2006 January · Dominic Foster

To Do this Year

January 26, 2006 on 3:09 pm | In Firefox Extension, Micro ISV, To Do, Wordpress Plugin | No Comments

I’ve been sorting out some things that I’d like to achieve this year. Activities that rank highly are ones that involve making my businesses a success so that I can feed, house and clothe my family.

However, there are a few other things I would also like to do - maybe just for the sake of doing them.

Wordpress Template

One thing that I would really like to do is build a decent Wordpress Template from the ground up and make it freely available for download. I have plenty of experience hacking other templates to make the layout how I like it, but I would really like to create a fresh one.

Wordpress Plugin

Staying on the Wordpress theme (yep, I love Wordpress), I would also like to develop and make freely available a useful Wordpress Plugin. I know what I want to do for this as I have already hacked something together for one of my websites, but it only works by manually editing the php code for the page - not very user friendly.

Firefox Extension

Getting harder now - This would require a bit more work, but should not be too difficult. I was thinking of something like a World Clock for the Firefox status bar.

Micro ISV (Independent Software Vendor)

I’m really keen to create a simple, effective and useful software product - and then market and sell it on the internet myself. I know that this could be classed as a money making venture, but I would like to do it as a project to learn about this business model. Maybe it could open up some really good opportunities.

So there you have it. I’m not promising that I will get these done, but I’ll have a go.

Please feel free to comment of contact me if you have any ideas for the above for me.

Technorati Tags: Wordpress, Firefox, Micro ISV

AmiBroker

January 24, 2006 on 10:09 am | In Software, Tools | No Comments

AmiBroker is a piece of software that I use for charting stocks and technical analysis.

I have been using it for about 3 years and came across it when I was trying to find some reasonably cheap charting software so that I would not have to use online charting services. AmiBroker fitted the bill because it only costs $149 for the standard edition - a fraction of the price of some of the more heavyweight products which had a lot of features that I didn’t need. The Professional Editions has capabilities for handling intraday price data, but I don’t need this as I trade with end of day data - i.e. I am not a daytrader.

What I really like about AmiBroker:

Ability to easily import free market data from Yahoo using AmiQuote

Easy to create stock scans using AmiBroker Formula Language (AFL)

Organise your stocks into Markets, Sectors and Groups

There is a useful and lively user group and several investing publications producing trading systems with AFL

If you are intrested in following the stock market or are looking for a great charting tool, then I recommend AmiBroker.

Accidental Entrepreneur - Rebranding Exercise

January 17, 2006 on 3:21 pm | In Entrepreneur | No Comments

If you have been here before you may have noticed that I have changed my webites header and title to Accidental Entrepreneur : Dominic Foster. Why? Well there are a few reasons:

I fancied a change.
I was bored with being just dominicfoster.com

But most of all, I felt that my website was losing direction. It didn’t seem to have a common theme to hold it together and I can’t be bothered (let alone have the skills) to write interestingly about the first thing that comes into my head.

So I decided on a Rebranding Exercise.

Since I have recently became a Full Time Entrepreneur, I shall be writing about the tools that I find useful to help me work, websites that I like, and the experiences of my adventures into this world.

But why Accidental Entrepreneur Basically it popped into my head when I was changing my Wordpress settings. Also, sometimes it feels accidental that I find myself in this position even though it is entirely premeditated and planned.

Leech FTP

January 16, 2006 on 2:41 pm | In Software, Tools | 1 Comment

I’ve used a few FTP applications during my career, but the one that I am using now is Leech FTP.

I started using Leech FTP a few years ago and then tried several others. However I came back to Leech mainly because it is free and does the job very well.

Any further development of Leech has been stopped and transferred to a product that will be called BitBeamer - allthough the website isn’t very encouraging!

If you are after a FTP application that ‘does the job’ and don’t want to part with any cash, then I would suggest you try Leech and see what you think.

Guy Kawasaki’s Blog

January 11, 2006 on 8:57 pm | In Entrepreneur | No Comments

Guy Kawasaki has recently launched his blog.

If you are unfamiliar with Guy, he is the person who wrote the excellent The Art of the Start and How to Drive Your Competition Crazy : Creating Disruption for Fun and Profit, and a few other books which I haven’t read but are probably very good.

He has definitely kicked off well with some great posts - The Top Ten Lies of Entrepreneurs is pretty funny if you’ve ever had to sit facing 3 guys in suits with poker faces while trying to convince them that your idea will make them money.

Incidentally, you can get a snippet of The Art of the Start from ChangeThis.com if you’re interested.

Sharpreader

January 8, 2006 on 8:09 pm | In Software, Tools | No Comments

After trying several RSS readers, I settled on Sharpreader. It was the first one that I tried because it was the first one I found that was free. I then went on to try a few other free readers and some on-line aggregators, but I have finaly come back to Sharpreader.

The reason I like it so much? Probably because of it’s simplicity. It does exactly what it says on the box - i.e. reads RSS feeds.

It also minimizes to the system tray, which I really like. I wish all software would do this - such a simple feature.

If you are looking for a feed reader or are fed up with the one you are using, I would strongly recommend giving Sharpreader a try.

Full Time Entrepreneur

January 6, 2006 on 9:07 am | In Entrepreneur | 10 Comments

Well I am now a Full Time Entrepreneur.

I worked my last day of full-time-permanent-employment on the 23rd of December 2005 and am now engaged in full time entrepreneurial activities - read: working all day and all night (at least until cash flow becomes steady).

It was pretty sad leaving my job as they were a really good company to work for and I learnt a lot from them. However, I know I have made the right decision and am really excited about what will unfold this year.

Over the last few months I have been involved with setting up a start up software company with three other partners to develop and market a product for a really niche industry (more about this at a later date).

I have also been setting up some information websites for my own business and working on the details of a couple of other websites with my long term business partner (who is also involved with the software startup).

The big picture plan is to get the software startup running smoothly, create revenue from information websites, develop software utilities to sell and promote websites with, and then get involved in other business ventures.

If anyone is thinking about doing the same and is in a similar position to myself - i.e. Mortgage, 2 children, planning on having more kids, embarking on uncertain ventures, perhaps a little bit crazy - I’d be keen to hear from you. Perhaps we could set up some kind of website for people in the same boat!

Hence, this is the first post for just over 2 months!