An interesting comparison of four online startups: WuFoo, BlinkSale, RegOnline, and FeedBurner. Includes converstion rates, monthly per-customer revenue, and time to launch, as well as some lines of code pie charts.
dobesland
Dobes Vandermeer – Software Engineer, Aspiring Buddha
Please Visit My New Blog- Faster GWT startup with objects embedded in the HTML host page February 17, 2009I recently ran into an interesting article about dumping some data into the HTML host page for your GWT app to reduce the number of round trips to the server. Since my app loads a lot of little configuration items from the server on startup, I thought this would be an interesting technique and [...]Dobes
- How to workaround JPA locking limitations when using Hibernate by bypassing the EntityManager and using Session directly February 7, 2009First, the solution: private Session getSession() { return ((Session)((EntityManagerImpl)em.getDelegate()).getSession()); } Now you can call the methods on Session which handle locking using LockMode. A brief introduction to JPA’s optimistic locking system as I understand it For performance reasons, the designers of JPA decided that optimistic [...] […]Dobes
- Running Work in a Seperate Thread in Glassfish using the WorkManager February 3, 2009While working on our business accounting software, I recently learned about a very useful class in glassfish from a friendly fellow on the glassfish users mailing list. This is the WorkManager, a class that allows you to add Runnable bits of Work for glassfish to run in another thread pool. I use this to perform independent [...]Dobes
- How to parse XHTML faster by not loading DTDs from w3c.org January 4, 2009If you are reading this, you may be running into the same issues I did when parsing XHTML files, namely: Slow parsing of XHTML java.net.ConnectException: Connection refused exception when parsing XHTML code The cause of these errors is that the XML parser is loading the XHTML DTDs from w3c.org in order to resolve named “entities” like and […]Dobes
- How to use EJB Timers via the TimerService December 15, 2008Java EE provides a the TimerService to allow you to schedule actions to run at a future time. The ability to schedule timed jobs, or just delay a piece of work so it runs asynchronously, is an important part of most software systems. When I first read about the TimerService I was a bit confused [...]Dobes
- Announcing Kiyaa! - a GWT Library for Accessibility, Styling, and More! November 10, 2008Kiyaa! is a GWT toolkit for better accessibility, styling, and more! It was created in the process of making small business accounting software that I needed to be easy to use, attractive, and to maintain. It’s released under the MPL, so you can use it in your commercial applications and copy the code into other libraries [...]Dobes
- JPA Locking and Timers bit me in the arse! November 1, 2008Accidentally double-charged a bunch of credit cards this morning, had to clean up a big mess. Lessons: Learn about how JPA locking REALLY works, I thought I was getting serializable transaction isolation, in fact it’s optimistic locking. Hibernate will generate an exclusive write lock on an object row if you use em.lock() on it, other providers [...]Dobes
- Hibernate Annotations: @OneToOne with mappedBy and lazy fetch are dangerous! October 8, 2008Today I ran into a very frustrating issue with hibernate and lazy inverse @OneToOne mappings. Inverse @OneToOne mappings are mapping where you provide the mappedBy attribute to indicate that the foreign key of that relation is stored in the other table. I was using this technique as a lazy (as in, me trying to avoid work) [...]Dobes
- HQL: Be careful of using dot notation with left outer joins October 3, 2008I recently ran into a little glitch with my HQL that I thought I could share for the rest of you. I created a query that looks something like: SELECT b.c.d, a.b FROM a LEFT OUTER JOIN a.b AS b; The problem with this is that hibernate will generate an inner join to resolve b.c.d, which PostgreSQL didn’t [...]Dobes
- Just when I thought the past would disappear October 2, 2008Google brings back the old search results from 2001. Googling myself in 2001 I find the old version of dobesland.com, an old dream I had about the future of internet technology (now realized in the form of DHTML/AJAX and Cloud Computing, in a way). Back then both of these sites were hosted on a cheap [...]Dobes
- Faster GWT startup with objects embedded in the HTML host page February 17, 2009
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- My way or the highwayThese are the words I thought I would love to say when I became a boss. Once I was having an argument with my mother and she told me that the only reason why I would want to hire people is that I can tell them what to do and order them around. My first 3 [...]
- Resources for working capitalThere are three stages in the life of an active business: 1) startup, 2) operating, and 3) growth. Each of these stages has needs for capital (cash) and appropriate sources for available funds are different for each stage. Having a sound strategy for obtaining and maintaining your cash position is the key to having a [...]
- Business Cash CycleComplete and up-to-date records for your business finances are imperative to keep your business solvent and profitable. Understanding your finances and utilizing the accurate reports generated by your comprehensive business accounting application should be your primary focus. Your business will be at risk if your capital, which is the fuel that runs your bus […]
- Cash is still kingIn today’s electronic age, unless your business is primarily retail, you may rarely see actual “cash money”. Most service or information businesses and all online businesses conduct their transactions entirely through the Internet. The bookkeeping, accounting, and invoicing functions are performed with an online accounting software, and mos […]
- Using Credit Unions for Small Business Loans
