rant
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The Scrum Daily Standup
3 minutes - Jul 25, 2016
One of the hallmarks of the Scrum method of agile software development is a daily meeting, or “standup”. The purpose of the Scrum Daily Standup is to make sure the Scrum team is aware of what tasks the other members of the team are working on as well as asking for and offering assistance to other members of the team as needed. The Scrum Daily Standup is NOT a meeting to gather the project’s status. -
How do you handle a developer that doesn't play by the rules?
4 minutes - Feb 20, 2016
Software development teams are fickle groups. It seems everyone has their own pet peeves that set them off, and a group that is cohesive and functioning well can quickly turn into one that shows little output for the time spent working. In order to create and nurture a software development team takes leadership that understands all of the idiosyncrasies of their team members, and ensure that no one member derails the rest of the team. -
SCRUM Sprint Planning Gone Wrong
2 minutes - Apr 21, 2015
One of the things that is a hallmark of the SCRUM method of Agile development is that you have a unit of time during which you commit to accomplishing some amount of work before that unit of time has elapsed. In order to commit to how much work should be accomplished during the “sprint”, all members of the team meet at the beginning of each sprint for a sprint planning meeting. -
The Top Sign You Hired The Wrong Developer
2 minutes - Mar 9, 2015
I have been a part of the interview process at a few different companies now, and there is one thing that I have seen correlate completely with how useless a developer hire is. If the hiring manager ever brings me a resume that mentions how many conferences a candidate attends or gives talks at, I will immediately rule that candidate out for the purposes of the development position I am interviewing for. -
Stop Wanting and Start Choosing
2 minutes - Mar 2, 2015
I am used to hearing people use phrases like “I want to be able to do X thing” or “I want to have X position at my company” when people are talking in generalities about their goals. I tend to do it often as well, especially when using “self-talk” to attempt to work on internal goals and desires. However, when reading a book from Paul Tough, How Children Succeed, one of the quotes that he references from Jonathan Rowson, a Scottish chess grand master who had written about the importance of emotion and psychology in chess success. -
Top Job Applicants Never Stop Learning
3 minutes - Jan 4, 2015
From time to time, my job allows me to be a part of the hiring process for our technical positions. Unfortunately for some of the applicants, I repeatedly come away from these interviews amazed at the responses I get from pretty standard and basic technical questions related to Web Development. Recently we were looking for a front-end web developer that was good at UX and design and proficient at HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. -
Apple's iPhone Announcement is a Big Deal for T-Mobile
3 minutes - Sep 19, 2014
Every year, we are treated to a big show from Apple about what the next iPhone will be like, and how magical it actually is. In case you have been living under a rock, this major Apple annoucement is one of the largest news-making fancy press-conferences you will see these days. It used to be this way when Microsoft would launch a new operating system, remember that launch announcement and launch party for Windows XP? -
5 Ways to Keep Your Nude Pictures Secure
3 minutes - Sep 3, 2014
With the recent revelation that there was a massive release of naked or revealing photographs of many female celebrities, it seems to be an important time to remind people how to make sure private photos and other information don’t get shared all around the internet without your permission. As a result, here are my top 5 ways to keep your nude pictures secure. Don’t Take Nude Selfies - Yes, the best and easiest way to keep your naked selfies out of the sight for the public viewers on the internet is to never take a naked selfie in the first place. -
Google Chrome Makes Web Developers Lazy
4 minutes - Aug 21, 2014
This post may make me sound ancient in the world of web development, but here it comes anyway. Like Microsoft, Google has decided to implement functionality in their dominant browser that is incompatible with the other major competing browsers. When I first started developing websites professionally, ensuring a website worked for 99% of the site’s visitors was easy, relatively, as you only needed to make sure the site worked in Internet Explorer 6. -
Links Not Working? Check AdBlock Plus
2 minutes - Jul 28, 2014
It turns out that the issues with useForcedLinkTracking are not isolated just to Safari’s popup blocker. Unfortunately, one of the most popular browser for both Chrome and Firefox, AdBlock Plus is subject to this issue as well. One of the things that the AdBlock Plus plugin does is attempt to intercept any and all link traffic to determine whether it was created from an actual mouse click or if it was triggered through JavaScript as part of a marketing campaign.