Z:wordz App Is Released!

Click here to buy. Please send feedback to info@zwordz.com! Note: The app has been rated 17+ because it has unfiltered internet access due to its purpose.

Why I Hate Programming Books

From Abstruse Goose: http://abstrusegoose.com/474

This is why I stopped using the Headstart Series.

What to Do When Looking For Advice on the Internet

The internet is a great resource, but there can be a downside. Too much information of varying quality is presented at once. It's hard to tell what's good and what's not, but here are some lessons I've learned when looking for startup advice.

1. Look at a lot of different sources. This applies to most research, but especially so with startup advice. Different startups go through different journeys, and not all are equal. I look for pointers that show up repeatedly in different advice articles. If it occurs often enough, there's probably a reason.

That being said, make sure the advice sources are diverse. If you look at several blog posts and they all reference each other. 

2. Don't email people. It's likely your message will be lost in a group of thousands and/or deleted as spam. Facebook or Twitter are better for this sort of thing. Or if the person you want to ask has a blog, find a relevant article and leave a comment there. It's possible you'll find an article that will answer your question anyway.

3. Disconnect and Relax. If you read for too long, you get overwhelmed. Take a break and stop reading. Don't try to do everything all at once. Keep your perspective.

4. Just go out and do it. Create your startup, or whatever you want, and learn by actually doing it. Advice can only take you so far. In the end, there is no substitute for lessons learned through mistakes.

Z:wordz iOS app soon to be released!

There isn't an exact date, but the app will be released once the DUNS number registration is finished.
Hoops upon hoops of registration.

Useful Search Combination Site–No Tracking

As anybody who's searched the web will know, different search engines give different results. Sometimes, the site you're looking for is at the top of one result list and never appears on another one. Wouldn't it be nice if you could compare two search engines on the same page?

So here's a web page that lets you search two search engines at once: DuckDuckGo and Google. The bonus is that you don't get tracked at all.

When you click on a link in the results, it opens in a new tab.

The site can be found here

Great Motivational Article

Found an article from Blog of Impossible Things about living life to the fullest. It has good points, and it's eerily accurate.
This is part of the reason I'm starting Z:wordz now.

http://joelrunyon.com/two3/apathetic-living-and-the-edges-of-reality

Urls in Billboards

What I've noticed: there aren't any. Not usually, anyway.
Z:wordz could probably fill that gap.

For Anyone Thinking about Founding a Startup

Don't try to do it alone.
Running a company is much more than just throwing a product at people. I didn't know that at first, but it didn't take me long to learn. Building a company requires lots of different skills, not all of which you may have. If you worry about everything, you may stress yourself out.
Besides, it's good to share the excitement with someone else.

Payment

Next step: payment function.
I'm trying to figure out how to work Paypal into the code.
Most of my experience with learning code has been like this, so now I'm going down another long road. Oh, well.

Identification, Youtube?

Ever notice how video URLs usually don't identify anything about the video itself?
Here's a game: Guess what this Youtube video is of?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVxe5NIABsI&noredirect=1

How about now?

Z:wordz- Up Movie Remix
That Z:wordz Link does work, by the way.

Thoughts on Work and Balance

Everybody mentions how startups and blogs take time and effort. What they don't mention is that if you're not careful, it can feel like a black hole.
I've noticed it with me. I focus on one thing to work, then get distracted by another, and another. If I take a break, my thoughts continue to circle around the task at hand. Pretty soon four hours have gone by and I've barely noticed. Not only that, anything else I needed to do got shoved off to the side.
The point is, don't be afraid to stop once in a while. It's like restarting a computer–seemingly pointless, but necessary. There's a fine line between dedication and obsession.

Search Bar Shortcut

Using the search bar, you can access your Z:wordz links directly using the search bar. The process is much like the one for the Firefox toolbar.
Once again, you go to the specially designed page and right-click in the input space.

But this time, you click on 'Add a Keyword for this Search'.

Once you've done that, another input box will open. Type whatever keyword you want in the given space.
For this, I chose 'zw:'
Then click Save.

Now whenever I type 'zw:' I can also enter my keywords...

...and my Z:wordz link will still work!

Tutorial Video

Z:wordz now has a tutorial video! Click here to watch.

For Firefox Users

If you use Firefox frequently, you can add Z:wordz to your search toolbar.
First, download the browser plugin Add to Search Bar. 
Once it's installed, go to this specially designed Z:wordz page and right-click the search field.

 Select 'Add to Search Bar'.

Fill out the box that appears...

...and Z:wordz will now be available in the toolbar!

Once you've added it to the Search Bar, you can type your keywords inside the toolbar instead of going directly to the main site.

Isn't that neat?

The Problem with Long URLS

Think you'll remember that in five minutes?

As the cartoon demonstrates, directing people to websites can be a hassle. How do you give them the URL? Emailing it exposes your email address. Writing down that long string of characters could lead to misinterpretation.
Even if you bookmark a site on one computer, switching to another computer means you can't access the bookmark. So you to a search engine to look for the site and get fifty million results...

But not with Z:wordz. With Z:wordz, you enter the URL and up to seven words you associate with that site. When those words are typed into the Z:wordz search form, you're taken directly there. Now you can direct people to websites with a phrase like "best sushi restaurant".

Z:wordz takes you there directly.