What am I Up to?
Well it’s been almost a year since I last posted what I’ve been up to, and what a year it’s been! I’ve been just as busy this year as last year, if not busier. A lot has changed since last year. We’ve had to shift a lot of priorities based on time and money, which I’ll discuss shortly. As well I’ll talk our current objectives for the upcoming year.
LandlordMax
Lots has been happening with LandlordMax as you’ll soon see, so much so that I’ve had to allocate separate sections to it. Overall though we’ve really been growing at a good rate as you’ve probably already read from my recent post on our sales metrics. We’ve been working hard at it.
LandlordMax has also started to appear in several major newspapers, rather than just our market specific niche publications such as Multi-Housing News. We recently appeared in the Ottawa Business Journal, the Ottawa Citizen, the Calgary Herald, and so on That’s been great, and it’s definitely helped to get our name out.
In addition to this we’ve really been growing internally here at LandlordMax (beyond what I’ll cover in the individual sections). We’ve now automated a lot more of the shipping process (24% of our orders are shipped). We’ve enhanced our technical support offerings (we now have a discussion forum for example). We’ve also automated a lot more of internal development process. In this regard, our version control system has been enhanced, we’ve moved from CVS to Subversion. We’ve also improved our project management system. Not only that but we now use a higher-end wiki much more extensively than before for all our internal documentation. Basically a lot of behind the scenes enhancements.
LandlordMax Version 3.11f Released
For those of you who have been following this blog, you know we just recently released version 3.11f of LandlordMax. It involved a great deal of effort and it was a success, it went without a hitch. Not only did we resolve some issues, but we also completely overhauled the report printouts! That in itself was a large effort.
LandlordMax Website Re-design
Although a lot of effort has already gone into this project, it’s one that we’ve had to push back a few times. We’ve already designed the website, we’re actually well into the implementation phase, but it takes time. As well we need to be careful with our SEO (Search Engine Optimizations) because we’re ranked very highly on Google. The new design looks amazing and will really improve the site but I’ve had to make the hard decision of pushing it back. I’d post a screenshot but I don’t want to unveil it until it’s complete.
We’ve also started to created animated tutorials but unfortunately this is another effort that’s had to be pushed back. That being said, we are actively working on making one larger animated tutorial for the home page which will showcase LandlordMax. Our goal is to have this available and online sometime between now and next month.
LandlordMax Version 5.x
In my last update I mentioned how we were working hard on getting a version 4.x out, well it’s now version 5.x. Our version numbers are based on year dot month, so 5.x means it was released in our 5th year of business on the x’th month of the year (3.11 being 3rd year of business in November – the 11th month).
This major version upgrade has mainly been delayed because we went down some wrong paths, well maybe a better way to put it is paths that we couldn’t fully support with our resources. For example we attempted to include full QuickBooks integration but this was pushed back. As well we attempted to provide full support for check printing, but again the higher costs (time and money) have forced us to push this feature back to another version. We got pretty far, the issue is to properly and fully integrate these features takes a lot of effort. We could do a quick and dirty job, having them poorly integrated with many outstanding issues, but that’s not the way we operate (for example checks that can only be printed to very specific layouts). Therefore we’ve pushed these features off until we could completely and seamlessly integrate them
That being said, we’ve been working feverishly to get the latest version out. Some quick previews of what you can expect include a whole new workarea in LandlordMax called “Contacts”. This is a place to store additional contacts beyond your tenants, vendors, etc. As well we’re planning on adding the ability to send out emails directly within LandlordMax (where having additional contacts will be a big benefit), such as invoices, receipts, and even generated reports. Sending emails without spell checking wouldn’t be much fun, so you can expect to see this as well. We’re also adding support for “Accounts” in the accounting workarea. Although we won’t offer for bank reconciliation support with this version, we will be getting much closer (you can take that as a hint of another feature we want to eventually offer). There’s a lot more than this, but I hope these teasers give you an idea of some of the great new features you can expect to see in the next major version.
LandlordMax Mac Version
We wanted to offer a Mac release of version 3.11 of LandlordMax but this has been pushed back due to other higher priorities. We’d love to offer a Mac version, but the demand compared to some other items has forced me to make some tough decisions, this being another one of them.
