Printing, scanning, faxing and bootstrapping

I was looking for a printer. Nothing fancy. Just printing.

Like with the chair I told a few friends about that. Eventually one of them told me that he had one and was not using it anymore. So I have a new hp officejet 6110 printer.

hp officejet 6110

While looking at amazon’s hp officejet 6110 page for features I saw this nice warning.

amazon there's a new version

It lets you know that you can still buy the product but that there’s a newer version available. Amazon delights everyone with this small customer satisfaction details.

April 17, 2007 | Tags: , , | Leave a Comment 

reading . books @ London

While I was in London I was able to read a couple of good books. The time spent in the underground, parks, river side, cafes, museums, etc. where a perfect set to put some of my reading interests up-to-date. Here are some of the books I read together with my opinion on each of them:

1841125792.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_V50630598_.jpgAnyone Can Do It: Building Coffee Republic from Our Kitchen Table - 57 Real-Life Laws on Entrepreneurship

This was a book I bought to get my holiday reading season starterd without choosing one of those hard-to-read books. It’s a very simple book on how a sister and a brother built a chain of cafes in London. I think the value of this book in on the entrepreneurship and bootstrapping ideas that are mentioned throughout the book.

1401302378.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_V63383464_.jpgThe Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More

The book from Chris Anderson was the one I most enjoyed reading. Having read the (now famous) Wired article, I had already read about The Long Tail concept. But the book goes one step further in contextualizing and explaining how the Long Tail is changing society by leveraging Internet as the biggest distribution channel ever and with almost unlimted customization possibilities.
Another reason that made me enjoy the book was the fact that Adegga is based on the Long Tail of Wine and I was able to understand and develop some of the ideas I have been working on for the project.

1590593898.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpgJoel on Software: And on Diverse and Occasionally Related Matters That Will Prove of Interest to Software Developers, Designers, and Managers, and to Those Who, Whether by Good Fortune or Ill Luck, Work with Them in Some Capacity (Paperback)

I really enjoyed reading the ideas that the Joel on Software blog author has on sofware development. It goes through very interesting practical analysis of business, marketing and programming. I’ve been trying to apply some of the ideas on time management but working on an open-space and being interrupted every 5 minutes makes it very difficult (I should spend more time alone). Back to the book. It was also very interesting to read the author’s ideas on running a small business based on his experience as Fog Creek Software owner.

0553817280.02._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_V56641027_.jpgI’m currently reading Families of the Vine. A book that tells the one-year journey of the author througout wine producers in the the south of France.

Since I returned I haven’t read a full chapter of this book (which I started in London). And it’s not just a matter of lack of time. In my day-to-day I have to concentrate on all the things I have to do. At night, when I finally open the book, I’m too tired to be able to understand any 2 paragraphs.

On a more technical note I have in my bag 2 books that I also brought from the holidays: Building Scalable Web Sites by Cal Henderson and Ambient Findability by Peter Morville.

0596102356.01._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_V52808810_.jpg0596007655.02._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_V1129826195_.jpg

I have added all of the books to my book library at LibraryThing where I have been discovering other people that have the same books as me (yes, Social Networking for books).

August 31, 2006 | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment 

  • about

    andre_ribeirinho_t.jpg My name is André Ribeirinho, I'm an entrepreneur who lives in Portugal
    More about me. Contact me.

  • my startup

    Adegga - Social Wine Discovery


    Adegga is a social wine discovery service. The idea is to take the complexity out of wine and allow people to discover wines based other people's choices.