Irma L. Olguin Jr.

This post is scheduled to publish on Thursday, but I’m writing it much earlier than that. In fact, if you’re reading this on Thursday the 3rd (or even Friday), there’s a good chance I’m still sedated from the surgery I had that morning, so let’s hope the “Scheduled Post” feature is working properly. As you all know, this was a difficult decision. All the finalists and lots of the other applicants deserve this money, but I had to choose just one. To do that, I really had to examine the reasons WHY I wanted to do this in the first place. Talk about some uncomfortable moments for ol’ irms. After a bit of denial, I came to the conclusion that I decided to give away this money for two reasons, both selfish: I want to be the catalyst of someone’s good … Continue reading →

About a month ago, I announced that I would be giving a thousand dollars to someone who could demonstrate that money would make the difference between doing something awesome, and not doing it. I thought, it would be a neat & fun way to give back, and to encourage those that are out there trying to do stuff, when often, it’s so hard to do stuff. It was a small gesture. An idea. Much to my surprise, people started pitching in and that thousand dollars soon became $2,100. One of these applications is about to get much more than they bargained for. $1,100 dollars more, in fact. Applicants were spread throughout the world (the power of the Retweet strikes again), which was another surprise to me. AND even better, not one of the applicants blamed a poor economy for not being … Continue reading →

UPDATE 6: Another generous and anonymous donation! This is now the “Two-Thousand One-Hundred Dollar Scholarship For A Doer”. UPDATE 5: Even though the deadline for applications has passed, people have not stopped being generous. Thanks to another anonymous donation, this is now the “Two-Thousand Dollar Scholarship For A Doer”. Now, that’s awesome! UPDATE 4: ”I just want to be a part of changing a life in a simple way.” – Anonymous. We are now the “One-Thousand EIGHT-Hundred Dollar Scholarship For A Doer” UPDATE 3: We are now the “One-Thousand Seven-Hundred Dollar Scholarship For A Doer”, thanks to a strictly anonymous giver! UPDATE 2: Stephanie Tinsley Schopp is throwing in another $100. It’s now the “One-Thousand Six-Hundred Dollar Scholarship For A Doer”. Thanks, Stephanie! UPDATE: Since announcing this initiative, two different people have come forward and would like to add to the pot. Therefore, the “Thousand Dollar Scholarship For … Continue reading →

Firstly, how about a big fat round of applause for the likes of Rob Walling and Mike Taber? They put on one rockin’ conference for self-funded startups. If you didn’t go, that was a bad decision. Don’t make that mistake next year. For, like, the amount you spend on bottled water each year, you could have listened to and learned from ONE-JILLION smart people talking about startups and what to do/not do with them. How’s that for value? (Seriously: 11 speakers, and 105 interesting attendees. Andrew Warner, Hiten Shah, Ramit Sethi, and Patrick McKenzie among them.) Here’s some stuff I learned that you would have learned if you had gone to Vegas instead of playing with Instagram filters at work: Test your stuff, but don’t waste your time testing. Email is not dead. Don’t let TechCrunch fool you. Investment, booooo. Bootstap, yay! Tomato juice … Continue reading →

Well, it’s long overdue, but it’s out there.  My company, Geekwise, quietly launched a new look over the last few weeks/days.  Like some eternal, sad truth, your own website tends to fall to the bottom of the pile when you’re busy doing work for clients (not that I’m complaining). And while we have a few more things we’d like to do (beef up the portfolio, introduce you to the team), we feel that there’s enough there to let the world know about the new look. We do all kinds of stuff, so if you’re in need of a nerd, or know someone who is, let us know.  Chances are, we do what you need. Also, want to give a big shout out to Simply Design for the …. simple design.  Couldn’t have done this without them. Feedback is always welcome.

The Big, Fat Idea [ 16-26 year-olds, please take the survey. ] There are some of us in the Valley that think we can do tech education, specifically for web development, better.  We think we need more geeks — good ones — to help push our region in the right direction. You see, there’s about to be a big gap in the industry.  We can already see the beginning of it.  People who are not developers are having ideas (some of them are good!) and want to build the next big thing.  Instead of hiring out to software firms, or potentially spending tens of thousands of dollars to have their idea built, the smart first step is to get a rapid prototype out there and see if the idea floats. The Problem We’ve seen a lot of this happen:  Entrepreneurs — … Continue reading →

A web and mobile apps competition for idea people. Now go on and build something.

So my friends and I are putting together this little ditty that, really, is going to be quite the big ditty. We are holding a Web & Mobile Apps competition that is designed to highlight the programming/nerdy talent in the area. It’s open to everyone and the prizes are pretty major. We are doing two categories: Zero Code, and In-Progress. Zero Code is a timed category. You have 59 Days to build your app once the clock starts. In-Progress is for those who might already have something started but still want to compete. The way that it works is this: Apply, Early March > Party + Kickoff, April 23 > Get your App Ready > Showcase + Awards, June 22. We’re putting together around $40K in prizes with one of the winners landing a chunk of cash. (More details about … Continue reading →

I’m just going to lay it down in small words: “If you build it, they will come,” is a crock of shit. To borrow a phrase, if I had a nickle for every time a website launch was delayed on account of the imperfections… As a web programmer, I see a lot of projects come and go. We depend on the project manager’s ability to say, “We could spend more time polishing and adding features, but let’s get this in front of some eyes,” which is a hard thing to say, I’ll admit, because there are 10,000 things that could be better.  If you happen to be the project manager, then that burden is on you. And what makes it even harder is this strange voice in your head that says, in no uncertain terms, that as soon as you upload those … Continue reading →

An honest to goodness examination of what one is supposed to do when money IS an option. Continue reading →