Jack's Adventures

Jack Krupansky, the principal of Base Technology, is involved in a number of ventures/adventures.

In reverse chronological order...

October 2005:

Slaving away out here in Boulder, Colorado. Waiting for my bankruptcy case to be "discharged" (in December, I think.)

September 2002:

September 9: I'm back in NYC, just waiting for all the 9-11 anniversary stuff to be over. President Bush will be speaking at the UN (just across the street from my apartment building) on September 12.

Most of my daily comments appear in my daily stock market commentary, including commentary on the economy, Iraq, terrorism, and the geopolitical situation.

September 2001:

September 11: The terrorist attacks. I'm here in DC. For my diary, click here.

Getting ready for the upcoming hearing on the Microsoft antitrust case.

August 2001:
August 25: Back in DC.

Finally got a new PC, the Toshiba 1800-S253 I mentioned last month. Ordered via 1-800-TOSHIBA. Running Windows ME and Office XP. Got 256MB RAM. Much better than by four-year-old Toshiba 435-CDS. I got it two days before returning to NYC, so I had to lug TWO notebooks on the train.

August 1: Back in NYC for a few weeks.

Finally managed to put up EntEng.com, a site for Entrepreneurial Engineers, ENTCON, and lingering interest in Midnight Engineering magazine.

Still focused on my daily stock market column.

Starting to get my thinking on Software Agents more organized, see Agtivity.com.

I just saw in the news this morning that the new Zeppelin NT is finally flying. $275 for a tourist flight over Lake Constance. I wrote about seeing the Zeppelin under construction back in July 1997. They had it in an unused convention center building with all the windows papered over but some of the paper had fallen and the doors were open so I could see in. I was lucky to find someone at the tourist information center who actually knew where it was. Kind of exciting.

Will be heading back to DC August 26.
July 2001: Got the new, second apartment in Washington, DC.
Plenty of hearings going on in Congress, including Greenspan and missle defense.

Still very focused on doing my daily stock market column (www.finaxyz.com/mplatest.htm).

Had an initial meeting with a company involved with Software Agents. The meeting went well, but too soon to have any clue where this might be headed. In any case, I continue to monitor developments in the "agents" field, waiting for the day when research has advanced to the stage where product development is practical. I continue to believe that agents will be where it's at in 10 to 20 years and we should see real progress within 5 years. My hope is that I can identify an "angle" to pursue within the next 2-3 years. Once we get HTML, Java, XML, and .Net behind us, maybe THEN we can make some real progress on the agent front. Once the average personal computer (handheld/pocketPC??) has a greater than 2GHz chip and 256MB RAM and we have broadband everywhere we can start to do some serious AI-style agent technology and people will be looking for apps for all that horsepower. The other angle is gigantic server and storage and networking capacity and a "need" to find something to do with it. Either way, agents will be there to suck up all available resources.

One of my current "struggles" is buying a new notebook computer. I ALMOST ordered a Toshiba 1800-S253 (850 MHz P3) for $1,449, but they just came out and are now on "back order". In fact, the cheapest notebook Toshiba has in stock (on 7/20) costs $1,699. So much for a "glut" of PCs or a lack of "demand". The PC venders may just not be making enough of the machines people want to buy. I'm also considering a Dell for about $1,600 that has a really cool SuperXGA+ 1,400 pixel wide screen that would be great for viewing PDF documents; but it is more money, it is a new technology, and Dell has sometimes had problems with screens. I lean towards Toshiba because that's what I have now and I also have a Toshiba "Free Card" (from the FDC class action lawsuit settlement) which will give me $100 off if I buy by late September. My bias is to buy cheap so I can plan on buying a new machine every year. I budget $1,500 per year for my computer plus another $300 for software upgrades. I am tempted to wait till Windows XP is out, but I'd lose the Toshiba $100 discount and I'm not thrilled by the prospect of being a guinea pig for version 1.0 of XP. I'd rather upgrade when the SECOND service pack is released for XP. I'd appreciate any recommendations or experiences.

June 2001: Attended the VentureOne Exchange conference in Boston. An excellant opportunity to chat with venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. There is still plenty of money out there for a solid concept backed by a solid business plan and a solid management team. The "bar" has been "raised", but VCs are still on the prowl. The older VCs are tickled pink that the industry is back to the "old rules" and not the dot-com/telecom "land rush" days of the past three years. With the stock market down, venture capital is seen as an attractive investment (looking out a couple of years for returns.) Optical networking, internet infrastructure software, and enterprise software are still interesting areas for investment. There was even one company doing software agents; they're in the DC area, so I'll be talking with them when I get down there next month.
May 2001: Decided to get a second apartment, in Washington, DC. I go there a couple times a month and just four nights in even a cheap hotel costs more than an apartment.
April 2001: Attended the annual ENTCON Entrepreneur's conference in Denver, Colorado. Attendance was light, but it is a core group and promotion was minimal. The big question: WHEN, if ever, is Bill going to start publishing the magazine again?
October 2000: Started writing a daily stock market column. You can find it at finaxyz.com.
August 1999: Moved back to New York City.
January 1999: Decided to "retire" and live off "excess" stock market profits in my retirement account. Still in Washington. Still interested in Software Agents, but the field is so new and so much research is still needed (and in progress) that a commercial product is a dicey proposition. My efforts with agents are limited to reading and thinking. I spend several hours a day keeping up on finance-related news to better "manage" my portfolio.
September 1998: Started attending the Microsoft antitrust trial in Washington, DC.
Auguest 1998: Moved to Washington, DC.

