February 7th, 2009

Posted by Phil Wainewright

What have we come to when a respected VC feels no shame or embarrassment when actually publishing a blog post entitled When Talking About Business Models, Remember That Profits Equal Revenues Minus Costs, as Fred Wilson did last weekend? Has the world become so blind to the basics of commerce that it needs reminding of such a basic tenet?

Apparently yes. Even Wall St can’t count, as Robert Cringely revealed last week. (An analyst at JP Morgan came up with a graphic to illustrate the extent to which bank market caps shrank in 2008. It was widely circulated in financial circles without anyone noticing the elementary error in basic geometry which meant it massively overstated the shrinkage).

Fred Wilson’s blog post cited Chris Anderson’s WSJ article of last week on The Economics of Giving It Away, which, he notes, “suggest[s] that Internet entrepreneurs are going to have to get people to step up and pay for something instead of just giving everything away for free …” Really? Is such a concept so novel?

Have we brought up an entire generation to believe that cash isn’t important? Is this the payback for all those millions of dollars spent educating a multitude of MBAs? It turns out it was all a waste of money, because all it’s done is encourage the hubris that this generation is so smart it can defy the rules of economics (as well as remain oblivious to the tenets of geometry). For a few years there, the self-appointed masters of the universe deluded themselves that they had bypassed the normal rules of finance. Now they, along with the congressional Democratic caucus, get lectured on basic economics by Steve Ballmer, of all people:

“The hard truth is this, in my opinion: The private sector of our economy has borrowed too much money, businesses and consumers alike … The bubble has burst … America really has to return to growth that’s built on innovation and productivity, rather than leverage and private debt.”

My worry is that the culture of free money has become so ingrained that everyone under thirty-something is convinced that money can simply be conjured out of thin air by making promises for the future, rather than having to be earned from actual work that delivers real-world value today.

And then, out of nowhere, we have Fred Wilson all of a sudden saying that what matters is living on current revenues rather than spending from future projected revenue. The emperor of debt is deposed without even a shirt on his back and cash comes from nowhere to usurp the throne. In an instant the conventional wisdom switches from spending tomorrow’s wealth to conserving today’s. If we are to pursue that mantra as unthinkingly as the one it replaces, then we are in for a depression as deep and unforgiving cialis dosage 40 mg as the levity and irresponsibility of the boom that preceded it.

February 6th, 2009

Posted by Larry Dignan

Warning: This is a Friday rant that’s slightly off the beaten path, but I’m having a bad social networking week.

Perhaps I’m feeling a bit antisocial, but this social networking thing has been quite annoying of late. First, there’s the Google Latitude announcement where the big benefit is in tracking friends every step (and allowing them to track you). Oh joy. Why don’t we just implant chips in our heads and get it over with?

And then there’s the 25 things meme on Facebook. Learning 25 things about your peeps was kind of fun–until everyone started doing it. Now I know 250,000 things about my friends. I’m numb. Even worse: I don’t care anymore.

But that’s only prelude to the reason why social networking has me down. Fact is that social networking sites give people a venue to whine about things that they have no business bitching about in the first place. In the real world, you’d just slap these people upside the head and get it over with.

Also see: Are drunk Facebook photos killing your job prospects?

Enter the mortgage broker’s wife on Facebook. You see, she’s complaining about the fact she can’t go to Las Vegas on her husband’s Wells Fargo junket that was just canceled over some seriously bad PR.

Well, that’s just oh so sad. And then there’s her husband, Mr. mortgage broker who posted a big ode about his bank and how it has been wronged by the press over this Las Vegas junket–the one he and his wife wanted to attend. Turns out his bank took some U.S. Treasury money and there are a few strings attached. Boo hoo.

If social networking didn’t exist these two people would just bitch and moan to themselves–and maybe a handful of others. Instead, social networking enables a lot more people to be exposed to this whining.

