The 10 Ingredients of a Successful Start-Up

1. Idea - Yes, it's not everything and most of the times it's not even the most important thing. But still, without an idea you got nothing. Your idea doesn't have to be very good nor it has to be original. But you still need it.

2. Team - Without a team, you're just a guy with an idea and it's not enough. You need at least one more person, preferably a friend, preferably with some skills that are related to the idea.

3. Product - If you want to make money with your idea (maybe because you've promised some money to you team mates), you're going to have to turn the idea into a product. Preferably a product that can be monetized. Something that you can sell, or charge for using or advertise on.

4. Knowledge - In order for you and your team to turn you're idea into a successful product you need knowledge. You need to know your market inside out, you need to know where it's coming from and where it's going to. You need to intimately know your potential users or customers. You need to know the competition, the bussiness, the technology and most of the time you just won't know enough.

5. TTM - Time to Market. You must use your knowledge and team to turn the idea into a product as soon as possible. The reason - there are a bunch of other guy out there with similar ideas, teams and maybe even products. If you're in for success, you better be there first.

6. Business Plan - It's not a "must". But it helps. Something that would explain how your idea and product will make money for you and your team.

7. Luck - It would be naive to think that nothing is left to chance. Sometimes the most talented teams with the most brilliant ideas fail. On the other hand, sometimes really poor and not original ideas become great successes (see my post about MySpace).

8. Marketing - You need an effective way of bringing customers and/or users to buy and/or use your product. If the idea and product are not too good, good marketing could just be the key ingridient. But don't forget that you'll need a lot of Luck.

9. Money - Some teams can turn ideas into products without using money. Most people need the green stuff for the development and marketing proccess. Usually a lot of time passes until the product actually generates money. In the mean time, You can get it from your friends or family. But if you don't want to stay without any friends and/or family (in case that you don't have enough luck), you better go to angels or VCs.

10. Exit - No one gets into a Start-Up without dreaming about the big exit from day 1 (or maybe even day -100). If you have enough luck, you might be the one to spend the rest of his life on a private island in the middle of the carribean.

What do you consider to be the most important ingredient?
	Idea
	Team
	Product
	Knowledge
	TTM
	Business Plan
	Luck
	Marketing
	Money
	Exit
pollcode.com free polls

Feel Free to comment with more important start-up ingridients :)

Pictures from New Year's eve

It now hit me that I didn't get a chance to post these pics.
These are from New Year's eve at Roma's:

I want to get a Basset Hound (Hush Puppy)

I don't know, there's just something so damn' cute in this littly thingy that makes me want to get one.

Here are a few facts about the Basset Hound breed (Hush Puppies):

1. they are 33-38cm (13-15 inch) high.

2. they are very calm and companionable.

3. they are especially loyal.

4. they act nice around strangers and like making new friends.

5. they are great hunters.

6. a down side - they are hard to train and to train to piss outside (housebreak)

7. I don't wanna sound like a chick - but they are so cute!

Tip of the Day: ID3 TagIT

Did you ever have the problem of your mp3 files not being organized correctly on your ipod or mp3 player?
Thing is that IPODs and other mp3 players organize your music not based on the folders and directories but based on the ID3 tags that are attached to the MP3 files. ID3 tags are special sections within an MP3 file in which information about the artist, album, title, etc is stored.

The problem is that if you have 2 files with a slightly different "artist" in the ID3 tag, they will be organized into different artists on your IPOD. For example, it won't know that "bob marley" and "Bob Marley" is the same artist...

I've tried a lot of different programs that would allow me to easily edit a bunch of ID3 tags at once in order to organize my files on the MP3 player and this is the one that I like the most. It's really convenient and easy to use. It has really simple options and yet, if you wish, you can also use it in an advanced way... It's also completely free of charge (you can donate to them if you want).

This was my tip of the day. but don't expect one tomorrow, I only have a "tip of the day" about once a month :)

Marlboro Country

I've stopped smoking last October, so I guess that I won't be going to Marlboro country anytime soon. What about you ?

