A very interesting read

I won't spoil anything, just read it!!

http://www.spur.org/publications/library/article/hollywood-vs-silicon-valley

Quick update

Met with Scot the other day for a bit and had some productive discussions.  Will start storyboarding on Monday....excited!!!!

On a different note, now I see why developers like using Macs...installing Django on Windows was an ABSOLUTE PAIN and took me a couple of hours just to sort through all the errors.  Had to install 'distribute' in order to install 'pip' which was necessary to install Django.  Then my window's environment variables weren't set correctly so I couldn't access python in my command prompt.  THEN I ended having to change some registry values to be able to use django-admin.py without tagging on the whole path.

For example, I didn't want to type "C:\Python27\Scripts\django-admin.py startproject mysite" so I had to change the registry.  hahah /end rant.

Domain names = headache

We are closing in on the end of our final's period at UCLA and I am so excited to go back home for almost a month!!  I won't taking much of a break though since I want to get a big chunk of the alpha version of this website up...More updates to come soon!!

Also, why do all the good website names for our product seem to be taken??  FriendLend.com, Friendlend.org and other cool names that I've thought of all are taken...

I've done some research on this and it actually takes quite a bit of luck, money, and time to get domains that are registered but not really in use.  Some people/domain sites apparently buy all the common ones real early and sell them for HUGE gains.  GoDaddy has a domain buy service where you have to pay an agent to be the middleman.  The agent makes offers to the website owner, but there is no guarantee that the owner will even answer the agent or agree to sell their website.  By the way, the domain buy service costs $70 with no guarantee...Also, I've heard that some people sell their popular websites up to $3000+ that is just ridiculous!!

I guess we'll have to come up with some creative/cool sounding name and build the brand up!!

Web vs Mobile Apps

We've had some discussions about whether to start with a website/web application or a mobile phone app. I vouched for a web app because any web browser on a computer or phone can access it, but this link shows mobile overtaking web and starting to challenge TV. No matter which one we choose first, I'm sure we'll eventually implement both the web app and native phone apps.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/05/flurry-mobile-apps-television/

So many tech events in LA!!!

Here's another cool one that focuses on mobile development.

This should be interesting bc we are beginners in that front and could use a nice intro.

http://www.meetup.com/TechinMotionLA/events/91687682/?gj=wc2c_e&a=wc2c_gnl&rv=wc2c_e

Thinking about project management tools

What are some good ones that people recommend?

I think Basecamp is a solid choice for general project documents.  I've heard nothing but glowing reviews about it:  http://basecamp.com/

However for more of the coding files, I've heard people recommend Github.  The only problem is that everything is public if you get the free version - and we probably don't want people seeing our code haha.  Is $7/month worth it?  Or is there a equally good free but private version elsewhere on the web??

Edit: I'll have to take a look at some of these....http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3822550/looking-for-free-github-enterprise-fi-edition-alternative-for-private-installa

UX designer? maybe not

Some interesting ideas on bringing on a User Experience designer...

http://branch.com/b/when-should-startups-hire-a-ux-person-fireworks