Andres Vidal's Blog

Find Items in one Column not in the Other with MySQL

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:58:53 -0500

Super awesome query that puts MS Excel to shame! SELECT * FROM Table1 WHERE Table1.principal NOT IN...

New software for Rendering Synthetic Objects into Legacy...

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:28:26 -0400

New software for Rendering Synthetic Objects into Legacy Photographs.

My Hero!

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 11:03:41 -0400

My Hero!

Styled Dropdown current release: v1.0

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:45:20 -0400

This release includes the functionality to close the drop down when the user clicks off it. If...

I thought this was interesting… The first tweets regarding...

Mon, 02 May 2011 14:18:16 -0400

I thought this was interesting… The first tweets regarding the raid on Osama Bin Laden.

Ralph Langner: Cracking Stuxnet, a 21st-century cyber weapon

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 14:03:45 -0400

Ralph Langner: Cracking Stuxnet, a 21st-century cyber weapon

Code Lab Redesign

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 16:47:55 -0500

Just released my Code Lab redesign. Let me know what you think.

AJAX #HASH Based Navigation Needs Rethinking!

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 14:54:32 -0500

AJAX #HASH Based Navigation Needs Rethinking!

eZColumns jQuery plugin for newspaper -like columns

Fri, 04 Feb 2011 12:27:17 -0500

eZColumns is a jQuery plugin for newspaper -like columns on the web. It grabs the child elements of...

Testing for HTML5 Canvas Support with JavaScript's Double Negation Trick

Fri, 04 Feb 2011 11:03:04 -0500

JavaScript enables us to use a special trick to turn any returned value into a boolean. For...

This deserves an award; A big one!!!

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 11:40:48 -0500

This deserves an award; A big one!!!

Video

Mon, 06 Dec 2010 22:07:54 -0500

Relative URL Protocol (scheme)

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 15:01:31 -0500

Have you ever had the “This Page Contains Both Secure and Non-Secure Items” error...

Simple Benchmark Snippet

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 11:04:45 -0500

If you need to quickly benchmark some code in firefox (maybe chrome too) try the following function...

Sorting Faux-Columns (and real table columns too) with jQuery

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 18:27:00 -0400

There might come a time where an HTML table can’t be used but the faux-columns need to be...

This is hilarious but sadly true!

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 09:28:53 -0400

This is hilarious but sadly true!

Google Instant

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 15:09:00 -0400

Google pushes out a new functionality called Google Instant. For the techies: Can you imagine the...

Source: Techcrunch 1. Get your domain and e-mail working: “When...

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 11:43:09 -0400

Source: Techcrunch

1. Get your domain and e-mail working: “When you register your name, you should register the misspellings as a .com, you should register the primary and the .net or .org or it will be sold back to you for thousands of dollars later…”
Approximate cost: $160

2. Produce some mock-ups: “You want to show the key functionality that you’re trying to bring to the marketplace…You just need three sort of pivotal experience screens that will demonstrate your core idea or three…mock-ups of the physical product…you’re trying to capture how it will be done.”
Approximate cost: Free

3. Logo and materials: “Get a good looking logo so at least you look legitimate…” says Ressi who recommends 99designs. After you pick the winning design, “you contact him [the designer] offline, you say I want you to do my business cards, I want you to do my Power Point backup and I want you to do my mock-ups. Now for not so much money you’re getting everything you need to appear somewhat legitimate to the world.”
Approximate cost: $750

4. Pitch deck: “You always want to have a pitch deck, even if it’s bad…you need something to start with to go on that refining path.”
Approximate cost: Free

5. Create a landing page: Ressi recommends Unbounce.com, which is a drag and drop landing page.
Approximate cost: $60/year after free trial

6. Create a company blog: “I recommend doing blog.yourcompany.com…it keeps it in a consistent place as your company scales…You want to be posting on your blog, at this phase, one or two times a week.”
Approximate cost: Free

7. Test marketing: “First thing I strongly recommend is immediately test marketing using Facebook and Google ads. Not so much for the value of driving people to your bullsh*t website, but to understand what messages resonate with your target audience and then so you can then refine your marketing messages.”
Approximate cost: $250

8. Survey customers: “So now you’ve got these leads coming in, survey them… you want to understand, the demographics, who are they. You want to clarify what the pain points, like why did they sign up, were they just stupid and duped into it or did they really feel that something was valuable and what was it that they find most valuable.”
Approximate cost: $200

9. Create a sticky note roadmap: Write all of your company’s features on separate sticky notes and then group them in logical buckets. “What I do, is I put on the left side I put the most important group and then at the top, the most important features. So on the top left is the most important thing I have to do…When you have that roadmap in front of you, you can sort of visualize the one thing that flows through everything and usually there’s an unknown around that.”
Approximate cost: $100

10. Ghetto launch. Test the unknown. “Whatever you can find that can test out your core stuff that’s free…Identify the metrics, collect the data and validate…”
Approximate cost: $250

Below are two more Founder Institute videos, the first one is on establishing your startup’s vision and the second explores the challenge of researching your idea. If you would like to officially enroll in the Ressi academy (aka his startup accelerator, Founder Institute) you can apply for one of eight locations online.

Keeping up with Game Dynamics!!! Appointment Dynamicis a dynamic...

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 17:02:33 -0400

Keeping up with Game Dynamics!!!

Appointment Dynamic
is a dynamic in which to succeed, one must return at a predefined time to take a predetermined action.
For example: Happy hour at a local bar or Farmville’s crops will wilt if not attended on time.

Influence and Status
is the dynamic of the ability of one player to modify the behavior of another’s actions through social pressure.
For example: A school’s report card has “A” vs “F” that is intended to cause competitive behaviors.

Progression Dynamic
is a dynamic in which success is granularly displayed and measured through the process of completing itemized tasks.
For example: In LinkedIn the “85% complete” progress bar in profiles causes the users to strive for that perfect 100% completed task.

Communal Discovery
is the dynamic wherein an entire community is rallied to work together to solve a challenge.
For example: Digg.com uses the community to bubble up the best stories.

Creating Same Height Boxes (equal heights grid)

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:17:00 -0400

With the absence of table-less designs, creating equally proportionate “boxes” in HTML...