Cody P. Christian

My life in Techstars

This year by far has been a crazy one for me, I recalled saying back in March after my big Geek Tour 2011 that I only hoped to set foot in NYC again this year. Little did I know that I would end up living there for almost four months!

Earlier this year I started working for a start-up called zferral which provides online referral marketing software to businesses of all sizes. Standard SaaS style of business. I had no idea that just weeks after teaming up with my good friend Nick (CTO) and new acquaintance Jeff (CEO) that I would be asked to go with the team to NYC to be in the summer 2011 class of Techstars NYC. I was already ecstatic to be working with these guys and now going to NYC for almost 4 months to work around 11 other start-ups was just icing on the cake for me. On top of that, for most people it’s a dream to live in NYC let alone be a part of Techstars — a startup accelerator.

Techstars was a ton of fun and a lot of experience, and made a ton of great friends and amazing connections. Meeting top people in the NYC tech scene and CEOs of some of todays hottest start-ups, even tumblr’s own CEO. It by far was an amazing experience, I even got to meet Gary V. who I have been following for many years. So overall it was great.

I won’t go in to much more detail about Techstars other than it is a great program that I recommend potential start-ups to look in to. It by far was the best thing I have been a part of and it was a quick almost 4 months that I don’t regret at all.

If you want to learn more about Techstars then look at techstars.com and if you want to learn more about the company I worked with and what we built then please look at Ambasador (formally zferral)

Here is a Techcrunch article containing the other companies and ours from our big demo day. http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/19/techcrunch-roundup-12-startups-500-investors-at-techstars-nyc-demo-day/

I just realized that I haven’t posted on this blog in ages… I really wish I could start blogging more again or if anything just sharing random things from my interesting life. =)

iPhone Location Tracking Issue

Ever wondered if that nifty smart phone in your pocket is tracking where you go? Maybe you haven’t? Well in reality if your GPS/location is enabled and by default it is then you might have guessed right that your phone is indeed tracking and logging your locations. Going as far as time-stamping every update as well.

Further more not only is it storing your data, but storing it in a simple non-encrypted SQLite database! To make matters worse every time you back-up your phone this manifest file is also backed up to your computer. Meaning your where abouts is not only on your phone but now on your computers!

For some this probably isn’t a huge deal, but it’s a little insight to some sneaky things that are going on that you would have never found out about. Makes you wonder what else has been going on.

Two data scientists discovered this manifest file while looking for new data to graphically view. You can watch the video on this and read the article here.

Apple released a new update (4.3.3) which addresses the issue and slightly fixes the problem. However this does two things. A) stops the phone from backing this file up to iTunes. and B) Completely removes the manifest file when you turn off location services on your phone.

Question is… How does this make you feel? Felt Apple fixed this issue? or do you feel like its still a problem? Company aside, any other companies you think are doing this? Or similar? Let me know your thoughts on this topic, I’m quite curious to see how others feel about it!

UPDATE: I was informed of; as well as noticed this data to be of aGPS data, which means Assisted-GPS data. Meaning most locations that are saved are in-fact within 100’ radius of your actual location at that time. So its not down to the exact spot, however its still close enough to possibly be an issue. I’ll let you decide on that. Also I was informed that Android also stores similar information, actually further more submits this information to Google. So I feel us iPhone users have less to be worried about if that is true.

Here is a example of there software in action, simply opening the software it auto-found and loaded my most recent iPhone backup. Then displaying all of my locations since July 2010 when I got my phone 4; on a map. Just insane.

Sources:
http://mashable.com/2011/05/04/ios-4-3-3/
http://mashable.com/2011/04/20/iphone-location-history/
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1358

A Hilarious Moment

I thought this was funny, maybe you will to:

So today I was at Ikea with my mom, quick lil trip to look at and price some things and have some lunch. Ikea food rocks! So anyhow… once we ate and got done walking around the top floor we then went to head down to the first floor. Upon walking down the stairs I notice a guy and girl heading up the stairs. The guy was wearing the standard Apple retail employee shirt. I happend to be wearing my grey Apple jacket. So as he walks past me and kinda nods his, I assume girlfriend who is a few steps behind… laughs and says out loud “How Ironic, two Apple employees in Ikea!” as she walks past. I laugh loudly and kept walking…

Hah so anyways I felt it was funny. This has happen far too many times since I’ve gotten my Apple swag, especially in SF. Walking in to any Apple store I’m always bound to either be asked something by a random person and the employees there always have something clever to say or just a nod hah.

Well while I am not a Apple Inc. employee and mainly just a big Apple fan, I am however a Licensed Apple iOS Developer so I am sorta a ‘employee’ I guess? hah.

Anyhow! Thought I’d share that! =)

Too many questions…

As I said in my last post (please read it.) and promised to blog more so here we go!

