Reformulez: Exista lege in Romania? Nu stiu inca.

Dar cum poate exista, cum poti fi sigur ca exista, cand vedem si simtim ca tot ceea ce se intampla in tara nu e corect? Nu e corect pentru copii, nu e corect pentru tineri, nu e corect pentru adulti, nu e corect pentru batrani. Practic, nu e corect pentru toata lumea. Si ma intreb ..cum s-a ajuns aici?

O Romanie condusa de analfabeti, sau analfabeti care “fac legea”, ori trec peste ea; asta este Romania pe care o vad prin ochii mei azi, si sper sa gresesc. De ce s-a ajuns aici, daca Justitia este oarba si dreapta?

Cum se pot indrepta aceste lucruri? Imi doresc enorm de mult sa existe reforme reale in Justitie. Sunt convins ca asta este celula de baza, cea de la care poate porni cu adevarat schimbarea Romaniei. Legea pe care o doresc este cea care tine partea celor corecti, celor buni, iar pe ceilalti ii pedepseste aspru!

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create.

Einstein

I’ll try to keep this list updated, for me. I’ll add dates when I’ll have some time to look for them, but for now years will do! :)

1. Greece: Atens, Parelia Katerini, Salonic, somewhere – 2005
2. USA: NY, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, California, somewhere – 2006
3. Germany: Saarbrücken – 2006
4. France: Paris – 6 January 2007
5. Italy: Rome, Venice, Padova – 2007
6. Spain: Madrid, somewhere – 2007
7. Bulgaria: somewhere – 2008
8. Turkey: somewhere – 2008
9. Netherlands: Amsterdam, Hague, Rotterdam – 2009
10. Belgium: Antwerp, somewhere – 2010
11. United Kingdom: London – 2010

My memory doesn’t help me at this hour, so I’ll replace the word somewhere with actual cities.. soon.

Apple

Apple is using Xcode, and they have the best tools and the best devices out there. The programming language is Objective C. There are some alternative tools out there, such as Titanium, but I wouldn’t spend time into looking more in depth, as Apple can always exclude these guys, as they did with Flash.

You can only use a MAC for developing for the iPhone and the iPad.

Microsoft

They use .Net and Silverlight. You can write the code in C#. You can only use a PC.

Google

For Android, Google is using Eclipse and a plugin. The language is Java. They are the most open, if I may say so. The development can be done on both platforms – MAC and PC.

All the platforms have an SDK which you need to download. It’s free. In order to publish the apps you’ll need to join a Developer Program (not free). If you do some research, you will get plenty of information on each platform, so I’ll leave it here.

We’re slowly planning on getting into this wagon here at Vuzum, but out of the many OSes, we’ll only focus on the top two (based on this poll, and instinct). It’s something I personally been interested in since the iPhone’s SDK was announced, and hopefully I’ll have enough time (at night) to learn.

I’ll keep you posted as time goes by. I’m happy enough I waited though, as there’s so much resources on the web today, compared to only a year ago!

And what’s better than that? When they share it with you! :) For this reason, I decided to share the last such email we received, to let you know how our customers feel about what we do, and most importantly, the fact that we’re really happy to be doing this for them!

Oh and just so you know, we now use 6 of your flash apps in different places. It would seem I have no need to go anywhere else for my flash needs. I really am impressed with you guys and what you’ve achieved over the past 2 years and I hope that it is reaping financial rewards; not just because you make great apps but also how you support them on your website, you guys really are a great example of work ethic, quality work and customer service.

Julian Bowman

On the business side, we’re working at releasing the two most important websites on the to-do list: vuzum and blogvio. Vuzum is still in the concept phase, while Blogvio is in development. More on that soon!

Avem posibilitatea de a promova un brand de tara pe care il cunoaste toata lumea, si a ne juca cu aceste valori care au fost create in timp, pe care le-am primit mostenire: Dracula, vampirii. Nu avem nevoie de nimic mai mult, pentru ca unele tari sunt cunoscute pentru lucruri infime (ciocolata sau ceasurile, bancile sau turnurile). Cele mai bune filme cu vampiri trebuiau sa porneasca de aici! Trebuia sa avem castele ale groazei pline de turisti, parcuri de distractii si mancaruri speciale, traditii pe care am fi putut sa le reinventam sau sa le pastram.

Sunt unii care se bat cu oceanele, care au construit baraje uriase pentru a nu fi inundati. Sunt altii care au legat tara de continent prin canale pe sub ocean. Sunt unii care si-au inconjurat tara de ziduri, pentru a nu fi atacati de dusmani. Si noi ne plangem?!

Suntem peste 20 de milioane de suflete. De la noi toti doresc multe! Sa o luam de la zero.

