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In the recent past, it took a team of experts several months to design, provision, setup, and test the infrastructure for a fully-functioning web app. Load balancers, SQL clusters, web servers, storage arrays, network switches, and huge internet pipes were needed and specialists were called in for the deployment. The cost was large, but necessary.

Today, with cloud computing, the window has been shortened from months to days. No more hardware to buy…no more switches to manage…no more storage arrays to configure.
But what belongs in the cloud?

Does your entire app? Does a portion of your app? Is it secure? Is it cost effective? Does it scale?

ServiceCloud - making the cloud work for you

Many people have told me that they have used the ElasticFox extension for Firefox to get started with Amazon EC2. ElasticFox makes it easy to see the list of available AMIs (Amazon Machine Images), to launch any number of instances of those AMIs, and to monitor and manage the running instances

Amazon Web Services Blog: New Release of ElasticFox

The Rejection Hotline®

The dating scene is full of people who can't take a hint or can't take "no" for an answer (and many who apparently can't take showers, can't brush their teeth, or can't seem to go out in social settings without awkwardly embarrassing themselves).

The Rejection Hotline exists as a simple alternative to uncomfortable situations and it is a public service to both the rejector and to the rejectee!

Recently funded Atlanta telephony startup

Rejection Hotline

Directors chosen for state’s new venture capital fund

Enterprise Florida’s board has appointed five directors to head Florida Opportunity Fund

ORLANDO, FL (November 26, 2007) – The Enterprise Florida Board of Directors has announced its selection of five business leaders to serve as board members of the Florida Opportunity Fund, an outcome of this year’s Florida Capital Formation Act, which creates a platform for generating early stage capital and technology commercialization in Florida.

...

A nonprofit corporation, Florida Opportunity Fund Inc. aims to grow the bank of venture capital statewide. “The intent is to get more venture capitalists to invest in Florida,” explained Louis Laubscher, senior vice president and COO of Enterprise Florida, which will provide administrative support to the Opportunity Fund. “The Fund will increase the availability of seed capital and early stage venture equity capital for investing in up-and-coming businesses. Not only will these organizations be key to the creation of new, high-value jobs, they’ll also enable a pool of funding for investments in seed capital and early stage venture capital funds that agree to invest in Florida.”

Here’s how:

* Venture capital funds will be able to request an investment from the Opportunity Fund.
* However, these firms must agree to match dollars the Opportunity Fund raises with private investment dollars as a minimum investment in Florida.
* Any venture capital firm receiving Opportunity Fund dollars must agree to invest that money plus its match into Florida businesses.
* Eligible venture capital firms must be based in Florida, have full time Florida staffing, and/or demonstrate a history of prior investment into Florida companies.

What this fund means: a 50/50 match by the state, when a Florida VC raises money for a Florida company.

Nice.

Florida :: Directors chosen for state’s new venture capital fund

Cornhole, Corn Toss, Bags, Bean Bag Toss, Soft Horseshoes, Indiana Horseshoes, Tailgate Toss, Sacks and Holes, Sack-Hole, or Baggo is a game in which players take turns pitching small bags filled with corn (or sand or beans) at a raised platform with a hole in the far end. These platforms are usually plywood, sometimes plastic, and sometimes decorated. A corn bag in the hole scores 3 points, while one on the platform scores 1 point. Play continues until a player reaches the score of 21.

Regulation platforms measure 4 feet (1.2 m)×2 ft (0.6 m)[1], while standard tailgating platforms can measure 3 feet (0.9 m)×2 ft (0.6 m), but can vary. The height of the back end is 12 inches (30.5 centimeters) from the ground while the height of the front end can vary from 2½ to 4 inches. The Cornhole platforms are set 33ft from the inside edge of each hole (the 6" diameter holes are centered 9" in from the back) while the player can stand anywhere from no further than the back of the platform but not any closer than the front of the platform. Additionally, there must be a 12ft vertical clearance above the playing area.

