock off of Starbucks, but unlike Starbucks you also get waited on.

So here we are ordering our food. The coffee shop has two kinds of eclairs: normal and chocolate. Along with some other food I order the normal eclair.

When I get the eclair it has dark chocolate on top of it which I really don't like. I figure that I can probably stomach some dark chocolate on top of the eclair and cut the eclair with the spoon to see what's inside of it. The eclair is the chocolate eclair.

Like a normal American consumer I call the waitress and tell her that she made a mistake and that I need the normal eclair. The conversation goes something like this:

Me: Hi! I ordered a normal eclair and this seems to be a chocolate one.

Waitress: You ordered a chocolate eclair.

Me: I don't like dark chocolate, so I couldn't have ordered that. So please bring me another eclair.

Waitress: You already started eating it!

Me: I don't think so! Look the pieces are all there.

Waitress: Okay... hang on a second.

At this point in time I am sure that she is going to get me the eclair that I want. However instead of the eclair I get the manager.

Manager: I hear that you ordered a chocolate eclair.

Me: No, you heard wrong. I ordered a normal eclair and that's not what I got.

Manager: I see that this eclair is already broken. What am I supposed to do with it?

Now I start absolutely losing it. Did she really ask me what to do with the wrong food that she brought me? What the heck was she going to do with it if I didn't see what's inside? Take it back into the kitchen?

Me: I think you should treat it like all the other bad food you have - throw it away.

Manager: why did you break it if you didn't want chocolate?

My friend stepped in and we all started ganging up on them. She left and I got my normal eclair.

To sum it all up - we have spent 15 minutes ruining the experience over a $3 pastry. Most importantly the actual cost of the eclair is probably $1 at the most. The progress that was made here from the soviet times is that I eventually got what I ordered. In the Soviet Russia I think they would have just told me to buzz off.

Experience #2 - Getting the stamp

Now when you get to Russia with a tourist visa you need to get a special stamp that says that you actually were in the place where you said you were going.

My dad takes me to the agency where he ordered the visa and after taking a copy of my passport they tell me to come back on Tuesday.

Tuesday comes around and I make my way to the agency. I come up to the lady that took my passport last time I was there and ask her for the stamp.

Lady: Oh hi! Why didn't you call us?

Me: Well... you told me to be here on Tuesday and here I am. If something changed shouldn't you call me?

Lady: Really we told you "Tuesday night."

Me: I don't remember that, but if it is really Tuesday night I will give you the benefit of the doubt.

Lady: Okay, let me call our stamp courier.

She dials the phone and gets a hold of their stamp courier. It turns out that the stamp will be ready after seven.

Lady: So the stamp is going to be ready after seven.

Me: What time are you open until?

Lady: Seven...

To sum it all up - the lady was late on getting me the stamp and now was offering me to stop by the office after they already left!

Experience #3 - The locked phone

When I got to Russia I bought myself a phone. My iPhone 3G didn't work so I had to buy a cheap Nokia. As I was playing around with the Nokia I found that there was a security code. The normal set of numbers didn't work so after trying 0000, 11111, 12345 and all the other things that I guessed would be set at the factory I gave up and came back to the store.

Here is my conversation with the same exact clerk that I bought my phone from:

Me: So what do you guys suggest I do now? I am leaving the country soon and this phone has a security code I don't know...

Clerk: I am not sure. It's really puzzling.

Me: You know I just bought this phone last week.

Clerk: Yes, I remember, but it's obvious that you set the code.

Me: Why would I do that?

Clerk: I am not sure, but it's not the standard Nokia phone so you or someone you know has set the code.

Me: I don't know how that could happen. I didn't let the phone out of my sight and I only had it a week.

Clerk goes to get another phone and checks out the standard 12345 code there.

Me: Why don't you guys just take this phone back to the manufacturer and give me another phone just like this one.

Clerk: We can't do that they will charge us for unlocking the phone.

Me: So basically you sold me the phone and now I have an equivalent of a stolen phone.

Clerk: Yes, but we can't take it back and we can't exchange it.

Me: Do you understand that I have absolutely no reason to lie to you about this code? At best I am hoping to get a phone that's totally the same as the one I got.

Clerk: I can't exchange this. You will have to go to a Nokia center and pay them to unlock it for you.

Obviously the clerk feels that I am trying to screw with him somehow, but he can't figure out how. I ended up finding out that the language setting on the phone affects the code which is a Nokia bug.

To sum it all up - The store absolutely lost my business and assumed that I was going to screw them somehow. Instead of eating the cost of replacing the phone and wining loyalty they lost a customer.

As you can see here only in 10 business days of being there! I was really anxious to come back and be back in the place where you can relax and enjoy yourself and when you choose to spend money on something - people are thankful and really appreciate your business!

I saw Tony Sopranovich

2008-10-14T04:28:00.001-07:00

Last night I went shopping for an army hat and in the process met up with my buddy who is an officer in Russian armed forces.

The actual shopping experience at the army store wasn't anything exciting, but after that we decided to go get a cup of coffee. Russian coffee shops are great you can see just about anyone there. This time around I saw a group of Russian guys that were having a «business discussion»

This was a scene straight out of a Russian adaptation of the Sopranos. All seven dudes were leaning in and having a heated discussion. Most of them were wearing dark leather jackets and I don't think a single one of them was less then 200 lbs.

As we were passing by the group to get out of the coffee shop my buddy overheard one guy say to another «That bastard owes me too much money, I will definitely find him!»

I survived a Russian wedding

2008-10-12T02:27:00.000-07:00

I survived a Russian wedding… and no it was not my own. There were boxes of vodka an boxes of champagne and almost everything was consumed.

My friend Tom once told me that he was so drunk that he couldn’t see his feet. I have successfully achieved that state last night.

Wow… I can’t believe I am writing this today. I am glad I had some painkillers!

Russian weddings are a beautiful thing. You don’t go off in a remote place… you get the whole city involved!

We started off at around noon at the Wedding Palace. Starting from the Wedding Palace we have gone all around the city and finally ended up at my buddy’s place where we successfully consumed several boxes of liquor.

Congratulation to Dima! I am really really happy for him!

That’s all I can write today!

Second Day in Russia - Coffee Gamma

2008-10-07T00:16:00.000-07:00

I am out and about in search of coffee or breakfast. Moskovkiy Prospect is full of small shops, banks and restaurants. I am just looking for something that resembles Starbucks. There is no energy for look for an adventurous spot – I am still trying to get over a loss of the day and 18 hours at airports.

I end up going to Coffee Gamma – it looks like a place where I can sit down, get coffee and get good service.

I walk in. There are nice leather couches and cherry wood tables. I plop into one of the sections and stretch out. The waitress comes around and to my surprise again I am getting excellent service with a smile.

I get Pushkin tea and Solichniy salad. The portions are tiny, but in comparison to an average American I don’t really have the stomach for Extra Biggie anyway.

The place is extremely nice and most of the people around me are well dressed, polite and good looking.

As I am trying to waste my before my brother gets done with school I start looking through the menu. It turned out they have a hookah! Sweet! The next couple of hours I end up smoking on fine flavored tobacco, drinking Russian tea and reading a book.

I think Starbucks could steal a couple of ideas form these guys.

Till next time I will be around a computer! Cheers!