Our privacy laws (which are fairly new) were modelled after the privacy standards in the EU. And from interviews, letters and everything I've seen, our privacy commissioner is great spokesperson for individual privacy rights in Canada.
Specifically, thanks to a law that he pushed through, this statement in the letter (among others) would be illegal: You do not have the right to opt out of the disclosure of this information...
The company where I work occaisionally allows the source to burned to a CD to by held by the purchaser (NOT a 3rd party) for escrow purposes only. It's worked fine for us. I work on a very small product line for a very small company with some very large clients; they primarily want the source because they worry about this product disappearing. Unfortunately, I can't provide you with a copy of such an agreement -- I don't have one.
On the other hand, you sound like you you want to do is sell source code that your customer can actively use it, but still maintain maintenance fees. I'd look at SLAs for commercial components as an example -- some will sell source. One example (for JClass Java components) is here.
Personally, I'd recommend going the escrow route, and perform modifications for the customer for an additional fee as required -- it would be extremely difficult from a technical point of view to support software that has been modified by 3rd parties who may not fully understand the side-effects of their changes. It sounds like your customer primarily wants security; escrow can provide that.
I'd also bet that Tivo doesn't have a "Terrorist" tag...
True, and I don't think the profiling data is centrally stored either. (But I don't have a Tivo, so I wouldn't know.)
However, can you imagine the kind of bad assumptions some people might make if they knew someone regularly watched "The Quaran Today" and other Muslim religious programming?
The information war is already in progress, and it's the one that is convincing the unwashed masses (and even some of the washed masses) that there is an immenent threat of warfare because Would-Be-Emperor Bush wants to bomb things.
This is the same war that allows Bush to made grand sweeping claims about the proof he has, but without showing it to anyone -- including the other countries who he wants to join in on his war. The (mis)information war has been in progress for a long time now, and the enemy is winning.
The war is in progress folks. Would the subversives in the room focus their attention here?
I've since moved out of coding, but back in school we used to collaborate (really collaborate -- not copy) frequently on assignments. There was this one guy who invariably dragged the rest of us into these annoying conversations about the stupidest things. Nice guy, good coder, but the best way for me to work with him was to lock him in a separate room, disable talk and msg, and only respond to his emails once per hour.
During our OS course -- our most brutal required course -- I specifically avoided this guy by finding my partner a few months in advance. After working out the design together, my OS partner and I would start off working on separate pieces, but eventually, we'd end up pair-programming. This was incredibly effective for us. With both of us on one computer, we actually wasted LESS time co-ordinating with each other, since we understood each other's pieces better, could integrate code faster, and we made fewer dumb errors because there was always someone to look out for them. While we might do the grunt coding separately, the tricky parts and the nasty debugging always ended up in being completed in a pair.
Mind you, though I couldn't work with the first guy, other people I knew could do so effectively.
The point is that pair programming doesn't work for every pair of people. When you have a good pair, it rocks. When you don't, it bites. You not only have to respect each other's skills, you also have to have complentary working styles and thinking styles. In my pair, I was better at high-level design and creating test cases, while my partner was better at hammering out the implementation details and diagnosing bugs.
If I ever went back to coding, I'd want to do it in pairs -- so long as I could respect my partner.
So what you're saying is, you want us to help you collect all this data and then not share it? I'm not saying you should share it, but if you're asking me to help you do something for your own personal interest, I'd like something out of it.;-)
You may have some difficulty with the Fortune 500. As many of these companies are not tech industry companies, having a public stance on Open Source is irrelevant -- even if it's going on.
However, you could also check:
Press releases (each company should have a pressroom section on their site)
Search reports and article on finance site (yahoo! finance is a good place to start.)
Go through tech conference/tradeshow presentations -- many companies present at these shows and slides and contact info are often available. Java on Wall Street may be good for finding the companies you seek.
Cold call. Look up the CIO or CTO of each of these companies, call their main number and ask for them. Then ask the guy in charge. When successful, you will get better information that way -- though cold-calling is VERY hard to do successfully. Alternatively, for every contact you get, call them up (or email, though calling works better) politely explain what you're doing, ask them questions, and ask them if they know anyone else in the industry you should speak to.
Instead of the Fortune 500, though, I might focus on the Fortunre e50. These are the biggest tech companies, and are more likely to be aware of, have an influence on, and be working with Open Source. Companies in other industries may have huge tech departments, but their core business isn't tech -- so Open Source is not necessarily something they think about, so they're less likely to have a specific view on Open Source. Tech companies generally will.
I'm a geek gone marketing and I deal with a lot of sales reps from the other side. Here's some perspective.
At our company (especially now with the market so tough) the sales managers grill the sales people on the exact status of every single account. In turn, the executives and the product managers grill the managers on every deal over a particular size. We do this so that we can figure out as early as possible if we're going to make our numbers or not -- and if not, this helps us figure out what we can do about it.
Salespeople make at least half their salary on commission, and are held to strict quotas. They have to commit to specific accounts (known as the black art of sales forecasting) that they will bring in by the end of quarter. If they don't bring in an account they've forecasted, there will be (minimum) 4-5 senior people on their ass demanding why. (And note that they people they have to convince aren't ususally technical, so your reason for not needing the hardware isn't usually good enough for the managers) If they can't convince the senior managers, and if they aren't meeting their quota -- fired. That's a lot of pressure.
This particular rep may have handled the situation badly, but he's being this nosy because his job depends on being able to justify why he could not convince you to buy the server hardware.
