Posts by Mike Taber
How to bootstrap a consulting business
In my previous article, I received a question in response to “Myth #1: I need to get VC funding to make my company successful.” I was asked to explain what it really takes to get a consulting company off the ground. How much money does it take to start a consulting company? How much constitutes a…
Read MoreStartups for the rest of us
Like thousands of other software developers, I have read the majority of Paul Graham’s blog both past and present. He’s a fantastic writer. He has great insights into software startups and building a startup software company. I even went to one of the Startup School presentations that he helped organize at Harvard last October, and…
Read MoreDefault Passwords aren’t safe?
I just read a Wired news article that illustrates yet another case of blatant security stupidity. It turns out that some ATM’s used by a specific vendor were configured without changing the default passwords. This allows you to essentially reprogram the ATM machine using nothing more than the ATM screen and a copy of the…
Read MoreOffice VPN: The Network Strikes Back
Well, a week or so after getting my VPN up and running I’ve found myself out on the road at a very large client. Attempting to put my newly created VPN to good use has yielded some problems though. It turns out that I didn’t set up the WINS or DNS server properly when I…
Read MoreOffice VPN
After nearly a week of trial and error, I finally have a working VPN up and running from my new office. I can get in, access other computers, do my thing, and everything else I need to do using just the Windows VPN client. It doesn’t sound nearly as impressive now that it’s over. But…
Read MoreSoftware Startup Myths Debunked
When it comes to software startups, it seems there are a lot of common misconceptions floating around. I’ve sat idly by and watched as these misconceptions are repeated as fact time and time again. I’d like to take a few minutes to dispel the top five myths of software startups. Myth #1: I need to…
Read MoreNew blog format
Well, I’ve finally transferred what I think are all of the entries from my old blog into the new one. For those of you who don’t know, SubText is an offshoot of the original .Text project. I don’t know all the details, but apparently, after the .Text project was abandoned, it was taken up again…
Read MoreHiring full time
I’m working on hiring another full time employee, because basically there’s too much to do, and too little time to do it. Yes, I’m that busy and not having additional staff is actually hurting profitability at this point. In other news, I caught this little tidbit earlier today about my old company Clearwire. I can only…
Read MoreEntering the Twilight Zone
I feel like I’ve sinned pretty hard. I know I’m posting this a week late, but as of 6/6/6, I was the ‘proud’ owner of a new Macbook Pro. My old laptop was quickly dying on me, and I really didn’t want to have to explain to my client why I wasn’t using my laptop…
Read MoreThe path to the dark side
In recent years, I’ve been tempted. Seriously tempted by what many of my peers would consider to be “the dark side”. I’m not talking about “the force”. I’m talking about an operating system. For going on close to a decade, my buddy Andrew Welch, owner of Ambrosia Software has been tantilizing me with all of…
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