14 Tips for a cheap European Ski Vecation

Skiing in Europe is awesome, but the fancy ski resorts can get a little bit expensive. Here are my tips for keeping it as cheap as possible:

1. Always book your accommodation in advance.
2. Don't book hotels, rent an apartment or a zimmer (pension).
3. When it's possible try to get a half-board deal.
4. Bring your own skis and boots.
5. Stay out of the famous expensive central villages. In every big ski resort there are always a few less known villages, which are just as good. For example - in Kitzbuhl (Austria), there's Kirchdorf. In the 3 valleys in France, there's San Martin and Brides les Bains.
6. If you're a beginner (first time), than try eastern Europe. It's much cheaper. I've been in Borovetz, Bulgaria, and it's not bad at all.
7. Try to get some people to come with you and rent a chalet together.
8. If you go with at least 2 more people, don't buy bus tickets, renting a car is cheaper.
9. Drink your bear in the apres ski hours, sometimes you get 2 for 1 :)
10. Don't go between February the 13th and March the 3rd.
11. Stay out of France during February, it's the kids' school vacation there, and the ski resorts are over-loaded.
12. Try to win back some of your skiing expenses at the local casinos.
13. Book your vacation as early as possible.
14. Buy a ski pass over the internet.
    

A cool Service (Israel Only)

Here's a good way to prevent yourself from getting cancer. This GIS (geographical information service) service tells you the exact location of cellular antennas (cells) in the proximity of a certain address. So you can just input your home address and get the distance of the antennas from your home (in meters).

Now all you have to do is move :)

Antenna Locator

New feature on URLic.com

The following link can be dragged to the browser toolbar or to the favorites or wherever. Once you click it, Urlic will automatically create a short link for whatever page you are on.

URLic this


If you want to put it on your website, here's the code:

<a href=javascript:void(
location.href='http://urlic.com?url='+location.href)>
URLic this</a>

Boten Anna

I really like this song and its video.
Although, this is not my proffered style of music, but it's just so funny and the sound is nice too.
If you don't speak Swedish (or something like that), just read the subtitles. The guy wrote a song about the bot on his IRC Channel (which is named Anna) - Ke Coco Loco !

A Christian Lebanese Woman Talks about The Middle East Conflict

Brigitte Gabriel - A Christian Lebanese woman explains the conflict between the Muslims and Christians in Lebanon since the 1970s from her own perspective. She explains how Israel was the only power who helped and saved the Lebanese Christians from the Muslims who slaughtered them.

Makes you see Islam and Jihad for what it really is.

The story is hard to hear but it worth it.
It's a little bit long but really breathtaking.


This is Part 1.
Here are the links to the other parts in YouTube:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Sony Says no to Porn on Blu-Ray

Two Major shows where held in Las Vegas Recently - CES and AVN. While at the CES, everyone were really excited about new Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players, at the AVN (Adult Entertainment Expo) a major adult entertainment company (Digital Playground) claimed that Sony does not allow it to distribute pornographic contents in it's new High Definition format (Blu-Ray).
Don't know if this publication are accurate, but if it is so, it seems like Sony has gone mad and made another huge mistake. The adult industry is a huge producer of video contact, and they definitely don't have a chance against the HD-DVD without this industry.

Skiing Mount Hermon

Yesterday me and Aleshka finally went skiing at Hermon Mountain on the Israeli-Syrian Border.The Hermon is nice small ski resort with too many pistes, but good off-piste areas and very few skiers (no queues). The ski resort is much smaller than the potential skiing area there - guess it's just not economically wise to invest in a ski resort where the season only lasts around 6 weeks...

Skiing was really great, the weather was good and the snow also.
We've seen some reserve soldiers from the Israeli army's alpine unit practicing their skiing there. These guys really can't ski, it was really funny, they fall all the time, sometimes they even fall while trying to get off the chair-lift :) Another funny public is Israeli snowboarders - They really can't snowboard, nor they have any idea about what they are doing. They also fall all the time (even when they just try to stand on the snowboard) - really amusing :)

The Israeli Summit of Hermon is at 2,224 m (7300 feet). The Real Summit of the mountain is under Syrian control and it's elevation is 2,814 m (9,230 feet). There's lots of space on that mountain to develop a really great ski resort with many skiing area and a number of pistes and lifts that would compete with European resorts.

Syria has lately declared that it intents to invest 5$ Billion in the development of a modern ski resort on it's side of the mountain. This kind of declarations really make you wish there was peace with Syria and Lebanon...

Anyways, here are some pictures from last Saturday:




I've also recorded a special interview with Aleshka for this blog. I'm gonna upload it to YouTube in the upcoming days and publish it here.