By law, federal companies have to make you aware and get your consent in order to obtain any personal information from you that is not required for the business transaction. (Provincial companies will have to start doing this as of 2004.) They must also tell you what they are using the information for, tell you exactly what information they have on you, and allow you to revoke consent at any time. There is still some fuzziness around whether this must be opt-in or opt-out, but they do need to make their privacy policies clear up front, as well as give you contact information for their privacy officer so that you can report abuse. (And they must look into all reports in a timely manner.)
You probably will not get money for this, but you could effect change in their practices to make them comply. (The privacy commissioner invokes legal action as a last resort.)
Actually, if you're doing an internal or extra-net application (that is, you're distributing in a corporate environment, not an ISV) then you actually want to use DeployDirector by Sitraka.
The apps deployed with it do not have to run in a sandbox, which is a benefit if your users consider you a trusted souce (i.e., internal IT group). It's not free, but it's really good.
It's got some great administration/management capability as well -- far superior to WebStart, which has NO such capabilities.
Incidentally, Java Web Start is still really rough. (I've played around with a few Java deployment technologies, and JWS is the crappiest -- but then again, it's just the reference implemenation.)
And they found that the typical computer game (Go Forth and Shoot Things) did not appeal girls because they generally found them boring and repetitive. ("Oh look. Yet another game where you make things explode. Been there, done that. YAWN.")
Games ostensibly designed for girls (Talk, Shop and Be Popular!) also didn't appeal to girls because they generally found them inane and dumb.
Games like Myst, however, which was more goal-oriented and focused on problem solving, were a huge hit with girls. (Note that games that girls would tend to enjoy would also appeal to boys.) That is, girls like games that make them THINK, not mindlessly shoot things.
I'm female, and it irks me to know end when the knee-jerk suggestion for a "Game for Girls" is something like "Chat with the Computer". Here's a clue -- why would any woman chat with a computer when there are REAL, LIVE people to talk to?
1. Keep it to remember your Grandfather. Probably the best option (I wouldn't sell an heirloom).
2. Donate it to a local museum. They'll appreciate the gift, and it'll be enjoyed by many others over the years. You can still remember you Grandfather if it's in a museum, take the kids in and tell them "That's Granddad's meteorite" (and show them the rest of the place while they're there).
I know next to nothing about this (but this is./ so why should that stop me?) but I think there is a way for you to combine these two options. I believe you can maintain ownership of this but have it displayed/studied in a museum -- as I recall, this is sometimes the case with artwork, so it may apply to this as well.
Probably the best people to talk to about how to go about this are museum curators and/or researchers/professors. Or talk to the appraiser about what your possible next steps are -- they will probably have more relevant experience.
I don't use Opera. So if I need to hold a mouse button and move my mouse,then how in the heck would I select text for cut-n-paste?
I do use Opera, and to go back, you hold down the right mouse button and drag left. (The section you quote does not make that clear.) Alternatively -- and this is better for trackball users -- you could hold down the right mouse button and click the left button once to go back. Essentially, Opera takes advantage of relatively easy but unused mouse motions to implement gestures. You can still select text for cut'n'paste, and right-click to access context-sensitive menus.
The gestural back and forward is great for web browsing. I find it much faster than the keyboard, since when I'm browsing, I almost always have my hand on or near my mouse, but I'm not always poised and ready to type. (Plus I type slow.)
Personally, I'd like gestures to be more configurable. I think Opera's gone a little overboard on creating some of these, so occasionally, I end up doing something like closing a window when I really wanted to open a new one. I'd like to be able to selectively disable the gestures I don't use -- presently, it's all or nothing. (At least in the version I'm using anyway.)
Project Manager: Is the flaw easy to find?
Programmer: Not by your average user, but by someone looking yes.
Respond with a different answer. Multiple choice time.
Question: Is the flaw easy to find?
Answer 1: Yes.
Answer 2: For a hacker, yes.
Answer 3: For anyone who intends to harm our systems, yes.
Answer 4: For someone who uses this with malicious intent, yes.
Answer 5: Anyone who wants to harm our systems will find this.
If the project managers pushes for details about the average user, then you can patiently explain that average users isn't the issue to begin with. It's malicious users who are the problem because they are trying to find flaws, and this flaw will soon be obvious to them.
If you don't want the project manager to pick the cheapest and easiest way out, don't start out by giving them a cheap and easy way out.
Your project manager is probably getting their quarterly bonus based on how fast and how cheap they can get this project out the door. If you have a significant concern about security, don't automatically give them a justification for saving time and money in the short-run by ignoring it.
In the example you provide, you do this by immediately making it seem like the the probability of bad things happening is really low.
Remember, when the shit hits the fan and the developer got strung up for bad security, it's because the developer made it easy for the PM to ignore security. Make a big fuss about it -- even if it gets ignored, you've at least covered your ass by voicing your concerns loudly.
I have a double major in CS and English Writing. I've found this to be a huge advantage because my writing degree is proof of strong written communication skills. Plus, the fact that it's an unusual combination helps me stand out a little. When I decided to switch from CS-type work into a more business-oriented role, it showed both my ability to learn technical and non-technical subjects.
My (uninformed) opinion is that CS and Math will probably only give you an edge if you take a CS job that requires heavy mathematical skills.
However, if you enjoy your math courses and you want the extra degree, I don't see how it could hurt you. I could have just taken an English minor and saved myself a lot of stress, but I like having earned the extra degree.
I work full time and I'm completing my second degree part-time. (My first degree was as a full-time student.) Once that is done I intend to obtain a Masters part-time as well. Clearly, I like school.
Last semester I was taking 2 courses part-time, planning my wedding, working 60+ hours a week F/T and house-hunting. It was a crazy schedule to begin with, and then when you add a psycho I had to work with and my parents driving me nuts over the wedding plans and 0 vacation time (saving it up for the honeymoon) and I nearly went insane.
