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  Tips for Putting a Price on Your Work

WHEN I first started as a freelance writer, I was eager to sell myself — but not eager to have to discuss money. So I more or less took whatever was offered. Then I read somewhere that no matter what price a new client states, you always say in a polite but firm tone, “I expected more.” The first time I tried it, I was sweating and I doubt my tone was firm — it probably sounded more like pleading — but to my great surprise, it worked. With th...

   Development,Price,Worl,Negotiation     2012-01-29 04:37:17

  10 things you gotta have to succeed in IT

Takeaway: Everyone seems to agree that IT is a tough field. But what does it take to overcome the adversities and become a successful IT pro? These qualities may be the key. I recently wrote a string of articles discussing various reasons to leave IT — and various alternative careers for dissatisfied IT workers. I received an amazing amount of feedback from readers who have always wanted to express similar sentiments. But that leaves out a huge swath of peo...

   Tips,IT,Development     2011-07-21 21:55:13

  How many programmers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

There seem to be a lot of “How many programmers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?” jokes floating around the Internet, but none aimed specifically for us SQA folk.  I have decided (perhaps mistakenly) that this is no longer acceptable.  If this decision is a mistake, I'm sure that someone else in QA will report it up as a bug and assign it to me.  For better or worse, there is now an SQA set of these jokes, thanks to me.  Now, without further ado, let the pun...

       2016-05-08 12:43:34

  Three things you should never put in your database

As I've said in a few talks, the best way to improve your systems is by first not doing "dumb things". I don't mean you or your development staff is "dumb", it's easy to overlook the implications of these types of decisions and not realize how bad they are for maintainability let alone scaling. As a consultant I see this stuff all of the time and I have yet to ever see it work out well for anyone. Images, files, and binary data Your database supports BLOBs so it must be a good idea to shove ...

   Database,BLOB,Log,Image     2012-05-02 04:44:25

  bakercom1 5 Ways to Make Your IT Staff Unpoachable

When it comes to hiring practices, the tables have turned – capsized, actually. After a global recession saw thousands of jobs lost in IT departments everywhere, now the race is on to hire swarms of top talent. The trouble is: There isn’t enough talent to go around, and the threat of losing key staff to “poachers” is growing daily. “In the current war for talent in Silicon Valley, a lot of leaders believe that it is not possible to compete with the Google an...

   IT,Experts,Keep,Unpoachable     2011-07-25 08:35:49

  Stop obsessing over HTML5 and CSS3

As web designers, we all seem obsessed by HTML5 and CSS3 at the moment. Endless posts, tutorials and discussion about them dominate the blogosphere. But how much are we learning that can be applied today? Don’t get me wrong. We all need to understand HTML5 and CSS3. And a lot of it can be used today. My point is that we seem to be spending a disproportionate about of time reading up on the subject when so many other areas deserve our attention. While others are reading yet another tut...

   Clients, Opinion, Web Designers     2011-06-24 00:55:06

  8 Essential Mobile Game App Development Tools

Who doesn’t love playing a game on their mobile? Temple run had caught the whole world’s attention to such an extent that right from children to elder people in the household were glued to this game. It is indeed interesting that mobile games can keep your kids occupied. In fact, they are the best stress busters available in the present times. Remember how you used to steal some hours just to play candy crush while on the break? This way you used to relieve yourself of the stress bun...

       2014-10-09 05:00:05

  Business Opportunities for Entrepreneurs – Check them Out Here

We are in the digital era, and today, starting a business seems to be easier than ever before. With a smart device and a reliable internet connection, you are almost halfway to becoming a business owner. The main challenge, however, comes in identifying a good business opportunity to venture in, especially considering the high competition in nearly all sectors. Today, nearly everything is done online, and you can take advantage of this to sell your products or services. The best part about onlin...

   BUSINESS     2020-05-13 11:25:28

  Test-Driven Development? Give me a break...

Update: At the bottom of this post, I've linked to two large and quite different discussions of this post, both of which are worth reading... Update 2: If the contents of this post make you angry, okay. It was written somewhat brashly. But, if the title alone makes you angry, and you decide this is an article about "Why Testing Code Sucks" without having read it, you've missed the point. Or I explained it badly :-)Some things programmers say can be massive red flags. When I h...

   Test driven,Application design,tool     2011-10-17 10:19:16

  What Happened to Software Engineering?

Over the past few years there has been an evolutionary shift in the world of software development.  Not very long ago, the dominant Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) methodology was the Waterfall Method with very specific phases that separated the construction phase from phases like design and test. The software development industry, still very new, was striving to find a repeatable, predictable process for developing software.  The best model for this seemed to be the physical sc...

   Software engineering,Software,Developmen     2011-09-07 10:42:34

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