Not that much has changed since the last posting, still a lot of questions and uncertainties up in the air right now. Still 1000 ways I can go with different things. Gotta start locking down and figuring out things. Most things I’m just taking day-by-day right now. Especially with my emotions, we don’t want what happend last year to repeat itself in anyway, shape, or form. Though somethings I just can’t help but to be attached to or want regardless if its possible or not.

Oh well nothing I can do about that though, outta my control. Though I need to learn to not be that way and not get emotionally attached to things; mostly people. Idk if I’ll ever understand that one hah. Just something I need to not do.

I also question myself on my actions sometimes, why I do x thing, why I like x person, etc. Can anyone answer that? lol But at least I notice the things I need to fix, just gotta figure out how. I could go back to my old self, but I dont think any of us wants that person back. So for now I’ll just keep dealing with these things and figure out a way to fix them. Oh and learn to put up a wall that emotion can’t easily, if at all break.

Anyhow readers thats my thoughts for now, ranting I’m sure and most of it probably makes no sense to most… or maybe it does?

Till next time! Peace!

Life Update…

I feel like using this blog again for what I originally used it for.. blogging about my life.

So from now on this will be a mix of personal thoughts, random things I like, etc.

So for todays blurb…

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about many different things in my life. One being my plans for the next few months, years, etc. Figuring out what I want to do, who I want to be around, where I want to live, and so on. So a lot of this is still in question and some I’m not sure I will find a answer to right away. For now I’m taking things day by day.

I’m going to start sharing some more personal thoughts, feelings, etc however non-descriptive as to who it is about, this way I can let things out without causing any problems with anyone.

So with that said, these past few months I’ve been going through a emotional roller coaster again. Emotions of different kinds and levels from both a girl/relationship stand point, to work, to family, and so on… I may or may not get into these things here.. unsure. But lets for now just say that it’s been really interesting and still on going and probably never ending.

As always I’m constantly learning new things both from a emotional stand point, to other things in life that aren’t as personal like coding languages XD. But I dont know I just find the whole emotional thing to be interesting, especially seeing how different I act depending on who I am around. Though that goes more so with personality than emotions unless I am having emotions with said person.

Anyhow as of right now and def the past month I’ve had a swarm of highs and lows of emotions mainly centered around this one girl, and well we shall see where that goes in time. For now I’ll just keep putting along and doing my thing and keeping hope of things in my future and hope everything I want in life will come together and work out.

For now in this moment I at least know of my thoughts and feelings towards this one girl and no matter what happens or who comes into my life right now I least know that I really like this person and nothing is going to change that. =)

So I leave you with that, I shall post as often as I can and even more so when my emotions are all over the place. Least here I can vent to something instead of some random friend who just happens to be online at that moment in time.

Thanks for reading. Take care.

- Cody

Geek Tour 2011

Hey guys, so I’m going to try to start blogging here more often, but to start here is a post explaining my trip that is coming up in March. I’ve been asked the details about this several times so here you go! =)

The Trip

Last year my friend @alexeckermann (from Australia) and I got to talking one late night on Skype and decided that we wanted to do a trip across the US. For awhile this was just talks and nothing serious but we decided to keep planning and try to do this trip. Late 2010 we decided to do the trip and to start seriously planning and pre-paying for things.

We spent several months planning out every detail of the trip from locations, to flights, to accommodations, costs, etc even down to a day-by-day schedule of what we will be doing, who we are meeting with etc.

You ask why are we doing this?

Simple, Alex wants to see the US, and I wanted to also see some of these cities again or for the first time. It’s a great opportunity for us to meet, hangout, and enjoy great parts of the US; both from a business and fun standpoint.

Where are you going?

Well here is a break-down of the cities we are visiting.

• March 1st - 8th: San Francisco (Surrounding Areas/Cities)
• March 9th - 11th: Yosemite National Forest/Park
• March 12th - 15th: Los Angeles (Surrounding Areas/Cities)
• March 16th - 17th: Las Vegas (Hover Dam & Grand Canyon)
• March 18th - 22nd: New York City (Surrounding Areas/Cities)
• March 23rd - 25th: Washington DC (Surrounding Areas/Cities)
• March 26th - 30th: Florida
• March 31st: Alex flys back to Australia

Random Notes:

• During the drive from LA to LV we will be stopping off at places like Joshua Tree National park to see it and shoot time-lapses.
• March 1st, I fly out of Tampa to LA with a connect in Atlanta, will be in LA for a few hours to meetup with Alex, then we both fly up to SF. All in that first day. Crazy.

What interesting things or places are you seeing during this trip?

During this entire trip we are shooting both photos, videos, and time-lapses.

We are visiting most of the popular tourist like things in these cities.

While we are in SF we are going to try to visit the following companies:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Apple
• Google
• TWiT
• Revision3
• Mythbusters (M5Industries)
• Pixar Animation Studios

Once the trip starts you can follow the entire trip, day-by-day at http://geektour2011.com

This will continue to be updated, please check back! =)

Thanks!