After I used NetBeans 6.1 IDE, I realized that while opening the IDE it is much more faster than other versions. I guess it has been improved almost  %40-%50 and now it is opening time is very fast. Since I did some programing sometimes, this is really good for me. In addition to this I realized that code completion function is much more better than other versions. I also realized that memory usage is better than other versions and it does not make your computer slower. Another cool feature is support for Javascript, MySQL, Ruby/JRuby and Spring is very good and has been improved.

For me the best thing is NetBenas 6.1 IDE is opening very fast, and it was the most exciting thing for me. I really suggest you to download the NetBeans 6.1 and use it, I am pretty sure that you will like it.

For a start-up time to market is so important. To decrease the time to market, a start-up must be able to develop their product or service in a reasonable time and price. To do that, Sun Microsystem’s new program for Start-Ups can be a good alternative. Why should we pay a lot for the IT costs just at the very beginning?

Sun and Mashable.com have partnered to present “The Startup Review” on mashable.com which is a daily feature/review of a new startup to help spread the word on unique and emerging ideas throughout the community.  www.mashable.com/startup-review-sponsored-sun-startup-essentials/

Sun is also hosting a free event called “Startup Camp” in San Francisco on May 4-5, 2008 to allow startups to participate in an un-conference networking event to hear from some web 2.0 authorities, meet other startups and apply to Sun’s Startup Essentials Program. The event also includes SpeedGeeking, where startup founders can compete in the Best Startup Contest by presenting a 5-minute pitch of their business to VC led groups of peers. Confirmed guests include: Pete Cashmore, Jonathan Schwartz, David Berlind, Om Malik, Matt Marshall etc. This event is a great way for startups to network and discuss ideas. http://startupcamp.org/

For more info click here

On February 27, 2008 Sun Microsystems acquired MySQL. MySQL is the “world’s most popular database”–whatever that means in marketing speak. In terms of technology it means that Sun now owns the database that many Web companies use for web applications and services. There are few acquisitions that make as much sense. Marten Mickos was the CEO of MySQL. Now he is the senior vice president of the database group within Sun. I caught up with Marten to bring us up to date on the acquisition and future direction of MySQL.

Question: How did the Sun deal go down?
Answer: On the one hand there was always a positive vibe and an affinity. On the other, the deal happened surprisingly and extremely quickly over just a number of weeks.

Six years ago I approached Jonathan Schwartz–whom I didn’t know at the time–with an email titled “All things under the Sun.” My point was that we should do more together. He responded immediately saying “You don’t have to convince us–we love you guys–and want you to succeed wildly.”

But over the years, we didn’t really work that closely with Sun. We were busy on our end, and they on theirs. So when we had dinner again in late November 2007, I wasn’t expecting anything special. But during that evening we saw even more similarities than before, and there was high energy in the discussion.

In the next few days we engaged in a positive and strategic discussion, and soon enough we saw that this could be a great combination. We quickly agreed that we should act fast and not play games with each other. In Swedish hockey language, we agreed to “raka puckar,” i.e. straight pucks–or more precisely, straight shots. This is what made it possible to get the acquisition done in record time. We just focused on the essential.

Jonathan has described this process eloquently in his blog here, and I explained my thinking in this guest column on AlwaysOn.

Question: Were there other suitors?
Answer: We have been fortunate at MySQL to have interest from large corporations to acquire us. But our main focus always was on going public and remaining independent.

Question: What does this deal mean for the small business who is considering using MySQL?
Answer: There are two main types of small businesses. Web2.0 startups are small in the beginning but may grow exponentially over an extended period of time. Facebook and Second Life are such examples. They always need the highest performance and scalability. With the help of Sun’s experts in this field, we believe we can deliver more of that.

The other small business group consists of companies who are not in the technology field themselves. They look for convenience, reliability, and low cost. For them, Sun’s acquisition of MySQL will mean a higher level of comfort because of the reputation, size, and reach of Sun and because they can do one-stop shopping. Additionally, partnerships with other main vendors provide even more choice, and complement the offerings from Sun.

Naturally, all MySQL users will be able to continue to download the product free of charge under the GPL licence. We have the same firm commitment to free and open source software as before.

Question: On a technical level, can there be tighter integration with the hardware now that you know which hardware MySQL will be running on?
Answer: Yes, there can be, and there probably will be over time. Many customers look for convenience and ease of deployment. The main focus of the Database Group within Sun as MySQL is now known is to accelerate the existing roadmap of the product: more scalability, performance, reliability, and ease of use. At the end of the day, those are the main features a customer will want to see improvement in. It is like with sports cars: more horsepower is always appreciated by the customers.