I still got through it, sanity intact, so here's what you need.
Determination and Motivation.
You've said before that you've tried out school and then quit. You have to really want to do this. When everything gets hectic and crazy, the thought of quitting may look appealing. After all, in University, you're paying to work really hard -- at work, it's the other way around. Plus, when your livelihood demands more time then usual, it can be hard to push that aside to do an assignment, or keep up with the reading.
But I really love what I'm studying, and even the required non-major courses (some of which I never thought I'd enjoy) appeal to me, so the idea of quitting school never crossed my mind. (Quitting work, on the other hand...) And because I enjoy it, it's easier for me to make time for school.
Discipline.
So imagine you finish work-work for the day, and you're exhausted, and the last thing you want to do is read a textbook. Will you put it off until the next day? Procrastination is a slippery slope -- when you're tired, it's so easy to put things off, and then suddenly, you're pulling all-nighters. Now for me, all-nighters are usually very productive, but pulling too many of those is increasingly draining as you get older. It's only been 6 years since I was a F/T frosh, and already I can't sustain the same low-sleep schedule that I could then. Now I have to force myself to do things on a regular and sane schedule, get enough sleep, eat properly -- all these things help.
You've been able to start and succeed at your own business, which says that you probably have all of these within you. But the big question for you to answer is -- are you willing to apply the same determination, motivation and discipline to school?
I'm a developer gone marketing minion, so let me offer some semi-informed advice. From what I've read, it sounds like you've gone at this a bit backwards. Product marketing starts before you build software, not after. It's part of the process for developing your requirements -- finding out about your users. (Yes, I know. Here on slashdot marketing == advertising. Not so.)
I've read in one of your comments that you tried selling to larger software companies, which is an excellent idea. Unfortunately, companies don't tend to want to buy products unless they have an established market already -- basically, unless they've proven themselves. It's risk mitigation. Even if they're building it themselves, they won't invest in you unless you can prove that your solution has an established market. I'm dealing with the exact same situation for one of the product lines at my company -- trying to make money by aiming to sell the technology is a very risky strategy. When it works out, it's great, but don't count on it.
What you need to do -- and maybe you've done some of this -- is research your market. Are you selling to home users or businesses? Both is not a good answer -- yes, both could use it, but you don't have the resources to market to both, and both have different needs that you have to account for. What's the level of technical expertise in your market? Where do they learn about new software? Do they download shareware? From where? Did they ever pay for it and why? Do they even perceive spam as a problem? Enough of a problem to spend money on? Have they used tools to help with spam, what are they and what do they like/dislike about them? Are they capable and willing to configure the filters themselves, or do they need something that will do it for them?
The toughest part of this is finding the right people to talk to. And I mean talk. Preferably in person, or on the phone. You want to give your potential end-user the ability to mention things to you that you may not of thought of, or may have assumed differently about them. Doing this will require some creativity. Without knowing more about who you're aiming at, it's hard to give suggestions as to how to do this. The more people you can talk with, the better. One person is a market, but not a very profitable one.
Don't try to be everything to everyone. It's expensive to develop that way, and nearly impossible to market that way. You may have a small technological niche, but you should also have a very targeted set of end-users as well.
Once you have the answers to these, you can start figuring out how to take your product to market. If you're aiming at slashdotters, then perhaps open-sourcing the product makes sense. (Nothing against open source, but I don't think that's your best option.) If your aiming a specific set of home users, where do they get their software from? Perhaps you can uncover particular publishers that way, or improve your listing on sites like tucows or cnet, or wherever. Perhaps you'll find that your target end-users don't even see spam as a problem -- so you'll either have to dump the product, find a different market and re-tune, or start making them more aware of the issue.
Developers, myself included, tend to ignore the sales side of business. Good technology seems like it should sell itself. But it doesn't.
It's quite possible to end up with differing prices where there are different ways of reaching the same goal. Sometimes an inobvious method can simply be cheaper or quicker than the obvious. e.g. the cheapest way to transport a locomotive can be by road, rather than rail.
True, and an excellent point.
But if that's the case, it needs to be made very clear to the potential customer up front as to why this is cheaper. That's part of managing perception. If the price difference is large enough to make the customer ask "Why is this less?" the answer should be very clear, it should sound reasonable -- and that communication must occur quickly. The customer shouldn't have to look for it or ask you or try and figure it out.
A good way to do this is to pitch why you're typcially cheaper BEFORE they get the proposal, because then the difference isn't a surprise, and they have the answer before they even need ask the questions.
You see this kind of thing a lot in ads for discount places "Why are our prices so low? Because unlike traditional merchandisers, we buy direct from the manufacturers, cutting out the middleman and pass on those savings to you!" (Note this is not necessarily the best way to do this -- it's just common.)
I would think that this would be difficult to do for this type of independant consulting. The customer is probably not techincal, and so they probably wouldn't know what's technically simple (and therefore cheap) and what's technically complex (and therefore expensive). It makes it very difficult to quickly justify why the poster's service is faster/cheaper and yet the same quality as the more expensive one.
The poster might be better off by positioning themselves around things other than "Same work, costs less" like (this is off the top of my head -- not necessarily quality ideas) "I follow standards, saving you money in the long-run by NOT being locked into proprietary formats" or "I work with your environment, allowing you to leverage your current investment" or "I train your people so you can maintain this yourself" or something like that.
However, in the absense of a solid-sounding (to the customer) reason as to why the poster's service is just as good but 3 times cheaper, raising the price to the market rate will probably help them appear just as good as the competitor.
Assuming that this reason they gave is the real reason, you're looking at the whole situation backwards.
