Chris Maury's Blog

README

I Like to Make things.

You could say it’s what drives me.

To have an idea and see it made is a pretty solid feeling.

It’s why I made this shirt. This website. This Blog.

What’s an even better feeling is seeing someone else use what you’ve made, to see someone’s life made better by the work of your hands (One can dream, right?).

Making things isn’t easy though. Bills to pay and whatnot. So, when I see something that is really well made, I try and appreciate it. Even if I don’t necessarily relate to it.

Thinking about the way things were made can change the way you see the world. Asking yourself, why something was made the way it was can really help you to appreciate things like this and this (and see through things like, this, this, and this).

Yeah, so go out and make something, or something like that.

What if your iPod could read your mind?

IT CAN!

Well, it could.

There is a company that makes headphones with a built in EEG reader. What’s even better is they have an Software Developer Kit (SDK) for people to build applications for them.

I have an idea.

Combined with the Echonest APIs, the Mindset can be used to play music depending on your mood. Angry? The app will #mce_temp_url#play the perfect song to calm you down. Tired and need to study? It’ll play something upbeat.

The only thing between us and the future of music listening… the $200 price tag of the Mindset. A little steep for a side project…

Maybe Kickstarter can help…

Why I Made Answers.MD

From white board to launch, I’ve spent 100+ hours putting together Answers.MD.  It’s been a great learning experience, but I didn’t just do it for the kicks.

I did it becuase Med students deserve our support, and here’s why.

A brief outline of what it takes to become a doctor:

• Take SATs
• Apply for College
• 4 years of Pre-Med (all those hard science classes)
• Take MCATs (maybe twice)
• Apply for Med School
• 2 years of lecture (8 hours of lecture + 6-8 hours of studying)
• Take Step 1 of the Board Exams
• 2 years of Rotations
• Take Step 2 of the Board Exams
• Apply for Residency
• 1 year of Residency
• Step 3 of the Board Exams
• 1-3 years more of Residency
• Specialist examinations

Finally, If you passed everything and got accepted to Med School and Residency programs, You are now a Practicing Doctor. (Let’s not even get into the debt you’ve just accumulated).

The Life of an aspiring doctor is one of perpetual studying and test taking. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing considering the responsibilities a Doctor has.

For a profession that is so focused on learning and acquiring new skills, you would think there would be amazing tools to help make the life of a student a little easier.

Sadly, you’d be mistaken.

Between recycled lecture notes and $100+ textbooks, students have few resources for outside support. Wikipedia has become the defacto resource of Med Students across the country.

Answers.Md Is my attempt to make the painful process of becoming a doctor a little less excruciating.  And, as a question and answer site, it may not be the best solution, but it’s a start. 

Have any ideas on how to help Med Students?, or ideas on how to improve answers.md? Send me an email at help@answers.md, and let’s figure out how to make Med Students’ lives a little less hellish.

Answers.MD is officially launched!

After 2 months of hard work and tons of procrastination Answers.MD is finally making its debut.  It’s an amazing feeling to finally put something in front of users. 

I feel kinda like a chef who’s spent hours slaving over a hot stove to make a delicious dinner for a group of close friends.  Finally serving the food, waiting to see if their faces melt in ecstasy or cringe in disgust, spitting the food back out on the plate; it’s pretty nerve wracking.

For better or worse, I don’t have to look the user in the eye. I just get to see how many page views I get on Google Analytics.

Answers.MD is a question and answer service made specifically for Medical Students. For a group of people that spend 4 straight years studying for one exam after another, just to go through the admissions process all over again for Residency School, there just aren’t enough tools tailored to their unique needs.

Answers.MD is a first attempt to make their lives just a little easier. 

What does launch mean? Well, I’ve created a twitter account @AnswersMD, and I’ve put it in front of the hard working med students at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. 

Here’s to launching a product, no matter how epically it may fail.

How to Form an LLC in 5 easy steps

Image via Wikipedia

This is a repost from my old blog, saving it for posterity.

Alan wrote a post on setting up an LLC for Abroadcare.com and why we chose Delaware. Here I’m going to lay out the actual steps we took in registering, so that if you ever need to incorporate you can do it much more easily than we did. It took quite a while to understand all the steps involved, but once we figured it out, its really not that bad.

There are plenty of reasons on why you should form an LLC. See here. Once you decide to incorporate, here are the steps you need to follow:
1. Obtain a registered Agent: Annual fee of $120Any company which incorporates must have a registered agent in the state of incorporation. If you are incorporating in your own state than you can be your own agent and save yourself the yearly fee. However, Delaware doesn’t really have the start up scene that most people are looking for, so chances are you are going to need to hire a Registered Agent.

We decided to go with National Registered Agents, Inc, which gives you a personal representative and an online account management system. They also seemed much less scamy than many of the other services we looked at.

2. Submitting your Certificate of Formation: one time fee of $90The actual letter of incorporation is very simple and seemingly a pointless formality. The accompanying cover letter (also required) is closer to a tax form than it is to a cover letter.

You can find the cover letter here and the form here.

Once completed you can mail these forms to:
Division of Corporations
John G. Townsend Building
401 Federal Street Suite 4
Dover, DE 19901

or fax them to:
302-739-3812

You may need a Certificate of Status or a Certificate of Good Standing in order to open a business account with your bank. I would suggest finding an alternative banking solution, but if not, this form can be requested at the time of filing for an additional fee of $50.

3. Annual Taxes: $250The state of Delaware charges this franchise fee yearly and is due no later than June 1st.

4. Applying for a Federal Tax ID number: Free
Unlike getting a driver’s License, obtaining the birth certificate for your company is quick, easy, and can be done online. Apply here.

5. Thats it! You’re done!

So the total cost of incorporating your online business in Delaware is $210 for the first year and  $370 for every year after that. Not too shabby.

Filing on your own, while involving a few steps, is relatively painless (once you know where to look). There are services which will take care of everything for you, but they charge a little more. We didn’t find one less than $300. So, if you are looking to save money, filing on your own is the way to go. You can expect to wait up to two months for your paperwork to be mailed back to you (we are still waiting on ours) but you can pay a little extra and have them expedited.

Hope this helps!