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• TechEd Israel 2010 may only accept speakers from sponsors

  - by RoyOsherove

  A month or so ago, Microsoft Israel started sending out emails to its partners and registered event users to “Save the date!” – Micraoft Teched Israel is coming, and it’s going to be this november! “Great news” I thought to myself. I’d been to a couple of the MS teched events, as a speaker and as an attendee, and it was lovely and professionally done. Israel is an amazing place for technology and development and TechEd hosted some big names in the world of MS software. A couple of weeks ago, I was shocked to hear from a couple of people that Microsoft Israel plans to only accept non-MS teched speakers, only from sponsors of the event. That means that according to the amount that you have paid, you get to insert one or more of your own selected speakers as part of teched. I’ve spent the past couple of weeks trying to gather more evidence of this, and have gotten some input from within MS about this information. It looks like that is indeed the case, though no MS rep. was prepared to answer any email I had publicly. If they approach me now I’d be happy to print their response. What does this mean? If this is true, it means that Microsoft Israel is making a grave mistake – They are diluting the quality of the speakers for pure money factors. That means, that as a teched attendee, who paid good money, you might be sitting down to watch nothing more that a bunch of infomercials, or sub-standard speakers – since speakers are no longer selected on quality or interest in their topic. They are turning the conference from a learning event to a commercial driven event They are closing off the stage to the community of speakers who may not be associated with any organization  willing to be a sponsor They are losing speakers (such as myself) who will not want to be part of such an event. (yes – even if my company ends up sponsoring the event, I will not take part in it, Sorry Eli!) They are saying “F&$K you” to the community of MVPs who should be the people to be approached first about technical talks (my guess is many MVPs wouldn’t want to talk at an event driven that way anyway ) I do hope this ends up not being true, but it looks like it is. MS Israel had already done such a thing with the Developer Days event previouly held in Israel – only sponsors were allowed to insert speakers into the event. If this turns out to be true I would urge the MS community in Israel to NOT TAKE PART AT THIS EVENT in any form (attendee, speaker, sponsor or otherwise). by taking part, you will be telling MS Israel it’s OK to piss all over the community that they are quietly suffocating anyway. The MVP case MS Israel has managed to screw the MVP program as well. MS MVPs (I’m one) have had a tough time here in Israel the past couple of years. ever since yosi taguri left the blue badge ranks, there was not real community leader left. Whoever runs things right now has their eyes and minds set elsewhere, with the software MVP community far from mind and heart. No special MVP events (except a couple of small ones this year). No real MVP leadership happens here, with the MVP MEA lead (Ruari) being on a remote line, is not really what’s needed. “MVP? What’s that?” I’m sure many MS Israel employees would say. Exactly my point. Last word I’ve been disappointed by the MS machine for a while now, but their slowness to realize what real community means in the past couple of years really turns me off. Maybe it’s time to move on. Maybe I shouldn’t be chasing people at MS Israel begging for a room to host the Agile Israel user group. Maybe it’s time to say a big bye bye and start looking at a life a bit more disconnected.

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• Inside Red Gate - Experimenting In Public

  - by Simon Cooper

  Over the next few weeks, we'll be performing experiments on SmartAssembly to confirm or refute various hypotheses we have about how people use the product, what is stopping them from using it to its full extent, and what we can change to make it more useful and easier to use. Some of these experiments can be done within the team, some within Red Gate, and some need to be done on external users. External testing Some external testing can be done by standard usability tests and surveys, however, there are some hypotheses that can only be tested by building a version of SmartAssembly with some things in the UI or implementation changed. We'll then be able to look at how the experimental build is used compared to the 'mainline' build, which forms our baseline or control group, and use this data to confirm or refute the relevant hypotheses. However, there are several issues we need to consider before running experiments using separate builds: Ideally, the user wouldn't know they're running an experimental SmartAssembly. We don't want users to use the experimental build like it's an experimental build, we want them to use it like it's the real mainline build. Only then will we get valid, useful, and informative data concerning our hypotheses. There's no point running the experiments if we can't find out what happens after the download. To confirm or refute some of our hypotheses, we need to find out how the tool is used once it is installed. Fortunately, we've applied feature usage reporting to the SmartAssembly codebase itself to provide us with that information. Of course, this then makes the experimental data conditional on the user agreeing to send that data back to us in the first place. Unfortunately, even though this does limit the amount of useful data we'll be getting back, and possibly skew the data, there's not much we can do about this; we don't collect feature usage data without the user's consent. Looks like we'll simply have to live with this. What if the user tries to buy the experiment? This is something that isn't really covered by the Lean Startup book; how do you support users who give you money for an experiment? If the experiment is a new feature, and the user buys a license for SmartAssembly based on that feature, then what do we do if we later decide to pivot & scrap that feature? We've either got to spend time and money bringing that feature up to production quality and into the mainline anyway, or we've got disgruntled customers. Either way is bad. Again, there's not really any good solution to this. Similarly, what if we've removed some features for an experiment and a potential new user downloads the experimental build? (As I said above, there's no indication the build is an experimental build, as we want to see what users really do with it). The crucial feature they need is missing, causing a bad trial experience, a lost potential customer, and a lost chance to help the customer with their problem. Again, this is something not really covered by the Lean Startup book, and something that doesn't have a good solution. So, some tricky issues there, not all of them with nice easy answers. Turns out the practicalities of running Lean Startup experiments are more complicated than they first seem!

