Archive for September, 2010

TechCrunch Disrupt Hack Day

One of our engineers wants to attend TechCrunch Disrupt.  The $3000 price tag is a bit high for us to send all the people that would want to attend, but I really appreciate a way for people that want to go to Disrupt can go by participating in the hack a thon.

A few people were asking for ideas, so I’m putting out a list of ideas that could possibly be done in an 8 hr period.  I’m not researching the ideas, so they may exist.  They are also aimed to be simple to develop.

1. Should I buy this (I hope someone makes this) Facebook app.  Take a picture of an item with the title, Should I buy this.  Then it has a poll, Yes or No that goes out to your friends.

2.  Sports Score notifications.  I want to be able to follow a game and get a notification everytime a team scores.  I hate checking scores to see that it hasn’t changed so just let me “follow” a game and get updates as they happen.

3.  Netflix New Release App - When movies hit theaters, I want a way to add them to my NF queue if I want to see them.  I rarely make it the the theatre (have little kids) and I feel like I miss adding movies I want to see.

4.  Mortgage Rate Alert.  A simple notification that you can set to let you know if rates hit a certain level.  Most people should refi if they can save over 1pt.  Make it easy for people to know.

5.  You should know this person - Take a picture of a person and send an email to someone introducing them.  So in so, meet so in so.  Make an email template for the intro and fill in basic info.  I do at least two or three intros a week.

6.  Pick this up for me.  Very simple app where you say, pick this up for me, or run this errand.  Anyone can claim the task and do it for a small fee.

7.  Concerts I want to see.  Make a list of the people you want to see in concert and get a notification if they are ever close to you.

8.  Receipt filer.  Take a picture of a receipt and file it, plus put it into a expense report and email it to the right person.  Expense reports stink.

9.  Business cards.  Take a picture of a business card and have it turned into a contact.

10.  Automatic Itinerary to block off time on your calendar while you travel.  When you book a flight, you get an email with the dates and time.  Make a way to forward the mail so it blocks the time on your calendar.

Most of these are mobile ideas or notification based ideas and I don’t know if they exist already, but they could be a seed of a useful app to build and who knows, maybe even a company.

Awesome Labor Day

For the 2nd year in a row we did a houseboating trip.  This year we went to Lake Don Pedro which was the third lake we hit this summer.  As always, we ate well and did our standard filet mignon dinner.

These are awesome family trips.  Looking forward to next year!