In First Crack #123 – Building CitizenWausau.com, I call up Dino Corvino and Andy Laub, the editor and technologist respectively, to discuss the project, how it’s grown, and it’s relationship with more established media in a smaller city market.
Author Archives: Garrick van Buren
First Crack 122. John Hoffoss on Usability and Network Security
John Hoffoss, a network security engineer at one of Minnesota’s larger institutions, and I dive into computer security, security versus usability, the insecurity of URL shorteners, and some of the reasons Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer are more often targets of security exploits than other platforms. Stay til the end for a discussion of the …
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The Relationship Between Usability and Security
Put on your tin foil hat and join John Hoffoss and me for a tour of computer security threats, exploits, and vulnerabilities – and their relationship the usability. And yes, if you pull the hat down far enough – Twitter and Facebook are two of the most significant threats to network security yet. First Crack …
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Passenger + Sinatra Tip: DocumentRoot is Always /public
I was getting 403 errors after deploying my newest Sinatra app with Passenger. Turns out Passenger assumes and requires a /public folder. This app is so tiny and new, it didn’t have one yet – so I was pointing Passenger at the app’s root. Resulting in the 403 errors. Solution: Create an empty /public folder …
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5 Minute Interview with Garrick @ MIMA Summit
In 5 brief minutes, I discuss my web font deliver service, Kernest and my hopes and dreams for Minnesota’s tech startup community. More interviews from all the Minnesota entrepreneurs that presented at the MIMA Summit over at MN Tech Startups.com
Cold Start #1 – Prototyping MVPs and Insulation
[43 minutes]
Cold Start #0 – About the Cold Start Podcast
Listen to Cold Start #0 – About the Cold Start Podcast [8 minutes]
My Proposal for Wal-Mart to Replace the US Postal Service
“With this program, we’re able to provide consumers in every rural town or big city across America with … a convenient, free mail delivery system.” – John Agwunobi, Wal-Mart division president In continuing my mental exercise on replacing the USPS I was stuck with solving the problem of delivery and drop-off for rural America. Especially …
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Mental Excercise: Replace the US Postal Service
Yesterday, NPR discussed the challenges of the US Postal Service after reporting a $3.8 billion revenue loss for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2009. The revenue loss corresponded to a reported 13% decline in mail volume. I’ve noticed a significant decrease on my end since Dec 2007 as well. For the 2008 and 2009 …
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Innately Index Me
This morning Andy Parkinson pointed to his Innate Index project. And since narcissism is the perfect way to start a Monday, I indexed myself. That’s the graph above. “The Innate Index is a brief personality inventory based on the five factor personality model that has been shown to be associated with a variety of school, …