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• What Counts For a DBA: Imagination

  - by drsql

  "Imagination…One little spark, of inspiration… is at the heart, of all creation." – From the song "One Little Spark", by the Sherman Brothers I have a confession to make. Despite my great enthusiasm for databases and programming, it occurs to me that every database system I've ever worked on has been, in terms of its inputs and outputs, downright dull. Most have been glorified e-spreadsheets, many replacing manual systems built on actual spreadsheets. I've created a lot of database-driven software whose main job was to "count stuff"; phone calls, web visitors, payments, donations, pieces of equipment and so on. Sometimes, instead of counting stuff, the database recorded values from other stuff, such as data from sensors or networking devices. Yee hah! So how do we, as DBAs, maintain high standards and high spirits when we realize that so much of our work would fail to raise the pulse of even the most easily excitable soul? The answer lies in our imagination. To understand what I mean by this, consider a role that, in terms of its output, offers an extreme counterpoint to that of the DBA: the Disney Imagineer. Their job is to design Disney's Theme Parks, of which I'm a huge fan. To me this has always seemed like a fascinating and exciting job. What must an Imagineer do, every day, to inspire the feats of creativity that are so clearly evident in those spectacular rides and shows? Here, if ever there was one, is a role where "dull moments" must be rare indeed, surely? I wanted to find out, and so parted with a considerable sum of money for my wife and I to have lunch with one; I reasoned that if I found one small way to apply their secrets to my own career, it would be money well spent. Early in the conversation with our Imagineer (Cindy Cote), the job did indeed sound magical. However, as talk turned to management meetings, budget-wrangling and insane deadlines, I came to the strange realization that, in fact, her job was a lot more like mine than I would ever have guessed. Much like databases, all those spectacular Disney rides bring with them a vast array of complex plumbing, lighting, safety features, and all manner of other "boring bits", kept well out of sight of the end user, but vital for creating the desired experience; and, of course, it is these "boring bits" that take up much of the Imagineer's time. Naturally, there is still a vital part of their job that is spent testing out new ideas, putting themselves in the place of a park visitor, from a 9-year-old boy to a 90-year-old grandmother, and trying to imagine what experiences they'd like to have. It is these small, but vital, sparks of imagination and creativity that have the biggest impact. The real feat of a successful Imagineer is clearly to never to lose sight of this fact, in among all the rote tasks. It is the same for a DBA. Not matter how seemingly dull is the task at hand, try to put yourself in the shoes of the end user, and imagine how your input will affect the experience he or she will have with the database you're building, and how that may affect the world beyond the bits stored in your database. Then, despite the inevitable rush to be "done", find time to go the extra mile and hone the design so that it delivers something as close to that imagined experience as you can get. OK, our output still can't and won't reach the same spectacular heights as the "Journey into The Imagination" ride at EPCOT Theme Park in Orlando, where I first heard "One Little Spark". However, our imaginative sparks and efforts can, and will, make a difference to the user who now feels slightly more at home with a database application, or to the manager holding a report presented with enough clarity to drive an interesting decision or two. They are small victories, but worth having, and appreciated, or at least that's how I imagine it.

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• Oracle Employees Support New World Record for IYF Children's Hour

  - by Maria Sandu

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 960 students ‘crouched’, ‘touched’ and ‘set’ under the watchful eye of International Rugby Referee Alain Roland, and supported by Oracle employees, to successfully set a new world record for the World’s Largest Scrum to raise funds and awareness for the Irish Youth Foundation. Last year Oracle Employees supported the Irish Youth Foundation by donating funds from their payroll through the Giving Tree Appeal. We were the largest corporate donor to the IYF by raising €3075. To acknowledge our generosity the IYF asked Oracle Leadership in Society team members to participate in their most recent campaign which was to break the Guinness Book of Records by forming the World’s Largest Rugby Scrum. This was a wonderful opportunity for Oracle’s Leadership in Society to promote the charity, support education and to make a mark in the Corporate Social Responsibility field. The students who formed the scrum also gave up their lunch money and raised a total of €3000. This year we hope Oracle Employees will once again support the IYF with the challenge to match that amount. On the 24th of October the sun shone down on the streaming lines of students entering the field. 480 students were decked out in bright red Oracle T-Shirts against the other 480 in blue and white jerseys - all ready to form a striking scrum. Ryan Tubridy the host of the event made the opening announcement and with the blow of a whistle the Scum began. 960 students locked tight together with the Leinster players also at each side. Leinster Manager Matt O’Connor was there along with presenters Ryan Tubridy and George Hook to assist with getting the boys in line and keeping the shape of the scrum. In accordance with Guinness Book of Records rules, the ball was fed into the scrum properly by Ireland and Leinster scrum-half, Eoin Reddan, and was then passed out the line to his Leinster team mates including Ian Madigan, Brendan Macken and Jordi Murphy, also proudly sporting the Oracle T-Shirt. The new World Record was made, everyone gave a big cheer and thankfully nobody got injured! Thank you to everyone in Oracle who donated last year through the Giving Tree Appeal. Your generosity has gone a long way to support local groups both. Last year’s donation was so substantial that the IYF were able to spread it across two youth groups: The first being Ballybough Youth Project in Dublin. The funding gave them the chance to give 24 young people from their project the chance to get away from the inner city and the problems and issues they face in their daily life by taking a trip to the Cavan Centre to spend a weekend away in a safe and comfortable environment; a very rare holiday in these young people’s lives. The Rahoon Family Centre. Used the money to help secure the long term sustainability of their project. They act as an educational/social/fun project that has been working with disadvantaged children for the past 16 years. Their aim is to change young people’s future with fun /social education and supporting them so they can maximize their creativity and potential. We hope you can help support this worthy cause again this year, so keep an eye out for the Children’s Hour and Giving Tree Appeal! About the Irish Youth Foundation The IYF provides opportunities for marginalised children and young people facing difficult and extreme conditions to experience success in their lives. It passionately believes that achievement starts with opportunity. The IYF’s strategy is based on providing safe places where children can go after school; to grow, to learn and to play; and providing opportunities for teenagers from under-served communities to succeed and excel in their lives. The IYF supports innovative grassroots projects operated by dedicated professionals who understand young people and care about them. This allows the IYF to focus on supporting young people at risk of dropping out of school and, in particular, on the critical transition from primary to secondary school; and empowering teenagers from disadvantaged neighborhoods to become engaged in their local communities. Find out more here www.iyf.ie

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• Planning development when academic research is involved

