Where's that "Winders" topic icon... ah, yes, there it is...

Does it f'in annoy anyone else that you can't rearrange the icons on the taskbar in Windows?

Speaking of compulsive behaviors, I must have Outlook first in my taskbar. I always open it first when I start my computer.

Invariably, Outlook crashes (IMAP has issues with Outlook) and I have to close it and open it again. But now it's at the end of my taskbar... after 15 other programs, all with unsaved work or multiple things open or... whatever. I don't want to close 15 programs just to get Outlook first again. Guh!

Hey Microsoft! *thwack* Give me a little drag-and-drop thing so I can put my precious Outlook first again! Yes, I am compulsive... but I know there are many of you out there whom this affects. Speak out now and unleash your wrath! :)

Oh, and I got shot down in the election today. I voted NO on the recall. But hey, that's okay. I am okay with Arnold. I believe he'll come around to his true Democratic traits soon... and then I'll be able to laugh at all those damned conservatives who voted for him over the true right-winger, Mr. Tom "I Have Extremely Creepy Eyes" McClintock.

Not that I'm vindictive. Not at all. :D

Alright... here's an interesting one. I want to hear what you think, especially in light of Cringely's latest article.

One of my high-school friends runs a very informal mailing list that reaches out to graduates of that high school. He uses it to send out notices about the school, party invitations, and more. There are about 120 people currently on the list.

Here's where it starts to get interesting. He sent out an email today regarding a website he really liked and asked for us to go check it out. I replied, agreeing that it was a great website, and I mentioned that Simpli would be advertising there next month. I figured it was a great tie-in -- after all, not only do I like the website, but I like it so much that we've signed an ad deal there for next month. I also said, "...if any of you are on the lookout for web hosting, you can jump in on our exclusive [website] deals starting next week."

I get two replies back asking me to stop making "product offers" on the list. These people consider my one-sentence plug to my high school classmates spam!

Now let me ask you this: Has our society become so inundated by advertising that we can't even stand a semblance of advertising from someone we know?

I run a mailing list for a website. We have about 10,000 people that we send out a monthly newsletter to. These people have all opted-in or double-opted in (double-opt-in means we send them a confirmation email and they have to click on a link to subscribe.) Every single month, we get complaints from people (often using profanity) that scream "TAKE ME OFF YOUR #@^*ing MAILING LIST!!" Now, this newsletter isn't exactly in the realm of penis enlargements or breast enhancers; it's a home improvement newsletter that you have to explicitly sign up for and that contains an obvious "Unsubscribe" link at the bottom. (Yes, I know all of the recipients are opt-in or double-opt-in, because I wrote the mailing list software that runs on their website. Thus, I know that the people getting this email have explicitly asked for it.)

Has the world become such that we are unable to distinguish between targeted and untargeted email? Have we become so engrossed in anti-spam campaigns that we ask to be "taken off the mailing list" when a fellow high school alumnus who runs a business sends us a single email about a website advertising deal?

Most importantly, where do you draw the line between "spam" and "not spam"?

In one of my previous journal entries, Liora made a comment that I've been meaning to reply to for a while. She said, "The interest rates pretty much mandate it such that renting is just dumb. Rent is throwing money away."

This is absolutely true for most of the country. It's absolutely NOT true for the Bay Area (hence the alternate title.)

Before we go on, I should mention a few things:
1) I rent;
2) I believe that housing prices in the Bay Area will drop about 10% (or perhaps more) in the next 3-5 years.

Why? Read on.

I just signed a 1-year lease for a 2BR/1.5BA condo for $1475 a month. This is the reason why I leased.

That is a link to a similar condo in Pacifica... a 2BR/1.5 bath, just like I have, and of the same vintage (built in 1972). They are asking $342,500 for it. This means that with a $68,500 down payment, I'd have to pay $1675 a month to own it.

