Come for the Ride…

Ever since I started doing this venture full time about a month ago, work has been non-stop. I’ve managed to endure 15-18 hour days skipping nights, weekends and holidays working, but on the bright side, I’ve been skipping early mornings waking up a little later too.

All work and no play is turning my head into mush… and while I’ve encouraged other entrepreneurs not to burn themselves out, it seems like I’ve fallen into the same trap overseeing the project.

The funny thing is, this isn’t a problem with being too much work. I’ve definitely been busier during other times of my life and juggling the same if not more things on my plate. The problem seems to stem from working on one main thing and not giving my brain time to rest to process thoughts in the background; where most of my solutions generally appear.

In the same fashion that you don’t build your muscles in the gym, but during your rest periods outside the gym, I need to cut back some hours and give the brain some rest. I have a feeling I can probably be just as effective working 6-8 intense hours vs. 15-18 drawn out hours. Either way it’s definitely worth testing to see if feelings of sluggishness disappear.

All I gotta say is thank goodness for my dogs… without them to bug me during the day about going outside, I’d probably be locked in all day.

Jobs just announced some additional features for Apple TV 2. $229 for the box, various prices between $3 - $5 for movie and HD rentals. Granted, the display looks as great as any other Apple product, but why introduce yet another mediocre service that doesn’t provide anything new?

The images here were captured by Engadget, who provided the live keynote coverage for MacWorld 2008. What these pictures show is just another service competing for our movie business, but not necessarily all that well.

As a consumer, what I want is a Netflix pricing model with the convenience of HD quality and instant downloads. As far as I can tell, the technology for everything I want is all here, what is missing is some cooperative work between the companies to come out with a platform that can make them all more money.

Let’s face it:

Netflix - Thanks for your unlimited movies online, but I want HD quality on my TV instantly if you can provide it.

Blockbuster - You had some competitive advantages before… but your lack of connection with reality has priced yourselves out of the game. Thanks for alienating your customers.

Xbox Live - I like the service but your selection for movies that appeals to everyone is weak. If it didn’t take 12 hours to download a HD movie onto my tiny 20gig hard drive, I may use your movie service more.

TiVo - Can you offer faster downloads? What’s the difference of waiting a day for a movie download vs. waiting a day for Netflix to deliver the same movie in the mail?

Comcast - I guess it’s true… he who controls the bandwidth can decide on the speed at which everything is connected. You guys have a great on demand network and the movies actually come within minutes… but the pricing structure really has to change. I would rather wait on Netflix rather than paying $20+ for 5 movies.

Apple TV - Thanks for coming up with something that doesn’t offer much more from the list above. It’s great I can transfer movies between my Apple products, but how about a different pricing model that actually makes the service appealing? I already have a number of choices above that does pretty much the same thing. So what’s urging me to make the switch?

Although this is one industry that requires a lot of the major companies to come together to get the deals to work, I’m still waiting for someone out there to get this right.

For most people, doing taxes is a chore and it’s an after-thought reserved for the second week of April. For business owners and people who are expecting a fat return, we start thinking about them in January.

For the early birds, you are in luck. You are the audience that H&R Block and other companies are interested in targeting. Continue Reading »

GM unveiled a new, smaller Hummer at the Detroit Auto Show this year dubbed the HX. Despite it being a Hummer, it may just have what it takes to convert me from being a Jeep owner to a Hummer owner if this thing ever comes out.

Now, I drive a pretty kick ass Wrangler TJ from 2004 with a lift and 33″ tires. As far as I’m concerned, the TJ was the last real model of Jeeps before everything got weird. The newer models seem to cater more to families with longer bases, four doors and an mix of comfort, complex consoles and well, un-comfort. Overall it’s an odd mix of two audiences that resulted in a vehicle that can’t really go off-road w/o heavy mods and at the same time, a vehicle that’s not really all that comfortable when compared to other off-road vehicles like Land Rovers.

Now I gotta admit, being in the Jeep camp, I’m not really a fan of Hummers. In fact, as Hummers released the H2’s and H3’s, I’ve always found it funny that it started looking more and more like Jeeps. However, with the comparison of the HX’s to Halo’s Warthogs; sadly a sudden wave of interest has now hit me.

However, I guess the most important thing mentioned in the article would be the flex-fuel compatibility option. Seriously, my Jeep is a brick on wheels and if my in-town commute wasn’t so short, I probably would have traded it awhile ago. However, if they can make these things accept alternate forms of oil or soy-sauce, I’d be all set.

For more info on the HX, check out the link above.

Will these screens ever replace blackboards in the schools? More importantly, when will I be able to get one for my conference room?