LandlordMax Network Version
We’ve been talking about this for some time and our intentions are still very strong in this respect. Indeed a lot of effort has been going into this. At this stage we’ve definitely decided it will be based on the same programming language as the desktop version of LandlordMax so that we can share a lot of the same code base. We’re still ironing the details of how we’ll finalize the offering, whether it will be a client/server application or a browser based system. Both have their pluses and minuses. In either case, the work we’re doing now is going to be beneficial for whichever path we ultimately decide to take.
If I were to guess today on the outlook for a networked version, I’d wager it’s closer to 2009 than 2008. This is mainly because I’ve had to commit some of these resources to getting the latest version of LandlordMax, version 5.x, out sooner than later. We really strive to release a major new version of LandlordMax every year, at the longest every year and a half. For this release we’re already at the year and a half marker, so I really want to get it out as soon as possible. It’s understandable why it’s longer than usual, but we still need to get it done. I’m aiming for under two years, but that’s still to be determined. Which means another hard decision, diverting effort from this endeavor to the 5.x version. But don’t worry, it’s coming! That’s a certainty. It’s just the when that isn’t.
FollowSteph.com
This blog is growing by leaps and bounds. Since last year the RSS feed count has pretty much gone up four times! The traffic numbers are higher than ever.
I’ve also been trying to post more frequently and regularly, which I’m sure has really helped. I’ve also past my 250th post milestone in February. In addition I’ve done many smaller enhancements with very good results (for example I include relevant pictures with each post whenever possible).
I did look at a blog re-design, but to be honest I’m pretty happy right now with the current look and feel. It’s simplistic. There’s quite a few things I would like to do, but they haven’t been enough of a priority for me to implement them. Maybe this year, we’ll see…
Interview the Pros (Book)
The full title being “Interview the Pros: What does it take to create a Successful Blog?“. Since last year I went ahead and interviewed 40 of the most prominent bloggers and compiled all the interviews in a book that will be traditionally published and available in stores such as Amazon, Barnes & Nobles, etc. You can find the complete list of everyone I interviewed for the book here. As you can see from the list, these are some very influential bloggers. Even though I’ve been blogging for over two years, I still learned a lot from them!
The book just recently came back from the initial editorial review and was very well received (this took about two months). The biggest change from the original version was the epilogue, which I completely rewrote. That’s been re-submitted and the book is going through one final edit. I expect this last edit to be done within 2-10 weeks (at least that’s what they’ve told me). But they did suggest it will probably be on the shorter side as I’ve requested the interviews be left intact for obvious reasons. Once that’s done it’s down to the final details, the book’s cover art and copy, and so on. Based on what I’ve seen, I suspect the book will be available in stores by late summer. I was initially hoping for spring/summer, so late summer is still inline and reasonable.
By the way, the other big concern they had with the book is that it contained too many interviews. In other words there was too much content. They tried to convince me that it should be published as two separate books, but I pushed for one. Therefore expect to get a lot of value from this one book, it was strongly suggested to be two separate books!
Generate Traffic to Your Website (ebook)
In addition to the above book I also wrote a 138 page ebook on how to generate traffic to your website which has been a great success. The ebook goes for $28.95 which is very affordable, and so far it has generated sales in the thousands of dollars. If you’re interested you can read the first 21 pages free here.
This ebook has appeared on many sites such as 47Hats.com, BloggingTips.com, etc. and has been positively received overall by the online community. There are a lot of very positive reviews about it online, two of which I haven’t even yet had the time to mention on this blog, or the sales page for that matter. This will soon change of course.
With all that, the biggest issue with this ebook is that the sales page needs a lot of work. I honestly put it together very quickly, and it’s obvious. Just as I was releasing it, I got my editorial review back for my book Interview the Pros, which took precedence over fully developing the sales page. And then came the final push to get LandlordMax version 3.11f out the door. And so on. Basically I haven’t had the time.
In any case, it could be converting much better. Therefore you can expect to see the sales page for the ebook to be updated very soon, especially since we’re suppose to be showcased on BitsDuJour.com early next month (May). I really want to have it updated before then.
FindYourWeddingDress.com
This project has moved a lot since last year. The website is stable, and we did hire someone to populate the database with wedding dresses. Although it’s not publicly released, I figured it would be a lot easier to get commitment from wedding dress designers if they could see the website in action with a sample database. See what it would be like when it was fully populated.
To do this we hired someone to populate the database, and she did a great job. If you go to the website you’ll see we have over 500 dresses in the database right now. 500 dresses might not seem like a lot, but it is. Without getting into the specifics here, I can say the work is in the details.
