Category Archives: Reblog

BottleMark: Bierkast and LA Ale Works

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Some folks love beer so much, they can’t have just one cool beer project—they need two. Such is the story of Kip Barnes, a founding member of both Bierkast and L.A. Aleworks.

Bierkast began as a group of beer lovers and exploded into a blog of tremendous energy. It’s the kind of site that puts 99.9% of bloggers to shame—yours truly not withstanding. While it chiefly spotlights personalities and events in the Los Angeles beer world, Bierkast offers its readers much more than that. It’s slick, it’s entertaining, it’s wide-ranging, it’s personal. It’s passion on a webpage.

via BottleMark: Bierkast and LA Ale Works.

Nice shout-out on the BottleMark Blog (needs more WP) for my friends John and Kip for Bierkast (where I sometimes contribute) and Los Angeles Ale Works. Incidentally, my wife designed both of those sites!

The ThemeShaper WordPress Theme Tutorial: 2nd Edition | ThemeShaper

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Many of you have written or commented to tell us how much you liked Ian Stewart’s original tutorial, “How To Create a WordPress Theme: The Ultimate WordPress Theme Tutorial”. You’ll be happy to learn that that we’ve created a second edition of the tutorial! Just like last time, you can expect one new lesson each day. What’s changed in the second edition? Keep reading to find out!

The ThemeShaper WordPress Theme Tutorial: 2nd Edition | ThemeShaper.

2nd edition of the awesome guide to making WordPress themes–now with Underscores (_s)!

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Check out my sweet spreadsheet skills!

Derek Springer's avatarSan Diego Homesteaders

I was recently fed up with the mortgage calculators online because they never quite did everything I wanted them to. What I really wanted to know was what percent of our gross did all the continuous, realistic monthly charges add up to. So I whipped up a quick Excel spreadsheet to run the numbers with the variables I thought were more compelling.

These numbers are made up, but you can change the numbers in green to match your specifics. The rest of the numbers will change to reflect your input–feel free to zero out the values that might not apply to you (e.g. HOA fees, Mello Roos).

You can grab the spreadsheet here.

(If you don’t have Microsoft Excel, you can download the free LibreOffice Suite and it should run just fine–it’s what I made the spreadsheet on)

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Software patents drive me bonkers, but it’s an interesting thought: did Samsung just pay $1B to become the #2 device manufacturer? At the levels that these guys are playing at, that’s probably cheaper than authentically growing to that position.

It makes me wonder if Samsung intentionally crossed that line knowing that it’s costs, while steep, would ultimately be less expensive in the long run. Or are they just clumsy copycats that lucked out?

Ryan Kim's avatarGigaom

After Samsung’s stunning $1 billion defeat in court at the hands of Apple (s aapl), calling it a winner might seem awfully far-fetched. But that’s the argument some are making about the South Korean conglomerate.

In a blog post, Robert Scoble said while Samsung will take a big PR hit and lose $1 billion, it was worth it to copy Apple because it vaulted the company ahead of other smartphone rivals. Samsung also sells an array of products that Apple doesn’t and setting up the comparison with Apple worked out well for the entire company, Scoble said.

“It only cost $1 billion to become the #2 most profitable mobile company. Remember how much Microsoft (s msft) paid for Skype? $8 billion. So, for 1/8th of a Skype Samsung took RIM’s (s rimm) place and kicked HTC’s behind…I bet that RIM wishes it had copied the iPhone a lot sooner than…

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How the Rich Get Rich

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Obvious conclusions:

  • Working for a salary won’t make you rich.
  • Neither will making only safe “income” investments.
  • Neither will investing only in large companies.
  • Owning a business or businesses, whether in part or partnership, could not only build a solid wealth foundation but could someday…
  • Generate a huge financial windfall.

…

Clearly, getting rich–in monetary terms–is the result of investing in yourself and others, taking risks, doing a lot of small things right… and then doing one big thing really, really right.

via How the Rich Get Rich | Inc.com.

I’m always been interested in quantitative analysis of things most folks “just have a gut feeling for.” For instance, how many folks have run the numbers on why certain folks are rich and certain folks are poor? Maybe we don’t have all the answers, but insight into some of the causes provides valuable insight into the way things work. For instance, it’s easy to see why there are many affluent people in America: a culture of entrepreneurship encourages people to takes risks until they do their one big thing “really, really right.”

Bierkast Relaunch

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My buddy Kip, proprietor of beer enthusiast blog Bierkast, recently relaunched on WordPress with a sweet redesign by my wife. I think it’s pretty nice, if I do say so myself!

Hello, everyone! Bierkast has been on the quiet side lately, mainly because we have been working on migrating the site over to WordPress to allow us more freedom and flexibility.  The site has been, for many years, an iWeb creation, but it’s very static and everything is funneled through me.  I’m hoping that with the new layout and WordPress format we will be able to increase both the number of contributors and followers.  Special thanks goes to J.J. Springer for her great web design skills and WordPress knowledge.  She has been integral in this migration process.  Thanks J.J.!

via Bierkast’s New Look – June Update.