Small business tips

If you run a business that has a website, you've probably heard the term "SEO". SEO stands for "Search engine optimization" and refers to the art/science of making your website more attractive to search engines like Google.

I really like professional football, and I'm from St. Louis. Unfortunately, these two facts combine to mean that I'm a big fan of the worst team in the NFL: the St. Louis Rams.

One of the main technological challenges that most small businesses face is that they can't afford the huge upfront cost of big-business software.

This post is going to cover the most basic aspect of your company's online identity: your domain name.

As you probably know, Google released a new social networking feature called Google Buzz. Just like any Google product, some people love it and some people hate it.

In my last post, I talked about how everything can be improved. I didn't make this distinction at the time, but I implied that I was talking about improving existing features as opposed to creating new ones.

Last night I went out to a Thai restaurant with some friends. When the bill came, I saw something that I've never seen before.

I recently had a conversation with someone about what type of people a start-up company should hire.

It recently became clear that I spent the past 20 hours of work designing screens that we won't actually use, and I couldn't be happier.

One of the things that I love most about working at Less Annoying Software is that we don't have any artificial barriers between us and our work.

Regardless of what a company does, every business needs to be good at at least one thing: accepting money.

Now that we actually have a product, Bracken and I are trying to figure out ways to bring people to our site.

During my graduate career, I've read and analyzed a ton of research papers. Of all the compliments that one could give, I think the highest praise is to say that a method, experimental design, or proof is elegant.

Here's a fairly spot on comic on the relative importance of elegance in academics vs. business, courtesy of xkcd.com.

I wanted to get away a bit from discussion of using technology and focus more on how some of those ideas impact the way we are approaching the design of Less Annoying Software. So here goes.

As promised, I'm back with more analogies to chemistry and physics. If you enjoyed yesterday's post, you're in for a treat. If not, this post is completely different.

I wanted to start off my blogging with a few thoughts on my interpretation of a popular theme of this blog: the value and costs associated with change.

I have an annoying habit of evangelizing certain technologies to just about anyone I talk with. One of the most common programs I recommend is Chrome, a relatively new web browser from Google.

Here at Less Annoying Software, we're big fans of Software as a Service (SaaS).

One of the most interesting things I've read is that Windows 7 is slightly faster than Vista, but in usability tests, users thought that it was much faster.

As soon as you build up a respectable user base, that all changes. Once your users rely on your software to perform a task, it's important to make sure that you don't disrupt that.

Bracken and I are in the process of designing our first round of software. I'll write a post in the next couple of weeks explaining exactly what we're working on, but what's been more interesting so far is how we've been making decisions.

I got in an interesting conversation tonight with a friend of mine that works as a sales rep.

I spend a fair amount of time looking over people's shoulders while instructing them on how to do various things on their computers. Of all the ways in which many people could improve their productivity, I think learning basic hotkeys would probably lead to the most noticeable results.

I had to deal with some pretty terrible software earlier today so I thought I'd share. I've been getting emails from my Alma Mater that I really have no interest in, so I clicked the "unsubscribe" link at the bottom of the email.