NewGround’s web site, including this blog, is created within a web-based application developed and hosted by a company named Squarespace. This service, in my mind, would best be described as a Web 2.0 Content Management System (CMS). From a business perspective, I believe the Squarespace service offering represents a great value proposition. For $20/month, we get a web development and hosting platform that allows us (non-HTML proficient people) to create, store update/refresh, manage and publish our website, including this blog, I mention this because today I noticed this post on their customer service blog describing the recent launch on the same Squarespace service (and servers) of a much larger and much more heavily trafficked website (of former US House Majority Leader Tom Delay). The contents of that post not only raised my esteem for the Squarespace platform capabilities, but also underscore what a great value proposition it is – for Delay a great website/managed traffic service for $100/month versus several thousand to create the same capability for yourself.
Archive for the ‘Software’ Category
Squarespace
Thursday, December 14th, 2006Six Sigma Software
Friday, May 27th, 2005
In this post, Nicholas Carr asserts that software will have to eventually reach Bell telco levels of reliability. I agree with this argument and believes it applies to almost all businesses. Disciplined focus on process management is the only sure-fire way to attaining this standard of reliability (also known as five nines (99.999+%).
With software forming an increasingly vital part of the infrastructure of the world’s economy, reliability, stability and security are paramount concerns. In the past, software companies routinely shipped bug-ridden programs, figuring they could patch and update them later. And their customers took what they were given. That’s history – or will be soon. In the future, the best business software companies will distinguish themselves by producing industrial-strength, bulletproof code – code that approaches Six Sigma standards.
Firefox (aka Netscape Arises from the Dead!)
Tuesday, November 16th, 2004When I first tried Firefox about six months ago – out of frustration with IE’s lack of security, I was completely underwhelmed and could not understand why the developer/programmer community was so buzzed about it. I googled for other browers and found Maxthon, which is an overlay on IE that provides lots of nifty features, the most important of which is tabbed browsing. While that was supposed to be Firefox’s claim to fame, at that time Maxthon beat it hands down. Recently Maxthon stopped supporting the Google toolbar, which is the most essential feature for a browser for me (hmmm…wonder if that ever occurred to Google???). That prompted me to revisit Firefox and upon doing so, I found a much improved tabbed browser and a far wealthier palate of extensions for it. After a couple of weeks use, I’m hooked, however, I would only recommend it for those who don’t mind the hassles (and benefits) of beta-like software. Firefox will only get better, but it’s still a little unwieldy for those who lack the curiosity and patience to work with something that is both new and rapidly evolving. More on Firefox and the open-source software phenomenon later.
