Dont depend on the grant money to run your business, treat it like icing on the cake. the money is more of a reimbursement than upfront cash. Grow from sales.
FYI: Its a Drupal7 site hosted on new jersey linode so they can't really be php haters - maybe self-haterz. Using TypeKit. Sophisticated enough to include a custom server header and a California specific Privacy Policy but a UK one (although it could be copied). Video by Wistia.
-- HEADERS --
Server The Codebabes server
-- Traceroute --
8 router3-fmt.linode.com (65.49.10.218) 14.891 ms 9.519 ms 14.410 ms
9 li679-236.members.linode.com (23.239.1.236) 10.002 ms 9.691 ms 9.229 ms
Lots of startups use PHP (with frameworks like Laravel4, CodeIgniter, Symfony) for their API and sexy new front end JS frameworks that they promote. On our current codebase, started in 2013, we decided to use PHP and have Ruby, JS, Python apps, where appropriate, that run on top.
Twitter, famously known as a Rails, now Scala, shop, has used php throughout its life (I know several php coders that have worked there). Their developer/documentation area is Drupal (acquia).
But moreover, as web architectures have become more distributed and JSON heavy, PHP has held onto its language position, especially with International devs.
As a CTO, not a employee, its also important to consider the salaries, roles of the people you need to build the platform.
> PHP isn’t a great language, but it is a good language.
So what is a great language? If it runs the largest active user app on the planet (FB), the most widely used CMSes (WP,Drupal,EE), message boards, MVPs, etc. Why continue the hate, then end the article on how you've chosen it as the greatest option to run some of your systems.
I'm the founder of an edTech where we are using software to _IMPROVE_ teacher training. Teachers, especially new teachers, need a lot of support, not just from in school peers, but outside of school. They also need constructive feedback on their practice (from peer teachers, parents, and students). Current training is one size fits all and not personalized. Current evaluation only focuses on test scores.
Its important to note that some will NOT want to attend a classified briefing because they will then be bound NOT to discuss what they have heard in that classified meeting.
Great work LocalWiki. This is a good way to build hyperlocal mobile/sms apps. I find myself usually scraping data off wikis, massaging it a bit, then building my own api endpoint to feed the mobile app.
Next step is to build a mobile app that feeds data back in (POST/PUT). Like YokoZar points out, it's a Sales task, not necessarily a difficult technical one.
The monthly contribution amount is determined by company policy. It can be a $ amount or %. It just needs to be stated in policy and applied consistently to all employees.
In CA, pre-Obama, an Insurer cannot deny an employee based on a pre-existing condition. I believe, The Health Care Act made that standard across the U.S. Some people with pre-existing conditions in CA used to form husband-wife companies to employ themselves and get Insurance.
We are in California. Over the years of our business we have gone from Blue Cross/Anthem to now being with Kaiser- at one point we had a carve out plan where we had both. However, it always makes sense to go through a Broker who knows all the ins and outs each Insurer and its plan. The broker commission is paid by the Insurer not you directly. I believe the broker receives more when you add more employees to the plan - so they are invested in your growth. For our Company, the Company pays the first $200 of the plans monthly premium, the rest comes out of the employee paycheck, pre-tax. For employees 20-29, the premium plans range from $150-400. For 30-39 and Employee+Spouse or Family they go up to $300-1000. The employee can pick any plan that is offered (HSA, HMO, PPO, hybrids).
SolarVPS has servers in New Jersey and Los Angeles for $5-40 that I've been using for a years. Like Rackspace (4 cores), these small boxes also have up to 16 cores. Great for mysql replication, code repos, distributed data nodes.