tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-173104042011-12-14T18:38:45.327-08:00Steve Mitchell's blogStevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.comBlogger3821100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-32263691783642528582010-11-23T14:31:00.000-08:002010-11-23T14:32:00.545-08:00

The new site is http://softwareandbeer.com

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-9264334439506894772010-09-13T14:19:00.001-07:002010-09-13T14:19:39.059-07:00

The new location is: http://softwareandbeer.com

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-27969950025482002752009-09-03T10:05:00.000-07:002009-09-03T10:10:14.879-07:00

..speaking of culture..Check out Business of Software 2009 promotional video. Money quote:The business people have no hope of learning the technology. It's just too much. The hill is too steep to climb. That means for a software company to be successful, the people at the top I believe have to be software people, they really have to be the technologists. But they also have to have business

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-81685086516311384102009-09-02T10:43:00.000-07:002009-09-03T07:37:55.325-07:00

(Hat tip to Sean Rees for the pointer to this episode of "good intentions gone bad in the world of design")This is stunning. Take a look at this blog post. This guy takes it upon himself to complain to American Airlines about their horrendous web site. And makes a pretty good case that their CEO should be ashamed, and they should fire their designers.Dear American AirlinesBut then a (seemingly

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-39178798367590480352009-08-06T16:24:00.000-07:002009-08-06T17:06:23.766-07:00

Harvard Business Review has a collection of articles by or with Clayton Christensen on disruptive change. You might know him from The Innovator's Dilemma. These articles span 1995 to the present, and cover the (mostly technological) impact of disruptive change and continue through the organizational and business response needed to deal with them. The set is well worth the $17. The book is

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-58951348884741861452009-07-31T09:00:00.000-07:002009-07-31T09:01:29.079-07:00

Apparently the ancient philosophers used the word art to mean a body of knowledge about a subject that enables the artist to achieve a particular result. Art was broadly applicable to most any organized practice that people might undertake—what today we rather call vocations or professions.But the ancient philosophers had a nagging problem. While they could easily criticize a shoemaker for

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-51981535785109338402009-07-15T11:23:00.000-07:002009-07-15T11:33:10.916-07:00

When I worked in banking I learned a lot about the tricks banks use to coordinate the sale of their products to customers across the bank's various contact points with said customer. The part I worked on was to address the ability of the bank to integrate IT systems to promote products to you via a variety of outlets: printed inserts, prompts to tellers, ATM, the bank's web site, etc. The holy

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-48111887337751117652009-07-09T12:09:00.000-07:002009-07-09T13:10:00.082-07:00

This week started with a bang when Google announced they would create an OS-like version of Chrome designed to displace the traditional OS and initially targeted at netbooks. Given the coverage in the press, the world seems to have a short memory. You couldn't swing a dead cat back in the mid 1990's without hitting a similar strategy--specifically from Sun. Granted, the implementation is

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-80453338273497316042009-07-01T12:20:00.000-07:002009-07-01T13:15:08.445-07:00

Seth Godin's Learning from Singer is a nice, in-your-face reminder to reinvent yourself or die. The IT space is littered with the bodies of companies that couldn't do it (like DEC), and some surprisingly that could, like IBM. I'm particularly fond of the IBM example, as I think it's one of the miraculous cultural transformation stories in IT.Speaking of transformation, two examples of how our (

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-56074793032917481692009-03-16T06:54:00.000-07:002009-03-16T07:02:49.987-07:00

Maintaining software is harder than writing it. That's why groups often decide that a complete rewrite is going to be better than rearchitecting or even just maintaining their existing system. Management loves green-field projects because they're a mythical utopia that will provide an opportunity to get everything they want this time.Ref The Old "Migrate the App" Silliness via But at what cost?

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-51801694204003959392009-02-18T08:20:00.001-08:002009-02-18T08:46:04.297-08:00

I recently met with some local software business leaders to discuss how the economy is affecting us. Driving to the meeting, I tried to think up a course of action that makes sense during these times. Best I could come up with were:Focus - Remove distractions and concentrate on the narrowest scope of business that has the greatest chance of success. This is an opportunity to make some hard

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-85478859233691148702009-02-17T10:11:00.000-08:002009-02-17T10:36:57.573-08:00

Rob was complaining this morning on Twitter about how much he hates the company's time tracking system. I think about HR applications from time-to-time, mainly as an example of how *not* to develop an application.Every HR time tracking application I've ever seen or used has the following problems:It is antiquated. Probably designed between five and ten years ago and purchased at a ridiculously

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-68267028186790747012009-02-09T14:27:00.001-08:002009-02-09T14:46:51.015-08:00

