Here is more funny stuff on my Google Plus stream- you can now add me to a circle using the icon in the right margin.
0) Funny Cats are here to stay
1) So what?
Tag: founder
The best of Google Plus this week
Its been slightly over a month- and I noticed Google Plus stream is now getting to look like my Facebook stream as more of my friends join up. However there is no (share this on Google Plus button still!)
Top Meme’s this week on Google Plus
1) Points of View
Interview with Rob La Gesse Chief Disruption Officer Rackspace
Here is an interview with Rob La Gesse ,Chief Disruption Officer ,Rackspace Hosting.
Ajay- Describe your career journey from not finishing college to writing software to your present projects?
Rob- I joined the Navy right out of High School. I had neither the money for college, or a real desire for it. I had several roles in the Navy, to include a Combat Medic station with the US Marine Corps and eventually becoming a Neonatal Respiratory Therapist.
After the Navy I worked as a Respiratory Therapist, a roofer, and I repaired print shop equipment. Basically whatever it took to make a buck or two. Eventually I started selling computers. That led me to running a multi-line dial-up BBS and I taught myself how to program. Eventually that led to a job with a small engineering company where we developed WiFi.
After the WiFi project I started consulting on my own. I used Rackspace to host my clients, and eventually they hired me. I’ve been here almost three years and have held several roles. I currently manage Social Media, building 43 and am involved in several other projects such as the Rackspace Startup Program.
Ajay- What is building43 all about ?
Rob- Building43 is a web site devoted to telling the stories behind technology startups. Basically, after we hired Robert Scoble and Rocky Barbanica we were figuring out how best we could work with them to both highlight Rackspace and customers. That idea expanded beyond customers to highlighting anyone doing something incredible in the technology industry – mostly software startups. We’ve had interviews with people like Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and Founder of FaceBook. We’ve broken some news on the site, but it isn’t really a news site. It is a story telling site.
Rackspace has met some amazing new customers through the relationships that started with an interview.
Ajay- How is life as Robert Scoble’s boss. Is he an easy guy to work with? Does he have super powers while he types?
Rob- Robert isn’t much different to manage than the rest of my employees. He is a person – no super powers. But he does establish a unique perspective on things because he gets to see so much new technology early. Often earlier than almost anyone else. It helps him to spot trends that others might not be seeing yet.
Ajay – Hosting companies are so so many. What makes Rackspace special for different kinds of customers?
Rob- I think what we do better than anyone is add that human touch – the people really care about your business. We are a company that is focused on building one of the greatest service companies on the planet. We sell support. Hosting is secondary to service. Our motto is Fanatic Support®
and we actually look for people focused on delivering amazing customer experiences during our interviewing and hiring practices. People that find a personal sense of pride and reward by helping others should apply at
Rackspace. We are hiring like crazy!
Ajay – Where do you see technology and the internet 5 years down the line? (we will visit the answers in 5 years 🙂 )?
Rob- I think the shift to Cloud computing is going to be dramatic. I think in five years we will be much further down that path. The scaling, cost-effectiveness, and on-demand nature of the Cloud are just too compelling for companies not to embrace. This changes business in fundamental ways – lower capital expenses, no need for in house IT staff, etc will save companies a lot of money and let them focus more on their core businesses. Computing will become another utility. I also think mobile use of computing will be much more common than it is today. And it is VERY common today. Phones will replace car keys and credit cards (they already are). This too will drive use of Cloud computing because we all want our data wherever we are – on whatever computing device we happen tobe using.
Ajay- GoDaddy CEO shoots elephants. What do you do in your spare time, if any.
Rob- Well, I don’t hunt. We do shoot a lot of video though! I enjoy playing poker, specifically Texas Hold ’em. It is a very people oriented game, and people are my passion.
