Has anyone here had any experiences with ATA over Ethernet? It seems a little bleeding edge, right now. From what I've gathered from a cursory internet search, there's currently only one commercial vendor and only one open source server project (written by an employee of that commercial vendor, Coraid).
Currently Linux kernels already support AoE, but I'm not sure about Windows. But IMHO the ultimate would be if AoE support could be crammed into a mobo BIOS--then you could install Windows or Linux or whatever onto a fast networked RAID just as if it were a local drive!
With the speed of gigabit ethernet, ATA over Ethernet could even be much faster than a quiet local drive.
It doesn't seem all that impressive to me, at least not an improvement. On the flip side though, you could take the "relocate-external-hard-drive" to a new extreme.
I don't think the point is speed - it's ease of expanding SANs (storage-area-networks) and the lower overhead of data transfer over network.. what I mean is SMB is very slow, as is NFS.. but FTP has much less overhead and therefore much better throughput.. although doesn't allow proper random access to files.
Hopefully ATAoE will have low overhead and good random access features. dunno.
However, together with overheads an SMB over GbE link would only give a useful bandwidth of 400Mbps (this is a wild guess based on the delivered bandwidth I get from a SAMBA server on a 100Mbps ethernet link - I get about 5MBps).
400Mbps is 50MBps - which is about the max sustained read speed off todays 7200rpm disks. So, today at least, GbE is just about enough for ATAoE, and any more wouldn't be necessary.
Right now you're not going to get anywhere near full SATA 1.5Gbps speeds with ANY single drive, much less a single QUIET drive.
As for the limits of ATA over Ethernet, it is a high efficiency low level protocol which doesn't even use TCP/IP (it uses MAC addresses directly). It is extremely efficient with almost no latency.
However, even if it did use TCP/IP, the overhead is not necessarily that much. I use NFS on my 100mbit LAN, and it easily acheives 10+ megabytes per second transfer speeds. Before I switched to all Linux, I used SAMBA, which never acheived even half of that (similar to DonP's performance results).
The main disadvantage of TCP/IP apparently is the CPU cycles required to do TCP/IP stack processing, rather than the actual bandwidth cost.
BTW, NFS is faster than FTP. That shouldn't be surprising since NFS is about as low level as you can get with TCP/IP.
After thinking about it, what I'd REALLY like to see is a combo gigabit ethernet NIC with AoE->SATA converter (or AoE->PATA converter) and internal RAID controller (a small embedded Linux machine). This card sticks in a PCI slot, with an ethernet connector on the backplane. On the inside, it has a SATA or PATA hard drive connector, which connects up just like any other hard drive. As far as the motherboard is concerned, it's just a really really fast hard drive. The small embedded Linux machine accesses AoE drives and performs software RAID to turn them into a single big fast virtual drive. It also has a small SSH server so the user can administer the Linux subsystem (like setting up the shares).
Erm, solid state storage like, say, Gigabyte iRAM?
ATA over Ethernet sounds like an interesting idea. Sort of like a poor man's version of iSCSI?
I don't know the details of it, but NAS (Network Attached Storage) is the latest enterprise storage solution used by many large companies. All the big vendors like IBM, EMC, Hatachi Data Systems, and Network Appliance have these solutions.
My company is moving from SAN to NAS, primarily to save money and improve reliability. The storage people say it is fast, but I don't have details on that. These systems use Fibre Channel controllers at the high end and Gigabit ethernet at the low end.
Hmm, most Flash drives aren't "super fast" in terms of sustained bandwidth, but in terms of latency (microseconds insteead of ~10 miliseconds).
Sorry for dragging this off topic - it's not relevant to the subject of ATA over ethernet at all, and there are several threads on this, so do a search on Gigabyte iRAM, which is a PCI card form factor, DDR SDRAM populated, SATA interface, semi affordable solid state hard disk with battery backup.
Hm. I think AoE sounds interested, but really only from a technical point of view - if it works as well as you say it does, that's quite a feat and very neat/cool. And I'm sure there are cases where it's useful. I don't see using it for silencing though, that'd just be way too involved for me.
You'd need to built a seperate enclosure, for instance. And unless you add power over ethernet, another cutting edge technology, you'd need a seperate power supply, too, although hardly a very powerful one. And since it seems like HDDs get more silent as well as larger over time, it doesn't seem to be enough of an issue - for me, anyway.
I get my kicks on channel six.
My company is moving from SAN to NAS, primarily to save money and improve reliability.
AFAIK, SAN stands for 'storage area network' and NAS is 'network attached storage' as you said. The only difference is that in a 'SAN' you have dedicted network hardware (out of band) and in 'NAS' you use an existing network (in band) to route the storage traffic atleast part of the way.
As it happens when storage solutions providers first coined the term SAN, they used a lot of proprietary technologies with almost no interoperation between vendors. Later as more standardisation started to happen (FiberChannel, iSCSI), people began using the term NAS for simpler hardware setups often using devices from multiple vendors.
Still in it's basic meaning the simplest possible NAS is one of those harddrive enclosures with a builtin fileserver and an ethernet port. It could be argued that the same drive becomes a SAN if you buy an extra network card for your machine and plug the drive enclosure to that, in effect creating a dedicated network for storage traffic. So in a basic sense these terms are not counterpoles but different configuration options for networked storage hardware.
you would be able to use an ATA cd/dvd drive with this ATAoE, yes?
I don't claim to be an expert, but SAN is different than NAS. As you mentioned, SAN uses proprietary interfaces and NAS uses TCP/IP. But many times the NAS networks are not using existing LAN's (at least in serious high performance installations), they are using private IP networks using Gigabit, Fibre Channel, etc.
I would agree that SAN and NAS are not counterpoles, but the point is that many major companies are using NAS for high end applications where performance is important. So maybe ATA over Ethernet (or at least SATA) is not as farfetched as it sounds. Dell is selling a SATA based NAS solution.
I don't claim to be an expert, but SAN is different than NAS. As you mentioned, SAN uses proprietary interfaces and NAS uses TCP/IP.
It's not a requirement for SAN to use proprietary technologies. Most certainly it has been often implemented that way, but the term just means 'storage area network' i.e. a network dedicated to storage traffic. What network technology you happen to use is really secondary. Everything from Fiberchannel to ATM to Ethernet could be used and the used encapsulation isn't set in stone either. You could use your own frame protocol, TCP/IP, just IP, or even the hardware layer directly.
You mentioned that your company has been transitioning from SAN to NAS to improve reliability. For that to hold true one would have to know what your companys current SAN looks like. The techniques used to achieve reliability are pretty much the same for both SAN and NAS. So what I'm really thinking is that you are transitioning to a new generation of devices for improved flexibility and that might allow for greater reliability because it allows some new configurations. Ofcourse there is the added benefit of less vendor lockin.
But many times the NAS networks are not using existing LAN's (at least in serious high performance installations), they are using private IP networks using Gigabit, Fibre Channel, etc.
In fact even Coraid uses the term SAN for their AoE solution.
EtherDrive® Storage is simply Ethernet connected hard disk drives. A Storage Area Network (SAN) using EtherDrive storage can be assembled for less than $1.35 per GigaByte.
I'm assuming they use the term SAN here because their solution doesn't make use of TCP/IP and you really want that dedicated network for storage anyway, atleast if you are planning to write any significant amounts of data during workinghours.
This is what really threw me about your original comment. Are you trying to imply that NAS is something too expensive and 'enterprisy' for a normal consumer ? Like I said, the simplest NAS is a single harddrive in a networked enclosure. Do you think this should not be called NAS because the enterprise market doesn't have a use for such a simplistic NAS implementation ?
As far as ATA over Ethernet goes, I don't think this will fly in the enterprise market. You can just as well use iSCSI to connect to your drive rack even if there are actually SATA drives in the rack. In fact such devices exist already. We are also starting to see the emergence of SAS 'Serially Attached SCSI', which is SCSI using the same cabling as SATA. The intresting side effect is that apparently some upcoming SAS raid controllers can drive SATA drives as well, so you could start with a modest setup using cheaper SATA drives and upgrade to SAS as needed.
I see ATA over Ethernet being mostly interesting in the consumer space. Normal consumers wont need all the advanced SCSI features and aren't intrested in managing their devices. In such an environment using the simplest possible transport to connect to your remote storage is an acceptable compromise to reduce cost. I wouldn't be surpriced if this technology gets picked up by home entertainment system builders, because while drive sizes have been going up, you really don't want to put more than one hdd in your htpc device. So if you really want a _lot_ of storage space to handle your entire movie and music collection you want to place the storage array away from your livingroom.
Last edited by kesv on Thu Aug 04, 2005 6:16 am, edited 2 times in total.
Yes, ATA over Ethernet is basically "poor man's iSCSI". However, since it uses MAC addresses directly instead of TCP/IP, you can get better performance than doing the same with iSCSI.
I don't really see it as useful for HTPC, though, since bandwidth requirements for HTPC are relatively low. For HTPC, even SMB file sharing over wireless LAN is fast enough--and these files will be readily accessable by other computers and media player appliances.
Except that by not using TCP/IP you loose the ability to use normal TCP/IP tools and hardware to do bandwidth & priority management. So far I've understood this to be a major point for iSCSI, because otherwise you could just use FiberChannel. Also I don't think that the performance issue is the deciding factor. We must not forget, that even if we are not using TCP/IP we must have our own frame protocol to ensure that data does not get lost or corrupted.
I'll have to admit that TCP/IP has not been deviced for high bandwidth traffic, but I doubt the performance difference is more than 5%. Actually I think the technologies have their sweetspots on different areas. One would choose one or the other depending on planned deployment environment. The fact that Coraid seems to be the only vendor for AoE is a big deal on the enterprise market though. Broad vendor supports can be very important for companies these days.
True, but with SMB you then need to have a more intelligent server serving out the files. With AoE you could let your HTPC be the server to other machines and add very simple (cheap) disk arrays remotely to it as your media collection grows.
We should also remember that SMB as a protocol is really old (developed by IBM in the 60ties ) and not very good. It has an artificial 2GB filesize limit and it's pretty inefficient. I think the filesize limit can be overcome, but as an HTPC vendor I wouldn't neccesarily want to use SMB as the only way for extending my product.
Basically what it says is: A SAN provides block-level access to the storage medium while a NAS device is connected to with a higher level protocol like a NFS or SMB/CIFS.
That makes AoE a SAN implementation, since it exposes the block level protocol over the network. Same applies to iSCSI and Fibre Channel where usually SCSI protocol is used, but ATM, IP or really any transport protocol is possible.
They call their technology SoIP (Storage over IP), but the functionality is essentially the same as as ATAoE.
I don't see anything in either of those two which is remotely like what I was hoping for--bootable networked storage which the client computer thinks is a local (ATA) drive.
In other words, can the networked drive be "C:"? Can the client computer be diskless but think that it has a local drive connected to the primary IDE channel?
If so, then that has some interesting potential for silent computing.
If not, then it's just another way to store files on a file server. Big deal.
No one's mentioned AoE or iSCSI since 2005-2006? Thought I'd bring this one up from the dead. Unfortunately for me, I'm restricted to a Windows storage server, as I plan on running Mediaportal TVE3 server on it as well.
Actually RocketDivision has free versions of iSCSI target and initiator software. On Linux there's a whole slew of options.
As I'm running Mediaportal, I was thinking of running Mediaportal "Extenders" which would be bare bones HTPC boxes that merely stream videos, tv, music, etc. If I can run them driveless using iSCSI it may be well worth giving it a shot. Unfortunately, none of the iSCSI initiators for Windows support booting from iSCSI. Whereas WinAoE does support boot off AoE, there are no AoE targets for windows.
Sorry for necroing this thread once again, but i recently found out about this myself and i'm very interested in learning more about this.
badkarma: Maybe you can use PxE instead of AoE/iSCSI?
It basically does the same as AoE but it's integrated into the NIC and it supports any interface for Hd's you can use with your computer. I'm not exactly sure how many motherboards / network cards support this but from what i have read it is supposed to be a standard. My "Msi p965 Neo" supports it. It uses the "Realtek 8110SC" NIC controller so i'm guessing that any motherboard with that controller supports PxE/Booting over ethernet. I have not yet been able to confirm that this technology works as i dont have another computer i could boot from though.
For what it's worth, I bit the bullet and figured out how to do diskless netbooting. I wrote a how-to on doing it with Debian. It does involve a noticeable performance hit, with plain old 100mbit ethernet--about the same speed as an average laptop drive (around 10megs per second). However, it's cheap, especially if you have numerous computers. Only the server needs to have a hard drive, and that hard drive can be a cheaper 3.5" drive.
Didn't realize PXE can boot Windows directly. Sounds like PXE has to load the entire windows image into RAM. What AoE or iSCSI does is provide a driver, that allows Windows to see an AoE/iSCSI disk as a local disk. I use PXE to chainload gPXE which then boots off AoE/iSCSI. On a Gigabit connection I get about 50MBps which is plenty of speed for a HTPC device, actually it's about what my 7200rpm local server drives get. I've been using my laptop to test and it's definitely faster than the local laptop drive. I was able to get it working without issues.
badkarma: I see. From what you are telling me it seems like AoE/iSCSI is the better solution. Is it possible to use AoE with sata hd's?
You can use AoE with any HD device on the target. It's agnostic that way. You just point the AoE Target application to an image file on your filesystem.
I looked at the pxe method, and it's definitely loading Windows into RAM. They talk about Win98 images being less than 90MB to fit into a pxe client with 128MB of RAM. The other thing is pxe boot, all changes would be lost once the device is powered down unless changes are saved manually. AoE/iSCSI will write to the "local AoE/iSCSI disk".
Right now, the only problem is there is no AoE target for Windows and no free iSCSI bootable XP initiator. So in order to boot Windows you have to use a linux target. However, I'm talking to a guy that's working on writing an AoE target for windows. Will hopefully be beta testing it.
What do you mean by a linux target? Does that mean you're using it to boot up a Linux operating system? If so, then it really isn't necessary to have that. I'm netbooting Debian GNU/Linux using plain old PXE/tftp/nfs. The reason I'm not getting as good performance as you is that I'm using cheap old 100mbit ethernet instead of gigabit.
Still...that makes me wonder about virtualization. I've never used VMWare or anything like that, but perhaps you could netboot a very basic Linux OS to serve as a host OS for a virtual machine running Windows? As far as Windows is concerned, it's running off a local ntfs hard drive.
AoE/iSCSI uses the term initiator/target for client/server. So when I say AoE target, it means the server serving the Windows OS AoE disk must be linux as there is no Windows AoE target (yet). Linux has good initiator/target support so that's not the issue. And as you have mentioned PXE/tftp/nfs can work for linux as well.
I've actually tried VMWare server with a linux guest OS as a AoE target with Windows bootable initiator to get around my OS limitations. The performance over gigabit is very poor compared to native linux target. I haven't had much luck trying to optimize I/O performance within VMWare guest OS's. However, Vmware Server beta 2 seems to have better performance, but it no longer allows native disk access.
Could i have a discless client/initiator boot windows of a linux server/target?
Absolutely. Works well too in my testing. My problem is that I require native Windows access to DVB cards, so running linux native target is a roadblock. Obviously, in order to get the higher disk access speeds you will need gigabit with jumbo frames enabled. My tests were without jumbo frames (switch doesn't support it) when I was getting 50MBps.
The chainloading of gPXE via PXE is missing from that HOW-TO. Basically you setup your DHCP server to tftp and load a gPXE ROM from your TFTP server. Then have another section in your DHCP server to look for the gPXE vendor-option and tell gPXE the AoE info so that when the gPXE ROM does a DHCP discover it will get AoE info and not the tftp command. Even better is flashing your NIC's ROM to have gPXE natively. =D Been messing around with Mobo bios's to see if I can load gPXE into my bios.
badkarma, how did you go flashing gPXE into your NIC or motherboard BIOS? I'm looking for a recommendation for PCI Express gigabit NICs with jumbo frame support and programmable rom for PXE. Any suggestions?