I played cornhole in East Atlanta today for three hours. In the blazing heat, sucking down PBR. Cornhole is one of the few games where you never have to set down your beer.

This is seriously, hands down... one of the funnest games I have ever played.

Cornhole (game) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

How It Works
Faster. Easier. Better.

LenderFlex® puts up-to-the-minute loan pricing at your fingertips, enabling you to quickly respond to your borrowers and close your deals during the first call. Fast, easy and accurate with nothing to install. LenderFlex® is already built into Calyx Point®, so you can price or re-price a borrower right away.

Local ATL startup Lenderflex by David Jones and Jeff Gombala.

LenderFlex - How It Works

GrandDialer allows users with a GrandCentral account to dial numbers directly from an iPhone or iPod Touch. null

GrandDialer

Crank calls have never been so easy.

As folks on Reddit have pointed out, Disney’s Hannah Montana Wake-Up Call makes getting up to no good a snap. Just enter your friend’s victim’s phone number and the delightful Miley Cyrus’s voice will wake them up or send them a reminder: “Dear [name], don’t forget that today you have [activity].”

Opening a web-to-phone system to the public without authentication or constraints may be fun — but it’s also ripe for abuse. Without authentication of the sender, users are free to enter any source phone number they want, making it look like the calls are coming from someone else. There’s no opt-out mechanism or audit trail. Even attempts to constrain the system can be circumvented: You can change the recipient’s time zone and wake them up in the middle of the night, or back-date the wake-up call to have it placed immediately.nullnullnullnull

Hannah Montana Crank Calls: VoIP Mischief - GigaOM

I don’t have the patent on the prevailing opinion about local VC community. The opinions and frustrations are real and they’re not something that we should just ignore. There are pretty big problems with the local startup community. Here’s what I think are some of them:

* Local VC money is mostly non-existant. It’s a supply-demand problem essentially. Low supply of great startups and some big hits, very little demand. (Note: I didn’t say lack of money)
* The local community is a relationship-based economy. It’s who you know … The ‘ole boy network. The valley is a meritocracy.
* We have no real track record of big successes we can tout. OK, let’s stop using ISS, JBoss and Mindspring. JBoss didn’t raise any local money, ISS was started over 12 years ago and most young people have never heard of Mindspring
* What few winners we’ve had, they don’t feel compelled (or even obliged) to re-invest / give-back to the local community

Local Investors

We don’t have any real early stage venture investors in Atlanta. OK, investors, go ahead and get pissed and stop reading if you’d like. But, it’s the honest truth. Noro-Moseley is one of the largest and oldest firms in Atlanta. They have some good guys there (Greg Foster has recently joined and he seems like a great guy) like Alan Taetle. However, I’m sorry to say this, these guys aren’t early stage guys. They don’t understand early stage. Period. That’s not to say they haven’t made early stage investments - they have. For example, Clearleap. They invested along side Trinity. Trinity is a great Valley firm. We spent time with them. But here’s the rub. Noro probably wouldn’t have done the deal alone, nor would they have done the deal if it was 3 guys just out of GA tech with no experience (in fact, the founders are ex-N2Broadband guys who had a good exit).

Despite what Alan said in a comment on Lance’s blog, Noro had the opportunity to do the Appcelerator deal - 100% as the only lead investor - on a silver platter. Alan and Greg know that - even though they’ll try and say they didn’t, publicly. But the true story is that I gave Alan one week to put a term sheet on the table; he had a told me and several others many times he would. In fact, Alan told several people around town that they wouldn’t lose the Appcelerator deal even before we had decided to raise a round. I’ve known Alan for a long time and I’d like to think of him as a friend - so I know he’ll be pissed at me for putting this out there.

This Jeff Haynie/Appcelerator thing just keeps getting juicier and juicier! Now Jeff sounds off about it.

What’s wrong with the Atlanta startup ecosystem and how to fix it | Introspection