December 22, 2009
I wrote this to Brian Hitney after we’d briefly touched on cloud computing in my podcast with him last week. I thought I’d post it here for any reaction from the rest of the internet…
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Another point on the economics that isn’t brought up is the cost of data transfer and data storage in the cloud, which is often more than you’d pay for ‘normal’ equivalents.
I’ve got a server that I lease and pay $84/month for. Included in that I get 750 gig of transfer.
With azure, 12 cents per compute hour for 24 hours x 30 days = $86 - about the same base rate. But… let’s say I’m pushing out between 150 and 200 gig of bandwidth per month. 200 gig at .15 cents extra is $30. Factoring in I store about 40 gig of data on that server, that’s another $6. To replicate my setup on Azure (or Amazon) would cost me about $38/month more, which is a 40% premium over what I can get in the ‘non-cloud’ marketplace. As my data needs scale up, the differential gets bigger. EC2 pricing is roughly equivalent for storage and xfer, but the base computer rate is cheaper for linux images than for windows images.
There’s a big play to push ‘cloud’, and given the markup, I can see why. The hardware is commodity, and is essentially a one-off investment, but the data xfer is the lifeblood, and I’m actually a bit fearful of putting so much reliance in the hands of just a few monolithic companies who will then charge us a premium to move our own data around.
If I had a huge amount of number crunching to do, without much data storage or xfer needs, current ‘cloud’ offerings make sense. And for potential adjunct service in a pinch, or for testing. But as a long term strategy investment, the pricing needs to change and/or there needs to be more value in the mix for my taste.
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Posted in Business, Development, Software, Web 
6 Comments »
November 24, 2009
I’m turning to the community to help determine what our next magazine topic should be. Please visit http://webdevpub.com/topics to give your input on what you’d be interested in reading more about. Entrants who submit an email address will be entered to win an Amazon gift card, to drawn on our around December 9.
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Posted in Business, PHP, Software, Web, Writing 3 Comments »
November 21, 2009
Consider working with Web Dev Pubishing to publish your knowledge as an ebook. Learn more or just submit your idea.
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Posted in Book, Business, Software, Web No Comments »
November 19, 2009
No, it’s not from me or WebDevPub, but it looks good all the same. It’s actually a continuation of the earlier MySQL Magazine, but with a larger focus, and is now a pay-for PDF, similar to JSMag and GroovyMag.
OSDBZine.net is put out bi-monthly from Keith Murphey, who had started the MySQL Magazine two years ago (and recently interviewed on webdevradio). I just picked up the first issue, with a whopping 61 pages of database goodness. With pieces on Drizzle, Firebird, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, LucidDB and more, it’s got something for just about everyone.
Only drawback so far is the current signup process – it’s a little barebones (I spoke with Keith, and he’ll be updating it soon). Visit http://www.osdbzine.net/signup.html to register an account, then login to purchase via paypal.
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Posted in Database, opensource No Comments »
November 5, 2009
The November JavaScript Mag (JSMag) is now available. Here’s a quick run down of what’s inside:
* Shea Frederick completes his overview of the IDE landscape for JavaScript developers
* Jay Garcia dives in to the ExtJS Component Lifecycle
* Christian Tiberg explains how to use StorageEngine (YUI) in your apps
* Tom Hughes-Croucher demonstrates making Yahoo Query Language even more useful with server-side JavaSscript
* Kyle Simpson walks you through JSON-P error handling
* Matt Henry covers the latest Community News
Have a closer look!
JSMag is now 10% off when purchased as a 12 month subscription!
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Posted in Javascript, Software, Web No Comments »
October 22, 2009
I’ve got a PDF watermarking web service I’m considering opening up as a service for others (currently using it internally for my own projects). If this is something that sounds like it would be of interest to you, let me know. It should be a pretty easy integration piece, but I’d be interested in getting some feedback on how you’d be planning to use it (what tech, mainly). Also, this would likely be a paid service, either on a ‘per use’ limit basis, or some flat monthly pricing. Frankly, I’m a little surprised that I can’t find one out there – I’ve got to think this exists already, but I’ve not seen one. If you know of one, let me know.
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Posted in Business, Ideas, Software, Web 2 Comments »
October 11, 2009
My first post back in August identified a project I was going to start, and my goal was to have it done in six weeks. I’m *close*, and closer than last week, but probably another week off. Not happy with myself for missing my initial deadline, and I know even when it ‘launches’ there will still be more work to do, but I’ve taken some positives out of this so far.
I’ve not spent six full weeks on this, or even 7-8 now. This has definitely been a part time ‘after hours’ project, and there’s been a lot of ups and down the past two months which have interfered. So, to that extent, I don’t feel like I have yet ‘failed’. I know if I’d spent 6 full time weeks on this, it would have been done in less than 4. Additionally, it’s given me a bit more time to think about the UI. I know it won’t be perfect, but I’ve gone through 2 iterations of the process sign up, talking with more than a few people, taking their feedback, and generally shortening and tightening up the process. Had I launched 3 weeks ago with the first pass patched together, it would have been much worse. Lastly, I still struggle with PayPal – I hit a snag tonight that cost me more time than I would have liked, and I can’t really see where the problem was (code was copied from jsmag.com, and should have worked fine!)
So, stay tuned for more updates. Also, authors – especially self-published ones – drop me a line if you want to be part of the testing/beta phase.
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Posted in Business, Ideas No Comments »
October 10, 2009
I’m presenting my “PHP On Windows” again, this time at Charlotte Code Camp today. I’ve got the unenviable position of following Chris Love and Joe Walling, each of whom have presented great business-oriented presentations on being entrepreneurial with software. They’ve both got me thinking about a lot of things, and I wish they wouldn’t, because it makes me lose focus on the few things I should be focusing on! But still, definitely some great ideas happening here. If I get a chance, I’ll post some of the ideas here, but I might not be able to find the time.
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Posted in Conferences No Comments »
October 1, 2009
I’ve not seen any studies that indicate this, but I can say as a recent iPhone user, I’ve found myself changing some of my passwords to not include symbols or capitals or anything that isn’t convenient to type on the default virtual keyboard. Does anyone else do this? Has there been any research on this? While the Palm Pre keyboard is a bit tiny (even for my dainty digits) I know it would be easier to access symbols or other non-qwerty characters than it is on the iPhone. I suspect the same issue affects the new myTouch G3 phones as well.
Any thoughts/experiences on this?
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Posted in Apple, Personal 3 Comments »
September 19, 2009
I gave a talk today at the Raleigh Code Camp titled “PHP On Windows”. It was decently attended, given the attendee focus at a Microsoft-sponsored event. MS has been embracing PHP much more publicly over the last year or so, and I reviewed some of the steps they’ve been taking (auto-install on IIS7, recent bytecode cache from MS, etc). The slides I used were relatively sparse, as some of the presentation was simply doing some code on Windows.
I will probably expand on this talk and may give it again at some point. If you have any good resources or info about PHP on Windows, let me know.
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Posted in Conferences, PHP, Software, Web 6 Comments »
Entrepreneur, developer, writer, podcaster, teacher, ex-bassist.
