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Fred Wilson wrote a post earlier on his blog, A VC, called Powerpoint vs Working Code?. In this post he mentions a small study which shows how Venture Capitalist would rather see a demonstration of your software than a silly Powerpoint presentation.

Early in the fund raising process, it might be hard to get large amounts of a web application completed on the budget provided from seed funding. For reasons like this, web frameworks (tools to make creating web applications easier) have started to build into their ‘toolkit’ prototype like functionality.

My favorite is Tapestry 5. With T5 I would be able to create, say, a registration form in less time than it will take to write this post. Now, this form might not be in the final visual state I would like it, but it gives me a chance to quickly get something working.

If you are a developer and are interested in how this works, you can see a screen cast for this form. If you would like to see what a prototype would look like with this method, this screen cast will show this too.

When I first heard somebody was designing a refrigerator with Internet access almost 10 years ago now, I thought ‘clever, some really lazy person never has to leave the kitchen.’ Now it is 2008 and what goes best with coffee other then a yappie dog and a liberal arts degree? Internet on my coffee mug. I would love to meet the VC who funded this project and get funding for my time traveling, stock market predicting, lederhosen wearing perpetual motion machine (with Internet access).

For a few months, ok more than a few, I have been toying with the option of learning German. One problem is that I do not know the best way to do this. I am not going to go to Germany to learn the language; although I would love to, this is a bit out of my desire at this point. I am also incredibly cheap and do not want to pay for a class. I would consider this if it were a better solution though. So what else is there?

There are a few software programs out there. A guy I work with said he would let me borrow his copy of Rosetta Stone if I wanted to. There are also some others I have heard about in the mix lately such as Mango and LiveMocha.

The problem is I have not tried to know a new language since I took Spanish classes in high school, so I do not know the best way to accomplish my goal of being bilingual.

So I ask the readers… What is your favorite or the best way to learn a language?

Get Rich Slowly has a nice post where a reader asks if he is saving too much. In a nutshell, this reader is in a very nice position since he is saving a large percent of his income, has a nice plan to pay off his mortgage early, and has no bad debt. The problem is that he only has a few hundred dollars of play money each month due to his aggressive savings/debt reduction. So, is he saving too much?

Short answer, never.

First of all I would like to give this reader a thumbs up for realizing current sacrifices will bring future benefits.

But it seems he is giving up some ‘happiness’ to reach these goals. Why would you make your life less enjoyable in every moment you can knowing it could end at any moment? That is a debate for another day.

Let us assume for the sake of the rest of this post he is happy with his current standard of living and is able to save more than he thinks is necessary to reach his goals. I argue just because somebody is happy with her lifestyle does not mean they need to spend as much money as they have to spend. More money does not mean one has to spend it. Enjoy your life, don’t let your money control your personality.

At work, I get my news from a fancy tool called iGoogle. This lets me add widgety items like news headlines to my personalized Google homepage. This is also my homepage in Internet Explorer on the three computers I use regularly: work, home - laptop, and home - desktop.

I had a problem with this though. I had a widget on there for stock quotes: things I owned and some watch list items. My project at work is basically a custom website, forcing my to open and close IE frequently all day. This made me constantly aware of the price which my favorite companies were trading at.

This became worrisome over the last few weeks as prices were falling quite quickly. As a long term investor who does not time markets all this can do is make you think and think about how far they will go down. You begin to second guess your choice in these companies. Your next step is to sell, but, wait, you remind yourself you are in for the long haul.

So what did I do? Well I removed the widget, duh, allowing myself to forget the worry and move on. There is a bigger picture here than me staring at some red and green numbers instead of doing my work. Market timing, psychology/worry, and short term investing can kill not only the average investor but even those who actively manage their investments, portfolio, or fund. To avoid such murder of the mind, don’t track your portfolio on a daily basis. Weekly could be pushing it too. Your long term goals should include holding some company for many many years - 5-10 should be a low number. Knowing the stock price on a daily or weekly basis can either make you big headed or conclude you are stupid for choosing such trash.

If it is trash, the price is not going to decide this for you anyway. The numbers and news will.

How do you feel about this? Chime in time.