Author Archive for Ben Kepes

Installing Wordpress on a local machine…

Reading yesterday of Mauricio’s problems with the Geekzone outage, I decided to review my backup procedures. I’ve always run an automated backup off this blog on a weekly basis, but in all honestly never knew for sure if I could actually restore from the backup. So this morning I decided to install a full version of Wordpress on my local machine.

This necessitated installing all the MySQL, PHP, Apache goodness that we take for granted on our ISP. I found this fantastic guide to getting it all set up from scratch on a local machine - cheers to the GAS gang. We’re half way there - Wordpress is up and running on my machine - part two is getting my backup off the web and restored to the local instance.

This will not only help with security but will allow a development platform to play with design without working on the live site.

Installing WordPress Locally Under Windows XP


1- Get XAMPP lite for Windows. Choose the exe version, and install it at the root of your C drive.

2- Browse to C:\xampplite and double click setup_xampp.bat

3- Once that is done, double click xampp-control.exe and start the Apache and Mysql services.

4- Open your browser and go to this address: http://localhost/. From the menu on the left column, choose your preferred language.

5- Now that the interface displays a language that you can understand, click on phpMyAdmin (on the left column once again)

6- Enter “wordpress” (without quotes) in the “Create New Database” Field, and select utf8_unicode_ci in the drop down box in the next field (as shown in the picture below). Click on Create. The Xampp setup is now complete.

7- Download Wordpress and unzip it under c:\xampplite\htdocs.

8- You should now have a wordpress folder under c:\xampplite\htdocs. Browse to the folder, and you will see a file named wp-config-sample.php. Open it in your favourite text editor and replace the default values by the ones you see under this paragraph. Save the file as wp-config.php (under the same folder).

// ** MySQL settings ** //
define(’DB_NAME’, ‘wordpress’); // The name of the database
define(’DB_USER’, ‘root’); // Your MySQL username
define(’DB_PASSWORD’, ”); // …and password (needs to be empty, just for local install)
define(’DB_HOST’, ‘localhost’); // 99% chance you won’t need to change this value

9- Open your browser and navigate to http://localhost/wordpress/wp-admin/install.php , follow the instructions, and voila, you are done.

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Mainstream media sometimes doesn’t get it…

I love New Zealand’s National Radio, but sometimes it needs to stick to it’s knitting. This morning they had a piece of Facebook, its battle for eyeballs in New Zealand with Bebo and concerns over security.

It’s an attempt to get a somewhat aware voice but in reality it shows the gap between the early/middle adopters and the late, late, late ones. The reporter even manages to give some examples of other social networking offerings including “tweeter” :-)

Click here for the podcast - not sure how long they keep them there for so get in quick.

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On telcos and disintermediation…

A friend of mine works for a Telco and of late we’ve been debating the prognosis for Telcos in the face of threats from internet businesses. He gave me some figures detailing the revenue of some internet businesses versus some large Telcos (obviously the Telco’s revenue was massively bigger than the internet companies), and reminded me that al these web services we love to use rely on a Telco providing the network layer.

His perspective then was that all the SaaS businesses in the world are mere leeches, wholly dependant on Telcos to earn their dollars.

Given the current status quo of course he’s right - but in this age of mass disintermediation, there has to be another alternative.

What’s to stop a massive internet player from disintermediating the network layer - building massively scaled wireless networks that obviate the necessity of using the current Telco’s networks. Forget for a minute the arguments about the efficiency of DSL vs Fibre vs WiMax and think about the concept here.

Currently Telcos make their money from network provision - sure they talk abut being service companies and selling value added products - but essentially it’s about providing pipes. As such you have the following equation for a web service;

Total cost = (Telco pipe price + Margin) + (Web Service Cost + Margin)

So let’s, in the words of Tony Blair, find a third way. Imagine a world where (for want of a better example) Google owned an alternative network. The equation in that instance would look like this;

Total cost = (Network Cost + Web Service Cost) * Margin

In recent days we’ve seen rumours of a plot by global Telcos to create some sort of Skype rival, surely this (if it’s true) proves my contention. The Telcos are trying to disintermediate the disintermediaters, creating a point to point offering that is vertically integrated.

My friend pointed out that, given the wildly higher revenue and market capitalisations of the telcos, compared to the internet players, it’d be more viable for them to do the integrating. While I agree that it would be easier from a capital point of view for the process to work this way, we come to some cultural roadblocks that, in my mind, make it more plausible for the internet players to win.