I had no time to unpack and look over the presents until today. I’m the kind of guy who goes through all the packages, who studies the pack design, what’s written on them, what information the book that came in the package contains, and so on.

Trees

I notice small things such as “Designed on Earth. Mostly in California. Made in China.” on my Boa bag, but also the 136 pages that came with my Remington grooming kit! And this takes us to the subject of this post. I said 136 pages, and you know why? So they can fit in that book tens of languages which I don’t care about. How many pages are written in my language? Only 6. So they wasted almost 23 times more wood, they cut 23 trees instead of one.

Muliply that with.. let’s say one million products. They cut 23 million trees, instead of 1 million. See what I’m doing? See where I’m getting? It’s plain stupid what such guys do!

I wonder why didn’t they add only a book written in my language, or better yet, half of paper with a web address, where I can read about all this information, plus watch images, videos and maybe happy clients! Let’s be smart, let’s save the planet product by product!

Water

We drink a lot of water at work, in plastic bottles. Than we throw away the bottles, and buy new ones. Why doesn’t anybody do a special bottle that allows us to refill or swap it in the store, and save the need to create new bottles and waste more of the planet’s resources?!

Evolution

We need to adopt digital books and documents now. Imagine how many trees we’d save!

We need to optimize public transportation by using bicycles.

We need revolutionary packages, to reuse or swap at the store, not throw away or recycle.

We need to do better.

In this article I’ll be as transparent as possible, so that you guys can make an idea of what running such a business means.

In our approach to using Flash, we decided to take the best from both worlds, and do client work as if it would be stock work, and vice-versa. This means our customers get the same kind of support we provide to our Flabell users (continuous, passionate, novice friendly and immediate), and the Stock Flash we resell on Flabell is built at the same high quality our Vuzum customers expect to get from us. (exceptionally written code, amazing designs and well though of interfaces)

There are 5 important things that need to be considered when creating Flash Stock: file consistency, quality, support, price and uniqueness.

1. Consistency

Let me put it simple: we don’t create cars and boats, but different kind of cars. And not only that we create different kind of cars, but we make sure all have the same main structure, which we build upon (4 wheels, one driving wheel, and so forth).

What if you would have to learn driving every time you would get up into a different car? Imagine how inconvenient that would be.

I made this parallel so you can understand why Stock Flash products needs to keep consistency. Two different files are always built on the same structure on Flabell. We take our time to do this in order for you to find your way around the files and code faster, and faster, and faster (the more files you look at, the better you get at it).

2. Quality

High quality Flash stock is hard to find, and when found, it’s only as good as it looks on the exterior. This is bad, as it cannot easily be customized without Flash skills. And let’s be honest, most people that buy Flash stock are not Flash Developers, which is exactly why they buy Flash Stock.

The promise we make is that our Flabell customers get the same high quality our Vuzum clients get – we put very much work into designing, implementing and testing our Flash Components, and we continuously update them with new features or bug fixes. All our components are highly customizable through XML, and all the components can easily be resized without Flash skills.

3. Support

When creating a Flash project for a single customer, there is usually one or two scenarios in which the client is going to be using the file, and most of the times, everything works great. When doing it for 20.000 users, not only will they require new features, but they will also find different ways of discovering bugs, ways in which one wouldn’t ever think of, unless the file is put under a similar stress-testing environment.

This still isn’t the most difficult part. Having a team of people that continuously stay up to date with the products road-map, and are able to provide support for most of the platforms and environments where the components are installed, for thousands of users that get in touch on the forums, by email or by phone, is pretty difficult. We filtered the thousands of users by charging $4.99 for a Support Ticket which is available for one year, unless the client has already made a purchase on Flabell, for which he already receives a free Support Ticket.

This is helping us help our most important users, the ones that help the business grow.

Compare this to answering only one client’s emails or phone calls. It’s a huge difference, right? :-)

4. Price

The reason people purchase Stock Flash is to save money. In today’s competitive world they also look for getting the most for their money.

Let’s say that instead of paying 1000$ for an interactive Flash map (and waiting 2 weeks to have it done), they can get it for under 20$ as Flash Stock. They will save a whooping 980$, they will get to choose it, they will get to test it before buying it, they will get exceptional customer support, they will get it immediately, and if they purchase from the right place, they will get the most value for their money.

After the first experience, the buyer usually knows if he should return to a store or not, because he gets to interact with the support team, he gets to check out the source files and how easy it has been to setup the file on the server, and so on.

So what’s the deal? Well, if you have one customer that pays you 1000$ for a project, that’s the money you get and that’s it. On the other hand, if you resell a Flash Component 100 times, for 20$, you get twice the same amount. The only disadvantage you need to consider is the time required to get to those 100 purchases, and the fact that you might not get there if your Flash Component is not good enough.

