Planet Jeffro

A lot of people wonder what I do all day.  Here’s a list of all the stuff I’m currently working on (as of October 22, 2011):

1. BluTrumpet.com business development - it’s a neat new ad network with better yields than iAd and customizable. I’m finding app developers and reaching out to them. Also incorporating their SDK into several of my own apps.
2. VocabSushi - supporting all the teachers using VocabSushi with their classes, looking into a very cool partnership opportunity with a large education website, working with a new social media star who will manage outreach and other stuff, updating the VocabSushi iPhone App.
3. Tutoring - I have 6 high school students. I see them once a week for SAT prep, math and/or physics tutoring.  Been doing this for 7 years.  I enjoy it and am always trying to get my students interested in programming (it’s a much better skill than knowing calculus, as it turns out.)
4. Fareshare - working with our partners in London, Green Tomato Cars, to finalize development of our cab-sharing iPhone app so they can launch it and ramp up for the Olympics. Things are on track and we’re planning to launch in January.
5. Corporate Videography - I work with a big PR company and shoot media trainings.  If you’re the CEO of a Fortune 500 company and you’re about to go on TV to be interviewed, you’re going to want to prepare your messaging.  That’s what these trainings are for.  I film the mock interviews (with a backdrop, light, and mic) and play them back.
6. PatientCommunicator.com - this is a communications and practice management platform for independent doctors to streamline their workflow. My father uses it and he cut all 3 of his secretaries (his overhead is just 15%). He was profiled in Forbes for having such a tech savvy and highly efficient (and profitable) primary care practice. I’m working with a business partner to raise money from several already interested investors, and demo’ing to other interested parties.  Also speaking with interested doctors and getting them on board. Finalizing the specifications and product roadmap - our next few releases will sport features never before innovated by any EMR or platform management system on the market. It’s an exciting time.
7. Cnvrge.com - I’m coding this speed-networking via SMS app (though I’ll soon partner with my friend and developer James to unload that work to him), and using the app to run about 2 networking events per month.  Still proving out the concept through lean methods, but people seem to really like it. If you want to run it in your networking event, let me know!
8. Bandsnearby.com - A weekend hack I did with Pinzler, this is Pandora for local bands to help you find which intimate music venue in NYC you should go to tonight.  Had my virtual assistant grab all the bands playing at 13 venues over the next 6 weeks. Still tweaking a lot of functionality and data. Planning to get a designer to clean up the look.  It’s already allowed me to discover a few bands I really love that are local and small.
9. Supermarket Classroom - My mom’s app. This is for parents in the supermarket with their young children who want to give them something educational to do in the context of the aisles.  I just used Tinyproj to find a great graphic designer and hope to get this in the app store within a month.
10. IngeniousOwl.com - An online SAT course powered by Bespoke Education.  I’m working with a designer and star python developer to finalize the functionality and get this really helpful site up and running and into the hands of our students who need the extra help. If you want to beta test it, let me know. Planning to officially launch in January.
11. The Census Bureau - This is a spoof video of the Honey Badger video to celebrate the tireless Census Takers who come to your home when you don’t return the census forms. I’ll be editing this and loading to Youtube shortly. Stay tuned.
12. Blogging / running / walking Sagan (our greyhound) / hanging with my amazing wife (and occasionally proof-reading her papers) / Skype-ing with my dad / dreaming up dozens of new projects and ideas

So yeah, I’m stretched pretty thin.  But as always I’m loving my crazy days which let me regularly work on about 7 or 8 of these things. I rotate through a lot and by the end of a 16 hour day I git ‘r done.

TechCrunch just held their huge conference this week.  Here are some of my takeaways:

1. Deja is an amazing ipad app that lets you sit back and enjoy videos shared by your friends.  I just got it… it’s crashing a lot but it’s pretty stellar.  Nimrod, their cofounder, told me they’ll be pushing out updates that’ll fix the bugs.  I’m looking forward to it!
2. Happy toy machine lets you design your own stuffed animal toys.  Putting them in touch w my buddy Aaron at Squishable.
3. iSpeech is an unbelievable text->speech engine that has awesome voices and captures the cadence of speech.  Way better than anything I’ve heard. I plan to use it in the next version of VocabSushi.
4. Hashable has been crashing like a mofo, so that’s annoying.
5. Sonar.me is an awesome app by Brett Martin, a super cool guy in the NY tech scene.  He gave a great presentation on stage.  The app works well and led me to connect w a few people at the conference I wouldn’t otherwise have met.
6. Met Chris Paik, a great VC who seemed to know everyone who walked by. (Thanks D. Levy for the intro).
7. I harassed the MediaTemple folks and chatted w CEO Demian Sellfors about what I dig about using MT for my hosting and why I use Hostmonster.com for the hacks I do. ( 1- they offer a $4/mo plan as opposed to MT’s cheapest: $20/mo, 2- installation of Perl modules is insanely easy on hostmonster and tedious on MT, via command line - and others).  Sonar.me has a promotion w them so I’m hoping to get some hook ups!
8. Kohort finally came our after much stealthness.  Mark Davis (of CVC and DFJ gotham fame) and Alison Lindland (of Mam’k HS fame!! Go tigers!) rocked the presentation. I’m looking to use this possibly for a speed dating event, as well as a simple “Beers w cool tech ppl” group.
9. Datacurious founder Philipp Tsipman and I chatted for a bit. It’s Google Finance for data that needs to be scrapped (like usage numbers for websites or seed round amounts, etc that are often noted in articles but not available for trendlines).
10. Getaround lets you share your car, like a social zipcar. They even did a demo of the iphone unlocking a Tesla roadster!  I’m signing up for sure.
11. Do@ - search 500 apps instead of using crappy google.  Example: I wanted to search “role models” the movie. It returned all the HTML5 apps for IMDB, Netflix, Amazon, Rotten Tomatoes, etc etc - rather than nasty blue links.  I’m going to create a simple webapp for VocabSushi to be an awesome definition lookup that shows lots of example sentences.