text:
namespace boost {
namespace coroutines {
namespace detail {

template< typename Coro >
void trampoline_push( context::detail::transfer_t t)
{
    typedef typename Coro::param_type   param_type;

    data_t * data = static_cast< data_t * >( t.data);
    data->from->ctx_ = t.fctx;
    param_type * param(
        static_cast< param_type * >( data->data) );
    BOOST_ASSERT( 0 != param);
    BOOST_ASSERT( 0 != param->data);

    Coro * coro(
        static_cast< Coro * >( param->coro) );
    BOOST_ASSERT( 0 != coro);

    coro->run( param->data);
}

template< typename Coro >
void trampoline_push_void( context::detail::transfer_t t)
{
    typedef typename Coro::param_type   param_type;

    data_t * data = static_cast< data_t * >( t.data);
    data->from->ctx_ = t.fctx;
    param_type * param(
        static_cast< param_type * >( data->data) );
    BOOST_ASSERT( 0 != param);

    Coro * coro(
        static_cast< Coro * >( param->coro) );
    BOOST_ASSERT( 0 != coro);

    coro->run();
}

}}}

#ifdef BOOST_HAS_ABI_HEADERS
#  include BOOST_ABI_SUFFIX
#endif

#endif // BOOST_COROUTINES_DETAIL_TRAMPOLINE_PUSH_H

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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text:
December 18, 2012 / Leave a Comment /
Episode 110 | Predictions for 2013
FogBugz
AuditShark
HitTail
[00:00] Mike: This is Startups for the Rest of Us: Episode 110.
[00:03] Music
[00:11] Mike: Welcome to Startups for the Rest of Us, the podcast that helps developers, designers and entrepreneurs be awesome at launching software products, whether you've built your first product or you're just thinking about it. I'm Mike.
[00:19] Rob: And I'm Rob.
[00:20] Mike: And we're here to share our experiences to help you avoid the same mistakes we've made. How are you doing this week, Rob?
[00:24] Rob: I am doing good. I'm winding down for the end of the year. I've already noticed a lot of my ads are not being clicked any longer [Laughter] the ones that that worked for the last several months, just noticed lower traffic, lower engagement, lower trial sign ups even on the traffic. I mean it really is a noticeable down turn.
[00:40] Mike: Uh huh. That's interesting because I've…I've seen sort of the same thing with some of my sites but interestingly enough, I've had a couple of different customers contact me about the Altiris Training site that I have. And one of them told me flat out, "Hey, I'd like to look at your enterprise plan and if it looks good, then I'll sign up and I'd like to issue purchase order for the full…for a full 12 months." And I was thinking about it. I'm like, huh, I bet he's got money to burn in his budget and he's got to get rid of it before the end of the year and he's looking for a way to dump it.
[01:12] Rob: That's exactly what it is and that was the other thing. It's both for budget and for tax purposes and I've already seen a couple e-mails of people saying, "Hey, can I pre-pay for a year in advance of this or that?" People asking about just some of the specials. I mean I did run some…we've…you and I ran some specials and then I ran some on my own and I got a better response that I thought I would. I like to think of December as kind of B2B stuff dying down. But there is definitely an angle here in terms of like you said budget and tax reasons. So, I've actually made a note to think harder about this next November.
[01:45] Mike: Well, I wonder if part of it is because the whole Fiscal Cliff here in the U.S. were tax rates are set to go up next year and nobody really knows what's going to happen. So, because of all that uncertainty, they know how much they have to pay on their taxes this year. At least they know what the rate is but almost across the board, it's going to go up in many cases by at least 5%, if not more.
[02:06] Rob: Right.
[02:06] Mike: So, I wonder if that has something to do with it. I wonder if you would see the same thing next year and I suspect you wouldn't.
[02:11] Rob: Yeah, that makes sense because I've run a special…pretty much every December, I run specials almost across the board with all my businesses and I do like a prepaid special or you know, something where you can buy out ahead specifically for the tax reason and it hasn't been as…I wouldn't say it hasn't been as successful as this year but it certainly hasn't…there haven't been as many people asking for it outside of that. So, I think you could be right because they all have been U.S., you know, U.S.-based companies or people who've been contacting me.
[02:38] Mike: Uh huh.
[02:38] Rob: How about with you? What's going on?
[02:39] Mike: So, lately, I've been looking at Basecamp and FogBugz and trying to not necessarily integrate them but make sure that I'm using both of them effectively, to coordinate people who are doing on…doing different things for me and it still really early on it. I've been living…brought Basecamp in to the fold probably about a week ago. So, it's still kind of a learning experience. Things are coming along. I bought its specs. I mean it's a little bit slow. I wish things were going a little bit better. But I have seven different projects in there that I'm trying to manage and different people are involved and different projects on various levels. Right now, I've got five different people who are involved in the AuditShark launch projects. So, they're still kind of counting down for that. But things are looking good for it so far. I mean I'm really happy about how things are progressing to kind of get it out the door and get it in people's hands to really see what people are thinking of it.
[03:27] Rob: Right and that you're still looking at mid January for that?
[03:30] Mike: Yeah.
[03:30] Rob: All right, cool. Now, we look at using…I already use FogBugz to navigate and coordinate and track features and tasks and such, someone suggested…someone on my team suggested we should look at Basecamp which I've used in the past and it's okay. I mean FogBugz is not outstanding but it's just…it's what we use, right? So, it's like the…the shifting cost is high so really has to add a lot to it in order to move to Basecamp or to use two tools. And we looked at it and decided that we could get done what we need to in FogBugz or with…with the new project with Drip, we have the…it's the old Joel Spolsky project tracking spreadsheet. Remember? It's genius. And I've…that's what I used as a consultant when I was coding for years. I mean even with multiple teams we would share an Excel spreadsheet which is kind of kludgy but now, it's a lot easier with Google doc. We decided not to use Basecamp. We're using these other…these other avenues and so far, they're working really well. So, I want to find out what you're doing in Basecamp that you can't do with FogBugz?
[04:26] Mike: Part of it is about just the cost of giving everybody access to FogBugz because, you know, I have people who are using Basecamp who are not developers and it seems a little excessive to be having them…to give them access to FogBugz when I have to pay for both Kiln and for FogBugz. So, it's…you know, it's $30 license per month and not everybody is working all the time.
[04:47] Mike: And that's the other issue is like, you know, sometimes I'll have one developer, sometimes I'll have five and it's like the fluctuations are kind of pain in the neck. With Basecamp, I don't have to worry about it. It's just like, oh, you get 10 projects for 20 bucks a month. All the people who are doing stuff that is non-developer related, they basically use everything that's in Basecamp and the people who are doing all the developer stuff are using FogBugz. So, there is kind of that…the lineation between them and it might be nice at times to be able to kind of tie them together but the thing that I like about using Basecamp is that I can upload files and have them they're available. I can have discussions. I can put text documents that everybody is going to be able to see and it's…I'll say it's a little bit more visible there than it is on the Wiki and the other thing is that you can put things in there that are highly visible to multiple view. I said, "Look guys, these are our top five priorities for example and these are the things that we're going to work on and you're going to work on this, you're going to wok on that."
[05:41] And I don't know, I feel like in certain ways, it's easier to see the to-do list and you just check them off instead having a process in place where you've got, oh, you got to open this up and you're going to review it. You're going to mark this result, you're going to close it and I know that there's work flows in the background with the FogBugz that you can use to kind of address some of those issues. But it just seems like there are certain cases where just using Basecamp for some things work better because it's just like a to-do list. "Hey, I need an article for this. I need an article for that." And you're just got like ten different articles and it's like, okay, well how do you track in FogBugz? Typically, you'd have ten different cases for that or you could have one case where they just have to edit it up with time and it's like, okay, well, is it done? Is it not done? Then you'll have to drill in and figure it out, oh, he's got 4 of it, 19 done. You know, it's just not as easy to see some of those things.
[06:23] Rob: Right, it sounds like you're saying Basecamp is less cumbersome for the task you're doing and it's less expensive. So, it's kind of a no-brainer and it's sounds like if…if you are just a team of three or four developers and you are all coders that you are just bite the bullet potentially and just do all FogBugz because you guys will all get the work flow. But —
[06:43] Mike: Right.
[06:43] Rob: …since you have some non-devs, it kind of makes sense. There is some complexity involved in FogBugz that's where you're introducing Basecamp.
[06:49] Mike: Right, right.
[06:50] Rob: Yeah, that makes sense.
[06:51] Mike: So, like I said so far it's been going reasonably well but, you know, we'll see how it goes. I mean who knows, maybe I'll decide to ditch in a month and it just doesn't work out.
[06:59] Rob: Very good. Any other updates?
[07:01] Mike: The e-mail marketing campaign that I've…I've mentioned a week or two ago is starting to get interesting. I've got the KISSmetrics account set up. I've got a MailChimp account set up. I've got the template for the e-mail all straightened out and hopefully, e-mails will start flying in the next 48 hours.
[07:16] Rob: Very nice, that's for a client, right?
[07:18] Mike: Yup.
[07:18] Rob: Okay, cool. So, you're…you're kind of rehabbing his old list that that really hasn't been utilized very well. So, you'll get to see if anyone has actually have receiving them pretty soon and what their responses and all that.
[07:23] Mike: Yeah, apparently, they have been sending them but they've been sending them through their Outlook online account. So —
[07:34] Rob: Yeah.
[07:34] Mike: …it's not through their local ISP but they've been limited to, I think 500 e-mails a day.
[07:39] Mike: So, they'll send a few hundred one day and then a few hundred the next day and it's just they're not able to get them to the users on a specific time of a day unless they do it themselves and they can't really schedule that stuff in advance. They have no metrics about who's opening it and receive rates. You know, they know when it gets bounced and they know when somebody replies and says unsubscribe but beyond that, they really just have no idea what's going on. So, hopefully, this will turn out well for them but I'm hoping to just having the statistic there and being able to measure that stuff will give them a better idea of what sort of things they should do. And I'm also doing some split testing based on the original e-mail that they gave me versus an e-mail that I'm tweaking to kind of show them and highlight some of the results and some of the differences between us through e-mails.