  - by Another Anonymous User

  Dear fellow programmers, how do you do "software planning" when academic research is involved? And, on a side note, how do you convince your boss that writing software is not like building a house and it's more like writing a novel? The gory details are below. I am in charge of a small dev team working in a research lab. We started developing a software with the purpose of going public one day (i.e. sell and make money off that). Such software depends on, amongst other things, at least two independent research lines: that is, there are at least two Ph.D. candidates that will, hopefully, one day come out with a working implementation of what we need. The main software depends also on other, more concrete resources that we as developers can take care of: graphics rendering, soft bodies deformation, etc. My boss asked me to write the specifications, requirements AND a bloody GANTT chart of the entire project. Faced with the fact that I don't have a clue about the research part, and that such research is fundamental for the software, he said "make assumptions." For the clarity of the argument, he is a professor whose Ph.D. students should come up with the research we need. And he comes from a strictly engineering background: plan everything first, write down specifications and only then write down code that "it's the last part". What I am doing now: I broke down the product in features; each 'feature' is, de facto, a separate product; Each feature is built on top of the previous one; Once a feature (A) has a working prototype the team can start working on the next feature (B), while QA for is being done for A (if money allows, more people can be brought in, etc.); Features that depend on research will come last: by then, hopefully, the research part will be completed (when is still a big question) ; Also, I set the team to use SCRUM for the development of 'version 1.0', due in a few months. This deadline could be set based on reasonable assumptions: we listed all required features, we counted our availability, and we gave a reasonable estimate. So my questions, again, are: How do I make my boss happy while at the same time get something out the door? How do I write specifications for something we -the developers- have no clue whether it's possible to do or not? (We still haven't decided which libraries to use for some tasks; we'll do so when we'll need to) How do I get the requirements for that, given that there are yet no clients nor investors, just lots of interests and promises? How do I get peace in the world? I am sure at least one of my questions will be answered :) ps: I am writing this anonymously since a potential investor might backfire if this is discovered. Hope you'll understand. However I must say I do not like this mentality of 'hiding the truth': this program will likely benefit many, and not being able to talk openly about this (with my name and my reputation attached) feels like censorship. But alas, I care more about your suggestions now.

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• As a person getting into mobile development, what's the best mobile platform in terms of profitability? [closed]

  - by Kyle Loman

  I realize this question can range very far so would love to hear any and all opinions on this. However, I'll be honest and say that I have been thinking of this in terms of most profitable. I know how this may sound either way but this is one of my main sticking points. I realize that I'm not guaranteed a single cent and success is never guaranteed but I'm going into this with the thought of making something out of it both financially and also for my own interest. I know that iOS gets a lot of attention on this front but Android commands a lot more market share. However, I know there are drawbacks to Android too, whether it's in the actual development process and programming (though I've heard conflicting reports on this, such as how easy/difficult it is for to address screen res in different devices) or the app ecosystem being flooded. But iOS's app ecosystem has been described as too saturated and harder to compete in for that reason. Since Windows Phone has fewer apps than both of those two, that might be the best place to start in order to be closer to the ground floor of the store and be noticed more? Less saturation = better chances of sales or differentiating? Something like the gold rush during the first years of the iOS App Store (not exactly but at least in concept)? Would it be that despite fewer users on the platform, there's more exposure due to less competition so that may translate to better success at sales? Plus, I know MS is in it for the long haul so I'm not too fearful of something like WebOS going away. Obviously RIM isn't very popular nowadays but I read a recent article that says Blackberry actually has the apps that make the most money, any thoughts on that: http://gigaom.com/mobile/which-mobile-oss-apps-make-most-money-surprise-its-blackberry/ Again, this is all I've heard or known about so if there's anything to add or correct here, please do. In addition, this has actually affected my next personal phone upgrade. I'm eligible for a carrier discount now and I've had my eye on the iPhone 5. However, the Lumia 920 is the one I'm holding out for and I'm open to trying an Android but I'm not sure I can wait that long for any new Nexus or even the Razr HD. Even the new Lumia in November is making me antsy, I'm so close to just getting an iPhone 5. But when I say this has affected my phone choice, I'd want to be able to carry the apps I write with me so that I'm able to pull my phone out to show people without having to carry around a second device to do so. So that's why I'd like to make my personal phone match the main platform I'm developing for. Of course, I will likely expand to other platforms if I gain any decent success but the one I target now would serve well as my personal phone I carry around so that I can use it as a marketing tool, in a sense, showing people my apps if the opportunity presents itself. So what's the best mobile platform to choose, and especially in regards to most lucrative? As said previously, this would influence my personal phone choice greatly. Thanks in advance and I hope this isn't taken the wrong way - I understand there are trade-offs and other factors that may balance this out but making some revenue is key among that. For some background, I have done software development and know programming language concepts so I'm not entirely new to it and I do get the notion of being familiar with these things so that I can translate this skill among a variety of languages but I'm currently just having difficulty choosing my first main mobile platform based on the criteria I've outlined above.

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• Four Easy Ways to Save a Rocky CRM Relationship

  - by Divya Malik

   Today, I am pleased to introduce our guest blogger Luke Christianson. Luke is  an Application Sales rep based out of Minneapolis, MN.  You can find him on LinkedIn and follow him on Twitter. In any relationship, sooner or later, the excitement fades away.  The honeymoon period gives way to the old routines you had, before you committed to each other and you eventually begin doing things apart from one another.  I’m not talking about a marriage…  Well, I guess I am.Commitment to a CRM tool and building a deep and lasting relationship is not much different than the basics of a traditional love story.  After your controlled CRM pilot program, and maybe the National Sales Meeting where you couldn’t escape those three wonderful letters, CRM, you will soon find that if you haven’t designed an environment where it’s going to enable your reps to make more money, the relationship is doomed.   . If you’re currently in a dysfunctional CRM relationship, here are 4 simple tips to re-engaging users and getting that spark back. Shadow a Sales Rep:   Chances are you can find out exactly what is preventing your sales reps from using the application by simply watching how they go about their day.  Sales reps are driven by money, not by additional administrative duties.  Your system needs to be setup so that they can get the information they need quickly, facilitate making key updates and run their business out of one easy-to-use application.  Increase your sales team’s productivity by 5% automatically:    Cancel the weekly forecast calls with your reps and require them update their opportunities in CRM.  Something else that I’ve seen work extremely well, is when you do Monthly or Quarterly reviews, do not let your sales reps bring anything into the room with them; no spreadsheets, notebooks, or computers.  Everything they need to tell you should be able to be put into CRM and fully accessible by the Sales Manager at any time.  Tool time:      Make sure the tools that you have selected meet both your short-term goals and your long term goals.   You need tools that can adapt like your business does.  You probably can’t wait two months for an update to a picklist value or for the addition of a simple workflow rule.  Do you feel the tools that are in place can create the experience you want for your users? and finally, if all else fails... Keep It Simple, Stupid:     Do you really need to require 15 fields to create an Opportunity?  Do you need to clutter the interface with different reports that don’t add daily value?  Most CRM systems on the market today are flexible enough today that your admin could clean up most of the unnecessary interface ‘noise’ in a few hours.  If they're not, see #3. Every strong relationship can be tedious at times, you’ll fight and eventually make amends, you may even threaten to upgrade to a newer model…  But be patient and think about what you want to achieve and you’ll find a partner for life.

