The Daily WTF, also known as "Worse than Failure" during most of 2007, is a humorous blog dedicated to "Curious Perversions in Information Technology". The blog, run by Alex Papadimoulis, "offers living examples of code that invites the exclamation 'WTF!?'" and "recounts tales of disastrous development, from project management gone spectacularly bad to inexplicable coding choices."
In addition to horror stories, The Daily WTF "serves as a repository of knowledge and discussion forums for inquisitive web designers and developers" and has introduced several anti-patterns, including Softcoding and the Inner-Platform Effect.
“It’s impossible,” Gerald said in a matter-of-fact tone, “simply impossible.”
“Now just so we’re clear,” Craig responded, “by ‘impossible’, you actually mean ‘a big pain in the ass’, but you’re a smart guy who can make it happen, right?” That drew a few chuckles from the handful of other coworkers who joined them in the conference room, but Gerald just sighed.
It's time once again for Share Your Bizarre Email day! mail in or post your favorite emails in the comments. Here's three to get started...
Startups + Marketing + Geekery. From someone who's been there: Jason Cohen, founder of Smart Bear Software.
Most people start their first company while they still have a day job.
It makes sense: You don't need loans or funding and the worst case is you learn something.
Actually, that's not the worst case. Read on to learn how to start a business on the side with maximum success and minimum risk.
We need to unhealthily obsess over our creations. But take this too far and your productivity drops off the cliff.
Exercise increases total productivity.
A little goes a long way. Here's a bunch of advice about how to get started.
Founded in March 2008, Balsamiq Studios creates rich, elegant, high quality plugins for Web Office applications. Balsamiq is a Micro-ISV, which in English means "a tiny software company". We like to compete on usability and customer service.
Our first product is Balsamiq Mockups. Launched in June 2008, Mockups helps software designers and developers build great software by letting them easily sketch out their ideas, then quickly collaborate and iterate over them. Balsamiq Mockups has netted over $800,000 in sales in its first year of business and is gathering rave reviews.
Hi everyone.
We are all heads down making a TON of progress on all areas of our business: the website, the product, the web app, our internal processes…it’s awesome. Now that Mike is on board we seem to have all the skills we need to really go as fast as we want to, with the quality we want. I gotta tell you, it’s exhilarating.
Hi again. Thanks so much everyone for all the nice words following yesterday’s announcement…. we’re all super-excited as well!
In this post we’d like to give you a little glimpse of what Mike joining will mean for you, in the short and medium term.
In the last two months, as Mike gave notice and wrapped up work at his previous job, we’ve been chatting about what he will do at Balsamiq, and have pretty much settled on the following responsibilities, to start with.
The Rapid E-Learning Blog shares practical tips and tricks to help you become a rapid elearning pro.
It is hosted by Tom Kuhlmann who has over 15 years of hands-on experience in the training industry and currently runs the community at Articulate.
People are always asking me about how to get better at building elearning courses. They want to know which books to read, which classes to take, which school to go to, etc. It’s like they’re walking around with these big fat wallets wanting to spend money.
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Contrast is a key part of your course design. In fact, it’s one of the foundational principles in visual design. Many people know the acronym, CRAP (or CARP if you’re an ichthyolatrist) which stands for: contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity. They are the four essential design elements.
Contrast allows you to distinguish the content on the screen. It helps the learner navigate what’s there, discern relationships, and determine what’s most important. There are a lot of ways to create contrast. Let’s look at a few simple examples.
Hopefully, like me, you're here because you're interested in startups -- more specifically, software startups.
I’ve been in the software startup business for a long time. One thing I have found interesting is that amongst first-time software entrepreneurs, certain “patterns” of applications kept recurring. Time and time again, entrepreneurs are tempted by one of these application categories. Not that it’s always a bad thing — I just found it curious.
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I’m going to start with a story — which includes a confession.
When I started my first company, I didn’t start with a grand mission. The idea behind the business wasn’t transformational. It wasn’t going to change the world. Historians weren’t going to write about it after I was dead. And all of that was OK. Even though there was no grand mission — I was solving a problem and meeting a market need that I cared about. Wait, let me clarify that a bit. I cared in the sense that if I didn’t solve it, I was restless. I couldn’t let it go.