[08:21] Rob: Nice, well, I look forward to an update from that.
[08:26] Mike: So, today we're going to talk about our goals and predictions for 2013.
[08:30] Rob: So, let's dive in. What's your first one?
[08:32] Mike: So my first goal for next year is to stop writing code.
[08:35] Rob: Gasp. Stop writing code, Mike. [Laughter] So, what's the impetus behind this one?
[08:41] Mike: Well, I mean the fact is that I'm trying to engineer a business and building a business is not a lot different than building a product. I mean it kind of is but like when you're building code, you're building it to provide some sort of functionality and I'm trying to step back from the code because although it is important, as a developer, I realized how important it is to certain things work correctly. As a business owner, I also realized that the business is more important and I can replace myself in writing the code. So, if I can find somebody I trust to handle the code and handle those responsibilities, then I can step back from that. And things are getting to the point where I feel like I've got the development team in place that I need who can actually handle it and I trust them to be able to make the right decisions and be able to come back to me with stuff to say, "Hey, this isn't working. That's not working. We should do this or that."
[09:27] And you know, I can just trust their judgment and that they're going to make those right decisions and come to me with ideas and thoughts about how to do that stuff and I can turn them lose on it and they'll go implement it in a way that makes sense that it's going to be good for the business. And at that point, it gives me the opportunity to step back and concentrate on all the other parts of the business that need additional help.
[09:49] Rob: I would like to get to learn Ruby on Rails because that's what Drip is going to be built in.
[09:54] Mike: Ah.
[09:54] Rob: So, I have a big ramp up [Laughter] period going on there because I just haven't done much with it. But no, I totally hear what you're saying and it sounds like you've been over the past three to six months, you've been hiring and vetting several different developers. So —
[10:08] Rob: …it feels to me like based on what you said that you're kind of on way to doing this if you're able to keep these guys around and that they do in fact perform for you. Do you think your current stock of developers will be the ones that'll stick around or do you think you might need to change up probably through the year if you achieve success kind of…kind of scale it up and get some…I'll say some better developers.
[10:29] Mike: I think the guys who are doing work for me right now can definitely handle it. I don't feel like there's any weaklings I'll say, you know, availability and scheduling and things like that are always kind of, you know, an issue that it has to be dealt with but if things start to go well then it's not like they don't have the talent. The talent is not my concern. It's, you know, can I afford to continue to make sure that they're busy at a rate which they will not have to go look for other work.
[10:55] Rob: So, I have four goals that I have written down for 2013 and my first one is to grow HitTail by 2.5 X. So, 250% and I'm actually basing that on the October revenue. So, it's about, you know, month and a half ago and that's just because of that times two and a half makes a nice round number and I figure if I get there around next October potentially at the end of next year that I will be please with it.
[11:19] Mike: Very cool.
[11:19] Rob: Yeah, I'm excited. We have a plan in place and so —
[11:23] Rob: …I'm assuming it's going to change dramatically as the year goes on but things weren't executing on right now or have us on pace to do that. So…
[11:29] Mike: I will say you're cheating though. You're giving yourself like a 6-week head start.
[11:34] Rob: At least, yeah, about two months it looks like. So hopefully, I mean in the ideal world, I'll hit before the end of the year in which case it really will be a year over a year thing.
[11:42] Mike: That's cool. So, my second goal is to launch AuditShark publicly. The January 14th date is really kind of my…my soft launch to get it in people's hands and work with them a lot more to make sure that they're using it, gets to incorporate some of that feedback and then I'll have another launch date in mind where I'm actually going to go public with it and say, "Look, you know, here it is," kind of open up the floodgates and see what happens.
[12:04] Rob: That's exciting. The day is finally coming.
[12:06] Mike: [Laughter]
[12:08] Rob: My…my second goal is to launch Drip which I mentioned on our last episode and that's a new…it's an e-mail marketing SaaS app that I'll be launching, hopefully, in the spring, that's the goal and I also have a 6-month revenue mark that I planned to hit based on the marketing plan and stuff I've seen working with…with my other apps. I'm excited about that. If folks are interested to hear about that, it's at getdrip.com. And it's one of those things where you just have no idea, right? If…let's say the launch list is thousands of e-mails, I could hit that revenue mark very quickly or if the launch list is thousand of e-mails that don't convert very well, [Laughter] then that later it'll take me, you know, the full six months to get there.
[12:47] So, there are somewhere in between but I just…and like to have…I found it when I have some specific goals to shoot for as long as I don't let them overwhelm me like I did early on with HitTail where I…where it actually started…it started impacting my performance in a negative way because I was so burden with…with the goal, the revenue goal I had. As long as I don't do that, I find it that it drives me and you know, it makes me focus on that single metric that I'm…that I'm trying to hit in a certain period of time.
[13:12] Mike: Cool. So, my third goal is to grow to a fulltime team of at least three people. And by a fulltime team, I mean myself and at least two others who are essentially underneath the umbrella of Moon River Software.
[13:24] Rob: Got it and is that working on AuditShark or is that include Altiris Training and others?
[13:28] Mike: It include…it includes the other things as well but I think enough to keep at least three people, if not more busy on AuditShark. As I've said before I'm trying to back off from writing the code so I don't have as much to do there which means I can start pointing at things and say this needs to get that and that needs to get that and I've started really doing that over the past month or two. And being able to outsource those tasks so that I don't have to spend 20 or 30 hours coding three or four different features, I can just say, "Hey, I need you to do this, I need you to do that. And these are the things that need to get done."
[13:58] And being able to hand those off and have them spend the 20, 30, 40 hours doing those, has really been helpful in terms of overall productivity. And I think that there's definitely enough work there to keep people busy. I mean I still have 500 open cases in FogBugz right now that need to be fixed in some way, shape of form on various projects. So, it's not like there's not work there. It's a matter of getting the work done in the right order such that it brings in the revenue as quickly as possible in order to be able to scale up the business a little bit.
[14:27] Rob: Where did you come up with the number of three? I guess three includes you.
[14:32] Rob: Okay, so it's two other devs. So, why two devs instead of 3, 4 or 5 or just 1?
[14:37] Mike: Part of it is financial reasons because I don't know and it kind of relates to one of my other goals which is to cut 75% of my travel consulting which essentially means getting rid of all consulting revenue.
[14:48] Rob: Yup.
[14:49] Mike: So, part of that ties in to the fact that I have to essentially replace that revenue with other revenue and in addition to that, I need to be able to fund other people to work on the products. So there's kind of a huge growth margin there just in terms of shifting from consulting to product revenue but I think that the way things are aligned and the way things are starting to turn out that that's entirely possible, I just don't have a good feel for what the timeline of that looks like because there's a few different things that are in the pipeline that haven't launch, haven't gotten out the door yet and until they do, it's hard to measure what the impact to those are going to be because as you said with the Get Drip, I mean it could be widely successful on day one, it could take a while to get there, really kind of depends on how those things turn out.
[15:34] Rob: Do you also have a revenue goal for AuditShark in mind?
[15:37] Mike: Not specifically, I mean I haven't sat down to kind of go over all the numbers because the people who are doing work for me right now are doing it more on a part time basis so because of that I just haven't sat down and do it.
[15:48] Rob: Well my third goal is to have another MicroConf that changes the way that people launch their companies. I felt like the last two years of MicroConf have just been an amazing success and it's because in the interim year between the conferences, I'm seeing tweets. People hash tagging with MicroConf that say, "Hey, I just launched," "Hey, I just got this partnership," "Hey, we started a mastermind group based on MicroConf," like it impacts people's business, lives, their professional lives and it's making a difference in how they do things and it absolutely makes a difference in how I run things based on the people that I meet.
[16:26] There are relationships that…that I've been able to build and just the inspiration that I take away from my MicroConf. So, my goal is obviously always to improve the event and to make the, you know, next MicroConf better than the last one but beyond that, I really just want to continue impacting this world of bootstrappers. And I don't mean this to sound like High and Mighty like oh, we're changing the world or anything but I really do feel like we're changing the lives of, you know, the hundred and fifty people that attend. And so that is absolutely a goal high in my list for 2013.
[16:58] Mike: Yeah, I totally agree. I didn't specifically write that down but that's definitely entered my mind as well as something, you know, with my MicroConf is just being able to provide an environment for everybody to kind of come together who has similar problems, is in a similar situation and just, you know, providing that environment for them benefits us. I mean it's…but it's just really nice to be able to talk to other people who are in the same situation as, you know, myself and yourself and be able to get feedback from people and say, "Hey, I know you had a problem with this. How did you guys deal with it?" Because it seems to me like you can run your business and live just about anywhere you want but when you do so, it tends to be difficult to run in to other people who live in the same area who also have those same types of problems. You just don't get together with them very often.
[17:41] Rob: Yeah, the…the conversations that I've had at the last couple MicroConfs have stuck with me the entire year in terms of both motivation and just changing the way that I…that I operate the new things I try with businesses, new directions that I take and they really are like, you know, I've said on air before like that recording this podcast is actually one of the highlights of my week, like it's one of the best hours of my week to do this. And MicroConf is one of the hardest three days, five days [Laughter] whatever it winds up being but it is definitely one of the highlights of my year and part of that is because of the way it impacts my businesses but the other part is the way that everyone gets together and then I feel there's like this brief glimpse of time where everyone is on the same page and people go away from it and do awesome things that they wouldn't have done if they hadn't shown up.
