Spinning Guyro

Email Greetings In Multiple Languages

When communicating with people from around the world, I've always thought it's a nice touch to mix in a greeting or two in the other party's native tongue. Recent correspondence with a Swede got me looking once and for all for a handy resource of email greetings in various languages. Sadly, the only decent resource I found had broken headers and was unreadable without some trickery. Therefore, I took the liberty of fixing the list for all to have.

Enjoy and feel free to comment if you've got any corrections.

English	Hi (Hello)	Keep in touch	Thank you	So long! (Goodbye)
Chinese	Ni Hao	Bao chi lian luo!	xie-xie	Zai jian!
Danish	Hej	Hor av dig - Hold kontakten	Tak	Vi snakkes/Vi Ses/Hygge
Dutch	Hallo	Laten we contact houden	Dank u	Tot ziens
Finnish	Terve	Soitellaan	Kiittos	Terve! eller Heippa!
French	Bonjour	Restons en contact	Merci	Au revoir!
German	Hallo	Bleibe in Verbindung [F]/ Bleiben sie in Verbindung[C]	Danke shoen	Auf Wiedersehen
Hebrew	Shalom!	To male: Shmor al kesher iti/ To female: Shimri al kesher iti	Toda	Shalom/ Lehitraot
Irish (Gaelic)	Helo(Dia dhuit)	Coinnig nuacht a thabhairt.	Go raibh maith agat	Slan leat go foill. (Slan leat;Slan agat)
Italian	Ciao(Buongiorno)	Restiamo in contatto	Grazie	Ciao![F] Distinti saluti.[C]
Japanese	Kon-nichiwa Hajimemashite! [1st Address] Ohisashiburi! [After Interval]	Korekaramo yoroshiku	Arigatou[F] Arigatou gozaimas[C]	Dewa Mata (Sayonara))
Korean	annyon- haseyo[F] annyon- hasimnika[C]	yunrakhada.	kamsahamnida.	anyoung (hi gesipsiyo)
Norwegian	Hei/Hej	?	Takk	Ha det bra/ha det godt/vi prattes/Hei!
Polish	Czesc	Bedziemy w kontakcie	Dzieki[F] Dziekuje[C]	Narazie[F] Do widzenia [C]
Portugese	Ola	Mantenha contato	Obrigado	Ate' logo!
Romanian	Buna!/Salut!	Tinem legatura	Multumesc foarte mult	Atit de mult! (la revedere!)
Russian	Privet!/ Zdorovo!	Derzhi so mnoj sviaz[F]/ Derzhite so mnoj sviaz[C]	Spasibo	Dosvidania
Spanish	Hola!	Mantengamos en contacto	Gracias	Hasta luego!
Swedish	Hej	Hor av dig	Tack	Hejda!
Thai	Wasdee[F] Sawasdee[C]	Ya luem Tid Tor Gun Bang Na!	To male:Kobkun Krab To female:Kobkun Ka	Lar Khon
Turkish	MERHABA	HABERLESELIM	SAGOL TESEKKUR EDERIM	HOSCAKAL (ALLAHA ISMARLADIK)
Ukranian	Pryvit! Zdorovenki buly!	Trymai zi mnoju zv'jazok[F]/ Trymajte zi mnoju zv'jazok[C]	Diakuju	Dopobachennia
Vietnamese	Chao	Giu lien lac nhe	Cam on	Tam biet /Gap lai sau
Welsh	Sut Mae	Cadwch mewn cysyllt	Diolch yn fawr.	Pob Hwyl Da bo'chi.

* [F]-Familiar Form ---[C]-Courtious Form

The Multivariable Startup Equation

When considering ideas for a startup, there are three variables one runs into:

1. What is your problem domain?
2. Who are your customers?
3. What is your product?

Just like in high school math, to solve equations with multiple variables you need to have at least the same number of equations as you do variables. However, in the startup world being fixated is never a good idea, and so it turns out that most startups fix two variables and leave the third to be solved. Often that last variable changes a few times along the way - although if it weren't for the two other variables acting as "anchors", each such disruption would send the company right back to square one.