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• How much is a subscriber worth?

  - by Tom Lewin

  This year at Red Gate, we’ve started providing a way to back up SQL Azure databases and Azure storage. We decided to sell this as a service, instead of a product, which means customers only pay for what they use. Unfortunately for us, it makes figuring out revenue much trickier. With a product like SQL Compare, a customer pays for it, and it’s theirs for good. Sure, we offer support and upgrades, but, fundamentally, the sale is a simple, upfront transaction: we’ve made this product, you need this product, we swap product for money and everyone is happy. With software as a service, it isn’t that easy. The money and product don’t change hands up front. Instead, we provide a service in exchange for a recurring fee. We know someone buying SQL Compare will pay us $X, but we don’t know how long service customers will stay with us, or how much they will spend. How do we find this out? We use lifetime value analysis. What is lifetime value? Lifetime value, or LTV, is how much a customer is worth to the business. For Entrepreneurs has a brilliant write up that we followed to conduct our analysis. Basically, it all boils down to this equation: LTV = ARPU x ALC To make it a bit less of an alphabet-soup and a bit more understandable, we can write it out in full: The lifetime value of a customer equals the average revenue per customer per month, times the average time a customer spends with the service Simple, right? A customer is worth the average spend times the average stay. If customers pay on average $50/month, and stay on average for ten months, then a new customer will, on average, bring in $500 over the time they are a customer! Average spend is easy to work out; it’s revenue divided by customers. The problem comes when we realise that we don’t know exactly how long a customer will stay with us. How can we figure out the average lifetime of a customer, if we only have six months’ worth of data? The answer lies in the fact that: Average Lifetime of a Customer = 1 / Churn Rate The churn rate is the percentage of customers that cancel in a month. If half of your customers cancel each month, then your average customer lifetime is two months. The problem we faced was that we didn’t have enough data to make an estimate of one month’s cancellations reliable (because barely anybody cancels)! To deal with this data problem, we can take data from the last three months instead. This means we have more data to play with. We can still use the equation above, we just need to multiply the final result by three (as we worked out how many three month periods customers stay for, and we want our answer to be in months). Now these estimates are likely to be fairly unreliable; when there’s not a lot of data it pays to be cautious with inference. That said, the numbers we have look fairly consistent, and it’s super easy to revise our estimates when new data comes in. At the very least, these numbers give us a vague idea of whether a subscription business is viable. As far as Cloud Services goes, the business looks very viable indeed, and the low cancellation rates are much more than just data points in LTV equations; they show that the product is working out great for our customers, which is exactly what we’re looking for!

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• Inside Red Gate - Exercising Externally

  - by simonc

  Over the next few weeks, we'll be performing experiments on SmartAssembly to confirm or refute various hypotheses we have about how people use the product, what is stopping them from using it to its full extent, and what we can change to make it more useful and easier to use. Some of these experiments can be done within the team, some within Red Gate, and some need to be done on external users. External testing Some external testing can be done by standard usability tests and surveys, however, there are some hypotheses that can only be tested by building a version of SmartAssembly with some things in the UI or implementation changed. We'll then be able to look at how the experimental build is used compared to the 'mainline' build, which forms our baseline or control group, and use this data to confirm or refute the relevant hypotheses. However, there are several issues we need to consider before running experiments using separate builds: Ideally, the user wouldn't know they're running an experimental SmartAssembly. We don't want users to use the experimental build like it's an experimental build, we want them to use it like it's the real mainline build. Only then will we get valid, useful, and informative data concerning our hypotheses. There's no point running the experiments if we can't find out what happens after the download. To confirm or refute some of our hypotheses, we need to find out how the tool is used once it is installed. Fortunately, we've applied feature usage reporting to the SmartAssembly codebase itself to provide us with that information. Of course, this then makes the experimental data conditional on the user agreeing to send that data back to us in the first place. Unfortunately, even though this does limit the amount of useful data we'll be getting back, and possibly skew the data, there's not much we can do about this; we don't collect feature usage data without the user's consent. Looks like we'll simply have to live with this. What if the user tries to buy the experiment? This is something that isn't really covered by the Lean Startup book; how do you support users who give you money for an experiment? If the experiment is a new feature, and the user buys a license for SmartAssembly based on that feature, then what do we do if we later decide to pivot & scrap that feature? We've either got to spend time and money bringing that feature up to production quality and into the mainline anyway, or we've got disgruntled customers. Either way is bad. Again, there's not really any good solution to this. Similarly, what if we've removed some features for an experiment and a potential new user downloads the experimental build? (As I said above, there's no indication the build is an experimental build, as we want to see what users really do with it). The crucial feature they need is missing, causing a bad trial experience, a lost potential customer, and a lost chance to help the customer with their problem. Again, this is something not really covered by the Lean Startup book, and something that doesn't have a good solution. So, some tricky issues there, not all of them with nice easy answers. Turns out the practicalities of running Lean Startup experiments are more complicated than they first seem! Cross posted from Simple Talk.

