(Source: Jason Nazar’s Blog)

This month’s Startups Uncensored will be on “How to Build a Great Technology Team”.  It will be an open and frank town-hall conversation talking about the experience, process and skills need to build an all-star caliber technology team.

We’ll be welcoming as our speakers: Alon Shwartz the Co-Founder/CTO of Docstoc,  Nick Wilson the EVP/CTO of Break.com, Allen Hurff the former Senior Vice President of Engineering at MySpace, Travlin McCormack the CTO of Internships.com and former CTO of Slingshot Labs, and Nitu Gulati-Pauly Director of Recruiting at Cybercoders.

These events are put on in conjunction with our friends at DealMaker Media. TO SIGN UP FOR THIS EVENT, CLICK HERE

The event is free and is followed by a reception and mixer at the Docstoc Offices in Santa Monica by the 3rd Street Promenade. The venue holds about 140 folks, ALL PREVIOUS EVENTS WERE FULL WITH STANDING ROOM ONLY. If you are not one of the first 140 to RSVP and confirm, we will have a waiting list.

Wednesday, April 21st 6:30pm – 8:00pm (Townhall)…. 8:00pm on, Reception
Cost: FREE
This event is capped at 140 attendees.
Confirmation will be required or your spot will be given up for our waiting list.

Santa Monica Public Library (Auditorium) 601 Santa Monica Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90401

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I have been a devoted user of Google Chrome for Mac since the very first semi-stable releases.  I have installed ever developer build usually the day it’s released.

Last year, I waited anxiously for Google Chrome Extensions to be enabled.  I actually forced the developer version to enable extensions before it was baked to no avail.  Even after Extensions became stable in the developer version it took a while before stable robust Extensions entered the channel.  Over the past four months, I’ve been able to match my Firefox Add-Ons and Google Extensions.

Even with consistently stable Google Chrome for Mac Developer Releases in 2010, a very robust built-in developer tools, and Google Extensions that match my Firefox Add-ons I was left with two of my other wishes left un-granted.

The first is very simple so I will get that out of the way.  I would like a Google GTalk Extension.  You don’t know how many times I’ve killed my Google browser windows and killed a conversation.  Why not Adium you ask?  I use it and like it, but I’d prefer a built-in option that I don’t kill and acts more like a GTalk Desktop App.

The second is GREASEMONKEY for Google Chrome for Mac.   My prayer were answered, unbeknownst to me, in this February 1, 2010 Chromium Blog Post.

Can you believe I went two-and-a-half months not knowing this was released?  The best part is – If you have the Chrome 4.0 for Windows or the developer versions of Chrome for Mac (or Chrome for Linux) you are ready to go!  GreaseMonkey is built into Google Chrome.  To test it’s stability out, I headed over the UserScripts.org and installed on of my favorite GreaseMonkey script GMail Essentials. It works!

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“20 Mac Apps You’ll Use Everyday” – Mac app round-ups are a dime a dozen across the web. However, there’s one problem when you’re offered 100+ to choose from: you won’t use half of them. That’s why I’ve decided to streamline the process and provide twenty of my most highly recommended Mac apps, tailored for web designers and developers. While not every app relates specifically to development, they’re all essential in your every day workflow. (Credit: NetTuts+)

“Mapping GitHub – a network of collaborative coders” – (Credit: FlowingData)

“The Fourteenth Banker – Anonymous Bank Insider” – Describes his moral crisis: ‘THE SYSTEM IS BUILT TO BE GAMES” (Credit: The Huffington Post)

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I remember a few years ago I learned that it felt so good giving someone else something instead of receiving something!

Yesteryday, I bought my mom a:

- 15″ 2.66 GHz Apple MacBook Pro
- 4 GB of RAM
- 128 GB SSD (I’m jealous – I don’t even have a Solid State Drive Yet – waiting on Intel X25-M 160GB Gen 2)

It was so awesome to tell her!  One of the most fulfilling moments of my life (in one respect).  She actually asked what she could do for me?  She raised me – I think I owe her a lifetime and still could never repay what she gave me – LIFE!  And she told me to “Follow My Dreams” everyday of my life – how many kids got that?  I’m learning not as many as I thought!

My mother, who turned sixty-five yesterday, is more computer savvy that most teenagers I know.  That is why I have no problem saying her age – she is truly 65 going on 25.  She uses MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed, MSN Chat, Google Docs, and uploads Photos, and plays Bedazzle likes it’s going out of style!  She taught me to follow my dreams and I think I was the one that taught her that you CANNOT break a computer or mess up a computer where it can’t be fixed – well except the time I opened up my PC Jr and tried to re-solder the chips – opps!  My dad was an electrical engineer and scientific glassblower – I figured he could fix anything – especially a computer – he worked at IBM!