Let's analyze startup archetypes based on the variables they choose to fix.

Fixed problem domain, fixed product: who is your customer?

This is the classic "problem looking for a solution". These startups have an incredible product that works wonders, they're just not sure who needs it (someone surely needs it!). They need marketing and sales expertise to take that modern marvel and sell it to the right people. Ironically these are usually startups created by technology-oriented founders, lacking those skills exactly.

Fixed problem domain, fixed customer: what is your product?

A different class of companies chooses who their customers are and builds one or more products that serve those customer's needs. These require solid product expertise to really "get in the customer's head" and a dynamic technological team can build a solutions for problems they might not yet have fully understood.

Fixed customer

These are customers which will do almost anything their customers need. Often the problem domain won't be entirely open but will be loosely defined ("technology"), leaving a lot of room for full-service. Companies like IBM and EDS serve their enterprise customres in this way. Few startups find themselves in this category.

How Many Sites Really Use Amazon EC2?

Over at the InfiBase blog, we just published some data that tries to answer the lingering question of who is really adopting cloud computing technologies? This is a result of some internal research we've been running and it seems only fair to share our findings with the cloud computing community.

Interesting, Geva Perry shared some interesting findings on RackSpace's cloud revenues in a blog post I ran into earlier today - but noted that "Amazon, whose cloud services are perhaps the most significant indicators of cloud adoption, is intentionally -- and quite effectively -- hiding the finances behind AWS". This remains true, and although we can't hope to estimate Amazon's financials, I hope that our numbers can cast some light into the size and growth of Amazon's elastic compute cloud.

Email In The Cloud - Not Just For Startups

CNET reports on a recent large Google Apps deal, in which Valeo - which can hardly be described as a high-tech or startup company - is switching it's 30,000 users to Gmail. This adds to a recent conversation I had in which I learned that a large multinational company is switching its 60,000 users in over 100 countries to Windows Live Mail.

In both cases, the reason is simple: reduce expenses, increase focus. Valeo manufactures components for cars and trucks. Why should they need an Exchange expert on their payroll? These are the kinds of expertise which only benefit from being delivered en masse by a large provider. A company focused on IT delivery can address complex issues such as high availability, backups and performance much better than in-house IT ever will.

What Is Cloud Computing?

The elevator pitch for cloud computing is a tricky one. In recent weeks I've found myself, when asked, struggling to define the cloud to the average user. Sure, many people in and around IT, or who like to keep up with the latest trends are aware of cloud computing - but what about the rest? I'm referring to the average Internet user, technologically able and even skilled - just not in and around IT.

My challenge, therefore, is to collect definitions of the cloud. The definition should be quite short. It should refrain from assuming familiarity with terms such as virtualization, elasticity, grid computing, etc.

How do YOU define cloud computing? Add your own definitions in the comments.

• Inspired by Nicholas Carr: Cloud computing is the new utility: in the early 1900s, people stopped generating power individually at home and hooked up to the large electrical utilities. In the early 2000s, people are switching over from running applications and servers individually and instead  hooking up to large providers - the cloud. The logic behind producing electricity en masse now applies to computing.
• Cloud computing is outsourcing of IT - from applications and servers down to the server room itself. You usually pay only for what you use in practice and can scale up and down rapidly.
• Remember when you once used Outlook and now have a Gmail account? That was the cloud's first step. It's grown to encompass everything down to the server level: you don't need to own your own servers any more - you just rent computing power by the hour and someone else takes care of the dirty work.
• Utility computing is old - centralized mainframes and time-shared systems have been around for decades. Everything was managed at one location and you just had a dumb terminal. The reason that it's now back - big time - is that the Internet and high bandwidth mean it can be achieved on a massive, global scale like never before.

The following definitions are accurate, but probably inappropriate for a non-IT audience. I'm including them for completeness -

• Wikipedia: Cloud computing is a style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet. Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure "in the cloud" that supports them.
  
