ingenious code ::

I have to confess. As a normal geek, I buy a lot of stuff on the internet. As a good consumer I will research the product, look for the best price and once I am happy with what I found, I’ll make the purchase.

Usually, when I shop online I would look for th cheapest shipping method, unless of course it extremely important that I have the thing I’m buying within’ a day. Most cases, if I ordered online, I could wait the 5-7 business days till I get the thing.The problem is that shipping cheap cost you more than you would expect.

For example, if I order something personal that I can carry on my way home I will order it to the office, but if its too big than I need it to be shipped to my home. Well, here is the problem. First, they will never tell you when the item will arrive to your home. Second, the messenger will come and of course and nobody will be there to greet him so he will leave a sticky note indicating the next time that will appear… I don’t how they manage their time but always they put 10:30-2PM which means that that day I have to work from home unless I want to drive 15 miles to get the item.

Now, you would think that if the messenger puts 10-2:30, he or she will actually be here… HA! you guessed wrong. So ,here I am still waiting for my package (btw it’s already 4:30). I wish that the shipping companies (UPS, DHL and Fedex) would invest a little bit in making the quality of delivery better because each coin has two sides, as a business owner I will not ship with a company that makes me salty at home all day long waiting for my package.

I recently discovered the Jott website. Jott is a web application that allows you send email and create notes to yourself by using highly sophisticated voice recognition software. (It is able to decipher my accent with 90% accuracy). The website is still in beta, so all its features are for free for now. I guess this will change as soon as they get a decent customer base.

To work with the website is very easy. First, you fill out a very simple registration form and activate your account by email. Then, you can import your contacts or enter them manually. After that, you just call the Jott number and dictate to whom you want to send the massage and the message itself.

Here are two helpful links regarding Jott.

• How to use Jott
• Get Things Done Over the Phone with Jott

The last year had its share of goals I accomplished both on the personal and on the business levels. One thing I dissapointed myself is with the amount of posts I published in my blog this year. It’s not that I’m not aware how benficial is to write a blog its just pure laziness…

I just finished reading this post and I decided, No more excuses. So, this year one of my resolutions is write more. Easy to say, right? well in order to write more first I need to find out why I didn’t write as much I wanted. After much research and thought (30 to 60 seconds… what!? it was easy to find the answers), I came with the following list of top 3 reasons that I do not write more.

1. No time - Pure excuse, I only need 15-30 minutes a day, I could actually write before I go to sleep, work, whatever… I’m sure that if I put my mind into it I could find the time. I can record my favorite show, write something in the blog and then go back and see the show, then I could even skip the commercials….

2. Nothing interesting to write - duh? I am a software developer who opened his own business two years ago, grew it and although its still a small business its doing pretty well so far. So this again is unfortunately another lame excuse.

3. My writing skills are crap - OK, English in not my native tonuge but I still have basic writing and reading skills.
Second, I could always get a book, oops I have a book, I just need to open it and read it a bit.

So no more procrastinating, here starts 2008… let start blogging…

I read today the excellent article Steve Joubert article about project management. I agree completely with the idea of involving all the practitioners in the development software with the client. However, this way of work has a disadvantage which is the that usually, some members of the development team are very technical people who are not savvy in the way you should approach project requirements the client. When dealing with a client, even after the project signed on, the client especially if he/she is a new client, is always checking his provider to verify that he actually made the right decision. What I believe that there should be a representation from each of parts of the development team, but you have to verify that you chose the right personnel to work with the client.