Thursday, June 05, 2008

Don't think outside the box, BE outside the box

I was browsing emag today, and as usual, I went to see what is new in the laptop department. And I found the new Dell 1525, as colorful as ever. I have a Dell myself, an Inspiron 1520 in pink, but this new model is a step further :)


And I started thinking: why does everybody own a gray or black (or dark blue maybe) laptop? Do they want to "fit in"? Fit in where? Underground? Don't get me wrong, I'm not Flower Power :) but I really do ask myself the never ending "why??!?!?" when it comes to this. I heard the "classy" card in relation to the "black laptop" trend. Is it really classier? Do you receive more respect when you, say, go on a conference stage and present ASP .NET (sorry, my thing) in front of an audience from a black laptop? Or are you just another one of many, just a shadow in the crowd?...

Nowadays there are many smart people around, talented people, successful people. The days when you asked "how many of you developed a workflow" in a gathering and one or two people at most raised their hands are gone. Today information is something that everybody has. Everybody has a rocket model at home. So why fit in? Shouldn't we stand out?
You will say that standing out should be related to what you say not how you look. Yeah, right. iPhone is aaaaaaall about the software, that's why you would replace your PDA with it in a minute. Last conference you went to - which presenter do you remember? The smart one? Or the smart one that said it all in the right tone and moved like he was delivering the information with his body language and you don't even know what background color the PowerPoint slides were on? It's all about presentation, my friends.

So don't you dare start rolling your eyes when someone comes into the room and takes out of his/her bag a green tattooed laptop - as he/she is the bold one in the room. You are only blending in. With your gray laptop. Aren't they all...

Posted by Madalina at 18:08:41 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Sunday, June 01, 2008

How development finally pays off

I am a web developer. Not a life-saving job. At all.
Being a software developer is an abstract job. When you go home in the evening, you can't bring anything useful with you. Knowing what Response.Redirect() means, does not help you climb up a tree to save the cat. Learning about stacks in school does not make it less painfull when, at the grocery store, someone ignores the line and skips the waiting part to go ahead. On the contrary.

But today I finally found a use for my being a web dev :D  I was looking at monster.com. You know, the job search engine. It is divided into countries. If you want to look for a job in sunny Mexico, you have a site for Mexico. And so on. I found it nice at the beginning. But frustrating at a point. Being a freelance consultant, I don't really care where the job comes from as long as it is the job I am looking for. So after going on many of the sites, I started to ask myself why is it that you don't have a Monster site where you can search for the job you want in all the listings of all the countries?

If you are a web dev, you do :D Browse to any site, put in the key word(s) of your search and hit enter. Let's suppose you are searching for "asp net". Results from the current country will be displayed as well as the page URL:
 http://jobsearch.monster.com/Search.aspx?re=130&cy=us&brd=1&JSNONREG=1&q=asp+net&rad=20&rad_units=miles
In there you can find the id of the current country and information about the city you could select(zip code, distance from the city etc). All you really need here is the keywords you entered. So if you leave the URL at http://jobsearch.monster.com/Search.aspx?q=asp+net and hit enter, guess what you will get - asp net listings from all the countries.

So yes, 5 years of university, 3 of work... it does pay of to be a web developer in the real world too =))
Posted by Madalina at 19:06:38 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Munca este intr-adevar amuzanta :)

Din capitolul "Toleranta este un cuvant pe care nu-l cunosc"... Subtitlul "wtf was your teacher?"
 
Am pus mana zile trecute pe un css facut de altcineva. Un css pentru un masterpage de SharePoint. Uitandu-ma prin el sa vad daca pot "fura" vreo idee, am vazut ca unele dintre imaginile folosite in clase aveau calea de forma "../../../../../../imagine.jpg". Ok... Am instalat masterpage-ul (printr feature-ul in care a venit) ca sa inteleg si eu ce imi scapa... Bineinteles ca imaginile nu se incarcau. Am inceput sa ma intreb de unde atatea directoare imbricate.
Singurul raspuns pe care l-am gasit pana acum a fost - le cauta cumva in Google?  =)) 
Posted by Madalina at 14:37:56 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Monday, July 30, 2007

Sharepoint advice

If you need Sharepoint advice, go here .

Posted by Madalina at 09:13:53 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Save the Internet

Save the Internet: Click here
Posted by Madalina at 16:15:53 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Brain TV

braintv

Posted by Madalina at 09:29:48 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Friday, February 09, 2007

Developers Developers...

Cine a zis ca developerii nu sunt "cool enough" incat sa aiba un imn? =))

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6987983111018701231

 

Posted by Madalina at 15:40:11 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Apple iPhone: ne apropiem de 888? :)

2in1 = iPod + Smart Phone

Posted by Madalina at 17:10:01 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Monday, January 08, 2007

Nokia 888 Concept

Posted by Madalina at 10:32:29 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Wideband Delphi

The Wideband Delphi process significantly improves the accuracy of estimates. Here is the process:

  1. Gather some people to help. Wideband Delphi recommends a team of two to five people. Bring in some people who have experience building a similar type of application, as well as some who have never built this kind of application. Multiple perspectives are valuable.
  2. Provide an overview of the work to be estimated. The person most familiar with the work gives the group a brief outline of the task at hand, focusing on requirements.
  3. Derive individual estimates. Every person in the room thinks about the problem and privately notes his assumptions. Then, on an index card, each person writes down his estimate in ideal effort-hours, and places it facedown on the table.
  4. Reveal the estimates and discuss assumptions. A facilitator reveals the anonymous estimates. What does everyone expect to happen here? The result is similar to multiple people guessing the number of bouncy balls on my desk without much information-estimates vary widely. A facilitated discussion about the assumptions that factored into the estimates ensues.
  5. Iterate from Step 3 until estimates match up. Each individual learns from the others in the room, updates his assumptions, and provides a new estimate. Estimates start converging. Continue this process until convergence is satisfactory.

Why does this technique work? Wideband Delphi incorporates the experience of others, is feedback-driven, allows estimators to go with their gut by keeping the first round anonymous, and facilitates learning. You quickly discover invalid or missed assumptions, while refining high-level requirements and design. The team agrees upon assumptions, documents decisions, and now has rationale for their numbers.

[Source: MSDN Magazine]

 

Posted by Madalina at 14:22:13 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |
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