Update: Google has fixed the problem with their site not handling iPad correctly. You can now configure up to 25 calendars from your Apps or Gmail account to sync to your iPad calendar.
There is a bug/oversight currently affecting calendar sync with the iPad. If you have already been a user of Google sync in the past on your iPhone or iPod Touch you know how great it is to have access to not just your calendar but all the other calendars you have configured as well. For myself I’m able to see/edit not just mine but also my Wife’s, the ‘Family’ calendar, and others such as a ‘Notes’ calendar I maintain for things that aren’t necessarily actions or appointments.
The problem is right now when you configure your iPad for sync you’ll only get the default calendar. At first I thought this was an iPad issue but quickly realized it was a problem with the sync configuration. Now the fun starts.
There isn’t any way that I can find to configure the sync settings from a desktop browser. Or the iPad browser for that matter since Google currently treats iPad as desktop in the case of the sync area, though it maddeningly it treats it as a moble browser in some other properties. This will no doubt take awhile to settle down, so in the meantime if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch you can configure the settings from there, with one caveat. (Info on other means in the note at the end).
As soon as things started looking pretty grim in late 2008 I knew it was time to be thinking about starting new companies. At the time it was mainly intuition, and the knowledge that the majority of great companies in existence today were started during down cycles. I also believe in the platinum rule of “Invest where there is pain”, which is an unpleasant philosophy on the surface but when you dig down it is about faith in humanity’s enduring ability to bounce back, to fight through adversity.
Consider what the environment looks for at a startup during ‘normal’ economic times:
- Money is hard to come by and may come with unpleasant impact on founders and growth strategy of business (that’s a whole article there)
- Startups are more nimble than established players and so may be able to seize opportunity other overlook
During a ‘boom’ time for startups things are perversely worse.
New startups and ‘seed stage‘ funding are the absolute underpinning of our entire economy.
As I observed in my post months back on health care reform, the vast majority of new jobs created in the US are at small and new companies. The easiest way to understand why this is the case is to look at the psychology of established companies vs. startups. Established companies already have their nut, they have successful products or services and are mostly engaged in protecting what they already have. Startups take risks, they disrupt, in doing so they shift or create markets. This phenomenon is only amplified during tough economic times like we are facing today.
The best way to stimulate an economy is to create new jobs. That makes new dollars enter the system, they spend money at existing businesses, they pay new taxes which can be spent to improve infrastructure. The cycle grows upward. It is not just the best way, it is really the only way out of a downward spiral.
What can we do to stimulate new startups?
Please take a moment and read this message from the Grameen foundation, a cause I strongly support:
Last year, we kicked off a global campaign in hopes that our supporters who believe in the power of microfinance will help us share its importance with their networks.
On the 27th of each month, we ask our supporters to make a donation of $27 to let the world know that poverty is unnecessary and one person can help change the lives of the world’s poorest.
Today we can double our impact! A group of friends of Grameen Foundation has pledged to provide a dollar-for-dollar match until we reach $200,000.
Why $27? In 1976, Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus planted the seed that created Grameen Bank by making a loan of $27 to a group of Bangladeshi women out of his own pocket. This small action was a catalyst for the global microfinance movement that has since provided millions of women around the world with the microloans they need to help start or improve a small business, provide for their families and escape the cycle of poverty.
Three things you can do:
1. Give a gift of $27 to this movement. Visit: http://tinyurl.com/give27 .
2. Change your LinkedIn status today to: Today is the 27th! Let’s celebrate the first $27 microloan. Support Grameen Foundation http://tinyurl.com/give27
3. Change your Facebook status today to: It’s the 27th of the month, and I’m giving $27 to help the Grameen Foundation end global poverty. $27 was all it took for Muhammad Yunus to give his first microloan. Join in: http://tinyurl.com/give27 and DOUBLE your impact because generous donors are providing a dollar-for-dollar match until we reach $200,000! Your $27 becomes $54!
Micro-lending is a very important way to help improve economies around the world. You can have a large impact for a small number of dollars, please take this opportunity to lend a leg up to an entrepreneur in the 3rd world.
When the iPhone came out it was amazingly great and obviously stupid at the same time. No cut and paste? No changeable battery? No slot for expansion cards?