On December 7th, 2007, I abandon Windows Operating Systems for a MacBook Pro.  I’ve always been bleeding edge and used betas in production before releases – so I expect creating a lot of hassles for myself – but “stable releases” acting like alphas is not acceptable!

In the beginning, I started with my TRS-80, Tape Drive (yes, like the old school tape recorders in elementary school – that acted like a hard drive).  I used MS-DOS 2.01 thru Windows Vista SP1 (Release Candidate).  I helped convert parts of Alta Vista, Experian, and MySpace to .NET, and a project at TRW to COM/DCOM, etc.  I was using FreeBSD too, but loved how “Right Brain” Windows was versus  how “Left Brain”  command shell was.  I always wanted an AMIGA got that purpose – but my Dad was pure IBM!

You would think after two decades of Windows I would never move away from that Brand!

I KNOW LOVE APPLE PRODUCTS – I know I’m now wayyyyy under their spell!  My roommate said it best “If you try to open Apple Product Box or figure something out with the devices themselves and it seems to hard you assume your doing something wrong not Apple”.  They are so intuitive!  The level of cognitive science is unmatched!  It feels good to use an Apple Product!  It’s an “emotional design”

And I have to say – Three things happened in the last year that made it so I can 100% shed Windows – not even a VM Fusion of Windows 7! Omniture opens/edits Visio Files and Edits them, Google Docs converts Microsoft Office Products to Google Docs, and last week Quicken bought Mint (so I don’t need to boot up a Windows VM to manage money – cause honestly the desktop versions for Quicken on Mac – sucks).

Had Microsoft built equal quality products for Mac (which was started actually in 1984) including Microsoft Outlook for Mac, made Microsoft Passport/LiveID open an protocol and gave it away, shortened their product cycles, openly contributed to standards and protocols, and the worst thing of all – if they didn’t rebrand MSN to Live!  I didn’t care, but man – My Mom consdiers  MSN Browser (remember that) is a different non-browser command center – a jump off point for the online experience. It’s really just an add-on that shows local weather, hotmail, etc – kinda like Flock but Microsoft didn’t share that source to partners (well not freely or easily).  I mean I was soooo confused with Live, but so was the Microsoft Evangelists.  It’s not like going from Coke to New Coke – it’s like changing “Walt Disney” to “Acme”!  And what’s funny – they lost my Mom in the process!

Now, don’t get me wrong, Some of the smartest people I know work there!  My former employees would get a weekly blast of http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/ (Scott Gu is one of their pioneers and as a Corporate VP – still codes and blogs).  When you get past the 7 people on the phone (have you ever had one person on a Microsoft phone call)  BUT when you get around the product teams – it feels real and awesome!  From 13 to 28 I wanted to work for Microsoft soooo bad – I actually didn’t think I was smart enough so I didn’t apply!

I won’t spend too much time on this, but while at MySpace we were pushing the limits of 32-Bit computing.  We were putting such a large load on their software we were finding bugs/flaws that you only see at our scale.  One day we found a bad garbage collection ratio where it did a full gen collection from scratch – and we were building a caching tier – not good!  They took our memory dumps, coded us a fix in two days, and we put it in production!  The week we started using .NET 2.0 and Later SQL 2005 – we helped them see issues more clients wouldn’t see till way later in the product cycle!  So – when you get past the bullshit – it’s like Google – where the passion to solve complex problems is alive and well!

I MAJORLY DIGRESS … but I obviously needed to get that off my chest!

So, I’m excited to see my Mom now make the transition to Mac!  I bought her the one year “One-on-One” so she can get everything moved over and go back for personal training and group sessions!  Trust me, it will take her some getting use to – right click, maximizing windows, no MSN Browser, no Microsoft Office – but right after that first month she will intuitively love it!  She will feel so empowered and I’m sure she will learn Google Video Chat or IChat so she can see her son – which is awesome!

My nieces and sister live with my Mom and Dad – which means they are about to convert by default too!  My 13 year-old niece, her younger sister, my sister, my mom will all start helping each other learn new things firing new synapses

In conclusion, I didn’t mean to write this blog – I meant to just say I converted my Mom to Apple.  I guess I’m really disappointed that Microsoft didn’t transcend and evolve!  I really had hoped Ray Ozzie was going to put a Windows Web OS out there a few years ago – but instead they are still doing things like trying to asking Dell and HP to rename “NetBooks” to “Small Form Factor PCs” before the holiday season so it falls in the Windows License Models – When I read about NCR, IBM, old AT&T, etc – they were large sales forces that wielded their power in the market place and Microsoft could have started that way and transitioned the world – instead Netscape and Google and many others did!  I would have helped them!  So many people would have helped them!  I like new things like Photosynth, Surface, XBOX Live, Robotics SDK, etc – so it’s not like the innovation isn’t there!  I guess this got so long because I don’t understand how a company/brand that I was loyal to from the early 1980′s thru 2007 AND converted three large companies to their products AND made MySpace scale their products AND evangelized their greatness often better than they did – they LOST ME – HOW?  I was soooo easy to keep – I even offered when I was the SVP of MySpace to present a deck to Microsoft Execs on how to position themselves in the Web 2.0 world from my over 20 years of experience with their products  – just one perspective of someone on the front lines – it either never made it to the right people or there just weren’t interested!

