A Bunch of Posts on Education
I want to just save this post as a reference to all my previous rants about our education system (which needs some serious help)
- http://sdpurtill.wordpress.com/2006/09/13/did-i-go-to-school-today/
- http://sdpurtill.wordpress.com/2006/09/09/public-vs-charter-vs-private/
- http://sdpurtill.wordpress.com/2006/09/03/making-high-school-more-relevant/
- http://sdpurtill.wordpress.com/2006/08/30/the-public-high-school-system/
Oh by the way...
Buckingham Rules!
My New Way of Blogging
From now on, I'm only going to be blogging about things that I care about. Like, really care about. Technology, education, skiing, college, baseball, life lessons, quotes. No more posts about things I don't care about and don't know about. So what this means is: my posts will be really long(like Mark Cuban's), passionate, and hopefully you'll be able to learn something new from every post. No more restating things that everyone knows about. This also means I can only be blogging once every few days... I've already figured out that I'm not Robert Scoble and never will be.
So might as well switch it up now and start my own style.
CSS makes me happy
Probably one of the funnest languages on earth... I would put ActionScript, JavaScript and Rails a bit higher though. But anyways, here's a little alert that I got from the IE Developer Toolbar
Yeah, how great is that? I've built an entire web application with only <div> and <span> elements.
CSS rules.
Customer Service
I entitle this post "Customer Service" because I have learned a lot about how to treat your "customers" in the last few weeks. I've found that the best way to learn how to treat your customers is just by watching my grandparents. Yeah, who woulda thought? I spend the night at their house almost every week when I'm down in Mountain View, so I see them quite a bit. There have been a few things that I have learned:
#1) Cold Mornings
I was freezing one morning so I [jokingly] said I felt like I woke up on the top of a ski resort because it was so damn cold. The next time I was there, I woke up and apparently they had hired the guys that supply oil to heat hell or something; I was burning -- It was great!!
#2) Jalapeno Bagel
Every morning when I wake up, they make me breakfast. One morning I mentioned how much the Jalapeno bagels at Noah's Bagels RULE (they really do). So I woke up the other morning and a Jalapeno bagel from Noah's Bagels magically appeared on my plate. At first I didn't believe it, so I looked again. Yeah, it really was a Jalapeno bagel from Noah's. This is really great service... I think I'll stay at this place again! :D
#3) DSL
They were stuck in the stone ages for... ever... So they've finally gotten DSL after I suggested it would be easier to get work done if they paid an extra $5 a month for a connection that is 2,000,000,000,000 times faster. :p
So how does any of this apply to customer service? Well, your customers are your business; you are only as strong as your "weakest" customer (people tend to tell more people how much they hate a certain product rather than one they would recommend). For my grandparents, they want happy grandkids. Grandkids make a suggestion, grandparents figure out how to please them (too bad parents aren't like that).
This completely applies to founding a startup. For the past few months, I have been asking tons of people to give me suggestions on how to make *********** better (will announce this in the next few months). And guess what? It's paid off. I could have never built a product to where it is today, there have been tons of people that have helped me make it better. They say 1 can take an army of 10, and 2 an army of 100. What about 3? 4? 5? When you involve your end user (the customer) in the building/evolution of a product, you are almost sure to have a better product that will appeal to more people. Which means: sells more, sells faster, has more potential to be...
"the next big thing"
:)
I haven’t blogged much lately
Reason: I have to get a lot of work done. Also, been doing a lot of reading. I've realized that there are a few billion books in the world, so I am setting out to read .001% of them before I die. I love reading now, it's amazing -- the life's work of one person can be summarized in 1,000 pages of text, and I find that mind blowing. What this means is: I can learn from the mistakes of others, I can learn from the findings of others, and I can aggregate more data and figure out my own opinions on things.
I have become a master with XHTML/CSS/JavaScript (yes, including *Ajax* whoop whoop!). I have (not bragging) actually become really good at these front end languages, I was surprised on how fast I picked up on CSS and JavaScript. And yes, all the pages I write are XHTML Strict DTD compliant :p
I'll blog more when my "big secret" will come out (that sounds kinda bad). Hopefully by the end of March we can get it out. The only clue I will give is: it will save a lot of people a lot of time -- and that's what I'm all about:
Make a more efficient world
Lucky
I watched this video with Warren Buffet about 6 times in this last week. I have also done a lot of thinking about my life ever since I watched that video. So anyways, here you go.