The client disadvantage is that he will not purchase a unique file, but if it’s customizable enough, he can change it so much that nobody will find a similarity with the original one.

5. Uniqueness

When getting something done as custom work, you can make sure of one thing: it will have all the features you need, and it will be only yours to use. These are the most important aspects of why there are customers still looking for custom work, and it’s going to be a need for custom work as Flash Stock won’t ever be able to cover the different requests customers have.

There is a lot of work on the web, as interactivity is the blood of the internet, and that’s what Flash does the best. No matter what kind of content we create, we make sure it’s of the highest quality. It’s for you to enjoy using, and for us to enjoy creating! Flash on!

So I’m an ignorant when we speak about… cars for example, but I’m a mad passionate when we speak about online.

I had enough time to learn in the past year, that the most difficult task in this business is to work with people. Technical solutions are easier to implement, than to get the right people to care and get involved in a project, with the same passion as you do. So, if you plan to build a successful business, make sure you prepare yourself to meet all kind of people. This will make you stronger, and help you grow a thin skin. Having a thin skin, you’ll be able to fire fast. This is something you must learn the hard way I’m afraid.

There are many people who will not only be ignorant with what they are working on (even if you provide them the means of living), but try to harm you while doing it. These are the frustrated kind, the ones you need to avoid the most.

The good part in all this story, is that no matter what, you get to know good people too, and with them, it’s worth all the risk, and it’s easier to move forward. Emi, next time listen to your intuition, and fire fast.

I’m somewhat in the middle of all this, because I use and love Apple’s products, but at the same time Flash has been the software who helped me purchase these devices. I can’t take any sides, because I really love both companies. But I kind of understand Apple’s move, and it’s logical for them to proceed this way, as it is for Adobe to protect their software’s future.

My take on the recent Apple TOS changes, and the fight between Apple and Adobe over the past several months, is that Flash is not meant to work with multitouch devices. Being a Flash developer and using an iPhone, I can see how the Hover and MouseOver actions would interfere with the way the GUI is meant to work on a multitouch device.

Apple should not be obligated in any way to build a special functionality in their devices, for a (very popular) browser plugin to function as it does on the desktop. Such interactivity is only possible with the cursor, and the multitouch devices such as the iPad/iPhone/iPod touch, should only resume to displaying content that doesn’t require Hover or MouseOver. With each release of their iPhone OS, Apple can focus on improving their software without having to worry much that they will break the way Flash works on their mobile platform.

On the other hand, I don’t agree with the statement that Flash is dying either. There are many uses for Flash, that simply can’t be built with any other software. And the web is meant to be interactive.

Similar story, but different players

What happens today, is very similar to what happened with the Floppy disk in the past. The Floppy disk was dead because the time for Memory Sticks arrived, which did a much better job, and were portable as well. But the big difference is that if Flash is the Floppy disk, at the moment there is no Memory Stick to replace it.

I believe there’s no easy solution for this. We are in a situation where content should follow form. We have to build content targeted at either the desktop, or multitouch devices, or both at the same time. Otherwise innovation, such as Apple tries to do will never happen, or on the other hand, true interactivity such as what Flash offers, won’t ever be possible on the web.

Angajatii acestei companii (de ex. Carmen Pascariu), se comporta de parca nu stiu ce vand. Nu sunt cartofi, nu este vorba de paine, este vorba despre internet. Internetul, dragii mei reprezentanti RCS-RDS (le voi trimite un email cu link la articol, de asta ma adresez direct lor), este o metoda simpla prin care un client nemultumit de modul in care este tratat, poate face public felul in care voi, ca si companie, va bateti joc de el.

Alte companii care au inteles care este treaba cu internetul, stiu in aceeasi masura, ca e si modul cel mai simplu de a oferi suport instant (blog, twitter, retele sociale) si de a construi o baza de clienti fidela. Voi, desi nu vindeti cartofi, va comportati ca si cum ati fi de la piata si nu stiti sa respectati clientii pe care ii aveti.

Inainte de a continua articolul, doresc sa trimit un al doilea email, sa vad daca de data asta mi se raspunde. Nu as vrea sa fac public chiar totul, decat in situatia in care nu am de ales.

I realize each time we look for highly talented people for our team, the place where we get the most responses from is our University.

This is one of the reasons our new office is located at less than a 10 minutes walk from the University, so we can be close to the people that want to join us.

We’re hiring!

I decided to write a list of the things that I had to do today, as I’ll be flying to Brussels tomorrow, in a business trip.

