Category: Uncategorized

The Case for Slow Programming

Jeffrey Ventrella's avatarEarth...Brains...Technology...Design

My dad used to say, “Slow down, son. You’ll get the job done faster.”

I’ve worked in many high-tech startup companies in the San Francisco Bay area. I am now 52, and I program slowly and thoughtfully. I’m kind of like a designer who writes code; this may become apparent as you read on 🙂

Programming slowly was a problem for me when I recently worked on a project with some young coders who believe in making really fast, small iterative changes to the code. At the job, we were encouraged to work in the same codebase, as if it were a big cauldron of soup, and if we all just kept stirring it continuously and vigorously, a fully-formed thing of wonder would emerge.

It didn’t.

Many of these coders believed in thefallacy that all engineers are fungible, and that no one should be responsible for any particular…

View original post 887 more words

Tech Thoughts Daily Net News – December 17, 2014

Bill Mullins's avatarBill Mullins' Weblog - Tech Thoughts

How to avoid getting hacked when shopping online;  The very best tech you can buy for $200 or less;  Google Reveals 2014’s Top Searches;  Google Maps 9.2 adds navigation voice controls;  50 Best Free iPhone Apps for 2014;  Sway, Microsoft’s new Office app, opens up to everyone;  Facebook Starts Auto-Enhancing Photos;  Instagram Adds Five New Filters;  Skype Translator preview goes live starting today;  Hands On: Preview of HP’s new $200 laptop;  Turn a text message into a video message with Crumbles;  Gmail Now Protects Your Inbox From Malevolent Extensions;  Feds used Adobe Flash to identify Tor users;  Don’t let thieves steal your child’s identity;  Keycharge portable battery fits on a keychain;  Hearthstone finally comes to Android;  You Asked: How Does the Internet Work?

How to avoid getting hacked when shopping online – The hectic shopping season isn’t just about finding perfect gifts…

View original post 4,731 more words

Slice: A Media Player and More

I always like to keep an eye on Kickstarter, it’s a great way of seeing ideas develop, succeed and fail within a crowd environment and away from the more sharky and aggressive ‘investment’ model. Indeed I’ve contributed to a few and it’s been great to help projects reach fruition.

There are more projects than ever now listed so I’d recommend you take the time to look through, and don’t immediately go for the Technology category as there are lots of other cool things on there in Arts, Food and Fashion.

Here’s a project which easily reached their funding target – a media player ‘Slice‘. A nicely presented product, communicated well and made applicable to the audience, it’s no surprise they got the cash they wanted.

See their promo video below:

Reversible USB Plug?

Lots of coverage for the iPhone 6’s reversible USB plug – something that the Guardian say will save the average person 16mins a year. It’s a nice little feature and of course it’s ingenious, but something so relatively trivial is getting way too much attention. Let’s hope it’s a footnote in the main Apple launch presentation.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/aug/18/how-much-time-would-a-reversible-usb-cable-save

Samsung’s Inevitable Decline

Searing analysis here from Stratechery on the recent Samsung results and the drop in earnings.

Most important element for me is around the OS – a standardised OS has many plus points but by its inherent nature it means you can’t fundamentally differentiate the software. Therefore if your competitive advantage in the hardware stakes diminishes then you quickly get pulled back into an indistinguishable group of competing products.

Read more: http://stratechery.com/2014/smartphone-truths-samsungs-inevitable-decline/