[18:29] Mike: And one of the next things on my list is to help my wife's fitness business becomes stable and profitable. I think I've mentioned before, she's a certified Zumba instructor.
[18:38] Rob: Right. Does she work at a gym like she rents a room or she's an employee of the gym or a contractor?
[18:38] Mike: She's an independent contractor right now.
[18:46] Rob: Okay.
[18:46] Mike: But she doesn't have a formal business or anything like and she's done a lot of certifications around various things so there…she's done Group Fitness Certification, Zumba Certifications. I think one of them is called like a Gold Certification where it's designed for people who are older and then she's also done like high intensity training which is for people who really want to stress themselves and push themselves to the limit. So, she's kind of all over the map in terms of what she has the capability to do but she's always going in to these places as an independent contractor. And what she's trying to do is she's trying to develop in to more of a business so that she does it fulltime as oppose to somebody who just does it on the side.
[19:25] Rob: And how are you going to be able to help with that?
[19:27] Mike: Right now, I actually…one of the projects that I have that I'm running on the side is to build a website for her and get all that stuff up and running. And then once the first of the year comes around, she's going to essentially take over that website. She's going to file for a business. I'm going to be doing some of the e-mail marketing and website marketing for her.
[19:45] Rob: Very nice, well, good luck with that. My fourth and final goal for 2013 is to release three knowledge products also known as information products.
[19:53] Mike: It's just funny hearing that from somebody who has their background in developer…is a developer and it's like you look at that and you're like, "Oh, no. Not another info products."
[20:02] Rob: Yeah, Well, I mean my goal is for it not to be another info product, you know. The stuff that I've done in the past has been different from the standards and that's certainly the goal. I'm not going to release something that's not going to help people. I put it that way.
[20:15] Mike: I've seen the stuff that you work on. It's topnotch. It's…it's great quality. It's just that when…when people think info product or when you say info product, the very first thing that you think is like sleazeball marketer who's selling stuff that's just…just not work.
[20:27] Rob: Right. So, I'll call it a knowledge product and is that as…is that clearer or does that just make it…make you not know what heck I'm talking about?
[20:33] Mike: I'm not sure. I think it just needs a different name as —
[20:36] Mike: …oppose like an info products.
[20:38] Rob: So, I want to release three-short training courses.
[20:41] Mike: There you go.
[20:42] Mike: That's it —
[20:42] Rob: So, that are delivered via…[Laughter] like the first one is going to be a video training course and it's going to be all the resources and all the info I have on hiring managing virtual assistants. So, it's going to include sample training screencast, the job posting that I use on oDesk. It's going to include e-mails and questions and dadadadada so, which is all the info. I actually have a professional videographer showing up here tomorrow and doing a video interview of someone who's going to interview me about it and I'm excited. For me, it's a…it is much of a learning process to produce it because it's such a new thing. I've never, you know, done a knowledge part or training course like this in this format. It's always typically been screencast and or written, an audio.
[21:23] So, I'm excited to tackle this one. The second…third, I don't…they almost don't fit this format, the interview format, so I'll probably do them a little differently but I always like keeping my toe dipped in multiple baskets. The software is fun and that there's a lot of learning that takes place there but I also really love helping people right in the training is something that I've done since, gosh, since I started my blog in 2005. I mean that's why I started it. It was to pass on knowledge and so…sort of I hope to do with these courses.
[21:50] Mike: Seems like you kind of thrive on publishing or producing different products that are different enough that the marketing challenges are a completely different from one another.
[22:02] Rob: Yes, that's probably…that's actually a good summary of it, right, is it that I won't market this in the same way that I market HitTail or that I market Drip and that's exciting to me and interesting and it's interesting for me to enter…I'll probably sell some of these training courses to different people who wouldn't buy Drip or by HitTail and that's interesting to me as well. It's like helping a new audiences dealing with a new group of people being able to contribute there. But I do like your suggestion. I don't know if you…I just updated the outline because info products has a certain ramification and training course is…I think I'm going to start calling them that from here on.
[22:37] Mike: Yeah, I think it's just the connotation associated with the word info product and that's what…that's what got me. It was…it was not that, you know, you're building a training courses that you called it in an info product and it's like, ugh, I feel like this should be on TV or something, you know.
[22:50] Rob: How about you? Do you have one more goal?
[22:51] Mike: Yeah. So, the last one I have is to write a security book. I talked previously about possibly writing a book and kind of solidify my ideas around it and really think that writing a security book to assist with the marketing behind AuditShark is a good way to go. It's, again, it's one of those long term goals. I don't expect to sit down and just hash it out and bang it out over the course of like a month or six weeks or something like that. I really think that it's going to take a fairly significant chunk of time to do it but it's going to be a little bit here, a little bit there. It's…I view it as more of a long term project. I think it's going to take a while to get done.
[23:27] Rob: Should be diving to some of our predictions?
[23:29] Mike: Oh, yes. This should be fun.
[23:29] Rob: Okay, I'll jump in with my first one. Last year around this time, we made a couple of predictions. I think threw out that I thought 2012 would be the year of Pinterest and when I name…when I said that you said, "I've never heard of it." Ain't that funny? Do you…have you heard of Pinterest now?
[23:45] Mike: I have heard of it. I don't remember when I last heard it though.
[23:49] Rob: So, it seems to have really resonant popularity with the mass audience and then it seems like with my wife's circle of friends who kind of first introduced it, all of them have stopped using it a lot. They still use it as kind of as a tool or as a resource but it's not the social network they were once using it as. They're…they're now back to using Facebook for most things and for certain specific niche uses, they use Pinterest. I see there's a lot of value for designers, for photographers, for things where…where…and travel websites where pictures are really important. I know it drives a ton of traffic for certain large niches, I don't know.
[24:26] I think 2013, I'm kind of revising my Pinterest or updating the Pinterest prediction. Pinterest just going to continue to grow and I think it's kind of widely popular and it offers opportunities for tying in to it, you know, with in terms of developers. I think they're probably going to have an API that comes out that kind of stuff. So, there's definitely going to be opportunity there but I don't think Pinterest has the potential to be as big as say…a super large network like Facebook. I do think that it's going to grow a little slower than that. But as I said I do think there are going to be opportunities in 2013 if…if you're a developer and you want to start building add ons to something that is growing quickly, Pinterest is going to continue to do that this year. All right. How about…how about another one?
[25:05] Mike: I feel like Google is going to continue to host people for using marketing techniques that they have advocated that people use for years and they'll do that basically by introducing various Algorithm updates which tweak things that they told people that they should be doing these things and now, they're going to turn around kind of stab them in the back.
[25:23] Rob: Yeah, probably. I think we're in general because I have a prediction as well that basically says more Google changes are going to come that are going to hammer SEOs and I don't just mean Algorithm updates, I actually mean they have tool updates they're doing to keyword tools. They shut down part of their API that SEOs were using. There's all manner of things that even with Google, the suggest when you type in it, auto completes your queries, that's taking stuff away from long tail SEO which scoops it in to, you know, paid acquisition. I mean it really is just an…they have a big anti-SEO stunts these days. So, I would agree with that, nothing shocking there. I imagine they'll be naming them after some other animals. So, we're going to have to go for update, the Zebra update.
[26:05] Mike: The Honey Badger update?
[26:06] Rob: Honey Badger update. Okay, so let's see, another prediction I have is that WordPress is going to continue to become more and more prominent. And this is a no-brainer, right? I think it's like 17% of all websites were on WordPress right now. It is just 300-pound gorilla and so, there are definitely opportunities there in terms of plug-ins and tie ins, the themes and add ons. I don't think that market is over. People thought a couple of years ago that starting the podcast was too late. They thought three years ago starting the blog was too late. It's never too late to get in on these large fast growing markets. And so, I definitely think 2013 will continue to be the year of WordPress.
[26:44] Mike: Well, I have a couple of anti-predictions.
[26:46] Mike: So, the first one is I don't foresee Apple releasing any completely brand new products this coming year. So, what I'm thinking of more along the lines of is this year they released the…the iPad mini…I see them making a lot of tweaks to existing products but I don't see them coming out with something that is I'll say revolutionary in the way that they would look at it as revolutionary. I see this incremental updates to existing products but nothing that's going to make a giant splash the way the original iPhone did or the iPod or the iPad or anything like that. I just don't see that happening.
[27:20] Rob: Yeah, people are talking that the future is with wearable devices. So, it's like wristwatches, glasses, other kind of wearable tech that integrates with your mobile devices and such. And I don't know…I think Google is going to release their Google glasses or Google glass or whatever it is. This year it's slated. And so, I could see Apple coming out of the woodwork with something like that. Otherwise, they are going to be a little…little behind the curve in that stuff. Now, I don't know if that's just going to take off. That all sounds kind of goofy to me. I don't really want to wear a wristwatch or glasses for that purpose. But you know, I didn't think I'd want to use a tablet either. I pooh-pooh the iPad before they release it and I didn't think it was going to fly. So, but I do think there's possibility that Apple will release an Apple TV this year beyond just a little pock that they've released.
