Oct 28

Covestor widget update

By Stefano Buliani Covestor, My Works, Technology, WWW No Comments »

Thanks to all Covestor members who took the time to try the widget and sent me lots of feedback.

Working on this widget has been incredibly useful because it made me realize some of the “shortcomings” of the data export APIs.

This new release includes:

  1. Minor bug fixes in the feed validation
  2. Better look and feel (I hope)
  3. Feed filter as on your Covestor page
  4. Changed updated frequency to range between 1 and 20 minutes rather than a few seconds

As usual download it here or from the link in the right navigation bar. My previous post contains a more detailed installation guide.

Covestor widget

Oct 27

Covestor widget for MacOS X

By Stefano Buliani Covestor, General Babbling, My Works, Technology, WWW No Comments »

I have finally received my copy of Leopard and have spent the entire day playing with DashCode.

 

 

 

My first widget leverages Covestor data export functionality and displays the live feed you normally see on “My Summary”

Covestor widget

To use it simply install it (by double clicking on the widget file) then activate the data export from your account settings.

Covestor Data Export

 

 Covestor Data Export

Once the feed is enabled all you have to do is copy the “Live Feed” XML url from the link on the page and paste it in the widget configuration.
As you can see there’s an additional configuration parameter which allows you to specify how often you want the widget to check for updates on Covestor.

his is just a first beta release so don’t expect anything fancy. This widget is compatible with MacOS X 10.4.3 or newer.

Click here to download the widget or use the link on the right menu (under Evangelion interpretation). Feedback and suggestions are more than welcome!

Oct 03

Covestor on Techcrunch

By Stefano Buliani About me, Covestor, General Babbling, My Works, Thoughts No Comments »

Finally, TechCrunch just posted an article about Covestor, you can read it here.

Needless to say after months of hard work – and those of you who have worked in startups know exactly how frustrating it can be – we get some of the recognition a project like this deserves. I am absolutely elated and very proud to be part of it.

Quote from one of the comments on TechCrunch:

I just signed up for the service and am, in short, stunned. It blows away all the competitors in this space by guaranteeing trust (all the trades you see are real) and reducing friction (you don’t have to re-enter any of your trades, ever).

This is the first investment-related site that will actually gain my attention on a regular basis.

All in all a very exciting day!

Stefano

Sep 12

Identity verification for Ebay!

By Stefano Buliani General Babbling, My Works, Technology, Thoughts, WWW No Comments »

EbayIf you’re lucky enough to look under 21 we may have to ask for proof of your age.

That’s how stores like Sainsbury and Tesco tell their shoppers that if they’re trying to buy alcohol and look under 21 the cashier will ask them for a valid document as proof of their age.

Last year I decided to sell my PSP on Ebay! I paid the fee and put up the auction. Long story short I was almost scammed into selling my PSP to a Nigerian who commandeered an American account and sent me some brilliantly realized fake PayPal payment emails.

Luckily the real account owner noticed and alerted me on time otherwise it was goodbye PSP and money. Yes, I know, I’ve been stupid and didn’t check the payment emails properly, but it was a very well reputed account (on Ebay!) and I trusted it implicitly.

So here’s what I’d like to have and couldn’t find anywhere on the net. A very simple and small website providing an identity verification service for Ebay! users. Could be based on GPG and would ideally work this way:

  1. When a user signs up on the service a GPG key pair is created for him and the date of the creation is recorded
  2. The private GPG key is sent armored to the user email address.
  3. The user will also be given some HTML code to generate widgets in their Ebay! auction pages which will display a simple “Verify” button and the date the user signed up on the service

Now whenever I’m interested in an item I can verify the identity of the seller in the following way:

  1. Click on the “Verify” link on the widget
  2. The system will send a message (random number or something) encrypted with that user’s GPG public key to their email address
  3. The user will have to decrypt (maybe with a small really simple application) the message and enter the code provided in the email on a page in the system.
  4. The seller will also be asked whether he wants to verify the buyer identity or not
  5. The system will send an email to the buyer confirming the seller’s identity (or not) and eventually asking the buyer to verify their identity

The date the account was created in the verification system is very important at this stage because you may not want to trust completely a key created the very same day of the auction.

I know the idea is a bit blurry and definitely has some loopholes, but I’m confident that they can all be closed and security risks minimized.

Do you know of any system like this on the net? If not please create it! I love Ebay! but I’m tired of having to spend days in a state of total distress and anxiety every time I sell or buy something!

Aug 25

new pedanticfilms website goes live

By Stefano Buliani About me, General Babbling, My Works, News, Video No Comments »

I’ve been looking forward to this moment for a couple of months now.

The new redesigned website for pedanticfilms is finally live and the pre-production of ‘the entrepreneurs‘ has finally started.

