Posts Categorized: Ramblings

(Don’t) Blame the Techie

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I’m a techie by trade, I’m sure you figured that out from the sort of things I blog about here. As such, I do get rubbed up the wrong way when I hear of so many companies complaining on a regular basis about their technical team. It’s either because they don’t deliver on time. Or […]

Don’t Get Weirded Out by “Open Source”

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I read recently Robert Lindh’s post on his blog about the argument he makes for re-branding the concept of “open source” and I have to sympathize with it. If you’re a techie you are quite likely accustomed to the concept of open source and probably use some open source framework or stack. In fact you […]

Welcome to British Gas!

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This is another speech I’ve given at Valley Toastmasters, and it’s part of Competent Communicator manual, project #6: “Vocal Variety”. As a reminder, the objectives of the project are: Use voice volume, pitch, rate and quality to reflect and add meaning and interest to your message Use pauses to enhance your message Use vocal variety […]

Should I Still Worry About Handwriting?

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This is something that’s been bugging me for quite a bit now to be honest to the point where it’s getting into becoming an obsession: are we using writing (and reading for that matter) for all the wrong reasons? Is it still needed? Or is it an archaic way of communicating — and as such […]

marketing

Small Business or Startup?

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I had an interesting discussion recently with a friend of mine about titles and terminology used nowadays in business, and it prompted me to continue my trail of thoughts on this on my blog. We talked about how a lot of companies label themselves rather proudly as startups — an idea which my friend was […]

Know Thy Audience

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I’ve been to a bunch of conferences, meetups and other technical (or not!) events recently and some of them have touched me enough to deserve some comments on my blog, as you might have noticed. Looking back now at the last 5-6 months or so and all the events I’ve been attending — and needless […]

Flat Structure

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I see this a lot nowadays — and I’m sure it’s not just me who notices it: every other job advert you see out there, or every other company seems to pride themselves nowadays with “practicing a flat structure”. Apparently, this is supposed to improve efficiency and motivation, according to their own bragging. I’m talking […]

Of Engineers and Creating Things

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I had a chat recently with someone about engineers, and it is because of that chat I feel I need to write this, because the person I was talking to made some interesting points about engineers (mainly in Silicon Valley, due to their geographical position at the moment, but this I’m sure it’s often the […]

Mobile Advertising Takes Us Back in the ’90s

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I have to get this off my chest as it’s been bugging me for a while and just been reminded this morning of this issue so had to pick up the keyboard and blog (moan?) about it. I’m not the biggest mobile user — arguably! — however, like most people out there I find myself […]