[28:07] Mike: I don't think so. I really don't and the reason…and here's the reason I don't think that they will, I think that…and it's not to say they won't take the Apple TV and make it in to more of a media center but when you say an Apple TV or you're thinking of like an actual television that has like Apple software and hardware built in to it.
[28:24] Rob: Yeah, here's what I think they'll do, I think they'll take like a Mac mini and they'll use the 35 inch cinema display or 40 inch cinema display or something and that…it'll be a media center that won't just be the little pock. It won't be some TV manufacture by Toshiba either which there are rumors of that and the rumor is actually came up today that Apple is talking with Foxconn in getting quotes on a…an actual television…television like you and I think of, like a 60 inch display, you know, just a TV. All right? If that happens, I don't think it's going to happen in 2013 but I do imagine the Apple is going to…going to cut some…some content deals this year and that the…the pocks is going to get revamp. They're going to have apps to go on that the pock and potentially that software within run on like a Mac mini that drives your large cinema display for…probably for, you know, bedroom use or office use to start with and then they'll slowly move in to like the living room market where you need the larger displays.
[29:19] Mike: Yeah, I just don't see them moving in to that living room market because if they can build a device that cause exponentially less that plugs in to the hardware and an infrastructure that you already have as oppose to forcing you to shell out 2 or $3,000 for a TV which unless beyond some I mean Apple that that's the kind of price range that Apple likes to look at. And I think if the margins that Apple likes to get, I don't think that they're going to do anything like that in this coming year. I —
[29:47] Rob: I —
[29:47] Mike: …I can see them doing something with the retina display. I can see them doing something significant there and put it in to like a 27 or 30 inch monitor or something like that and saying, "Okay, well, here's our giant monitor that has the retina display built in to it." But beyond that, I just don't see any new products coming down the line that, you know, because it's almost like the kind of the end of Steve Jobs's visions for the company, you know, the pipeline of products that he had in place. I would imagine that it's probably that that well is almost dry at this point.
[30:17] Rob: Yeah, I agree with you that building large cinema display is kind of a shaky production because the…what is it? The replacement time on there is typically 10…5 or 10 years where we buy a new…whereas Apple likes to have a…something new every couple of years. The replacement cycle is a little shorter. So, anything that has a longer place in cycle, I don't see Apple getting in to. My next prediction is that this will be the year that some subscription WordPress plug-ins start making the splash. Up until now, it's been tough for WordPress developers to get recurring revenue and I know a lot of them that are…that are doing well because the market is growing, a lot of people installing new WordPress sites all the time but really getting that…that sustained revenue where you can build a large business is tough. And so I think someone is going to crack that nut in 2013 and hopefully, others will follow because I do think like with my previous prediction that there's just a lot of potential in this market.
[31:10] Mike: Yeah, I can definitely see that as well. I mean there's companies out there that are making money hand over fist and at some point, they essentially saturate the market that they're in and they have two options at that one point either see as growing or move in to other markets and that recurring revenue stream for them just hasn't really been there and I can definitely see people starting to charge either on a recurring model for updates to the products or maybe taking a step further and start supplying content updates not necessarily just the plug-in itself but content behind the plug-in which I think would be an interesting model because let's say that you could buy an SEO marketing plug-in for your website where you pay them not just for the plug-in but for a subscription service that will do X on your website.
[31:57] Rob: And some people are doing this now. It's just no one has achieve massive success that I know about. It's funny you mentioned SEO services because with HitTail, we have a free HitTail plug-in and if you pay for the HitTail service it, you know, allows you to do some…actually all it does is help with the install right now but we have plans in 2013 to have it provide suggestions right there in your WordPress dashboards so that you can describe blog post base on it. So, that's the kind of thing that I, you know, I could see…see people doing even potentially without the SaaS web interface at all. Just having it everything be interface through the plug in. Maybe that's a hope more than a prediction but I certainly hope someone cracks that nut.
[32:36] Mike: My other anti-prediction is I don't think that Windows 8 is going to completely take the world by storm.
[32:41] Rob: Yeah, this is a tough one because I think it'll be fine. I mean Windows 8 on a desktop, Windows 8 on the tablet, you know, like on the Surface and others Windows 8 on the phone and it's Windows Phone 8 but it's very similar interface. So, which of those are…are you saying it's not going to take the world by storm, all of them?
[32:58] Mike: I think that they're all do reasonably well but I don't think that it's going to be this giant splash that turns Microsoft around. I mean Microsoft to me feels like it a ship that is kind of drifting. It's got a good general direction but they're not making any real head way in the search market or not really making any head way in the mobile market. They're doing reasonably well. I mean they're holding their ground but it doesn't to me like they're getting the growth, let's say, they're looking for. And I don't think the Windows 8 is really going to change that. Now, that may change down the road but I just don't think that it's going to be this year.
[33:34] Rob: So, I think Windows 8 on the desktop is going to do just fine. Windows sells a bazillion copies and then what does it sell…it averages million copies a month right now approximately and I think that's the pace that…that 8 is on. So, I don't think it's going to revolutionize their business but I do think it's going to keep doing just fine on the desktop although the desktop is becoming a less and less relevant, right? Desktop sale have declined and they're going to continue to decline because mobile is…mobile and tablets are where people are really spending the money and where the units are being moved. In terms of the tablet, I don't know, that's a tough one. I don't think the Surface is going to take the world by storm because the iPad has such a lock on it but I do think they'll gain some ground this year on Apple and Android.
[34:14] The Windows phone I think has a chance, a real chance to do some damage this year because the UI is awesome. It works really well on the phone. The Windows phone that I've seen and held, they work really well and I've had some non-developer just straight up consumer friends who have been…who have love their Windows phone and love the Live Tiles and all that stuff. They…they really have innovated in a unique way, in a way that Microsoft is not known for in that…that phone interface and if they can get enough people liking that, they could feasibly ride the back of that and improve on their…their tablet sales and actually, you know, make a dent as well.
[34:50] So, my fifth and final prediction is that this year in 2013, the startup bubble is going to become more evident and what I mean by that is inflated valuations of startups and I am hearing from angel investors, venture capitalist, this is both people I know as well as just podcast that I listen to that valuations have risen so much that it's becoming more and more difficult to invest at all that people are holding their money because you're getting these companies that have just launched and they're asking for 5, $7 million evaluations when they don't really have any revenue and you don't even know if they've…if they've found a market yet. But they're so much money that they're getting funded anyways. And so the…the knowledgeable VCs who've been through this a few times, knowledgeable angel investors as well are starting to pull back.
[35:37] And so, I think 2013 is either going to have a burst where, you know, that the non-eligible angel investors and VCs start realizing that their investments aren't panning out. These companies start crashing and then they have kind of a little panic which is a little bit of a burst. I think that could feasibly happen as soon as 2013. Now, it may think till 2014. The good news is that that doesn't matter for us. And if you're building a business where you don't need a bunch of funding where you don't need someone to acquire you, then all of this is just a side show. You know, we can…we can listen to podcast and redo the magazines and watch panic ensue. I just don't think it's going to have that much of an impact on people like us who are building profitable bootstrap businesses.
[36:18] Mike: Yeah and that's honestly quite nice. They not have to worry about that thing. I do question though if there is a…if there is a bubble and ends up crashing, what the fallout is going to be for the rest of the market though.
[36:29] Rob: Yeah, well, I mean I think the stock market could take a tumble because it's so emotional. So, it could feasibly I mean given the tenuous financial situation in around the world right now, you're right it could impact the markets and people could have a bunch, you know, a whole reaction, a chain reaction of people pulling their money back, stopping their spending so then your and my small bootstrap business can get more contracts. That could feasibly happen. I don't know that it will. I wouldn't predict something that dire. I would more predict that it just becomes a heck of a lot harder to get funding over the next 6 to 18 months and that we see a lot of those businesses who've been funded during this last 12 months where evaluations have been high that they…they can't get off the ground, they can't get the revenue quick enough to meet those evaluations so they wind up having to either do massive pivots, not return the money to the investors or…or just shut down out right. My hope is that it won't cascade any larger beyond that outside of the tech sector.
[37:27] Mike: So, one other prediction that I want to threw it out there is I think that one of the major PC vendors is either going to go under or have to declare bankruptcy or merge with another vendor.
[37:39] Rob: I could see that. Yeah, because that market is absolutely becoming less relevant and it is in decline. And whether your prediction comes true this year, if it doesn't, I bet it'll be in 2014.
[37:50] Mike: The thing is about that prediction. I'm hesitant to actually put a bet on which vendor it would be. I don't think it would be Apple, I'll tell you that but —
[37:59] Rob: They're not a vendor anymore, man. They're…I mean they're a consumer electronics company now.
[38:02] Mike: Right —
[38:02] Rob: I would think HP, Dell so…I mean there's maybe a top five and I…I could easily see one of them merging or shutting down like you've said.
[38:11] Mike: Uh huh. So, the one question we have left unanswered though is that will Twinkies make a reappearance?
[38:19] Rob: Very good. So, my prediction is that they will and they'll obviously be owned by someone else and just be a brand name on a new recipe that's as close to the old one as they legally can get.
