Ajax by Microsoft in Whidbey

I came across this blog entry by Nikhil Kothari. Async callbacks in server controls. Seems like MS will be joining the Ajax wave with their Whidbey release.

Assessing Oppurtunities

I have been following the The Entrepreneurial Mind blog by Jeff Cornwall. This one clearly puts the right process using the right words. I had been floating with so many ideas without a structured thinking and this one nailed down perfectly the thought process I have to follow.

1. Is there a MARKET? Examine the size of the market to make certain that you only need a small portion of the market as customers to make your business work. Make sure that they are interested in, and more importantly want and need your product or service. You don't have time or money as an entrepreneur to educate them. Begin to get an idea of how much they will be willing to pay. Too many times this becomes a last minute guess by the entrepreneur.

2. Is there a MARGIN? Figure out the basic economics of the business. How much will the product or service sell for and how much will it cost to produce the product or offer the service? At this stage you should really look for opportunities that offer at least a 50% margin. Generally, when all is said and done this will typically result in actual profits of about 15-20% once the business plan is developed and all of the true costs are determined.

3. Is this for ME? There are many periods during the growth of the business when the entrepreneur needs a true passion to carry them through. This is not just a simple financial investment. It becomes much more personal and emotional than that. Many entrepreneurs tell us that the profit part of the business opportunity is only one of many reasons for launching their businesses. It also helps to build a business that takes advantage of your experiences, knowledge and skills.

Xhtml & Css styling

I have to admit that I was really not happy with my standard blog template I chose. I wanted it to be even simpler and without images. I wanted to have a 3 column layout and have google ads incorporated into the new column. I was looking for a css based layout and got it from http://glish.com/css/7.asp. This site has quite some css based layouts.

The site which redefined my view towards css was http://www.csszengarden.com/. This site turned me to a whole new world of css positioning and UI design. I was thoroughly impressed at the number of designs applied on a single data page to get different look and feel. One other site which impresses me time to time with CSS is www.macromedia.com. I constantly find some new css trick from these guys. If you want to know how many sites have started following the XHTML + CSS standards Eric Meyer is tracking down them in his separate redesign watch blog. Who are still closing their eyes to these standards this article is one of my favourite eye opener.Why tables for layout is stupid

Other css based useful resources I collected are
http://www.positioniseverything.net/
http://www.thenoodleincident.com/tutorials/css/
http://css.maxdesign.com.au/listamatic/index.htm

Please leave your comments with other good resources you have come across on CSS!