However, the next stage of this enterprise is to contact the different wedding dress designers and work out arrangements with them to fully populate the database with complete data. This is where I’m lacking the resources to move ahead. I would prefer to do this myself, or hire a professional to help us contact the different designers. In either case, I just don’t have the time right now. Therefore this has been temporarily put on the back burner with the full expectations that I will return to it by winter.
The good news though is that the traffic to this website is growing exponentially, without any marketing! For some reason we’re being found on the search engines for all kinds of searches. Right now we’re looking at about a thousand unique visitors per month. Overall this is an almost non-existent website, but it’s amazing for a website that doesn’t have any links to it other than my mentioning it once or twice on this blog. No one else is linking to it. These are almost all due to search results. For example this month the search term to generate the most traffic is “castillion train dress”. I can just imagine what will happen once we really get the ball rolling with this project.
WhichJar.com
Last time I left off this website was stable and only needed the database to be populated. Unfortunately this is still the case. I just haven’t been able to allocated any time to it, including time to find someone to help me with this project. Therefore it’s currently been put on hold. The database has about 100 jars, but that’s insignificant, it’s just not enough to be of any real value right now. It needs at least 1,000 – 10,000 jars of the bigger open source project to get any real traction.
More
Yes, there’s still more! Like I said, I’ve been busy. But the rest isn’t as interesting as what I’ve already mentioned. For example we’ve bought a bunch of domains to monetize and/or re-direct to LandlordMax (for example PropertyManagementSoftwares.com), we’ve been enhancing on our affiliate program for LandlordMax, and so on.
Overall it’s been a busy year and next year is looking to be even busier! I can’t wait. And just like I said in last year’s post, this is why I love being an entrepreneur; you never know where next year will lead you.
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How to Generate Traffic to Your Website – Free EBook Sample
Yesterday I released a sample (the first 21 pages) of the EBook I’m selling “How to Generate Traffic for Your Website“. In it you’ll find the complete and detailed Table of Contents, as well as the beginning of the first chapter (SEO – Search Engine Optimization).
Like I keep saying over and over here on this blog, you need to try different things to see what works. If you don’t try you won’t ever know. For LandlordMax we offer a free 30-day trial, so why not with an EBook? Except instead of a time based trial, you get the beginning of the book. In this case you can read the first 21 pages before you decide on buying it.
Something else to mention, I’ve had some people approach me expecting the book to be an advanced book about online traffic generation. This book is targeted for people who have just started to those that have an intermediate level of skill and knowledge on traffic generation. It will give you a really solid foundation on which to build. To quote Bob Walsh from 47Hats.com:
“As someone who knows a fair bit about these topics, I found Steph’s down to earth – here’s-what-you-want-to-do-and-why – presentation very complete. His chapters on SEO, AdWords and press releases were some of the best material from a microISV’s point of view I’ve seen to date. Steph pulls from both the experience of his microISV – LandlordMax – and other sources to illustrate and illuminate his points.”
If you haven’t already checked it out, you can read the first 21 pages of the ebook here. And if you’ve already read the sample and want to get the rest, you can buy it here.
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How to Generate Traffic to Your Website – Bob Walsh Review
Bob Walsh recently gave a very positive review of my latest EBook How to Generate Traffic to Your Website on his blog 47Hats.com. To quote his blog post title “An Excellent Ebook for MicroISVs”
The following is an exert from his review:
“As someone who knows a fair bit about these topics, I found Steph’s down to earth – here’s-what-you-want-to-do-and-why – presentation very complete. His chapters on SEO, AdWords and press releases were some of the best material from a microISV’s point of view I’ve seen to date. Steph pulls from both the experience of his microISV – LandlordMax – and other sources to illustrate and illuminate his points.
The SEO chapter in particular is must reading for any microISV because it focuses on techniques that work today – not 5 years ago – and because it gives you for the time invested a solid set of strategies to start acting on now. MicroISVs seldom have the luxury to dive to the bottom of any of the many subjects we have to deal with.”
You can read Bob’s full review here. Thank you Bob for the great review!
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Ignorance is Bliss
There’s been a lot of panic recently associated to the collapse of Bear Stearn, one of the largest financial institutions in the world. Yes this is dramatic and will have far reaching consequences, but there’s something far scarier than that which pretty much everyone is overlooking. And in this case, this ignorance is what’s preventing the economy from collapsing. Ignorance is bliss!