Stop and think about this for a minute. Supposedly, the whole point of owning is that you aren't "throwing your money away" (i.e. a mortgage payment should be cheaper than renting the equivalent property), but I could put $70,000 down on this condo and have nothing to show for it except a larger mortgage payment than I would pay in rent. A housing price devaluation of 10% or more could completely wipe out any equity that I would have in the house after only a year or so of owning it. As many people learned with the stock market, it's extremely dangerous to always count on your investments to go up (like many people assumed both now with housing and in 1998-1999 with the stock market.) A lot of wealth was completely wiped out in 2000-2001 with the stock market devaluation. Imagine what any housing price devaluation will do to people who have saved up $50,000 or more to make a down payment, only to watch their equity disappear as housing prices face the same adjustment the stock market did.

Why will housing prices drop? To put it bluntly, they have to. Renting cannot forever be cheaper than owning, or people who buy investment properties will be out of work. People cannot afford to keep bleeding cash on investment properties like they are now. Plus, once interest rates go back up, those first-time home buyers who have been saturating the home-buying market right now will no longer be interested in buying. Thus, housing demand will drop, supply will keep going up (as builders keep building new houses and condos), and prices on houses will start to fall. And they will fall more than most people will expect. I'm forecasting an overall drop of 10%. It could be more, or it could take 5 years to hit 10%. But it will happen. This will wipe out a lot of equity for a LOT of people.

Renting vs. owning is a huge sticking point for me. I would love to own property. I could probably afford to own property in the Midwest. And I probably would own at this point if I lived in the Midwest. But in the Bay Area, it's not justifiable to own when you look at the numbers.

I'd rather take $68,500 and invest it into my company... that way, whatever return I get on it is directly influenced by me and how well I do sales. I know I can take that $68,500, put it into Simpli, and turn it into a revenue generator of $10,000 a month or more. There is no way I could do the same thing with a house. And that is why I rent.

Well, I've had this rant about MySQL and the GPL bottled up for a long time. I hoped to have it modded up so more people could understand and hopefully enlighten me further about this issue, but it's been modded down as Flamebait (it stands at 1 currently.)

Basically, the crux of the matter is that any application that uses MySQL client libraries (past version 4.1 of MySQL) either has to be GPL, or you have to pay $220 PER SERVER to MySQL to license their software. It's absurd, and as a developer of a semi-open-source, non-GPL application that uses MySQL, I'm pretty pissed about it.

I suppose I shouldn't have expected much sympathy on Slashdot (where open source is 31337!!!!!1) However, this affects a lot of people in the open-source community. What are programs like vBulletin, which is probably one of the most well-known MySQL-based applications, going to do? Raise their prices, of course, because MySQL has decided it wants a piece of their pie. Or only support old versions of MySQL. Or move to Postgres.

This might be the best thing that's ever happened to PostgreSQL, but it's certainly one of the worst in the MySQL development community. It's classic bait-and-switch, and I, for one, am pissed.

So I was in the car the other day, sitting in traffic, and I pondered what I was going to write about next. Should I wax philosophical about going to college vs. not, since it's back to school time? Should I ponder the deeper issues of using open-source software in a business? Should I talk about the GPL license vs. the BSD license and the merits of each, plus some ideas I've had about putting both to good use?

And then FortKnox got online on AIM and messaged me with "You still haven't written that journal entry about meeting me at the mall!" Because, you see, I had promised him that I would. And while I've put it off for 10 days, I can no longer resist...

So I met FortKnox.
At the mall.
In Cincinnati.
And, um, his kid was cute. Ran around the store like a mad terror, that kid did!

Tonight I went to the movies and I saw this woman holding a baby... and she couldn't have been any older than I was. In fact, I think she was younger than I was. The kid was probably a couple months old at most. Still, it scared the bejeezus out of me. Am I going to be one of those married-with-tons-of-kids people?!

And some voice inside my head says, "But FortKnox seems really happy to be married with a kid. He gets a total kick out of having that kid run wild around the mall. And it's totally cute the way he obviously adores his son."

