To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer - Paul Ehrlich

The quote is too good to be true. Sometimes we are more stupid with this computer thing and complicate situations easily.  The best example I can think of is the miscommunication that happens through back and forth emails.

A common phrase that you might hear when someone gets confused with what’s the driving factor and what’s being driven.  It is applicable in lot of scenarios but when it comes to the software industry the important thing to be understood is that the business is the driver.  Thinking about the evolution of the computers and all the internet fluff the basic understanding that all these are there to solve problems cannot be masked anytime. The business is the driver and technology comes next.  As far as any technology can meet the business problem in a quick effective way it does not matter if it is a leading edge technology or not.  With the current trends in the market the key to being successful is to not to be sticking on to a technology just because it is successful but rather to pick up a technology or combination of those that can not only help in meeting the business problem but quickly deliver it as well. If you are a developer think how flexible you are to switch between technologies if need be. The key to the business is quick to market doesn’t matter what technology it is.  If you are giving more importance to technology then beware you might be putting the cart before horse.

What is it that is on your mind when you are in the office? The project you are working on? Are you tied up to your project? What if this project is over? Another project? Keeps on going right? Have you ever looked at your own organization as a customer? Can you list five things that you have done in the past 6 months that helped your organization in some way? Of course the projects you are working are definitely helping the organization. But what is that you have contributed individually to the organization’s growth?

Allow me to give an example here. Maybe you are an expert in an area. Do you share your knowledge? Are you a person who is hard to replace? On one side you might think you are having an advantage but look at it this way, if you are not replaceable then it is the biggest risk that the company is taking because if something happens to you and you are not there it will take a lot of effort and time to bring someone or few to that spot to run things smoothly. Knowledge sharing and increasing the competency of the team is important for the organization’s growth.  And that can happen if the knowledge flows freely up till the bottom layer.  Are you working just for the project or for the company is a question to always ponder about.

Let’s say that you are working on an application that has some features and you have enabled logging in the system to help capture some exceptions and errors in case if you have to trace the problem.  Let’s say for some reason the logging does not work.  At the same time in one of the screens you have a typo error and there are grammatical mistakes in the messages you are displaying. As a developer how do you prioritize and fix the errors?  The typo and grammatical error might be simpler to fix and the log problem might take time for you to identify where the problem is and then find a solution to fix it.  Now if you decide the priority on the complexity then you might start addressing the log error. But if you really think from the business perspective you will understand that the typo and grammatical error is much critical than the log issue.  The log issue will not stop your system from functioning. And even though the typo and grammatical error is not going to stop the system from running, these are viewed by your customer as critical.  Because end users see it and the presentation, aesthetics and appropriate content of the system are the ones that users will look for rather than knowing the technology that enables it. The point is do not estimate a bug by the simplicity or complexity of how it can be fixed but estimate it based on the business value of it.

PHP Ninja? Interface Hacker? Don’t these words make you think of some sci-fi movie name? I too would have thought the same had not I read this article “Here come the Web 2.0 jobs“. Here is the excerpt from the article that talks about the job titles.

Web 2.0 has also created strange new job titles, like PHP Ninja, or Interface Hacker.

“The job titles are kind of goofy, but they resonate with the type of applicant you’re looking for,” Fried said.

A recruiter looking for a Ninja, he said, is after a programmer who is quick and agile.

“Before, that position might have been called Information Architect. But by giving a fun name, you’re only going to attract the people who get it, and they’re the ones you really want on your team,” Fried said.

I am thinking loud a web 2.0 title for myself.  Any inputs?

“Are you in front of the system? If you are in front of the system I can explain you step by step….. OK first you have to get into the system. Open the browser and type this URL….. OK in the login page you see type the user name as….. And the password is …”

This was a person conversing over his cell phone instructing his team member to access a system. His intention is to help his team member on a problem when he is not there around, but he was at a wrong place instructing him. The above conversation was when our friend was in a grocery shop while standing in the queue for billing and I was standing behind him. One can close his/her eyes and not see something that he/she doesn’t want to but it is almost impossible to close ones ears when the person is in the proximity of others (unless you try wiggling your fingers in the ear and blabber something simultaneously like Jim Carrey). A lot of people these days forget the environment they are in and disclose information not supposed to be let outside. Though we want this world to be ideal world we also know that practically it is not. All it matters is to be conscious of where you are and what you are going to talk about.

In most of the companies one of the primary legal requirements is that both the parties sign a contract called Non-disclosure Agreement (NDA). The purpose is that the information the customer is providing is confidential and should not be disclosed outside of your working environment. This not only includes any documents and mail communication but also by word of mouth outside the premises and sometimes even within the premises outside of your team. Now think of the above scenario and if the organization our friend is in has signed an NDA with the customer, with the information he has already provided anyone could get into the system and get hold of the information.

It is not just the above situation and NDA we are sometimes not even aware that we are exposing certain information in the public that could affect ourselves as well as others. Here is an example that I have seen so many times. Your friend calls you on your cell phone and asks for another friend’s phone number. How do you know that someone is not hearing you and memorizing the number of your friend?

My friend Vivek pointed me to this website Pro:Fx that helps one create a website using flash, online.  I registered myself for a free account and was experimenting with the site.  The power of flash is the richness and the ease of use under one single window.  More than building a site I enjoyed using this site because the whole site is built using flash.

Happy Weekend!

As we are becoming more and more dependent on internet and staying connected 24 hrs a day to it has become so easy we are becoming less dependent on desktop based solutions.  As we move along we would only be requiring a sophisticated hardware and an internet connection, virtually all the software would be somewhere in the world.  What we are talking about is virtual desktop.  The only problem area here would be that if we have a virtual desktop environment where would the data used by the application get stored? If that also resides in some remote location then the question of confidentiality and security at stake comes to picture.  A better option would be to still have the data associated with the application locally and let the applications pick them up. But again when the application is loaded it picks up the data locally and has to process it remote which means it still has a hold on the data and the confidentiality is at a stake.  So there needs to be some kind of a trust policy and security established in the application that is there in the remote.  Anyway virtual desktop will evolve and could be a big talk down the line. One example of virtual desktop that is already available is the eyeOS and Ummu helps you create an environment for you using eyeOS.