Pickle is gone...well at least to us regular joes.  See below. After lengthy consideration, we concluded that the best course is to retire consumer access to Pickle.com. As of May 15, 2008, you will no longer have access to your Pickle account. Don't worry. We've made it easy for you to ...

I am sure not many people know that I am just as interested and involved in marketing as I am programming, so I decided to start writing posts about marketing as ...

So the AustinFlex UG group was officially established last night. We held a short meeting to try and establish meeting places, times and just getting to know everyone. We had a pretty good turnout roughly 15 out of 22 that had signed ...

What gives with the title Jason? I am sure some will argue this title is totally off base, but is it? Having returned from a Pragmatic Programmers class recently, I have been contemplating lately why a large percentage of startups are developing in Ruby ...

Just learned that Evan Williams is a fellow Nebraskan. I wonder which part of the state he is from. Anyway, check out this post on Evhead. Funny pic PS: Back from vacation and training. It was nice to get be out of the office and away from all the ...

I have been feverishly working on a Customer Information System design project over the past few weeks and I am ready to show one of the prototypes. We have gone through several paper prototypes and Axure prototypes, but I wasn't satisfied with the direction the team is taking it. ...

You can catch up on the posts here and here. You seem to comment on my diverse experience, yet your about page says the same about you. Hmmm! Hypocrite, much? Now I see what the deal is. Your on the outside of Web 2.0 and you want in. ...

So I broke down over the weekend and bought an iphone. I was trying to hold out until 2nd generation in hopes of getting a 3G phone. I figured what the heck I will use this one for two years and then ...

So, I had an idea about 4 months ago and decided I wasn't going to do anything with it so I will pass it on. I know most of the dating sites are struggling to compete with each other and are starting look well a little web 1.0 (dated). I was reading an article on TechCrunch and Scoble or someone had posted that someone happened to see a guy at a TechCrunch event and wanted to meet him for a possible date. Well it got me thinking. I know there are tons of missed connection sites out there (craiglist, ..etc), but what about extending this idea? I really don't have the details flushed out so I will just try and write the stream on thought I went through. I know missed connections are boring so what about more of a crush site. Not just any crush site, but one where mention someone you would like to date and then post a picture of that person. Then people can vote on if you would make good couple. Then I thought well what about letting the world match you to someone else, meaning you post a pick and like/dislikes and then let real people (with time to burn) match you. So like a Hot or Not, but they match people to you. Your friends could hook you up with people they know in a public forum then that person could let her/his friends help them to decide if they should give you a chance or not. I can hear all the teenage girls, he's kind of cute but he likes listening to country music. Ok, go with me on this part as it could get a little creepy. Ok, so I thought this sounds good so far, but what if you ad a more networking type addition to what I have mentioend above? Say you like a this person you have seen around or ran into in another city. Well you can post the picture of the girl/guy you snapped with your cell phone. You post that you want to meet this person and people (with time to burn) can sort through the photos to see if they know that person based on the city you saw them in. We are supposed to be less than 7 degrees of seperation, right? So it shouldn't be to hard for somone in California to know the person in New Jersey. Anyway so you post the pic and then somone in Montana recognizes this New Jersey girl, shes a friend of a friend. So they tell you how she knows this person and its shown on her profile that she is connected by 5 degrees of seperation (like on linkedin) So you get a visual hierarchy (like a mind map) of how they are all connected (optional privacy feature). So then you can see if you know somone in your hierarchy (degrees of seperation) who can get you a date with this girl. So I guess the idea is sort of combo of Linkedin,  Match.com, Hot or Not, and well a great site for stockers.  Who knows maybe somone you know, knows someone who kind of knows Britney Spears. Honestly, the last part is a stretch, but I think the let people match you in a game type way ...

So, I was extended an offer to go to the Austin PayPal Developer Day ( Big thanks Russell Evans [chalantmedia.com] ) and decided to accept. Glad I did. I took the test and passed and now I am a certified PayPal Developer. Having never really worked with PayPals API the test wasn't easy. I haven't taken a timed test since....well college. Anyway I am now listed as a developer on PayPal's site and have been getting a couple of hits a week from it on my other site. Now if only I can gain access to my PayPal Developer account page....can't get in with any of my email addresses.