So, Now I’m Mac OSX, Ubuntu, Django, Amazon, Google Clouds, and anything that is open and/or innovative!

HAPPY BITHDAY MOM!

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First off – I LOVE TO READ!

Other than Edgar Allan Poe and Maya Angelou I thought I ’hated’ reading (if that is possible) until I was nineteen!

Then, I read “The Celestine Prophecy“! Since then, while I ebb & flow based on time, I am a book worm and news junkie!

I thought I’d take a second and share my reading list for the last two months:

• [BED STAND] Paperback: “The Road Less Traveled” by M. Scott Peck, MD. (this is over my 15th reading – It’s a top 10 in lifetime for me)
• [FOR WORK HOURS] Hardback: “Raising Venture Capital for the Serious Entrepreneur” by Dermot Berkery
• [CURRENT NON-FICTION READ] Hardback: “Memoirs” by David Rockefeller (Autobiography)
• [CURRENT FICTION READ] Kindle DX: “The Lost Symbol” by Dan Brown
• [NEXT] Kindle DX: “Chasing the Rabbit” by Steven J. Spear
• [NEXT] Kindle DX: “The 33 Strategies of War” by Robert Greene
• [TRYING TO GET TO] Kindle DX: “Omnivore’s Dilemma” by Michael Pollan

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I’d like to take a minute to layout what is considered “Web Squared” by Tim O’Reilly and John Battelle in their own worlds.

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Black Holes were the 1960′s
Information Paradox was the 1970′s
String Theory was the 1980′s, 1990′s and early 2000

No all the trendy kids are addicted to M-Theory and Gravitational Ways!

Next time you are around a Noble Physicist name drop like this “Man , I don’t even put Stephen Hawkings in my Top 100 Physicists. I’m so into the GEO600. Personally, I think the noise they are detecting is the blurriness of space-time. If they don’t fix that shit there is no way to pick up G-Waves. Personally, I think we all live in a holographic universe. It’s not about the strings – it’s all about the ‘Brane Bumping’. Personally, I just think we need to follow that Gravitons down the rabbit hole.”

I know you’d prefer endless humor – but this is serious stuff!

This is actually the stuff you wanted to know as a kid!  Remember asking questions like “Where does the Universe end?” Guess What? The answer is IT DOESN’T!

• M-Theroy – Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-theory
• Latest News Regarding this line or research – January 15th, 2009 – New Scientist – “Our World May Be A Giant Hologram” http://www.scribd.com/doc/15765052/Our-World-May-Be-a-Giant-Hologram?autodown=pdf
• “Part 07: String Theory to M-Theory”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PVjNlXj2WQ&feature=PlayList&p=5E10896E619BF48F&index=5
• M-Theory are Parts 7 thru 11!
• Go Back and Watch Parts 1 thru 7 if you want to learn about String Theory!
• One More worth watching (embedded below): How to Imagine the 10 Dimensions (M-Theory stats there is 11 dimensions.  10 Dimensions + Time = 1.  That means we aware of 4! 3 Dimensions + Time =4.)

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Personal Web Discovery has arrived.  What old is new! What was the “Finger” protocol is now the “WebFinger” protocol …

Brad Fitzpatrick, John Panzer, Blaine Cook, Joseph Smarr , Chris Messina, Dewit Clinton, and many other have touched on “Personal Web Discovery” and now they have directly contributed to WebFinger as a protocol.

We are at a stage in the post-Web 2.0 world where great straight forward simple building blocks (or as I call “The Plumbing” or “Guts”) are coming forward.  These include, but are not limited too; OpenID, oAuth, XFN, FOAF, PubSubHubBub, Activity Stre.am, RDF, WebFinger, and on and on …

Let’s focus at the building block at hand – WebFinger …

Where is the official page for the “WebFinger” protocol you speak of? http://code.google.com/p/webfinger/

Can you point me to something more philosophical about Personal Web Discovery or WebFinger? http://www.abstractioneer.org/2009/04/personal-web-discovery.html

Did TechCrunch mention something like this recently? http://bit.ly/DuHtx

Can I get a “For Example” or some code? http://bit.ly/BbxtV

I’m a skeptic – there has to be issues? http://bit.ly/tlnt1

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1. TECH: WebSquared a smarter web beyond Web 2.0 I’d like to take a minute to layout what is...