Brief Biography- (in his own words from http://www.lagesse.org/about/)
My technical background includes working on the development of WiFi, writing wireless applications for the Apple Newton, mentoring/managing several software-based start-ups, running software quality assurance teams and more. In 2008 I joined Rackspace as an employee – a “Racker”. I was previously a 7 year customer and the company impressed me. My initial role was as Director of Software Development for the Rackspace Cloud. It was soon evident that I was better suited to a customer facing role since I LOVE talking to customers. I am currently the Director of Customer Development Chief Disruption Officer. I manage building43 and enjoy working with Robert Scoble and Rocky Barbanica to make that happen. The org chart says they work for me. Reality tells me the opposite 
Go take a look – I’m proud of what we are building there (pardon the pun!).
I do a lot of other stuff at Rackspace – mostly because they let me! I love a company that lets me try. Rackspace does that.Going further back, I have been a Mayor (in Hawaii). I have written successful shareware software. I have managed employees all over the world. I have been all over the world. I have also done roofing, repaired high end print-shop equipment, been a Neonatal Respiratory Therapist, done CPR on a boat, in a plane, and in a hardware store (and of course in hospitals).
I have treated jumpers from the Golden Gate Bridge – and helped save a few. I have lived in Illinois (Kankakee), California (San Diego, San Francisco and Novato), Texas (Corpus Christi and San Antonio), Florida (Pensacola and Palm Bay), Hawaii (Honolulu/Fort Shafter) and several other places for shorter durations.
For the last 8+ years I have been a single parent – and have done an amazing job (yes, I am a proud papa) thanks to having great kids. They are both in College now – something I did NOT manage to accomplish. I love doing anything someone thinks I am not qualified to do.
I can be contacted at rob (at) lagesse (dot) org
you can follow Rob at http://twitter.com/kr8tr
Related articles
- Rackspace offers hosted virtual desktops from Citrix (infoworld.com)
- Citrix Taps Open Stack For Building Private Clouds (informationweek.com)
- A2SM Podcast #22 – Special Report: Robert Scoble on the Rackspace Cloud Going Open Source (a2sm.com)
- Support from Rackspace Customers Helped me Finish the Ironman (rackspace.com)
Why does Matt (of WordPress) hate Matt (of Google)
I want to show some bad ads of Google Ad sense. I pay through my nose for video upgrades and extra space to keep people happy.
120,000 views in 2010
Money earned By Matt (of WordPress)= $$$$$ from me
Money earned by Mutt -(thats me)= 000,000,000
Please allow me to run ads on wordpress.com
or create your own fucking ad networks
but do it PHAST.
ESLE blog trsnfer using Blog Export, divide Xml file into 13 files using Notepad copy and paste
go to Appspot
Convert files to Blogger files\
Thats the company BIZ stone OF tWITTER made
before these Two matts got into dog fights.
https://wordpress2blogger.appspot.com/
Ever wanted to move your WordPress blogs over to Blogger? This site can aid in the process!
Instructions
|
NOTE: This hosted application will only allow downloads smaller than 1MB.
For information on how to run this conversion on your own, visit the open source project hosted at code.google.com
Related Articles
- Signal and SXSW: What Should I Ask WordPress Founder Matt Mullenweg? (battellemedia.com)
Rockmelt: A chromium based browser with a social layer
I kind of liked the latest browser on the block: Rockmelt.
It is based on Chromium open source project, that is primarily lead by Google. In case Facebook wants to buy a browser it can use Rockmelt–provided the mutual powers and angels agree.
I really liked the idea of a social layer- though I am not sure how the analytics embedded within a browser/report should be used.
Basically it re-designs the interface to put your social networks to the margin, thus quite a boon in you have active social media presence on multiple sites or a power reader/surfer. Timely alerts ping you to status/new messages without cluttering your screen and internet experience. Worth atleast a try or first look for the innovator kind of internet customer.
I still prefer the speed of Chrome– because Rockwell interface is still not easy to transition to – it almost adds in 3 dimensions in terms of where your eyeball should be while surfing (to left/right/margin).
and thats despite the funny fine print in Chrome’s user agreement of “continuing innovation”
type about:terms in your chrome bar to see-
4.3 As part of this continuing innovation, you acknowledge and agree that Google may stop (permanently or temporarily) providing the Services (or any features within the Services) to you or to users generally at Google’s sole discretion, without prior notice to you. You may stop using the Services at any time. You do not need to specifically inform Google when you stop using the Services.