I wrote an article recently that I thought was pretty good. Perfect, in fact. Then I was told that it would need to be reduced by 400 words to fit the company's publication. It was 906 words. Cutting 400 worlds would eliminate half.I went through every section, paragraph and sentence and figured out how to reduce their respective lengths by half without losing anything important or meaningful

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-36616564266663572072009-02-03T15:44:00.000-08:002009-02-03T16:06:23.731-08:00

See this excellent article from a Cisco blogger on Naked Conversations: Blogging in Global Corporations.I've heard this before. "We asked MarCom to set up a blog for our company but they can't/won't/didn't because they don't have the budget, don't know how, their dog ate their homework.." Whatever.Here's the deal. Marketing Communications isn't going to initiate or operate a corporate blog

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-88794445555531861332009-01-20T05:37:00.000-08:002009-01-20T05:54:03.908-08:00

One of the keys to globalization came ca 1970 with the international standardization of the shipping container. Much of our economy and standard of living depends on the ability for China to ship me insane things like free McDonalds Happy Meal toys or a 20lb iron anvil at virtually no cost. Low shipping costs are part of the equation that makes it easier for me to buy goods from China than it

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-5433244982149049102009-01-14T12:00:00.000-08:002009-01-14T12:18:33.398-08:00

For years I’ve advocated John Pirsig’s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” to any engineer who will listen. Pirsig’s philosophical rant has a lot to say about quality and craftsmanship that provides deep thinking to the mechanic and the programmer alike. Most recently some design discussions came up that reminded me of Prisig’s book. In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Pirsig

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-65293539868337306302009-01-12T09:57:00.001-08:002009-01-12T10:12:25.328-08:00

See Brent's comments to my post on designing security into products towards the bottom.As Brent says, "..making the security properties explicit, you can make sure they carry all the way to code." That's what's often missing, some up-front thought and explicit goals, which can have quite an influence on the code.Like performance criteria, this is one of the mostly non-functional areas that

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-23305294415042184732009-01-10T06:57:00.000-08:002009-01-10T07:14:56.523-08:00

Our company's entire product line is becoming increasingly IP based. This means that our systems are more interconnected with the customer’s IT environment than they were before. Customers are well aware of the security risks to their networks and systems. So we have to respond aggressively to ensure that our products fit well within a variety of secure environments.I'm working on a Product IT

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-18251306921915318182008-12-30T08:31:00.000-08:002008-12-30T10:00:22.551-08:00

Brent's post on Office Space requires some additional commentary on my part. Just to qualify, at an older institution like JPL there are some pretty cozy, and fairly randomly organized engineering spaces that were repurposed from older offices in 1950's era buildings. The older part of the Spacecraft Assembly Facility for example--where 10base2 snaked through the building and the wooden floors

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-39859844572392955532008-12-17T06:43:00.000-08:002008-12-17T06:55:24.169-08:00

This recent post on Slashdot caught my eye. My advice:Take genuine and deep interest in what they do. Celebrate their successes and get involved in their problems. Most programmers do what they do because they enjoy the work. They want somebody to appreciate their work, and they want somebody to understand the difficulties.Understand what excites them and brag on this work. Be clear about

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-26647481582090527932008-12-15T14:54:00.000-08:002008-12-15T15:09:19.313-08:00

Martin Fowler's post on Domain Specific Languages reminds me of the time we did a study of user performance of a graphical workflow editor. The graphical workflow editor is really a DSL represented with a graphical user interface. The domain is workflow automation. The language is some workflow description language--or in this case the graphical tool used to write the workflow description.

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-90741508642002816402008-11-21T06:55:00.000-08:002008-11-21T07:05:18.154-08:00

This post on using airport codes in google maps is old news to me--I discovered this one time when I wanted directions from an airport, so I typed in the airport code and Maps was smart enough to do what I wanted.This is a great place to live. We have systems now like Google that fetch what we mean even if that's not what we say. We have the luxury of dynamic languages like Ruby/Python that are

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-13258903992907218182008-10-31T06:38:00.000-07:002008-10-31T07:06:14.401-07:00

I once worked with a guy at JPL who had an uncanny ability to give extremely accurate estimates. You could give him a problem, he could sketch it on the whiteboard, then give you an estimate. He would usually use a 10% margin of error (say, 80 hours +/- 8). And he was always dead-on. I thought it was amazing, and assumed it was because he was such a skilled programmer. I noticed something

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-5586360587523463992008-10-24T09:36:00.000-07:002008-10-24T10:59:47.864-07:00

Since Mike Kirby (one of our Whitebox test team leads) doesn't have a blog, I thought I'd post some of our "Software Engineer in Test" training materials. These are the subject areas and techniques we expect our Test Engineers to understand and the skills we want them to have to effectively perform whitebox testing in our group.Software Engineer in Test level 1:Week 1 IntroductionRead the