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Twice a year, Y Combinator, a premiere incubator of WebSquared companies & ideas, holds demos days for a small invite-only crowd of VCs, Angels, and other relevant parties.

The Y Combinator page describes the field of demos best, “Applications this time include: an auction site, transaction processing, apartment listings, a job site, industrial equipment rental, jumbotron programming, security video, personal authentication, language learning, geotagging, group payments, corporate email, ad targeting, collaborative shopping, a database designed for flash memory, a resume site, a virality platform, business analytics, sleep tracking, a chat widget for site owners, a local commerce api, reverse car auctions, and realtime coupons.” (source: http://ycombinator.com/dday.html)

Please Note: 11 of the 24 demos are “Off-The-Record”.  Some information about the vertical they belong too is provided, but no links or company information.

Full Disclosure: All Information for the list below was cut-n-pasted one drip at a time from Dave McClure’s (@DaveMcClure) Facebook/Twitter Feeds.  I’m not at the event, but Dave (except for the OFR entries) did a great job of making me feel like I’m there.

• 1 – http://FlightCaster.com provides real-time notification of flight delays BEFORE the pilot even knows about it.
• 2 – OFR – No Info
• 3 – OFR – E-Commerce
• 4 – OFR – Payments Related
• 5 – OFR – Employment Related
• 6 – http://ReThinkDB.com is DB optimized 4 solid-state drives. hard-science startup, russian spkr (loud) has *great* presence.
• 7 – http://DailyBooth.com is “Twitter 4 Pictures”. 3.5M uv/mo, 30% mo-mo growth. (demo by video remote from London!)
• 8 – http://JobPic.com is seller-focused services marketplace. svc providers auction off their svcs to buyers.
• 9 – http://MixPanel.com is real-time analytics for user engagement on web apps. nice UI, good demo. founder is ex-Slide.
• 10 – OFR – Health Related
• 11 – is http://JobSpice.com provides customized resumes & styles. FAIL: didn’t tell me whether you host or not; need to know that.
• 12 – OFR – Marketplace for Physical Goods Vertical
• 13 – OFR – Real-Time Advertising Focused
• 14 – http://HighlightCam.com filters, identifies “most interesting bits” of video. offers co-branded svc & API. nice preso.
• 15 – http://oLark.com chat widget helps increase conversion, user engagement. subscription rev model, “break-even by Sept”.
• 16 – http://BumpTechnologies.com mobile-to-mobile info exchg via “bumping” 2 dvcs tgthr. 2M dnlds/5mos. (PayPal palmpilot Deja vu!)
• 17 – OFR – Home Automation Related
• 18 – OFR – Auto Sales related
• 19 – OFR – Pricing Analytics. Interesting.
• 20 – http://RentHop.com rental listing service. user-defined neighborhood, nice Gmap mashup. (not clear if syndicate 2 Craigslist?)
• 21 – http://FanChatter.com user-gen pix -> pimped real-time up on JumboTron. drive user-engagement for sports, tv, etc (brand adv)
• 22 – http://Listia.com auction site for “free stuff”. users earn/buy credits to buy, bid. (sorry i don’t get this… i’m confused)
• 23 – OFR – Language-Related
• 24 – http://DirectedEdge.com “Amazon-style recommendations 4 Everyone” in real-time. affiliate mktg (long-tail social commerce?)

THANKS DAVE!

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• EVENT LINK FOR TONIGHT: Friends of #140conf Cocktail Party in Los Angeles http://bit.ly/vZl57
• LIFE ON COMET: Scientists have identified one of the fundamental chemical building blocks, Glycine the Amino Acid, from samples of a Comet http://bit.ly/8ZWzv
• DoD NOT BEING SOCIAL: David Recordon (@daveman692) posts on O’Reilly Radar about the DoD and it’s move to block Social Networking Sites http://bit.ly/a4i9K
• MOST DETAILS SCREENSHOTS: Facebook for iPhone 3.0 – Full Tour & First Impressions (w/ Screenshots) http://bit.ly/4mI2mP
• RESEARCHERS FAKE DNA EVIDENCE: Researchers fool a lab that does crime-scene DNA testing by crafting fake DNA http://bit.ly/WB7oQ
• GREAT SOCALTECH INTERVIEW WITH VC MARK SUSTER: Mark Suster, a SoCal VC at GRP Ventures, did a great interview recently on SoCalTech http://bit.ly/4iM9aC
• GREAT FOX BUSINESS INTERVIEW WITH VC MARK SUSTER: Mark Suster, a SoCal VC at GRP Ventures doing a video interview on FOX Business Network last Saturday http://bit.ly/wqwEy

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