I filled 4 post-it notes with the things I had to do, so for my future reference (and yours), here you have them:

1. Find out what currency they use, and if you credit card works there.
2. Find out what power outlets they use.
3. What language do they speak?
4. Double check to see if you have money on your card, and take some with you, just in case.
5. Papers – do you have your passport or ID card with you? Where are your airplane tickets? What about the train tickets, if you need to reach there by train?
6. Make sure you know exactly how to reach to the airport, and what time you must be there.
7. Business trip? Purchase a gift for your new business partners. They would do the same if they would visit you.
8. Do you know your own phone number? Not the mobile phone number. :-) Write it down somewhere, as I did. :-)
9. Long trip? Put some music on your iPhone/iPod, and some movies on the laptop. Get a book as well.
10. Do you know how you’ll travel inside the country you’re visiting? Which train will take you where?
11. Find out about places to visit – Trip Advisor is a good place to start.
12. You’ve got a lot of devices with you, make sure you get the chargers as well.
13. The camcorder needs a cassette? Purchase it.
14. Get some sleep. (so you don’t lose the train/flight)

Hope this helps. I definitely needed to have these written down.

It’s going to help people do one thing: a sum.

Why it matters? Well, it’s going to answer one simple question: “How much did the X cost you?”  or “How many times did you do Y?”.

You’ll be able to create different projects, and every time you spend something for that one project, you’ll add your expense to it. Or you’ll simply increment it.

The idea

The idea came when I was looking for an easier way for keeping track of how much I spend for building our home.

It would have been useful to Vuzum co-founder when he married, as I asked him how much he paid for everything, and he didn’t knew exactly either.

It would help people know how much they spent in a trip, or for any other project that takes more than one expense to have it completed.

Add to all this a nice statistics extension, and you’ve got yourself a pretty nifty app! :)

Progress

I didn’t do much except register the domain and the Twitter account. So ..the website is this, and the Twitter account is this. (nothing to see yet)

P.S. : It could also help a guy keep the track of.. you know what. (the number of beers he drinks in a weekend) :-)

The week that just ends has been one of the craziest weeks of my life. I had no chance of focusing on my work, because in my heart and head it was a powerful storm. I’ve been missing the silence that I now enjoy, and I can admit the most important thing for me is the health of the ones I love. Not my health, but theirs.

If you want to make the ones you love feel this peaceful silence, make sure you take care of your personal health, for them, not for you. Usually, when we consider working out, we think it’s for us, but in reality, us being healthy is more important to the ones who love us.

I’ll try to focus more on the happiness of the people who make Vuzum, starting with their health. We’ll be a stronger team once we’ll have access to the fitness room. :)

My mother is now feeling better.

Seamless! Great suggestion. I changed my css file as per your suggestion.

To share with your co-workers:
For the last 12 years I had a landscape construction company with about 40 employees in California. Then all of a sudden everyone ran out of money and started losing their houses and therefore stopped buying what I was selling. I decided to let all my employees go and take my career in a whole new direction.

I chose advertising (online and in print). I basically switched from landscape design to graphic and web design. I had no experience in either. I have spent the last 6 months or so trying to figure it all out. Without bright guys like you and your staff creating a lot of the backed components for me to play around with for free I would not have learned as much as I have in such a short period. I just want to let you know, your timely response to my e-mails and your awesome lineup of products is greatly appreciated. Although with 30K or so people on your list, I’m sure I am not the first to say so.

Thanks again.
Bryan

P.S. a purchase is forthcoming

I’ve been so focused on getting Flabell where it is today, that I didn’t felt the 12 months passing since we launched it (on the 6th of March 2009). I thought I should give three advices for all of you that plan to start a website:

1. Choose your team for their character and then skills.
2. Be prepared to work every day, 24/7.
3. Be prepared to fail.

That’s about it. Everything else you’ll get to learn while you go. It’s a challenging road and it’s not for many to follow.

We had a small party (Happy Birthday Flabell!), we switched to a better office, and I shared some knowledge at the first Geek Meet conference in Iasi. So yes, I’ve been pretty busy with that and other stuff. You can see me here and here.

As recomanda, calduros, sa se gandeasca la tineretea pe care si-o irosesc fara a isi asuma niste riscuri ce le pot aduce oportunitati reale. Nu lucra la ceva monoton doar de dragul de a avea o pensie si o asigurare. Nu exista batranete fara tinerete. Si nu uita ca exista si moartea, un factor pe care nu il controlezi (decat voit :-)).

Mai multi oameni care sa riste, inseamna mai multi oameni care sa esueze, dar si mai multi oameni care sa investeasca si sa incerce lucruri noi. Cele mai mari companii din online nu fac mare lucru, dar il fac bine.

Traieste-ti viata si profita de tineretea din prezent, nu te condamna singur, pentru o potentiala batranete din viitor. Asuma-ti un risc in fiecare zi. Poate asa vom realiza mai multe lucruri ca societate.

Food for thought.