blacklooksgreat

Police will likely be clueless.

You might file a civil suit against John Doe for fraud.

Then you might subpoena the ISP to tell you who is using the IP.

Then maybe go the police with the evidence from your civil case.

It's called Jury Nullification, kids.

By the way, I think Hogan said he was able, not that he would.

Meant constructively:

1. You didn't say how old you are. After 30 you should rely on relationships and reputation more than your ability to describe skills. Tech employers want malleable underpaid wage slaves.

2. Perhaps working at a bank makes you look unattractive. I wouldn't want to hire anyone that was brain damaged from working at a bank.

3. Perhaps you are too narrow and apply for broad jobs.

4. Perhaps the inverse of 3. Consider what job you are applying to and customize your approach to that.

5. It's a numbers game. Keep on trying!

Another approach is to ignore problem people. Tell everyone else to ignore their problems and focus on their strengths.

Read this: http://strengths.gallup.com/110242/About-Book.aspx

You're there to get things done, not make each other feel happy and have neat lunches. If you're more interested in going to fun parties and having fun lunches, go work at Google or Facebook or another dying company.

If you want to get things done, focus on the strengths needed to get things done.

Quit bitching. Who cares. People evaluate you on what you do and what they see you do, not on what others do. If people misunderstand because someone else misinforms them, that's not your problem. You can't fix every miscommunication.

People say a lot of things. You need a business plan, and you need customers. It's ridiculous to think you'll get customers interested in you if they don't know what you're doing. But I think the question is do you do this under NDA?

Now an entirely different issue is if you have any value in keeping your business plan a secret? Most people in business and in Silicon Valley will agree that ideas are cheap and come about often, and it is mostly all about execution.

To that end, I believe that you gain little by keeping your business idea secret, unless you want to be a cool kid and have the lamers at techcrunch or whatever has replaced them with do a big splash.

I believe your best bet is to talk with folks about what you're doing, pitch potential customers and investors and competitors equally, and don't be worried about keeping anything secret.

The counter to this, is that you want your messaging to be clear. If your message is too broad, and you tell too many people too many different things, they'll dismiss you as unclear.

And as a startup you will be unclear. So only share what you're doing with folks you trust, but not because you fear competitors will steal your idea, but because you only get one chance to make a first impression, so be careful how you use that one chance.

Worth posting to bootstrap the uninitiated, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin#Thirteen_Virt...

    "Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation."
    "Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation."
    "Order. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time."
    "Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve."
    "Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing."
    "Industry. Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions."
    "Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly."
    "Justice. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty."
    "Moderation. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve."
    "Cleanliness. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation."
    "Tranquility. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable."
    "Chastity. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation."
    "Humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates."

So here's one perspective for you....

http://work.ocregister.com/2010/04/05/working-for-free-unpai...

Another way to do this would be to structure it as a contractor to be paid $100/week for general consulting; something that insulates your friendly employer from any risk with bringing you on board.

Morrissey said.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFIanJS6fks

My uncle was a Col. in the Air Force, taught at Air Force Academy, Naval War College, wrote 3 books, got a PhD, and was the dean of a department of a University. When he was 45 and I was 15ish, he said "Always have a one page resume." If he could do it, so can you.

I do not believe you will find what you want.

Here's why:

In order to connect via AWS Direct Connect, a provider needs to have a permanent connection between themselves and Amazon. These are provided by the companies listed in "AWS Direct Connect Solution Providers" ("ADSCP") for Northern VA, e.g. IX Reach, Abovenet, Equinix, etc.

So the 'middlemen' between you and AWS are:

You - Hosting Provider - ADSCP - AWS

Your Hosting Provider would have to have enough business, or potential business, to justify having a direct connection to ADSCP to reach AWS instances.

In order for them to multiplex the service for you, they would either have to strike a deal with AWS to allow them to dynamically connect your instance to their pipe (AWS doesn't do one-offs, and this is not a product, yet), or they'd have to dedicate the cross-connect to a connection with AWS in your name that would do this.

The cost of a cross connect from most providers is on the order of $250/mo.

So you would have to bear the cost of the cross connect to the ADSCP, in addition to your monthly hosting costs.

Most managed hosting proviers are going to figure that customers spending $250-$1k per month, are not going to be so excited to spend an extra 25-100% to connect to Amazon.

I can see why you'd want to do this, and I think we'll be able to someday.

If you want to, you can rent a cabinet for $1k/mo, put power in for $500/mo, and get a gig-e to the internet for $2k/mo and an AWS connection via an ADSCP for ~$250/mo. Then you can put your server in there for free and connect up.

Point is, for as "little" as $1750/mo, you could do this yourself by colocating with the ADSCP.

Alternatively, one could offer a multiplexed connection to AWS via an ADSCP, then route the traffic from within Amazon.

Bottom line, the fixed costs for doing this probably higher than justified for most people with a single server.

This analysis does not include the per-hour AWS Direct Connet costs, which are marginally fixed per usage without regards to infrastructure scale.

-alan

I don't fault your story or intentions, but this quote:

"That all sounds like bullshit to me. I was there, I looked in the partners' eyes, they weren't bluffing. They were trying to help us"

Really rings hollow with me. You may have believed you could stare into their soul to know their being, but these guys eat people like you for breakfast. You wouldn't see a knife to the back coming, so don't think you could look in their eyes and know they weren't bluffing.

Yeah, because we all know how degrees prove how smart a person is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-Term_Capital_Management

They launched on the intertubes. Why do they have to have a party in a city?

It's still a sign-in, but it's not a registration. Agreed that they will know more information about you, beyond that which you tell them within their app.

First job for world saver, fix the web script!