What happened to changing the world?

Maybe this is some delusion I have, but I've always believed that there are people out there who want to change the world. These are the revolutionaries, the visionaries, the ones who look at the world and see something different.

These "revolutionaries" come in differnt flavors. Some have such an idealistic and futuristic vision that they want to completely change the world as we know it. Others are merely content with making some minor (but extremely significant) change to our world.

But all of these "revolutionaries" have one thing in common: they aren't content with the status quo. They see the world as something that can be changed and improved upon. It's not that they see the world as inadequate. They simply see a way to make our world grander and better.

There are many types of these people, from the cancer researcher who believes he can cure cancer, to the high school student reading science fiction books who passionatly believes that humanity's future is in the stars.

They are all idealists with a grand sense of purpose in this world. They are not content with their 9 to 5 jobs. Nor are they content with running a 30 billion dollar hedge fund. Instead, they want to do something revolutionary, something to push the human race forward.

I believe strongly that these types of people exist. I belive they must, progress can not be made in another way.

Granted I am young, only 20 years old. Yet, I have not met any person who fits the above criteria. Nobody that even came close. So my question is where are these "revolutionaries" and why have I not met them? Is there something about our culture that stifles innovation, or have I simply been taking the wrong classes at school and hanging out with the wrong people?


Disclosure (sort of):
This post was inspired by Apple's ad Think Diffrent.

Queen Rania of Jordan Launches YouTube Channel

Queen Rania of Jordan has just started her own youtube channel aimed at helping "people to know the real Arab world - to see it unedited, unscripted and unfiltered - to see the personal side of my region - to know the places and faces and rituals and culture that shape the part of the world I call home."

With the help of YouTube, maybe the Queen can indeed reach some people in the West and teach them about the "Real Arab World". I have to say that it's sort of amazing to live in an age where a Queen can use a website to try to bridge cultural divides.

The Queen's first video is below:

Quick Overview of Database Design for the Web

So you're just getting started building your website and need features that require a database (such as user login and profiles). If you've never used a database before, this might seem daunting and complex. Well, it's not, it just takes practice and basic programming skills.

What's a Database and why do I need one?

Before we go further, let's explain what a database does and why its necessary. Essentially, a database is used to store information. The kind of information that can be stored varies from user comments on a blog post to credit card details of an online purchase. If you want to create a website that saves or accesses information in anyway, you will need to use some type of database. 

What does it look like?

A database is composed of tables. These tables have rows that store different information in each column. So a database will look something like this:

- Database

- Table users

- Table comments

Now, let's see how these tables would look like:

You'll notice that we don't have one table, but instead split the information among two tables: users and comments. 

So why can't I just have all my information in one table?

Most programmers do exactly that when they design their first table in a database. Let's look at a design like that:

Notice that in the above table design the user John Smith had two comments. In order to create the second comment, we had to create another row repeating his user_id, name, and email information. This type of design is crude and inefficient. Imagine if the user decided to change his email and you need to update your database. In this type of one-table design you would have to iterate through each row that belongs to the user and update their email. Seems inefficient right?

So what do we do? We split the information up into two tables (as shown in the images above). This reduces any data redundancy and makes the whole database design more efficient. 

How to scale your database

One of the best ways to scale your database is to split your data up among various tables. This allows you to split your tables up and place them in other databases. These databases can be located on other database servers, thus reducing the strain of having one database server run all the requests. 

What do I do next?

Next, you should decide on a type of database. There are free ones available such as MySql or more robust but expensive ones such as Microsoft Sql Server. You'll need to learn the SQL programming language, which is how you interact with the database and create, edit information. I'm not going to try and teach you the SQL language, but I'll direct you to a website that has great tutorials on this subject. 

Naming Your Startup

Naming your startup is probably one of the most important things your startup needs to do for branding and marketing. For the last couple months our team has tried to come up with a good name for our dating startup. We've gone through hundreds of names and all of them are either taken or we don't "love it". We haven't decided on a name yet, but I wanted to share some of our thoughts on making that decision. 

Simplicity and Pronunciation

If you're looking at doing any viral marketing you need a name that is short, simple, and easy to pronounce. When you imagine your users telling their friends about your website, you want to be sure that your startup's name will be remembered and spelled correctly when they get home. 

Branding and Marketing

Be creative. Your startup's name is one of the best branding and marketing tools you can have. You can use your name to describe what your website does as well as attract new users with a creative name (think of websites like FeedBurner and Disqus). 

Get the .com

Names such as del.icio.us are "cool" but not practical. Users won't want to type that into the address bar. If you have a great name, but the .com domain is taken, don't settle with a .net or any other domain. Users automatically think and add .com to a name. If they remembered your site's name that should be enough to get them to the website, they shouldn't have to remember the extension as well. 

Love it

Make sure you love your name, once you launch it gets much harder to change your name. But don't spend all your energy on naming your startup, having a name means nothing if you don't have a product to go along with it.