My name is Patrick McKenzie. By day, I work at a Japanese computer consultancy. By night, I am the founder and chief bottle washer of Bingo Card Creator, a product aimed at making elementary school teachers’ lives easier. These are my stories. (Sorry, I’m a die-hard Law & Order fan.)
If for some reason you need to get in touch with me, my email address is my-first-name@bingocardcreator.com (alternatively, my-first-name@kalzumeus.com ) . Obviously, you’ll want to replace my-first-name with my actual first name.
Periodically, news of an innovative, goofy, compelling, or compellingly goofy design decision will sweep across the Internets like wildfire. Most recently, this happened with a madlibs-looking lead generation form.
I think it has much to recommend it in the context of lead generation forms (long, arduous monstrosity that you sign up for in the hopes you are [...]
This post is waaaaaaay outside the usual ambit of my blog, as it is at least arguably political and about cultural norms in Silicon Valley. (I’m a sometimes visitor and spiritual resident, but I’ve never lived there.) I’ll be back to software blogging on the weekend if all goes well.
There was a bit of a dustup [...]
Coding Horror is Jeff Atwood's blog. He lives in Berkeley, CA with his wife, two cats, and a whole lot of computers. He was weaned as a software developer on various implementations of Microsoft's BASIC in the 80's, starting with his first microcomputer, the Texas Instruments TI-99/4a. He continued on the PC with Visual Basic 3.0 and Windows 3.1 in the early 90's, although he also spent significant time writing Pascal code in the first versions of Delphi. He is now quite comfortable in VB.NET or C#, despite the evils of case sensitivity. He considers himself a reasonably experienced Windows software developer with a particular interest in the human side of software development, as represented in his recommended developer reading list.
I find it difficult to believe, but the reports keep pouring in via Twitter and email: many candidates who show up for programming job interviews can't program. At all. Consider this recent email from Mike Lin:
The article "Why Can't Programmers... Program?" changed the way I did interviews. I used to lead off by building rapport. That proved to be too time-consuming when, as you mentioned, the vast majority of candidates were simply non-technical.
I apologize for the scarcity of updates lately. There have been two things in the way:
1- Continuing fallout from International Backup Awareness Day, which meant all updates to Coding Horror from that point onward were hand-edited text files. Which, believe me, isn't nearly as sexy as it … uh … doesn't sound.
2- I am presenting and conducting a workshop at Webstock 2010 in New Zealand. This is a two week trip I'm taking with the whole family, including our little buddy Rock Hard Awesome, so the preparations have been more intense than usual.
On top of all that, according to the program, I just found that my presentation involves interpretive dance, too. Man. I wish someone had told me! My moves are so rusty, they've barely improved from Electric Boogaloo. But hey, at least I don't have to sing Andrews Sister songs like poor Brian Fling.
Joel on Software is Joel Spolsky's blog, where he has been writing about software development, management, business, and the Internet (ack) since 2000.
A few people heard me on This Week in Startups (starting at 15:45) asking Jason if we should take money from the first VC who fell into our laps, or spend time doing the Sand Hill Road rounds, meeting more VCs, and doing a road show for the other firms that might be interested in investing.
Jason (and his guest James Segil) both agree that we should take more time picking the right partner. We’re going to be in bed with these guys for years, they say, and we have to approach this like picking a spouse.
In the early days of a technology startup, you tend to have a lot of software developers, and you feel like you could never have enough. If you hire sales and marketing staff too early, they don’t really get much traction, and you may start to think that sales and marketing are a waste of time. This lead me, in the early years, to believe that a healthy software company should have a lot of real software developers and maybe no sales and marketing.
Mr. Shirky divides his time between consulting, teaching, and writing on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies. His consulting practice is focused on the rise of decentralized technologies such as peer-to-peer, web services, and wireless networks that provide alternatives to the wired client/server infrastructure that characterizes the Web. Current clients include Nokia, GBN, the Library of Congress, the Highlands Forum, the Markle Foundation, and the BBC.
[Ed. note: I attended Secretary Clinton's speech on internet freedom on Thursday the 21st, which I thought was a good combination of principle, policy, and illustrative stories. Talking to people afterwards, the commonest question was "What did the Secretary commit the State Department to?" The text below is my attempt to answer that question.
