“Via this blog (link in spanish) a guy, who works in the department of a Human Resources consultancy company, says they made a selection process in which, among other things, they asked for a person with ample experience in using the internet (navigation, searches, formats…). They received 50 candidacies, from which 30 came from Hotmail-directions, all of them erased as they entered.”

“A new IT department is being born. You don’t control it. You may not even be aware of it. But your users are, and figuring out how to work with it will be the key to your future and your company’s success.”

“Erik K. Antonsson, a prof at Caltech, has a page of quotations related to design and engineering. Some samples: ‘If a major project is truly innovative, you cannot possibly know its exact cost and its exact schedule at the beginning. And if in fact you do know the exact cost and the exact schedule, chances are that the technology is obsolete.’ -Joseph G. Gavin, Jr., discussing the design of the lunar module that landed NASA astronauts on the moon.”

“As a bootstrapped software company, Fog Creek couldn’t afford to hire customer service people for the first couple of years, so Michael and I did it ourselves. The time we spent helping customers took away from improving our software, but we learned a lot and now we have a much better customer service operation.”

“Whether you call them conference calls or telecons or excruciatingly dull time-wasters, multi-participant phone conversations are as important to most web workers as email. If you can’t meet face to face or arrange video conferencing, the conference call is the next best thing. But just as with email and instant messaging, people don’t always agree on how to use them as effectively as possible as a tool for collaboration. Try these tips for your next telecon whether you’re the leader of the call or just a participant. And share your own ideas for making conference calls worthwhile and productive in the comments.”

“It’s a funny thing. After almost twenty years of drawing a paycheque for creating software, people generally want to hire me because they want me to duplicate the successes I’ve had. The model seems to be ‘do the things you’ve done successfully before, and you’ll be successful now.’ My experience is that this has never worked on its own. Success in software development is at least as much about avoiding failure modes as it is about “best practices.” I conjecture it’s because software development on a commercial scale is so hard that almost any mistake will sink a project if left uncorrected or even worse, actively encouraged.”

“Free, instructor-led, available 24/7… HP Learning center class instructors are subject-matter experts who enjoy teaching and interacting with students. Among them are award-winning authors, technology leaders, and professionals.”

“It is time to admit what many security professionals already know: We, as security professionals, are drastically failing ourselves, our community and the people we are meant to protect. Too many of our security layers of defense are broken. Security professionals are enjoying a surge in business and growing salaries and that is why we tolerate the dismal situation we are facing. Yet it is our mandate, first and foremost, to protect. The ramifications of our failure are immense.”

“You’ve gotten into the habit of stowing away information into text files. But how do you make sure your todo.txt doesn’t languish in the dark depths of your hard drive, untouched? If you keep your daily worklog, grocery shopping list, todo’s, project ideas or even your calendar in text files, you can embed that information right onto your Windows desktop automatically with free Windows system monitoring software, Samurize.”

“We love Apple. Apple knows more about ‘clean’ design than anybody, right? So why do Macs, iPods, iBooks and the rest of their product range contain hazardous substances that other companies have abandoned? A cutting edge company shouldn’t be cutting lives short by exposing children in China and India to dangerous chemicals. That’s why we Apple fans need to demand a new, cool product: a greener Apple.”

“As the 120-ton space shuttle sits surrounded by almost 4 million pounds of rocket fuel, exhaling noxious fumes, visibly impatient to defy gravity, its on-board computers take command.”

“#10: Let vendor upgrade timetables define your path of least resistance. Waiting for Vista? Need we say more?”

From the SLIMTIMER [timesheet software] you can create tasks and even share them with your coworkers and those you report to. Open the SLIMTIMER and click on a task to start the clock and click again when you’re finished. If you’ve completed the task click the checkbox to mark it off. Close the browser when you’re done. Run reports of not only your time but also that of your coworkers and reportees. You can export any report to CSV(Excel), subscribe to its RSS feed, or email it to a colleague.

I am on the planes a decent amount of the time (100,000 miles by late May) and tend to spend a chunk of my flights using my laptop. Most of the time it’s productive, but it can also include a DVD or the occasional game… So I did a lil’ Googlin’ for tips on extending battery life, and I found them all pretty, well, lacking… Alas, I’ve gone and done a lot of experimenting and have a list of my tips to really maximize battery life for my laptop. Key to this process is having some good methodology.”

“Some colleagues at Adaptive Path have launched a survey on the business value of user experience, and how organizations treat user experience. It’s brief (about 5 minutes), and if you fill it out, you can get a free copy of our report ‘Leveraging Business Value.’”