Recently learned of a nice way to describe some of the things we see happening at work; people carrying out actions hoping that these will lead to desired outcomes; confusing the necessary condition for a sufficient condition. The term for this "cargo cult management. Search on wikipedia for details.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Innovating through recession
Recently had a chance to attend a talk by AndrewR on this topic. A white paper from the same author is here.
OpenSocial
Need to investigate OpenSocial; the link here seems to be a good place to start. On my todo list.
Editor for Python scripts
Recently have started on Python; using this to do some analysis of the integration and system testing process. A problem that I see here though is with all the indentation rules that Python has especially with respect to the various looping and conditional constructs.
By the way I was using Notepad for writing the scripts; have now downloaded Notepad++. Getting used to this new editor. Why did i select this; well, there were several editors and I just picked the one based on the features.
By the way I was using Notepad for writing the scripts; have now downloaded Notepad++. Getting used to this new editor. Why did i select this; well, there were several editors and I just picked the one based on the features.
Bad behavior at work
One of the things I have been thinking of is the cost of incompatibility at the workplace.
Came across this book "The Cost of Bad Behavior: How Incivility is Damaging Your Business and What to Do About It By Christine Pearson and Christine Porath" . Maybe something to read at some point in the future. I wonder what the authors point of view on this is.
The following is a brief review of the book from cnn
Came across this book "The Cost of Bad Behavior: How Incivility is Damaging Your Business and What to Do About It By Christine Pearson and Christine Porath" . Maybe something to read at some point in the future. I wonder what the authors point of view on this is.
The following is a brief review of the book from cnn
The Talmud says that embarrassing people in public is like spilling their blood, yet it's one of the many forms of emotional homicide that are common in the workplace.
The authors want the killing to stop. They make an earnest case that incivility on the job can wound your company by demoralizing workers and driving off customers. The book even offers a worksheet to help you put a dollar value on the problem.
Don't bother. Workplace nastiness can't do anyone much good, including business owners. Take Pearson and Porath's sensible advice for heading it off and rooting it out. Doing so will make you richer or, at the very least, let you sleep the sleep of the just.Friday, July 10, 2009
Architecture for LinkedIn
Was recently wondering about the architecture of LinkedIn. I guess the current atmosphere with a nearly 10% unemployment rate made me think about it.
More details of the architecture are described in this blog. Links to two presentations also. Thinking of putting my programming skills to the test by creating something similar.
More details of the architecture are described in this blog. Links to two presentations also. Thinking of putting my programming skills to the test by creating something similar.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Sticky ideas
Communication is a very important tool of a successful systems engineer. This is because a systems engineer has to be able to convey his/her ideas to several teams (Prod Mgt, Developers, testers, marketing etc).
Along these lines, recently read a cool book on effective communications. The gist of the book is very nicely summarized here. By the way, the book is available here.
The "stickiness factor" is one of the three rule of epidemics described in The Tipping Point. The other two being "The law of the few" and "The power of context".
Along these lines, recently read a cool book on effective communications. The gist of the book is very nicely summarized here. By the way, the book is available here.
The "stickiness factor" is one of the three rule of epidemics described in The Tipping Point. The other two being "The law of the few" and "The power of context".
MySQL password reset
Had a problem; I wanted to write some Java code leveraging the MySQL installation. But before I did that I just wanted to use MySQL directly.
With this in mind, I tried to fire up MySQL command line client but viola I had forgotten the password. Try as I might, I could not get the right password.
Time to do something. Search the "internets" to figure out how to reset the password. It was not as difficult as I thought it might be. Details given here made it a cinch.
And so now I have a new password which is written down and not just saved in my brain.
By the way, there seems to be good documentation on MySQL here. Also some good hints about database backups here; have to check these out.
With this in mind, I tried to fire up MySQL command line client but viola I had forgotten the password. Try as I might, I could not get the right password.
Time to do something. Search the "internets" to figure out how to reset the password. It was not as difficult as I thought it might be. Details given here made it a cinch.
And so now I have a new password which is written down and not just saved in my brain.
By the way, there seems to be good documentation on MySQL here. Also some good hints about database backups here; have to check these out.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Linux on a Windows machine
Recently had a chance to install Wubi. It makes for such easy installation of ubuntu on a Windows machine.
From Wikipedia "Wubi (Windows-based Ubuntu Installer) is an official Windows-based free software installer for Ubuntu."
A problem though is that I need to reboot the machine to access Ubuntu. And that means all the windows I have open need to be shut down. Virtualization is the answer I guess.
From Wikipedia "Wubi (Windows-based Ubuntu Installer) is an official Windows-based free software installer for Ubuntu."
A problem though is that I need to reboot the machine to access Ubuntu. And that means all the windows I have open need to be shut down. Virtualization is the answer I guess.
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