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-25898805298587663232008-09-20T06:38:00.000-07:002008-09-20T06:39:56.054-07:00

Friend of mine is looking for job hunting advice. Here it is:Keep you resume to one page, seriously.I've read about a gazillion resumes. I can tell you for a fact that when an employer (or a recruiter) picks up your resume they want more than anything for you to be "the one." They don't like sourcing candidates. They want to get it over with. So they're on your side until you disqualify

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-83911072809759241182008-07-09T07:08:00.000-07:002008-07-09T07:55:31.698-07:00

I love this strip map that Brent posted. It still shows Tulare Lake! (presumably as wetlands at this point in the early 20th century). I assume the road leading from Fresno towards Kings Canyon is the "old" Kings Canyon Road (much of which would become 180). I can't quite tell from the detail but Dunlap seems a little misplaced. This reminds me of the minor mystery of why Google Maps so

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-11685866614235090952008-06-19T04:24:00.000-07:002008-06-19T04:32:21.517-07:00

There's two things I like about the Smithsonian's copyright-free Photostream on Flickr. First, as a minor history buff, I like the idea of access to these pictures for free. It feels like I have a greater democratic ownership of my own history. Second, I'm glad the Smithsonian was smart enough to use a defacto public standard for sharing pictures on the web. A few years ago this would have

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-6887887151282710992008-06-11T03:45:00.000-07:002008-06-11T03:58:21.815-07:00

Brent points out that Google's Streetview has arrived in (of all places) rural Kings Canyon CA. They have Streetview available for a a swath of 198 and 180 between Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks--along with an interesting collection of offshoot rural roads.Here, for example is the turn off to the jeep trail I wrote about last summer, Defeat at Park Ridge.View Larger MapHere you can

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-57636346647862635692008-06-07T07:35:00.000-07:002008-06-07T07:39:04.659-07:00

An interesting article along the lines of my post yesterday about Gmail Lab's vs Apple... how the power of open can be balanced with the simplicity of closed.

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-80642520635721090622008-06-06T06:50:00.000-07:002008-06-06T06:57:52.398-07:00

Google has their act together with this experiment in which they allow users to experiment with potential features of gmail. Participation is optional--so they're not going to force something on a user they don't want/need. They are demonstrating a degree of modularity in that individual features can be turned on/off. They're collecting feedback automatically and will let the users decide

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-54760270310827297482008-06-05T06:20:00.000-07:002008-06-05T06:38:52.867-07:00

The teams we typically think of as models of teamwork have one thing in common--they practice. Sports teams practice. Navy Seal teams practice. Firefighters practice. Sometimes it's called "training" but it still involves fictional scenarios and some transient effort that isn't being applied to the real world. Its designed to hone the team's skills and provide a safe way to screw up and

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-29844682826327510422008-06-04T05:23:00.000-07:002008-06-04T05:47:45.618-07:00

I've found these work for me. Your mileage may vary. :)10. Ignore the backlogMary Poppendieck has a great discussion in this video in which she asserts that you should throw away your backlog: Competing On The Basis of Speed. I was once in a discussion with Werner Erhard in which he said that there are three kinds of things you're doing: 1) what you're doing now (the one thing you're doing

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-38742452214190102622008-06-04T03:22:00.000-07:002008-06-04T03:39:42.707-07:00

Check out this cool tool by a childhood (okay college) friend: Dipity.(BTW, love the RESTfulness)Help promote it by using the Digg It button in the upper left.Also go here: Dipity.it's as easy as this for a Dipity view of this blogGood stuff.

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-71836060421957764162008-04-16T05:51:00.000-07:002008-04-16T06:21:57.927-07:00

I've been busy over the past few months. I realize the time I usually browse the web and post to this blog was early mornings--and I've been "sleeping in" until 6 a lot recently. The rest of my time has been spent on a few things.I've been studying the history and geology of the local area--especially the mountains. It all got started with One Hundred Years in Yosemite. And Oak to pine to

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-25529146384419090382008-03-19T06:15:00.000-07:002008-03-19T06:19:41.401-07:00

If for some reason you're reading this and you've never read any of Arthur C. Clarke's books (offhand I can't think of anybody reading this who might not have), and you're wondering what all the hubbub is about, you should read Rendezvous with Rama. This is one of Clarke's best (and most accessible) novels.

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-12812072285078229122008-01-15T06:00:00.000-08:002008-01-15T06:18:07.237-08:00

As we go into another year and new product planning activities, the tensions run high and everybody comes with all guns blazing. We're a company with, as Seth points out, many cultural vestiges reflected in our product line.The temptation is to declare legacy an antiquation that must be hacked off. But easier said than done. Companies that succeed completely at this exercise (and by definition

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-56904830828828237042008-01-12T17:53:00.000-08:002008-01-12T17:55:20.639-08:00

Mark your calendars for the Maker Faire in early May. Possibly my lovely wife will let us all attend?