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• Planning development when academic research is involved

  - by Another Anonymous User

  Dear fellow programmers, how do you do "software planning" when academic research is involved? And, on a side note, how do you convince your boss that writing software is not like building a house and it's more like writing a novel? The gory details are below. I am in charge of a small dev team working in a research lab. We started developing a software with the purpose of going public one day (i.e. sell and make money off that). Such software depends on, amongst other things, at least two independent research lines: that is, there are at least two Ph.D. candidates that will, hopefully, one day come out with a working implementation of what we need. The main software depends also on other, more concrete resources that we as developers can take care of: graphics rendering, soft bodies deformation, etc. My boss asked me to write the specifications, requirements AND a bloody GANTT chart of the entire project. Faced with the fact that I don't have a clue about the research part, and that such research is fundamental for the software, he said "make assumptions." For the clarity of the argument, he is a professor whose Ph.D. students should come up with the research we need. And he comes from a strictly engineering background: plan everything first, write down specifications and only then write down code that "it's the last part". What I am doing now: I broke down the product in features; each 'feature' is, de facto, a separate product; Each feature is built on top of the previous one; Once a feature (A) has a working prototype the team can start working on the next feature (B), while QA for is being done for A (if money allows, more people can be brought in, etc.); Features that depend on research will come last: by then, hopefully, the research part will be completed (when is still a big question) ; Also, I set the team to use SCRUM for the development of 'version 1.0', due in a few months. This deadline could be set based on reasonable assumptions: we listed all required features, we counted our availability, and we gave a reasonable estimate. So my questions, again, are: How do I make my boss happy while at the same time get something out the door? How do I write specifications for something we -the developers- have no clue whether it's possible to do or not? (We still haven't decided which libraries to use for some tasks; we'll do so when we'll need to) How do I get the requirements for that, given that there are yet no clients nor investors, just lots of interests and promises? How do I get peace in the world? I am sure at least one of my questions will be answered :) ps: I am writing this anonymously since a potential investor might backfire if this is discovered. Hope you'll understand. However I must say I do not like this mentality of 'hiding the truth': this program will likely benefit many, and not being able to talk openly about this (with my name and my reputation attached) feels like censorship. But alas, I care more about your suggestions now.

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• Incentivizing Work with Development Teams

  - by MarkPearl

  Recently I saw someone on twitter asking about incentives and if anyone had past experience with incentivizing work. I promised to respond with some of the experiences I have had in the past so here goes... **Disclaimer** - these are my experiences with incentives, generally in software development - in some other industries this may not be applicable – this is also my thinking at this point in time, with more experience my opinion may change. Incentivize at the level that you want people to group at If you are wanting to promote a team mentality, incentivize teams. If you want to promote an individual mentality, incentivize individuals. There is nothing worse than mixing this up. Some organizations put a lot of effort in establishing teams and team mentalities but reward individuals. This has a counter effect on the resources they have put towards establishing a team mentality. In the software projects that I work with we want promote cross functional teams that collaborate. Personally, if I was on a team and knew that there was an opportunity to work on a critical component of the system, and that by doing so I would get a bigger bonus, then I would be hesitant to include other people in solving that problem. Thus, I would hinder the teams efforts in being cross functional and reduce collaboration levels. Does that mean everyone in the team should get an even share of an incentive? In most situations I would say yes - even though this may feel counter-intuitive. I have heard arguments put forward that if “person x contributed more than person Y then they should be rewarded more” – This may sound controversial but I would rather treat people how would you like them to perform, not where they currently are at. To add to this approach, if someone is free loading, you bet your bottom dollar that the team is going to make this a lot more transparent if they feel that individual is going to be rewarded at the same level that everyone else is. Bad incentives promote destructive work If you are going to incentivize people, pick you incentives very carefully. I had an experience once with a sales person who was told they would get a bonus provided that they met an ordering target with a particular supplier. What did this person do? They sold everything at cost for the next month or so. They reached the goal, but the company didn't gain anything from it. It was a bad incentive. Expect the same with development teams, if you incentivize zero bug levels, you will get zero code committed to the solution. If you incentivize lines of code, you will get many many lines of bad code. Is there such a thing as a good incentives? Monetary wise, I am not sure there is. I would much rather encourage organizations to pay their people what they are worth upfront. I would also advise against paying money to teams as an incentive or even a bonus or reward for reaching a milestone. Rather have a breakaway for the team that promotes team building as a reward if they reach a milestone than pay them more money. I would also advise against making the incentive the reason for them to reach the milestone. If this becomes the norm it promotes people to begin to only do their job if there is an incentive at the end of the line. This is not a behaviour one wants to encourage. If the team or individual is in the right mind-set, they should not work any harder than they are right now with normal pay.

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• Violation of the DRY Principle

  - by Onorio Catenacci

  I am sure there's a name for this anti-pattern somewhere; however I am not familiar enough with the anti-pattern literature to know it. Consider the following scenario: or0 is a member function in a class. For better or worse, it's heavily dependent on class member variables. Programmer A comes along and needs functionality like or0 but rather than calling or0, Programmer A copies and renames the entire class. I'm guessing that she doesn't call or0 because, as I say, it's heavily dependent on member variables for its functionality. Or maybe she's a junior programmer and doesn't know how to call it from other code. So now we've got or0 and c0 (c for copy). I can't completely fault Programmer A for this approach--we all get under tight deadlines and we hack code to get work done. Several programmers maintain or0 so it's now version orN. c0 is now version cN. Unfortunately most of the programmers that maintained the class containing or0 seemed to be completely unaware of c0--which is one of the strongest arguments I can think of for the wisdom of the DRY principle. And there may also have been independent maintainance of the code in c. Either way it appears that or0 and c0 were maintained independent of each other. And, joy and happiness, an error is occurring in cN that does not occur in orN. So I have a few questions: 1.) Is there a name for this anti-pattern? I've seen this happen so often I'd find it hard to believe this is not a named anti-pattern. 2.) I can see a few alternatives: a.) Fix orN to take a parameter that specifies the values of all the member variables it needs. Then modify cN to call orN with all of the needed parameters passed in. b.) Try to manually port fixes from orN to cN. (Mind you I don't want to do this but it is a realistic possibility.) c.) Recopy orN to cN--again, yuck but I list it for sake of completeness. d.) Try to figure out where cN is broken and then repair it independently of orN. Alternative a seems like the best fix in the long term but I doubt the customer will let me implement it. Never time or money to fix things right but always time and money to repair the same problem 40 or 50 times, right? Can anyone suggest other approaches I may not have considered? If you were in my place, which approach would you take? If there are other questions and answers here along these lines, please post links to them. I don't mind removing this question if it's a dupe but my searching hasn't turned up anything that addresses this question yet. EDIT: Thanks everyone for all the thoughtful responses. I asked about a name for the anti-pattern so I could research it further on my own. I'm surprised this particular bad coding practice doesn't seem to have a "canonical" name for it.