I don't have any inside information about the particulars of the State department's plans; the text below is simply an abridged version of the speech, from which I removed everything except statements you could judge future actions of the State Department on. Stripped of it's context (and with my apologies to the speech writers), my read of the speech is that the success or failure of our internet freedom policy will come down to our ability to live up to the principles outlined below. -clay]
So I get email from a good former student, applying for a job and asking for a recommendation. “Sure”, I say, “Tell me what you think I should say.” I then get a draft letter back in which the student has described their work and fitness for the job in terms so superlative it would make an Assistant Brand Manager blush.
So I write my letter, looking over the student’s self-assessment and toning it down so that it sounds like it’s coming from a person and not a PR department, and send it off. And then, as I get over my annoyance, I realize that, by overstating their abilities, the student has probably gotten the best letter out of me they could have gotten.
Now, can you guess the gender of the student involved?
Jason Calacanis is a successful entrepreneur and journalist blogging at calacanis.com and also sending a newsletter every week.
1. Epic Howard Morgan Interview
2. Invite: Epic SXSW TWiST w/Tony Hseih
3. CRUSHING IT: Open Angel Forum New York and Silicon Valley
4. National Sponsors for Open Angel Forum
5. Google Buzz 30 days later
6. Should you trust Mark Zuckerberg?
7. Questions for you
My personal weblog. No, Rands is not my real name. I use my real name as a full time engineering manager in the Silicon Valley. Yeah, that's me in the logo. I hadn't shaved in some time. My hair is longer now.
There was a fight on the roller hockey rink this morning. Anaheim bumped into Philadelphia at speed and Philly didn't like that so he elbowed Anaheim in the chest -- hard. Anaheim pushed back, shoving Philly into the goal where...
Original postThe Editor and I don't argue, we discuss. We're arguing... discussing over a glass of red wine my concern over our collective attention spans. Not just she and I, but everyone. The whole damned planet.
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First-year internal medicine resident at a big-city hospital. Or not.
I passed one of my patients in the hall. He was on a stretcher, and his wife was wheeling him down the corridor. Alone. I did a double-take. "What's going on?"
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Braid is a platform game in a painterly style where you manipulate the flow of time to solve puzzles.
Ron Carmel (of World of Goo) and I picked the games for these bundles. We wanted the bundles to contain only games that exemplify the indie spirit and that feel unique to play — all these games have a certain je ne sais quoi.
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There’s a teaser site up for the new game:
The Witness
JEFF JARVIS, author of What Would Google Do? (HarperCollins 2009), blogs about media and news at Buzzmachine.com. He is associate professor and director of the interactive journalism program at the City University of New York’s new Graduate School of Journalism. He is consulting editor and a partner at Daylife, a news startup. He writes a new media column for The Guardian and is host of its Media Talk USA podcast. He consults for media companies. Until 2005, he was president and creative director of Advance.net, the online arm of Advance Publications. Prior to that, Jarvis was creator and founding editor of Entertainment Weekly; Sunday editor and associate publisher of the New York Daily News; TV critic for TV Guide and People; a columnist on the San Francisco Examiner; assistant city editor and reporter for the Chicago Tribune; reporter for Chicago Today.
The European, a German online news service, asked me to write a commentary for a debate on paid content. Here it is in German. And here’s the English text:
I have nothing against charging for content, if you can. After all, I’m selling a book.
Just as The New York Times announces its pay wall, Guardian Editor Alan Rusbridger gives an important speech on the topic — indeed, on the very nature of journalism — arguing against pay walls.
Charging, Rusbridger says, “removes you from the way people the world over now connect with each other. You cannot control distribution or create scarcity without becoming isolated from this new networked world.”
In spite of my occasional tirade, I'm actually a fairly nice guy. If I read a book I don't like, I just don't write about it.
However, if I read a book that misinforms, is poorly researched and may harm the readers' businesses, I get angry.
Unfortunately, eBoot Camp falls into the latter category. And I'm... disappointed.
Free Dating Site Blog
I’ve had the pleasure to review lots of profiles in recent months and I absolutely love it when the member uses the pool theme to write their headline.
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Web Security News
One of the other things Jabra and I talked about that worried a lot of people was the fact that Google's Safe Browsing software (built into Firefox and Chrome) could be used to track them.