I am lucky.
I am lucky I was born in 1988, 18 years before the Web 2.0 boom began. Lucky I was born in Davis, California -- a quiet, intellectual college town in Northern California. Lucky to have the parents that I have -- to this day, I've never heard them fight. Lucky to have 2 brothers and 2 sisters who taught me how to share, how to lead, responsibility, and how to interact with people. Lucky to grow up with support from my entire family -- my grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and other "family" members like Nate Pina (my older brother) and his family.
I am lucky to be homeschooled by my Mom and Mrs. Washabaugh through 3rd grade, where I made my first best friend -- Michael Washabaugh. Lucky to have been able to go to GVCA from 4th-8th grade; from an academic perspective, it would be hard for me to find another school in California as rigorous as that school. I credit all of my current "IQ" to the foundations that were laid down at that school. I am lucky to have had the friends that I did at that school -- Eric Haynam, Jon Roby, Dwight Smith, and my best friend, since 5th grade, Travis Parker. I've been best friends with Travis for over 8 years now, and we've never been mad at eachother once. Lucky to have developed an above average EQ (the awareness of and ability to manage one's emotions in a healthy and productive manner) while at GVCA also; it helped me so much down the road when I had to move to new places and make new friends.
I am lucky to have moved to Maryland in 2003. Lucky to make the friends that I did out there; there are three guys really mentored me that I still keep in close contact with today -- Ben Tedesco, Edgard Gasca, and Hector Oropezah. Lucky for all the talks I had with Hector; I will never forget the one we had on the boardwalk at Ocean Beach, New Jersey. Hector told me of all the mistakes that he wish he would have never made, and he wanted to make sure I wouldn't make those same decisions. Lucky enough to have a dad that cared enough about me to send me to private school (CLS) instead of public school. Lucky to have made all the friends out there that I still talk to today. Lucky to have Nate Pina out there with us to be my older brother and help me through that horrific winter.
I am lucky to have moved back to Vacaville, California (greatest city to grow up in ever). Lucky to go to The Father's House church and Launch Camp that year (3 days after moving back) and meeting all the people I did there -- it made the transition to Vacaville easy on us. Lucky for that whole summer; it was just so much fun -- we were all still little kids; Josiah, Rob, Chris, Me, Nate, James. I am lucky to have been born with a love for technology, the internet, and most of all, Flash. Lucky for my tour of Odopod that inspired countless nights of learning more Flash. Lucky to have seen that learning programming languages would help me get a good job when I got older (it paid off faster than I expected, but I didn't mind :p).
I am lucky to have been able to work for The Father's House as their web developer. Without that job, I would have never become as good as I did at Flash. Lucky to have switched from Vaca High to Buckingham 1 week before my Sophomore year began. Lucky to have had Mrs. Oates as my English teacher in 10th grade; her class taught me a lot about myself -- if I see a teacher put a lot of effort into teaching, I will return her effort with effort of my own in their class. This has remained true for everything I do; if I am motivated to do a good job on a certain project, I'll do the best job you've ever seen. The flipside is the opposite; that's just how I am built, and I don't plan on changing it. Lucky for to have made all the friends I did that year -- Megan, Joanna, Marco, etc... Buckingham is "no ordinary high school"; I love it.
I am lucky to have my dad, Uncle Jim, and Don Graham as people to talk to about business. Lucky for all the talks I've had with these guys about business and life in general -- they helped me learn so much, and made it possible for me to avoid the mistakes that they made. These guys are the best mentors I could have asked for.
I am lucky for the friends I had during the summer of 2006 -- Jeremy, James, Christy, and Cailey; I could have gone down so many wrong paths that summer, but it was theses friends who saved me. Lucky to have been able to become best friends with Cailey, the happiest girl I have ever known.
I am soo lucky to have met Okapi. Lucky for all the clients I landed under their name. Lucky for the business skills I gained as I managed each client. Lucky for Andrei and Gabi; two guys I have never met, but I talk to every day for about an hour (I will meet them soon!). Lucky enough to get a client called MonVia, which is the company that I am doing my startup under.