[38:29] Mike: I think that somebody will…as part of liquidation of the company, I think somebody is going to buy that asset. I don't know who but somebody is going to. I mean and Twinkies are one of those things where it's kind of an iconic thing more than anything else and I could see a company stepping up to the plate to buy them just to own that icon.
[38:46] Rob: Absolutely. I have no doubts about that. The brand value they say is…is it hundreds of millions? It's not just Twinkies, it was all the hostess line was in the hundreds of millions and someone compared it. I think it was MPR compared it to the brand value of Circuits City when it went out of business sold for, I think $6 million, somewhere on that realm. So, it's just that…such a timeless brand that really, you know, has a positive place in people's mind as oppose to something like Circuit City.
[39:15] Rob: If you have a question or comment, please call it in to our voicemail number at 888-801-9690 or e-mail us at questions@startupsfortherestofus.com. Our theme music is an excerpt from "We're Outta Control" by MoOt, used under Creative Commons. Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes by searching for startups or via RSS at startupsfortherestofus.com where you'll also find a full transcript of each episode. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Critics say Burlington Telecom 'net neutrality' will hurt consumers and innovation
Michael Bielawski / September 26, 2017
BURLINGTON, Vt. — Of the three finalists left bidding for Burlington Telecom, all three are committed to former President Barack Obama's net neutrality policy — a stance, critics say, could hurt consumers and innovation.
Last week, city officials announced the three finalists who are seeking to purchase the municipal broadband network: Ting/Tucows, an internet service provider and mobile network operator based in Canada; Schurz Communications Inc., an Indiana-based television, newspaper, radio and broadband company; and Keep BT Local (KBTL), a cooperative formed for the sole purpose of purchasing the telecom. All support net neutrality.
Burlington Telecom is a locally owned municipal broadband company that provides Burlington residents with internet, television and telephone services — all on a fiber-optic network.
The sale was ordered in 2014 by the Public Utilities Commission (then called the Public Service Board) after years of mismanagement, including the misuse of $17 million in public funds and a $33 million debt to Citibank, which resulted in a lawsuit.
In the sale criteria set forth by the city, commitment to "net neutrality" ranked third, behind local ownership and continued affordability of services. During the Obama administration, the Federal Communications Commission classified internet service as a public utility and set forth rules that service providers (ISPs) offer one set of speeds and prices for all content produced and distributed on the internet.
That policy is on the verge of being repealed under the leadership of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, an appointee of President Donald Trump. Pai proposes reversing the Obama regulations and allowing telecoms to offer multiple tiers of internet service at varied prices within a free market system.
Monica Webb, director of Market Development and Government Affairs for Ting/Tucows, said while support for net neutrality was on Burlington's wish list, Tucows was already a vocal supporter of the policy.
"Tucows didn't just agree to net neutrality because BTAB [Burlington Telecom Advisory Board] had made it a condition," she said. "We've actually stood in support of it vocally since it became an issue. We actively participated in the net neutrality campaign."
"It's more about fairness and encouraging innovation than it is directly about price and service," Webb added.
The problem with leaving ISPs unregulated, according to Webb, is that customers are generally dissatisfied at the level of service they are getting and the prices that they are paying. Service and price options could get even worse if the industry evolves toward a monopoly.
Webb's concerns aren't the only ones put forth by net neutrality supporters. Other objections, usually coming from those on the political left, include a fear that an unregulated internet will allow corporate giants to control news and information by giving better prices and speeds to favored content, while "little guy" businesses and disfavored content will lose out or be censored.
Dennis Weisman, an economics professor from Kansas State University, says current free market conditions in the industry offer healthy competition and benefit everyone.
"Regulation should not be in the business of protecting competitors; it should be in the process of protecting the competitive process of consumers," he told True North.
While net neutrality claims to offer better deals for consumers and innovation, Weisman said, government regulation tends to have the opposite result. For instance, net neutrality proposes to restrict telecoms from offering increased speeds to consumers who are willing to pay extra because it could undermine smaller competitors who can't compete. Weisman likened that to asking Ford to stop purchasing more expensive parts for vehicles because it might undermine competitors.
"Does the government have a role in that market to dictate how to produce cars and trucks?" he said.
He added that it's not a valid worry that small innovators won't be able to afford expensive inputs and other equipment. He said part of the idea of starting a new company is justifying the opportunity to investors, and it's not role of government to subsidize a lack of a convincing business plan.
Stanford University economics professor Bruce Owen says the fears expressed by net neutrality supporters are simply unjustified.
"We've been operating for 20 years and yet the major telecom companies, with few minor exceptions, have not done these things they are afraid of," Owens told True North. "They conduct business right because it's more profitable than doing the bad things."
Like Weisman, Owen noted that there is no current threat of a monopoly in the telecom industry.
"In most decent size cities, there are at least three competing — it is not the same as the AT&T case," he said. "We really don't need these rules. If they do [start to hurt consumers], then that's the time for new regulation."
Owen says the bigger fear is that a heavy-handed FCC would cause regulatory capture of preferred internet and cable providers, leading to corruption and cronyism. "For decades the FCC helped AT&T hold that industry," he said, citing the problem with the telephone industry prior to the era of deregulation.
Since the FCC has not yet repealed net neutrality, the fact that bidding companies in Burlington are indicating their support for it is largely a moot point. However, given the current lack of price and service abuses characteristic of monopoly conditions, many observers believe the FCC will roll back the Obama-era policy and deal with violations as they arise, on a case-by-case basis.
Webb said Tucows only wants what's best for Burlington residents when it comes to internet freedom.
"Absolutely, we believe in consumer privacy. We believe in free speech, we believe in open access to information. And as long as it doesn't violate any laws, then we're not in favor of censorship," she said.
Image courtesy of Burlington Telecom
September 26, 2017 in TNR News. Tags: Economy and Jobs, Free Speech, Net Neutrality
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Prague is without any doubt the city of classical music. So many great composers of our past made their way here, performed and always returned back. Today, there are many international musical events, concert halls and opera houses which promote Prague as one of the greatest cities for the lovers of classical music. Don't you believe?
The best-know Czech composer is Antonín Dvořák. Born close to Prague, in a small village of Nelahozeves, spent some time abroad as well, and even became the director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York City. His the most beloved work is From the New World symphony, Humoresque or the Slavonic Dances. Everything he composed is amazing and still jaw-dropping.
But what about other, not Czech composers? Did they ever visit Prague?
Beethoven or Chopin on their travels to Vienna stopped in Prague as well. Franz Liszt often gave concerts in palaces, and Richard Wagner's Symphony in C mayor was premiered in local theatre there too. Tchaikovsky visited Prague three times, and even also Antonino Vivaldi. Pretty amazing, right?
As you can see, Prague played important role for the classical music life. And still does. There are many music festivals all over the city, becoming more and more popular not only for locals. The following are the most known.
Prague Spring festival, founded in 1946, is the highlight of the season. The best musicians, soloists, singers, orchestras, conductors and contemporary composers take it as a privilege to perform here. It is so popular that all the tickets are being sold within minutes. Some of those who have appeared at the festival include Sir Colin Davis, Herbert von Karajan or Leonard Bernstein. Well, only the best make it here!
Dvořák's Prague festival commemorates the great Czech composer Antonin Dvořák since 2008. The opening concert is always on September 8th, on the birthday of the composer. Dvořák's Prague, together with Prague Spring Festival, represents only the top of the current classical music scene.
The long list of musicians who performed on the festival includes opera singers Dmitri Hvorostovsky or Joseph Calleja, musician Alisa Weilerstein, conductors Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Zubin Mehta and orchestras such as Orchestre National de France, Philharmonia Orchestra London, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Filarmonica del la Scala, Czech Philharmonic and others. The list is really very long.
Prague Proms, organized since 2005 by the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, is inspired by BBC Proms and it is really a great end of the concert season. The reason why the festival is so popular also among the younger audience is that concerts focus not only on traditional classical music, but also jazz, modern and film music. The last concert of Proms is remarkably popular – Hollywood Night.
Walking around the city one wonders that concerts are almost in every church or palace. Most of them are very nice, worth visiting. But if you really want to enjoy the concert, what is better than sitting in a real concert hall, with all its splendid decorations and having a glass of wine during the intermission? Where to find it? Well, there are two of the best of them.
Municipal house, situated next to Powder Gate, former main entrance to Prague. Built at the beginning of the 20th century, it is one of the most impressive Art Nouveau building in the city. It serves as the seat of Prague Symphony Orchestra too.
Close to the river, with a great view of Prague Castle, stands the Rudolfinum. This neo-renaissance building is a concert hall and art gallery in one. Since 1946 it is the home of Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and Prague Spring Festival.
Prague opera houses rank among the best in Europe. Not because they are so visually pretty, but mainly because of their excellent singers.
National Theatre or, as the locals call it, Golden Chapel. Definitely one of the greatest opera houses in Europe.
Estates Theatre, situated few steps from Old Town Square, is a must visit for all opera lovers. This is the very theatre where Mozart premiered Don Giovanni in 1787, and today it is the only theatre left standing in which Mozart performed when living in Prague.
State Opera is standing between the National Museum and Main Railway Station, but closed so far for the renovation.


