Disqus - Latest Comments for toddmck

Re: Welcome to MyWord Editor

toddmck — Sun, 08 Mar 2015 03:14:07 -0000

Thanks for adding me to the email list. Guess I got the order backwards. @toddmck is my twitter handle.

Re: Comments?

toddmck — Tue, 17 Feb 2015 07:18:00 -0000

Hi Dave, I'm really thrilled with what you are building and how you are going about it. It has been very cool watching the pieces come together and grow into something amazing in real time.

On the topic of backups, what about versioning? I'm sure you've already thought through a lot of the pros and cons of using version control for a CMS, but the thought struck me that I may have a lot of what you lost sitting around in feedly. At least if the work notes outline were public. And if it was out there in people's reader cache, it almost seems a little like git. Version control (or something like it) seems like a natural fit, since the delete is just a change you can revert if you have a nice complete history. I would guess there are other, less destructive content changes that it would be nice to be able to revert from time to time.

It is pretty interesting how many people are using github as a CMS/publishing platform nowadays.

Re: Box And Dropbox Are Going To War Over Corporate Data Security - by Richard Procter

toddmck — Wed, 03 Dec 2014 20:27:31 -0000

This is a very interesting, but seemingly one-sided take on the competitive dynamic involved here.

Box has been targeted at corporate deployments, with the necessary enterprise security "thingamigigys" from the beginning. Dropbox is awesome, but has never had an enterprise focus. Dropbox is playing catchup in the enterprise space, and that doesn't seem to be the tone of what you have written.

It seems odd to position this as two behemoths pursuing the same goal. For anyone who has been paying attention, it's dropbox trying to finagle their way into the space that box has clearly owned for a while now.

Lest you think I am an apologist of some sort for box, I can assure you that I don't have a dog in this hunt. I'm a big fan of dropbox, and applaud their efforts here.

Re: Tech Tuesday: Data Structures (Overview)

toddmck — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 13:28:25 -0000

Albert, if it was me, I would keep it in the order you laid it out here. My thinking is that if you start with "here's how you make things", then move to "here's how you deal with more than one thing", that naturally flows into further discussion of concepts like polymorphism or generics. This assumes, of course, that you want to go there.

If you start with making things, then move to grouping things, there's less backtracking if you want to discuss more advanced ideas around collections. Plus, even without that as a motivator it just seems to make more intuitive sense (to me) to build from the ground up.

Re: Copyright and The Internet

toddmck — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 10:51:16 -0000

Agreed. I'm more worried about the slippery slope. There is a point to the issue of Google as the gatekeeper here. If they are in a dominant position, and then their partnership activities with big content end up becoming the basis for law, it becomes a lot harder for duckduckgo to compete with them by doing things that don't just differentiate, but are now illegal. There is a point in every disruptor's evolution where they become "the man" and I'm thinking we are getting very near to that with google.

Re: Copyright and The Internet

toddmck — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 10:39:23 -0000

Right. That's the problem. If we don't want to promote artificial scarcity, then why should google be shaping the market to promote it?

Re: Copyright and The Internet

toddmck — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 10:27:37 -0000

You are right about that. It doesn't seem like this is really GOOG's problem to solve. Can't we just let the Google accurately represent the state of the world, and let the people with business model problems solve them?

Re: Copyright and The Internet

toddmck — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 10:12:20 -0000

To me, it seems like Joel is raising a valid point. It is not about the "kind of people" involved in the activity, but the role being played and the reason for that. Certainly, bad people do bad things, let's stipulate that, and not complicate it with the fact that good people also do bad things and bad people do good things.

The point is that with spam and malware, you have a publisher attempting to disguise something that people do not want as something that people do want. The purpose of the filtering and blackballing is to provide the public with a more accurate picture of what is being offered and to protect the public from harm.

This is not what penalizing sites that seem to (possibly) support infringing copyright does (assuming you can get that right, which is a hard problem). The point of this is NOT to protect the public. It is to prevent the public from finding what she is looking for in an attempt to protect the publisher's competitors from harm.

That does seem to be a bit different, in terms of "what problem are we trying to solve". And it has nothing to do with whether someone wanting to watch the olympics online would also send me an offer for cheap viagra, which is what it seems like you were saying.

Re: A VC: MBA Mondays: Where To Go Next?

toddmck — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:40:50 -0000

I recall most of the undergrad B-Law stuff from "many moons ago" being focused on real estate and contracts. I would think that a practical look at business law today, particularly as it relates to tech startups, would cover some ground that isn't in those old tomes.

Something of a survival guide for swimming with sharks, or however it makes the most sense to characterize the legal environment of business nowadays, would be quite nice in terms of rounding out your curriculum.