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-77615722087295221012008-01-12T16:32:00.000-08:002008-01-12T16:48:35.493-08:00

First of all, we were at the zoo today and had the rare opportunity to hear one of the kangaroos pass gas. How many of you can say that?I located my TivoHD. I was furious when the UPS on-line status said it had been delivered, when it clearly had not. As luck (or unluck) would have it, the house up the street (which appears unoccupied at the moment) is 1782, whereas we're 1872. And the UPS

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-6939678735661493512008-01-08T19:48:00.000-08:002008-01-08T19:52:21.981-08:00

According to this article on the Warner/Blu-ray deal,Tsujihara said the company needed to quickly erase consumer and retailer confusion over dueling DVD formats before economic conditions deteriorated.No kidding. Thank you Warner Bros. The big money's in us middle to late adopters. There are more winners than losers when this thing is decided.

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-60796827425892960702008-01-05T07:31:00.000-08:002008-01-05T08:02:41.952-08:00

According to Mr Smarty Pants (not his real name) via IM, Blu-ray rules. And the NYT (via Warner Bros) seems to be backing him up. I did notice a dramatic slant towards Blu-ray in the retailers while looking for TV's recently. I guess this time Betamax wins..If you're curious, I did begin the Analog/SD to HD conversion process. I have a S3 Tivo on order (still hasn't shipped yet, grumble), and

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-28552986947149852202007-12-25T07:15:00.000-08:002007-12-25T07:32:31.052-08:00

I'm literally the only person I know with a 20 year old TV. I take that back, Monica's grandma has probably a 30 year old TV. But I'm the only person I know under seventy with a 20 year old TV.I'm this close to taking the plunge. The plan goes like this. Get a cheap/small HDTV (it will not last more than a couple years anyway). Get the HD TiVo (I like TiVo a lot). Get a new surround sound/

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-18209499336883736032007-12-18T06:43:00.000-08:002007-12-18T07:17:47.801-08:00

We got our alpha prototype HD camera in yesterday. HD (1920x1080) never looked so good..(well, I guess it could look better if it was pointed at a football game or something rather than a soul crushing cubical farm)This is a fully digital camera from the ground-up. What's nice is the developers have built tests right into every component of its highly modular software design.Each software

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-74579972397290348512007-11-19T13:36:00.000-08:002007-11-19T13:52:48.504-08:00

I believe my MacBook Pro running Leopard is close to setting a new personal best for me: almost 20 days of uptime.13:38 up 19 days, 15:12, 2 users, load averages: 0.86 1.18 1.58This is pretty good for a notebook computer. In this time I've taken it to the east coast and back, installed/removed various pieces of software, joined and unjoined various wired and wireless networks, and put it to

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-50699049066989337532007-11-18T12:17:00.000-08:002007-11-18T12:22:52.252-08:00

This article postulates on why Silicon Valley is the way it is (it's the smart people).Paul's thesis is that it takes the right people – nothing more. "If you could get the right ten thousand people to move from Silicon Valley to Buffalo," he says, "Buffalo would become Silicon Valley." In a footnote he adds that perhaps the number of people you need could be as low as 500 or so.I know I've

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-81317641854262795902007-11-12T12:15:00.000-08:002007-11-12T12:20:27.330-08:00

Our whitebox test lead and I debate how to best attract good whitebox testers. The question is, are they "Test Engineers" or "Test Developers?"The Lean Software Engineering blog writes about difference between software development and software engineering:Software development:The system performs function A.Software engineering:The system performs function A under operating conditions B with

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-87983370024620243062007-11-05T06:12:00.000-08:002007-11-05T06:19:52.185-08:00

A while back I figured out that if I lived to be 80 years old, I only had about 17,000 days left to live. The point being, of course, to make most of it. I told my wife about this, and last night she reminded me. "How many days left do you have now, 15,000?" I said, "No, it hasn't been that long.." We figured it out, I'd said that to her about 6 years ago--more than 2,000 days ago! I

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-45107017334029370612007-11-03T06:10:00.000-07:002007-11-03T06:28:09.736-07:00

Some interesting stuff about Google's treatment of certain search results for "difficult" words. Like a lot of people, Google's my spell checker of choice when my in-line spell checkers fail me. Google automatically points to the correct spelling and provides a hint at context within the first few search results as a bonus.The New Scientist (print edition) has been running a bit about the "

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-46278578772703286282007-10-28T15:21:00.000-07:002007-10-28T15:25:14.709-07:00

Via Boing Boing, finally, the anatomy of a balloon dog. This is important research--probably being suppressed by the government for decades. Finally available to the public.