Now the iPad will have a similar growth curve. The software that is initially shipping with it suffers from being 1.0. And Apple 1.0 versions suffer further from not receiving wide beta testing. Congratulations early-adopters, you get to beta test the iPad extensions to the SDK. This device will lay the groundwork for a great future in tablet shaped devices, and this initial device will be fondly remembered but not with the martyrdom of the Newton because this one will be supplanted by improved devices instead of being abandoned.
The netbook just died, it hasn’t stopped moving yet but netbook sales are about to fall off a cliff. I’m sure this drove the $499 price point.
This will be the device that makes eBooks real. Kindle was a side show, there will be more iPads in peoples hands than Kindles only a couple weeks after launch, and in a year there will be some serious numbers. The people with these devices in hands also just happen to be the people who spend real money on media.
There are hints of impending perfection:
At our first Ignite Cincinnati I talked about my journey from bread-machine pizza dough neophyte to confused yeast chemistry padawan to mastery of the simplest way you can possibly manage to get great bread and pizza on the table.
I can only show you the path, you must walk the path… 
Others with more time and baking authority on their hands have actually done a great job of explaining the main technique I use. I am going to point you to them as the place you should start. Firstly Mark Bittman, food writer extraordinaire for the NY Times was the first to really put “no-knead” bread on the map. He has a great article on it. So start with the simplest version.
This has evolved since then.
Water is important, and I’m sorry I neglected to mention this. You need to use great tasting water, so if your tap water isn’t great tasting to you, use filtered. I just use the cold water straight out of the filter built into my fridge, consistent taste and temperature, no surprises.
While I was searching for extra images (11pm the night before) I was momentarily surprised to find someone has a book out with almost the exact title I originally used for my topic. I haven’t had a chance to look at it but the premise is sound and their journey probably similar, with the benefit of having put a bunch of time into to to put a book out. So check it out.
The King Arthur Flour company is a bakers best friend, whether you are making serious bread, pseudo bread or cookies and muffins. Check out these recipes and blog entries that fall into this school of breadmaking.
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/no-knead-crusty-white-bread-recipe
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2009/12/01/the-crunchiest-crackliest-chewiest-lightest-easiest-bread-youll-ever-bake/
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/the-almost-no-knead-baguette-recipe
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2009/08/06/baguettes-redux-an-easy-almost-no-knead-recipe-for-the-kneading-challenged/
Enjoy, and if you get happy results please share back to the IgniteCincinnati crowd!
At this point we have almost 200 people ticketed, not a bad start for Ignite in Cincinnati!
We have a lot of creative, investment, cultural and tech events in the city, but none that try to combine all these crowds and get some drinks in them. Your mission tonight: Have fun and get some creative juices flowing, and mix with new people and see what happens.
Note that we’ve lost a couple speakers due to uncontrollable events, like Google getting hacked by China. We have room for a couple last minute speakers and a challenge for anyone with the guts to give it a try: Powerpoint Karaōke. We have a number of decks that are essentially random hipster, biz, and cultural references and text, even slides from real presentations. You get up without knowing what will come up and freestyle.
Over the past months I’ve been compiling a list of resources for Entrepreneurs, Startups and people who want to join startup companies in the Cincinnati area. I’ve been doing this as a help to people, but more to compare what is available here to what is available in other hot startup markets and see where we are lacking.
An awesome event that is held in other places, particularly Seattle and Boulder, is Ignite. This is a quick heads up that we are starting an Ignite program in Cincinnati and are targeting January for the first event. More information about IgniteCincinnati is coming soon.
Mike Venerable had a post today on simple UI design that stirred up some thoughts. When designing anything, a device, web site, business card, anything, there are two related principles to consider; simple is best, and worse is better. Once upon a time design was about changing the world, lately what we call design tends to be more about selling sugared water or soap. Even worse we draw what I consider to be artificial lines between different design worlds; industrial, graphic, web, software. It can be about seeing something did not exist before, or seeing the true form of something, not just being pretty.
I had the great fortune to have a team at NeoWorx that built some truly great software. The design of this software, and I truly mean design from depth, not just how it looked but how it felt to use, how it ‘thought’, how it was built from the very ‘bottom’ of the deep hooks it had into the operating system to the reports it gave, was truly great. It was great enough to get the company sold to McAfee, and from there strongly influenced the look and feel of their entire consumer product line over the next year.