Danny and his girls in New York!

 
Oscar looks lonely

Posted from Windows Live Writer!

Posted from Windows Live Writer!

O'Reilly Radar > Deconstructing Databases#comments

O'Reilly Radar > Deconstructing Databases#comments: "Just as a for instance, how many of you still put your email in folders, vs. just saving by month or year, and using search to find what you want? How many of you find it easier to tag a bookmark and put it on del.icio.us than to save it in a folder?"

Geeking with Greg: First, kill all the managers

Geeking with Greg: First, kill all the managers: "Google has almost no management. In 2003, managers were at the director level or higher and had 50 or so reports. More managers have been added since then, but I believe that 20+ reports is the norm.

Program management is done in a separate organization. The PMs have no power over the engineers, not even an appeal to engineering managers, since there are none. The PMs try to bring order to the chaos, but they must do so by convincing people, not by commanding them.

Mentoring is done by other engineers. People learn by doing. You want people to dive into the code and learn from those who are closest to the problem.

Parts of the vision emerge from everywhere, brought together, clarified, and unified by the few managers that exist. Despite a few people wandering up other peaks, most are guided up the same hill.

Communication is direct through informal networks, not through the management hierarchy. Transparency and pressure from peers provide for accountability and limit free riding.

Titles are unimportant. A 'software engineer' could be a former tenured professor or a recent college graduate. A 'program manager' could be a former CTO.

To imitate Google, it is important to realize that there is more to do here than just suddenly sending your middle managers out to sleep with the fishes.

Tasks often done by managers need to be moved out of a management hierarchy. Informal networks and a culture of transparency need to be encouraged. Hierarchies must be destroyed, titles made irrelevant, and compensation and rewards redesigned."

Has the Family Tomb of Jesus Been Found?

"The presentation on Sunday is called “Has the Family Tomb of Jesus Been Found?” This is certainly to be discussed at the water coolers on Monday. And you as a Christian should be ready with some reasoned questions of your own (asked in the right spirit). So join me for this special message in our series on Tough Questions – Honest Answers. And please pray for wisdom and insight for me as I prepare."
from http://www.immanuelbaptist.org/

Amazing Grace movie trailer

Can't wait to see this!

Creating Passionate Users: Getting/Staying Organized: my Moleskine PDA

Creating Passionate Users: Getting/Staying Organized: my Moleskine PDA: "Organization comes unnaturally to me. I've experimented with almost everything, both electronic (Palm Pilot, various software apps), and plain old paper. So far, the one that's helped me the most is my low-tech, high-use Moleskine PDA. Supplies include a pen, a notebook, post-it tabs, and some (optional) 3 x 5 cards."

Two Screens Are Better Than One

Two Screens Are Better Than One: "The researchers conducted user studies that proved the effectiveness of adding a second or even third monitor to your workstation, creating a wide-screen effect. In addition, they found out how the operating system needs to change to accommodate a larger screen area. "

Getting MarkDown and SmartyPants working with EditPad Pro - Joel on Software

Getting MarkDown and SmartyPants working with EditPad Pro - Joel on Software: "MarkDown is a simple processor that converts text to HTML. For example, it converts *text surrounded by asterisks* to italics.
SmartyPants replaces 'straight quotes' with “curly quotes” and makes a few other typographic improvements.
EditPad Pro is a very respectable text editor for Windows. It’s fast and contains scrillions of useful features. It’s not the fanciest thing in the world, but if you’re still using Notepad for the occasional bits of text, it’s a fine drop-in replacement.
Here’s what it takes to get them all working together on a typical Windows setup:"

The Phone Screen - Joel on Software

The Phone Screen - Joel on Software: "The bottom line in my interviewing technique is that smart people can generally tell if they’re talking to other smart people by having a conversation with them on a difficult or highly technical subject, and the interview question is really just a pretext to have a conversation on a difficult subject so that the interviewer’s judgment can form an opinion on whether this is a smart person or not."

The infinite music collection - Joel on Software

The infinite music collection - Joel on Software: "But laptops have lousy speakers, and I had been looking for a way to pump the music from the computer into other rooms of the house, so last January I finally got a Sonos system, which is probably the coolest piece of technology I've ever bought. Ever."

Using source control tools on huge projects - Joel on Software

Using source control tools on huge projects - Joel on Software: "When you're working with source control on a huge team, the best way to organize things is to create branches and sub-branches that correspond to your individual feature teams, down to a high level of granularity. If your tools support it, you can even have private branches for every developer. So they can check in as often as they want, only merging up when they feel that their code is stable. Your QA department owns the 'junction points' above each merge. That is, as soon as a developer merges their private branch with their team branch, QA gets to look at it and they only merge it up if it meets their quality bar."

» Vista-powered desktops, notebooks now on Dell site | IP Telephony, VoIP, Broadband | ZDNet.com

» Vista-powered desktops, notebooks now on Dell site IP Telephony, VoIP, Broadband ZDNet.com: "What you are seeing up there is a grab of Dell letting you know they are now selling Vista-enabled PCs and notebooks. Final preparations are being made to formally activate the order process."

Seth's Blog: Clarifications

Seth's Blog: Clarifications: " In Small Is the New Big, I'm not saying that only small companies will thrive moving forward. Instead, I'm saying that any organization that acts small has an advantage over those that insist on acting big, regardless of size."

Seth's Blog: Yes Substitutions

Seth's Blog: Yes Substitutions: "There's a line out the door of the Pump every day at lunch. Why? Because people who love substitutions (the picky ones) go blocks out of their way to eat here. Is there anyone clamoring to get into the 'no substitutions' place?"

Dell 2407WFP 24" LCD Display Reviewed (Verdict: Nearly Perfect) - Gizmodo

Dell 2407WFP 24" LCD Display Reviewed (Verdict: Nearly Perfect) - Gizmodo: "The geeks at Digital Video Editing took a close look at the Dell 2407WFP 24' LCD display, and were pretty much blown away by how much widescreen monitor you can get for $799. Heck, for that price you can get two of them and stretch your video editing timeline from here to Palookaville."

Joel on Software

Joel on Software: "To be an Identity Method manager, you have to summon all the social skills you have to make your employees identify with the goals of the organization, so that they are highly motivated, then you need to give them the information they need to steer in the right direction.To be an Identity Method manager, you have to summon all the social skills you have to make your employees identify with the goals of the organization, so that they are highly motivated, then you need to give them the information they need to steer in the right direction."

Zaky Infant Pillow: Child Neglect Accomplice - Gizmodo

Zaky Infant Pillow: Child Neglect Accomplice - Gizmodo: "We're sure none of the offspring of our brilliant Gizmodo reading audience would be fooled by The Zaky, an ergonomic pillow that simulates the weight, touch and feel of the hands of a caring parent. But this is such a cute picture nonetheless, we couldn't resist showing it to you. Aww."

O'Reilly Radar > Open Communities vs. Open Source

O'Reilly Radar > Open Communities vs. Open Source: "Dain made a really interesting distinction. We need to recognize, he pointed out, that open source doesn't guarantee open community. Some projects (JBoss was what he had in mind) are open source, but have a closed community, controlled by a corporate sponsor."