To me, I never undertood all of the hype behind groupon.  I get the business model and how it is supposed to bring more customers to a small business. After reading this post from Jesse the passage that stood out to me was this:

After three months of Groupons coming through the door, I started to see the results really hurting us financially. There came a time when we literally could not make payroll because at that point in time we had lost nearly $8,000 with our Groupon campaign. We literally had to take $8,000 out of our personal savings to cover payroll and rent that month. It was sickening, especially after our sales had been rising. Sure, maybe thinking of it as just marketing may seem justified, but anyone that knows me well knows that I would never pay more than $100 for advertising, much less $8,000, because I don’t believe that regular advertising had much return on investment at all. So the experience jaded me, and the interactions with the few bad Groupon customers we had jaded our staff. After all of this, I find myself not even willing to buy Groupons because I know how it could hurt a business (side note: service industry businesses do quite well with features like this because it is just the cost of time – you are not paying for a product for resale. Resale, in my opinion, get hit the hardest).

So in short, the more groupons she redeemed the more her business suffered.  I think the concept of Groupon is rather interesting but mostly impossible to pull off for a few reasons:

1. The new customers that come to your business are only there for a discount so it is unlikely they will either come back or buy anything else that is full price.
2. Unless the company redeeming groupons is a big retailer such as a Target or a JCPenney, I find it unlikely that the customer will find something else to buy full price. If the business was a big retailer, then they most likely have the resources to pull off their own promotions.

I think their business model is ultimately doomed to fail as they can only survive by getting new customers and their current customers aren't coming back.

With current lawsuits flying between Apple and Samsung, this really puts Samsung in a bad light.

It is one thing to be inspired by an UI and quite another to rip it off. Here is a user demonstrating the iBooks app on the iPad:

Michael Jordan is the Greatest Of All Time. PERIOD.  During his time as a basketball player everyone and I mean everyone "wanted to be like Mike".  Michael Jordan excited all fans whether you were a Bulls fan or not, and everyone loved to see him play. Even the opposing players were in awe after watching their teammates get dunked on by Jordan.  He was that damn good.  He completely dominated the NBA.

There seems to be some debate about Lebron James being a "better" ball player than MJ. While Lebron James is an excellent athlete, it takes a lot more than raw physical  ability to win championships.  And Jordan stayed at Chicago for most of his career instead of bouncing out and joining a team with other superstars to win his rings.  Jordan wouldn't accept a #2 or #3 slot just for a championship.  I would put Kobe Bryant closer to MJ than LeBron James.  No disrespect to Lebron James and what he has accomplished, but Michael Jordan has shoes than only MJ can fill.

I have had side projects for as long as I have been writing code. Whether it was some overly idealistic goal of being like another Linus Torvalds ( I wanted to make my own operating system ) or something a little less ridiculous as making a pop3 server from scratch, I have always scratched that itch.

As I soon found out, having side projects had an additional benefit: I was able to command a much higher salary ( due to the newfound experience ) as I went from job to job.  Employers didn't care where you got the experience just as long as you could do the work. Consulting companies liked it too.. you weren't training on their dime either.

The real reason I have side projects is that I still love to write code. Not writing code for writings sake, but rather writing code to express an idea or to solve a problem. To see that idea morph from something that is nebulous in your mind into something that you can show to other people.  To create something out of nothing just really appeals to me.

For years of starting new side projects, I can honestly say that I have completed one project.  This blog is that completed side project.  No software is truly complete, but this blog is complete enough to achieve the goals that I initially set out for it.  It is functional, I use it on a regular basis and I have learned a bit about python and django.  Most importantly I have learned how to complete a project with a minimum amount of time and effort.  With having a side project, you set the deadlines and the pace.  You have the opportunity to try out different practices to see what works best for you.

Since this post is already a bit lengthy, I'll close out by saying: It's pretty damn cool to be using software that you create for yourself, try it sometime you might like what you come up with :)

This post is the first of many using Mars Edit. A few months ago, I switched from tumblr to a custom side project written in python/django. Over the last few months, I have been making incremental changes here and there ( like adding pagination and a nicer theme ) as time permitted.

I finally had gotten to the point that I wanted to upload images but kicking those over sftp and pasting links into django admin became a huge pain in the ass for me. I had purchased a license for Mars Edit awhile ago and decided to fire it up and add support for my blog.

I added support by using the post MetaWeblog & Django by Greg Abbas as a template and customized things from there.  I had an issue not seeing certain server options from appearing on my blog that appeared in my old wordpress blog. I quickly fired off a tweet to Daniel Jalkut:

@danielpunkass I am connecting Mars Edit to a custom implementation of metaweblog api. How do I see server options for a specific post (wp)?

His response:

@hasanihunter This probably is easier to explain by email. Support@red-sweater.com, please!

I fired off an email the next morning explaining my issue and he replied to me in short order.  It looks like I have a bit more work to get Mars Edit to do exactly what I want it to do but I am happy to do it because of the amazing customer experience I have received from Daniel!

Customer service does matter no matter what the size of your company and I am more than happy to support developers who get it like Red Sweater Software.