Telcos have grown accustomed to mega-profits and and large ARPUs, it’s hard to take that model and morph it into a long tail one where you make billions a penny at a time. Yet this is the very model that long tail providers are used to - they’re more likely to be able to stomach a lower ARPU, a lower margin and a more aggregative revenue stream than Telcos. Add to this the fact that Telcos have fixed infrastructures they wish to protect and the result is quite some barrier to Telcos winning the war.

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North Canterbury Business Awards…

One of the roles I fill is on the board of a Economic Development Agency, Enterprise North Canterbury. ENC has just launched the North Canterbury Business Awards, a new annual award to showcase the successful businesses that are to be found in North Canterbury.

I’ve been asked to judge the Exceptional Sustainability Award, co-judge the Exceptional Tourism Provider Award and sit n the panel that decides on the supreme winner of the North Canterbury Business of the Year.

It’s a great thing to highlight success in our region. More information can be found in this flier or at the website of Enterprise North Canterbury.


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What place Government?

Warning - here follows a rant not at all related to my usual subject matter!

We’ve seen some governmental debacles in the last few days. Firstly the New Zealand taxpayer agreed (or their representatives did anyway) to buy the rail network back off Toll holdings. Bear in mind that this is the same rail network we sold years ago, it’s fallen into disrepair and is under-utilised. It appears that the selling party played a bluffing game, feigning reluctance to sell in order to ratchet up the price.

In any private sector setting this sort of game-playing would be picked up by the other side. In a situation where the negotiation is occurring headed by elected representatives with very little real world experience, and in positions of power vastly greater than their skills, experience and ability would deserve what happened? The said negotiators took the bait - hook, line and sinker - paying what analysts believe is an over-inflated price for the business.

Not only that but it now appears the deal was full of insider trading, whereby the managing director of Toll holdings personally bought a large parcel of shares only days before the deal was inked - his personal windfall is estimated at over $300k.

And then today it appears the the former head of a large government department had a fictitious PhD on her CV. Again in the real world CV’s are checked for authenticity - one can only surmise that the powers that be who hired this employee were so excited by the letter PhD that they omitted to do standard due diligence.

So what’s the answer then? Well perhaps electing representatives with a bit of nous would be a start, moving to a model where politicians and civil servants where accountable for their actions would be another.

Either way we have an ongoing saga of ineptitude.

Right - that’s off my chest now…..

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And google responds

Call it observed parallelism, call it different ways of getting to the same place but either way, hot on the heels of Zoho opening up it’s services to Google and Yahoo account holders, Google has just advised that it is now possibly to view a spreadsheet directly from the URL (ie without being invited and logging in).

I have a situation where I run a cashflow sheet in Google docs, other people in my organisation need to access it but don’t like to use their Google accounts (no idea why - late adopters maybe!)

This feature will allow them to access the document without logging in - yay!

Obviously people need to think a little of the security ramifications of this but it’s an interesting development. Some folks are having a play on an open Google doc over here - check it out!

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It’s about collaboration, not service transition

I posted last night about Zoho allowing logins with Yahoo and Google user details. This morning my feedreader has been inundated with posts about this very topic. Most see the wood for the trees and identify this as a major step for collaboration.

On a post over on Zdnet however I read something a little disquieting when it was suggested that the main feature needed was the ability to import documents en masse into Zoho.

In my opinion this comment misses the point - it’s not about trying to facilitate users to make the shift into another walled garden, it’s about breaking down the walls and allowing people to play, no matter which garden they’re hanging out it. Zoli has it right when he says;

Why not just make all documents available to online users, no matter where they were created? You should be able to list your Google and Zoho documents, open them, edit them, and save to whichever format (and storage) you want to.

Maybe it’s Zoho’s private ownership that allows them to chart a path that seems more in tune with this open garden approach - time will tell how that strategy pans out for them.

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Zoho turns up the heat…

News today that Zoho is now allowing logins using either a Google or a Yahoo account login. The login utilises Goggle/Yahoo’s authentication API. This seemingly small change is pretty massive in that it allows a whole new level of cross application sharing and collaboration.

Apart from logging into Zoho with existing accounts, users also have an option to import contacts from Google and Yahoo! accounts to the Contacts section under Zoho Accounts.

This functionality is also useful for sharing documents. Now documents can readily be shared with other who have Google or Yahoo! accounts. They can login to Zoho with their Google or Yahoo! credentials and view shared documents without having to create new Zoho Accounts.

