The Death of the Web?

Creative Disruption
Everyone agrees that the App Store for the Mac is a "Really Big Deal", as Marco Arment puts it. One thing that I think most analysis is still missing is the huge impact that it will have on the world of web apps and startups. Here's how it will happen. (read on...)
 
Posted on October 29, 2010
by Daniel Tenner
in Apple
( comments )
 
 

How to lose weight

What worked for me, with graphs
This article presents just one method of losing weight. It's worked very, very well for me. It doesn't require an extreme diet, it doesn't require much money (you'll save money, in fact), and it doesn't require extreme amounts of willpower. All it requires is a bit of method and preparation.

I've gone through this "diet" three times (see graphs). The first time I went from 83kg to 75.5kg over about 3 months. The second time, from 80kg to 71kg over 4 months. My latest iteration of this diet has me down from 75kg to 68.5kg in about 2 months. When I started my first version of this diet, two and a half years ago, I was, according to my scale, at about 22% body fat (well into "overweight"). I am now at 14.3%, which is just below the middle of the "normal" range for men. I still have a little bit of belly fat, but considerably less than I used to. (read on...)
 
Posted on June 21, 2010
by Daniel Tenner
in Life
( comments )
 
 

How to nap

Power napping without sleeping
I am the kind of person who takes 30 minutes to an hour to fall asleep, most nights. Falling asleep is an ordeal for me (unless I'm completely exhausted). Don't get me wrong - it's not an unpleasant ordeal... there are worse things in life than lying in bed. But I truly envy those people who can just put their head on a pillow and drift off within moments. Oh, such bliss... not for me. I will lie in bed, awake, forever thinking and rethinking whatever happens to be on my mind at the time. (read on...)
 
Posted on March 23, 2010
by Daniel Tenner
in Life
( comments )
 
 

No best practices

The fallacy of methodologies
I worked in Accenture for 4 years. For almost 2 of those years, my role was to be the QPI lead on my project. That stands for "Quality Process Improvement" lead. No, I'm not kidding you. In that role, I was essentially meant to take the "best practices" from the Accenture methodology and ensure the project followed them. Yet even a relatively rigid company like Accenture understood that not all "best practices" applied to every project. (read on...)
 
Posted on March 13, 2010
by Daniel Tenner
in Start-ups
( comments )
 
 

iPad: an Apple for Mom

The uncomputer for the people
To much of the geek-sphere, the iPad is somewhat of a disappointment. It's underwhelming - there's nothing all that surprising in there, no "oh, and one more thing" to throw some real techno-magick spices into the pot. We saw it coming from a hundred miles away, so now that it's finally here, there isn't much surprise left. (read on...)
 
Posted on January 28, 2010
by Daniel Tenner
in Technology
( comments )
 
 

Learning from Wakemate

Smart announcements
A few hours ago, Wakemate made an announcement that the shipping for their product would be delayed (it was supposed to be shipping by the end of January 2010). To sweeten the bad news, they thought it wise to add that people who had pre-ordered the product would get some free access to previously unannounced premium features. Perhaps surprisingly for the Wakemate team, the reaction to this has been very negative. (read on...)
 
Posted on January 23, 2010
by Daniel Tenner
in Startups
( comments )
 
 

The questionable value of the real-time web

Demand-side attention economics
Everyone is talking about the "real-time web". That's usually a pretty strong indication of a buzzword that will soon not mean much at all. In fact, some will argue that it already doesn't mean much. And yet, as Paul Graham's web 2.0 article showed, it is possible to extract value even out of apparently meaningless buzzwords. (read on...)
 
Posted on November 03, 2009
by Daniel Tenner
in Technology
( comments )
 
 

What problems does Google Wave solve?

A matter of perspective
There are countless pundits and other tech gurus putting down Google Wave as a disappointment, lately. Most of the disappointment seems to come from the fact that nobody seems to get what Wave is for. So they compare it to social media. Is Wave the next Twitter? Nope. Is it the next Facebook? Nope. Is it going to replace Instant Messengers? Possibly, in some circumstances, but not any time soon. I believe this is partly Google's fault: they released Wave to geeks and hackers and social media folks first. But Wave is not a geek/hacker tool, or a social media tool, it's a corporate tool that solves work problems (more on that later). On the other hand, they never claimed it would be a Facebook replacement or a Twitter killer. Google calls wave an "online tool for real-time communication and collaboration". The way Google should have advertised Wave is: "it solves the problems with email". (read on...)
 
Posted on October 15, 2009
by Daniel Tenner
in Technology
( comments )
 
 

Taking a stand

Facebook, TechCrunch, and Free Speech
There is a debate raging, lately, about whether or not Facebook should block holocaust-denial groups from using its platform. Surprisingly, Facebook, both as a company and as a collection of individual employees with their own opinion, have taken the courageous position that free speech should be respected on Facebook, whether or not they approve of it. (read on...)
 
Posted on June 18, 2009
by Daniel Tenner
in Misc
( comments )
 
 

A tale of two users

Twitter, early adopters, and lead users
Eric von Hippel's concept of early adopters versus lead users is well established. How does it work in practice, though? And why is it so hard to cross that famous chasm? Let's have a look at how this process can unfold, looking at a real life example. (read on...)
 
Posted on June 15, 2009
by Daniel Tenner
in Misc
( comments )
 
 

About me

Hi. My name is Daniel Tenner.

I am the CTO and cofounder at Woobius, a web-based document sharing collaboration tool for architects, engineers and designers. If you ever need to share lots of files between several companies collaborating on a project, have a look. It might be for you.

You can find me on various other media (often under the nick-name swombat): Twitter, Hacker News, Github, LinkedIn, Freenode (IRC) and, of course, email, at: daniel dot blog at tenner dot org. Maybe you read my previous blog inter-sections.net, a few articles I wrote for Sitepoint, or you may have seen my articles republished on TechCrunch and LifeHacker.

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