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• D&rsquo;Arcy&rsquo;s Book Club - The New Strategic Selling

  - by D'Arcy Lussier

  The New Strategic Selling Miller and Heiman Amazon.ca Amazon.com Chapters Everybody is a salesmen. Every day, without knowing it, we sell something to someone. Now, the typical vision people think of when they hear the word “sales” is the sleazy used car salesperson who does whatever they can to get you to buy the clunker on their lot. But selling is not an action tied to money and products. Selling is about convincing people to see your point of view and act on it. If you want your company to cover a trip to a conference, you may have to sell the idea to your boss. If you want to buy that new big screen TV, you have to sell the idea to your significant other. If you want to go on a weekend fishing trip with the boys you might be called in to help sell the idea to your buddies wife. We all sell, but we don’t all sell very well. So enter The New Strategic Selling, a book based on the sales course put on by the Miller-Heiman group. In fact, this isn’t really a “New” strategy to selling as its been around for a number of years. But the concepts they present, the ideas about selling, these are still very radical based on what most of us have experienced. Gone are the high pressure, win at all cost, GlenGarry-GlenRoss style of sales…instead the book presents a framework to switch to need-based selling. It’s the idea that instead of going in raving about a product or service, you build a relationship where the buyer expresses what their needs are and your response is to present a solution that best fits that need. Instead of focussing on the amount of money you can squeeze out of a client, you focus on whether everyone wins, that they receive win-results from the engagement, that repeat business is developed over time delivering value over and over again. The great thing about the book is that what it teaches…things like how to identify different buying influencers, how to prepare for meetings, techniques to solicit information about what the buyer is really thinking/feeling…these things are entirely applicable in *any* situation that you need to sell to someone…and remember: selling is convincing people to see your point of view and act on it. So that new big screen TV you want to buy but need to convince your wife on? This book can help you. That training opportunity you want your company to send you on? This book can help you. The upgrade to your community park that you want to lobby the local civic authorities for? This book can help you. The book is a bit wordy. I found that the length could have been reduced and the points still have gotten across. That’s really the only knock that I have though; the insight that it provides is so worthwhile that having to chew through extra words is well worth it. You definitely don’t have to be a professional salesperson to benefit from this book. Rating: 4/5

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• I am not satisfied with my career and accomplished nothing in my life. what should I do now [on hold]

  - by user2906155

  After my complete my College education I got chance to work on software programming. I work on few software and now nothing make me feel good. I don't like web-programming. Can't have too much mind to play with other people in team a designer or a senior. it's totally time wasting for me. We do integration without any source code control. copy through pen drive. I write in too many language for web-programming but know nothing about any language specially. I don't like to have a BOSS. I would like to do something on my own. From last 3 year I thing I will got a better job but I am unable to get it. I am not good at Programming nor my English is native. I have a big list for pay then my salary. I have problem with nothing. my atmosphere is about illiterate people. they abuse 24 hours a day. this thing make me sick. people watch CRIME patrol my home (watching rape in TV because it's happen to someone). I do my work from home. I don't like to live in my state. All state is one of the biggest illiterate state of my country. Once I apply for a Job in China and it's look like I can get thing Job but I don't get it. My family doesn't want me to settle anywhere else. I told my family 4 time a day that I can't live in this worst situation. Everyone (including the person who I work for) tell me that you can do it only you have money. Now I really don't know how to make money. My job not allow me to work for anyone. My productivity going down since I don't learn anything new. I thing if this happen to me for next 2 year I don't have any knowledge more then a peon. I hate it. When I was in other city then I see that if I spent 7 days their all my 7 days going better. even I go for travelling in green places then I like it. but all I hate it where I work for. When I work on other city then I see my productivity are improved and I don't hate my work. I listen a song "If you don't your love what are you doing it for". I seriously don' t know what I still live here because this place gave me nothing but depression and trouble. for people I clear that I don't belong to RICH or middle class family. All I got is doing something on my own or help of someone. affording a rental place make my run on footpath. All I save in one month is just 10$ (approximately) (actually I afford some guys's education now). Can a programmer live worst life like this. I really not happy. Today is a festival in India and I don't celebrate it because I really hate myself. I want to do suicide. someone guide me how to start solving this headache

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• How to estimate the contribution of an individual to a software project?

  - by Amit Kumar

  I work on a software project and would like to estimate the percentage out of the total contribution that I have put in the development of the software. Is there some tool doing this? Such a tool can be useful for appraisals or negotiations, for example. After all, we work for money (yes, not only money, put the point remains). I think there is enough hand-waving for the most important things. The estimation is very subjective (at least to me now) but I do not know of any tool that provides even a subjective estimate. I know of Sloccount that spells out the total effort using the lines of code but not on per-developer basis. My idea of an ideal tool for this purpose would: measure the complexity of the code (more complex is more effort, but more effort is not necessarily more contribution) measure the decomposibility/flexibility of the software (more decomposable is better) how much library code is used -- using library code speeds up the development process, increases the associated risk and requires the developer to know from before or learn about the library. be intelligent enough to differentiate between "who wrote the code", "who copied the code" and "who indented the code". It is difficult to differentiate between the complexity in the implementation and the intrinsic complexity of the problem. Perhaps a comparison can be made with an equivalent open source counterpart if there is, or for each submodule separately. If there is no such tool, is there no merit in having such a tool? Or do you believe in "I do work, I do not measure"? It takes time after all. Perhaps the project manager should do this estimation continuously, say, weekly. Are there any standards? Yes, standardization is difficult because every project has a different goal, but difficult does not mean it is not useful.