Zoho has the following to say to justify this move;

Why this move?
zoho-lifehacker-poll.pngWe obviously want many users to try out and use our applications. Apart from that, we noticed that when users try Zoho, they prefer our apps to competition. This Lifehacker poll conducted few months back for example gives you a snapshot.

There are two takeaways from the poll like the one above (and other polls we conducted).

  1. Many users don’t prefer creating yet another account for yet another online app
  2. Users prefer Zoho to Competition when they try both (In case of the above poll, around 75% prefer Zoho)

We hope this little feature is useful. More than these polls, we want to hear from you if this is useful. Please do let us know your feedback.

No matter the reasons, we’re seeing Zoho go from strength to strength - it needs to be borne in mind that Zoho is a small privately funded startup located in India, they’re doing something that Google, will their billions in disposable income, seem unable or unwilling to do.

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Xero year end results…

Hot of the press are the Xero year end (at 31 March 2008) financial reports. Key highlights include (with my comments in italics);

  • Revenue from subscriptions of $134,000 less than expected - key will be the figures to the end of May 2008 - projected  revenue from the prospectus is $550000
  • Operating expenses of $5,146,000 that’s a significant burn rate which is fine if revenue ramps up significantly
  • A net loss for the year of $4,310,000
  • Cash and bank balances of $9,517,000

An interesting read is the unaudited comparison between the results and the projections detailed in the prospectus - again with my comments in italics;

  • In the 12 months since Xero’s Offer Document was issued Xero achieved 1406 customers. 1300 were forecast. but at a lower subscription rate than forecast - is this what Chris Anderson meant about the “trend towards free”?
  • Generated revenue in the United Kingdom while no revenue was forecast from either the UK or Australia in the first year. awesome - it’d be interesting to know what those revenue figures actually are
  • Receipts from customers of $213,000 was lower than the updated (February 1 2008) forecast of $250,000 - $350,000 for three main reasons not sure why receipts from customers figure is different from the revenue from subscriptions figure - perhaps Rod can advise?

the assumed average pricing is $75 (plus GST) per customer per month, based on Xero’s current level of functionality. There will be no significant change in pricing during the prospective period.

  • The customer growth curve Xero experienced was weighted towards the end of the period as sales accelerated at the commencement of the 2008/2009 financial year hmmmm - but it’s hard not to think that anyone contemplating signing up for the 2008/2009 would have done so prior to 1 Aprl and would therefore be included in these figures
  • Greater focus on accountants in the first year, and their request for Xero to spend more time on the core accounting engine rather than value added services. Therefore average revenue per customer was less than the assumption included in Xero’s Offer Document which can only but suggest that either the focus on accountants strategy was wrong or the prospectus projections were flawed
  • Less new customers than expected took advantage of the option for a one year in advance payment discount, preferring to pay monthly
  • arguably the primary reason for the lower revenue than projection  (especially given the higher than expected customer count) is the fact that Xero had to drop it’s subscription rate from that indicated in the prospectus. The following is a direct quote from the prospectus;
  • Costs were less than forecast and interest income was greater than forecast resulting in a better closing cash position by $613,000. Closing cash balance at 10 May was $8,991,000 compared to $8,378,000 contained in the Offer Document
  • So overall an interesting result, nothing o shout from the rooftops but not completely off track either. Bottom line is that Xero needs to ramp things up - fast!

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    SAP and SaaS again…

    Recent announcements by SAP that its long awaited BusinessByDesign SaaS product would be significantly delayed has got the commentators buzzing about the issues facing SAP. It’s been said a number of times in the past that there is a big difference between the business model, revenue stream and development cycle of SaaS versus traditional software. These differences are such that it becomes very difficult for traditional software businesses to reinvent themselves into SaaS businesses.

    An interesting post over on this blog looks at the particular issues facing SAP in its quest to introduce a SaaS offering. Specific takeaways include;

    • SaaS is designed to reduce complexity, but SAP spent nearly four years developing Business ByDesign — and precious little of that time apparently went to coming up with a workable license model (read big ugly expensive offering)
    • SAP doesn’t seem to understand that SMBs don’t necessarily want an entire software stack from the same vendor (read SMBs like the aggregation of multiple services - they’re generally not looking for an all-in-one deal)

    Bottom line is that reinventing a big bloatware producing ISV into a slim SaaS provider is a big ask - as much culturally as technologically - can SAP do it? I’m not putting any mney on it

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