There is one bright side to this. All of this new media allows me to share my response to this whoa-is-me-I-can’t-go-to-Vegas-on-a-junket-tale. The response goes something like this:

“Wah. I can’t go to Vegas.” Well, give me a #@$# break, dude. You’re lucky to even be working. A) You’re a mortgage broker (evil). B) You work at a bank. If your dumb arse worked at Countrywide, IndyMac or a dozen others you’d be unemployed. The difference: Dumb #@$@# luck. You should count your blessings. As for the bailout I have two words–make that three. Tough bleeping bleep. Given that the taxpayer gave you dough–you dumbies took it–you have to deal with the strings attached–and one of them should be your salary. Is cialis dosage 20mg it just me or is it truly whacked that you benefited on commissions the entire way up on this mess (and you helped it along) and now benefit since all the idiots you gave a mortgage to are now refinancing because they couldn’t afford it in the first place.

The one upside to social networking: Defriending. Hey, perhaps it isn’t so bad after all.

February 7th, 2009

cialis discounts align=”justify”>Posted by Garett Rogers

Information Week says that if Gmail’s growth continues at the same rate, we could see Gmail’s user share overtake Hotmail by the end of the year — an impressive feat.

Between December 2007 and December 2008, Gmail’s number of unique monthly visitors in the United States grew 43%, from 20.8 million to 29.6 million, according to ComScore. Windows Live Hotmail lost 5% of its unique monthly visitors during this period, falling from 45.7 million to 43.5 million.

Google still has a long way to go to catch up to Yahoo, but it’s realistic to think that it could happen as soon as 2011 if you look at current growth rates. Part of the reason Google’s email service is becoming so popular is their ability to push out updates and useful features extremely quickly.

For example, one of the newest features they added to Gmail Labs is “multiple inboxes”. This feature is extremely useful for me — when I star a message, or save a draft, it always stays on my main page instead of gradually working its way down my inbox, and then inevitably out of sight (and mind). Previously, starred messages were only accessible by clicking the “starred” link in the sidebar.

Which email service do you use? Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo? Have you noticed people around you making the switch to Gmail? Let’s hear what you think in the Talk Back!

February 7th, 2009

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn

cialis discount price border=”0″ title=”monty-widenius” width=”175″ height=”197″ />Michael “Monty” Widenius (right), author of the original mySQL, has left the company to launch a new start-up, Monty Program AB.

He joins former CEO Martin Mickos on the outside looking in.

This has led to much wailing and gnashing of teeth, not just here but elsewhere in the computer press.

Please excuse me if I don’t join in.

For me this is a case of deja vu all over again. One of the first stories I covered here involved the acquisition of the JBOSS framework by Red Hat and the subsequent leave-taking of its founder, Marc Fleury.

As with many today I was certain this was the end of JBOSS, possibly of open source itself.

I was wrong.

Some in the old JBOSS team did leave, and pretty quickly, after Marc did. But they landed on their feet. Some went to their own start-ups, others became key men within other open source companies. JBOSS survived, too. It took time to digest, and it found new competition along the way, but the ending is not an unhappy one.

With the perspective of time I suspect things will be the same in this case. The only surprise to me is that Mickos and Widenius stayed as long as they did.

Entrepreneurs are a special breed, not built for suits and hierarchies. They can’t handle people over them saying no, and they should not have to.

They’re too precious as what they are. Open source needs more great entrepreneurs, and to have two with experience back in the fray is very exciting. The mySQL deal was worth $1 billion. Money won’t be a problem for their next projects.

All Monty has so far is a Wiki page, where he talks about building a transactional storage engine for mySQL dubbed Maria, and a branch of the language supporting it. That’s good, for him, for us, and for mySQL. A project becomes powerful as it builds an ecosystem which supports it, and no ecosystem can be contained within four corporate walls.

Besides, if Sun messes up with mySQL, remember that it’s open source. The code still lives. Mickos and Witinius could then fork it and it would continue moving forward. I hope they don’t have to, because working on cool new stuff is always more fun than maintaining the old stuff.

The JBOSS deal worked out great for everyone. I think the mySQL deal will do the same. So, too, will its founders. And so will all of us.

February 8th, 2009

Posted by Robin Harris

If the economy has made you put off buying a faster system, you aren’t alone. The good news: you can make your current system much snappier with faster storage – DRAM and disk. Here’s how – and why.

