IT Readings Log   

Sunday, January 29, 2006

How Could You be a Better Manager?

Interview with "Pam Butterfield, president of Business Success Tools, LLC, a consulting and management coaching company based in Manchester, Conn."

Q: What's the biggest mistake that you see managers making on a regular basis? I think one of the biggest mistakes managers make is that they're not setting aside time to be a manager. When you're not a manager, you're being paid to get work done. When you're a manager, you're getting paid to define the work, to make assignments, to monitor the progress and quality of what's being done, to help people who aren't performing address what the gaps are. A lot of managers are not comfortable giving feedback and receiving feedback. It's easier to
ignore those things.

http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/career/article.php/3579891

Lack of Work/Life Balance Driving Employees Out

I enjoyed this article too much. Unfortunately I find myself in it and I find some of my friends matching this description.

This next article reminds me about something I found in a joke over the internet where some nation was actually milking their cows until they died and they were surprised when the cows died, expecting so much more out of them... well, enough of that.

Read it, it is a must: both employees and employers. It is a long article, but find the time to read it.

http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/career/article.php/3580191

Friday, January 27, 2006

Why Google will falter in 2006

I don't believe this :-), it is just another paid / targeted anti-Google campaign. The author believes he is writing a revealing article, but it is just a simple review of Google's competitors trying to survive to the wave Google generated.

http://money.cnn.com/2005/12/19/technology/google_fortune/index.htm?cnn=yes

Same as this article, the above one talks about potential Google issues. Yeah right, as if I did not see that both articles are written / hosted by CNN website.. and we all know CNN was bought by AOL and .. guess what: AOL is one of the most important competitor for Google, generating partnerships with anyone but Google.

All Java, No Froth: 6 Easy Steps to MVC Web Apps

Interesting article, more like a tutorial, with sample code and details on Java, XML, Servlets, JSP and all that.

Even if written as a tutorial, for a junior in this area, this is just the right thing.

http://www.sitepoint.com/article/java-6-steps-mvc-web-apps

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Managing a Community of Resources

Well documented article on HR Manager Applications, especially IT-oriented Project Management systems that cover everything from the initiation to the testing of projects, but including full project analysis and human resource manager.

It addresses tendencies, news, products and needs.

Read full article here

Re-writing the code

As usual, Joel (Joel on software) has the guts to address sensitive subjects.

There it is something that needs more details in the article... read it first, then think about this: what if the code is indeed a mess? What if an experienced analyst / designer will realize some limitations and the code HAS to be re-written? In this situation, there has to be a clear check list of how to address that, how to start re-writing the code, how to define your framework and all that. Not start from scratch and re-write, just address the wrong parts or, even if rewriting everything, at least allow a progressive change, so partial stable releases can be delivered.... etc.

On the Juno project we spent several months rearchitecting at one point: just
moving things around, cleaning them up, creating base classes that made sense,
and creating sharp interfaces between the modules. But we did it carefully, with
our existing code base, and we didn't introduce new bugs or throw away working
code.

This is a subject to address more: if re-writing code is the decision that cannot be avoided, how do you address that with less pain. But, better take Joel's advice: do not re-write.

Things You Should Never Do, Part I

http://joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html

Friday, January 20, 2006

Should I use SAX or DOM?

SAX (Simple API for XML) vs. DOM (Document Object Model)

Concise article that will initiate you in the specified area - give you a hint about these technologies and when you should use these.

http://developerlife.com/saxvsdom/default.htm

Thx Laur.

Some News

J4P5: Javascript For PHP5 - Running JavaScript at Server Side.
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2006/01/19/j4p5-javascript-for-php5/


Office Live to Boast Web Mail Client?
More news and opinions on Office Live that is being cooked by Microsoft these days
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1912789,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03129TX1K0000610

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Cover Story: Google Maps and ASP.NET

Interested in Google Maps? Want to try using them? Well... if you don't know already, they have Google Maps API availables and also documentation on how to use the APIs.

Here's and article on using these APIs in .NET.

http://dotnet.sys-con.com/read/171162.htm

Encoding/Decoding Web Service: Service Consumer

We are at the beginning of "services" era; web services.

Software will represent soon a "service" and enterprise applications will be based on a group of provided services, organized as needed. Software Applications are already web oriented.
From this point to the next is a small step: software companies providing web services instead of fully functional applications, providing small pieces of "services" that will allow others to put the pieces together fast and build something to fit their needs in a much faster manner and with better quality on the final result. Something like custom software components are these days, but much more than that.

Imagine building an enterprise system for a corporation when you already have a multitude of services to chose from, you just have to organize them right, to meet a specific need.
It is a win-win-win situation: the "service" provider, an IT company will sell that service as a "product", the "service" user, another (or the same) IT company, will have an easyer job to build a customized project for The Client and The Client will probable have something he needs much faster than he has today. I didn't think about the costs of it, though...

Bla bla bla... here we have a technical article for now:

Click for the full article

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Interesting readings on subject: "IT Career"

The Hot Jobs for 2006

Interesting in your IT career? : "Becoming business focused is the main piece of advice for IT professionals"
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/career/article.php/3577401


Never thought of that but somebody else did: "Blogging Your Way Up the Career Ladder"
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/columns/smit/article.php/3577846

Who Are the Dumbest People in the World?

Now, this is not really IT related but I enjoyed reading it.
It also has a clear and very important messge for the marketing-oriented guys.

If you want to build a product and then sell it, read this.

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/48321.html

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Importance of good Web Design

We all know web design can make a difference, but it depends on your targeted visitors. For me, an IT resource, cool web designed websites represents just a resource of new ideas and inspiration for my own projects or reason of entertainment. I am usually looking only for the simple information, text only, presented in such a way that is easy for me to read, eventually having titles, subtitles and underlined keywords so I can browse it if no time to read.

So... even tech resources have their preferences, as I just detailed some of my own. If information is presented the proper way, it will keep me online reading it.

Here's a quote:

One twentieth of a second. That's about how long it takes for a Web site to make a first impression on an Internet user


http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/48310.html

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Writing Software Requirements Specifications

Here is an interesting article about writing quality SRS, mainly wrote for the technical writers, but useful for everybody.

http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/magazine/writing/softwarerequirementspecs.html

And here is a template for this kind of document:

http://www.stcsig.org/mgt/docs/uncspectempl.pdf