One advantage of being on the product / project management side is that you'll have more job security if you've got good people skills. It's very easy to offshore dev jobs, but much harder to offshore the product or project management roles.
If you really want to code, why not work on an app or open source dev project on the side? Keep your day job, but do something else on the weekends and evenings until you're sure that you want to make the switch and have the skills to carry it through.
What'll be interesting to me is what, if anything, Fox News has to say about this offshoring. I suspect that if one of the other media companies would do the same thing, there would be considerable outrage. In the case of one's parent company, well...
I saw these at GenCon last year. They are really well made and designed in general though more geared towards RPG play than boardgame or mini play. Pricey, but they are meant to be furniture equal to your nice dining room furniture, not a 2x4 gaming table. The lower surface may require people to reach a bit much though, and I would have liked to have tried one in action.
The slat covers could cause a problem with spilled drinks leaking onto the surface below.
The Kindle does support the Mobipocket format. Docs in that format can be distributed freely and without copy protection. The tools are available for free.
A better analogue is the iPod and the iTunes Store. The iPod became the dominant mp3 player not because it supported proprietary and non proprietary formats. It became successful because it made the process of acquiring and transferring content (ripped and purchased) seamless and easy. The Kindle has something very similar in its ease with which you can purchase books and put them onto your Kindle.
Ummm, most of the interstate system doesn't have guard rails. Sure, there are guard rails in the dangerous or highly populated spots, but most of the network doesn't have guard rails.
The worst has to be the Norton XXXX products. I installed Norton 360 v2 on my laptop as an
"upgrade" to Norton AntiVirus 2007,
and I think that intentionally installing a few viruses and malware would have resulted
in better overall system performance.
Symantec tech support was, of course, useless:
"Sir, you have a virus or malware."
"Yes, I know:
the malware is called Norton 360 since my problems didn't appear until I installed your
product. What I want to know is how to stop Norton 360 from using 100% of both cores
and incessently accessing the DVD drive for no apparent reason."
"Sir, you need to run a scan for virus and malware."
At least I got the damn thing uninstalled and got a refund. Never again...
I think three things need to happen before these things take off (and they eventually will):
1) The price needs to come down. A lot. $400 is just waaaay to much to make these things ubiquitous. Think about attractive one of these might be at $50. It would be hard to resist. 2) Lose the DRM / stop with the proprietary formats. Books, even more so than software, yearn to be free. 3) Major publishers and popular authors need to get on board. Unless the authors who people really want to read are available, the whole exercise is sort of pointless.
Hmmm, sounds like the same arguments that people made about $400 iPods. Those things will never take off....
iPods are a good analogy. The price of the player doesn't have to come down. The DRM doesn't have to go away. But, the cost of the e-books has to be competitive (cheaper) than regular books), the major publishers have to be onboard in a big way, and the e-books have to be easy to get.
Given how well current TSA rules are implemented by the agents,
I expect that there will be considerable confusion at the security
checkpoints.
Hell, I'm a geek, and I'm not sure how many grams of lithium metal are in
my laptop's batteries. How should I expect a nontechnical person be able to size
up a battery and tell which batteries should be allowed and which shouldn't?
And, are they even going to count batteries in cellphones and iPods?
I expect that many spare batteries will simply be seized and tossed in the trash.
Huh? How is this nonsense from the far left? Seems more like standard conspiracy theorist dogma more from an extreme Libertarian angle or even far right "small government, don't control me" nonsense.
iPod is a fad. All fads eventually die. Some have longer legs than others, but they all eventually fade into a sort of background commodity basis if they don't outright die. Usually, you can tell when a fad is about to die when you see the fad and products for it everywhere...
Since I am under NDAs, I will not share much. We found that all three would generally satisfy our minimum technical requirements, but each had different technical strengths and weaknesses beyond those minimum requirements.
A point to keep in mind is that, in all likelihood, economic and relationship aspects should also weigh into your decision. A package which is technically excellent, but prohibitively expensive or from a vendor who is impossible to work with may not be as desirable as one that is technically good, but affordable and from a good vendor.