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• Running Magento for multiple clients - single Installaton vs. multiple installations

  - by Chris Hopkins

  Hi There I am looking to set-up a Magento (Community Edition) installation for multiple clients and have researched the matter for a few days now. I can see that the Enterprise Edition has what I need in it, but surprisingly I am not willing to shell out the $12,000 odd yearly subscription. It seems there are a few options available to be but I am worried about the performance I will get out of the various options. Option 1) Single install using AITOC advanced permissions module So this is really what I am after; one installation so that I can update my core files all at the same time and also manage all my store users from one place. The problems here are that I don't know anything about the reliability of this extra product and that I have to pay a bit extra. I am also worried that if I have 10 stores running off this one installation it might all slow down so much and keel over as I have heard allot about Magento's slowness. Module Link: http://www.aitoc.com/en/magentomods_advanced_permissions.html Option 2) Multiple installations of Magento on one server for each shop So here I have 10 Magento installations on one server all running happily away not using any extra money, but I now have 10 separate stores to update and maintain which could be annoying. Also I haven't been able to find a whole lot of other people using this method and when I have they are usually asking how to stop their servers from dying. So this route seems like it could be even worse on my server as I will have more going on on my server but if my server could take it each Magento installation would be simpler and less likely to slow down due to each one having to run 10 shops on its own? Option 3) Use lots of servers and lots of Magento installations I just so do not want to do this. Option 4) Buy Magento Enterprise I do not have the money to do this. So which route is less likely to blow up my server? And does anyone have experience with this holy grail of a module? Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for any help - Chris Hopkins

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• Credit card system implementation?

  - by Mark

  My site is going to have a credit system that basically works a lot like a credit card. Each user has an unlimited credit limit, but at the end of each week, they have to pay it off. For example, a user might make several purchases between March 1st and 7th, and then at the end of March 7th, they would be emailed an invoice that lists all their purchases during the week and a total that is due by the 14th. If they don't pay it off, their account is simply deactivated until they do. I'm just trying to wrap my head around how to implement this. I have a list of all their purchases, that's not a problem, but I'm just trying to figure out what to do with it. On the end of the 7th day, I could set up a cronjob to generate an invoice, which would basically have an id, and due date, and then I would need another many-to-many table to link all the purchases to the invoice. Then when a user adds money to their account, I guess it's applied against their current outstanding invoice? And what if they don't pay off their invoice by the time a new invoice rolls around, so now they have 2 outstanding ones, how do I know which to apply it against? Or do I make the cronjob check for any previous outstanding invoices, cancel them, and add a new item to the new invoice as "balance forward (+interest)"? How would you apply the money against an invoice? Would each payment have to be linked to an invoice, or could I just deposit it to their account credit, and then somehow figure out whats been paid and what hasn't? What if they pay in advance, before their invoice has been generated? Do I deduct it from their credit from the invoice upon generation, or at the end of the week when its due? There are so many ways to do this... Can anyone describe what approach they would take?

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• How do I define a Calculated Measure in MDX based on a Dimension Attribute?

  - by ShaneD

  I would like to create a calculated measure that sums up only a specific subset of records in my fact table based on a dimension attribute. Given: Dimension Date LedgerLineItem {Charge, Payment, Write-Off, Copay, Credit} Measures LedgerAmount Relationships * LedgerLineItem is a degenerate dimension of FactLedger If I break down LedgerAmount by LedgerLineItem.Type I can easily see how much is charged, paid, credit, etc, but when I do not break it down by LedgerLineItem.Type I cannot easily add the credit, paid, credit, etc into a pivot table. I would like to create separate calculated measures that sum only specific type (or multiple types) of ledger facts. An example of the desired output would be: | Year | Charged | Total Paid | Amount - Ledger | | 2008 | $1000 | $600 | -$400 | | 2009 | $2000 | $1500 | -$500 | | Total | $3000 | $2100 | -$900 | I have tried to create the calculated measure a couple of ways and each one works in some circumstances but not in others. Now before anyone says do this in ETL, I have already done it in ETL and it works just fine. What I am trying to do as part of learning to understand MDX better is to figure out how to duplicate what I have done in the ETL in MDX as so far I am unable to do that. Here are two attempts I have made and the problems with them. This works only when ledger type is in the pivot table. It returns the correct amount of the ledger entries (although in this case it is identical to [amount - ledger] but when I try to remove type and just get the sum of all ledger entries it returns unknown. CASE WHEN ([Ledger].[Type].currentMember = [Ledger].[Type].&[Credit]) OR ([Ledger].[Type].currentMember = [Ledger].[Type].&[Paid]) OR ([Ledger].[Type].currentMember = [Ledger].[Type].&[Held Money: Copay]) THEN [Measures].[Amount - ledger] ELSE 0 END This works only when ledger type is not in the pivot table. It always returns the total payment amount, which is incorrect when I am slicing by type as I would only expect to see the credit portion under credit, the paid portion, under paid, $0 under charge, etc. sum({([Ledger].[Type].&[Credit]), ([Ledger].[Type].&[Paid]), ([Ledger].[Type].&[Held Money: Copay])}, [Measures].[Amount - ledger]) Is there any way to make this return the correct numbers regardless of whether Ledger.Type is included in my pivot table or not?

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• What's next for all of these Microsoft "overlapping" and "enhanced" products ?

  - by pointlesspolitics

  Recently I attended a road show, organised by MS Gold Partner company in the UK. The products discussed were: SharePoint server (2010 and 2007), Exchange server, Office Communication Server 2007, Exchange hosted services Office Live meeting, Office Communicator, System Center Configuration Manager and Operation Manager, VMware, Windows 7 etc. As Microsoft claims the enhancement in the each product against higher version, I felt that clients are not much interested in all these details. For example Office Communicator, surely they have improved a lot the product and first site all said 'WOW' great product, but nobody wish to pay money for all these extra features. Some argued, they are bogged down by all these increased number of menus. They don't need soft call feature included with mobile call. It apply for all other products as well such as MS office (next what 2 ribbons ?), windows OS and many more. Indeed there must be good features in all these products, but is it worth to spend money and time to update the older system ? Also sometimes these feature will decrease the productivity instead increase it. *So do you think what ever enhancement MS is doing in the products is only for selling purpose, not a real use ?? and I think also keep the developer busy learning the new tools and features. * I am sure some some people here will argue that some people need this sort of features. But I am not talking about NASA or MI5 guys. I am talking of usual businesses and joe public. Any ideas welcome.