You see the competitor's price, and you think "Why is this 3 times more?" The client saw your price and thought "Why is this 3 times less?" If the client sought other bids were closer to the 15K mark, then your price would really stand out as unusually (and perhaps suspiciously) low. (Conversely, if all the other bids were closer to the 5K mark, then the 15K would stand out as unusually high.)
You need to revise your pricing model to better suit the market rate. (I'm an ex-coder gone marketing -- I speak with some knowledge here.) Pricing is sort of the black art of product marketing; it's very difficult to know when you have it right, and there never seems to be a logical way of getting to that figure.
Going far above or below your competitors often puts you in a different market segment, even if the end-result is the same. It may seem bizarre and illogical to you, but unusual differences will raise questions in your client's mind -- you want to make sure that the simplest answer is in your favour.
Good marketing is not about advertising, but about managing customer perceptions (key word: perception) consistantly in everything you do. That includes your product/service, your price, your website, your professional manner, your support -- everything that the customer may see or interact with. All of these must be consistent with each other.
Check out Postioning and Marketing Warfare by Al Ries and Jack Trout to get a better understanding of how to market yourself.
I have heard -- don't recall from where, though -- that EA has future version of it's games already developed, but unreleased because they're waiting for the target hardware to become readily available. (Perhaps this was is an older practice, though.) Certainly, I would think that fast-action video games would be easier to QA on slightly slow hardware.
I think it's actually be the video card manufacturers and the games manufacturers working together -- these to market sectors drive each other, so it would make sense that they ensure their own future viability by working together.
That was pretty much my reaction. It's primarily (though not entirely) gamers who require the soup'ed up PCs.
Since switching from coding to the business side of things, my computer at work is pretty much used for email, web-browsing and word-processing. MS Word doesn't run noticibly faster on my PIII work than on PII-266 desktop at home, nor my on my previous Pentium-90 home laptop. My typing speed just isn't getting any faster.
Sure, a massive pivot-table in Excel can chew a lot of CPU-cycles sometimes, but overall my business use and most of my home use is mostly I/O-bound applications. (My computer is largely a typewriter and an email client.) I don't play games, so the tiny bit image manipulation and coding I do at home doesn't justify a anything more powerful.
It's been 6 years since I bought my home computer, and so far the only upgrade I've needed (a larger hard-drive and a little more RAM) was for WinAmp and my MP3 collection.
First, note that not every distance degree screams "DISTANCE." I went to the University of Waterloo on-campus for one of my Bacholer's degrees, and am completing my second Bacholer's via UW's Distance Ed program. Degrees completed by UW's distance ed. program simply say "University of Waterloo".
Personally, I feel I learn more on-campus than through distance. On-campus learning allows a lot more room for discussion (with the prof and with other students) which I find very valuable. Plus, because on-campus classes require me to be in class at set times, I find it a lot easier to keep attending and keep up with the material.
Distance Ed is a lot more flexible, but this can be dangerous if you procrastinate. It's much harder to stay on top of all the material when it's completely up to you to do so. However, if you get through that, you can turn it into an advantage during interviews -- it's a great example of self-motivation, independant work, perserverance and organization.
Re:They Are Pbly in India
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Working Abroad?
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Actually, a funky accent is unlikely if the call center is in India.
Depending on the language-medium of the schools they went to, (English, Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, etc.) many Indians speak English with a British accent. These are more desireable candidates for call center jobs.
My cousin in India was offered one of these jobs after completing her BComm. Before you start, you are given intensive training on how to speak with an American accent. They even give you an American persona -- like, your name is Susan, you live just outside of Chicago, you went to Ohio State, etc. Those who are unable to learn to speak with an American accent are typically placed in call centers serving the UK.
It's a premium job over there because it's steady work, good pay, they transport you from your home to the call center and back, and all you need to qualify is the ability to speak, read and write English. (Having technical skills will get you a much hire pay, but is not necessary.)
So if someone has a funky accent, chances are that they aren't located in India.
I personally set specific goals for 1 year and 5 years from now, and think of where I want to be when I'm 50 as a much fuzzier target. But it's important to work backwards from 50.
I also wouldn't strictly narrow this to your career. Your career affects other parts of your life and vice versa. If one of your life goals is to spend years meditating at a Shaolin temple, this *may* impede your ability to become CTO of a major financial institution.
Think of it this way. Imagine you are 50 and looking back on your life. What would have liked to have done? Had children? Travelled? Retired? Built high-quality software that millions of people use? Held various challenging roles? Become CIO? Changed software patent laws? What is important to you? (If age 50 is too abstract for you -- it's too abstract for me -- bring that age down to 40 or wherever you can really picture yourself.)
Then think backwards; in order to acheive those goals by age 50, what will you have to do? Save money? Go back to school? Gain experience in managing people? Learn more about business?
Then try to figure out how you can go about gaining those things that you need to acheive your goals. Instantly, you have a plan.
It's like programming -- come up with general requirements, figure out a design that acheives those requirements, and then figure out the implementation.
But remember to be flexible. Your requirements (and hence goals) will change -- I made a sudden switch from coding to marketing last year. All my career goals have changed. But at this stage, I enjoy this more.
This is a time-consuming process which must be reviewed constantly. If your not happy with what your doing, then it may be time to review your goals. If you look at the more senior poeple around you and think "I never want to do what these people do" you may not be on right career path you want to be on.
People change careers (not just jobs, careers) frequently these days. I know a salesperson who used to be a programmer, a tech writer who just quit for teachers college, a forensic psychologist who is a fantastic C++ programmer, a research chemist who became a professional trainer. Goals are important to have in order to acheive what you want, but what you want will change.