Yes a major financial institution collapsed. Yes it happened in just a few days. Yes it’s a catastrophe. But there’s something far larger and more ominous looming just beneath the covers. The really really really scary part is that no one wanted to acquire them for pennies on the dollar without the Fed’s adding $30 billion to sweeten the deal!!!
Why is that? I can only come up with two reasons, both of which are incredibly scary.
- Everybody else is on the edge of insolvency and can’t afford a fire sale deal, even for pennies on the dollar.
- The number on the balance sheet are much worse than they appear and hence the revenues are collapsing (mortgages defaults are much much much higher than expected).
All I can say is WOW! Both of these options are incredibly scary and lead me to conclude that the worse hasn’t even yet begun.
[Disclaimer: Please note my numbers in the following analogy aren’t to scale as I haven’t yet had the time to fully absorb the details. ]
To take an analogy on a smaller scale, imagine that you own a house worth $600,000. Everything seems to be going fine, then within two days you somehow can’t meet your obligations. In other words you’ve become insolvent because of a cashflow issue almost instantaneously. Now imagine further that you can’t find any buyers for your house, even at $20,000. Yes the house does come with a mortgage that you have to assume, but it’s also being rented and is earning revenues. Up until a few days ago, you were supposedly maintaining profitability on it.
Which is scarier? The fact that you went insolvent or that there are no buyers when the house is going for a steal? By far the scariest thing is that there are no buyers. But now imagine further that to eventually get a buyer you need to have a third party (the Fed’s) add a large sum of money to make the deal happen. Getting pennies on the dollar wasn’t enough.
Which means either the revenues on the property weren’t exactly as good as you you stated or there is no one else with enough capital to buy a house at a fire sale price. I sincerely hope it’s because the deal wasn’t lucrative enough (the revenues weren’t as good as stated), otherwise the alternative is much worse and you can expect many more insolvency in the near future!
If it’s the later, than ignorance truly is bliss and might even save the economy!
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How to generate traffic to your website – John Cow Review
Today I got another great review of my latest EBook How to Generate Traffic to Your Website from John Cow. John gave it a very positive review which you can read in full here.
My favorite quote from his review is:
“Stephane absolutely knows what he’s talking about, and a lot of this is also coming from his personal experiences as a webmaster. We’ve got nothing bad to say – in fact, looks like we’re going to have to redo our own ebook in the making.”
John’s also found one small minor flaw on Page 68 which he’s making into a contest. The first one to tell him what it is will win $30 via PayPal. In other words if you find it first, you’ll be getting the ebook for free! I’ve since found it and will correct it as soon as he lets me know someone has won contest.
Thank you John for the great review.
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How to generate traffic to your website – Reviews and Comments
Reviews of my ebook “How to Generate Traffic to Your Website” are starting to appear online. Ian Landsman, founder of UserScape, commented earlier last week on his blog:
“Stephane yesterday released an interesting book on generating traffic to your site. It’s remarkably in depth. I’ve only read some of it so far, but what I’m most impressed with is the breadth of the coverage. It pretty much hits on everything someone starting a commercial website needs to think about. ”
Thank you Ian for the great comment.
And to add to this, yesterday Mani Karthik of Daily SEO Blog wrote a review of the ebook on BloggingTips.com. It was a very positive review. Below are some of the highlights:
- To my surprise I found that Steph has done an indepth analysis of the traffic generation process and the sheer volume of topics covered in the ebook itself, reveals the amount of research Steph has done to accomplish this book.
- In total, there are 11 chapters under the two sections that takes care of all the things (yes, I do mean it) that you need to know to create traffic to your website
- Honestly, each section and category in itself could’ve easily made into another E-Book and believe me there are lot of e-books out there which deals with only 1/220th of what Steph’s written about in thie ebook, but sells for a higher price.
- Steph’s done an amazing job on this ebook, and his hardwork is very evident from the research done, the topics and the sheer depth of information present on each topic.
- Every page is simply worth the money you pay. And it’s cheaper that all those “I’ll teach you everything in two minutes” kind of books.
But my personal favorite is: “I can assure you that this is NOT an ebook that will contain information that you’ve already read elsewhere.”
Thank you Mani for the detailed and very positive review. If you’re interested you can read Mani’s full interview here.