Question: Will we see inexpensive bundles of Sun hardware and MySQL software?
Answer: We are market driven and we will present to customers whatever product and service combinations that have the biggest demand. This could include hardware-software bundles but it could also mean providing databases as a service. We now are part of a company that has all the required pieces, so we can assemble them from time to time as the markets require.

As for “inexpensive,” I’d say that Sun across the board has products that provide unparalleled price/performance. Some cost a lot because they are from the highest end. Others cost less per unit and lend themselves to smaller businesses and to massive scale-out scenarios. The main thing in the 21st century is to give customers choice - because they will make choices anyhow.

Question: Have you had any kind of concerns that MySQL will be run like a “big company”?
Answer: I had those concerns even when we were a small startup! Complacency and arrogance can creep in without your noticing in any sort of organisation. To avoid it, we have taken some specific steps. We have released our software under the GPL thus exposing ourselves to the risk of forking. This keeps us running fast. We have also chosen to serve the fastest paced and fastest growing business in the world such as YouTube, Flickr, Zillow, and Nokia.

This also forces us to run fast. And we have a company culture of no-nonsense and of following The No Asshole Rule by Bob Sutton–pardon my French, but the book by that name is so good. For these reasons, there is no time for complacency. These aspects apply to Sun as well. And if for whatever unlikely reason we would ever encounter some big company behavior within Sun, we will do our utmost to help change it.

Question: What does this acquisition mean for people using MySQL on other platforms?
Answer: We stopped using the words “other” or “rest of world” or “foreign.” We operate all over the world, we serve customers in all languages we can, we run on whatever hardware platforms customers use, and we tune MySQL for a whole bunch of operating systems.

When we decide what to focus on, we look at the volumes. Our number one operating system is Linux. Windows is number two. Solaris is number three, and Mac OS X a very close four. I don’t see this changing by anything other than customer behavior. We will serve our customers on whatever platforms they run on, just as before.

Question: How do you think the folks at Oracle are going to react?
Answer: Sun is one of Oracle’s closest and most long-term partners, and MySQL has been a partner of Oracle for the last three years. You may know that Oracle distributes MySQL within their Linux offering, and MySQL distributes Oracle’s InnoDB component. So I believe that people at Oracle are happy that MySQL is in such a friendly camp.

Overall, it appears to me that people judge companies for what they were several years ago–not seeing where they are heading. Sun has changed its strategy dramatically in the last few years, and so has Oracle. Oracle is today one of the leading application vendors. It has a successful database business, but from a customer perspective they look more like a General Electric of software than a database company.

Charles Phillips, president of Oracle once publicly said that Oracle and MySQL are both in the transportation business. Oracle is a 747, and MySQL is a Toyota. Given the enormous success of Toyota Motor Corporation, I love that analogy! The world definitely needs big airplanes, but more broadly it needs modern transportation vehicles.

Question: Is there a theoretical limit of MySQL in case a small business uses it and sales/transactions/whatever explode?
Answer: Every software product has its limits, but I think we have shown that MySQL can scale enormously. Google runs its entire ad system on MySQL. Nokia runs mobile phone networks on MySQL. Booking.com runs all their business transactions on MySQL. If a small business reaches those limits, it is not a small business any longer–it is an enormous global player.

Question: If the best hockey players from Sun in the US played against the best MySQL players from Finland, who would win?
Answer: Don’t ask this question! I am not sure I can face my fellow Finns once I publicly admit that Sun would most likely win this game. Unless you give me time to recruit Selanne, Kurri, Toskala, and others. Teemu Selanne, by the way, put some money into the Finnish venture capital firm that made the first investment in MySQL, so he has made a nice return. Perhaps I could use that to convince him to play for MySQL.

References:

http://www.sun.com/solutions/smb/index.jsp

http://www.sun.com/solutions/smb/guest.jsp

Mytopia is the world’s first online social gaming community where people can play casual, timeless games together in real time, from every corner of the web. Users on social networks like Facebook , MySpace, Bebo, Orkut and Hi5 can play seamlessly with users in widget communities like Apple, Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft

There is a new casual gaming network in town that’s got some serious cross-platform chops. Don’t be fooled by the cutesy graphics. Today, Mytopia is simultaneously launching across Facebook, Bebo, MySpace (currently pending approval) and its own Website with eight games (Chess, Backgammon, Sudoku, Dominoes, Bingo, Spades, Hearts, Video Poker). On Monday, it will release the same games across the major Web and desktop widgets: iGoogle Gadgets, Apple Dashboard Widgets, Yahoo Widgets and Windows Vista Toolbar Widgets.