Previous ventures...

Chronology of the "Paris Venture":

July, 1996: Jack gave up his office in New York City.
July - mid-August: Worked out of his apartment in New York.
Mid-August - first week of September: Worked at a client's location.
End of the first week of September, 1996: Flew to Paris and worked out of an apartment for three weeks.
End of September, 1996: Flew back to Boston to attend and speak at the ENTCON-East Entrepreneurial Engineer's conference and spent the next three weeks working at the client location again (waiting for the air fare's to drop.)
Mid-October, 1996: Returned to Paris and moved into his own apartment where he now works. He intends to "commute" to Boston approximately once a month.
Mid-November, 1996: Submitted latest article to Midnight Engineering via email (Compuserve.) Commuted back to Boston for a nine days. Gave up fax line; wasn't being used enough to warrant it's cost. Fired lawyer; wasn't worth the time and money.
Late-November, 1996: Back in Paris. Trying to shift gears again. Beginning work on the "Entrepreneurial Software Developers' Mall" web site which lists the products and services of one-person software businesses.
Mid-December, 1996: Visited Boston for one week. Had the return to Paris by December 18th before airfares went up for the holidays.
Late-December, 1996 to Mid-January, 1997: Spent the holidays in Paris. Took a couple of rides on the TGV high-speed train (to Bordeaux and Nantes.)
January 12th to February 5th, 1997: A "long" visit to Boston. Made plans for ENTCON in April.
February 19th, 1997: Bought a book on JavaScript at a computer bookstore on the Left Bank. It's in French but has enough pictures and code for me to understand 90%.
February 23, 1997: Getting ready to return to Boston for two weeks. Am pondering what to do to get the "mall" moving; may directly call several small tool venders and ask if they want to be in it (no charge.)
February 28, 1997 - March 12, 1997: Back in Boston, doing some work for my client.
March 13, 1997: Back in Paris. Got off the plane, slept for a few hours and then wrote and emailed my latest article to Midnight Engineering magazine.
March 15, 1997: After a leisurely stroll around Paris, stopping at several of the outdoor markets, I'm updating the web site and getting ready to put my products up on the web site for downloading.
April, 1997: Back to Boston for a few days, then off to Colorado to speak at ENTCON, then back to Boston for two weeks and then back to Paris for three weeks. Two days after arriving in Paris, my notebook computer's hard disk died. I spent a couple of hours each day working on a PC at a service bureau using the French version of Windows 95.
May, 1997: Took the TGV train to Aix-en-Provence for a long weekend. Visited Euro Disney the next weekend. Then back to Boston for three weeks. Bought a Toshiba Satellite Pro 435CDS notebook computer.
June, 1997: Took some bus tours: The Loire Valley and several chateau, Normandy D-Day landing beaches, Mont Saint Michel (the tiny island of rock covered with medieval fortifications. Then back to Boston for two weeks, including the Fourth of July. Submitted my June/July article to Midnight Engineering magazine.
July, 1997: Back to Paris just in time for Bastille Day. Preparations for leaving Paris. Met a Midnight Engineering reader who was travelling around Europe for a few months. I made a few excursions, including Versaille, Fontainebleau, Verdun (World War I battle fields), and Friedrichshafen, Germany (on Lake Constance, across from Switzerland) to see the new, helium-filled zeppelin, "Zeppelin NT", being built by the same company that built the original zeppelins. Took the Eurostar "Chunnel" train to London for two days before flying back to Boston to live "temporarily" in my apartment in New Hampshire pending decision as to where go next (possibly Washington, D.C.) Have decided to pursue "Software Agents" as my next product focus.)
August, 1997: Living in Nashua, New Hampshire and doing some work for my client in Waltham, MA. Leaning towards hanging out in Washington, D.C. for a year or so. Looking for new consulting assignments. Increasing my efforts on Software Agents. Submitted my August/September article to Midnight Engineering magazine.
October, 1997: Still in Nashua, but close to deciding to move south and live in Cambridge, Massachusetts for a year. My primary motivator is to be close to as many consulting opportunities as possible. I'd rather hang out in Washington, D.C., but I just don't have enough work contacts down there to cover my expenses. There are also a lot of "software agent" research projects (and even some new businesses) in the Cambridge area.
October 20, 1997: Moved to an apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Gave up my rental car and now I can walk and use public transportation for most of my daily traveling with an occasional car rental for trips to New York or wherever. Now I can easily attend various public lectures at MIT.

Jack has written a number of articles for Midnight Engineering magazine, some of which chronicle the Paris venture as well as other topics relating to being an entrepreneurial software developer and software technology in general.

I don't have any good photos on the web yet, but a couple can be found here.

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Updated: September 03, 2006 02:09:01 PM -0400