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-27300171924494165362007-10-26T04:38:00.001-07:002007-10-26T04:48:03.217-07:00

Twitter is a fascinating case study of the opportunities that still exist in the niches between existing applications/services/models out there. I've said before, Twitter fills a (very small) gap between IM and email. The O'Reilly Radar says something similar.I distinctly remember people telling us our company idea was a lost cause because SAP was already doing something like that.. There was

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-58825868087621983722007-10-26T04:38:00.000-07:002007-10-26T04:38:30.974-07:00

And now I notice that Leopard has DTrace too!To help you understand how the system behaves while your application runs, Leopard comes with DTrace, a comprehensive command-line monitoring utility that can probe almost any aspect of system performance. DTrace includes a large set of tools that cover most general aspects of system performance, including kernel and user space code. If there is an

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-65671102086522522822007-10-25T16:35:00.000-07:002007-10-25T16:42:04.771-07:00

From the Ruby Inside blog:Someone / some people who have been responsible for integrating Ruby and Rails into the latest version of Mac OS X (Leopard) have written some notes on what was involved and how Ruby and Rails work in Leopard. The Ruby build is a customized 1.8.6 p36 and actually integrates into Xcode and Interface Builder.. now making it a relatively easy task to put together Ruby GUI

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-2341431602241768142007-10-24T12:44:00.000-07:002007-10-24T12:44:54.083-07:00

Great summary of some of the techniques we have underway here to blur the line between test and development in Google Testing Blog: Automating tests vs. test-automation

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-22370840929287405562007-10-22T06:49:00.000-07:002007-10-22T07:09:46.410-07:00

I had a lot of opportunity to run across wild animals while growing up in the foothills outside the Valley. But that was 25 years ago, so I've always assumed that the wildlife would be on the decline in the area rather than on the rise. A few weeks ago the boys and Monica and I took a trip up to the foothills to go tarantula hunting. This time of year they're easily spotted walking across the

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-1091670500752618612007-10-11T16:54:00.000-07:002007-10-11T16:56:03.927-07:00

A nice essay on what I characterize as defensive programming, "Confessions of a Terrible Programmer."

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-14508903674922939402007-10-11T13:46:00.000-07:002007-10-11T13:51:47.555-07:00

I've received this from several people. The seats are probably going to fill up fast. Get yours while they're available. I suggested that our recruiter see if she can set up a table at the event. Not sure of the applicability to our business, but it should still be interesting. The only time I ever heard Scott McNealy talk was a keynote at a Unixworld conference about 15 years ago.

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-80377854377168574752007-10-10T09:00:00.000-07:002007-10-10T09:15:52.636-07:00

I love using my Mac. But I have to use Microsoft software too. Well, I don't have to use their software, but it is convenient. I can tell when I'm using a piece of Microsoft software vs a piece of Apple software (or a nice 3rd party application like anything from the Omni Group). I can tell because the Microsoft stuff feels different to me as a user. There's glaring annoyances that stick out

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-16382761918213825892007-10-08T13:01:00.000-07:002007-10-08T13:04:24.019-07:00

We must have spies in our camp--otherwise how could this post from the Atlassian News blog so perfectly describe our situation?The quality of tools on the web is increasing far faster than most “boxed” enterprise software, and those web tools are free or low cost, and available immediately, as opposed to going through a much more involved procedure to get access to tools on the inside, or

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-49446849251813628022007-10-08T11:02:00.000-07:002007-10-08T11:06:28.173-07:00

The Lean Software Engineering blog has a concise historical perspective on the development of SDLCs over the past 30 years. Worth a read. In particular:Back when the software development world was first trying to recreate the obsolescent mass-production culture of its day, the Japanese had already provided us with the answer. The ideal batch size is one.When I apply this concept to my situation

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-19044147665372394652007-10-05T20:00:00.000-07:002007-10-05T20:17:13.179-07:00

I recently bragged to somebody about OSX's geek friendly nature. Under the hood, it runs unix. During my childhood I spent many long nights in the machine room rebuilding unix file systems using fsck. Crashed machines always resulted in file systems that needed some time of repairs. System admins learned the difference between the routine and the serious. More than once we were confronted

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-39590504155764488502007-09-24T13:20:00.000-07:002007-09-24T13:23:10.348-07:00

I just saw Non-Stop Ads truck when driving through Fresno. An unusual idea. Cost effective? Effective for advertisers? I don't know.. Kind of cool to see something like this being done locally.

