Kyle Brady: A Blog

Well, since I’ve mentioned that I’ve been relatively busy, both on and off the computer, recently, I thought I’d make a list for anyone that cares about what my life may have involved.

• I left California on Dec. 18th, and have spent the majority of the time in the Baltimore (actually, Towson) area of Maryland.  That’s on the East Coast for you geography failures.
• I leave tomorrow night to return to the epic awesome that is California.  Be ready.
• I spent a week in the Palm City area of Florida (a little bit north of Miami), right around Christmas, visiting lots of family I hadn’t seen in awhile.  Something like 21 of us.
• mySHOUToutLOUD has been the apple of my eye for the last few months, and we finally launched the Consumer side on January 1st.  Since then I’ve put the programming on hold, and have been trying my hand at PR/Marketing, with mixed results.
  • Facebook Advertising gets you alot of ad views, very few clickthroughs, and even less active users on whatever you’re advertising.  Just FYI, it sucks and isn’t worth it.
  • If you pick up an issue of the METRO (Silicon Valley newspaper) from last week, or this week, turn to the back page.  You’ll see an ad for mySHOUToutLOUD.
  • I’m supposed to have one interview today, and another tomorrow, to have articles in some Towson/Baltimore area newspapers, with the twist that I’m a “20 year old from Towson with a tech startup in California”.  I’ll link when they come out.
• I’ve decided that Shell Scripting sucks.  I needed a script that would generate entire server backups, and then download and distribute them to different locations.  Since it’s easy to do this via command line SSH and FTP, I assumed Shell would be good.  It’s not.  I’ve spent a large handful of hours on it, and it’s not done yet.  Next time, I’ll just do it in C, thank you very much.
• I got some feedback on my book from teachers I like/respect from my high school Alma Mater, Loyola Blakefield.  Apparently “Whispers Into Shadow” isn’t a load of crap, and I should continue with it.  Writing resumes tomorrow on the plane, hopefully completing it within the next three months.
• Finally, I actually go back to school starting Monday at San Jose State University.  This is my first real semester of school since last June, when I decided to leave Santa Clara University and transfer to SJSU… not knowing it would take 6 months to do that.  It’ll be interesting, so we’ll see how it goes.

And, as if that weren’t enough, I’ve also spent alot of time being:

• awesome
• egotistical
• amazing
• a rockstar
• sick programmer
• your worst nightmare

Words to live by?  How about… “Keep the demons inside you.  It makes you more real.”

posted on January 17th, 2008 at 9:32 am by Kyle - Comments

Tags: Business, C, Christmas, Code, Education, Me, My Future Book, Programming

I think we should all let Microsoft take our data. Really. Everything about us… blood type, injuries, health insurance…

Did you catch the sarcasm? Did you? Because something tells me the creator of the most buggy, flawed, attacked, and hacked software in the world is going to have a hard time convincing people their data is secure. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong, but I just have this weird feeling that they’re probably running the same software that gets hacked thousands of times a day worldwide…

“W3 R S3kur3″ - Microsoft’s Quote of the Day

Congratulations, Microsoft. You beat Google to a release of a new product for once. That is admirable. But that doesn’t mean it’s a better product, or that people will even care. Being the first to the finish line may win you a race… but we all know that in war there is no ticker tape. There are only mines, rocket launchers, and stealth bombers, but I digress.

Google has been supposedly developing their own product that is intended to revolutionize the medical industry, this is common knowledge in the tech world. Who do you really think is more secure with their data? How many times have you heard of your personal account information being leaked from Google? How often has Microsoft’s systems been hacked? How often has Google’s systems been hacked? Who is generally treated with greater trust?

There are 1.3 million results for curing your STD.

The answer is obvious: Google. The world leader in search and information storage considers your personal health information to just be one more shelf to index: all the better to personalize your services, my dear. From my personal experience, people who use Google’s products love Google, whereas people who use Microsoft’s products typically don’t. What is your most used email account, Gmail or Hotmail/Live Mail/Whatever-they-call-it-today?

“We’re good for your health!” - Google’s Quote of the Day

When the battle is begun, and sides are taken, where will you side? Where will the doctors, and subsequently, the industry side? I’m willing to put the smart money on Google, it’s a pretty simple choice. The two behemoths will face off, and battle for the attention… this much is true. But given the history of each company, and their respective mottos (both official and unofficial), chances are that Microsoft Windows Live Spaces Personal Health Identifier Super Home Edition will fail.

Completely, utterly, disastrously… fail.

posted on October 10th, 2007 at 5:23 pm by Kyle - Comments

Tags: Business, Future, Google, Heatlh, Microsoft, Privacy

Engadget had a writeup of a Travelex press release on a new currency…

I only have one thing to say: Uh, YES!

