2011/11/30

A startup

I realised a few months back that while I claim to be a programmer, I could also be called a serial-entrepreneur. I've founded 4 companies over the years (Educatic, ARTware, Awalé and Quaero). Me being an entrepreneur is kinda ironic, if you know me.

Anyway, the real goal of this post is to get a link to my latest companies brand new website. I'd like to brag about how awesome this website is, but it isn't awesome and prolly never will be. I didn't make it so don't blame me for the flash animation and canned newsroom sound.

But the thing is though, the product we sell really kicks ass. A fully configurable automagic document classification and document archiving intranet application. It can handle volumes of over 1 million documents a year. That's a lot of documents. One thing I realised a while back is that we didn't just write an archiving app, we wrote a tool to build an archiving app with. Which is both great and a pain because each install is so customised I have trouble keeping track.

It is noteworthy that this is the very first time one of my companies has even HAD a website. Which is another irony given that I developed websites for a living for over 10 years.

The URL again, for those that don't know how to the clicky-clicky: http://www.quaero.ca

(Full disclosure: I founded Quaero and yes this is a blatant attempt at seeding the search engines.)

2011/11/08

Sharp!

Inspired by a YouTube video, I pulled apart a old hard drive and turned it into a small, low powered grinder/sander.


I was wondering how to glue the sand paper to the platter. Them things are polished smooth. I was figuring sanding the platter and using epoxy. But it turns out that the centrifugal force at 5200 RPM flattens things out just find. Who would have thought!

One of the first things I did was grind myself a shiv. Because life is tough in the En-Aitch.


I then promptly dulled it cutting up some paper. See? Even the paper is tough in En-Aitch.