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It’s been a little while since I’ve published a confession like the rachetingDateObject and the Shopping Cart. Apparently, not many of you were willing to own up to your own curious previsions and submit them non-anonymously.
Fortunately, Matthew Schaad was not afraid to confess his WTFs and shared with us The Non-deleting Deleting.
The life of a legal secretary is a real house of pain. Behind every successful law firm is a legion of secretaries and paralegals that make the entire practice work. When everything goes smoothly, they're practically invisible. When there's a loss of control, they take all the blame.
Tamy was used to it. Working with lawyers, day in and day out, had gotten her used to all sorts of unpleasant things. The lawyers, however, weren't the most unpleasant part of her day. It was a little program called JUMP.
With my road trip to devLink this week, last week's recovery from con flu, and the previous week's GenCon... I'm a bit behind. But that's okay. ITAPPMONROBOT is one of my all-time favorites, and was originally published on December 18, 2007.
At the turn of the 21st century, Initrode Global's server infrastructure began showing cracks. Anyone that had been in the server room could immediately tell that its growth had been organic. Rackmounted servers sat next to recommissioned workstations, with cables barely secured by cable ties. Clearly there had been some effort to clean things up a bit, but whoever put forth that effort gave up halfway through.
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Astah is a comprehensive modeling toolset that works with UML, ERD, DFD and mind mapping models within the same integrated platform. There's both a free trial and a free community edition available. They also put out a pretty unique guide called Zen and The Art of User Requirements that's worth a quick read. New Relic is basically a magical, real-time performance and user monitoring tool that works on virtually any web platform: Java, Ruby, PHP, .net, Python, Ruby on Rails. I'm not sure how it works (magic?), but it's incredibly easy to use and is pretty inexpensive. Remember: performance is a must-have feature! Inedo - the makers of BuildMaster, a new and unique platform that applies the rigor of source control and the discipline of issue tracking to the rest of the application lifecycle. By integrating with numerous best-of-breed development tools, BuildMaster automates and faciliates everything from build management to workflow-driven approvals to database change scripts to production deployments. SoftLayer - serious hosting provider with datacenters in three cities (Dallas, Seattle, DC) that has plans designed to scale from a single, dedicated server to your own virtual data center (complete with racks and all)
And now, back to our regularly scheduled, slightly off-topic program.
The Twenty Year Server Plan (from Christian Riesen)
One day, one of the customers we rarely hear from called with some computer troubles. They were a jeweler, one of those high-end ones where you call ahead for them to open the store to you whenever you feel like it, so I assumed they had top-notch equipped. But this was one of the many experiences that led me to adjust my views more to reality.
Their problem was a cinch: a dodgy network cable that was rolled over with a chair about a million times, and the shielding was actually touching the inner copper wires. As I was wrapping up and running some diagnostics, I noticed their server was being very slow.
Price In Nonsense was originally posted on December 17th, 2007.
Some years ago, Pete, a clever coder, developed an application that tracked commissions for futures trading. Pete had long since left the company, his role now filled by Andy M.
"Scott, is your passport up to date? We've got a big contract in the UK that fits your skillset."
Scott worked for a US-based consulting firm. The company generally didn't do business outside of North America, but a satellite TV company wanted a WAP-based, data-driven application for their set-top boxes. They also had a check with a large number of zeros in it. Scott went to England.
Jul 11
