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Submission + - Life Skills: Get someone to help you when they've no reason to

Submitted by Esther Schindler
Esther Schindler writes: Imagine you’re on a deadline that’s important to you. The project might not qualify as “mission critical” to the rest of the organization, but it’s certainly essential for your own team. Now you run into a roadblock: a task wherein you need input from someone from another department, or where you need the other person to actively do something.

The process works fine when your contact in the other department is motivated to help you get the work done. But what happens when he isn’t? This happens entirely too often — particularly for developers and IT folks who need input or sign-off of some kind.

In a perfect world, you already built alliances (if not friendships) with people in other departments, so that your colleagues want to help you. But that isn't always the case. What can you do to get someone to help you with a project task even if it's a distraction from his own work? Here's several pragmatic suggestions, including a few that don't include "promise chocolate."

Submission + - Business bartering survival guide: Lessons from real life (itworld.com)

Submitted by Esther Schindler
Esther Schindler writes: Trading your expertise for the skills of someone else is a great idea for cash-strapped businesses — which includes lots of techies, such as web developers and computer consultants. But bartering can go sour – and herein, Esther Schindler shares bartering tips she wishes she hadn’t learned the hard way.

For example:

The casual handshake nature of most barters opens up the chance of every project-gone-bad story occurring in your business, such as finger-pointing about product specs, timetables, etc. As with any contract, if you can point to the agreement (which can be as simple as "here's an email message to record what we agreed upon today; let me know if you see anything untoward"), both sides know what's expected.

Because... what if you're unhappy with the service? In a barter, what if you already consummated your part of the process (you did the tax return) but the other party was substandard (you hated the photographer's images). If you were paying cash, you'd withhold payment or otherwise ask for the other party to fix the problem. With a barter... it's sticky. It shouldn't be, but it is. Particularly when the nature of the delivery is "...when the customer is happy." (Imagine the storyline that begins, "Dammit those photos were just what he asked for!")

Oh, and plenty more.

Submission + - Record Number of Women in Software Development

Submitted by Esther Schindler
Esther Schindler writes: The number of females in software development has increased by 87% since first being measured in 2001, according to Evans Data’s recently released Developer Marketing 2014 survey. In 2014, 19.3% of software developers are women, or approximately three and a half million female software developers worldwide. While today’s number is strong compared to 2001, it is even stronger compared to the years of 2003 to 2009 when the percent of female developers dipped into the single digit range. The survey of over 450 software developers, which is now in its fifteenth year, also shows that today’s female software developers tend to be younger than their male counterparts with just over 40% being under the age of thirty.

As one of those women-in-tech, I gotta say, Huzzah!

Submission + - Tech giants uniting to fund open-source projects

Submitted by Esther Schindler
Esther Schindler writes: The OpenSSL Heartbleed security hole, arguably open-source's biggest security breach ever, made many major technology companies realize just how much they all depend on open source and that such vital projects as OpenSSL need adequate funding. Thus, writes Steven Vaughan-Nichols, the Linux Foundation brought together (take a deep breath, it's a long list) Amazon Web Services, Cisco, Dell, Facebook, Fujitsu, Google, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, NetApp, RackSpace, and VMware to form a new project to fund and support critical elements of the global technology: The Core Infrastructure Initiative.

OpenSSL will be the first project under consideration. In 2013, OpenSSL, which was at the heart of Web security for millions of companies and organizations, got by on a mere $9,000. In past years, OpenSSL has received an average of $2,000 per year in donations.

The CCI funding will pay key developers to devote their efforts to OpenSSL. It will also provide other resources to assist the project in improving its security, enabling outside reviews, and improving responsiveness to patch requests.

Think it'll address some of the issues?

Submission + - Which Buffy the Vampire Slayer Characters are on Your Team?

Submitted by Esther Schindler
Esther Schindler writes: Are you a Buffy, or more of a Xander? Rikki Endsley looks at seven Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters commonly seen on teams and the unique contributions each brings to projects. For instance:

Angel, the handsome and powerful vampire, is the team member who is either a huge asset or a giant liability, depending on his unpredictable mood. The “rock star” team member tends to get a lot of attention and often appears to be a team leader, but in reality he isn’t as productive, reliable, or valuable as his teammates.