My Friend's Cool Cat

My Friend, Shurik, and his girlfriend, Sivan, got a really great Persian cat named Luna (that's moon in Spanish... also in Russian...).
Anyway, he likes to play with his cat's photos in photoshop.
His latest creation is "Luna goes Skiing", one picutre during skiing and one picture after skiing :)



Luna also has a blog (Hebrew Only).

Top 10 Internet Security Tips

After finishing writing an article on Anti-Virus Software, I give you my Top 10 Security Tips to protect your Enterprise Network, Home Network or Just a single PC.

1. Get a Good Anti-Virus - Almost all anti-viruses today are also Anti-Malware (spyware, advare, rootkits, etc...). If you don't have the money to buy one, you can get one for free, like AVG, BitDefender or Clam).

2. Be Aware of new Threats - Here's 2 good places to get updated: Symantec Internet Security Threat Report and McAfee Threat Center.

3. Get Feedback - Provide your users with an easy way to report suspecious behavior on their machines. Quarantine the suspected machine and check it for malware.

4. Make sure you cover all threats - Check if your anti-virus protects you from all kinds of malware: Virusese, Spywawre, Adware, Rootkits, Trojans and SPAM. Make Sure that your signature database is being constantly updated (weekly or daily is not enough), updates must be automatically downloaded every few hours.

5. Shut-Down Malware's ways in - The Internet and local network are not the only places where you can get Malware. Be Aware of: Disk-on-Keys, IPods, PDAs, Smart Cellular Phones, CDs, DVDs, RFID ports, Bluetooth Devices and everything else that connects or synchronizes with PCs.

6. Process Priorities - To encourage users not to turn off the anti-virus agents, change the process priority of the agent to a lower value on slow machines. This way, the anti-virus won't interfere with the work on the machine.

7. Instant Messaging - Disallow users to receive files via instant messaging applications.

8. Social Engineering - Make sure that your Help Desk would not give away passwords and permissions to untrusted people. Instruct users to keep passwords secured.

9. Keep in touch with your users - Sometimes educating the users can make the difference. Teach them not to click on un-trusted links, not to enter un-trusted websites, and not to install suspecious software.

10. Home Computers - Protect your users' Home Machines. This way, your network will be less vulnerable to threats that users might bring on disk-on-keys, IPods, PDA, Smart Phones, etc...

11. Get Firewalls - One is not enough. Make sure that there are several circles of firewalls on your network. Starting from the gateway and ending with personal firewalls on all PCs.

And if none of this works you can always try putting a condom on your network cables :)

The Problem of the Israeli Police

Here's a great picture that describes the problem of the Israeli police without any words.
Someone emailed me that picture the other day.
The guys on the top are probably American or European or maybe Australian (I don't know).
The Cop on the bottom picture is definitely Israeli :)

Apple Finally Unveils the IPhone Today.

Confirming months of speculation, Apple CEO Steve Jobs showed off his company's latest gadget at Tuesday's (January 9) Macworld Conference and Expo: the iPhone.

The device, which will be one of the thinnest cell phones on the market, will play and download music and automatically sync with iTunes to play a user's movies, music and display photos. It can also sync your e-mail, Web bookmarks and just about any other media you have stored on your computer.

The story was covered on MTV.

MySpace is just Amazing ! .... not !

You, know MySpace is just unbelievable. This is definitely a phenomenon that I can't even begin to understand. I just have one simple question to MySpace Users - "What the fuck?"

I mean, is there something there that is just hidden from the eye? some super innovative hi-tech functionality that makes millions of people use and appreciate this SPAM platform ?
and don't even get me started on SPAM. Some people talk about SPAM on MySpace. Well, you see, the Problem is not that there is SPAM on MySpace. The Problem is that MySpace IS SPAM. There was an extensive article on the ValleyWag about how MySpace was designed as a SPAMing platform and was marketed thorough SPAM emails. According to that article , MySpace was a SPAMing experiment designed to exploit friendster. The Expiriment got a little bit out of hand - I'd say 900 Million Dollars out of hand !

And the amount of SPAM there is just unbelievable. Just try to search MySpace for a random American female name (like Amanda or Shannon or whatever). Guess what you're gonna find? - Porn! Sometimes just almost nude bikini pictures and sometimes completely nude softcore pornographic images from adult websites (sometimes even with affiliate links and everything). And you know who are the "friends" of this nude models? Other nude models, tens of thousands of them!

But for me, even the "legitimate" MySpace profiles are just SPAM! Hell, why would someone want to spend his time watching over-decorated personal pages from random people? But people DO, by the million. I guess that most of the users are American bored pre-teens that are just looking for how to spend time or maybe looking for virtual friends or whatever. But most likely - they are just looking for Porn :) and they've come to the right place to find it.