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• Download Current WSJ.com Prime Rate

  - by Registered User

  I need to automatically download the current Wall Street Journal Prime Rate and load the data into my database. What is the best method for downloading this data automatically? I have come up with three possible solutions for doing this: Scrape a HTML web page from WSJ. Parse a RSS news feed from WSJ. Use some API that I haven't found from WSJ. Regarding solution 1, although I don't like solution 1 since it could easily break, it's the only one that I have worked out from end to end. It appears I can scrape this page with a WebRequest / WebResponse and read the text in this code: <tr> <td style="text-align:left" class="colhead">&nbsp;</td> <td class="colhead">Latest</td> <td class="colhead">Wk ago</td> <td class="colhead">High</td> <td class="colhead">Low</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="text">U.S.</td> <td style="font-weight:bold;" class="num">3.25</td> <td class="num">3.25</td> <td class="num">3.25</td> <td class="num" style="border-right:0px">3.25</td> </tr> Regarding solution 2, although I can implement a RSS reader solution, I don't see a way to reliably anticipate verbiage for changes in the Prime Rate. Therefore, I don't think this is as safe or reliable a way to get the data as solution 1. Regarding solution 3, I haven't found any published API's for checking money rates like the Prime Rate. If anyone knows of a web service or other API for checking money rates, then please let me know.

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• Database frontend for multiple db engines

  - by xeroxed_yeti

  Hey Stackoverflow, yeah it's spring and a lot of things happens to me... Also changing some software things at my computer, because suddenly everything seems to be boring after starting my laptop. I even changed my wallpaper!!! Besides I'm looking for a new database frontend and after using google with serveral queries I didn't find the right software. You have to know, my laptop and me are very very special :) I'm looking for a database frontend which should have following features can access PostgreSQL and MySQL databases can handle schemata overs a nice sql query tool supports an import and export functionality (something like tab separated text files) it for free looks awesome - every time when a college come to my office he must get the feeling: oh boy, this man really knows his job and should get more money! At the moment I used phpmyadmin, phppgadmin, pgadminIII, mysqladmin and dbVisualizer. Furthermore I was a big fan of the aqua datastudio until it became commercial. This tools offers a great variety of functionalities which can simplify programmes live. However, now you have to buy a license...I'm a scientist and money for software is limited =) So it's my first time (question) here at stackoverflow please be cheerful :)

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• Rails: creating a custom data type, to use with generator classes and a bunch of questions related t

  - by Shyam

  Hi, After being productive with Rails for some weeks, I learned some tricks and got some experience with the framework. About 10 days ago, I figured out it is possible to build a custom data type for migrations by adding some code in the Table definition. Also, after learning a bit about floating points (and how evil they are) vs integers, the money gem and other possible solutions, I decided I didn't WANT to use the money gem, but instead try to learn more about programming and finding a solution myself. Some suggestions said that I should be using integers, one for the whole numbers and one for the cents. When playing in script/console, I discovered how easy it is to work with calculations and arrays. But, I am talking to much (and the reason I am, is to give some sufficient background). Right now, while playing with the scaffold generator (yes, I use it, because I like they way I can quickly set up a prototype while I am still researching my objectives), I like to use a DRY method. In my opinion, I should build a custom "object", that can hold two variables (Fixnum), one for the whole, one for the cents. In my big dream, I would be able to do the following: script/generate scaffold Cake name:string description:text cost:mycustom Where mycustom should create two integer columns (one for wholes, one for cents). Right now I could do this by doing: script/generate scaffold Cake name:string description:text cost_w:integer cost_c:integer I had also had an idea that would be creating a "cost model", which would hold two columns of integers and create a cost_id column to my scaffold. But wouldn't that be an extra table that would cause some kind of performance penalty? And wouldn't that be defy the purpose of the Cake model in the first place, because the costs are an attribute of individual Cake entries? The reason why I would want to have such a functionality because I am thinking of having multiple "costs" inside my rails application. Thank you for your feedback, comments and answers! I hope my message got through as understandable, my apologies for incorrect grammar or weird sentences as English is not my native language.

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• How can a software agency deliver quality software/win projects?

  - by optician

  I currently work for a bespoke software agency. Does anyone have any experience of how to win well priced work? It seems there is so much competition from offshore/bedroom program teams, that cost is extremely competetive these days. I feel that it is very different compared to a software product company or an internal it department, in terms of budget. As someone else said before, we only ever really get to version 1.0 of a lot of our software, unless the client is big enough. In which case it doesn't make business sense to spend ages making the software the best we can. Its like we are doing the same quality of work of internal it. Also a Lot of our clients are not technically minded and so therefor will not pay for things they don't understand. As our company does not have the money to turn down work it often goes that we take on complicated work for far too little money. I have got a lot better at managing change and keeping tight specs etc. It is still hard.

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• HTML href with css ie Problem

  - by Jordan Pagaduan

  <style type="text/css"> .web_westloh { background-image: url(images/web_westloh.png); background-repeat: no-repeat; height: 100px; width: 350px; } .web_westloh:hover { border-bottom-width: 2px; border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-color: #999999; padding-bottom: 5px; } .web_money { background-image: url(images/web_money.png); background-repeat: no-repeat; height: 100px; width: 350px; } .web_money:hover { border-bottom-width: 2px; border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-color: #999999; padding-bottom: 5px; } </style> <a href="http://www.westloh.com" title="Click to Visit http://www.westloh.com" target="_blank" class="web_westloh"> <div class="web_westloh"></div> </a> <a href="http://www.money-mind-set.com" title="Click to Visit http://www.money-mind-set.com" target="_blank"> <div class="web_money"></div> </a> The Problem is: In mozilla linking is ok. No problem. But in IE the link is a problem, it will not link in the target. See this page to see Problem: http://replytowest.com -- at the bottom. Thank You

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• Software Company Library

  - by dbemerlin

  Hi. A few days ago i had the idea to create a company library since my company has no training and many developers still develop as they did when they learned it 5 years ago. My hope is that they can lend books, read them and hopefully learn something from them (for example: object oriented programming or unit testing, which noone here knows how to use). After asking around most agreed that it was a good idea, so i brought my books, made a simple printed sheet with "Book A belongs to B" and "Developer A took the Book on dd.mm.yyyy" to get it started. Now i want to get some ideas for Books that i could add to the shelf (sadly from my own money since 100€/month for training is too much money for this multi-million euro company). We develop mostly PHP & MySQL so books specific to this topic would be preferred but i think if people learn other languages they might get ideas on how to develop better with the current language so other books are ok, too. Which books would you recommend? PS: Personally i'd like to add some Project Management books, too, as it's a topic i'm interested in, eventhough i'm just a junior developer (We've got Peopleware already, great book btw).

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