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Sources:

http://www.techcrunch.com/

http://www.mytopia.com/

Most of the people believe that writing a business plan is just a one way of wasting time. Instead of writing a business plan, we should focus on development,marketing and sales. I do not agree with them. Because if we do not plan some core topics, strategies of our company we will not be able to react the emerging markets or new opportunities in a correct way or timing.

We had a guest lecturer last weeks, who is one of the founder of eviware, Niclas. I really like his example, he said; “In soccer before you go to stadium all the team comes together and talk about the tactics. If you do not do that, while you are in the field there will not be enough time to think about every thing. Your opponents will start to attack you from the left, right and they will develop new tactics and so on. So; before going to pitch you should develop a core tactic, of course you can change it while you are in action. But still there must be a well defined tactic before you start”. In addition, while writing a business plan we should follow this circle; Discuss, Write, Read, Discuss, Rest, Read, Discuss, Write and Finish

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While online video creates new ways in which to acquire and disseminate information, it does not appear to be replacing traditional media outlets. Eighty percent of consumers say that online video usage does not cut into their TV time.

However, differences by gender and streaming usage are apparent. For men, online video usage cuts into TV time significantly more than for women (29 percent and 16 percent,respectively). While 29 percent of heavy users of online content (those who view content more than once a week) claim that video usage cuts into their TV time; only 12 percent of those who view content once a month make that claim. Of the 51 percent of respondents who indicated that they would watch a television episode online after missing it on TV, heavy users are the most likely to do so – comprising 62 percent of that population.
Consumers like watching TV online for the convenience factor, but connectivity and small screen size are still a barrier. Consumer comments include: “It’s just as enjoyable as watching on television, plus you can watch when it’s convenient for you;” “I like that it is available at my convenience to watch the show. I dislike that even with DSL the quality isn’t as good as watching it on cable;” and “It usually takes some time to download it, and my screen is smaller than the TV screen.”

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References: http://www.advertising.com

This morning Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship hold a breakfast seminar about “Social Media and Internet Marketing” and it was really a good seminar.

I am very familiar to the concepts and i like blogging, podcasting, video advertising and so on. But some small advices and clues can be listed as this:
-RSS becoming really important
-Females like creating content but Males like uploading videos
-youtube, flickr, facebook, myspace are important to make a social impact
-blogs, microblogs and tumblelog are important. They make your brand or company more reachable for the customers and you let them see, read what is happening in the company, which makes them feel good and trust your brand
-and also search engine optimizations are very important

I’m also collecting material for a new whitepaper on the impact of social media.

- How did your blog/podcast/video help you connect better with customers?
- What new ideas, insights and impulses did you get from blogging, podcasting
or sharing videos on YouTube?
- What impact did the use of social media have in your particular job?
- How much more revenue were you able… okok, that was a joke :).

If you have any story about how social media made a difference for you in our job or in making customers happy or in any other sense, please let me now and tell me about it.

I’m trying to get a better understanding on the impact of social media on everyday business life and on our ability to work. Many people believe that blogging, podcasting and other social media can be huge differentiator for a company like Sun and I’m one of them. I’d like to add the data to the belief, extract the mechanisms that make it work and provide the numbers and logic to show that the belief is a proven reality.

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I am working on word of mouth marketing techniques and i want to share a very good presentation with all of you. I used the documents from “Napa Consulting Group” and i would like to thanks them.

Last 2-3 weeks we had some sort of arguments and conflicts with my class mates at KTH/Stockholm. Some of them really believe that, if they have a business idea and plan to start-up on it, before going to a business angel or a venture capital they should send an NDA before and if they sign the NDA then they will go and talk about their business idea. But some others and me believe that signing a NDA is not really a good way to protect your idea, furthermore it is not that legal to use it in court.

Last week while i was talking with a venture capitalist in Stockholm, i asked the same question to him and he said; “i never sign that kind of papers, you should trust me. What ever you do, i probably have more lawyers then you do.” Another example about this was a professor from KTH who worked for Stanford Univ. in USA and have been very close to silicon valley, she also said the same; “no one sign that kind of papers in silicon valley”.

All in all; i also believe that signing a NDA means nothing and moreover, ideas are just the 3-5% of the whole business, i can find you 10s of ideas everyday but the most important and the difficult part if execution not the idea.

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This is one of the most clever and cheap-productive idea i have ever seen for a long time.Watch it and then you will see what a clever idea means