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Facebook

Submission + - What will kill Facebook? (swombat.com) 1

Submitted by KDan
KDan writes: This question pops up regularly on Hacker News. What will kill Facebook? Before that, it was "What will kill Google?" Before that, on Slashdot, it would have been "What will kill Microsoft?" Often, the question is asked with a combination of rage and envy. The questioner doesn't like Facebook, they want it dead, and they wouldn't mind if they were the one who came up with something that killed it. Aren't entrepreneurs charming? However, the question is fundamentally flawed. It's the wrong question. It leads nowhere. The only company that can kill Facebook is Facebook. Here's why.

Submission + - How to nap - Power napping without sleeping (danieltenner.com)

Submitted by KDan
KDan writes: I am the kind of person who takes 30 minutes to an hour to fall asleep, most nights. Falling asleep is an ordeal for me (unless I’m completely exhausted). Don’t get me wrong – it’s not an unpleasant ordeal there are worse things in life than lying in bed. But I truly envy those people who can just put their head on a pillow and drift off within moments. Oh, such bliss not for me. I will lie in bed, awake, forever thinking and rethinking whatever happens to be on my mind at the time.

Because of this, I always thought that power napping was not for me. After all, power naps are supposed to last about 20 minutes, and you don’t need to be a maths genius to realise that if it takes you at least half an hour to fall asleep, 20 minutes won’t be enough. So, therefore, I thought, since I can’t fall asleep quickly, I can’t nap.

Fortunately for me, I was completely wrong about this.
Google

Submission + - What problems does Google Wave solve? (danieltenner.com)

Submitted by KDan
KDan writes: There are countless pundits and other tech gurus describing Google Wave as a disappointment, lately. Most of that seems to come from the fact that nobody seems to get what Wave is for. So they compare it to social media.

Is Wave the next Twitter? Nope. Is it the next Facebook? Nope. Is it going to replace Instant Messengers? Possibly, in some circumstances, but not any time soon.

I believe this is partly Google’s fault: they released Wave to geeks and hackers and social media folks first. But Wave is not a geek/hacker tool, or a social media tool, it’s a corporate tool that solves work problems (more on that later). On the other hand, they never claimed it would be a Facebook replacement or a Twitter killer. Google calls wave an “online tool for real-time communication and collaboration”. The way Google should have advertised Wave is: “it solves the problems with email”.
The Internet

Submission + - How to make your application viral (danieltenner.com)

Submitted by
KDan
KDan writes: "Everyone wants their application to "spread virally". And why shouldn't they? Viral growth resolves at least part of the expensive and complicated headache of actually marketing your application, by getting the application to grow all by itself. So, then, the question that forms on the lips of any entrepreneur is: "How can I make my application viral?" This guide provides some answers to that elusive question."
Businesses

Submission + - Starting up with a friend (danieltenner.com)

Submitted by
KDan
KDan writes: "What could possibly go wrong? It seems like a fool-proof plan: start up with a close friend. You'll get along (obviously), and you'll get to share the exciting, fantastic, scary experience of starting up with someone you care about. It's not a bad idea, but there are a few caveats that you should be aware of before you proceed. When I started my first company with one of my closest friends, I expected things would go very well between us. We understood each other in ways that would take years to build up (and did take 10 years). We knew each other, and we knew we could rely on each other. We were prepared to have many surprises along the way — starting a business is always going to be a scary adventure.

What we weren't prepared for was that the main problem would come from us and the dynamic between us."
Businesses

Submission + - Beyond hot desk communism (woobius.com)

Submitted by
KDan
KDan writes: "From the article: "What would you say if I told you that from tomorrow onwards, your desk area will be reduced by half? One of the most obvious costs for any businesses is the money it pays to rent space. The traditional way of decreasing this cost has been to decrease personal space, first from individual offices to cubicles, then from cubicles to smaller cubicles, open plan offices, and then finally open plan offices with tiny desks. It doesn't have to be this way. At my workplace, we've experimented with some much better ways to organise our working spaces." This article presents an interesting alternative to hot desking and open plan offices."
Social Networks

Submission + - Notadouche.com - the NonSocial NonNetwork (notadouche.com)

Submitted by KDan
KDan writes: "Hello. My name is ______ and I am not a douche." Notadouche is a nonsocial nonnetwork for nondouches. For people who hate douching around online, dislike wall posts and private messages, and love big fonts, notadouche is quick, painless, and slightly bizarre. It works like this: go to the site, enter your name, answer a few questions, and you're done! Is this the answer to social networking? Even though it only just came into existence, notadouche has already got over 10'000 users, and has spawned a tumblr blog, and is setting the twitter-verse aflame!
Hardware Hacking

Fast-Booting OS for Usually-Off Appliance PCs? 523

Posted by timothy from the zero-to-sixty-in-zilch-dot-two dept.
An anonymous reader writes "I have some older computer equipment at work that I want to re-purpose as application appliances. The machines will sit, unpowered, until needed, then powered up. No way around the 'sitting powered off' — company directive. What is the quickest-booting OS I could use for them? I know about LinuxBIOS, but that would require new hardware, which does not go along which the re-purposing theme. Some of them do not need to be connected to a network, so an old version of Linux or Windows 98 are possible. DOS is too old to consider. So what are my options?"
The Internet

The Pirate Bay's Plans To Encrypt the 'Net 297

Posted by timothy from the pretty-ned8bdrnki(bdr## dept.
Keeper Of Keys writes "According to newteevee.com, The Pirate Bay, those fun- and freedom-loving Swedes, have embarked on a project to encrypt all internet traffic, probably by means of an OS-level wrapper around all network connections, which would fall back to an unencrypted connection when the other end is not similarly equipped. The move has been prompted by a recent change in Swedish law, allowing the authorities to snoop on network traffic. This will be a boon to filesharers and anyone else concerned about authorities and trade groups' recent moves towards 'policing' network traffic at the ISP level."
Businesses

Submission + - Creating a successful new online product - 13 tips (inter-sections.net)

Submitted by
KDan
KDan writes: "There is much talk these days about building a product for a niche and making a lifestyle business out of it. Much of the online literature about starting up is focused on how to create some fantastic product which will gather millions of visitors and make you a billionaire, and the "new wave", so to speak, proposes that rather than taking a 1 in 10'000 bet that you can make billions, it is better to take a 1 in 10 bet that you can make millions. Here are thirteen tips on how to achieve that."
The Internet

Submission + - Creating a successful new online product - 13 tips (inter-sections.net)

Submitted by
KDan
KDan writes: "There is much talk these days about building a product for a niche and making a lifestyle business out of it. Much of the online literature about starting up is focused on how to create some fantastic product which will gather millions of visitors and make you a billionaire, and the "new wave", so to speak, proposes that rather than taking a 1 in 10'000 bet that you can make billions, it is better to take a 1 in 10 bet that you can make millions. Here are thirteen tips for how to do so."

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