Re: Are events pushing Microsoft into becoming a hardware company?

toddmck — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 08:55:45 -0000

Steven, I think that the question that you raise and the implications for MS are important. The problem that I have here is that I can't get past the view of history that I read in this post, so I have a really hard time taking any of the rest of it seriously. Microsoft was not late to the smartphone game. The carriers are not strange new entities of which MS knows nothing. Redmond has been attacking this market with everything they have for probably a decade. Have you ever had a "pocket pc" or a "pocket pc phone"? I have. Long ago. I'll send you a couple if you want to have a look at them.

I would speculate that rather than MS not knowing or understanding mobile phone carriers, the problem is that they were unwilling and/or not imaginative enough to do an end run around them. MS knows and understands the phone companies. That was probably their downfall in this segment, because a competitor took the same space they were diligently laboring in for a decade or more and completely changed the rules. It's not like MSFT couldn't have disrupted the mobile carriers long before AAPL did, it's just that they chose not to (or couldn't, depending on where you sit in the argument). It really stinks to be there first and be playing Ketchup when things go big. People tend to not want to highlight this, but it happens a lot.

Same exact thing with the iTablet/Pad/iWhatever - MS created these things, made a major marketing push, sold some, kinda fizzled. Then after the hope for these devices had somewhat waned in the public's mind - KAPOW - AAPL does the same thing. And does it in a way that my Grandma can use. And sells a zillion of them.

It ain't the hardware. It's the experience. Even if MS owns the hardware, there is some serious ground to cover. The good thing is that it's mostly a software and usability issue, and tangentially a marketing issue. I'm pretty confident that MS has the resources and the intelligence to get this part right. The question is whether they will.

Re: Teaching

toddmck — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 09:22:00 -0000

yep, very well could be that I'm reading too much into this post. I guess my main point was two-fold:

1) Lotsa people you don't know, or even interact with, actually feel like thy have some kind of relationship with you. Lonely at the top, but worth remembering.

2) There has to be some way to make money off of that unstated but implicit relationship. Not that anyone here necessarily cares about that, but still, it might be a nice service to mankind if you could figure out how to make it more "real".

Also, FWIW, anytime someone says something like "MBA Mondays can be a burden at times. I sit down in front of the computer each monday morning at 5am and churn out another post. It is work and it is not that much fun for me." you have to wonder if they're considering whether it's worth the effort or not. I was attempting to say very loudly "YES, IT IS".

Re: Teaching

toddmck — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 08:44:54 -0000

Fred, sorry for not chiming in more in the past, but if you are weighing the value of this particular lecturn vs. having a physical room full of undergrads, please stay here.

In many ways, you are a mentor and teacher for people who you don't even know. I, for one, appreciate it. I'm well past being able to spend my days sitting in a lecture hall and learning. I'm much more in the stage of my life where I am paying for my children to have those experiences.

It would really sadden me if one of the best sources for inspiration and information for "post-graduates" were to get sucked into the abyss of higher education.

I guess the way I would position it is that your dream is probably a very viceral manifestation of what you do on this blog, every day. It's a bit intangible, but so very real. From an investment perspective, and "how should the world work" angle, I think you're on to something. You provide me with value and useful insight on a near-daily basis, yet you have almost no idea who I am. You have tremendous goodwill with me, approaching a traditional brand, but something better.

Is there some way to harness that latent value? Dunno. Should be. I would guess, that even after this back and forth, that we really understand very little about each other. Someone should fix that.

Re: Do Social Games Need More Social Chaos?

toddmck — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 00:35:12 -0000

I don't know if it would make the games any more fun, but it would be interesting to see some experimentation with this. It seems like you could throw in some double realism - have some catastrophe hit the farm, then have someone from the government show up with a big check to soften the blow. That would potentially help with the acceptance issues, and if the player has paid money to obtain and/or build things, it would keep them from feeling cheated. Plus, it just reinforces the idea of government handouts to cure any and all problems, so you might win a Nobel prize or something for creating a game that promotes it.

It might not be a bad idea to throw in some random "you won the lottery" elements. Have a company plant a cell tower on the farm and send the player a monthly check. For even more fun, the cell tower could eventually cause a bunch of the farm animals to come down with mysterious diseases.

Re: Your First Comment On This Blog

toddmck — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 10:13:08 -0000

Pretty sure I've commented before, but not enough to matter. So "hi" Chris, and thanks. You're an inspiration, and an essential part of my reading.

Re: Could You Help Me With a Project

toddmck — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:56:53 -0000

I have just watched the poetry reading. Very well done, and entertaining. I particularly liked the ending :)

Re: Should a writer put content behind the RSS wall? | Broadcasting Brain

toddmck — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 09:39:00 -0000

Yes, I just did my part to foil this little scheme by subscribing as well. At this rate he's bound to fail.