Slashdot Mirror
Our privacy laws (which are fairly new) were modelled after the privacy standards in the EU. And from interviews, letters and everything I've seen, our privacy commissioner is great spokesperson for individual privacy rights in Canada.
Specifically, thanks to a law that he pushed through, this statement in the letter (among others) would be illegal: You do not have the right to opt out of the disclosure of this information...
What were they saying about Soviet Canuckistan?
The company where I work occaisionally allows the source to burned to a CD to by held by the purchaser (NOT a 3rd party) for escrow purposes only. It's worked fine for us. I work on a very small product line for a very small company with some very large clients; they primarily want the source because they worry about this product disappearing. Unfortunately, I can't provide you with a copy of such an agreement -- I don't have one.
On the other hand, you sound like you you want to do is sell source code that your customer can actively use it, but still maintain maintenance fees. I'd look at SLAs for commercial components as an example -- some will sell source. One example (for JClass Java components) is here.
Personally, I'd recommend going the escrow route, and perform modifications for the customer for an additional fee as required -- it would be extremely difficult from a technical point of view to support software that has been modified by 3rd parties who may not fully understand the side-effects of their changes. It sounds like your customer primarily wants security; escrow can provide that.
I'd also bet that Tivo doesn't have a "Terrorist" tag...
True, and I don't think the profiling data is centrally stored either. (But I don't have a Tivo, so I wouldn't know.)
However, can you imagine the kind of bad assumptions some people might make if they knew someone regularly watched "The Quaran Today" and other Muslim religious programming?
The information war is already in progress, and it's the one that is convincing the unwashed masses (and even some of the washed masses) that there is an immenent threat of warfare because Would-Be-Emperor Bush wants to bomb things.
This is the same war that allows Bush to made grand sweeping claims about the proof he has, but without showing it to anyone -- including the other countries who he wants to join in on his war. The (mis)information war has been in progress for a long time now, and the enemy is winning.
The war is in progress folks. Would the subversives in the room focus their attention here?
I've since moved out of coding, but back in school we used to collaborate (really collaborate -- not copy) frequently on assignments. There was this one guy who invariably dragged the rest of us into these annoying conversations about the stupidest things. Nice guy, good coder, but the best way for me to work with him was to lock him in a separate room, disable talk and msg, and only respond to his emails once per hour.
During our OS course -- our most brutal required course -- I specifically avoided this guy by finding my partner a few months in advance. After working out the design together, my OS partner and I would start off working on separate pieces, but eventually, we'd end up pair-programming. This was incredibly effective for us. With both of us on one computer, we actually wasted LESS time co-ordinating with each other, since we understood each other's pieces better, could integrate code faster, and we made fewer dumb errors because there was always someone to look out for them. While we might do the grunt coding separately, the tricky parts and the nasty debugging always ended up in being completed in a pair.
Mind you, though I couldn't work with the first guy, other people I knew could do so effectively.
The point is that pair programming doesn't work for every pair of people. When you have a good pair, it rocks. When you don't, it bites. You not only have to respect each other's skills, you also have to have complentary working styles and thinking styles. In my pair, I was better at high-level design and creating test cases, while my partner was better at hammering out the implementation details and diagnosing bugs.
If I ever went back to coding, I'd want to do it in pairs -- so long as I could respect my partner.
So what you're saying is, you want us to help you collect all this data and then not share it? I'm not saying you should share it, but if you're asking me to help you do something for your own personal interest, I'd like something out of it. ;-)
You may have some difficulty with the Fortune 500. As many of these companies are not tech industry companies, having a public stance on Open Source is irrelevant -- even if it's going on.
However, you could also check:
Instead of the Fortune 500, though, I might focus on the Fortunre e50. These are the biggest tech companies, and are more likely to be aware of, have an influence on, and be working with Open Source. Companies in other industries may have huge tech departments, but their core business isn't tech -- so Open Source is not necessarily something they think about, so they're less likely to have a specific view on Open Source. Tech companies generally will.
I'm a geek gone marketing and I deal with a lot of sales reps from the other side. Here's some perspective.
At our company (especially now with the market so tough) the sales managers grill the sales people on the exact status of every single account. In turn, the executives and the product managers grill the managers on every deal over a particular size. We do this so that we can figure out as early as possible if we're going to make our numbers or not -- and if not, this helps us figure out what we can do about it.
Salespeople make at least half their salary on commission, and are held to strict quotas. They have to commit to specific accounts (known as the black art of sales forecasting) that they will bring in by the end of quarter. If they don't bring in an account they've forecasted, there will be (minimum) 4-5 senior people on their ass demanding why. (And note that they people they have to convince aren't ususally technical, so your reason for not needing the hardware isn't usually good enough for the managers) If they can't convince the senior managers, and if they aren't meeting their quota -- fired. That's a lot of pressure.
This particular rep may have handled the situation badly, but he's being this nosy because his job depends on being able to justify why he could not convince you to buy the server hardware.
... under PIPEDA. (http://www.privcom.gc.ca/).
By law, federal companies have to make you aware and get your consent in order to obtain any personal information from you that is not required for the business transaction. (Provincial companies will have to start doing this as of 2004.) They must also tell you what they are using the information for, tell you exactly what information they have on you, and allow you to revoke consent at any time. There is still some fuzziness around whether this must be opt-in or opt-out, but they do need to make their privacy policies clear up front, as well as give you contact information for their privacy officer so that you can report abuse. (And they must look into all reports in a timely manner.)
You probably will not get money for this, but you could effect change in their practices to make them comply. (The privacy commissioner invokes legal action as a last resort.)