Do your proper due diligence and examine each package very carefully. You'll start off with a very large list (far beyond what you currently have) because everyone and their brother is claiming to have a BPM package these days. Some are way better than others and some are just cobbled together bits of something else.
You need to know what you want and what you need.
Then, you really should do a proper test by implementing a good prototype in each system with minimal help from each vendor. That's the only way to get some decent idea of how well each might really work. Don't let the vendor implement the prototype since each vendor will have some consultant how can throw up enough smoke and mirrors to do anything.
We started with a list of about 20 different vendors, narrowed it down to 5, and then did prototypes with 3. And, we discovered things which we wouldn't have known if we had just read some magazine or white paper and listened to a vendor's song and dance.
Having these hotels in hub airports would probably make them pretty popular with those who miss connections or have cancelled flights. This fall, I was going through Detroit, and they cancelled my connection with the next one in 8 hrs. Exhausted, and with a toddler in tow (who desperately needed a nap), I gladly plunked down $220 for 7 hrs in a Westin (most expensive nap ever). I would have loved to have had a $70 capsule hotel as an option.
I use Canvas to do almost all of my design and low-mid level prototyping work once I'm past the pencil and paper stage. Canvas is sort of a jack of all trades graphics program that is a cross between Illustrator, Photoshop, and light version of InDesign. Not as capable than any of them individually, but tightly and smoothly integrated. Imports and exports a very wide variety of file formats.
For semi-interactive prototypes, I can output my work in a PDF which can have links so people can click on buttons and be taken to different pages in the PDF (which simulates changes in the UI).
Geez, just get two identical LCD monitors. You can get two good 19" Samsung LCDs for $500 each. Then put the two next to each other with one just slightly behind the other (to minimize the bezel). Then, you have the same setup for less with the advantage that you can split up the monitors down the road if you want. This is the setup that I have, and it works just fine.
Huh? Whoever heard of having rules for a religious war? Geez, what sort of nonsense is that? Did the Emacs vs. VI wars ever have rules? Silly columnist...
Anthro Corporation has some of the best components to make A/V and general computer carts around. You can make a pretty pricey cart, but you can also get by with a reasonably priced cart. The best part is that you can configure the cart exactly the way that you need it. The carts are extremely sturdy and well built.
Look out for their sales. The April sale was 35% off on phone orders
Dundjinni produces some pretty maps, but I hope that you save money for ink cartridges because the maps are full color and will probably make your printer go through ink cartridges very quickly.
I personally use Canvas from ACD Systemsformerly Deneba, since I mostly do deckplans for Traveller. Canvas is wonderfully well suited for doing deckplans, easy to use, and very powerful. But, it's too expensive ($250-$400) for casual use and only practical if you need it professionally (like I do).
SubEthaEdit allows *everyone* to edit the same file at the same time. So, the editing is live and concurrent: while I'm making my changes, I see you making your changes. Wiki allows everyone to edit the same file, but you can't see what everyone else is typing at the same time.
Besides the cost factor, other advantages of portable setups over formal labs include ease of getting test subjects and public relations. Getting test subjects is easier if you go to them vs. having them take time out of their day to come to you. The public relations part has really worked well for us. Suddenly the users, their managers, *and* the people making the buying decisions see that we care enough about them and their business to take the time to go to meet them.
Hardly wasting her time. As much as I like the Vorkosigan series, the series is getting a bit long in the tooth. I think that part of the reason that she is writing the fantasy novels is to avoid having to kill of Aral (which will happen one of these days).
In any case, she writes when someone contracts her to write a novel *or* she has enough saved up to take a chance (which is what happened with the first of the Chalion series).
I'm glad that she is writing in different worlds and bringing her gift for words to them.
Er, you mean like Ron Livingston's character from Officespace?