Ok, that was a lie. I have more to say than that.

Looks cool, doesn’t it?

People are saying this is stupid, a waste of time, or unnecessary… but there are some things to consider before passing judgment.

• The Euro
• Space
• Star Wars

The Euro

Remember when Europe had a different currency in every country? Aren’t things a little better now? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I find it easier to carry one currency across a plethora of locations than having to change it out everytime you go 8 miles in any direction. Another small item for consideration: if memory serves me, the Euro stabilized the European economy a little bit… right?

Space

It’s a big place. And the arguments for why credit cards (as they work currently) won’t be acceptable are very true and compelling… think of space as one giant magnet scanner you can’t put your credit card on. For that matter, how easy is it going to be to pay for things using whatever currency you normally use… when there’s going to be more than a handful of currency options from all of the different countries?

The luxury apartments of the future…

Star Wars

I’m assuming you’ve seen Star Wars? Then you’ve realized they pay in a generic form of currency… Galactic Credits. That seems to work out for them doesn’t it?

The Bring-Together

Long story short, I think that not only is a “galactic currency” a good idea… but it’s much needed. If America were to use the same currency as China and Europe (although Europe might be upset about having to change again), things would be much different. There’d be no more talk of “the dollar is falling!” and China trying to have the Yen take over the world.

It would also potentially unite the world, to a certain extent, which is a necessary item for humanity to be successful and thriving in space. We can’t have our planetary problems carry over into space or other planets… do you really want to have to worry about suicide bombers proclaiming Jihad on the moon? How about the Chinese and Russians working together to take over some new planet, name it a Communist property, and then declare war on the non-Communists?

What we’re really trying to avoid…

Do you really think that each country can reach space independently? No. The American government is having a hard enough time as it is, how can third world countries (or even places like Germany, for that matter) make it? This is why the business sector has stepped in. But for the business sector of space to be fully functional and realized, the world economy and populace has to be behind the idea of colonizing space as a race and as a people…

Not in the name of their homeland, nation, religion, race, or otherwise social affiliation.

posted on October 8th, 2007 at 12:56 pm by Kyle - Comments

Tags: America, Business, Citizenship, Future, Space

Everyone’s complaining about GOOG411 these days. The real question is: why?

Google has a habit of releasing their new products whenever they feel like it, and in what they consider a BETA stage. (In reality, the products are more like a fully developed v1.0, but that’s beside the point.) After a unusually short gestation period, the products are removed from BETA and advertised in some fashion to the general public… and destroy the competition.

Everyone in the tech industry/Silicon Valley knows this. So when GOOG-411 became more than a semi-unknown secret, why did people come out of nowhere with a bunch of complaints? Not only are many of their complaints stupid and pointless, they’re also not even related to how wonderful the service is.

Stop it. Bad evil lizard.

Until now, if you wanted a 411/info service that was free, you had to call a number that was either heavily ad supported, or not of a high caliber. Until now, only people “in the know” were aware of Google’s phone services (GOOG-411, and the text message version… send a message to “GOOGL”).

Here’s how it works:

1. You call GOOG-411
2. You hear a very enthusiastic voice saying the name of the service
3. A soothing voice asks you for a city and state
4. It again asks you for what you’re looking for
5. It tells you the results
6. You can have the number texted to you
7. You can hear more information about the place
8. You can have it auto-dial the number

What, in the name of Odin, is wrong with that? I have never once encountered an advertisement. I have never thought “hmm that was totally annoying and a terrible service, because for 3.5 seconds at the beginning someone said the name of what I just called”. The only thing I’ve ever thought was “Oh, sweet. It gave me the number I wanted as the first result, and I didn’t have to memorize it to call them! Thanks, Google!”

The dog version of Google.

So here’s my general comment to all of you: Stop Complaining. It’s free. It’s Google. It’s much more than adequate… it’s great. Until you build something of significant status, you’re only allowed to complain when the service/product is not as advertised.

And in this case, it is exactly as advertised.

posted on October 2nd, 2007 at 8:36 pm by Kyle - Comments

Tags: Business, Google, Rant, Technology

Looking for freshly graduated people from business/marketing school that are interested in doing ‘pro bono’ work for a new tech startup in the Bay Area.

Contact sales@myshoutoutloud.com with a resume if interested.

Hopefully a real degree…

[also on Craigslist]

[also on the mySHOUToutLOUD Blog]

posted on September 23rd, 2007 at 9:37 am by Kyle - Comments

Tags: Business, Wanted