This one falls under the category of “I wish I had thought of that”. A web application that captures a screenshot of your web design using distributed computers and browser version(s) of your choice. Hello Browsershots!
A great, unobtrusive idea from killie6.com
August 6, 2009Check out the details here. Death to Internet Explorer 6 and every corporate environment that requires it.
Random Thoughts – July 2009
July 31, 2009“I think it’s the appeal of having to rely on myself” – Thanks Carol Clark
If you do something stupid because you’re stupid, that’s a problem.
Most people are too afraid to simply be who they are.
Is it just me or do ComponentSource downloads take forever? Are they on dialup?
One bad programmer can easily create two new jobs a year – Thanks David Parnas
There is no failure, only feedback – Thanks Bill Shaw
Exceptions are made only for the exceptional.
Cost of Microsoft’s new cloud services
July 17, 2009Break out the calculator …. here are the prices.
100 essential skills for geeks, how did I score?
July 10, 2009Wired.com put up a post today on their GeekDad blog that I could not resist. I often wonder how much of a geek I really am. I only had to read the first 10 questions to get my hopes up. I scored 7 out of 10, but after that, it got hard.
How did I score? I’m only half geek! Yep, 50/50. Right down the middle.
At first, these results sound quite depressing, especially if you are looking to hire me. However, I’m quite happy with the results. If I were to take the survey “100 essential skills for business”, I’m certain I would score 50/50 on that one too.
Being a great software developer (or freelancer, for that matter) means knowing your area of expertise, understanding that it is a means to an end, and quickly coming up to speed on business processes (or domains outside your expertise).
Read on, for my individual responses….
The secret to business success?
July 10, 2009The secret is quite simple really. Be nice. Be nice to your customers, be nice to your vendors and most of all, be nice to your staff. This epiphany came to me while waiting in a clients lobby to take them to lunch.
For me, lunch is just lunch. It’s not a sales pitch. It’s not prying into your decision making. Ok, it’s a little bit of networking (i.e. building or strengthening trust and the relationship). But really, I just wanted to take the client to lunch. The only business matter I wanted to bring up was a thank you for how all of my invoices have been paid to the letter and on time, every time.
As I strolled into the lobby, I noticed yet again that the owner of this business never parks in the covered parking. For them, that’s customer parking. Let me tell you, in Phoenix with our murderous heat waves, that is a huge gesture. Absolutely no one here would question the owner of any establishment parking in the best available spot. And here in Phoenix, that means in the shade.
In the lobby, I found out the owner was in another building but would be right back. I pulled up a barstool, next to the pool table. Yes, pool table. This business supplies products to the construction industry and sometimes, those orders can take a while to process and/or be loaded. What better way to while away the time than with a friendly game of pool? Contrast that image with the typical lobby or front desk loaded with self promotion or other products that you don’t even know you need yet. Yeah, right. Hey, was that electronic dartboard here the last time I was?
Actually, I take it back. Don’t just be nice, go above and beyond! Create a lasting impression. Let them know you actually care about them. Care about the written and unwritten agreements between you, your customers, your vendors and your staff. I assure you that they will return the favor.
Lastly, I did get to say thank you, but I didn’t get to pay for that lunch.
Random Thoughts – June 2009
July 9, 2009It’s not even a WTF. It’s an FTW. Fire-That-Wannabe
It’s nice to be nice.
Trying to motivate your software development team?
June 27, 2009Here is a great blog about the mysteries of software development and the different levels of programmer capabilities. If you can’t glean some gems from here about motivating your team, you can’t read.
The netbook lies
June 26, 2009Netbooks are the greatest things since sliced bread. Netbooks are perfect for surfing the internet, checking email, blah, blah, blah. These are all part of the netbook lies.
Recently, some family came to visit from the midwest. Their plan was to make us feed them, drive them all over the state and when possible, just float in our pool. Well, everything but the pool fell right into place. Since we had the coolest June since 1913, the pool was really not up to par. Our thermometer, a small penguin who floats all day long, was showing great temps. That’s only the first 6 inches of water, though. As the precocious 14 year old visitor put it, “The penguin lies”.
During this same period, my wife’s internet businesses became worthy of their own computer and a netbook was deemed the best, easiest, greatest solution. But not before a trip to Fry’s Tempe for some serious perusal of the wares. So the Asus Eee PC was ordered from Amazon.
Halt! Who goes there? Is this credit card worthy? Et tu shalt validate. 3 days pass before shipment. Apparently, PCs are so regularly ordered with bad credit cards, all of these purchases are validated by Amazon.
As the resident technical guru of the home, I was delegated the role of software installer, network administrator, printer driver hoon, etc. Problem is, I’m only really good at software (shameless plug makes an appearance), not hardware. Yes, I can change a tire with only a single allen wrench but this is a teeny, tiny netbook looming large on my horizon. Oh well, at least I will finally get to use that 3rd license from Norton.
Night number zero, before the computer is even here, is spent moving software to USB and FTP drives for installation. Most netbooks have no optical drives, er… CD and DVD for laymen out there. Easy enough, I can read my bloglines account while this is processing in the background.
Night number one is spent adding a free firewall, installing Office, adding Norton… Halt! Who goes there? Your Norton Antivirus is expired! What the? How come I got no notice whatsoever? Symantec likes to auto-renew your software. You’ll briefly see this warning displayed during any installation. I must’ve read that and disabled auto renewal immediately after installation. I mean, who wants an unexpected credit card charge from out of (almost) nowhere? So I sign up for two years of Norton, which is probably not a bargain by any means, but the pressure is on <– insert marriage joke here.
Night number two is spent trying to get this netbook on our network, a shared printer installed and listening to the Michael Jackson brouhaha. Ahh, sweet memories. I remember the fun I had trying to add my last Dell laptop to the network. Hint, hint: you really want to have the same domain or workgroup name on all machines. Frustration builds. MSDN is consulted. XP Home, which is installed on the netbook, is feared. A deadline is set. If I don’t solve this in a half hour, I’m calling in an expert, opening a tub of ice cream and giving up. Finally, a breakthrough. If I turn off the free firewall, all computers sing Kumbaya. I just needed to add a range of IP addresses to the firewall. Hurray! We are going to the internet next!
Did Michael Jackson take the internet with him? I can barely get on Gmail. Chrome keeps locking up, which it was designed not to do. Just for laughs, I turn off the ZoneAlarm firewall again. Voila! Back in action. Crazy stuff, but it works as well as any allen wrench.
Lastly, I install and configure DropBox, so the few documents my wife uses that aren’t in the cloud can be shared between two PCs.
So, aren’t netbooks great? Yes. If you have a left brain person within reach, have chiclet size fingerprints and like to surf the web on something the size of a #10 envelope.
Lazy evaluation rocks your face people!
June 21, 2009Sometimes I love a post about programming because of a turn of phrase (see title above). Some times I love the quality of the writing. Sometimes I love the elegant simplicity of the presentation. Some times I love all three. Thanks Justin.
Posted by Scott Kersey