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Unit Testing, Agile Development, Leadership & .NET - By Roy Osherove
When reviewing tests, there are “easy finds” you can have.
Here’s how I might start search for them
I don't think Apple realizes how badly the App Store approval process
is broken. Or rather, I don't think they realize how much it matters
that it's broken.
The way Apple runs the App Store has harmed their reputation with
programmers more than anything else they've ever done.
Seth Godin is an American author of business books and a popular speaker with appearances at Google, TED and a number of charities. Godin popularized the topic of permission marketing.
There are only two ways to win in the market. You can create a breakthrough. A promotion so powerful that people can't help but engage. An innovation so remarkable, people can't help but talk about it. A pricing strategy or...
Original postIf your business needs money, it seems as though you have two choices: Get a loan from a bank, or Raise equity from an investor, giving up part of your company in exchange.
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Here’s a quote for Warren Buffett - who has been consistently among the few richest people in the world for the past 20 years or so.
“To invest successfully over a lifetime does not require a stratospheric IQ, unusual insights, or inside information. What’s needed is sound intellectual framework for making decisions and to keep emotions from eroding that framework.”
Swaroop C H is 26 years of age. He graduated in B.E. (Computer Science) from PESIT, Bangalore, India. He has previously worked at Yahoo! and Adobe.
“People are good and trustworthy and generally just concerned with getting through the day,” Newmark says. If most people are good and their needs are simple, all you have to do to serve them well is build a minimal infrastructure allowing them to get together and work things out for themselves. Any additional features are almost certainly superfluous and could even be damaging.”
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the techsoomer weblog is written for the: casual consumers of technology; early adopters; entrepreneurs; world-changers; innovative thinkers (...)
“Keep it simple” is an overused, yet under-executed mantra for most. With the abundance of distractions in today’s society, it’s not hard to realize why this is the case.
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Independent analysis of issues and trends in enterprise applications software and the strengths, weaknesses, advantages, and disadvantages of the vendors that provide them.
Over at Computer Economics, we've released our new study, Technology Trends and IT Management Best Practices 2009/2010. It's based on our annual survey, which also produces our IT spending and staffing benchmarks.
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The current focus is inspiration and life path seeking. As my views evolve, so will my message. Latest topics include the marketing of ideas by social networking, and their role in the shaping of the future of internet commerce and socie
There are moments, days or even weeks where my energy level drops a little. I am more apt to choose fanciful mind numbing distractions over in depth analysis and social engagement. Instead of a day long hike followed by research or writing I’ll relax and listen to some music while snacking on something sinfully delicious. I used to fight the urge to slack with every fiber of my being, and force myself to stay active every day and work and even play on a fairly regimented schedule. It’s a fools errand though.
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Pamela Slim is a seasoned coach and writer who helps frustrated employees in corporate jobs break out and start their own business. Her blog, Escape from Cubicle Nation, is one of the top career and marketing blogs on the web. A former corporate manager and entrepreneur herself for more than a decade, she deeply understands the questions and concerns faced by first-time entrepreneurs. Her expertise in personal and business change was developed through many years consulting inside corporations such as Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard and Charles Schwab, where she coached thousands of executives, managers and employees.
Thank you so much to everyone who participated in my brief survey a couple of weeks ago which asked a simple question:
What gets in the way of defining a clear backup strategy and safety net in case your job goes away?
One hundred sixty-seven of you responded, and it was amazing how many people are feeling really paralyzed with fear.
A bit of this, a bit of that and a lot about computers.
This can unleash so much hate mail, but here it goes, my inbox is ready!
Are dynamic languages just a temporary workaround? I’m not sure! I’m switching between the two types of languages all the time: Java, Python, C#, JavaScript. I’ll try to make the long story short.
Seth Godin wrote an interesting blog post titled “Two ways to build trust” in which he says that, to gain someone’s trust, you have to either be very professional, or very human. You are either like Apple: everything just works because they are super professional, or you are Joe the Baker who would make a custom cake for you.
The problem is when you try to be like Apple and stuff doesn’t work or you try to be like Joe and your cake says “Made in China”. I’ve never thought about it consciously, but I’ve felt it, and it makes perfect sense.
