Random Ramblings...

It's been a busy few days trying to port over all the existing data from my HP laptop to my network drive and getting important programs for the new Macbook so I can carry on business as usual. An odd but great thing I'm now getting used to is the lack of crappy programs I have to install to make everyday things work. iChat replaced two chat programs that I would have had to download on the PC. Various iLife programs have replaced all the random and off beat programs I would have needed to install to watch and burn CDs and DVDs on my PC. The Mac version of the Office have pretty much eliminated my need to use Office 2007, even though the two are somewhat different. (I do remember hearing that the Mac version will be upgrading in a couple of months or so.) The last and somewhat annoying piece of the migration is the Adobe Photoshop and Dreamweaver that I'd like to have, but currently lack.

Now, MS has a student version of Office that they sell for $150 on the Mac platform; which is great. Adobe however, has ridiculous pricing on all their products which results in tons of people pirating and cracking their software for distribution. Since so many freelancers depend on these software, why doesn't Adobe come out with a student or startup friendly version of their software? Wouldn't they in theory be able to get more legit customers and possibly make a lot more money if they price themselves a little bit lower and became startup friendly? I mean, no one spends time hacking a $15 program... the pro's just doesn't outweigh the con's. On the other hand, I don't think Adobe should charge $15... but somewhere closer to $100 instead of $600+ would be greatly appreciated by everyone in the industry I'm sure.

So the Atlanta Startup Weekend is this weekend here and unfortunately I found out about it too late and could not get in the program. It does seem like they're doing something cool even though I have no idea what it is. I will have to get some reports from the other people I know who are going... mabbe next time I guess. On a side note - they do hold these things all over the country so if you're interested in meeting like-minded people, I would check to see if they have any events in your area.

Oh yeah, I stumbled across a Facebook ad the other day, (I swear being in marketing makes me hyper sensitive to ads no one else will ever click on). The ad was trying to appeal to entrepreneurs to do something. I'm not sure if this would be of interest to anyone but apparently Intuit, the makers of Quickbooks and Quicken is launching another startup contest where they will award $50k for the best idea submitted. The website is IWillJustStart.com and if you're interested, check it out and submit your idea.

You will find on the backside, it's a slick way to get you to participate in yet another social network dedicated to entrepreneurs. I'm not sure if that site's navigation is easy enough to make the site sticky for me. I personally find the whole thing a bit hard to use and a bit hard to see the other entries. Then again, who ever said accountants were great UI designers?

Other things to note... Ad:Tech in NY this week. I originally was going to go through my (day job) company but unfortunately they ended up picking someone else to go instead. Talk about a major bummer; considering I did all the leg work to get the trip approved in the first place. If there's one major pet peeve I have, it's the lack of educational investment a company make or doesn't make in their employees. Yes, for some, the drive is money. For others, the drive is job security and/OR education. Here's me, someone who is obviously motivated to learn, especially knowing that both MySpace and Facebook are making some pretty big announcements this week on the future of interactive marketing. There's the company saying: "Thanks for doing the work" but we're going to send someone else who won this spot (in a stupid raffle) and had absolutely no interest in going prior to hearing about a random raffle. Am I bitter? Yeah, just a tad bit. What can I say? I get bored easily and if I'm not learning, I'm out there looking for other opportunities to learn... *sigh* Sometimes I wish employers would pay a bit more attention to their overworked staff and make the necessary investments instead of worrying about an extra $10-$20k on their bottom line. Heck, if we are more educated, we can probably make the company significantly more! Instead now you just have a bitter employee... (Good job!)

Note: Make sure when the dot com makes it big, we put employee satisfaction above the bottom line.