So Google paid 900 Million Dollars for a shitload of SPAM with a shitload of horny pre-teen traffic to that SPAM. Why? I mean, is there a worthwhile way to monetize this kind of traffic?
or am I missing something?!
Because, I just don't see any innovative technology behind MySpace - just a convenient Platform of posting SPAM. Personal Pages? come'on! remember Geocities? it was doing almost the same in mid 90's. only it wasn't called Web 2.0 and social-networking back than. and it had it's share of SPAM too...

If this is what the world has come to, than why make Web 2.0 start-ups ?! It seems like Google is in the business of collecting SPAM. Actually not collecting - buying SPAM.
I receive a lot of SPAM to my email. And i'm willing to forward all that SPAM to Google for a few millions of Dollars. Google - if you read this, common make me an offer :)

The Simpsons Movie

This is one movie to look forward too, it's about time they make a Simpsons movie! check out their website - here.
One Cool thing about it that they did not make any animation changes, and it's gonna be 2D like the series, as it says in this trailer.

Samsung announced that it is working with 20th Century Fox (Fox) to design a limited release "The Simpsons Movie" collectible mobile phone and accompanying promotions.Based on Samsung's slimmest, most advanced phones, The Simpsons Movie phone will be Simpsons yellow, inside and out, and feature The Simpsons Movie logo with the words, "Special Edition." It will also come pre-loaded with exclusive The Simpsons Movie content.

Hermon is finally open !!!

Ok,

Remember my post about waiting for the snow ?
Well waiting is finally over. Mount Hermon is now open for skiing.
I really hope to ski there this Saturday.
If you want to check the weather condition at the ski resort, go here (Hebrew only).

If I go there on Saturday (and I intent to), I promise to post an updated and detailed weather and snow report, as well as some photos...
in the meantime I give you a few skiing photos from previous ski vacations:
Kitzbuhl, Austria, Feb 2006
also Kitzbuhl

Mendoza, Argentina, Sep 2006
Catedral, Bariloche, Argentina, Sep 2006

Anti-Viruses and Security

I've recently written an article about Anti-Viruses for PCON.

I've interviewd 3 high ranking Israeli security specialists:
Tal Kendel from Symantec,
Ilan Froimovici from Power Communications (who represent Kaspersky here) and
Michal Helman, a Senior Risks and Security analyst from STKI (a local research and consulting firm).

They all said a lot of things about the whole security and Anti-Virus industry, but the thing that I find in common is that no one even claims that an anti-virus (even a good one) gives a 100% solution and protection.

The meaning is basically that there's not much to do. Sure we also use firewalls, IPS, IDS and so on... But somehow the malware always seems to find it way into our system.
Even if you choose to use an organizational firewall that lets nothing in (completely nothing) there are still: Wi-Fi, Wireless LAN, Laptops, PDAs, Smart Phones, Disk on-keys and a bunch of other ways for users to bring malware into the network.

I've recently been at a friend's place and we tried to watch some videos on his laptop. Emphasis on "tried", his laptop was so infected with malware that it barely worked! And I'm talking about a company laptop from a big and respectable international IT company with all the necessary protection and security applications installed.

On the same issue, someone recently emailed me the picture that you see. problem is - that even this won't really help nowadays :)

3D Floor Paintings

Here are some cool pictures that I've recently got by email.
Some of them look really realistic.




I can just say that I'd really like to have a bottle of Johnny Walker Green Label, the size of the one standing under that waterfall in the middle of the floor.

Office Max

Office Max is an online office supplies store,
but that's not why i'm writing about them.

They've created a bunch of really cool and amusing Flash movies, games and cool thingys for the holidays season,
here's 2 that I especially liked

don't shoot your eye out and elf yourself

I've used the second one to Elf myself up...
Click here to check it out... or click the photo...

btw: I've scored more than 18,000 points on "Don't shoot your eye out", how much did you score?

WAN Optimization

A Story of mine about WAN Optimization was published on PCON this week (Hebrew only)...

WAN Optimization is great field that deals with optimizing and accelerating WAN traffic and application. There's been a lot of new development on that market lately.

Some close fields are: WAN Acceleration, Application Acceleration,Server Load Balancing ,Layer 4-7 Switching...