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InBoxer – Email Spam Filter for Outlook
About a year and a half ago I was getting really frustrated with the levels of spam my personal emails were receiving so I wrote a blog post asking what others were doing to reduce their email spam. Someone suggested SpamBayes, a free open source solution, which worked great for a while but then I had some issues with it. This eventually lead me to InBoxer, which is basically a commercial version of SpamBayes.
Over the last year or so it’s been amazing! It uses Bayesian spam filtering, so it took a bit to get it fully going. But once up and running things were great. Unfortunately, last week for some strange reason the database corrupted itself. Who knows why but it was frustrating. My greatest fear was that as I was launching my new EBook I’d be in the middle of training the Bayesian spam filter. I couldn’t ask for worse timing!!! In the middle of promoting the ebook I’d have to look at every single email as the spam filters wouldn’t be trained enough yet.
The good news though is that because of the volume of emails I get I was able to train the spam filter to a good enough level before the ebook launch. It has slowed me down a bit, but not nearly as much as I expected. And it’s reminded me of the appreciation I originally had for InBoxer when I first got it. For $40 it’s well worth it!
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EBook is ready!
What an insanely busy week! But the good news is that the EBook How to Generate Traffic to Your Website: How to let people know you exist and get them to come to your website! I promised is finally now available for purchase.
The Table of Content for the book is:
Section 1: Time Based Traffic Generation Techniques
- Chapter 1 – Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Chapter 2 – Content
- Chapter 3 – Freebies
- Chapter 4 – Blogging
- Chapter 5 – Socialize
- Chapter 6 – Social Network Sites
- Chapter 7 – Web Directories
- Chapter 8 – Miscellaneous
Section 2: Money Based Traffic Generation Techniques
- Chapter 9 – Google AdWords
- Chapter 10: Press Releases
- Chapter 11: Domain Acquisitions
Although the dedicated purchase page won’t be ready until tomorrow, for those of you who can’t wait, you can already start buying it here right now for $28.95. It’s less than the price of a dinner at the restaurant, and you’ll get a lot more out of it!
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Solid State Drive (SSD) Review
About 6 months ago I purchased the Dell XPS M1330 (fully loaded), which was the first laptop with a solid state drive (SSD) included as an option from Dell. Of course I went with the SSD option, the drive had a lot going for it. It’s faster for reading, it has no moving parts (hence uses much much less energy), it has an instant access time, it’s dead quiet, and so on. It’s now been 6 months since I purchased the laptop and I’ve been doing a significant amount of software development on this computer so I figure it’s a good time to give it a review, list the pros and cons of SSD’s. Things I would have liked to know beforehand.
Pros
Amazingly quiet.
There is no sound at all. It’s so quiet that you can’t tell if the drive is reading/writing, you have to look at the I/O indicator light on your box. That’s amazing!
Interestingly enough though, other sounds that you would never have expected come to the forefront and start to annoy you, noises that in the past were masked by your spinning hard drive. Did you know the capacitors on your Duo-core Intel chip actually make audible high pitch sounds? Most people don’t realize this and thinks it’s because of a number of different reasons, but it’s really the processor chip capacitors. There are some settings you can tweak to minimize this, it’s just that I can’t remember them (do it once and forget). And unless you have a truly quiet box like the M1330 with SSD, you won’t hear it.
Consistently Fast
The drive is consistently fast. By this mean they’re speed graphs are amazingly flat. The normal magnetic/spinning hard drive graphs tend to drop off over time. It’s pretty standard and can be addressed by creating Raid systems. Nonetheless it’s still a limitation of spinning drives. Below are my hard drive performance graphs (laptop with SSD and desktop with HD) using HD Tach to run the tests.
SSD Performance Graph
HD Performance Graph
As you can see there’s definitely a difference over time. The more I/O the better the performance for the SSD versus HD.
Instance Access Times
SSD’s have virtually no access times. On my tests the random access time for the SSD was 0.2ms versus 12.2ms for the HD. In other words there was no access time for the SSD. This is because the drive doesn’t need to spin up. The drive heads don’t need to align. The data is basically transfered as fast as the circuit can push it through the addressing logic.
Another advantage of this is that you’ll never need to defragment your drive! It doesn’t matter how spread out the files are, the drive doesn’t need to move it’s head back and forth.