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-11460230706599367342007-09-11T12:47:00.000-07:002007-09-11T12:52:07.786-07:00

This is a seriously good idea (via Guy Kawasaki's blog). TechShop offers a fully tooled shop for anybody who wants to build/invent stuff. It's "Mythbusters" for the rest of us. The prices are very reasonable. If I spend any time at all in my garage I know I end up spending $100/mo in misc stuff at Home Depot--and without access to all the cool tools.I hope this kind of thing is profitable

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-48869960246255623312007-09-10T14:07:00.001-07:002007-09-10T14:50:54.852-07:00

All trails are created equal on the Hume Lake Ranger District's OHV map. There's a legend on that map that includes some notable trails. And some of those I've already been on this summer were much less challenging that the map made them sound.Thus I didn't expect much of a challenge when we ventured over to the other side of the highway towards Hume Lake via the Cherry Gap. The map shows

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-30416181783889272842007-09-01T06:58:00.000-07:002007-09-01T06:58:44.502-07:00

The boys and I (and the wife from time to time) have spent the summer exploring the Millwood area in the Sequoia National forest. We've been following the official OHV (off highway vehicle) map and have been sure to adhere to the rules regarding where we should/shouldn't recreate with our particular class of 4wd vehicle.I've been obsessed all summer. I can't stand the thought that there's a

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-58852351197582992282007-09-01T06:13:00.000-07:002007-09-01T06:24:26.411-07:00

Brent writes about the benefits of Resveratrol found in grapes and red wine. I've contemplated changing this blog to "Software and Wine" because of red wine's benefits. But to achieve the high doses of Resveratrol that these mice in recent studies were given, I'd need to drink 750 to 1,500 bottles of red wine each day. That is decidedly bad for the software..

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-58674396950910924392007-08-31T22:14:00.000-07:002007-08-31T22:26:20.559-07:00

Protocols are easy when they make sense.--Sean ReesThat's right. And simplicity helps too.

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-87598050753536403592007-08-24T20:27:00.000-07:002007-08-24T20:29:50.089-07:00

It dawns on me now that Neil and Luke might be locked in an eternal battle to release the DVR5100.

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-26578862426078202142007-08-14T19:26:00.000-07:002007-08-14T19:27:47.881-07:00

Something interesting on the ScobleShow: Trends in human/computer interaction from Stanford.

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-89390475064808504792007-08-08T15:02:00.000-07:002007-08-08T15:04:07.575-07:00

This what I want for my MacBookPro. A Softgrid kind of thingy (found via Slashdot) sounds like just the ticket. It will be awesome when the day arises.

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-82913271879880737272007-08-08T13:48:00.000-07:002007-08-08T13:57:56.156-07:00

Some nice pictures and good comments on 37 Signals about Apple's latest designs. This kind of design evolution has the beneficial side effect of building obsolescence into the product line. No hipster 20 something wants to be caught dead using that totally uncool, so-last-year, all-white iPod. Time to buy an iPhone to match my new iMac, etc.. Style is important to their primary demographic,

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-1854149483204130142007-08-08T08:11:00.000-07:002007-08-08T08:15:43.628-07:00

Well, Don MacAskill, the reason you need that MacPro overkill is so you can run Parallels for the PC applications to which the world is still addicted. For me it's Outlook (I have to run it to schedule conference rooms and to turn my out-of-office reply on/off (or is that available in Entourage? I'll have to check)) and some of our company's own Windows Only(tm) applications. Oh, and Microsoft

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-23513404440791725972007-08-07T04:28:00.000-07:002007-08-07T04:30:54.323-07:00

Well, the fun is over, Fake Steve Jobs has been outed. I don't think the blog can be quite the same again. It was exactly the right person at exactly the right time doing exactly the right thing. It was fun while it lasted. The SF Chronicle has a good article.

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-6058443257669177592007-08-06T12:35:00.000-07:002007-08-06T12:40:16.785-07:00

I'm glad I still have an excuse to stay subscribed to the BileBlog. Hani has lost some of his venom over the past few years, but it is still fun to watch him throw rocks at something like Atlassian's acquisition of Cenqua. We use products from both company's, so I saw the deal as a good thing.

