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I am attending Mashup Camp 2 today and tomorrow at the Computer History Museum in Mt. View. This is a really amazing event with almost 300 developers, entrepreneurs, VCs, etc. What really strikes me is how this is in effect a free, open source-style conference similar in spirit to open source software. There are no pre-planned sessions. The participants come up with the sessions the day of the event. The facilities, wi-fi, and the food are completely provided by the sponsors and donations. The event free to attend which amazing compared to high-tech conferences like SuperNova and Web 2.0 which cost many thousands of dollars to get into. These "camps" like FooCamp and BarCamp have been going on for a while, but this is the first one I have attended. I'm impressed, and in fact, there should be more events like these for things other than Web 2.0 technology. If these camps take off, it is bad news for commercial conferences and I don't think I am going to be paying to go to too many more of them.

I am looking to hire a Rails developer for a new project. Please contact me if you are available, or know someone who is. Thanks.

I was talking with my friend Ellen today who just launched a new website this March called “Bits du Jour.� This is a one day discount site where you can get incredible deals on software. It is similar to the popular woot.com, except that Bits du Jour is focused on software. Bits du Jour got mentioned last week in the Wall Street Journal. Ellen has done a great job on bringing up this site. I love the look of it. If you want some great deals, or have downloadable products to sell, check it out!

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4970 El Camino Real
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Today, I learned about some acquaintances who had visited this site including my myspace profile and came to the conclusion that I was obsessed with money and sex. Well, I am not obsessed with both of those. The fact is my daughter maintains the design on my myspace page. I have a myspace account to communicate with my kids who are on it, and prefer it to email. OK, I am also interested in any site which sold for $600M….

Anyway, it’s interesting what impressions people form from personal webpages and social networking sites that are so easy to create with often very little effort or thought. What can you take seriously, and what can you not? I am in the process of creating a “professional, business� version of my website, but whatever content it contains will not change the fact that my personal photos, blog posts, etc. are all just the one Google search and a click away and with way more prurient interest….

I learned today talking with some people about market places that you can trade derivates on the housing markets at Hedgestreet and the Chicago Merchantile Exchange. These new housing futures and options allow you to hedge financial risk associated with fluctuations in real estate prices. “CME Housing futures and options are cash-settled to a weighted composite index of U.S. real estate prices, as well as to specific markets in the following 10 major U.S. cities: Boston, Miami, New York, San Diego, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Denver, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.� I don't own any real estate in the bay area anymore, but if I did I might look into this.

I had lunch today with a friend of mine who quit her steady, high paying job to be an independent consultant and coach based the methodology and teachings of Marshall Goldsmith. Wow, I thought, I had never heard of Marshall Goldsmith, apparently one of the world’s authorities in "helping successful leaders get even better", and I am big into self improvement and coaching. My friend is a serious person, so I thought this must be powerful stuff.

I am blown away. I just spent two hours looking at some free documents on his site http://www.marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com and watching a few videos. There is a wealth of information there which will add tons of weight to my already massive reading list. This guy has 20 books. I found the following interview “Be Happy Now� published on June 8th, 2006 really great. It is only 10 pages. If anyone else has done his training I’d love to hear about it. And if you need a coach in this area, I got someone I can recommend.

Several people who have come to my new office have admired this product I found while surfing OfficeDepot.com. I think it is great. I love whiteboards, and I needed a couple, but I didn’t want to put holes in the wall of the office that I am subleasing. Voila with 3M Post-it Super Sticky Whiteboard Sheets you can create an instant whiteboard! Just unroll them and post on the wall wherever you want a whiteboard. Available in sizes up to 48" x 30". The only downside is that they are not magnetic and they don’t have trays where you can leaves the pens at the boards.

Here's productivity tip. Get at least two or three good monitors, and check out the software called UltraMon . There was an article a few months ago in Forbes about how Bill Gates arranges his office for greater productivity. This inspired me to rework my set up, and I’ve found it incredibly more productive. I can have my e-mail, web browser, and another application all open full screen at the same time without having to flip back and forth. I am using two Dell 20 inch UltraSharp flatscreen monitors and one 24 inch Dell UltraSharp flatscreen monitor. I had to add a second graphics card to support the third monitor. So overall, it took some work to set this up, but is it worth it, and if you try it I don't think you'll ever want to go back. This set up will work without UltraMon, but I found UltraMon super useful for managing my windows on all the different screens in making the best use of the added screen space.

I'm now located in Los Altos. I subleased some office space here two weeks ago at a friend's law office. I'm really enjoying this location and being out of the house. It's given me the ability to focus better and get stuff done on my consumer Internet start-up. I'm here temporarily as I get things further off the ground and eventually move into my own office space again. Anyway, there are a lot of really good places to have lunch around here so if you are in the area let me know!