Life in School and Startup

Today…was a long day.

I spent probably 3 hours bouncing around between drawing and screwing around with html trying to do a mock-up for JUST THE LANDING PAGE. All I have to say is holy f*cking sh*t. Being less than proficient at both makes getting anything in the design realm done such a pain. So today I’ve made a pact with myself. I’m really going to jump head first into web design.

I might spend fifty to one hundred hours getting where I want with my web design skills. But in the long run, I’m going to save one thousand hours that are lost due to my #bigfail web design skills.

HTML and CSS aren’t really the problem. It’s photoshop. And learning how to integrate my HTML and CSS with the photoshop. Does anyone that does web design have any tips or tools they use that increase their productivity? Anyone use any great teaching tools that they would recommend? Open to any and all suggestions.

–EDIT–

Lol 50 to 100 hours to get pretty good at web design. Off by an order…or a magnitude? Probably a few of both #sadface.

For as long as I can remember, I have paid (or my parents have paid) for cable TV. I’ve lived through the rise of HD programming, the rise of TVs larger than a person, the rise of DVR, competition with satellite, etc. Things have come a long way in my lifetime, but only the most recent developments have given me reason to wake up tomorrow and finally stick it to the man. This man is named Time Warner Cable.

Tomorrow, everything I will be watching will be on ABC.com, NBC.com, Apple TV, and Hulu.  We’re going from ~300 channels to 4.  Also, we’re picking up Clear wireless internet (4G WiMax, yay for technology). It’s all free with internet. The $120/month bill is going to be $25/month for the same programming. We may miss mythbusters and dog whisperer, but almost everything else is online. Let me repeat…almost everything else is online. Couple that with a supposed AppleTV deal with the major networks and we’re in business for under 1/2 of what we’re paying right now.

A giant is falling due to the rise of technology. Good for hulu and boxee and netflix and everyone else who collectively make up a damn good alternative. As an entrepreneur, it’s nice to see the conventional wisdom beginning to bow to people who saw what a difference they could make, and executed well enough to cause people to make a lifestyle change. That speaks volumes, it really does.

Also, it’s going to force us to find alternatives for our time. We won’t be able to just say “hey, i need to kill some time, what’s on tv”. Admittedly, this may lead to more time playing Nintendo 64, but I would submit that that is a far more social and relationship-building event than sitting idle on the couch watching TV. My hope is that it will force us to talk more, work on the company more, go out to public places to watch sporting events. Watching TV now consists of watching things once through with limited commercials and then going back to our lives. Awesome.

I’m happy.  It may be rough to start out with, but I’m ready to see how we react.  Have you given up anything recently that you’ve had your whole life?  I’d love to hear about it.

Well, another year is begun. So much to look forward to! We’re already gearing up for our first round of closed beta, it’s all very exciting. Just thinking about all the things we have to do in the future makes me realize that this is probably going to be the busiest year of my life (at least so far). But no worries, my new word of the year “JFDI” will help me out a lot. It’s not a word per say but it’s a nice play off of Nike’s slogan with a little bit of added emphasis (thanks to Irwin Ki by the way for showing me the power of the word).

I’ll keep it short for tonight. Happy New Year everyone. Hope your New Year’s Resolutions last longer than February. BTW I suggest everyone come up with their own one word for the year. Make it something really near and dear to you, draw it nice and big on a piece of paper, and put it up on your wall.

Thanks @msuster for JFDI. I’ll use it well.