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Showing posts from March, 2009

Cheap Desk – Expensive Chair

I think Joel was the first I heard this sage advice from – you can live with a cheap desk, but you need an expensive chair. Oops - by Jake Cress Yes, I too want that really impressive desk in the corner office. But day-in and day-out what I need is a really expensive (read well designed) desk chair. What is the cost ratio of desk to chair? Where is the sweet spot? I’d really like to find this data and see a plot. So let’s talk about the desk/chair issue, wants versus needs. I need a desk that meets my needs. At SolutionsIQ we have arrived at a desk that allows us to pair program (it is wide enough), to arrange and rearrange in minimum of time (about 2 hours max for a team of 7 – 12 people), to move a container (the desk) not items to a new container (personal items to a new cubicle), all for around $800 – $1000 per desk. It has met the needs of hundreds of developers for years now in the development bays of our office. They are not perfect (no built-in personal sound sy

Linked Data – the re-invented Web

What’s the guy that invented the Web up to theses days? No, not Al Gore, he’s saving the world one climate at a time ( Repower America ). I’m referring to Tim. It has only been 20 years ago that Tim Berners-Lee had this crazy idea of hyper linked documents that became a paper, then an implementation, and grew into a movement. A movement that you are involved with as you read this page. He now has another crazy idea about the underlying data of all these documents on the web. Watch his TED video where he explains Linked Data, join the movement at the grass roots level. How can we create linked data? If you think you can not because it is our clients data, not ours; then I’d ask you to re-think that, and change your paradigm. That’s what happened 20 years ago. Here's Tim's 2010 TED talk , where he shows how quickly the community built the map for Port Au Prince after the Haiti earthquake.

Do You Put “CSM” After Your Name?

I’ve noticed a new trend—people have been gaining titles. When I was younger, only doctors had initials (like MD) after their names. I always figured that was because society held doctors, and sometime priests (OFM) in such high regard that we wanted to point out their higher learning. I hope it was to encourage others to apply themselves in school and become doctors also. Could it have been boastful? Achievements for "the Great" post-nominal The Wikipedia describes these “post-nominal initials”: Post-nominal letters, also called post-nominal initials, are letters placed after the name of a person to indicate that the individual holds a position, educational degree, accreditation, office, or honor. An individual may use several different sets of post-nominal letters. The order in which these are listed after a name is based on the order of precedence and category of the order. That’s good enough for me. So I ask you: is the use of CSM or CSP an appropriate use of