I'm running a small startup with employees all around Greece (yes, Greece). We've always been this way. We work with Skype for communication, SVN to synchronize code and specific weekly targets to keep everyone on track. So far it was a very positive experience and certainly comes with less overhead.
However, as the company grows I can see that there are certain shortcomings on distant working. The previous comments did a good job describing many of them. You certainly need self-motivated, oriented people - otherwise you will spend too much time on project management. Knowing them from previous projects is a must otherwise it might be a good thing to pay them a visit for some friendly talk (and a few beers) every few months.
As a side note: isn't a unique privilege to work from wherever you want, at your own hours and without constant meetings? I really love technology...
Ah, good times. This reminds me of a college project back in 1995! We created around 10 java applets illustrating Dijkstra, Kruskal, Prim and other well-known graph algorithms. For anyone interested in such illustrations take a look at: http://students.ceid.upatras.gr/~papagel/english/java_docs/j...
(and please bare in mind that these were created 16 years ago :))
Just wanted your feedback on this service we are building.
The basic idea is to optimize the process of storing, accessing and sharing files for small business. Feel free to create your own account and give it a try.
I know it is hard to assess something like this without data. To remedy this we have created a demo domain with music files to try out (not the perfect example but generic enough.)
PHP can be very handy for simple tasks -- and that make it very popular among starter programmers and unpopular as an enterprise, serious programming language for many experienced programmers. From my point-of-view, this is like you are trying to differentiate yourself through the tools you use and not your actual work.
Regarding PHP frameworks: A year ago I decided to try most PHP frameworks. I recall working with ZendFramework, Symphony (not v2 to be honest), CakePHP and Yii. At the end of the day I preferred and used Yii simple because it made easier to start producing something useful.
And what is this number? Without hard facts do you count this as a counter argument? My main point is that all energy on our planet was originated from the Sun.
Generic comment: I like it a lot! Good UI, fast engine, good results
Secondary comments/suggestions:
1. After I voted a few movies I could see a list of similar people and a number of suggested movies. I could also see the movies other people liked, their votes and vote for them. As an UI suggestion make sure that when I put my mouse over another user's vote I understand that I can vote -- currently is not obvious
2.There is some french here and there...
3.I would love to see some simple "Watch this..." screen that is centered more to suggested movies and less on similar people. After all I am here to find movies!
It is obvious that you need to think clear and not make this an emotional drama. We all, at some point, believe we are the perfect match for a job and we resist change. Also, at this stage of a company is really difficult to decide if you need more R&D or more sales persons. The chances are you need both but you could also go on with none...
That said, the fact that the person you are about to hire is the son of the adviser makes me wonder about his real motives. Also, it is clearly unproductive to impose a new technical member to your team without the CTOs permission.
What I would do would be to scrutinize the ability of your new candidate. Make clear that you are still the CTO. If you are not satisfied with him, just come back with a stronger argument. Otherwise, embrace him...
You should not forget that, in-some point, ALL types of energy were sun energy. This was transformed to everything else including fossil fuels. Sun energy that arrives to earth is enormous. Even the planet itself uses only a tiny small portion of it to sustain life on all forms. My comment wanted to make this clear.
In full sun, you can safely assume about 100 watts of solar energy per square foot. If you assume 12 hours of sun per day, this equates to 438,000 watt-hours per square foot per year. Based on 27,878,400 square feet per square mile, sunlight bestows a whopping 12.2 trillion watt-hours per square mile per year.
With these assumptions, figuring out how much solar energy hits the entire planet is relatively simple. 12.2 trillion watt-hours converts to 12,211 gigawatt-hours, and based on 8,760 hours per year, and 197 million square miles of earth’s surface (including the oceans), the earth receives about 274 million gigawatt-years of solar energy, which translates to an astonishing 8.2 million “quads” of Btu energy per year.
In case you haven’t heard, a “quad Btu” refers to one quadrillion British Thermal Units of energy, a common term used by energy economists. The entire human race currently uses about 400 quads of energy (in all forms) per year. Put another way, the solar energy hitting the earth exceeds the total energy consumed by humanity by a factor of over 20,000 times.
Clearly there is enough solar energy available to fulfill all the human race’s energy requirements now, and for all practical purposes, forever. The key is developing technologies that efficiently convert solar power into usable energy in a cost-effective manner.
I had a very poor experience on the past with a cheap hosting provider. Actually it really does not matter if it is shared hosting or a VPS -- at the end of the day you get the service you paid for. Currently we use Rackspacecloud with very good results. Their control panel has a few glitches but my support experience was out of this world.
Visually I prefer the first. You need to find a way to keep it as visually pleasing as it is while integrating some more info about the actual product. But I would avoid the second screen -- too complex for a newcomer.
Once in a while we should stop and think that Sun is the major energy supplier for the planet. Nature has found a way to turn it to plants, life, wind, petroleum etc. I truly belive we can perform equally well.
However, as the company grows I can see that there are certain shortcomings on distant working. The previous comments did a good job describing many of them. You certainly need self-motivated, oriented people - otherwise you will spend too much time on project management. Knowing them from previous projects is a must otherwise it might be a good thing to pay them a visit for some friendly talk (and a few beers) every few months.
As a side note: isn't a unique privilege to work from wherever you want, at your own hours and without constant meetings? I really love technology...