Related Articles
- How To Use RockMelt, The Social Web Browser From The Founder Of Netscape (businessinsider.com)
- RockMelt Beta 2 redefines bookmarking, gets new Twitter app, is based on Chromium 10 (downloadsquad.switched.com)
- RockMelt Rethinks Web Browser With More Social Inside (blogs.forbes.com)
LibreOffice 3.3.2
the latest freest office productivity software in the world.
The Document Foundation maintains its release schedule thanks to a growing and vibrant community of developers
The Internet, March 22, 2011 – The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 3.3.2, the second micro release of the free office suite for personal productivity, which further improves the stability of the software and sets the platform for the next release 3.4, due in mid May. The community of developers has been able to maintain the tight schedule thanks to the increase in the number of contributors, and to the fact that those that have started with easy hacks in September 2010 are now working at substantial features. In addition, they have almost completed the code cleaning process, getting rid of German comments and obsolete functionalities.
“I have started hacking LibreOffice code on September 28, 2010, just a few hours after the announcement of the project, and I found a very welcoming community, where senior developers went out of their way to help newbies like me to become productive. After a few hours I submitted a small patch removing 5 or 6 lines of dead code… enough to get my feet wet and learn the workflow”, says Norbert, a French developer living in the United States. “In a short time, I ended up removing the VOS library – deprecated for a decade – from LibreOffice, and finding and fixing various threading issues in the process”.
LibreOffice 3.3.2 is being released just one day after the closing of the first funding round launched by The Document Foundation to collect donations towards the 50,000-euro capital needed to establish a Stiftung in Germany. In five weeks, the community has donated twice as much, i.e. around 100,000 euros. All additional funds will be used for operating expenses such as infrastructure costs and registration of domain names and trademarks, as well as for community development expenses such as travel funding for TDF representatives speaking at conferences, booth fees for trade shows, and initial financing of merchandising items, DVDs and printed material.
Italo Vignoli, a founder and a steering committee member of The Document Foundation, will be keynoting at Flourish 2011 in Chicago on Sunday, April 3, at 10:30AM, about getting independent from OpenOffice and Oracle, starting The Document Foundation, raising the capital and the first community budget, organizing developers and other work, and outlining a roadmap for future releases and features.
The Document Foundation is at http://documentfoundation.org, while LibreOffice is at http://www.libreoffice.org. LibreOffice 3.3.2 is immediately available from the download page.
*** About The Document Foundation
The Document Foundation has the mission of facilitating the evolution of the LibreOffice Community into a new, open, independent, and meritocratic organization within the next few months. An independent foundation is a better reflection of the values of our contributors, users and supporters, and will enable a more effective, efficient and transparent community. TDF will protect past investments by building on the achievements of the first decade, will encourage wide participation within the community, and will co-ordinate activity across the community.
*** Media contacts for TDF
Florian Effenberger (Germany)
Mobile: +49 151 14424108 – E-mail: floeff@documentfoundation.org
Olivier Hallot (Brazil)
Mobile: +55 21 88228812 – E-mail: olivier.hallot@documentfoundation.org
Charles H. Schulz (France)
Mobile: +33 6 98655424 – E-mail: charles.schulz@documentfoundation.org
Italo Vignoli (Italy)
Mobile: +39 348 5653829 – E-mail: italo.vignoli@documentfoundation.org—
Italo Vignoli – The Document Foundation
email italo.vignoli@documentfoundation.org
phone +39.348.5653829 – VoIP +39.02.320621813
skype italovignoli – italo.vignoli@gmail.com
Related Articles
- LibreOffice Stable Release launched (decisionstats.com)
- The first stable release LibreOffice 3.3 (documentfoundation.org)
- The Document Foundation Reaches Goal of €50,000 in Eight Days (ostatic.com)
Interview David Katz ,Dataspora /David Katz Consulting
Here is an interview with David Katz ,founder of David Katz Consulting (http://www.davidkatzconsulting.com/) and an analyst at the noted firm http://dataspora.com/. He is a featured speaker at Predictive Analytics World http://www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/sanfrancisco/2011/speakers.php#katz)
Ajay- Describe your background working with analytics . How can we make analytics and science more attractive career options for young students
David- I had an interest in math from an early age, spurred by reading lots of science fiction with mathematicians and scientists in leading roles. I was fortunate to be at Harry and David (Fruit of the Month Club) when they were in the forefront of applying multivariate statistics to the challenge of targeting catalogs and other snail-mail offerings. Later I had the opportunity to expand these techniques to the retail sphere with Williams-Sonoma, who grew their retail business with the support of their catalog mailings. Since they had several catalog titles and product lines, cross-selling presented additional analytic challenges, and with the growth of the internet there was still another channel to consider, with its own dynamics.