Infonetics says that this market has grown by 49% in 2005 and will continue to grow rapidly until 2009. The Profit Prediction for this market in 2007 is 459.7$ Million.

The leading Vendors are: Cisco, Blue Coat Systems, Riverbed, F5 Networks, Juniper and Expand Networks.

Here are a few Links to some other articles that talk about this Issue:
urlic.com/mh
urlic.com/mi
urlic.com/mj
urlic.com/mk
urlic.com/ml

New Domain

I have a new domain for my new blog !
I Decided to get a domain for the JenLog blog because I kindda have a think against long URLs...

It's jenlog.com

Power Consumption

I'm writing a PCON story on Computing Power Consumption,
here's some facts and figures:

1. A typical 150-watt PC consumes about 876 kilowatt hours per year. At an electric rate of 10 cents per kWh, that's $87.60 a year, before taxes and fees!

2. Google have recently placed 9,200 Solar panels to reduce it's electric bill. Funny thing is that the tax payers of california have subsidized this project with 4.5$ Million!

3. 7% of all American Consumers already have private generators, another 51% would like to have one,

4. The electricity tariff in Israel is 54.47 agorot per kWh. If you choose to use your kWh at home, it's only 48.12 agorot.

5. The Israeli electric company now allows people to switch to a differential tariff. (You pay more at peak times and less when the demand goes down). Details are here: urlic.com/y2

6. Micro Fuel Cells and Printable Solar Panels seem to be very promissing technologies for mobile power in the near future (Laptops, etc...). Here's 2 companies that develop these things: www.mtimicrofuelcells.com and www.konarka.com

Sushi

Here's my ranking of Tel-Aviv's top 5 sushi restaurants:

1. 1 -Yakimono - Definitely the best one, and by far. Problems is that prices are a bit too high for my pockets (around 60$ per person for not too much sushi). on Rothschild street.
   
2. 2 - Bazel Sushi Bar - also a good place, although hard to find parking there. BTW - the ice cream place next to it is just awesome. on Bazel Street.
3. 3 - Moon - very close to Bazel in my ranking, good verity of maki and good pre-defined combinations. on Bugrashov Street.
4. 4 - Sushido - Also pretty good, I like the fact that they have Singha beer on their menu (it's Thai). on Rothschild Street.
5. 5 - Kai - Not bad, but not as good as the 4 above. easy to find parking there - and it's a big advantage. on Habarzel Street.

What's your ranking of Tel-Aviv's top 5 sushi places ?

Waiting for the snow...

This winter doesn't seem to be too much of a winter nowhere in the world (well, at least not in the northern half, where it's actually supposed to be winter now).

This statement is especially true for Israel where winter has just started 2 weeks ago, and I have to say that it's a slow-start.

Due to different schedule limitations, it seems that I won't be able to go skiing in Europe this year anytime earlier than March. And I'm just dying to Ski already !!!
I haven't skied since September (When I was in Argentina with my girlfriend, Hila, and skied in Mendoza and Bariloche, northern Patagonia - will post some pics later).

Thing is, that skiing always leaves you wanting more, much like good Sushi.

So until March, I'm kind of counting on mount Hermon, Israel's only ski resort.
Funny thing is that in 16 years in Israel and 4 years of skiing, I've never skied there!
Friends who have, say that it's not bad.
So here I am waiting for it to snow enough on the Hermon for the Israeli ski season to finally open...

Better times

This is me climbing at Phra-Nang Beach, Krabi, Thailand.
This is a 7b (French) graded roof, it's called "Top Trip".

This was about a year and a half ago.

Just Wish I was in a shape even close to that nowadays...

Post by Email

Turns out that I can just email posts to my blog.

Cool !

My First Post Ever !!!

Ok, Everyone seem to be doing it.
so why not me too ?!

There are really a lot of stuff on my mind from time to time that I often wish to share with the world. A blog could really help here.

This is my new year's resolution !
What's yours new year's resolution ?

Anyways, about myself:
My name is Jenia Cherkassky and I live in Israel.
I currently Work in the Israeli Computing magazine PCON, as a writer, I write about a bunch of computing stuff, will talk about that later...

My main Hobbies are:
1. Rock Climbing (and lately mountaineering as well).
2. Scuba Diving.
3. Skiing.
Will talk about those later as well...


Welcome to my brand new blog.
Hope you'll enjoy reading it.
Also hope that I'll enjoy writing it

By the way happy birthday to my friend Roma!
and happy new year to the rest of you!