you want to start something?
Or I would have loved it when I was younger!
we’re looking for a production assistant for the summer, with the possibility of the position becoming permanent.
…Baking or other food background helpful, and love of ice cream a must!
Ah, to be young!
Microsoft has always treated the Mac as a second class citizen and the bugs in Office 2008 are just added icing on the cake.
Back when I started using the Mac, there was Word. It wasn’t known as Microsoft Word to me, it was just Word, it was the word processor on the Mac. It was a slim and elegant piece of software and I wrote my degree thesis on it. We had Excel 4 as well but I had no real use for it and a copy of Project was kicking about as well.
Not long afterwards they release Microsoft Office for Macintosh which included Word 6, Excel 5 and Powerpoint 4 as well as a little tool which put a Microsoft app menu in your top menu bar. And it had to be the worst piece of software that I have ever had the misfortune to use. It caused crashes, it permitted the spreading of Word macro viruses (though the Mac itself was unaffected). And they didn’t update Project which, in their words, was okay because they didn’t see a market for it.
Fast forward a few years and we’ve enjoyed a relative peace regarding Microsoft. They’ve cleaned up for act with Office 98, Office 2001, Office X, Office 2004 and though they never updated Project, we’ve not really cared due to there being decent alternatives. But this omission prevented the use of a Mac in many businesses that needed compatibility with Project. For a good while a lot of people could see that Office for Mac was actually better than Office for Windows in terms of features.
So, earlier this year they release Office 2008 which is the first Intel version and we start to see the feature parity between Office for Windows and Office for the Mac increase again. They got rid of VBA on the Mac version which has killed macros programmed in VBA which again, is perhaps not a big deal but hurt the Mac in institutions which used VBA heavily - again these were large businesses for the most part. The list of Excel 2007 for Windows features that are missing on Excel 2008 for Mac is extensive. This cements Windows into big business.
But Microsoft, after being beaten relentlessly by Google, Nintendo and Apple on the internet, in digital music and players, in smartphones, in desktop operating software and in gaming consoles. Apple is seeing a huge surge in sales quarter over quarter which means Microsoft is losing market share (using the logic that in a monopoly situation like the desktop OS market, the monopolist can only lose market share - and people buying Macs are less likely to be buying their first computer these days). So, like a good monopolist, Microsoft decides to NOT release a brand new web application development toolkit for the Mac, hoping that it will force web designers to stay with Windows. Their solution for web developers? Stay with Windows or if you MUST use a Mac, run their web development tools in a Virtual Machine.
Though he’s been exceedingly coy with where he’s moved to, he leaves us with the story that he has, indeed, moved on.
His blog post about his reasons is absolutely tragic and highlights some of the issues faced by individuals working in large companies. I can’t comment on some of his gripes as they’re very specific to his circumstance but I guess it’s a warning to everyone.
“Most of all I have learned that I am happiest when I am coding and being creative.”
Amen and Good Luck.
Man, I have a bee in my bonnet about this.
There is nothing I’d rather do than give up this day job with $BIG_COMPANY and survive on my writing while I whiled away the days trying to learn to code to maybe build an app that I want. Apparently (according to a thread on Twitter) startup businesses require passion and if you’re not willing to code for pizza then you’re not showing passion. And not showing any balls.
That’s shite.
I can’t do this because I have responsibilities. I have a mortgage, kids to feed, a house to run. It’s just not an option. And the answer I get? Rent! WTF? Have you seen the prices of rental properties these days? You might as well pay a mortgage because at least then you have a long term gain in equity.
