BarCampToronto4 and Mesh

Long time no blog… I’ve been just swamped with standoutjobs.com matters… That’s the startup life I guess!

I’m currently in Toronto, where I attended BarCampToronto4 last Saturday and met some amazing people. In no particular order, they are:

• Michael McDerment from Freshbooks
• David Crow
• Ryan Coleman from ClayTablet
• Will Pate
• Mark Kuznicki from Remarkk consulting
• Ali Asaria from CanadaHomeHealth
• Jaret Manuel from Salesforce.com
• Kristan Uccello from Domainer.com
• Matt Rintoul from Smack

Starting tomorrow I’ll be at the Mesh Conference for a couple of days. If you’re there, be sure to say hi!

Montreal Startup Wiki

The prolific Sylvain Carle has set up a wiki about starting up in Montreal.

This is going to turn into a great resource; I suggest everybody interested in high tech entrepreneurship in Montreal contribute to it!

“Web 2.0” Mailing List Tool

I would like to ask my readers which Mailing List tool they would recommend. It might be a silly thing but I am partial to something done in the “Web 2.0” style. I would use cakemail since it’s Montreal based but they’re not ready yet. ;-)

“Found”

There comes a time in the life of a Startup Founder where he has to do things to gain notoriety for his startup.

Things that may be unconventional. Things that might raise eyebrows. Things that he might want to hide.

But since I’m involved in Internet Video, I can’t hide anything. So I might as well as let it all out.

So I present… “Found”, the latest episode of Galacticast. (Or it would have been the latest episode had I been able to publish this post on time, haha.) This time I actually have 3 roles, and speaking ones at that. Whatever possessed Rudy and Casey to cast me in 3 roles, I have no idea. ;-) So without further ado, enjoy!

Here’s the YouTube version, but the quality is not so great so I’d recommend you watch the higher quality version on the Galacticast website.

RoCoCoCamp is in Town

RoCoCoCamp, the Montreal version of the RecentChangesCamp, is in town this weekend at the SAT.

According to the website:

To all wikiers, bloggers, users, developers, artists, academics, activists, inventors, video editors, and other creators which are interested in Collaboration, Creativity and Self-Management….the Rococo Barcamp is for you!

It looks like a great event! Unfortunately I will be out of town this weekend, but any readers of my blog should definitely go.

Have fun guys!

Details:

RoCoCoCamp 2007
Friday, 18 May 2007 at 9:30 until Sunday, 20 May 2007 at 18:00
Societé des arts technologiques
1195 boul. St-Laurent
Free admission

Seeking Stellar Software Entrepreneurs

I was planning to write a post called “What Makes a Good Software Entrepreneur?” when I came across this article about the Top Signals of Success for Software Entrepreneurs. Great! Now I don’t have to write the post. ;-)

So the Top Signals of Success for Software Entrepreneurs are:

• You like to experiment
• You like to read and learn
• You like to tinker and build
• You are opportunistic
• You are an artist
• You Live On Email
• You are considerate, respectful and nice
• You have a proclivity for action
• You attract others like yourself
• You are a realist
• You are exceptionally intelligent
• You are fundamentally likable
• You exhibit “balanced frugality”
• You work hard
• You just love the game

(Be sure to read the article for explanations.)

While I don’t agree with everything on the list (pretty much only because I hate email ;-) ), on the whole I thought the article got it right. It’s hard, however, to self-evaluate many of these characteristics.

Of course I can’t really speak with any real authority on the subject yet, being only an entrepreneur-in-training… So I’ll be sure to revisit this subject again when I hit one out of the ballpark. ;-)

Standout Jobs is Hiring a Ruby Guru

Standout Jobs is officially hiring! We are looking for a Ruby Guru as the first member of our core team, and Ben and I made a special video to commemorate the occasion. Check it out and tell me what you think.

WD My Book World Edition II?

I’m thinking about buying a Western Digital My Book World Edition II. This is basically a file server appliance with integrated RAID, just plug into your network and off you go. This is very attractive because it means I don’t have to set up a machine just to do file serving, Samba, RAID, etc.

But there are some issues holding me back.

According to the instructions (warning: pdf) you have to install special “WD Anywhere Access” software (a custom version of MioNet) in order to access data from outside your network. I don’t like this for two reasons: 1) the software is not Mac or Linux compatible, and 2) It’s not standardized; I probably cannot use my LDAP directory and will have to set up special device-specific users just for it.

I’d be happy just to have sftp access to it, actually, then I can just use Fuse or MacFuse. Does anyone know if I can simply sftp to this device, and how the user setup and such would work? Best if it can somehow talk to my LDAP directory, although this might be asking a lot.

Does anyone know of similar file server appliances, with integrated RAID, that relies on standards rather than proprietary software?

Or any recommendations on an easy way to set up what is basically a shared file server that can be accessed outside your network, without setting up a linux machine/Samba/RAID/etc?

Update: Apparently there is a Knowledge Base article on how to access the disk without using WD Anywhere Access. I’ll have to study it further.

In addition, it appears the device runs on Linux, so it’s only a matter of time before some hackers extend its functionality. Cool.