Disqus - Latest Comments for Alexander Falk

Re: XBRL and the New Four

Alexander Falk — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 08:17:20 -0000

Excellent point! And for those who wish to build such an organization focused on the technology, we have just the right XBRL developer tools that we released this month: http://blog.altova.com/2009/02/xbrl-support-add...

Re: Who Owns Your Financial Data?

Alexander Falk — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 23:52:43 -0000

Great topic. But in addition to trust and ownership of financial data there is another issue to consider: one would normally expect a financial software to get the basics of math. Not so with Mint! They just promised me that I can save $35,977 by switching to CapitalOne:
http://www.xmlaficionado.com/2007/09/mint-pomis...
Not a joke - I've posted actual screenshots!

Re: How To Critique The Techcrunch40 (Day Two)

Alexander Falk — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 23:56:07 -0000

Here is a related question for Mint: How To Get Your Math Right.
Step 1: don't promised your customers that they can save $35,977 by switching to CapitalOne.
See my blog for full details and screenshots:
http://www.xmlaficionado.com/2007/09/mint-pomis...

Re: Mint: The easiest way to manage your personal finances

Alexander Falk — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 23:59:07 -0000

Nice report and screenshots, but I must say that I've rarely seen a company being so much over-hyped without any foundation. How could Mint win the TC40, without being scalable or getting their math right? They just promised me that I can save $35,977 by switching to CapitalOne:
http://www.xmlaficionado.com/2007/09/mint-pomis...
Not a joke - I've posted actual screenshots!

Re: See The Game

Alexander Falk — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 12:06:24 -0000

Very interesting observation - totally rings a bell for me. I've always likened life in general to being akin to a game. With every new level you achieve in life, the monsters out there become a bit more powerful, but so do the treasure/rewards, too. Then again, maybe I'm taking this "game" thing a bit too literally... :)

Re: Thanks so much for all the kind words…

Alexander Falk — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 22:23:25 -0000

Congrats!

Re: This guy just won a “mint”

Alexander Falk — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 08:04:53 -0000

My concern with mint.com isn't that I need to share my login info with the service (I already need to do that today with Microsoft Money).
My concern is that it apparently doesn't scale:
http://www.xmlaficionado.com/2007/09/mint-not-r...

Re: TechCrunch 40 winner: Mint

Alexander Falk — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 15:32:48 -0000

Re DW: turns out that Mint is actually using Yodlee (just like Microsoft Money), they just add a spiffier Web 2.0 UI and a way to target tons of ads at people - all under the pretext of helping them save money.

Re the video itself: Aaron actually says that unlike Quicken, where adding a few accounts takes one hour, in Mint you can to it in 5 minutes. That's quite bold and completely untrue. Going to Mint today, this is the message I get for adding an account (that I've been trying to add for 3 days now):

Mint is currently experiencing delays adding accounts.

Your accounts will continue to process in the background. It may take up to an hour for your transactions and balances to come through.

Usually linking an account takes 30-90 seconds, but since winning TechCrunch40, and being featured in PCWorld, Digg, and San Francisco Chronicle our volume has gone up over 100x.

Quicken: 1 hour -- Mint: more than 3 days.

See also this post on my blog about their scalability issue:

http://www.xmlaficionado.com/2007/09/mint-not-r...

Re: Best sandwich in America

Alexander Falk — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 23:31:07 -0000

Yumm!

Re: TechCrunch 40 winner: Mint

Alexander Falk — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 23:38:00 -0000

Dear Aaron Patzer:
I truly appreciate your response to my comment. And I immediately went back to mint.com tonight to give it another try. I was indeed able to add 1 (one) account - the other three show the same errors.
Oh, and btw, you now owe me $35,977 which your site just promised I could save by switching to CapitalOne:
http://www.xmlaficionado.com/2007/09/mint-pomis...
Not a joke - I've posted actual screenshots and used my own actual credit card account.

Re: The 10 rules of Twitter (and how I break every one)

Alexander Falk — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 20:58:54 -0000

I enjoy your Twitter ramblings (and I hope you enjoy mine) - it's a great tool and different people use it for different purposes.

As far as rules are concerned: I don't remember having to click-accept any 7 page legal document when signed up for Twitter - so as far as I'm concerned there are no rules... :)

Re: An ode to great photographers

Alexander Falk — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 21:03:43 -0000

Very nice photos!

Re: Steve Ballmer still doesn’t understand social networking

Alexander Falk — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 15:27:08 -0000

You hit the nail on the head with that one! And it's not just Web 2.0: before it there was the Internet itself (Bill Gates had to rewrite his book on that one), the browser, and many other products that Microsoft ultimately acquired after a while, because they didn't jump on the bandwagon early enough.

We live in interesting times, indeed. If you look at just the last 2-3 weeks and what news came out of Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo - there is an interesting synchronicity going on here: Office, Social Networking, Search, Office, Social Networking, Search, ... - is it just me, or is there a pattern here?

And it all revolves around platforms for advertising dollars :)

http://www.xmlaficionado.com/2007/10/google-mic...

Re: A Challenge to the Zune Advocates

Alexander Falk — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 16:31:44 -0000

So there are actually people who like the zune?

Can we talk about the new iPod nano instead? My son bought one the other day (to replace his previous old-gen nano) - and loves it 100%. He even spent his own savings to buy one.

Of course he much rather wanted an iPhone, but after the last 1.1.1 update I didn't approve that expense... :)

Plus I'm probably going to buy the next-gen iPhone in the spring of 2008 (or whenever it comes out) and he can have the hand-me-down then.

Re: Buying TechCrunch on the Kindle

Alexander Falk — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 01:04:47 -0000

Hi Robert:
I received my Kindle today, too, and happened to read you blog post on my Kindle this evening, as I was busy testing features and experimenting with the device. Congrats, btw, on getting Scobleizer syndicated through the Kindle store - I am one of your paying subscribers now ... at least for the free 14-day trial ... :)
Here is my personal review of the Kindle afer playing with it for about 3-4 hours (including a visit to the hair dresser):
http://www.xmlaficionado.com/2007/11/amazon-kin...

Re: Going to SmugMug

Alexander Falk — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 13:47:08 -0000

I've been using SmugMug for over a year now and am very pleased with it. For an example, see my photo collection at http://afalk42.smugmug.com/

Re: Social Media and Video As Conversation Agent – Speaking at DMAW Confab

Alexander Falk — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 10:08:01 -0000

For my point of view: yes, you are doing it right. You are keeping it authentic - and that's crucial with social media. In a sense, the social network is the true "reality" of media.
Interesting thought: the so-called "reality TV" is mostly totally scripted, whereas the reality of social networks only works if it is unscripted, unedited, and totally authentic...