It scares me to death. You! People! Stop getting married! We're still YOUNG, for chrissakes! We're too young to have kids! We're still having fun! Partying! Going to movies! Being single! Dating!

Right? Right?!

One day, I stopped in the middle of a bunch of work.

I had been on the phone with clients and potential clients all day. I'd just signed a huge web design contract, I had a fair amount of money in the bank, and I'd finished setting up a new reseller server so Simpli could offer reseller hosting plans.

I'd just finished setting up our last dedicated RaQ 550.

I OKed a lease on a new condo (I'll be moving next month.)

I used the last of our initial capital and began preparing a cash-flow statement so we could get more.

And I was busy writing a proposal for a new web design customer.

Somehow, in the middle of all that, I stopped. I looked up. And I realized that my company -- the company I've been pouring my heart and soul into for over a year now -- was finally successful. In that moment, I knew that from here, there was no place to go but up. Keep hiring. Find an office. Start the big advertising. Secure additional capital, because we are PROFITABLE. And keep our clients happy, because they've been referring new clients like mad.

For my entire life, I have been building companies... and now I've built one that has its own legs and is running on its own. This is a magical moment -- that one moment when you look out the window and you realize that this is what your entire life until now has been preparing you for. It's an indescribable feeling, but one that is extremely special.

I made it.

I will remember this for a long time to come... the first moment I realized that it really was all going to work out. I built this company from the ground up, and it has become more than I ever thought possible. All I can think is "I did that." And I am amazed.

:)

Hey, so I finally got my friend/employee Devon to go post in his Slashdot journal. All together now... "HI DEVON!!!"

So will you guys (425 of you have marked me as a friend, last time I checked) please go make him feel welcome by harassing him in his journal? ;) Anyway, I'm sure we will have to welcome him by showing him the FK HOF JE, the Gossip Column (thanks for the Simpli plug this week, Surak!), and many, many, many, more journal entries courtesy of you crazy people.

Anyway, welcome, Devon. You really have no idea what you've gotten yourself into. ;)

Hmm. Slashdot has no "me" icon. Guess I'll have to settle for "User Journal". How boring.

So, in the great saga of my life, I started a business. A lot of you probably know a bit about this, but I'll refresh your memory.

In May 2002, I left Sun Microsystems, where I was working as a web developer on Sun.com. I left of my own accord... I just didn't agree with a lot of what Sun was doing (and apparently I wasn't the only one.) I'd always wanted to start a web hosting company for real. I mean, I'd had a colocated box or two since '98, and I hosted a bunch of sites for friends, but I wanted to do this for real.

My grandmother had died in February, and my dad had received a small inheritance from her. My parents didn't need the money, so I wrote out a business plan using the name Simpli, Inc. (which is now my business's legal name.) I had registered simpli.biz a while back, so I used that and built a website.

I brought in a few clients, but the website stunk and I knew I could do better. Meanwhile, my web design business was taking off, so I didn't really have time to work on Simpli. I started a sketch of a new website, but let it fall by the wayside for several months.

A few months ago, I really woke up to the fact that a) I had 13 servers and I wasn't doing much with them; and b) the web design business, while fun, wasn't giving me the income I needed. I decided to kick Simpli into high gear... and I finished the new website in a flurry of late nights. (Hey, if you haven't checked out our website, now's the time to do so. It doesn't look like any other hosting company's website.)

Then I started advertising. I still haven't kicked the advertising into high gear, but it's already starting to pay off. Our customers are referring new customers, and the fact that we offer $25 cash for a virtual hosting customer referral and $50 cash for a dedicated/colocation referral helps tremendously. (We'll have a signup form up for those of you who want some cash in a few days, BTW. Go yell at this guy if you want our affiliate program to work! ;)

We signed three new dedicated customers today, which is great. Two of them ordered custom boxes. I don't know how we will pay for them, but hey, that's life. It will be good income in a few months. And they will refer other customers, I'm sure... we've already gotten two new customers from one of the guys.

