PluralSight's #FreeApril

I'm sorry for posting this so late in the month of April, but how good is was Plural Sight's FreeApril promotion. I'm hooked. They'll probably get a subscription out of this.... and it's helped.

https://www.pluralsight.com/offer/2020/free-april-month

This sort of promotion not only promotes their services in the near future, but fosters personal development, and from there, future productivity.

Trello for everything, except when Teux Deux...will deux!

I've said it before, I love lists....

so here's
 Why You Should Use Trello For Damn Near Everything
- for everything else, use Teux Deux.

It is your job and it is your choice.

Recently I've been stretched quite a bit at work. As every developer in a small business can tell you, they are the one "responsible" for printers that don't work, windows updates that need to be applied, Internet connectivity, backups, and so on.

After a recent spate of server outages and just a bad month for our network in general, I found myself becoming a little bit disillusioned with my role in general.

I'm trying hard to keep up with new development technologies and fighting an uphill battle to keep our software product relevant and somewhere close to up to date. It's a tough battle in a small (microscopic) software development house.

Anyway, after recently being drawn into discussions on disaster recovery, backup best practice, virtual servers architecture, RAID drive recovery and so on and seemingly being the one who's fault it was that a drive failed in the first place, then also copping plenty of pressure to keep the progress of our ongoing, leviathan development project going, I started having some toxic thoughts about how I'm not paid enough to be a system administrator AND a lead developer.

But I know that's toxic! I just said it was. It didn't stop me feeling a little dejected - or used. But I believe I am a more positive person than that and I don't want to become "that guy". There is two ways to look at every situation. You can be a victim, or you can look at what you can control. You can lament that you aren't paid enough, or you can grab the opportunity to do more.

I like to think the negative thoughts that sometime creep in are only skin deep - a short term reaction to a tough day maybe - and that underneath, the "positive me" will ultimately control my actions, for the better.

So with those fairly positive (I'd like to think) core values, I took to Google. I searched terms like "it's not my job", "initiative" and "attitude" and Dr Google prescribed this one....http://www.personalbrandingblog.com/eliminating-its-not-my-job-attitudes-at-your-workplace/

This is a gem. This make the analogy with a sporting club and pointing out that everyone has "roles" but essentially, there is a "job" to be done - by everyone! So I thought, yeh, but what happens when one superstar carries the team all the way!  Well, firslty that rarely never happens, secondly, when it looks that way, the value of that superstar skyrockets.  But think about what comes first.  I love cricket so I'll relate to that. You will never see a player, unproven, state that "right, I'm going to open the batting, open the bowling, captain the side, oh, and I'm going to be incredibly successful at it, so I want top dollar before I start". It doesn't work that way. That player goes out, does what he says he can do, then gets the big offers. If he's bought into the side as  a wicket keeper or an opening bowler or a leg spinner, and does that, he doesn't not make runs or take catches until he's paid more. He makes the runs, takes the catches and turns into an invaluable resource. Then come the spoils. If he's still not appreciated by his current team, that's a different issue. (The recruiters will come knocking).

So time to "put some runs on the board". Once I really am invaluable - then worry about the spoils, and I'm tipping that if it's going that well, you won't have to worry too much.

The Last Tram to Belmont

Fascinating....

Post by Geelong.

Support Notes....

I'm going to point people here in the future...

... it's all common sense, problem is, common sense isn't always that common.

DYPII questions! http://www.forbes.com/sites/micahsolomon/2013/10/22/speaking-the-language-of-customer-service-recovery/

Any list of things has to be good too - http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10-things/10-things-help-desk-techs-can-do-to-improve-service/

More invaluable life advice from Seth...

Read this! Again and again and again and again! (then once more!)
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2013/05/on-teaching-people-a-lesson.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2Fsethsmainblog+%28Seth%27s+Blog%29

Seth's email checklist

I was going to email this to everybody I know, but... :-(

READ IT! Its great ;-)

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/06/email-checklist-maybe-this-time-itll-work.html

Voiced and Voiceless

How to pronounce possessive S'es - or is it Ses, S's?  or could it be S', Esses, Hmmm?

http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/5913/pronouncing-possessive-words-that-already-end-in-s

This takes some reading, and following a couple of the links, in particular, http://forum.wordreference.com/showpost.php?p=672824&postcount=8  and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_consonant

Lambdas - good intro

Will probably need to read this again soon, but it was worth the 20 minutes I spent on it this morning...

http://www.developingfor.net/c-30/upgrade-your-c-skills-part-3-lambda-expressions.html

Paint.Net and Photoshop

Developers don't make great graphic artists - I get that. For those of you lucky enough to work for large companies with your own designers or who can afford to outsource graphic design - knock yourselves out, for those on a shoestring budget that wear many hats, get yourself a copy of Paint.Net and include the Photoshop AddIn, which allows you to work with Photoshop files and your all set!!

Paint.Net - http://www.getpaint.net/download.html
PhotoShop Add In for Paint.Net - http://psdplugin.codeplex.com/

A BitWise Calculator

This was really useful when working out the constant vlues required to build a "magic number" used in some code I found on the net.

It is a bitwise calculator...http://www.fuelledoncoffee.com/tuition/bitwise/