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-81778516269397832252007-08-05T07:09:00.000-07:002007-08-05T07:36:04.439-07:00

The boys and I went up to explore another loop I've been eyeballing on the map for a while. We visited the Chicago Stump, then followed the Hoist Ridge trail, and came back along the Chicago Stump Road (along Verplank Ridge).Hoist Ridge is one of the more interesting trails I've seen. There is a wide variety of terrain, some slow going in places, and many magnificent vistas. There are a lot of

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-75679465821466266832007-07-31T19:38:00.000-07:002007-07-31T19:51:48.403-07:00

John Hodgman makes a guest appearance on one of my favorite new shows, The Flight of the Conchords. If you like John Hodgman's brand of comedy you'll love this show. It was absolutely no surprise to me when he showed up in this scene as a greeting card company executive who's going to produce a musical greeting card from one of the band's songs. At up to 500,000 cards and royalties of $.01 a

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-11657486754075534452007-07-31T05:46:00.000-07:002007-07-31T05:51:23.955-07:00

Martin Fowler waxes on about language choice these days--with some Ruby love thrown in for good measure. In particular, how SmallTalk has finally arrived:In the intervening years I've come to the view that Tom was right after all. After several years in curly brace land, Ruby reminded me of what I was missing. There's a clarity to reading Ruby code that just makes it an easier medium to work

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-75666098002246537382007-07-29T07:23:00.000-07:002007-07-29T07:43:58.874-07:00

The boys and I went on a long trek I've wanted to make for some time. According to the map, one can travel north from McKenzie Ridge off of highway 180 through to the Kings River via Davis Road. Yesterday afternoon the boys and I took off.The road was well maintained and easily navigated, but rocky enough in places to slow us down. It's incredibly dry--Mill Creek is completely dry. Still lots

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-7173957167404373152007-07-26T13:54:00.000-07:002007-07-26T13:56:11.623-07:00

Han shot first

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-28266403560694845892007-07-24T08:27:00.000-07:002007-07-24T08:28:58.796-07:00

Via Digg, the iPhone the way it should be. :)

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-26709866116118043062007-07-22T07:33:00.000-07:002007-07-22T07:37:01.087-07:00

Since Emil's too humble to have a blog, I figure I'll pass along this email:I've been looking at http://dabbledb.com/ It's a Web 2.0 MS-Access like critter. Bunch of competitors growing like weeds http://www.enterpriseirregulars.com/EI/21563 and I wondered what they built DabbleDB in...http://blog.jonudell.net/2007/01/19/a-conversation-with-avi-bryant-and-andrew-catton-about-dabble-db/Not only

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-88538526798657479692007-07-20T12:56:00.000-07:002007-07-20T13:00:47.568-07:00

Because he needs it. Really. Show him some love. Like this:....for not only giving us the beautiful iPhone but also driving up the values of our 401(k) plans and making us all a little bit richer. Steve Jobs, we'd like you to have a Nobel Prize for this.

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-68188892460553541212007-07-16T12:02:00.000-07:002007-07-16T12:15:38.626-07:00

Jared has a short sweet example of an "intention revealing interface" and why it's good.To understand more about the concept, see Domain Driven Design. Basically, Evans says that "All tricky mechanism should be encapsulated behind abstract interfaces that speak in terms of intentions, rather than means." This is a core habit that enables people to write objects rather than just a bunch more

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-26866808996798939932007-07-12T22:39:00.000-07:002007-07-12T22:41:00.556-07:00

There really is more than one way. :)

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-63519175245747493382007-07-12T18:58:00.000-07:002007-07-12T19:00:08.022-07:00

My wife tries to throw it out every once in a while. I explain that it's soon to be a valuable antique. It's hard to believe this was only 13 years ago. Seems like a lifetime.

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-78916310796694809322007-07-11T06:58:00.000-07:002007-07-11T07:01:20.286-07:00

Being the busy manager type I am, I spend most of my time talking about doing work rather than actually doing work. I haven't programmed anything significant in a long time.Finally, through the miracle of Vista's voice recognition, this demo shows that I can go back to Perl programming, without lowering myself to touching the keyboard.

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-73214367056397494752007-07-10T16:39:00.000-07:002007-07-10T16:41:17.106-07:00

I was very proud of my guys when, upon the arrival of the new industrial strength paper shredder in their area, they immediately commenced to shred the paper shredder's manual. This was immediately followed by a shredding of some printed circuit boards..Anyway, there's a good idea here.

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-69810249797727421292007-07-04T15:33:00.000-07:002007-07-04T15:38:41.378-07:00

So you already know I'm a Google fanboy. But this post confused me because I couldn't see any ads. After a few minutes I get the clue.. The other day I was at a particularly obnoxious web site littered with ads and I used Adblock to blacklist some new sites. One of which was "googlesyndication.com." Viola, Google's ads have disappeared from my daily life.I've never been particularly insulted

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-26580811115533341392007-07-04T15:17:00.000-07:002007-07-04T15:19:43.998-07:00

Go ahead and check out Woz playing Segway Polo. I don't know why..

