There has been a recent uptick in the number of students requesting for some kind of content around transitioning from student to employee. They want to know the practical steps between getting a certification and landing their first job in IT. It seems this kind of content may be valuable, even if it is an … Read more
An the accounting department of an insurance company had daily financial reporting that was automated by their IT department providing daily reports to a network drive for seven software systems. 7 software systems x 30 working days per month = 210 individual files. Each of these files, per software system, needed to be opened as … Read more
Planning for support desks isn’t easy. Support request volumes adjust with month-end, billing and payment cycles, holidays, etc. Phone call volumes are usually pretty easy to find. Emails — not always so easy. That’s why there’s this little script. Navigate in Outlook to the folder you want to count (maybe the inbox or archives of … Read more
The situation that was brought to me was that a folder existed on a desktop that had approximately 100 pdf files. These files all needed to be emailed out as monthly billing statements. These were only the ones that were not billable through EDI or some other method. Here are the rules: For every pdf … Read more
No, I’m not a spy. Never have been. Probably never will be. But, then again, that’s what a spy would say, wouldn’t they? Declassified CIA materials are both interesting reading and useful in business. Skills like determining deception, spotting a lie, discovering intent, gathering intelligence, extracting information through questioning seem like if they are applied … Read more
Building an Offshore Development Team [View Google Doc] Offshoring isn’t just shifting repetitive, low value, or high volume tasks to lower cost resources. In this global economy, offshore resources are often the backbone of POC, MVP development, SaaS, and support teams. Whether you need to build a product to spec at low cost, deliver on … Read more
Developers often ask something to the effect of “Should I use XML or JSON here?” or “Which is better?” or “Which is faster?” or my favorite, “Which is easier?” and before reading any more, you should know that JSON normally wins the day. Here are my most common recommendations by task type: I’m integrating with … Read more
All else being equal, if a developer candidate tells me they know how to develop with object oriented programming methods but prefer procedural or functional development – they’re getting the job. What they don’t need to tell me is that they probably learned the hard way, just like I did, that object oriented development is … Read more