Image via Wikipedia

Wow - the iPhone just became a lot more amazing.  VLC is software that plays any video format.  It is my go to player for videos that I, ahem, acquire.

Whenever I ride the subway or bus I watch video on my iPhone.  Movies, TV shows, and TED talks.  Before the VLC app, in order to get video on to the iPhone I had to convert (transcode) the files to MP4 (an iPhone friendly format) using SUPER, a free but somewhat wonky transcoder.  Then I’d copy them to iTunes.  The process was painful because the conversion takes maybe 1/3 or 1/4 of the full playing time of the video - so a 22 min episode still takes more than 5 min to convert.  Plus I am lazy so I’d do this as a batch overnight process once I accumulated a bunch of stuff.

No more.

Now all I need to do is open iTunes, click on apps and VLC, and then click “ADD” and select all the stuff I want to copy.  Super fast, really easy, and the playback is flawless and looks amazing.

Get the app here.

It’s Finally Here!

Fare/Share, the awesome free app that lets New Yorkers share cabs and tell friends where they’re going, is now in the App Store.  As featured in AMNY, WSJ, TechCrunch Disrupt, NY Tech Meetup

and soon CurrentTV.

Available for iPhone and as a webapp.  Android coming soon.

Watch our promo video!



So, why should you use Fare/Share?

… Because sharing yellow cabs is green.  And it can save you lots of green, too!

• One-click check out to your destination, and push alerts when a match is found
• See if anyone nearby is waiting for a ride just by browsing
• Socialize your ride by posting it to Twitter and Facebook (great for letting friends know where you’re heading)
• Estimated fare calculations to quickly figure out what everyone should pay
• Pay your cabmate using cash (duh) or via PayPal in-app (requires both users to have PayPal accounts)
• Full Foursquare integration (check in, then get notifications when nearby users are looking for a cabmate somewhere)
• Ratings for every ride, so you can see a rider’s reputation before sharing, and rate your ride afterwards (so this doesn’t happen)

… Because sometimes you don’t want to listen to mariachi music.

1. Download the app, register, start using it whenever you want to head somewhere.
2. Rate it and write a review.
3. If you’re impressed, we’d love it if you put the following message into your Facebook status, Gmail status, Twitter, etc.

Live in NYC? Check out this new iPhone app called Fare/Share!  It helps you share cabs by connecting you with people going your way.  Learn more at faresharenyc.com.  Save money, meet people, and tell your friends where you’re heading!

  …Because sometimes splitting a cab is easier than taking the subway from the Bronx to Coney Island.  Can you dig it?

Follow us on Twitter @fareshare | Fan us | Read our blog

Related articles by Zemanta

• Internet Week New York Startup Demo Recap (informationweek.com)
• Share Your Taxi With FareShare (centernetworks.com)
• Fare Share: An app for NYC only? (trueslant.com)
• App Watch: Fare/Share Helps New Yorkers Split Cabs (blogs.wsj.com)
• Reinventing the Weeel: A Cab-Sharing iPhone App Tries to Grow in Brooklyn (observer.com)
• Tech City (technoverseblog.com)
• Bing Maps Has A New King: Taxi Fare Calculator (thenextweb.com)

Image via Wikipedia

I’m in Cape Cod with my family and since I can’t actually take a vacation from my work (I love my work), I’ve been busy on Skype with my ASUS netbook.  We have Wifi here and the connection is strong out here on the deck, but for some reason the actual internet connection is shoddy.  I’ve dropped a bunch of Skype calls and found the internet to be sluggish or unresponsive at times.

Enter my awesome jailbroken iPhone 4 running MyWi 4.0, a kickass app that lets you not only tether through USB but also turns your phone into a wifi hotspot that can even run WEP.  I got fed up with the local internet so I figured I’d try tethering.

Wow - turns out the AT&T 3G connection and speed here is phenomenal.   No more dropped skype (and I was doing video and screen sharing too!)  It’s kind of crazy to think that AT&T is more reliable than whatever the cable or DSL provider is here in Wellfleet, MA.