April 6th, 2010 by Chris
I’ve known about AIR for quite a while now and have had the passing thought of “I should learn that”. Now, put that thought into my queue of every other frameworks, languages, and CMS’s I have in my heap of items to learn….and it tended to get lost.
Then strolls in this great little write up and video linked to from Engadget: http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/05/adobe-air-developer-demonstration-one-game-five-platforms-all/
iReverse running on OS X, Windows 7, Ubuntu Linux, the iPhone, a Droid and the new iPad, explaining how it took only a series of seriously tiny platform-specific wrappers to make his program function on each.
Now it looks like I might have to move AIR forward in my queue. With that kind of potential it could be a major advantage for applications that aren’t tied to the platform specific functionality…and that’s a lot of app ideas!
Tags: Adobe AIR, application development, Flash
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March 25th, 2010 by Chris
After writing the last post about starting a small business, I got to thinking…I should really throw out some suggestions for people to help them with their quest to starting their small business. Now I’m by no means the professional at this, but I’m currently in the process, so I feel I have something to offer here. Also, this of course isn’t a all encompassing list, but it’s a good place to start…just to give yourself that extra boost to get started.
Now sit back, and prepare to be…INFORMED!
- Identify your support team: for me it’s my family, my wife especially. She is always there to calm me down when I get frustrated or give me a small nudge when needed. If you don’t have the support of your family or friends (or whoever you depend on) starting something will become exponentially more difficult.
- Get inspired: Beyond my family and of course Reid and Holly, I was inspired in two different ways. First, Carla, who I had originally met through work and has become more of a friend was a big inspiration when she launched her first application a little over a year ago. I followed her story and even read her books and that was definitely a big inspiration. On top of that, I attended a great conference last year, Big Omaha, which included a great line up of very inspiring speakers.
- Just Do It! (this blog post is not sponsored by Nike): You’re never going to have your process completely perfect. The application/product/service you’re looking to create/provide will never be absolutely perfect for everyone. So at some point you need to pull the trigger and take a shot at it!
- Use the resources available: The absolute best resource that I found was SCORE. Basically, it’s an absolutely free service provided by business experts in your community that just donate their time to help you gain the knowledge you’ll need to start a new business. Priceless.
- Don’t get intimidated by the details: Last year at Big Omaha during one of the many great speeches Jason Fried of 37 Signals made a good point that really hit home for me. Don’t get stuck on the word “entrepreneur”. It’s such a loaded word. It makes you think that you really need to have everything figured out before you can even think about starting something. That’s not the case. Anyone can start a new business…anyone!
I’m sure I’ll expand on this list later, but this is a great place to start. The majority of the work starting a small business is just convincing yourself to do it, the rest is just a matter of doing the work.
Tags: small business
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March 23rd, 2010 by Chris
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about small businesses and how much fun they really are. Frankly, I’m surprised that more people don’t start small business, just for whatever they enjoy doing.
Technically, I’m in the middle of starting a small business. It really doesn’t feel like it most days, being that its just a business based on software and the business includes two lifelong friends. Both of those factors take a lot of the paperwork, overhead and hassle out of the reality of starting a small business. Really the idea of TriMutiny was something that Reid, Holly and I had been mulling over for a few years. After graduating we all ended up going into wonderfully complimenting fields and the idea of starting a company together slowly started to percolate in our minds. There were some small complications, such as, we all live in different time zones and we all lead extremely busy lives but we’ve found a way to use these complications to our advantage.
The every day advantages from starting a business of your own are endless. Some of my favorites include learning new technologies, building my portfolio and having a great outlet for new ideas or skills I want to advance. When you start a new business, you can start it doing anything! There is no one to tell you what you should be learning or how to do it, you can make all of those choices yourself. I’ve found that these ideas and goals just tend to multiply themselves and so you find yourself just trying the time to fit in all of these great ideas with where you’d like to take your company!
So I guess what I’m trying to say here is…if this is something that is sitting in the back of your mind…go for it! Manage your risks and take your time, but there’s no penalty in starting the process and seeing where it takes you!
Tags: friends, small business
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