It seems like a couple of things are happening here. The blog is about creativity, and exploring different ways of making something remarkable. Anybody can create a blog that has a html page, but how many people have one that's just RSS? Kind of along the lines of "some people won't like it if you're doing it right", but some people will. Also, the goal seems to be engagement, not numbers. By excluding the unwashed masses he's specifically creating an exclusive club limited to those who understand how to use a feed reader.

I think where this breaks down is there isn't any way I can figure out to comment on a post besides linking to it. That really raises the bar for participation, because now you're limited to just bloggers that use feed readers. If I was more interested in digging into this, I guess I'd go see if he's got many backlinks. There could be a healthy discussion going on other blogs already.

It looks like the blog was a normal one for quite a while, since he's been at it since January and just recently closed down the web interface. It should be quite discoverable via google, since the archive page is a massive bunch of excerpts from stuff that was previously published. I'm guessing that the permalink structure was left intact.

I doubt the goal is to prevent scraping, since it's easier to republish from a full text rss feed than to scrape the page.

Bottom line for me, it seems to be a unique idea. It probably won't lead to much growth, but it could very well lead to a more exclusive feeling source. The lack of interactivity seems like a very bad side effect, since there's no way to make it feel like a community. Of course, if the blogger uses friendfeed, or something like it, maybe the community can just live there...

Re: louisgray.com: Hey Bloggers, We're Discussing Your Posts At Social Median!

toddmck — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 22:54:56 -0000

They gave me George Clooney. Regretting the change ever since.

Re: Friends Outweighing Hatred On The Web

toddmck — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 09:14:52 -0000

Very well put. It has been pretty clear to me for a while now that you are a class act. This post is further proof.

Re: TweetDeck: New Twitter AIR App With Summize Integration, Groups

toddmck — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 16:56:43 -0000

I really like getting something that's delightful in some way when it first turns on. For me, "Twitter Status: Pretty much ok" seems like a nice human touch and made me smile.

Re: Identi.ca Apps & Why It Could Blow Twitter Away

toddmck — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 15:42:00 -0000

On the verb, how about playing off the .ca domain AND the bird theme. Tweet -> Caw (you know, like the sound a crow makes)

Re: Sponsorships and Blogger Hypocrisy

toddmck — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 10:58:37 -0000

Steven, As I was reading your poll questions, I found that there wasn't one that exactly summarized my feelings. Something like "I think it's fine, but every time you write about the sponsor or their industry segment I have a new filter to think through" or something like that. In Scoble's case it works for me and I don't think too much about it. That's because he's not writing about Seagate every other post, or even the storage industry. For example, if FriendFeed sponsored Scoble's blog (or Twitter last year), I'd consider most of his writing questionable. Since he's not sponsored by FF, and Seagate has no obvious connection to them, I trust that it's all just pure Scoble enthusiasm. Bottom line for me, it complicates things, but it's not unworkable.

Re: louisgray.com: The Gray Family Doubles Overnight. Welcome Matthew and Sarah!

toddmck — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 08:53:46 -0000

That's terrific news - congratulations Louis!

Re: I really want my readers opinion on this

toddmck — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 23:41:15 -0000

I strongly agree with Daniel as well. I wonder if that would make for an interesting way to design a poll - along the lines of "agree", "strongly agree", etc. It could be that the (current) minority who prefer control feel somewhat passionate about it.

Re: The Adolescence of the Blogosphere

toddmck — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 09:04:03 -0000

Steven, if that's one of the two feature posts you were wondering about "is it worth it?" then I can't wait to read the other one. This is a really good look at what's going on, but more importantly it points us forward. I also agree with the thesis that there's a significant "niche" to fill by people who think before they write something. This post really resonated with me and I'm glad you took the time to write it. Totally worth it :)

Re: Would you quit pickpocketing my wallet

toddmck — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 22:48:27 -0000

It's probably extra relevant in this market segment. Spyware and antivirus software requires great trust in the vendor. There are a lot of shady operators that will sell out that trust in schemes to turn a quick buck. So, it's a market mostly driven by fear, and one in which extreme credibility needs to be established. And, it's one of the few things that can reasonably require a subscription. A natural subscription model can be a gold mine. Take a close look at Intuit - the tax operations dwarf everything else. Not because it's more interesting or useful than quicken, but because it drives more revenue. Consistently, year after year.

All this just begs for rational pricing, and doing what's right for the customer. Especially from a player that doesn't have the instant credibility of CA or Symantec or Microsoft.