• On Life and Love

    Know What’s Difficult?

    Crafting a business. Duh, right? I don’t mean writing software on the side while you have a full-time job and dreaming that someday you’ll be your own boss. I mean sitting down with a spreadsheet and some historical data, and projecting real-deal income and expense numbers. Figuring out how to create every penny you need to make something successful and sustainable. Okay, that’s not actually the business itself. Doing the work to make those numbers work is the business. Bookkeeping is the business. Putting fingers to keyboard and phone to ear, day in and day out, is the business. But those numbers are crucial, and your eyes must be open…

  • Uncategorized

    One on One Meetings: How We Do at Big Corp

    One-on-ones. Damn, how do they work? (I swear, that video has provided me with endless amusement.) Go read or re-read the earlier post. Shoo. Several things make one-on-ones rather different here at Big Corp than they were at Skookum: I’m a contractor The “long-term view” is ultimately a question of “How long do we need you?” and “Will I stay that long?” It’s all very amicable and such, but I don’t get things like: company-paid conferences, to attend internal bigwig visits, paid lunches, to meet my boss’s boss, or much internal mobility beyond what I carve out for myself. (Big Corp is very paranoid about contractors thinking they’re employees.) Instead,…

  • On Life and Love

    Weekly Linkage: Web Work Everywhere!

    This week’s internet cruising: A reason to UI test, or “How to fill in the gaps” – "My stance: We unit test the ever-living raccoons out of the app now (thanks in no small part to Jukito). And we do have a UI testing process that was used for major features. While I agreed that we should have more, I was leery that it would make us any more productive. And I doubted it would help us discover any more issues than we already were…" Guide to CSS support in email clients – Articles & Tips … – A nice set of tables covering CSS support in various email clients.…

  • On Life and Love

    Weekly Linkage: Kickin’ It 1995 Style

    This week’s internet cruising: 1995 – I loved me some JNCOs. Playing the ‘playing the racism card’ card – "Most of us don't have to bend over backwards not to be seen as racist because we don't go around saying racist things." Pigeonnier – Bee-yoo-tiful. Jim & Sid’s Tiny Houses – Some of these are so cute! Google: Bing Is Cheating, Copying Our Search Results – "Google has run a sting operation that it says proves Bing has been watching what people search for on Google, the sites they select from Google’s results, then uses that information to improve Bing’s own search listings. Bing doesn’t deny this." Define Gender Gap?…