After helping to found Abacus Direct Marketing, I became an independent consultant, which provided a lot of variety in applying statistics and data mining in a variety of settings from health care to telecom to credit marketing and education.
Students should be exposed to the many roles that analytics plays in modern life, and to the excitement of finding meaningful and useful patterns in the vast profusion of data that is now available.
Ajay- Describe your most challenging project in 3 decades of experience in this field.
David- Hard to choose just one, but the educational field has been particularly interesting. Partnering with Olympic Behavior Labs, we’ve developed systems to help identify students who are most at-risk for dropping out of school to help target interventions that could prevent dropout and promote success.
Ajay- What do you think are the top 5 trends in analytics for 2011.
David- Big Data, Privacy concerns, quick response to consumer needs, integration of testing and analysis into business processes, social networking data.
Ajay- Do you think techniques like RFM and LTV are adequately utilized by organization. How can they be propagated further.
David- Organizations vary amazingly in how sophisticated or unsophisticated the are in analytics. A key factor in success as a consultant is to understand where each client is on this continuum and how well that serves their needs.
Ajay- What are the various software you have worked for in this field- and name your favorite per category.
David- I started out using COBOL (that dates me!) then concentrated on SAS for many years. More recently R is my favorite because of its coverage, currency and programming model, and it’s debugging capabilities.
Ajay- Independent consulting can be a strenuous job. What do you do to unwind?
David- Cycling, yoga, meditation, hiking and guitar.
Biography-
David Katz, Senior Analyst, Dataspora, and President, David Katz Consulting.
David Katz has been in the forefront of applying statistical models and database technology to marketing problems since 1980. He holds a Master’s Degree in Mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley. He is one of the founders of Abacus Direct Marketing and was previously the Director of Database Development for Williams-Sonoma.
He is the founder and President of David Katz Consulting, specializing in sophisticated statistical services for a variety of applications, with a special focus on the Direct Marketing Industry. David Katz has an extensive background that includes experience in all aspects of direct marketing from data mining, to strategy, to test design and implementation. In addition, he consults on a variety of data mining and statistical applications from public health to collections analysis. He has partnered with consulting firms such as Ernst and Young, Prediction Impact, and most recently on this project with Dataspora.
For more on David’s Session in Predictive Analytics World, San Fransisco on (http://www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/sanfrancisco/2011/agenda.php#day2-16a)
Room: Salon 5 & 6
4:45pm – 5:05pm
Track 2: Social Data and Telecom 
Case Study: Major North American Telecom
Social Networking Data for Churn Analysis
A North American Telecom found that it had a window into social contacts – who has been calling whom on its network. This data proved to be predictive of churn. Using SQL, and GAM in R, we explored how to use this data to improve the identification of likely churners. We will present many dimensions of the lessons learned on this engagement.
Speaker: David Katz, Senior Analyst, Dataspora, and President, David Katz Consulting
Exhibit Hours
Monday, March 14th:10:00am to 7:30pm
Tuesday, March 15th:9:45am to 4:30pm
Related Articles
- Skills of a good data miner (zyxo.wordpress.com)
- Revolution Analytics CTO on Data Science (revolutionanalytics.com)
- O’Reilly Strata – Tutorial data analytics (isabel-drost.de)
- Revolution in the News (revolutionanalytics.com)