I actually knew someone like that at one job. Brilliant (in one sense) guy who did his work for the week in a few hours (smart). Then, he spent the rest of the week smoking and reading sci-fi novels on the balcony (not so smart). Enough people eventually complained that he got fired, but it took over a year.
There was a very good talk at the recent UPA conference on this very topic. The speaker, an ex sound engineer, concluded that the best recording devices were MiniDisc recorders when sound quality, media flexibility, portability, size, and cost were all considered. He had high hopes that the new MiniDisc format Hi-MD would improve recording capacity and file transfer speed beyond existing recorders.
The main issue with the IC recorders was with regards to poor recording quality. I know that the local public radio uses MiniDisc recorders for their recording needs.
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One advantage of being on the product / project management side is that you'll have more job security if you've got good people skills. It's very easy to offshore dev jobs, but much harder to offshore the product or project management roles.
If you really want to code, why not work on an app or open source dev project on the side? Keep your day job, but do something else on the weekends and evenings until you're sure that you want to make the switch and have the skills to carry it through.
What'll be interesting to me is what, if anything, Fox News has to say about this offshoring. I suspect that if one of the other media companies would do the same thing, there would be considerable outrage. In the case of one's parent company, well...
I saw these at GenCon last year. They are really well made and designed in general though more geared towards RPG play than boardgame or mini play. Pricey, but they are meant to be furniture equal to your nice dining room furniture, not a 2x4 gaming table. The lower surface may require people to reach a bit much though, and I would have liked to have tried one in action.
The slat covers could cause a problem with spilled drinks leaking onto the surface below.
People still have working intercoms in homes? I thought that those went out in the 70's to early 80's.
A better analogue is the iPod and the iTunes Store. The iPod became the dominant mp3 player not because it supported proprietary and non proprietary formats. It became successful because it made the process of acquiring and transferring content (ripped and purchased) seamless and easy. The Kindle has something very similar in its ease with which you can purchase books and put them onto your Kindle.
Ummm, most of the interstate system doesn't have guard rails. Sure, there are guard rails in the dangerous or highly populated spots, but most of the network doesn't have guard rails.
The worst has to be the Norton XXXX products. I installed Norton 360 v2 on my laptop as an "upgrade" to Norton AntiVirus 2007, and I think that intentionally installing a few viruses and malware would have resulted in better overall system performance.
Symantec tech support was, of course, useless:
"Sir, you have a virus or malware."
"Yes, I know: the malware is called Norton 360 since my problems didn't appear until I installed your product. What I want to know is how to stop Norton 360 from using 100% of both cores and incessently accessing the DVD drive for no apparent reason."
"Sir, you need to run a scan for virus and malware."
At least I got the damn thing uninstalled and got a refund. Never again...
Hmmm, sounds like the same arguments that people made about $400 iPods. Those things will never take off....
iPods are a good analogy. The price of the player doesn't have to come down. The DRM doesn't have to go away. But, the cost of the e-books has to be competitive (cheaper) than regular books), the major publishers have to be onboard in a big way, and the e-books have to be easy to get.
Given how well current TSA rules are implemented by the agents, I expect that there will be considerable confusion at the security checkpoints.
Hell, I'm a geek, and I'm not sure how many grams of lithium metal are in my laptop's batteries. How should I expect a nontechnical person be able to size up a battery and tell which batteries should be allowed and which shouldn't?
And, are they even going to count batteries in cellphones and iPods?
I expect that many spare batteries will simply be seized and tossed in the trash.
Huh? How is this nonsense from the far left? Seems more like standard conspiracy theorist dogma more from an extreme Libertarian angle or even far right "small government, don't control me" nonsense.
iPod is a fad. All fads eventually die. Some have longer legs than others, but they all eventually fade into a sort of background commodity basis if they don't outright die. Usually, you can tell when a fad is about to die when you see the fad and products for it everywhere...
Since I am under NDAs, I will not share much. We found that all three would generally satisfy our minimum technical requirements, but each had different technical strengths and weaknesses beyond those minimum requirements.