Fast Reads
Reading data from your SSD is faster than a normal 7200 RPM HD. If you have a WD Raptor high performance hard drive, that’s another story. Especially if you create a Raid 0 Rapter drive system. But compared to most drives, especially laptop drives, the SSD reads data faster.
No Moving Parts
The Solid State Drive has no moving parts, hence why it’s called a Solid State Drive (SSD). There is no moving head. No spinning disks moving at incredible high speeds. And because of that it’s also much more resilient to bumps and bruises. You still have to worry about damaging your laptop as a whole if you drop it, but your drive is now much less likely to get damaged. Your laptop can take more abuse.
Long Battery Life
Because an SSD has no moving parts it requires very little energy compared to a normal spinning HD. This means a much longer battery life. Not just a few minutes more, but a significant amount more. I’ve seen claims of as much as an hour or more of extra battery life compared to a normal HD. That’s enough to make a noticeable difference on flights, in meetings, etc.
Very Low CPU Usage
I don’t claim to fully understand this aspect of SSD versus HD, but with an SSD the CPU (processor) gets used a lot less than with an HD. One article reports that the CPU usage difference is 3.2% for SSD versus 21.4% for a normal HD (for me the difference was 1% versus 8%). This means your machine runs faster and again uses up less energy to access your data. How exactly does that translate into your user experience I don’t know, but it can’t hurt. I know that I’ve had my laptop running in a presentation for 4 hours on battery without any issues.
Cons
I/O seems to lock up Windows
This is the biggest con by far, and I don’t know if it’s because I upgrade downgraded to Windows XP but for some reason whenever there is heavy I/O activity (lots of reading or writing to the hard drive), Windows seems to lock me out. I suspect this is due to less than stellar drivers but I haven’t been able to figure it out yet (also I haven’t really had the time to play with it). This can be very annoying, especially if you’re performing some heavy I/O operations like compiling larger projects. If anyone has any ideas as to why this is, please feel free to comment.
Very Small Disk Size
I bought the first generation SSD (actually it’s really the fifth generation but for the general public it’s really the first affordable generation) that came optional with a laptop from Dell. And because I was an early adopter it cost a lot, I believe the SSD option came to $500 alone. That wouldn’t be so bad, but unfortunately it comes with a very small disk size, all of 32GB. This is chump change compared to today’s disk drives. Most laptops don’t come with anything less than 100GB. Desktop hard drives come in 250+GB. Good luck finding anything less than that.
The problem is that with 32GB you have barely any room to move. Don’t think of installing any games on the SSD, there’s just no room. I was able to squeeze a very productive software development environment onto my laptop, but that’s it. There’s no room left for any entertainment software (games, videos, music, etc.). I understand that the latest SSD offering from Dell comes in at 64GB which should really help this issue, but it’s not cheap either. Last I heard it was starting at $1000.
Cost
If you haven’t already realized it from my previous con, the cost is very high (without even considering the disk space). It’s not a percentage higher, it’s multiples higher. And when you factor in disk space, it’s pretty much an order of magnitude higher in price. Is it worth it? That’s the million dollar question. If you’re a person who loves to be on the bleeding edge of technology then it’s not too bad. For an ordinary consumer it’s still too expensive.
Slow Writes
This is where there is a large difference in performance between the different SSD’s out there. According to one article comparing three SSD’s, the range for writing data was 71MB/sec, 31.2MB/sec, and 13MB/sec (13MB/sec is brutally slow). Of course the one that comes with the Dell M1330 laptop is the 13MB/sec for writing. Unfortunately this means that it writes much slower than a normal spinning HD which generally writes in the 50+MB/sec. In other words it’s 3-4 times slower when writing to the disk.
This isn’t so bad when you consider you rarely write to your disk, most of the time you’re reading. Starting applications involves reading. Playing a video game is 99% reading. Running an application is mostly reading. If you use Microsoft Word for example, you only save intermittently. And the file sizes aren’t that large to make it too noticeable.
One caveat though is software development. Thank god for IDE’s like Eclipse which compile on demand. Eclipse will only compile what’s changed, not the full project. Otherwise, compiling the full project can be painful! I can’t imagine doing this in some other IDE’s. So be careful if you’re using an SSD for development, make sure it has acceptable write speeds!