Submission + - Evaluating When to Kill a Project: What Criteria Do You Use?

Submitted by Esther Schindler
Esther Schindler writes: It happens to all of us. Sometimes, the right way to fix a project is to cancel it. Making the decision to do so, though, has to be more than a gut response. Whatever the reason – at some point, you have to decide whether to keep plugging along, or to pull the plug.

It's easy to come up with a blasé statement like “I evaluate whether my original project statement will ever be achievable. If I determine that the project cannot meet my goals and objectives, we stop it.” But that assumes you know how to make that determination. Here's some advice on how to calibrate the issues to consider in the “Go/No-Go” decision process, whether the project is something of your own devising (anything from a personal coding project to a novel), or a corporate death march.

For example, "Are you dependent upon resources that are outside your control? If so, can you get them under control?"

And Hugo-award-winning CJ Cherryh points out, it might be that the inspiration isn't there at the moment, but you can set it aside to consider later. She adds, “Never destroy it – for fear it will achieve holy sanctity of ‘might-have-been’ in your memory. Being able to look at it and say, ‘Nope, there was no hope for this one’ is healthy.”

What criteria would you add?

Submission + - Your 58-Word Cloud Vocabulary Test (continuum.net)

Submitted by Esther Schindler
Esther Schindler writes: You think you know the cloud? Test your knowledge against these technical definitions, in a cloud-geek quiz by Tom Henderson. Close answers count, because this isn't Oxford or Webster’s, just a mixture of marketing-speak and geek speak. You’re on your honor. No peeking, and be nice.

So how many did you get right?

Submission + - The Spam Battle Report 2014

Submitted by Esther Schindler
Esther Schindler writes: Like anything else, spam evolves, as do the means by which it gets delivered to your e-mail inbox and the manner in which sysadmins prevent it from doing so. If your thoughts on spam-fighting are a few years old, it's time for an update.

For instance, starting with the good news: According to Kaspersky, in 2013, the proportion of spam in email flows was 70%, which is 2.5 percentage points lower than in 2012. The bad news is that spam that does get through is far more dangerous. According to John Levine, chairman of the Internet Research Task Force's Anti-Spam Research Group and president of the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail, "The ongoing threat is that spam is now essentially 100% criminal, and it's as likely to try to plant bank-account-stealing malware either directly or via links to compromised websites as to sell you something." As one example:

The content of spam is evolving to become more dangerous in new ways. For instance, Nick Gonzalez, a spokesperson for the security company Barracuda Labs, observes, “One new way we’ve seen are campaigns that use embedded Excel spreadsheets. The spammers break the words into individual cells to bypass the anti-spam tools. When viewed in an email it looks like a typical HTML attachment but it’s much more difficult to analyze."

So, here's the current state of the spammy art, and what you ought to know to fight it effectively.

Submission + - Can anyone design a job application platform that doesn't suck?

Submitted by Esther Schindler
Esther Schindler writes: Why does it take a half hour and triplicate-input-redundancy to apply for a job online? Why can’t these online application platforms just pull in LinkedIn data and be done with it? Isn’t it easier for these job application systems to just read our resumes and cover letters? Lisa Vaas has techie and business answers to these questions, hypotheses, and more.

...But half an hour later, I’m still fiddling with the thing, tweaking and correcting improperly filled-in fields as my life slowly drains away. I’m not even given a chance to see how the ATS translated my resume to populate its fields. Vaya con dios and fare thee well, job application.

Just from a user experience viewpoint, it’s irritating. . . .Why can’t these online application platforms pull in LinkedIn data and be done with it? Is all this really necessary to apply for a job? Or is it a Darwinian endurance test to winnow out the impatient and those lacking the ability to put up with horrific user interfaces?

A few questions come to mind: Why can’t somebody just create an ATS that doesn’t suck? Also, Wouldn’t it be easier for them to just read my cover letter and resume?

