Recent Feature Articles

Nov 2015

Classic WTF: Who Needs Connectivity? I Have Service!

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Today is traditionally the day in which Americans go into debt to sate the appetite of their economy. Let's go back to a simpler time- 2013- with this classic WTF about dial-up Internet service. Originally written by Kirby F.

Jim worked in the IT department of a university and one of his many jobs was maintaining the dial-up system.

Yes, that's right. Dial-up.


The Guru and The Code

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A logistics company isn’t the kind of company that invests heavily in IT, no matter how vital IT is for their business. That’s why Rich spent several years as the only developer. Most of his code was built to pick up data from one siloed turn-key system and dump it into a different one, or to integrate two in-house developed applications. On a bad day, he had to touch up the VBA macros in home-grown Excel spreadsheet someone in accounting had hacked together and had suddenly become “business critical”.

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What a Guru might look like


The Enterprise Axe

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If a piece of software is described in any way, shape or form with the word “enterprise” it’s a piece of garbage.

-Remy’s Law of Enterprise Software

“Enterprise” software products live in an uncomfortable space. They need to fulfill the needs of a business, without being specific to any one business. They’re a one-size fits all solution, and companies like Oracle or SAP compete on their feature-set and the customizability of their inner platform.


Quality Overhaul

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Road-under-construction

"Hey, did you see the email? They're remaking our website!"


Your Recommended Virus

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Stoned-virus-hexacode

In the early 2000s, Fernando was the Network Operations Manager for a wireless ISP known for its comprehensive customer support. They had techs who’d install the necessary gear, and consultants who’d arrive onsite to reconfigure computers, routers, firewalls, and everything else, until the customer was completely up and running. A small team of developers could even custom-build any small software apps a customer might ask for.


Single-User Mode

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It was a common occurrence for Jarosław F.’s brother, Andrzej, to call him for help. Andrzej worked as a data-entry specialist for the Polish Ministry of Employment, while Jarosław was part of the ministry’s IT department and moonlighted as a Python programmer.

One day, Jarosław answered another call from Andrzej. “No sane person can do this job,” Andrzej started. “There just aren’t enough hours in the day.”


Featurette: Puppet Labs

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As we announced a few months back, Puppet Labs is one of our sponsors. As part of that arrangement, I got to go behind the scenes and learn a little bit about how things work at Puppet Labs.

Puppet Logo


Self Service

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Anna’s employer made billing software for energy companies, and they had just entered into an exciting time: the Dutch utility market was loosening its regulations, and that meant a flood of startups were looking for a cheap way to bill their customers. Of course, their product was designed for the US market, not the Dutch market, but the CEO didn’t see that as a problem. “No worries,” he would say, “Anna’s our top notch configurator, and she’ll customize it for you in no time.”

Electrical Hazard (wiring)