Of course, that's just in Canada.
Actually, if you're doing an internal or extra-net application (that is, you're distributing in a corporate environment, not an ISV) then you actually want to use DeployDirector by Sitraka.
The apps deployed with it do not have to run in a sandbox, which is a benefit if your users consider you a trusted souce (i.e., internal IT group). It's not free, but it's really good.
It's got some great administration/management capability as well -- far superior to WebStart, which has NO such capabilities.
Incidentally, Java Web Start is still really rough. (I've played around with a few Java deployment technologies, and JWS is the crappiest -- but then again, it's just the reference implemenation.)
There's evidence to back this up.
The American Association of University Women did some extensive research into why girls don't tend to get into computers -- and one of the things they studied were games.
And they found that the typical computer game (Go Forth and Shoot Things) did not appeal girls because they generally found them boring and repetitive. ("Oh look. Yet another game where you make things explode. Been there, done that. YAWN.")
Games ostensibly designed for girls (Talk, Shop and Be Popular!) also didn't appeal to girls because they generally found them inane and dumb.
Games like Myst, however, which was more goal-oriented and focused on problem solving, were a huge hit with girls. (Note that games that girls would tend to enjoy would also appeal to boys.) That is, girls like games that make them THINK, not mindlessly shoot things.
I'm female, and it irks me to know end when the knee-jerk suggestion for a "Game for Girls" is something like "Chat with the Computer". Here's a clue -- why would any woman chat with a computer when there are REAL, LIVE people to talk to?
1. Keep it to remember your Grandfather. Probably the best option (I wouldn't sell an heirloom).
2. Donate it to a local museum. They'll appreciate the gift, and it'll be enjoyed by many others over the years. You can still remember you Grandfather if it's in a museum, take the kids in and tell them "That's Granddad's meteorite" (and show them the rest of the place while they're there).
I know next to nothing about this (but this is ./ so why should that stop me?) but I think there is a way for you to combine these two options. I believe you can maintain ownership of this but have it displayed/studied in a museum -- as I recall, this is sometimes the case with artwork, so it may apply to this as well.
Probably the best people to talk to about how to go about this are museum curators and/or researchers/professors. Or talk to the appraiser about what your possible next steps are -- they will probably have more relevant experience.
I don't use Opera. So if I need to hold a mouse button and move my mouse,then how in the heck would I select text for cut-n-paste?
I do use Opera, and to go back, you hold down the right mouse button and drag left. (The section you quote does not make that clear.) Alternatively -- and this is better for trackball users -- you could hold down the right mouse button and click the left button once to go back. Essentially, Opera takes advantage of relatively easy but unused mouse motions to implement gestures. You can still select text for cut'n'paste, and right-click to access context-sensitive menus.
The gestural back and forward is great for web browsing. I find it much faster than the keyboard, since when I'm browsing, I almost always have my hand on or near my mouse, but I'm not always poised and ready to type. (Plus I type slow.)
Personally, I'd like gestures to be more configurable. I think Opera's gone a little overboard on creating some of these, so occasionally, I end up doing something like closing a window when I really wanted to open a new one. I'd like to be able to selectively disable the gestures I don't use -- presently, it's all or nothing. (At least in the version I'm using anyway.)
Project Manager: Is the flaw easy to find?
Programmer: Not by your average user, but by someone looking yes.
Respond with a different answer. Multiple choice time.
Question: Is the flaw easy to find?
Answer 1: Yes.
Answer 2: For a hacker, yes.
Answer 3: For anyone who intends to harm our systems, yes.
Answer 4: For someone who uses this with malicious intent, yes.
Answer 5: Anyone who wants to harm our systems will find this.
If the project managers pushes for details about the average user, then you can patiently explain that average users isn't the issue to begin with. It's malicious users who are the problem because they are trying to find flaws, and this flaw will soon be obvious to them.
If you don't want the project manager to pick the cheapest and easiest way out, don't start out by giving them a cheap and easy way out.
Your project manager is probably getting their quarterly bonus based on how fast and how cheap they can get this project out the door. If you have a significant concern about security, don't automatically give them a justification for saving time and money in the short-run by ignoring it.
In the example you provide, you do this by immediately making it seem like the the probability of bad things happening is really low. Remember, when the shit hits the fan and the developer got strung up for bad security, it's because the developer made it easy for the PM to ignore security. Make a big fuss about it -- even if it gets ignored, you've at least covered your ass by voicing your concerns loudly.
I have a double major in CS and English Writing. I've found this to be a huge advantage because my writing degree is proof of strong written communication skills. Plus, the fact that it's an unusual combination helps me stand out a little. When I decided to switch from CS-type work into a more business-oriented role, it showed both my ability to learn technical and non-technical subjects.
My (uninformed) opinion is that CS and Math will probably only give you an edge if you take a CS job that requires heavy mathematical skills.
However, if you enjoy your math courses and you want the extra degree, I don't see how it could hurt you. I could have just taken an English minor and saved myself a lot of stress, but I like having earned the extra degree.
I work full time and I'm completing my second degree part-time. (My first degree was as a full-time student.) Once that is done I intend to obtain a Masters part-time as well. Clearly, I like school.
Last semester I was taking 2 courses part-time, planning my wedding, working 60+ hours a week F/T and house-hunting. It was a crazy schedule to begin with, and then when you add a psycho I had to work with and my parents driving me nuts over the wedding plans and 0 vacation time (saving it up for the honeymoon) and I nearly went insane.
I still got through it, sanity intact, so here's what you need.
Determination and Motivation.
