Innovation is Saying “No” to 1000 Things

People think focus means saying “yes” to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying “no” to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done.… Continue reading Innovation is Saying “No” to 1000 Things

Google’s foobar is Clever Recruiting

I just finished up the second day of Google IO Extended Utah. During the conference my friends and I noticed that little slips of paper with cryptic messages were in our goody bags. Playing with the information on the slips we found a code challenge system called foobar. Looks like it is by invitation only. When… Continue reading Google’s foobar is Clever Recruiting

Theory and Practice

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice; in practice there is. — Author Unknown Attributed to Yogi Berra in Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile – Things that Gain From Disorder (2012), p. 213. Disputed in WikiQuote.

Will EJS Escape Save Me From XSS? Sorta

If you’ve never had your website reported for cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities then you’re missing out. Of course, it’s great to get it right the first time. But it’s hard to beat that sense that you’re wide open for attack, it’s your fault, and everyone knows it thanks to some white-hat hacker. This raises the… Continue reading Will EJS Escape Save Me From XSS? Sorta

Are You Being Wooed?

An interesting and short article went over the predictable labor shortage caused by the difference between the sizes of the Baby Boomer and Gen X population groups. It talked about Employment Branding.

The technical term is “Employment Branding,” and it’s how companies woo top talent. They showcase their company culture, values, benefits, perks, executive team, staff members, business mission, and anything else that will make a great candidate want to work for them instead of their competitor.

… Google, Zappos, Amazon, and Facebook aren’t the only hot employers on our planet. They’re just the ones that embraced Employment Branding when others didn’t. But soon, we’ll be seeing companies of all shapes and sizes strutting their stuff in hopes of catching our eyes. It’s going to be a great year!

Has this been true for you? I know I talk up our unique workplace — especially for top candidates. How prominently has “Employment Branding” featured in your recent job interviews?

Just finished putting up flags around my neighborhood with my two oldest sons. (It’s a Cub Scout fundraiser.)  I hope you have a meaningful day.

  
You might try out FamilySearch.org for finding out more about your ancestors today.  I admit I’m biased. I’ve written code there.

(My words are my own and no-one else’s. They are particularly not my employer’s or the BSA’s.)

An Irritable Programmer Calls 911

Operator: Please state the nature of your emergency. Programmer: I need immediate assistance. Operator: Are you injured? Programmer: Look lady, I don’t want to turn this into a status meeting. Status is Not Stupid I’ve noticed people saying the word “status” with scorn: “Now, instead of getting work done we’re just reporting on status.” In fact, I’ve heard… Continue reading An Irritable Programmer Calls 911

Merge Pull Requests Like a Legendary Project Maintainer

If you haven’t written code on GitHub then stop what you’re doing and make something out there. (You really should have a portfolio on GitHub.)

When you’re working all by your lonesome it doesn’t come up much, but add another person to the mix and pull requests can get stressful and laggy real fast. If you’re ready to upgrade your workflow then read about the better way to merge pull requests.

If you don’t learn how to use the hub command line tool then you’ll often find yourself having to decide how bad the request has to be before you’ll throw it back for polish.

Git OCD types will be particularly gratified now they can easily tweak pull requests before merging them. Now you can fix little problems here and there while still giving proper props.

Thanks to Jamis Charles for posting this link.

Embrace The Right Stress

An excellent article in a recent Wall Street Journal lays out a better way to deal with performance anxiety. Though most of us (91%) think of calming down as the proper response to stage jitters the proven better alternative is to welcome the anxiety as a performance enhancer.

In other words, it’s better to tell yourself, “I am excited,” than to give the aspirational lie, “I am calm.”

Not only does your audience rate you better, and your performance on objective criteria rises, but you will find the event less taxing.

According to the article this simple trick of stress-mindset may even be effective at avoiding burnout.

The article doesn’t mention this, but it seems wise to see that there is a difference between the stress that accompanies a moment of high-performance, and the chronic stress of worry.

I’m sure you should still find times in the day and week to unplug and seek a lower level of energy. But in the moment when performance is necessary it is clearly better to be truthful about your emotions, accept them, and have faith that they will elevate your performance.

Sublime Text’s column mode makes it really easy to create multiple cursors and make repetitive edits. This comes in handy all the time. 

On Mac, Sublime Text’s default key-binding for entering column mode conflicts with the system’s default key bindings for the “slow-mo” version of mission control.

I like mission control. I hate slow mo. Apparently you can’t have one bound to ctrl-up without the other bound to ctrl-shift-up.

Luckily it’s pretty easy to modify the sublime text shortcut from ctrl-shift-up (and down) to ctrl-alt-up (and down).

Just add the following bindings to your user key-bindings:

{ "keys": ["ctrl+alt+up"], "command": "select_lines", "args": {"forward": false} },
{ "keys": ["ctrl+alt+down"], "command": "select_lines", "args": {"forward": true} }

Of course, take care to get the line-ending-commas right if you already have bindings in that file.

I hope that helps you.

Next page