I'm at Ireland's Dragon's Den tomorrow afternoon...

OK--It's not the Dragon's Den. I don't have a TV, so I only know the Dragon's Den by description--but that's what we're going to be doing tomorrow at the NDRC for nine companies finishing a YCombinator-esque program in Dublin. I've given a small financial commitment to the event and will be sitting on the judges' panel to give feedback and weigh in on the larger award being provided.

Entrepreneurs: Good luck!

Sorry I couldn't make dinner, but the volcano...

No really. Just got off a transatlantic flight ready to hop planes to Copenhagen. Got a call that a volcano might have blocked our flight path. It did.

Thanks for the patience Henrik!

Cloud consultant wants Amazon Web Services revamp

My post on ReadWriteWeb about Amazon's Public EBS Snapshots getting some coverage in IT World Canada:

A poorly designed feature in Amazon’s Web Services platform could present a security risk for developers or programmers that are new to the cloud, according to a cloud computing consultant.

Jonathan Siegel, CEO and founder of Santa Barbara, Calif.-based ELC Technologies, said the issue stems from the AWS Web console, which gives users the option to make their online backup snapshots — similar to a tape backup — public or private. The default setting is private, but some users are mistakenly checking off public, and publishing secure data to the world.

Read the article.

Speaking at BizConf in August...

Opening Keynote: Embracing the F word

Thursday, August 05, 2010 at 9:10 AM Serial entrepreneur Jonathan Siegel will talk about using your failures to find success, an inspiring and informative keynote talk to open BizConf 2010.

Read more about my talk or buy your ticket.

My UCD Talk Booklist

Firstly--many thanks to Sean Murphy for arranging the time to speak today--and everyone that attended your feedback is welcome. In a comment and by email I've had a request for my reading list recommendations. Here they are:

1. Corporate Lifecycles, Ichak Adizes
2. Agile & Iterative Development, Craig Larman
3. Pragmatic Programmer, Andrew Hunt & David Thomas
4. Hypomanic Edge, John D. Gartner
5. Four Steps to the Epiphany, Steven Gary Blank
6. Electric Connections, Jonathan Siegel, :-P

Or as a pdf.

Speaking in Dublin April 8th...

UCD Computer Science will be hosting a short programme of events,

some of which may be of interest to ISA members. Two particular events may be of interest: - a panel discussion on legal issues around cloud computing - a talk by Jonathan Siegel on embracing failure (in the context of web-based startups) More info at: http://www.csi.ucd.ie/content/digital-dayz-10

Siegel.ie FTW!

BTW--if you've tracked my posts on the Irish Domain Registry you'll know they didn't want to give me the domain Siegel.ie. I took the opportunity to repurpose my frustration into writing practice and was pleasantly pleased with the outcome. You can find my other posts below.

I didn't give a good wrap-up for how I actually got the domain. In case you want an Irish domain, don't bother reading the requirements, since they don't follow them.

Instead, go to this website (the CRO), pay the €20 for a registered name. Then contact one of the second-party registration companies and send them the receipt from the CRO. You'll have your domain in a couple days.

Easy-Peazy.

My post on ReadWriteWeb

I recently had a guest post on ReadWriteWeb on security mistakes being made by users of Amazon's Web Services platform. If you use AWS, I encourage you to take a read.