You've said before that you've tried out school and then quit. You have to really want to do this. When everything gets hectic and crazy, the thought of quitting may look appealing. After all, in University, you're paying to work really hard -- at work, it's the other way around. Plus, when your livelihood demands more time then usual, it can be hard to push that aside to do an assignment, or keep up with the reading.
But I really love what I'm studying, and even the required non-major courses (some of which I never thought I'd enjoy) appeal to me, so the idea of quitting school never crossed my mind. (Quitting work, on the other hand...) And because I enjoy it, it's easier for me to make time for school.
Discipline.
So imagine you finish work-work for the day, and you're exhausted, and the last thing you want to do is read a textbook. Will you put it off until the next day? Procrastination is a slippery slope -- when you're tired, it's so easy to put things off, and then suddenly, you're pulling all-nighters. Now for me, all-nighters are usually very productive, but pulling too many of those is increasingly draining as you get older. It's only been 6 years since I was a F/T frosh, and already I can't sustain the same low-sleep schedule that I could then. Now I have to force myself to do things on a regular and sane schedule, get enough sleep, eat properly -- all these things help.
You've been able to start and succeed at your own business, which says that you probably have all of these within you. But the big question for you to answer is -- are you willing to apply the same determination, motivation and discipline to school?
I'm a developer gone marketing minion, so let me offer some semi-informed advice. From what I've read, it sounds like you've gone at this a bit backwards. Product marketing starts before you build software, not after. It's part of the process for developing your requirements -- finding out about your users. (Yes, I know. Here on slashdot marketing == advertising. Not so.)
I've read in one of your comments that you tried selling to larger software companies, which is an excellent idea. Unfortunately, companies don't tend to want to buy products unless they have an established market already -- basically, unless they've proven themselves. It's risk mitigation. Even if they're building it themselves, they won't invest in you unless you can prove that your solution has an established market. I'm dealing with the exact same situation for one of the product lines at my company -- trying to make money by aiming to sell the technology is a very risky strategy. When it works out, it's great, but don't count on it.
What you need to do -- and maybe you've done some of this -- is research your market. Are you selling to home users or businesses? Both is not a good answer -- yes, both could use it, but you don't have the resources to market to both, and both have different needs that you have to account for. What's the level of technical expertise in your market? Where do they learn about new software? Do they download shareware? From where? Did they ever pay for it and why? Do they even perceive spam as a problem? Enough of a problem to spend money on? Have they used tools to help with spam, what are they and what do they like/dislike about them? Are they capable and willing to configure the filters themselves, or do they need something that will do it for them?
The toughest part of this is finding the right people to talk to. And I mean talk. Preferably in person, or on the phone. You want to give your potential end-user the ability to mention things to you that you may not of thought of, or may have assumed differently about them. Doing this will require some creativity. Without knowing more about who you're aiming at, it's hard to give suggestions as to how to do this. The more people you can talk with, the better. One person is a market, but not a very profitable one.
Don't try to be everything to everyone. It's expensive to develop that way, and nearly impossible to market that way. You may have a small technological niche, but you should also have a very targeted set of end-users as well.
Once you have the answers to these, you can start figuring out how to take your product to market. If you're aiming at slashdotters, then perhaps open-sourcing the product makes sense. (Nothing against open source, but I don't think that's your best option.) If your aiming a specific set of home users, where do they get their software from? Perhaps you can uncover particular publishers that way, or improve your listing on sites like tucows or cnet, or wherever. Perhaps you'll find that your target end-users don't even see spam as a problem -- so you'll either have to dump the product, find a different market and re-tune, or start making them more aware of the issue.
Developers, myself included, tend to ignore the sales side of business. Good technology seems like it should sell itself. But it doesn't.
Best of luck.
is here.
Friend of mine pointed me to this one a while back... There's 2 more in the series, but this is my favourite.
It's quite possible to end up with differing prices where there are different ways of reaching the same goal. Sometimes an inobvious method can simply be cheaper or quicker than the obvious. e.g. the cheapest way to transport a locomotive can be by road, rather than rail.
True, and an excellent point.
But if that's the case, it needs to be made very clear to the potential customer up front as to why this is cheaper. That's part of managing perception. If the price difference is large enough to make the customer ask "Why is this less?" the answer should be very clear, it should sound reasonable -- and that communication must occur quickly. The customer shouldn't have to look for it or ask you or try and figure it out.
A good way to do this is to pitch why you're typcially cheaper BEFORE they get the proposal, because then the difference isn't a surprise, and they have the answer before they even need ask the questions.
You see this kind of thing a lot in ads for discount places "Why are our prices so low? Because unlike traditional merchandisers, we buy direct from the manufacturers, cutting out the middleman and pass on those savings to you!" (Note this is not necessarily the best way to do this -- it's just common.)
I would think that this would be difficult to do for this type of independant consulting. The customer is probably not techincal, and so they probably wouldn't know what's technically simple (and therefore cheap) and what's technically complex (and therefore expensive). It makes it very difficult to quickly justify why the poster's service is faster/cheaper and yet the same quality as the more expensive one.
The poster might be better off by positioning themselves around things other than "Same work, costs less" like (this is off the top of my head -- not necessarily quality ideas) "I follow standards, saving you money in the long-run by NOT being locked into proprietary formats" or "I work with your environment, allowing you to leverage your current investment" or "I train your people so you can maintain this yourself" or something like that.
However, in the absense of a solid-sounding (to the customer) reason as to why the poster's service is just as good but 3 times cheaper, raising the price to the market rate will probably help them appear just as good as the competitor.
Assuming that this reason they gave is the real reason, you're looking at the whole situation backwards.