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-45379650668108334122007-07-04T14:59:00.000-07:002007-07-04T15:01:46.047-07:00

Everything you ever wanted to know about how Google does search so well (in three parts):

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-20127682888136120102007-07-04T09:08:00.000-07:002007-07-04T09:16:16.221-07:00

One of many iPhone love posts.. This one from Mr SmugMug, Don MacAskill. But Don makes an interesting point:This phone is an earth-shaking game-changer, and exactly what everyone has wanted for a long long time. Not a single person I’ve ever met has actually liked their cell phone company, and this is the first step towards a device-centric world rather than a network-centric world. You and I

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-83678460107725304602007-06-30T10:39:00.000-07:002007-06-30T10:41:08.963-07:00

Interesting sounding book, Managing Humans:This book isn't just about management, it's about creating places where people can comfortably build stuff. It's about what to do during the first ninety days of your new gig, and explains why you should pick a fight, because bright people often yell at each other.No kidding. JPL was something of a technically hostile environment. I think because a lot

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-83127528124647841952007-06-30T10:24:00.000-07:002007-06-30T10:31:48.319-07:00

The people who work with me get really tired of proposals that we build initial versions of our tools with as few features as possible. My default position is that it is better to ship something that doesn't have all the desired features than to ship a more full featured something later. Or worse, ship nothing at all. Here's the deal. There is always a reason not to release your product. The

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-84558349979141762052007-06-30T10:11:00.000-07:002007-06-30T10:22:27.720-07:00

Guy Kawasaki posts a great Q&A with Scott Berkun, author of The Myths of Innovation.I teach a creative thinking course at the University of Washington, and the foundation is that ideas are combinations of other ideas. People who earn the label “creative” are really just people who come up with more combinations of ideas, find interesting ones faster, and are willing to try them out. The problem

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-90234291370409174792007-06-30T04:28:00.000-07:002007-06-30T04:32:21.187-07:00

History Detectives is one of my favorite shows. The PBS series examines various antiques and documents the verification of their history. This show ties objects and history to human stories better than anything I've seen. It literally "brings history to life."I was disappointed when it seemed to disappear from our local PBS station's lineup. Now I see that it's available on iTunes!

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-21373313126134574382007-06-30T03:31:00.000-07:002007-06-30T03:35:37.551-07:00

It's nice that customer still appreciate quality in the stuff we do. From this NY Times article:“If Apple made sliced bread, yeah, I’d buy it.” said Andrew Kaputsa, who waited outside the Michigan Avenue Apple store in Chicago. “It’s just good stuff. Everything they touch.”Apple has established itself as the Porsche of computers. Yet they enjoy the Moore's Law-ish effect of constantly declining

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-33290224426473789072007-06-29T02:03:00.000-07:002007-06-29T02:04:39.366-07:00

Via Projectionist:"The user-friendly computer is a red herring. The user-friendliness of a book just makes it easier to turn pages. There’s nothing user-friendly about learning to read."Alan Kay

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-89411898928396496702007-06-28T15:07:00.000-07:002007-06-28T15:14:58.726-07:00

Guy and I are on the same page. Earlier I implied that getting in bed with AT&T is a big risk for Apple in this iPhone adventure. Now Guy Kawasaki dives into more detail.Personally, I will be reviewing the iPhone when I get my hands on one. By hand I mean a one-fingered touch through the crowd of people huddled around some guy who has the first one that shows up near my work or home.

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-50063856624260638912007-06-25T11:54:00.000-07:002007-06-25T11:56:22.525-07:00

I don't even know if the question makes sense. If this report that Google's ported Rails to Javascript is true, this could be very interesting..In an effort to increase developer productivity at Google, Steve tried to convince the company to adopt Rails (and consequently Ruby) as a programming language. When that fell on deaf ears (Google really does not want to increase the number of languages

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-14591823643478028472007-06-25T06:32:00.000-07:002007-06-25T06:38:31.632-07:00

The Nokia 770 is on sale today only on woot for 129. Not a phone (like the iPhone), but a small, portable web browsing device none the less. This is a significant percentage of the price of a *real* phone in the iPhone (assuming it's phone service works--we've never actually *seen* anybody use it to make a call). Worth the price? Doubtful in this changing age.

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-47512740113392195872007-06-24T19:27:00.000-07:002007-06-24T19:28:32.149-07:00

This is amazing. We've come a long way from the day a start-up would have to spend millions to get this kind of infrastructure. The big J2EE vendors should go look for another business.

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17310404.post-43641433587061631892007-06-24T11:47:00.000-07:002007-06-24T11:52:26.997-07:00

WhatSize will summarize your disk usage on your (Machintosh) disk in such a way you can quickly zoom in on the biggest offenders and get rid of that stuff you don't really need that's taking up all your disk space. This is very useful if (for example) you've had your new MBP for a few months now, and are finally starting to get low on disk space. WhatSize is marvelous. In my case, I was able

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02008117692180284514noreply@blogger.com0