Five years ago this month I was in the unenviable position of finding out that the directors of the company I was working for were in cahoots and were embezzling. I’d been hired to run the technical department which, in the end, turned out to be the only pat of the business that actually made any money - everything else just made loss after loss which is how you burn through half a million pounds worth of debt in six months. They got off scot free (typically) and disappeared to their other business in England (where, for a annual fee you can get substandard techno-luddite telephone support for your Mac). I had a couple of weeks to act and there were livelihoods to take into account. I had a young child and one on the way so I had responsibilities but the choice was to go find another job or stick my neck out. I convinced Apple’s UK MD to take a chance with us, took my savings and started Mac-Sys. During the next year I would realise that business and friendship are not compatible - and as a result I lost some friends who wouldn’t work. I would discover that the only people who truly believe in you are your children - and god bless them for that (and they’ll grow out of it soon enough). And I would find that I’m not as hard nosed in business as I should be but I’m enough of a cvnt to make something work. These were not lessons that came easily.
For the last two years I’ve been trying to start a software company. Iteration 1 was when Aidan took on SyncBridge. He worked his ass off and produced some real miracles but a shaky API and Apple undercutting us with Calendar Server put paid to our dreams. As it would happen we were a year ahead of the competition, a market for syncing that is now over-run with competitors. For Iteration 2, we hired Steve into Mac-Sys and he wrote the first rendition of ‘macserv’, a web application designed to make the running of an AASP easier. To Steve’s credit, he had a job herding cats to get the processes defined but he managed it. And this only stopped because I recruited him into $BIG_COMPANY (which had been my way of escape). For Iteration 3, we tried again with Aidan, Steve, Philip and Jordan on board but everyone is pulled in different directions. It was always our ‘other job’ and frequently lost out to family, the fact that the day job killed my enthusiasm for things and everyone had priorities. I’m left wondering what to do next.
You see. The first and third Iterations were all done ‘for pizza’. There was a promise of rewards but there were a lot of steps to bypass between now and then. Both ended up falling over because, end of the day, if it’s not putting the bread on the table, it’s not a priority. The second Iteration worked because we had someone working on it and yeah, perhaps we need to look at that again.
I don’t want to ask anyone to code for pizza again.
Apple released beta5 of the iPhone SDK and quietly opened iPhone Developer registration to the public so that everyone can load their code onto their iPhones and give them a go. The updates SDK is winging it’s way to me at 1495K/sec right now which means I’ll be able to have a play with it at lunchtime when I’m away from the oppression at $BIG_COMPANY (where music players have now been banned because they’re ‘not professional’ - it’s fun working through a problem when there are people talking loudly in every direction - really aids the concentration.)
Anyway, the SDK release.
This is, to be honest, much sooner than I expected and I think there must be quite a few happy people around who are loading apps onto their phones and enjoying the novelty. I’ve been fighting for some time at lunch just to try Interface Builder but something has always come up for the last 7 days. It’s frustrating and when I mention the frustration, the helpful response is ‘Well, if it mattered to you, you’d find time.” Brilliant.
I don’t know what sample code will work on the iPhone with the latest beta and I don’t know whether or not it’s safe to load my iPhone with the beta firmware and still want to use it as a phone. And there’s no way to check because Apple still have an NDA on all discussion on the technical aspects of the SDK and firmware.
As this is very much still a learning experience for me, it’s slow and boring. I’ve kinda decided to strike out and work on something else in order to maybe build some momentum. I would like a cashflow-type application for the iPhone.
As you can see, it’s a work in progress.
Microsoft is now walking away from it’s bid to buy Yahoo. We must assume that, for the last month, the adults at Microsoft were busy and someone let the kids all over the big mind-control lasers.
I don’t know anyone who thought this was a good idea. Apart from Yahoo shareholders who were looking to cash out. It would be equivalent to Microsoft spending $50 billion of their ‘hard earned’ cash to buy an empty bag (though, they did spend $15 billion to buy a sliver of FaceBook which amounts to an empty bag).
It remains to be seen whether or not anyone at Yahoo has the balls to actually make something of it or whether Yahoo will just continue to decline in relevance.
Alexia writes:
“So, Flickr extends it’s programme to give Pro accounts away to charities. Forgive me for being a cynic, how are charities really going to benefit from unlimited Flickr space? I’m fairly cynical about charities at the best of times, but the idea seems a bit hollow.”