Your CPU speed is fixed. So is your network and memory bandwidth. Only new storage can give your system a performance boost.

Even better news: storage prices are at all-time lows. There’s never been a better time to upgrade.

The basic strategy
Start with #1, then look at #2. The 3rd option isn’t cost-effective for most people today and you have to be careful cialis daily generic to avoid some really awful 1st and 2nd generation products – buyer beware!

1. Add main memory – also known as DRAM, RAM, DIMM or SO-DIMM.
2. Install a faster and/or higher capacity disk drive.
3. Install a flash-based Solid State Drive – which doesn’t make sense for most people.

RAM or disk
There are 2 kinds of storage or memory in your system: DRAM or RAM – Dynamic Random Access Memory – fast electronic storage; and disk or hard drive storage. If there isn’t enough DRAM for the work you want to do, the operating system uses the disk memory as a substitute.

That works OK for light use, but disk drives take a million times longer to access data than DRAM, so as you get busier your system gets slower. For maximum performance you want to minimize disk I/O.

First
To minimize disk I/O increase your DRAM. More memory reduces disk I/O in 2 ways:

• Entire programs and data can be loaded into DRAM and run without having to swap parts in and out. For example, Photoshop maintains several copies of any image you are working on. For a 50 MB image Photoshop will run best with ~250 MB free DRAM. Your OS and other programs need DRAM too, so the demand quickly adds up.
• When DRAM runs short, Windows or Mac OS start using the disk drive as “virtual memory.” Since disk drives are so slow compared to DRAM, this slows your system down. Too many outstanding I/O requests will overflow the on-chip memory, further slowing your system.

Typical desktop systems support up to 8 GB of DRAM – check the specs – and more is better. Doubling the amount of DRAM you have now – assuming you aren’t at full capacity already – is a good rule of thumb for maximum bang for your buck.

How much better? I went from 5 to 8 GB DRAM on my quad-core Xeon Mac Pro and was amazed at how much snappier and stable the system became. The added DRAM almost eliminates disk swapping.

I typically have a couple of dozen programs open – often including I/O intensive video, image and audio editors – so if all you do is surf the web, read email and type a few letters you won’t need 8 GB – 2-4 GB will be fine. One caveat: a 32-bit OS, which includes most versions of Windows, won’t support more than 4 GB of RAM, even if the hardware will.

Later this year I plan to upgrade to 16 GB of DRAM. When I do I’ll let you know how it goes.

Disk drive upgrade
I recently upgraded my system disk from a 7200 RPM disk to a 10,000 RPM Western Digital VelociRaptor. It made a HUGE difference in machine performance.

1/3rd faster boot times. 3 GB swap files that I didn’t notice. Snappy app loads. It’s like a new system.

You’ll see similar results upgrading a 5400 RPM notebook disk to a 7200 RPM disk. Either upgrade offers a 30-40% improvement – one you will certainly notice.

If you edit much video, a 2nd drive can help. Keep the project on the 2nd drive and render to the system disk for greater speed.

Even if you don’t upgrade to a faster drive, a much more dense drive – for example, moving from 80 GB to 500 GB – will give performance gains. The higher bit density means large reads and writes are faster and average seeks shorter. Not as dramatic as a 10k drive, but noticeable.

Performing the upgrade
Most memory upgrades are user installable. Check your vendor’s web site for instructions. For the best prices I check out dealram.

Many notebook drives are upgradeable as well. If you have a plastic MacBook check out my 1 minute guide. Otherwise consult the vendor web site.

Tower systems vary in their expansion ease. The Mac Pro is really easy. Most Dell’s and other towers are ok, but expect to spend some time. Or find a friend who’s done it before and learn with them.

The Storage Bits take
I/O bottlenecks slow systems down. Faster and more abundant storage speed them up. With RAM and disks so cheap, upgrading storage is a great mid-life kicker.

Comments welcome, of course. If your hard drives more than 3 years old, replacing them is a good idea. They are mechanical devices and simply start to wear out.

Yes, I ignored overclocking. If you want to overclock, do it right!