Computers - Endless Data Problems?

Big boo(m)

2005-10-14T11:54:00.000+02:00

The boo.com company, founded in 1998 was promising, ambitious plan of two young Swedes: Ernst Malmsten and Kajsa Leander. Unfortunately, what was supposed to be an enormous success was after 1,5 year probably the most spectacular dot.com disaster in the early days of Internet trading in Europe.

The whole history was lively and in VERY detail told by the co-founder and the CEO - Ernst Malmsten in the "Boo hoo" book, where he analises day by day the whole boo life.
The company was a worldwide online fashion and sports retailer. The ambitious founders had had the vision of enormous, well prospering, client-friendly company with perfect website, well organised delivery system and complex PR. Unfortunately, as always, the problem was money. Althoug they could persuade inverstors to give them an impressive amount of more than 130 million $ and, after lots of technical and human-resources problems they were finally on their good way in selling famous clothes and sports brands, they didn't succeed.

There are many reaons for that famous failure. As Ernst himself concludes: they were too optimistic at the beginning. They tried to build an "utopia" with sometimes having their eyes "closed (...) to all warning signs". Altough they could set a global company employing more than 400 people their mistakes such as over-trust in their own capabilities, wastefulness and paying too much atention to details, especially to design of the website, Miss Boo or online magazine, made it impossible to limit costs and persuade investors for more and more money.

For me personally, it was doubtful from the very beginning to organise something so huge and requiring at once. Success is achieved in a slow, mundane work, which begins from the well-based grounds and develops as the time goes by. It is of course true, that the boo.com situation required speed and global thinking in order to use the privilleges of the rule: the first takes all, but not at all costs. Boo was for me the negation of nature laws: it didn't grow from little seed into a huge tree. They wanted to plant the 20 meter oak and keep it alive, watering with investors' bottomless wallets (but little patience).

How the nerds changed our lives

2005-09-30T09:00:00.000+02:00

For those who are not familiar with the word (just as I was some time ago):

Nerd – as a stereotypical or archetypal designation, refers to people of above-average intelligence, whose interests (often in science and mathematics) are not shared by mainstream society. They may also exhibit such traits as pedantry, obesity, myopia, ungainliness or social awkwardness.
However, beginning in the late 1990s, many nerds on the Internet reclaimed the word nerd as a badge of pride and began using it as a positive description of a technology-competent person.

Triumph of the Nerds is a documentary about the history of PC computers, which, according to some, dates back to 1975,when Ed Roberts invented the first PC computer Altair. The funniest thing was, that nobody, including the inventor, new, what to do with that.
It required flipping switches up and down to load something to computer’s memory, for example: to find out what is the result of summing up 2+2 one needed to flip 18 switchers to see, that the answer: 4 was the blinking of a certain lamp. Fortunately, the person, who is now one of the richest people in the whole world, that is Bill Gates, tamed the machine with the BASIC program, and began a new era in a computer industry.

The film shows the whole story of personal computers through the eyes of their inventors. The most surprising fact is, how fast the ‘garage invention’ revolutionised the world and enabled people in less then two decades fulfil their dreams about smart devices on their desks. Improvements were appearing one after another and people involved were making incredible amounts of money, not even expecting how their hobby would change the future.

For me personally the film was a short introduction to the amazing world of technology and innovation. And since I don’t know much about them it encouraged me to look deeper into the virtual reality and what some people call Electronic Data Processing. (For me: Endless Data Problems) :-)

...yes, it works

2005-09-29T10:04:00.000+02:00

...now I know that it needs the first posting to run. So, let's get started then:)

Just checking if it works

2005-09-28T00:04:00.000+02:00

...and it doesn't...
Just as in the title: step by step creatingthis blog and what?? NOTHING! I hope after this warning my EDP will do its best...