text:
Kadokawa Future Publishing — видавнича компанія Kadokawa Corporation, яка видає манґи, романи, ранобе, журнали, настільні рольові ігри та інший контент із вісьмома різними видавничими компаніями, які раніше об'єдналися з нею. Компанія раніше була першою ітерацією корпорації Kadokawa і була материнською компанією компаній групи Kadokawa, яка об'єднала кілька пов'язаних з Kadokawa Shoten компаній. Kadokawa Dwango оголосила про реструктуризацію в лютому 2019 року. 1 липня 2019 року корпорація Kadokawa була реорганізована; видавнича справа залишилася, і компанія була перейменована на Kadokawa Future Publishing. Сама Kadokawa Dwango стала другою ітерацією корпорації Kadokawa.

Історія
Компанія була заснована 2 квітня 1954 року як Kadokawa Shoten. З 1 квітня 2003 року її було перейменовано у Kadokawa Holdings, передавши існуючий видавничий бізнес видавництву Kadokawa Shoten. Компанія знову була перейменована в Kadokawa Group Holdings 1 липня 2006 року. Компанія успадкувала управління та інтеграцію бізнесу в рамках видавництва Kadokawa Shoten Publishing у січні 2007 року. Бізнеси з видавництва журналів були трансформовані в Kadokawa Magazine Group. Компанія була перейменована в Kadokawa Corporation 22 червня 2013 року.

1 жовтня 2013 року дев'ять компаній групи Kadokawa (ASCII Media Works, Chukei Publishing, Enterbrain, Fujimi Shobo, Kadokawa Gakugei Publishing, Kadokawa Production, Kadokawa Magazines, Kadokawa Shoten та Media Factory) були об'єднані в Kadokawa Corporation. Вісім з них працюють зараз як брендові компанії. Kadokawa Production було розпущено та інтегровано до General IP Business Headquarters. 30 грудня 2013 року Kadokawa оголосили, що компанія придбала 100 % видавництва Choubunsha.

14 травня 2014 року було оголошено, що Kadokawa Corporation і Dwango, власник Niconico, об'єднаються 1 жовтня 2014 року і сформують нову холдингову компанію Kadokawa Dwango. І Kadokawa, і Dwango стали дочірніми компаніями нової компанії. У лютому 2019 року Kadokawa Dwango оголосив, що Dwango тепер буде прямим дочірнім підприємством Kadokawa Corporation при реорганізації компанії.

1 липня 2019 року корпорація Kadokawa була реорганізована; видавнича справа залишилася, і компанія була перейменована на Kadokawa Future Publishing. Сама Kadokawa Dwango стала другою ітерацією корпорації Kadokawa.

Структура

Підрозділи
 ASCII Media Works
 Chukei Publishing
 Enterbrain
 Fujimi Shobo
 Kadokawa Gakugei Publishing
 Kadokawa Magazines
 Kadokawa Shoten
 Media Factory

Дочірні компанії
 Building Book Center
 Kadokawa Key-Process

Примітки

Посилання
Офіційний сайт компанії

Видавництва Японії

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


We are a leading manufacturer of Dye Sensitized Thin Film Solar Technology with manufacturing facilities based in Cardiff, Wales.
G24i is a four-year old startup which has just shipped its first commercial grade product approximately three months ago.
As part of our effort to maintain our technology leadership in Dye Sensitized Solar Cells (DSSC) and turn G24i into a global enterprise we have been looking for strong Asian industrial and commercial strategic partners to collaborate with us to further expand our manufacturing, technology platform, supply chain, provide capital, and access to the growing Asian and Indian market places.
Our Board of Directors has engaged the services of one of our shareholders, Morgan Stanley, to assist in the negotiations of several large commercial/industrial companies that have expressed a strong interest in investing in G24 Innovations and contributing significant resources to expand the company and its technology platform.
The investment project being offered here is to participate in a private equity investment alongside such a stratgic investor.
Present and/or future market segments G24i today, is looking to leverage its extremely light-weight, flexible, low-light attributes for mobile power battery applications such as E-paper, OLED, consumer electronics, indoor DC systems to power IT standby and phantom power, electric vehicles, etc.
•	extremely flexible and lightweight and the closest man has come to replicating photosynthesis.
•	very efficient at producing electricity indoors and the solar cell can be tuned to different light spectrums such as LED lighting, fluorescent lighting, incandescent lighting, etc.
•	also one of the few solar technologies that has the ability to compete with nuclear or coal power. The carbon footprint and energy payback is less than 6 months.
Training and experience of promoter or management team Our management team and board of directors are draw from a range of relevant industries. Our CEO, John Hartnett, was #2 at Palm Inc before joining us. Our manufacturing and engineering team is lead by John Meschter who gained extensive coating and roll to roll manufacturing experience whilst at Polaroid. Our board of directors includes our founders Mr Stevenson & Mr Hertzberg who have extensive experience of setting up and running solar businesses. Mr Mickey Kantor and Mr Rijkman Groenink add significant political and financial experience and calibre to the board.


