Tim Marman's Loosely Coupled

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• We are looking to hire good developers

  Notches is hiring developers . We’re looking to bring on developers to be part of the core engineering team. We want people that can contribute to the product in a myriad of ways beyond coding. We want people who can ask the tough questions and challenge us. We want people who are not afraid to take ownership over an area and really drive it forward. Our core platform is written in C# / .NET, so familiarity there will help – but ultimately we’re looking for smart, ambitious people with a good background in computer science, algorithms, and so on. Our offices are currently in downtown New York City (SoHo). We’re certainly flexible in terms of hours but we do want to spend as much time as possible collaborating in person – in other words, we’re not looking for offshore firms or out-of-town developers right now. You can find a more detailed job description here . If you’re interested or know anyone who might be, please contact us. Posted Jun 12 2008, 01:47 PM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: Software Development, Personal, Web 2.0, C#, .NET, Entrepreneurship, Startup, Programming, Notches

• Race for CHASE: Donate to a good cause

  A friend of mine is organizing a 5 day race to benefit CHASE , a hospise in the UK that supports families with life-limited children, in memory of his late son Fraser . Iain and a group of 7 other riders are training for a sponsored bike ride from Land's End to John O'Groats. They will be leaving Land's End on 29th June and arriving in John O'Groats 5 days later on 3rd July, where they will average 180 miles per day. The ride will benefit CHASE children's hospice who provided so much help & support for us and Fraser when he was alive and since.   If interested in supporting this cause, you can donate here or find our more details on the Race for CHASE homepage . Posted Mar 24 2008, 03:38 PM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: Personal

• Happy (Belated) 5th Birthday to Loosely Coupled

  I started blogging on January 29th, 2003 . We've been a little heads down trying to get Notches to launch and I completely forgot to write about this, but I've now been blogging for over five years. I talked last year about my motivations for blogging, and they definitely continue to hold true even if I've been somewhat inconsistent in my writing. Jeremy Miller has a great post about the virtues of blogging ( via Rob ), and I think I've covered all of them (except the whole getting fired thing). So far, I've written over 1,000 posts - some of them good, I think, and some of them trivial - which somehow amounts to a post every other day. Wow... really? Much of this has come in bursts and there have been dry spells, but that still amazes me. More importantly, there's been nearly as many comments. So, once again, thanks for listening and making this a worthwhile and rewarding experience. Posted Feb 23 2008, 02:11 PM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: Personal, Blogging, Slashstar, Site News

• MTA's new Trip Planner

  MTA recently launched a new service called Trip Planner .  I've used it a few times since I'm still learning some of the buses and trains around our new offices, and it seems to work pretty well. What I like about it more than HopStop is that it gives you multiple routes and is actually tied into the schedule. After all, something may be 30 minutes of travel time, but if you're waiting on a bus that comes every 25 minutes or something, the real cost of the trip is longer. Of course, as Dan points out, it would be better if they actually tied into the service advisories, but like he said - maybe next version. Posted Feb 20 2008, 06:39 AM by Tim with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Personal, Web 2.0, NYC

• CIGNA Sucks!

  Jason explains why ( via Jesse ). (Yeah, I'm late on this one). Posted Feb 11 2008, 02:52 PM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: Rants, Things that bother me, Personal

• Taking the Plunge and Rediscovering Passion

  In my first few years in college, I took a few gut courses that older friends assured me were easy, requiring only 4 hours of work a week. I did terrible in every one. The reason, of course, was that I hated those 4 hours and avoided the work whenever I could. After a couple of semesters of this, I just started taking courses that interested me. Instead of those random "gut" courses, I took various advanced computer science courses. They were easily three or four times as much work, but my GPA doubled. What I realized then is that my success was tied to passion. If my heart wasn't in something, I had a tough time pretending and putting in the hours. When I first joined Goldman Sachs in 1999 as an intern, I had the chance to work on some really cool projects. We built an AJAX framework with client-side calls to ASP/COM objects before there was such a thing as AJAX and SOAP. My career there had its ups and downs in terms of the projects I was working on - there were other really... Posted Jan 27 2008, 11:17 AM by Tim with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Personal, Entrepreneurship, Startup, Notches

• Passion and its role in evaluating new product ideas

  Evan Williams has an absolutely wonderful post up about evaluating a new product idea . I think Marc is spot on - the "personally compelling" criteria is the one that stands out. Last on the list, but probably the first question I ask myself is: How important to me is it that this product exists in the world? If I were evaluating a startup, I'd ask this of the founders. . . . In theory, you can get around this with lots of user research. (It's pretty clear neither Slide nor Rockyou 's founders are creating widgets based on their own needs and desires.) But you're more likely to get it wrong that way. When I've gone sideways, it's when I wasn't listening to my gut on this issue. Specifically, Blogger and Twitter were personally compelling, while Odeo wasn't. Clearly, you're better suited to build a best-of-breed product if you're intimately familiar with the space and "scratching your own itch". But perhaps more importantly, I think... Posted Dec 26 2007, 01:01 PM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: Technology, Software Development, Personal, Business, Entrepreneurship, Startup, NextNY, Notches

• Rest In Peace, Marc Orchant

  I just learned that Marc Orchant passed away over the weekend as a result of the massive coronary he suffered last week. River gonna take me Sing me sweet and sleepy Sing me sweet and sleepy all the way back home It’s a far gone lullaby sung many years ago Mama, Mama, many worlds I’ve come since I first left home Goin home, goin home by the waterside I will rest my bones Listen to the river sing sweet songs to rock my soul Rest in peace, Marc - you will be missed. Posted Dec 10 2007, 11:02 AM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: Technology, Things that bother me, Personal

• Congrats to Faisal on his new role on the ADO.NET team

  My good buddy Faisal has moved from MSBuild to ADO.NET . Specifically, he's the Program Manager for LINQ to SQL and the Object Service for Entity Framework. He says you'll hear a lot more from him on these things, but of course if past history is any indication his blogging will be short lived :) Either way, I'm still waiting for him to convince me why I should LINQ instead of SubSonic . The only issue we're really having now with SubSonic is with the JOIN story, and they're supposedly prototyping stuff to address this in the next build. Posted Dec 05 2007, 03:45 PM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: Technology, Software Development, Personal, Microsoft, .NET, Programming

• Marc Orchant suffers massive coronary (updated)

  Oh my. I just learned that Marc Orchant suffered a massive coronary over the weekend and is in critical condition in an Albuquerque hospital. I got a chance to meet and chat with Marc back when he was writing for the Weblogs, Inc. blogs about tablets and productivity and he's just a wonderful guy. My thoughts and prayers go out to Marc and his family and best wishes for a full recovery. Update : The original post has been removed, but from Loren I learned that Oliver Starr has set up a page for updates on Marc's condition . As of 4:14 AM PST on Dec 5th, Marc was still unconscious but is making baby steps towards recovery, with his oxygen levels and heart rate improving. Keep praying. Posted Dec 03 2007, 01:17 PM by Tim with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Things that bother me, Personal