• Thorsten von Eicken: Most computer savvy folks actually have a pretty good idea of what the term "cloud computing" means: outsourced, pay-as-you-go, on-demand, somewhere in the Internet, etc."
• Jan Pritzker: Clouds are vast resource pools with on-demand resource allocation; Clouds are virtualized; Clouds tend to be priced like utilities.

Doing the Impossible

Terry Pratchett's book Going Postal would seem to be the last place I would find inspiration for startup life. Yet it was there that I ran into this fantastic quote which I couldn't resist sharing -

Never promise to do the possible. Anyone could do the possible. You should promise to do the impossible, because sometimes the impossible is possible, if you could find the right way, and at least you could often extend the limits of the possible. And if you failed, well, it had been impossible.

HostMonk - our new hosting comparison service

I have been buying and using hosting services of all shapes and sizes for years now. Doing it again recently for the umpteenth time, my partners and I realized that there is no comprehensive, impartial website you can use to compare products like you would do for shoes, MP3 players or your next laptop. Where is "the Shopping.com of hosting"?

If you need something and it isn't there, you should go out and do it. So, we set out to create HostMonk - an impartial, data-oriented hosting comparison site.

We're just getting started, and the hundreds of packages we have listed are impressive - but of course only the tip of the iceberg. The feedback from people in the the industry has been incredibly positive so far, and it seems there is a real thirst for a service like this.

Let's see where this takes us :-)

Multiple Profiles for TweetDeck - Introducing MultiTweetDeck

TweetDeck has been my favorite Twitter client for a while. I was astonished to find recently, when setting up a new Twitter profile for a project I'm working on, that there is no way to manage multiple Twitter profiles using TweetDeck. There have been many requests, but no solution...

... until now!

MultiTweetDeck is a small tool I wrote (using the fantastic AutoIt). It lets you create and switch between multiple profiles on your TweetDeck installation (no simultaneous sessions though, I'm afraid).

Please note that this is still alpha quality, fresh from the oven - so use with care! Feel free to leave a comment or Tweet me @guyro about any problems you encounter. I hope the TweetDeck team will eventually add support for multiple profiles and make this tool obsolete. Until then -

Download MultiTweetDeck v0.20

Update: v0.20 now customizes the title of the TweetDeck version with the profile name.

What are people saying about MultiTweetDeck?

Keep Your Arms And Legs Inside The Ride At All Times

Today is the first day of the rest of my life. Okay, that's a little melodramatic, and it isn't technically today. Anyway, these are definitely the first few weeks of a new chapter.

Source: Flickr / TimmyGUNZ

After years working, having fun and learning a lot with the incredible team at Collactive, I am taking my first step into the world beyond, to start my own venture.

People talk about the roller coaster that is entrepreneurship. For a while I have been standing by the rides, gazing in awe at the people spinning above me. Right now, the feeling I have is that excitement/fear/anticipation you get when you finally get on the ride and lock yourself in (click!). The roller coaster has barely started moving. It hasn't climbed, or fallen, or twisted yet. There's only thing you are certain of - that you can't get off anymore.

Here goes nothing.

How Not To Search For Blogs

ReadWriteWeb's recent roundup of blog search engines got me thinking how much we really need a solution for blog search. The major players here are simply, well, not quite there yet. I've had plenty of quality time with both Google Blog Search and Technorati and both have their fair share of problems.

Google Blog Search is the quick'n'dirty one - it works fast but includes all sorts of things that aren't really blogs (such as comment feeds). Additionally, there is no real ranking so it leaves you to sort the wheat from the chaff. Google Blogsearch alerts are pretty good, though.

Technorati, on the other hand, has a decent database but has too many bugs. The highlight is the "Sorry, an error has occurred" pages I see way too often. How can a respectable Alexa 500 site live with these problems? It's even worse than the Twitter fail whale!

I admit I haven't dabbled enough in IceRocket or Ask.com Blogsearch so I won't have anything intelligent to say about them. I will definitely give them a shot.

So what's your solution for blog search?