Limited read/writes
One of the most commonly listed disadvantages for SSD’s is the number of read/writes they can perform. However if you actually do the math you’ll find that the lifespan of an SSD verus an HD is comparable. Google recently posted a very intensive and detailed report on HD failures and I can tell you it’s not all rosy for spinning HD’s. My LandlordMax continually gets support requests from people who’ve had complete HD failures. So although it’s a commonly stated disadvantages, this one doesn’t carry much weight with me.
Conclusion:
Overall I have to say that I’m very impressed with the speed of the SSD when reading. Boot-up times are incredible. The only thing I’m not impressed with is the write times of my particular SSD. I unfortunately got an SSD that writes pretty slow so this has soured my experience somewhat. The battery life however is great.
Another thing I really appreciate is the noise level, or non-existant noise level. I often find myself turning off my desktop so that only my laptop is running. It’s incredibly quiet. The fan rarely fires. The fact that you can hear the capacitors of your processors says something! It reminds me of my Mac Mini that never makes a peep.
Another interesting tidbit, because the drive doesn’t make any sound, is if it’s doing longer I/O you don’t get that grinding sound letting you know the computer is working. The only indicator you have is the HD light firing up. So if someone else is working with you on your computer and there is no noise they expect the computer to respond faster than usual. The reality is that it might still be doing work, it’s just the machine is not making any noise at all as we’ve become accustomed to.
The biggest con which I’ve left for last is the operating system appearing to lock up whenever the computer is performing heavy I/O, such as a full build of a software. This is extremely annoying to say the least! Again I suspect the issue is with the drivers, but nonetheless this needs to be addressed.
All in all, if you’re an ordinary consumer than you probably don’t need to pay the SSD premium. However if you’re a high end user look at getting a higher end SSD than the default one that comes with Dell m1330, the default SanDisk SSD. The writes are very slow and can become pretty annoying very quickly, especially when you’re installing larger software applications or doing software development.
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What's the Secret? How Do You Have Time To Do All That?
A very common, and I mean very common question I get is where do I find all the time to do everything I do. How am I able to run my company LandlordMax, write for this blog, write a book, and so on. Honestly I have just as much time as everyone else, I just choose to prioritize my time differently. I’m a big fan of Paul Graham’s, especially the following quote from his article How to Start a Startup which I use very often when talking to people:
“My final test may be the most restrictive. Do you actually want to start a startup? What it amounts to, economically, is compressing your working life into the smallest possible space. Instead of working at an ordinary rate for 40 years, you work like hell for four. And maybe end up with nothing– though in that case it probably won’t take four years.”
So what’s my secret to be able to do all the things I do in a normal day? It’s simple. Prioritization. What does that mean? I decide to use my time right now differently than most people.
Let’s take an example. Let’s assume you’re a sports fan and you want to watch every game of your favorite team. Or maybe you watch a daily TV soap opera. Maybe you just watch an hour of TV every day. Whatever the case the numbers are about the same so let’s use the sports example since it’s the easiest to calculate.
For our example let’s say you watch hockey. Your favorite team will play at least 80 games a year for about 3 hours each game. It’s probably a little less, but we didn’t include all the games or the playoffs (and the season is a little more than 80 games anyways). If we do the math we get:
- 80 games * 3 hours = 240 hours
Breaking it down further:
- 240 hours / 8 hours a day = 30 days
Breaking that even further:
- 30 days / 5 days a week = 6 full time weeks (or 1.5 months full time).
By just eliminating one activity I’ve added one and a half months of full-time time. Wow! What can you do in one and a half months full-time? I suspect a lot!
Do you have to completely eliminate this activity? No. Almost anything you take to that extreme will generally not work. You’ll probably experience some binging if you do that. Rather I recommend you do it in moderation. I still watch the occasional game. Maybe once a month. But by only watching the occasional game, I’m still at least a full-time month ahead of many of my peers who watch all the games (or tv every night, etc.). And I can tell you there are many, I personally know of over a dozen people who watch at least 2-3 sports games a week. That adds up, and it adds up quickly. Quicker than you think.
So the next time you decide to sit down and watch TV you should conscientiously decide that it’s what you want to do. Don’t just plop down on your couch because it’s the easiest thing to do, conscientiously decide that it’s what you want to do. There’s nothing wrong with it as long as you actively decided it’s the best use of your time. We all need down time after all. But if you continue to consistently choose the easiest path, then please don’t ask me how I manage to find all this time to do the things I do. You can to, there’s no secret. You just need to choose to.
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