A Django site.
May 13, 2009

Gabriel Gunderson
gundy
gundy dot org
» Facebook – let’s call it a draw.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I think facebook a huge waste of time. I don’t know, maybe if I wasn’t working my guts out trying to launch a business, I’d feel differently about it.

Anyway, when I logged into facebook to see about an event (that was only to be found on the privileged pages of facebook), I noticed the invites in my “inbox” and I couldn’t say no to them (”them” meaning my friends, well… and my wife). I now have like a dozen virtual friends.

*BREAKING NEWS*
I couldn’t even finish this post without my brother congratulating me for getting inline.
*BREAKING NEWS*

Anyway, I like people. But I’d rather spend an hour chatting with a friend in the flesh, over lunch, then reading about what random people ate for breakfast. You think I’m kidding? I read over my wife’s shoulder when she’s logged into facebook. I know how lame it gets.

The other thing is (and most people will not understand this), I don’t like my personal information being held and managed by an outside party. Those relationships are mine. Many of then were carefully nurtured over many years. Putting them in a closed repository is fundamental broken (don’t tell me about an API – still fundamental broken). Those relationships had personal value to me before someone figured out how to leverage them to get new user sign-ups and to sell advertising. That’s why most of the conversations I have will be, in person, using personal email addresses, on the phone, over IRC, over IM (jabber only) or posted on my blog. Like I said, most of you don’t see it the way I do. Oh well.

So, yeah, micro-rant over. I’ll be on facebook from time to time, but I’ll mostly focus on the great things I have going in person, like my wonderful wife and kids that I see too little of.

Wait a minute! Shouldn’t I be working and not wasting time on my blog? Maybe, but at least I don’t require you to create an account to read about it :)

I really am a good guy and I don’t mean to sound grumpy. So, pull my blog’s feed, drop me a line (gabe@gundy.org), or give me a call. Let’s get together and talk shop, attend a conference, go to lunch, do some fishing, build something cool or just chill. Failing that, go ahead and add me to you facebook account. At least we’ll be able to share answers from the “What kind of cat would you be?” quiz ;)

I’m off to work. Let me know when the “next BIG thing” comes. Wish me luck and we’ll see you around :)

March 12, 2009

Jordan Gunderson
jordy
Jordy Blog
» Izeni to Demo CallClock Tonight

Izeni will be at BYU’s Web Startup Group tonight to give a short demo of our first product, CallClock.

CallClock is a mobile (hosted) timekeeping system to help employers and contract workers record work time for payroll, invoicing, job costing, and project management. CallClock is still in private beta, but Izeni joins other local companies in using it in-house while we’re finding bugs and adding features.

If you’d be interested in being a part of our private beta, let me know. If you’re in the Provo area tonight and want to see it work, swing on by.

January 5, 2009

Jordan Gunderson
jordy
Jordy Blog
» Got Contract Work?

Gabe and I want to be sure that our start up company, Izeni, has a cash runway that’s long enough to ensure that we can have a proper lift off. To that end we’ve been doing some consulting and contract work (mostly low-hanging fruit) to slow our burn rate, and it’s worked fairly well because we’re in bootstrapping mode and our expenses are relativity low. So, although we’ve never really sought contract work, we do like it; and I thought I’d do a quick post officially soliciting it.

So without further ado, Izeni will be accepting all kinds of technical consulting and contract work. Our specialities are Python coding; website development (particularly using the Django framework); Linux systems administration (Apache, *SQL, Postfix, Mailman, IPtables, Samba, Bash, etc.); and VoIP-based telephony (Asterisk and Freeswitch).

We can also do general computer and network support, online marketing, and a myriad of other technical and business odds and ends.  :)

Izeni is based out of Utah, but we can also telecommute.

Please let me know if you have any contracting and consulting opportunities or know of any companies looking for web guys, programmers, or other technical contractors. Otherwise, feel free to repost this (pass the word along), or just keep us in mind.

