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Episode 7: Why Don’t Startups Run On Microsoft?

In this episode of Herding Code, we discuss the pro’s and con’s of building a startup on the Microsoft stack. We talk about a lot of issues:

  1. Licensing cost
  2. Availability and cost of developers
  3. Development environments and tools
  4. Relative costs of software vs. development time
  5. Thoughts on whether Microsoft should ship Visual Studio Express with Windows
  6. Those few companies who start on one stack and switch as they get larger
  7. How, in the end, it all comes down to execution

Along the way, K. Scott regales us with the tale of his run-in with the FBI, flees the podcast, and finds a way to sneak back on the call. Shenanigans!

Herding Code 7: Why don’t startups run on Microsoft? (Download)

My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-29d2d38db468bc87645363c074f2957c}

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Episode 5: Firefox 3

Show #5 – Topics

  1. Firefox 3… that’s it

Listen / Downlad

Herding Code 5: Firefox 3 Release

Announcements

The Name, The Feed, etc.

This is our last podcast hosting the audio on SkyDrive, I promise. I’d planned to take care of it last weekend and a family emergency… um… emerged. You can help! Please take our super quick survey to vote on a name for our podcast.

I’d hoped we could use SkyDrive to host the audio and set up a nice podcast feed on top of it via FeedBurner, but it turns out that SkyDrive doesn’t send the media type with MP3 enclosures in a way Feedburner expects, so that’s out. I’m looking into other hosting options, please comment in our survey if you’ve got any recommendations. We’ve been wanting to keep our costs down so we have the option of continuing long term without requiring sponsorship, but we’ll get our site set up for you for next week’s podcast. Honest.

The Audio

I think we finally nailed the audio this week. Thanks to Joe Pruitt and others for some great suggestions on how to set this up.

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Episode 4: iPhone v2 and K. Scott Allen’s report from TechEd 2008

Show #4 – Topics

  1. iPhone v2 announcments from WWDC
  2. TechEd 2008 recap by our roving reporter, K. Scott Allen

Listen

Herding Code 4: iPhoneV2, K Scott recaps TechEd 2008

Announcements

The Name

We’re closing in on a name (and thus a domain and a website and a real podcast feed, etc.). Here’s our current list, please give us your feedback or alternate suggestions.

  • BytecodePodcast
  • Four Horsemen On Software
  • Four Horsemen Podcast
  • Technology Roundtable Podcast

The Audio

Audio quality’s a bit worse this week. We’re working on it – it’s harder than you’d think (you should have heard what the source audio files sounded like). Right now we use Skype for the call, but everyone records their own audio and I edit and clean it up. We use Call Graph as a backup in case someone’s audio recording doesn’t work. UPDATE: Fixed a problem with K Scott’s audio. Much better now.

The Hosting

So far we’ve been hosting the audio on SkyDrive. We’ve been planning to host it ourselves, but I’m wondering if SkyDrive’s hosting would be sufficient provided that we had a solid podcast RSS feed. This should only be a problem if you can’t access the files for some reason – it’s requiring a login, or blocked by your corporate network or something. Please let me know if you have problems with this episode so we can make an informed decision. Other alternatives we’ve considered are the Site5 Uberplan and Amazon S3. Got any input there?

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Episode 3: Should Developers Learn C? + TechEd 2008 Keynote Announcements

Show #3 – Topics

  1. Should developers learn C?
  2. TechEd 2008 Keynote Announcements
  3. Microsoft “Velocity” distributed caching solution

Listen

Herding Code 3: Should Developers Learn C? + TechEd 2008 Keynote

Thanks for your patience (and great feedback) as we get our act together here. We’ve decided to make the content the top priority, and get the non-content details (feed, website, branding, etc.) next. Any suggestions for website address, podcast name, or any other ways we can improve?