Submission + - iRobot ships a meeting robot that will attend meetings for you 1

Submitted by Esther Schindler
Esther Schindler writes: Hate meetings? Now you have an out. Just send the Ava 500 remote presence robot to attend meetings for you. Reports Wayne Rash, the autonomous robot will memorize your office, factory or lab space, avoid running into people and objects, and if HR rules require it, will even avoid running over interns. This robot can pretend to be you, it will bear an image of your face (or other body part) on its Cisco remote presence HD screen, and will even speed with your voice. The iRobot people say it will interact with others just as if it were you. You can make presentations, inspect manufacturing facilities and even discuss your blown bracket in the hallways.

I want one.

Submission + - Let's put an end to the cloud-mainframe comparisons (techtarget.com)

Submitted by rsmiller510
rsmiller510 writes: There was an SNL skit in the 1990s with Mike Myers called If it’s not Scottish, it’s crap, and when people mixed up Scotland and Ireland, he would angrily point to a map and say “There’s Ireland! There’s Scotland! There’s the bloody sea! They’re different!” I feel that way when I hear old-school IT pros try to argue that the cloud is just an update of mainframe time-sharing. They're different and it's time we put that argument to rest.

Submission + - Management Lessons from Heinlein

Submitted by Esther Schindler
Esther Schindler writes: Robert Anson Heinlein was an influential science-fiction author who created great page-turning stories, invented a “future history” that was in some ways prescient, and had a major impact on the SF field. But, it turns out, Heinlein’s short stories and novels also have quite a few good pointers for anyone who needs to make things happen.

The most obvious items that spring to your mind, I expect, are from Lazarus Long, such as this one:

Heinlein’s recurring character, Lazarus Long, certainly offers plenty of management advice. In Long’s first appearance in Methusaleh’s Children, in which another character asks what Long expects a meeting resolution to be, he says, “A committee is the only known form of life with a hundred bellies and no brain.” That’s an oft-quoted quip, but too often it leaves off the next line: “But presently somebody with a mind of his own will bulldoze them into accepting his plan. I don’t know what it will be.” It was an important thing for me to learn: The plan that is adopted often is not “the best” but the brain-child of the most persistent communicator.

...but it turns out to be a minor example. See if you agree with these, and what you'd add to the list.

Submission + - How to Tell Your Client That His "Expert" is an Idiot

Submitted by Esther Schindler
Esther Schindler writes: It’s a danger for any consultant, and for most inter-departmental internal project staff: To get the work done, you need to work with someone else who supplies expertise you lack. But when the “expert” turns out to be the wrong person how do you tell the client (or boss) that you just can’t work with that individual? It’s possible to do so, but it does take a deft hand. Here's one set of instructions, but surely there are plenty more you could add.

Submission + - Android can't escape the Pandora's Box of openness (citeworld.com)

Submitted by rsmiller510
rsmiller510 writes: As a large company with a target on its back, Google has to walk a fine line when it comes to Android. That's because when it made Android open source, it left it vulnerable to forking where it could eventually lose control of its own project. It's an issue Oracle has faced in the past and one Google has to be wary of even if as a mature OS, it's more difficult to pull off at scale.

Submission + - The Standards Wars and the Sausage Factory 1

Submitted by Esther Schindler
Esther Schindler writes: We all know how important tech standards are. But the making of them is sometimes a particularly ugly process. Years, millions of dollars, and endless arguments are spent arguing about standards. The reason for our fights aren’t any different from those that drove Edison and Westinghouse: It’s all about who benefits – and profits – from a standard.

As just one example, Steven Vaughan-Nichols details the steps it took to approve a networking standard that everyone, everyone knew was needed: "Take, for example, the long hard road for the now-universal IEEE 802.11n Wi-Fi standard. There was nothing new about the multiple-in, multiple-out (MIMO) and channel-bonding techniques when companies start moving from 802.11g to 802.11n in 2003. Yet it wasn’t until 2009 that the standard became official."

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