I am lucky to have teachers and a principal that let me go to school Monday and Wednesday of my Senior year in high school. Lucky to have started reading again Senior Year. Lucky for all the "mentors" I have but will probably never meet -- Warren Buffet, Mark Cuban, and Ayn Rand. Lucky to have a teacher that I realized was a real human being, Mr. Robbins; we've had countless talks that I have grown from.
I am lucky to work with Jorge Fernandes, Mani Kulasooriya, and Jim O'Connor. These guys have taught me so much about Silicon Valley and how the entire industry works; no University or business school in the world would be able to give me the knowledge I have today from all the experiences I have had with them in the last 6 months.
I am lucky to have had an idea for a startup that began at the beginning of 2006, thanks to the book Getting Real by 37signals. Lucky to be able to have the right skill set needed for a startup (thanks to all the programming I did starting at age 11). Lucky for the much needed support I have gotten from everyone on it. [will there be a "lucky" statement about the company here soon? :)]
I am lucky for my Grandparents who let me stay at their house any time I want, and (this is the best part) wait on me in the mornings so they can get me breakfast. Lucky for aunts and uncles that will open their house for me any time I need to stay in The Valley. Lucky for Brent and Mary-Anne and all the help they were in applying to Stanford and Santa Clara.
I am lucky that I am born in a market economy that pays off well for guys wired like me; like Warren Buffet says -- "If I was stuck on a desert island with a bunch of other people, I'd be useless. The most useful person in that situation would be, say, a rice farmer. I can allocate capital, but that doesn't matter in a situation like that." Lucky that I wasn't born 4,000 years ago -- I would be some animals lunch.
I am lucky.
If I "had to do it all over again", as Buffet says, I would just ask to be lucky.
When so many things went right when they could have gone wrong, I can only be optomistic towards the future and say... Thank you God. I didn't deserve any of this.
And if I left anyone out, don't be offended. It's 1:30am and my brain shutdown two hours ago.Thanks
The greatest Flash site ever made
For two years now, this site has topped my all time greatest-Flash-sites list. Yes, it was even built before Flash 8's alpha channel.
And I am still amazed every time I go to it.
This has to go under greatest quotes
This was one of the comments on a blog post by a friend on Facebook
In the words of the late, great Mother Teresa... "Bitch, you can't hustle a hussla!"
Hahahahahahahahaha
This Yuvi kid is the man
15 year old kid from India. He has a great blog and is a coding genius. Great post on why going to school sucks. I wish I had been so dedicated to coding when I was his age... Maybe we can collab on some projects in the future.
Internet Privacy
I am sick and tired of listening to people that know nothing about technology talk about how scared they are of their privacy being intruded upon by the internet. Most of this fear comes from the lack of knowledge about the threat that the majority of these companies pose to them.
The two companies that I would like to talk about in this post are Google and Facebook. Both companies track almost everything that user's do on their sites: the search queries, the time a person logs in, the computers he logs in from (from IP addresses), the "status updates" on Facebook, etc... Just about everything that could be tracked is tracked on these two sites. Just as a side note, there is a new Flash analytics tool (I forget the name right now) that creates and saves arrays of the mouse movements, so [Flash] websites can be optimized for better navigations and content. Anyways, back to the subject. I stopped caring about my online privacy a long time ago... A long time ago being defined as the moment I realized the threat these companies posed to my life. Google and Facebook are viable companies; I mean come on, Google's motto is "do no evil."
Facebook tracks everything that you do on their site, but it just creates an interesting experience for me every time I login. I can see every single little thing that my friends have done since I last signed in. Technology is leading to a world where everyone can know everything about everybody. Sound scary? If you're a bad person. I could care less -- I'll do everything I do in private in public. It's not like I have anything to hide. So why do you even care if Google is storing all of your search queries? Do you have something to hide?
Another thing I would say is put it in perspective. How many searches are done on Google every day? Nearly 100 million. And out of the 100 million, what are they going to do with the 20 searches that you did? Exactly. Nothing.
So whatever. Who cares about your online privacy.