Don't let anyone deceive you... web hosting is a hard industry to make money in. There are a lot of providers that promise everything for $1/month. I started this business in part to prove that my company could outshine thousands of others in a crowded market. I feel that I've already been a moderate success there, and we're still growing by leaps and bounds.

So what has been going on with me lately? I've been doing sales calls, followup emails, chatting on the 'simplisales' alias on AIM, and just generally running a business. It is the most exciting experience of my life... knowing I've created a market opportunity where many have failed; knowing I've created profit where many swore there was none to be had. I live and breathe this company, and I'm as proud of it as I'm sure most parents are of their children.

I'll try to update this journal more frequently, but if I don't have time, you can probably guess what I'll be doing... out selling my company like mad! :)

Here is some more fun stuff from an AIM convo I had late tonight:

[03:50] Me: Being a perfectionist drives me nuts a lot of the time, because everything that isn't perfect is like an itch
[03:51] Me: Just the urge to improve... constantly improve
[03:51] Me: It's called "making your client buy new computers and printers"
[03:52] DJStarchBoi: ROFL
[03:52] Me: And "driving your other friends nuts with TiVo sales pitches" :P
[03:52] Me: I realize that I can be obnoxious about it
[03:53] Me: I usually get the *sigh* look, like "Oh there goes Erica trying to sell me something again"
[03:53] Me: And then I am like, okay, it's time to stop :)

[03:54] Me: Right now it's my roommate and a digital camera
[03:54] Me: I am like "Get a digital camera"
[03:54] Me: And he's like "You bum, YOU get a digital camera"
[03:54] Me: And I am like "No, I don't have any money... so you get one"
[03:54] Me: And so on :)
[03:55] Me: He has two jobs! I am like "Whatever, you can afford a digital camera!"
[03:55] Me: And he's like "Shut UP" :P
[03:55] DJStarchBoi: ROFL
[03:55] Me: And then I stop and file it away for another day... hehehe
[03:55] DJStarchBoi: and then you open the file, page through it, and find the vulnerable spot
[03:55] Me: Yep!!!
[03:56] Me: Like "You know how you said you wanted to go to that autocross this weekend? Wouldn't it be great if you HAD A DIGITAL CAMERA so you could take pictures there?"
[03:56] DJStarchBoi: HAH
[03:56] Me: And he is like "Shut UP!!!"
[03:56] Me: He will get one eventually ;)

I am a sadist. But it's all good. Because he will get a digital camera. And eventually everyone I know will have a TiVo, too. Hehehe... ;)

Okay, I know I haven't updated lately... yes, I am bad! I will update this journal with more "me" information soon... I promise!

But in the meantime, I had to share this bit of IM hilarity (from one of my not-so-technical friends):

[23:29] Rico: a friend of mine just stopped by and brought a friend with her... HOT AS HELL.... NOT LYING WHEN I SAY SUPERMODEL MATERIAL!!!
[23:29] Rico: no lie..... probably the #2 hottest chick I've ever seen (not met) in my life
[23:31] Rico: FYI: I showed the hot chick MOZILLA... that's right.. I'm not too proud

(And he says he isn't a geek... Heh heh heh.)

Lingqi was mentioning in his journal that his sleeves sometimes get soup on them because of the way food is arranged in the Japanese custom.

The layout of the food always dictates that the rice be on the far right with the miso soup should be to the right of it. Obviously, reaching over the soup to get to the rice puts the sleeve at risk of dipping into the soup.

However, it seems that Lingqi has only been told half of the story and still has to learn the other half of eating etiquette. The proper way to eat rice is to pick up the bowl in the left hand and hold it throughout the meal except in circumstances that make that position physically impossible. The proper form is to rest the owan on the 1st and 2nd knuckles of the middle and ring fingers and hold the top with the thumb. This gives a solid grip for when you need to reach halfway across the table to reach the last piece of karaage (which you should be leaving for someone else, but that's another etiquette lesson).