December 13, 2008

Gabriel Gunderson
gundy
gundy dot org
» iPhone FAIL

This is my iPhone about a week after buying it. Talk about bummed.

iFAIL

It dropped from about 2 feet onto my driveway (slipped out of the van when I opened the door). It was dark out, so I didn’t realize that it was broken until I got inside.

When I shared this story with the guy at the AT&T store, he literally said, “I don’t believe it. I’ve never heard of the screen breaking on one of these; they’re practically indestructible.” What a moron. Maybe he doesn’t have access to google images, or maybe he wasn’t being truthful. To be fair to AT&T, the guy who sold me the phone was super helpful and professional.

As an Open Source user/hacker, it was hard for me to buy an iPhone over the G1, but I needed one for development. Izeni (my start-up) builds hosted communication applications that work with voice and all manner of mobile devices –iPhone being one of the most important players in the mobile market place. Anyway, my brother Jordan (co-founder of Izeni), will be getting a G1 for development pretty soon. We’ll see how rugged it is.

So the iPhone works with the cracked screen and I still use it. The bad news for Apple is that I’m asked about the broken screen 2 or 3 times a day. It’s like a walking/talking billboard being presented to your target market saying, “Yeah, it’s a great phone. BUT, it’s fragile, poorly backed and expensive to repair.”

To sum it up, FAIL.

November 25, 2008

Jordan Gunderson
jordy
Jordy Blog
» Online Favicon Maker

My brother Luke sent me a link to a cool online favicon maker he used to make a favicon for my new company, Izeni. It’s pretty easy to use, so I made one for my blog as well. (Yes, it’s that same ugly pic, just smaller). Anyway, it’s kind of fun. If I’d known it would be that easy to do, I would have made a favicon forever ago. :)

November 20, 2008

Gabriel Gunderson
gundy
gundy dot org
» Izeni time

Well, if you don’t blog about forming a new company and getting ready to launch a new product, what do you blog about? I guess when you’re busy, that’s what it takes to get you posting again.

I don’t have much to say right now, but we’ve worked our guts out, spent much of our savings and gave a slice of our lives –it’s the American dream. There will be time to talk more about what we are doing; right now, I just need to get some sleep.

Before I do… now’s a good time to give thanks to my wife for putting up with all kinds of nonsense. I love you Emily. Thanks for your support :)

Now head on over to Izeni’s website and sign up for announcements.


Jordan Gunderson
jordy
Jordy Blog
» Izeni is Official

Many of my readers will already know that Gabe and I have been busy launching a business for the last few months.

Well, we’ve finally got Izeni officially incorporated, and since we hope to launch our first product soon, we decided we’d better get something of a corporate website thrown together.

It’s really not much content-wise, but it is live; and it’s just in time for us to start pumping the engines of hype and hearsay. Check it out.

Our other (product) website, which is where the majority of our development has been, will be launched shortly.

So, how do you know you’re a developer in a bootstrapping high-tech startup? You have neither business cards nor a corporate website until your product is nearly ready to hit the market. This is pretty much opposite the spend-all-your-money-making-yourself-look-cool approach that many companies take. I hope our product-first approach is vindicated, but we’ll see. :)

Anyway, sign up for Izeni news updates, and we’ll let you know how it goes.

Until then, anyone know where we can get some great business cards?

October 29, 2008

Jordan Gunderson
jordy
Jordy Blog
» Utah Mobile Developers First Meeting is Tonight

Don’t forget about the inaugural meeting of Utah Mobile Developers Group tonight.  They’ll be discussing both iPhone and Android development and handing out some O’Reilly iPhone books.

I have a feeling that this group is going to be awesome. At least it will be for me; it’s right up the alley of what my new business will be doing. Here’s UMDG’s mission statement:

The mission of the UMDG is provide development-level education and networking around mobile applications. This includes device-specific apps, client-server apps and web-only apps formatted for use on mobile devices. We will cover all mobile devices for which there is interest, including iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, J2ME and more.

By the way, they’re looking for sponsors. I pledge to be one once we’re actually profitable.