Small Business+Phoenix+Software

This is a great article on the size and scope of the real internet.  Fascinating read.

This is a great article on improving software using in the principles of Kaizen (i.e. continuous improvement).  I’ve mentioned continuous improvement before in a previous post and I still believe my experiences with it made me the developer I am today.

During a recent project with Crystal Reports, we discovered that the previous bar code fonts used by the application did not comply with Crystal’s requirements, i.e. our existing fonts were created in 1997 using Macromedia 4.  This led to a long and entirely too torturous search for new, compatible fonts.  We were successful, of course, but this search led to several revelations.

1)  The license for a font, whether free or purchased, is required reading.  There are too many restrictions hidden in the license which invalidate the agreement.

2)  There are no free fonts, unless they are used for personal reasons or a non-profit.  In some cases, non-profits are those with budgets of less than 1M.

3)  The volume of printing or cost of printing equipment is a completely invalid reason for breaking a license agreement or forcing user into every larger license purchases.

This quote-unquote industry deserves disruption.  I should create a company called www.fivedollarfonts.com that sells any font for a simple fee.  Included in the price is a simple license agreement, which includes the following stipulations.

1)  You can use the font forever, on any number of machines, servers or for any number of users.

2)  You cannot have the font for free.

3)  You cannot have support for free.

4)  You can print the font on any piece of equipment you ever purchase or hire for printing.

5)  You can convert the font to any other format.

6)  You can embed the font in any electronic media.

A nice article and diagram on NPR’s Content Management System built on the principles of Create Once, Publish Everywhere.

You should definitely read this real world test.  I’m personally going to try it on one little used PC here first…

Is anyone else tired of hearing IPhone users complaining about AT&T?

If you are not going to save me time or money, what is your value proposition?

Can you get drunk on Dzone?  No, but you can catch a virus.

Dinner at Seamus McCaffrey’s Irish Pub.  Take in a Diamondbacks game (with many thanks and well wishes for Chad Tracy).  Stumble into an old colleague from the Arizona Department of Education.  Pick up a New Times which is celebrating Best Of this week.  Fondly remember Best June and all that is so great about the City of Phoenix over a beer.  Life if good.

This was a great find today on my small business phoenix blog search.  I wonder how long the Downtown Phoenix Journal has been publishing?

Everything is complicated, some can afford to ponder it – Thanks NYTimes

I have never, ever heard a customer expressing the faintest wish for having everything delivered out of one hand – Thanks Léo Apotheker

What the Internet has done is given us a nation that knows the price of everything and the value of nothing – Thanks Bill Maloney

It’s never the bugs you expect that kill productivity.

I am at that level of my career where I bring more skills to a job than I am going to take from them.

I’ve had the pleasure of working in healthcare, XML,  and big data, but this article also reminds me a LOT of my past data warehouse projects…especially the data bureaucracy part.  A great post!