Geez, Alexia, cut them a break. When all you have is lemons, you gotta make what you can make (lemonade requires sugar too). I don’t know of any charities that would say no to unlimited image storage space considering that they have to pay for all sorts of hosting anyway and images take up a lot of that space especially now we all have 12 Mp cameras. Charities survive on PR.
Damien writes:
“Ingenuity, it seems, thrives in environment where there’s scarcity.”
I’m somewhat speechless at the obviousness.
That said - it reminds me of a story told by an IT guy who was from South Africa. During the Apartheid years he had a lot of work because every civilised country had sanctions against South Africa for their oppressive regime. His job was to maintain computers. As software needs increased (downloaded over a 300 baud modem), he couldn’t get hardware to ship across to him so they invented all sorts of ingenious hacks to get things working including RAM bank splitters allowing you to double- and triple-load RAM banks to increase the memory capacity of the machines.
One for the news-junkies as well. The Associated Press has created an iPhone-compliant version of their site at http://apnews.com. It’s a bit US-centric but then what isn’t these days? Loads well under EDGE and plays well with kids and pets. What more could you want?
One of the problems with working in ‘IT support’ is that the phone can ring at any time.
Sure - we sign up for this when we take the job and there’s no point in complaining that a Sunday morning breakfast in a little diner cafe turns into a 10 minute dash home, 10 minutes frustration with VNC and Contivity and a 30 minute drive into the office just so I can start a 6 hour long marathon getting things up and running.
I don’t mind doing support during the night, at weekends, whenever. It’s what I signed up for when I got into support in the first place. These days I’m on call around one week in three, previous to this job it was 24×7, 364 days a year.
I do mind, however, when the things I’m being asked to support are not within my control. Why do people reboot UNIX servers on a weekly basis? Why do sysadmins still rely heavily on cron for starting services (especially when there are FLOSS alternatives like launchd? Why did this process not start up the way it’s meant to - who changed the documentation? What’s the point in setting up two redundant servers when you need both of them up and running or your environment is fscked?
Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?
Campaigners on the Greek island of Lesbos are to go to court in an attempt to stop a gay rights organisation from using the term “lesbian”.
The term lesbian originated from a mythological goddess and poet called Sappho, who was a native of Lesbos.
Sappho expressed her love of other women in poetry written during the 7th Century BC.
But according to Mr Lambrou, new historical research has discovered that Sappho had a family, and committed suicide for the love of a man. BBC link
I’m somewhat speechless.
Steve (The Biscuit) provided this link to The Daily WTF:
“If you’ve worked at enough companies in the IT industry, you’ve probably noticed that the most talented software developers tend to not stick around at one place for too long. The least talented folks, on the other hand, entrench themselves deep within the organization, often building beachheads of bad code that no sane developer would dare go near, all the while ensuring their own job security and screwing up just enough times not to get fired.
…Bruce F. Webster aptly named this phenomenon the Dead Sea Effect.”
There’s a lot of wisdom in this. I worked for Nortel for 6+ years and when I left, the relationship was over. I still had a few friends (those who were bothered to be on instant messenger networks other than MSN) but for the most part, I was the ex and not an alumnus by any means.
I have hoped, in my management of Mac-Sys that this is different. I still speak to many past employees (the exceptions generally being those who left under a cloud because they wanted something the company couldn’t provide during the first year or so when we were fighting just to stay alive.)
I think when my tenure with $BIG_COMPANY ends, it’ll be similar to Nortel which is a shame. Big companies should have more resources to hook up with past employees rather than treating them like the Ex with the onerous personal habits.
Aidan, as a Thoughtworks alumnus (never mind Inktomi, Blackstar etc) gets a lot of street cred for being a developer who gets things done. I find it heartening that Thoughtworks has an alumnus system - it’s such a positive aspect of company-employee relationships and certainly colours the way the employee will speak of the employer in years to come.
Would I rather have a good relationship with a past employer? Hell yeah. So what can you do as an employer?