Make sure to check out the website and contact us with any question regarding the series.

Aug 19

Photo editing for dummies

By Stefano Buliani General Babbling, My Works, Photos, Technology No Comments »

Wonders of the Balloon FiestaAnd I’m not ashamed of including myself in the category.

I’m a keen and passionate amateur but when it comes to applying the final touches to my photos I’m completely and utterly hopeless, and Adobe doesn’t seem to be interested in making the job any easier for me.
This is why yesterday I was overly excited to discover a new image editing software for Mac OS X which promises to do everything that Photoshop does for 1/10 of the price and 1/100 of the brains I currently waste looking for some obscure effect in Photoshop cryptic menus.

Last year when I switched from iPhoto to Aperture I thought I could finally stop using additional software, I was dead wrong, Aperture organises my photos, stores them and makes them easy-ish to find, however, it still lacks some of the editing capabilities that would make it my only software of choice. At the moment, after exporting a cropped and correctly exposed version of a photo from Aperture I proceed to open Photoshop and apply the final corrections before publishing it on Flickr. Needless to say it often comes out of Photoshop worse than how it goes in.

I’ve been using a trial version of Photoshop and wondering whether I should pay the big bucks they want to keep wrecking my photos. I’m sure Photoshop is totally worth the amount they’re trying to sell it for, just not for me. Hence my strive for a cheaper/easier solution.

Pixelmator promises to be the answer to all my prayers. The software has just entered a closed beta phase, I contacted the team practically begging to be able to give it a spin (no answer so far but I’ll keep this blog updated). The list of Tools and Filters on their site looks complete enough for me and from the screenshots I’d say it also is easy to use, even for image-editing-impaired people like me.
$59 is a price I’d be more than happy to pay to get a decent application, especially if it makes my amateur-photographing painless rather than extremely laborious, can’t wait to try the software first-hand!

Pixelmator sneak peak

Furthermore, I’m a Mac user, can’t help it, I love beautiful and clean interfaces, even if it means giving up some of a software capabilities.

Take it easy,

Stefano

Update: CrunchGear review

Jun 12

Covestor on CNBC

By Stefano Buliani Covestor, My Works, News, Video No Comments »

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgkq8bANjDY]

Jun 08

Covestor continued

By Stefano Buliani Covestor, General Babbling, My Works, News, Technology, WWW No Comments »

Covestor launched this Tuesday and I haven’t had time breathe ever since.

Fist off a brief introduction about Covestor, what is it? I’ll let the press release answer this:

Rikki Tahta, co-founder and Chairman of Covestor LLC, explains, “We all know people who are managing their own money, and doing a great job. Covestor is the only place that these proven self-investors can build their reputation and get the recognition they deserve. Our research shows there are tens of thousands of unsung heroes and millions of others who would be keen to invest alongside them.”

Covestor’s new service is easy to use. A free institutional grade track record is created for each member. Covestor captures real trades and holdings using a secure automated link into a member’s broker account…

The response and enthusiasm surrounding our launch was overwhelming and we had a really hard/fun time keeping up with all the code applications and contact requests.
After spending so much time developing an application it’s really rewarding to see so many people all over the world thrilled about what you have created. It’s been stressful, incredibly challenging giving the hurdles we had to face with limited resources, amazingly vexing but ultimately exceptionally gratifying.

We’re receiving more and more attention from the press, both online and offline.

We also noticed today that people started embedding our widgets in their blogs and discussing their positions on Covestor, when you see this happen after just a couple of days you just know that you got it right.

Oh, I almost forgot, here’s my factsheet on Covestor.

Please note that I will not answer any question related to Covestor technology directly on this blog. For any inquiry use the “Contact” form.

Jun 06

Covestor goes live

By Stefano Buliani About me, Covestor, General Babbling, My Works, Technology, WWW No Comments »

Covestor launchesFinally I’ve found the time to post this here on my blog.

The last weeks have been completely nuts, Something I’ve given 10% of my life to has finally gone live. I’m really proud of the site and I think it’s going to be an amazing splash. Seriously, I don’t expect something on which I’ve spent 10% of my life on to be anything but breathtaking.

We’ve had some good press coverage on GigaOm and SeekingAlpha.

If you don’t have a brokerage account but still want to see how the website works use this link to have a look at a video-demo.

Take it easy,

because I can’t,

Stefano

Dec 11

OVER, again

By Stefano Buliani General Babbling, My Works No Comments »

I know I’ve talked about this just last week. But Andrea, OVER CTO massive executive corner office god, has published a small article on the development blog explaining, better than how I did, what all the fuss is about and why this milestone was so important for the project.

Take it easy,

S

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