My Macbook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2009, 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo) was bought in December 2009. It is 6 years and 3 months old and counting. Lately, it was showing signs of slowness and hard disk failures more and more frequently. I thought it was time to get a new laptop.
But a new decent laptop cost more than a few thousand ringgits. I hesitated for a long time thinking whether it was a right choice to buy a new laptop (I am not rich).
Another concern was that what could I do with the old Macbook Pro if I decided to get a new computer? Throw it away? Give it to charity? Recycle it for free? After all, many of the parts are still fully functional.
CPU and RAM are actually the last parts to die among all parts out of the whole laptop. And Macbook Pro is built to last forever! It would be a huge waste to throw them away just because one or two of the parts are broken!
Since I can no longer access the Macintosh HD, the default hard disk of my Macbook Pro, I decided to replace it.
After reading articles and watching videos on the very promising performance of solid-state drive (SSD), I decided to give it a try.
I did my shopping online and found the Kingston V300 SSD. It got my attention because it is the cheapest.
The Kingston V300 SSD 480GB cost me RM 498 which translates to around RM1/GB. Dirt cheap. I bought it through Shopback from Lazada with discount.
By following installation guide from Youtube, I managed to change the hard drive all by myself.
After cloning the new SSD with the content of my USB drive from last incident, all was set to go.
The result exceeded my expectation. The Macbook Pro suddenly becomes so responsive like a brand new laptop. Booting it up and shutting it down takes just a few seconds!
The Kingston V300 SSD is able to run at the maximum speed that the MCP79 of my Mid 2009 Macbook Pro 13-inch is able to support, which is 3 Gigabit, despite the fact that some people can only get it to 1.5 Gigabit of negotiated link speed.
The OS that I cloned to the SSD was Yosemite 10.10.5. Now I upgraded it to El Capitan 10.11.4 and everything is still running smoothly if not better. It is running so silently and fast.
I paid RM 498 instead of RM 4999 to get a "brand new" laptop. If I could get a new Macbook Pro at one tenth of the price, why not?
At such a low price, it is hard to go terribly wrong.
The speed of SSD is incredible. I recommend it to everyone. It is worth the money because it is 10 times faster and lasts 10 times longer than a mechanical hard disk drive. It is fast and could last for a lifetime! It is such a good investment that you won't regret it.
This entry was posted in Technology and tagged Mac on April 1, 2016 by Chok Leong.
Apple MacBook is idiot-proof. I proved this myself.
The incident happened on my unlucky Friday morning, 29 January 2016, where there were some updates available for my six-year-old MacBook Pro. I was supposed to upgrade from OS X Yosemite 10.10.5 to the new OS X El Capitan 10.11.3.
I clicked "upgrade" from the App Store and waited for the laptop to restart. I walked away for some drinks and came back. Everything seemed normal until this point where my stupidity changed the course of the event. When I saw the laptop was shut down (it was actually in the process of rebooting), I pressed the start button to turn the laptop on.
That was when the trouble began. The MacBook Pro was not able to boot correctly. It stuck at the boot screen with (approximately) 50 % in progress forever. I waited 6 hours before I tried to reboot after reading from the internet that Apple MacBook is smart enough to resume the update or upgrade anywhere it left off. So I tried again in the evening (by pressing the start button twice, first long press to shut down, then to boot) and let the laptop booting for the whole night.
The next morning, it was still stuck at 50 % in the startup process (after more than 12 hours of booting). I realized that my situation was different from the others who had the "same" problem. Mine was definitely a different case where something was corrupted (I suspected) because I pressed the start button exactly when the laptop was about to restart.
I searched online and found some useful short-cuts to get into different modes while booting a MacBook.
Note: From my experience, in order to enter the different modes successfully, you need to press and hold the key combinations after the white backlight lights up on the screen and you can release them after you see the Apple logo appears during the startup process.
I tried Command-Option-P-R to reset NVRAM: It did reset the NVRAM because I observed that something restarted after I pressed those keys. However, the booting process still hung at 50 %.
I tried Shift ⇧ to enter Safe Mode: I was not able to enter safe mode at all even after waiting for a long time.
I tried Command-S to enter single-user mode: I could enter this mode (with a bunch of texts on the screen), however, it stuck at the place where it needed access to "Macintosh HD". So I never successfully try anything in this mode.
I tried Command (⌘)-R to enter OS X Recovery mode: After successfully entered this mode, I was offered several options.
The first option "Restore From Time Machine Backup" was not useful because I didn't have any backups from Time Machine.
The last option "Disk Utility" was where I spent the most of my time trying to rescue my old laptop.
From the Disk Utility interface, I saw that the "Macintosh HD" was greyed out.
I tried almost all the combinations I could think off with the options offered by the Disk Utility to rescue "Macintosh HD". At first, I thought to myself I needed to perserve my existing data. After trying many different combinations of "solutions" (mount "Macintosh HD" disk, verify and repair "Macintosh HD" disk, restore "Macintosh HD" disk to external drive, etc). All failed.
At some point, I came across this interesting article which states that by keep on repairing the disk N times (with N large enough), it could work. But it didn't work for me.
I even tried with bash script: "for ((c=0;c<25;c++)) do diskutil repairVolume /dev/disk0s2; done;" Note: disk0s2 is the identifier for "Macintosh HD" drive. Run "diskutil list" on terminal to find out.
I was convinced that "Macintosh HD" was corrupted and dead.
Since I was having no success trying to backup my data, I gave up doing it. The idea then was to reinstall OS X on "Macintosh HD" drive, hence potentially overwriting all my files. I was ready to erase and repartition "Macintosh HD". This failed too. The disk was in really bad shape I thought to myself.
By consequence, the disk didn't show up as an option when I tried to reinstall OS X. The whole day passed with no progress.
The next day, I had no choice but to install the OS on external drive. I choose the cheapest option: USB drive (at least 15 GB of storage else OS X won't install).
I saw something unbelievable: the "Macintosh HD" that I thought was dead is now available as a start up disk. Sure enough, after I selected it as the startup disk and rebooted, everything is working as normal again! My data is not lost.
When Disk Utility can't repair your disk, reinstall OS X on an external drive and see if your data is accessible again.
This entry was posted in Incident and tagged Mac on January 31, 2016 by Chok Leong.
If you only had a Mac with you and you need to work on a project which was written in Microsoft proprietary language (C#), what would you do? I did a quick search on Google and most of the results pointed me to the Mono solution.
Mono is a cross platform, open source .NET framework. It is being sponsored by Xamarin, a popular C# development platform for mobile (Android, iOS) apps, Mac and Windows. Without further ado, I quickly downloaded and installed the Mono solution.
Mono MDK package (.pkg), an open source .NET framework, which will occupy around 600+ MB of space once installed.
Xamarin Studio, MonoDevelop IDE (Integrated Development Environment), which will occupy around 300+ MB of space once installed. The IDE is free as long as you are not developing for iOS/Android projects.
After installing the Mono package and Xamarin Studio (the installation process was quick and painless), I started playing with the Xaramin Studio. To my surprise, the interface is very similar to Visual Studio. I can even say that Xamarin Studio is the Visual Studio for Mac. 🙂 This is good news for C# developers since they don't have to go through the steep learning curve of picking up a new development tool.
Xamarin Studio can open the solution file (.sln) of an existing C# project directly and build the solution without any additional configuration. This is very good. Another good thing is it also has the Nuget package manager integrated in the IDE. NuGet is helpful for finding useful open source packages like Selenium which I need for development.
Xamarin Studio has built-in Git and SVN version controls support. If your project is version controlled, it will auto-detect the setting and track your pending changes in the IDE. Cool.
It also has the powerful auto-complete feature which literally helps you write your program. The contextual menu has the common options as in Visual Studio like auto-resolve namespace if you are using a class from a non-referenced namespace, rename variable throughout the solution, refactor selected code, etc.
I haven't tried the debugger fully due to the exception encountered during run-time for the library that I was using. It does have the step-over, step-into, step-out features.
The program that is built using Xamarin Studio can run on a Windows directly too (as long as you don't use any Mono specific libraries according to this and vice versa where you don't use any Microsoft/Windows specific libraries such as WPF, Workflow Foundation, COM+ etc in order for the program to build correctly using Mono). I tested the program on the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) service with Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Base 64-bit (which is free).
Well that's it. Xamarin Studio, the Visual Studio for Mac.
This entry was posted in Technology and tagged Mac, Programming on June 6, 2015 by Chok Leong.


20 May. Two more down! Ticked off numbers 3 and 4 today – Blea Tarn (the first of 3 Blea Tarns on my list. There is also a Blea Water and a Bleaberry Tarn) and Dock Tarn. Thanks to Bob for keeping me company! Parked at Watendlath and walked up to Blea Tarn. Bob decided to sit this one out. Good move Bob. It was painfully, agonisingly, excruciatingly cold! If it wasn't part of the challenge there's no way I would've stayed in there and to be honest it's the only one so far that I haven't r…eally enjoyed. Had the wind in my face the whole way which meant there were waves slapping me in the face and I couldn't make any progress, so a lot of the time I was half walking half swimming. I never went out of my depth because of the cold. To be honest it was quite scary! Did the underwater selfie at the end (because I've told myself I have to!) and it was so, so painful going under the water. Started loosing control a little bit (tried to look at a photo I'd taken and turned the camera off – kept pressing all the wrong buttons). Had a flask of hot chocolate with me but had to hold the cup with 2 hands or it really would've gone everywhere – not sure I've ever shaken so hard in my life.
We bashed over to Dock Tarn and the sun came out as we got there. It was much, much warmer than Blea Tarn. A smaller, shallower tarn at slightly lower altitude and I could really feel the difference. Bob didn't swim all the way across but he did come in for a bit of a swim at the end. Dock tarn was much more enjoyable – so glad I actually had a nice swim!
On our way back to Watendlath we met 3 blokes who said 'Oh, you look very experienced'. Bob was wearing a shortie wetsuit with waterproofs over the top and old trainers that he'd been swimming in and I had my wetsuit on my legs with the top half dangling around my waist, a pair of shorts over the top, soaking wet walking books and a fleece. They did, however, seem to be making a genuine comment – we weren't sure what to make of that! We decided not to swim Watendlath today as it was getting late and there was a fishing club in there, some in boats and some round the edge and we didn't think they'd be too impressed. A brilliant day though and feels so good to have a couple more done!