A point to keep in mind is that, in all likelihood, economic and relationship aspects should also weigh into your decision. A package which is technically excellent, but prohibitively expensive or from a vendor who is impossible to work with may not be as desirable as one that is technically good, but affordable and from a good vendor.
Do your proper due diligence and examine each package very carefully. You'll start off with a very large list (far beyond what you currently have) because everyone and their brother is claiming to have a BPM package these days. Some are way better than others and some are just cobbled together bits of something else.
You need to know what you want and what you need.
Then, you really should do a proper test by implementing a good prototype in each system with minimal help from each vendor. That's the only way to get some decent idea of how well each might really work. Don't let the vendor implement the prototype since each vendor will have some consultant how can throw up enough smoke and mirrors to do anything.
We started with a list of about 20 different vendors, narrowed it down to 5, and then did prototypes with 3. And, we discovered things which we wouldn't have known if we had just read some magazine or white paper and listened to a vendor's song and dance.
Of course, once the oil turns rancid, things could get interesting as well as smelly...
Having these hotels in hub airports would probably make them pretty popular with those who miss connections or have cancelled flights. This fall, I was going through Detroit, and they cancelled my connection with the next one in 8 hrs. Exhausted, and with a toddler in tow (who desperately needed a nap), I gladly plunked down $220 for 7 hrs in a Westin (most expensive nap ever). I would have loved to have had a $70 capsule hotel as an option.
I use Canvas to do almost all of my design and low-mid level prototyping work once I'm past the pencil and paper stage. Canvas is sort of a jack of all trades graphics program that is a cross between Illustrator, Photoshop, and light version of InDesign. Not as capable than any of them individually, but tightly and smoothly integrated. Imports and exports a very wide variety of file formats.
For semi-interactive prototypes, I can output my work in a PDF which can have links so people can click on buttons and be taken to different pages in the PDF (which simulates changes in the UI).
Geez, just get two identical LCD monitors. You can get two good 19" Samsung LCDs for $500 each. Then put the two next to each other with one just slightly behind the other (to minimize the bezel). Then, you have the same setup for less with the advantage that you can split up the monitors down the road if you want. This is the setup that I have, and it works just fine.
Huh? Whoever heard of having rules for a religious war? Geez, what sort of nonsense is that? Did the Emacs vs. VI wars ever have rules? Silly columnist...
Anthro Corporation has some of the best components to make A/V and general computer carts around. You can make a pretty pricey cart, but you can also get by with a reasonably priced cart. The best part is that you can configure the cart exactly the way that you need it. The carts are extremely sturdy and well built.
Look out for their sales. The April sale was 35% off on phone orders
I personally use Canvas from ACD Systemsformerly Deneba, since I mostly do deckplans for Traveller. Canvas is wonderfully well suited for doing deckplans, easy to use, and very powerful. But, it's too expensive ($250-$400) for casual use and only practical if you need it professionally (like I do).
SubEthaEdit allows *everyone* to edit the same file at the same time. So, the editing is live and concurrent: while I'm making my changes, I see you making your changes. Wiki allows everyone to edit the same file, but you can't see what everyone else is typing at the same time.
Besides the cost factor, other advantages of portable setups over formal labs include ease of getting test subjects and public relations. Getting test subjects is easier if you go to them vs. having them take time out of their day to come to you. The public relations part has really worked well for us. Suddenly the users, their managers, *and* the people making the buying decisions see that we care enough about them and their business to take the time to go to meet them.
In any case, she writes when someone contracts her to write a novel *or* she has enough saved up to take a chance (which is what happened with the first of the Chalion series).
I'm glad that she is writing in different worlds and bringing her gift for words to them.
I actually knew someone like that at one job. Brilliant (in one sense) guy who did his work for the week in a few hours (smart). Then, he spent the rest of the week smoking and reading sci-fi novels on the balcony (not so smart). Enough people eventually complained that he got fired, but it took over a year.
The main issue with the IC recorders was with regards to poor recording quality. I know that the local public radio uses MiniDisc recorders for their recording needs.