Ditto with Google off-line maps. 2 months is all you get, then your maps disappear from your phone. Really sucks when you're in the boonies for a couple of months and your map disappears.
Code reviews are worth it, you just need to figure out how to do them so they aren't a pain and are useful. Keep in mind that pair programming is continuous code review, and is a good thing if at least one of the pair is a senior developer. The formal, get in a room, and review all the code since X is a waste of time. My team is fairly small, I have two scrum teams of 5 developers each. For code review, we have version control set up to mail all commit summaries to everyone on the team. One of the duties of the scrum master is to review all commit summaries from both teams, and bring up any problems with the team member. This is generally just a forward of the commit summary to the appropriate developer with comments in the email, and cc to the team. I found this works extremely well and does not interrupt the work flow at all.
I happen to have access to an Omniture account, so I checked their numbers. Omniture says that 100% of the people going to my company's website have Flash installed, and Omniture also says that the internet average is 87.4%. While Adobe's sample size may be large enough to be statistically valid, I think Omniture's sample size is much larger, and therefore, much more accurate.
I interview quite a lot. I used to ask people if they'd worked on open source projects so I could see examples of their code. Not one person I interviewed had contributed to an open source project. So I came up with my own code samples. I picked some code from Sun, an example from one of the O'Reilly books, and one more from the web. I ask candidates to read the code, tell me what it does, and what would they do to make it better. These are short code samples, all three print out on a single sheet of letter-size paper. This simple test takes about half an hour to talk through, and is surprisingly revealing about the skill level and knowledge of the language.
I tried Firefox 3 for a while. It's great for general browsing. There are 2 major downsides, though --
First, it's butt ugly. Installing themes helped some, but not completely.
Second, half of my plugins don't work. I use Firebug, WebDeveloper, and Selenium all the time. Selenium and Webdeveloper don't work yet, and Firebug for FF3 is not yet ready for prime time. I downgraded to FF2 so I can continue to work.
Here's a device from clickykeyboards.com that converts the PS/2 cable to USB. This is not a cheapo PS/2 to USB converter, this thing runs about $20, but is well worth it. I have been using my Model M for years, and ran into the first computers without PS/2 ports about 4 years ago. I struggled with the converters that were available, I got slow key repeats, slow typing, and the occasional wrong character. This thing is perfect, my Model M performance is great with USB now.
I'm one of those "older" people on the internet. I work in the field, and still, it's a struggle for me to keep up with even the guys that work for me, mostly 20- and 30-something people. My daughter met her husband on the internet in a teen chat room about 12 years ago. Things worked out well, as I suspect most meetings on the internet do. People are out to meet people, and the internet is breaking the boundaries. 'Eastern Standard Tribe' is just a convenience, if you really connect with someone across the globe, time really isn't an issue. The bigger fear for me is 'Childhood's End', the kids are out-pacing their parents to the extend the singularity will come from people, with the aid computers.
"This study did not set out to compare the TCO of Linux directly against the TCO of Windows, but concentrated primarily on management effort in the Linux environment, particularly where sophisticated management tools were in use. Where the data is available, however, the analysis highlights general comparisons between the two environments."
The study did a good job of what it set out to do. It did not set out to be a TCO comparison, and is not a TCO comparison other than in an anecdotal/general sense. It looks to me that the article against the study "missed" (ignored?) that key point, which seems odd since he was able to find a number of nits.
Slashdot Mirror
Ditto with Google off-line maps. 2 months is all you get, then your maps disappear from your phone. Really sucks when you're in the boonies for a couple of months and your map disappears.
Do you *really* think that's air you're breathing?
Code reviews are worth it, you just need to figure out how to do them so they aren't a pain and are useful. Keep in mind that pair programming is continuous code review, and is a good thing if at least one of the pair is a senior developer. The formal, get in a room, and review all the code since X is a waste of time. My team is fairly small, I have two scrum teams of 5 developers each. For code review, we have version control set up to mail all commit summaries to everyone on the team. One of the duties of the scrum master is to review all commit summaries from both teams, and bring up any problems with the team member. This is generally just a forward of the commit summary to the appropriate developer with comments in the email, and cc to the team. I found this works extremely well and does not interrupt the work flow at all.
I happen to have access to an Omniture account, so I checked their numbers. Omniture says that 100% of the people going to my company's website have Flash installed, and Omniture also says that the internet average is 87.4%. While Adobe's sample size may be large enough to be statistically valid, I think Omniture's sample size is much larger, and therefore, much more accurate.
I interview quite a lot. I used to ask people if they'd worked on open source projects so I could see examples of their code. Not one person I interviewed had contributed to an open source project. So I came up with my own code samples. I picked some code from Sun, an example from one of the O'Reilly books, and one more from the web. I ask candidates to read the code, tell me what it does, and what would they do to make it better. These are short code samples, all three print out on a single sheet of letter-size paper. This simple test takes about half an hour to talk through, and is surprisingly revealing about the skill level and knowledge of the language.
I tried Firefox 3 for a while. It's great for general browsing. There are 2 major downsides, though --
First, it's butt ugly. Installing themes helped some, but not completely.
Second, half of my plugins don't work. I use Firebug, WebDeveloper, and Selenium all the time. Selenium and Webdeveloper don't work yet, and Firebug for FF3 is not yet ready for prime time. I downgraded to FF2 so I can continue to work.
eh hem... it's actually redtube.com...
Here's a device from clickykeyboards.com that converts the PS/2 cable to USB. This is not a cheapo PS/2 to USB converter, this thing runs about $20, but is well worth it. I have been using my Model M for years, and ran into the first computers without PS/2 ports about 4 years ago. I struggled with the converters that were available, I got slow key repeats, slow typing, and the occasional wrong character. This thing is perfect, my Model M performance is great with USB now.
http://www.clickykeyboards.com/index.cfm/fa/items.home/parentcat/11298/subcatid/0/id/131781
My only regret is the cost, I'd like to buy 3 or 4 more...
I'm one of those "older" people on the internet. I work in the field, and still, it's a struggle for me to keep up with even the guys that work for me, mostly 20- and 30-something people. My daughter met her husband on the internet in a teen chat room about 12 years ago. Things worked out well, as I suspect most meetings on the internet do. People are out to meet people, and the internet is breaking the boundaries. 'Eastern Standard Tribe' is just a convenience, if you really connect with someone across the globe, time really isn't an issue. The bigger fear for me is 'Childhood's End', the kids are out-pacing their parents to the extend the singularity will come from people, with the aid computers.
From the study:
"This study did not set out to compare the TCO of Linux directly against the TCO of Windows, but concentrated primarily on management effort in the Linux environment, particularly where sophisticated management tools were in use. Where the data is available, however, the analysis highlights general comparisons between the two environments."
The study did a good job of what it set out to do. It did not set out to be a TCO comparison, and is not a TCO comparison other than in an anecdotal/general sense. It looks to me that the article against the study "missed" (ignored?) that key point, which seems odd since he was able to find a number of nits.