Calculating WeightWatchers points from a picture of the Nutritional Information

When I have tried to track the food I am eating as part of a diet, entering the key nutrition elements was not always convenient. Since I haven't seen a WeightWatchers product for reading nutritional values from a picture, I thought it would be a cool thing to prototype. One of the guys in my office had a box of oatmeal packets on his desk, so he took a picture with his iPhone 5 -  (oatmeal_photo.JPG (2.99 mb)). Below is a lower resolution version:   I had never previo... [More]

Powershell Module for transferring files via SFTP

I had the need for several automated jobs to be able to exchange files securely with partners via the Secure FTP (SFTP). I chose powershell because the jobs: get executed on windows nodes. It is less overhead than creating console apps in .NET required things like querying databases, transforming data, and archiving files I spent a little bit of time looking into different options, and decided to utilize the latest version of the WinSCP library provided the required options... [More]

Predicting eBay Auction Sales with Machine Learning

Abstract:  Online auctions are one the most popular methods to buy and sell items on the internet.  With more than 100 million active users globally (as of Q4 2011), eBay is the world's largest online marketplace, where practically anyone can buy and sell practically anything. The total value of goods sold on eBay was $68.6 billion, more than $2,100 every second. This kind of volume produces huge amounts of data that can be utilized to provide services to the buyers and sell... [More]

Show my startup the money…or not.

Living/working in the New York City area I get to meet quite a few people starting up their own ventures and I am intrigued by how the small, early companies start out. There are all sorts of interesting dynamics to consider: How many founders do they have? If more than one, why? Did they hire employees/interns/partners at the beginning? If so, why? Did they look for outside investment? If so, did they need it? What is their plan for growth/expansion/scale? Since every business and foun... [More]

Personal Roadtrip Hackathon

A hackathon is generally an event a small group collaborates together to build a product or prototype in a very short period. Some of the more popular sponsored examples (such as the ones during the TechCrunch Disrupt series) usually last for 24 hours.  For a while, I have been intrigued by the concept and have wanted to see what I can accomplish. Unfortunately I have not had the opportunity to enter one with my always busy schedule and family commitments.  This weekend I had a ... [More]

2013 NBA All Star Weekend

My buddy Mike Dolan runs a very cool magazine targeted to professional athletes called Athletes Quaterly. Each issue is loaded with content/interviews about current and former pro athletes.    Mike and I are both very big NBA fans, especially from 70-90's eras. This weekend I had a very cool opportunity to join him in Houston, the host city of the 2013 All Star game. Mike has interviewed or knows various members of the NBA Retired Players Association, so we got to hang out w... [More]

When do you start investing in people and stop investing in software?

Yesterday a friend IM’d me this question out of the blue with a really interesting question: When do you start investing in people and stop investing in software? Before I get into my answer, let’s explore more about investments and how they relate to software and people. What is an investment?  A generic definition for investment is allocating money and /or resources into some initiative with the expectation of gain. Most investment scenarios carry an associated set of risk... [More]

Sending email through Gmail SMTP server - C# and Powershell examples

I know I haven't posted much code on this blog, but this snippet I found valuable. While I can certainly host my SMTP server, it would be so much easier if I could just Google's (since I am using Google Apps for my site's email). Below is the code you can use to send email's via Google's SMTP server. enjoy... C#   string GmailUserName="myusername@gmail.com"; string GmailPassword="mypassword"; string SendTo="sendto@gmail.com"; string EmailSubject="Test Subject"; s... [More]

The Difference between a Good and Bad Place to Work.

I enjoy reading the insights I can find from Ben Horowitz (he was founder/CEO of Opsware and nowadays is founder/partner at Andreessen-Horowitz which manages near $3B). I recently read one of his blog posts where he provided a member of his team with his view of the difference between a good place to work and a bad place to work: “In good organizations, people can focus on their work and have confidence that if they get their work done, good things will happe... [More]

When to Build vs. Buy

I had been lucky enough to get to work on a diverse variety of business models and approaches to solving problems over the past 20 years. For most of the major initiatives these companies face, the stakeholders must usually choose between the following: Do it yourself Get some help This is often referred to as a Build vs. Buy scenario. Building is when a company decides to use existing resources (or bring on new resources) to create some thing or acquire the capability it needs. Bu... [More]