You see the competitor's price, and you think "Why is this 3 times more?" The client saw your price and thought "Why is this 3 times less?" If the client sought other bids were closer to the 15K mark, then your price would really stand out as unusually (and perhaps suspiciously) low. (Conversely, if all the other bids were closer to the 5K mark, then the 15K would stand out as unusually high.)
You need to revise your pricing model to better suit the market rate. (I'm an ex-coder gone marketing -- I speak with some knowledge here.) Pricing is sort of the black art of product marketing; it's very difficult to know when you have it right, and there never seems to be a logical way of getting to that figure.
Going far above or below your competitors often puts you in a different market segment, even if the end-result is the same. It may seem bizarre and illogical to you, but unusual differences will raise questions in your client's mind -- you want to make sure that the simplest answer is in your favour.
Good marketing is not about advertising, but about managing customer perceptions (key word: perception) consistantly in everything you do. That includes your product/service, your price, your website, your professional manner, your support -- everything that the customer may see or interact with. All of these must be consistent with each other.
Check out Postioning and Marketing Warfare by Al Ries and Jack Trout to get a better understanding of how to market yourself.
I have heard -- don't recall from where, though -- that EA has future version of it's games already developed, but unreleased because they're waiting for the target hardware to become readily available. (Perhaps this was is an older practice, though.) Certainly, I would think that fast-action video games would be easier to QA on slightly slow hardware.
I think it's actually be the video card manufacturers and the games manufacturers working together -- these to market sectors drive each other, so it would make sense that they ensure their own future viability by working together.
That was pretty much my reaction. It's primarily (though not entirely) gamers who require the soup'ed up PCs.
Since switching from coding to the business side of things, my computer at work is pretty much used for email, web-browsing and word-processing. MS Word doesn't run noticibly faster on my PIII work than on PII-266 desktop at home, nor my on my previous Pentium-90 home laptop. My typing speed just isn't getting any faster.
Sure, a massive pivot-table in Excel can chew a lot of CPU-cycles sometimes, but overall my business use and most of my home use is mostly I/O-bound applications. (My computer is largely a typewriter and an email client.) I don't play games, so the tiny bit image manipulation and coding I do at home doesn't justify a anything more powerful.
It's been 6 years since I bought my home computer, and so far the only upgrade I've needed (a larger hard-drive and a little more RAM) was for WinAmp and my MP3 collection.
Arbitrary commands run by strangers if I don't,
Arbitrary commards run by Microsoft if I do.
If only more sites complied with standards, I could dismiss MS entirely for Opera.
First, note that not every distance degree screams "DISTANCE." I went to the University of Waterloo on-campus for one of my Bacholer's degrees, and am completing my second Bacholer's via UW's Distance Ed program. Degrees completed by UW's distance ed. program simply say "University of Waterloo".
Personally, I feel I learn more on-campus than through distance. On-campus learning allows a lot more room for discussion (with the prof and with other students) which I find very valuable. Plus, because on-campus classes require me to be in class at set times, I find it a lot easier to keep attending and keep up with the material.
Distance Ed is a lot more flexible, but this can be dangerous if you procrastinate. It's much harder to stay on top of all the material when it's completely up to you to do so. However, if you get through that, you can turn it into an advantage during interviews -- it's a great example of self-motivation, independant work, perserverance and organization.
Actually, a funky accent is unlikely if the call center is in India.
Depending on the language-medium of the schools they went to, (English, Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, etc.) many Indians speak English with a British accent. These are more desireable candidates for call center jobs.
My cousin in India was offered one of these jobs after completing her BComm. Before you start, you are given intensive training on how to speak with an American accent. They even give you an American persona -- like, your name is Susan, you live just outside of Chicago, you went to Ohio State, etc. Those who are unable to learn to speak with an American accent are typically placed in call centers serving the UK.
It's a premium job over there because it's steady work, good pay, they transport you from your home to the call center and back, and all you need to qualify is the ability to speak, read and write English. (Having technical skills will get you a much hire pay, but is not necessary.)
So if someone has a funky accent, chances are that they aren't located in India.
I personally set specific goals for 1 year and 5 years from now, and think of where I want to be when I'm 50 as a much fuzzier target. But it's important to work backwards from 50.
I also wouldn't strictly narrow this to your career. Your career affects other parts of your life and vice versa. If one of your life goals is to spend years meditating at a Shaolin temple, this *may* impede your ability to become CTO of a major financial institution.
Think of it this way. Imagine you are 50 and looking back on your life. What would have liked to have done? Had children? Travelled? Retired? Built high-quality software that millions of people use? Held various challenging roles? Become CIO? Changed software patent laws? What is important to you? (If age 50 is too abstract for you -- it's too abstract for me -- bring that age down to 40 or wherever you can really picture yourself.)
Then think backwards; in order to acheive those goals by age 50, what will you have to do? Save money? Go back to school? Gain experience in managing people? Learn more about business?
Then try to figure out how you can go about gaining those things that you need to acheive your goals. Instantly, you have a plan.
It's like programming -- come up with general requirements, figure out a design that acheives those requirements, and then figure out the implementation.
But remember to be flexible. Your requirements (and hence goals) will change -- I made a sudden switch from coding to marketing last year. All my career goals have changed. But at this stage, I enjoy this more.
This is a time-consuming process which must be reviewed constantly. If your not happy with what your doing, then it may be time to review your goals. If you look at the more senior poeple around you and think "I never want to do what these people do" you may not be on right career path you want to be on.
People change careers (not just jobs, careers) frequently these days. I know a salesperson who used to be a programmer, a tech writer who just quit for teachers college, a forensic psychologist who is a fantastic C++ programmer, a research chemist who became a professional trainer. Goals are important to have in order to acheive what you want, but what you want will change.