It is not so much that leaving the bowl of rice on the table and scooping it from there is impolite (hidoi) so much as it is bad mannered (gehin).

As for the shower heads, the reason it moves is because Japanese people do not take Western Style showers (though this is changing with ofuro-less 1K apartments). They rinse, soap up, then rinse again holding the shower head. They do not shower with the head racked. My guess is that it is easier for them to grab the low-placed showerhead than the higher one, which is why you always end up with the showerhead on the bottom rack.

The free webserver space that the client has so graciously provided me with supports Perl but not ANY modules. I can't even install them (termination of account will ensue).

So I want to create a CGI script that will upload files via an HTML form. However, parsing the multipart HTTP request is killing me. Normally, I'd hand it over to CGI.pm and let it do the heavy lifting, but since I can't use it I am forced to roll my own parser. For whatever reason, things are not working out well. If I'm not losing one or another input value, I'm getting garbage data after parsing.

Has anyone rolled their own multi-part form parser? Is it really as difficult as I think?

I wrote this over in another thread. I thought I'd hold onto it.

It's easy to understand. Follow me.

In life you have an Image. This Image is how you conduct yourself and how you are perceived by others. Many factors including how you dress, how you smell, how you behave, and how you look all come together to form your Image.

In life, it is one of the most important things that you will carry with you everywhere. It is the first thing that people who meet you will grasp about you. The so-called "first impression" that someone gets of you is based on your Image rather than your abilities.

There isn't any way to neglect your Image. Every action you take shapes it and molds it, so even if you stop taking showers (for example) you have only shaped your Image towards that image. You can "improve" your Image by doing things that impress other people like combing your hair or brushing your teeth or wearing a suit. Likewise you can "damage" your Image by putting giant piercings in your ear or not showering for weeks. The "improve" and "damage" are in quotes because it is up to the individual as to what kind of Image he wants to project, these examples are only using the most general attitudes as a basis for determining Image bettering and Image damaging.

So when a business looks at a person who has "damaged" his Image, it is easy to make a quick judgement call about the person. He does not have enough willpower or drive or ability to take care of one of his most important possessions, so how can he be trusted to control some part of the company (someone else's important possession)?

If you decide that your Image should show that you are a slacker (through uncleanliness) or that you wish to separate yourself from the mainstream (through piercings or extravagant and obvious tattooing), then you must prepare yourself for rejection when attempting to enter the world of business where these things are generally frowned upon.

The only way around this is to build a reputation so that people can have a preconceived notion of your abilities even before they meet your for the first time. A good reputation is many times better than a good Image. However, a good reputation is many times harder to create than a good Image.

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Lingqi, whose journal I'm addicted to lately, wrote in his latest journal entry that he believes Japanese men are extraordinary drinkers. I assume that he thinks this because he owns a car and is spared the passed out, projectile vomiting, generally obnoxious drunk salarymen that ride the train home every single night of the week.

It could be Tuesday at 7 in the evening and some group of drunk bastards in their late 40's are staggering around the train looking for a place to stand where they won't be conspicuous as they jack off to the young schoolgirl in her sailor outfit standing by the door. Or they are passed out drunk with vomit streaming out of their nose and mouth in the middle of the train car. Or standing too close to the terrified office lady who is doing everything she can to get the chikan's hands off her ass.

Drunk Japanese are not a pretty sight. This isn't just a Friday night thing where these guys are blowing off steam after a week of work. It's every night Monday through Friday at every time from 5:00 until midnight (after midnight these idiots have to stay in a capsule hotel or get picked up by their understanding wives).

Perhaps I'll enter another Train People installment about some of these guys.

In the meantime, check out my friend's sister-in-law's concert and spread the word about it. Contact me if you have any questions about it.