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IT Jobs and Working Conditions

Mark Glossop has written about the best designs for offices to increase productivity and attract qualified staff [1]. He makes a lot of really good points and cites the Joel on Software blog post about “Bionic Offices” [2], it’s sequel “Updated Offices” [3], and Joel’s “Field Guide to Developers” [4]. Interestingly Joel disclaims a connection […]

The Main Security Problem

All security problems are to some degree people problems. Code may be buggy, but it was written by people who could have been better trained, had more time to spend on code review, etc. When there are multiple programs, OSs, libraries, etc to choose from then choosing a suitable combination of software is a matter […]

Normalising Wages

John Robb writes about the normalisation of salaries that is driven by the use of the Internet and global corporations [1]. He cites an example of IBM forcing many of it’s employees to work in developing countries for lower wages.

It seems to me that IBM is leading the field in this regard and many […]

Employment Packages

Paul Wayper has said that he only wants to work for companies that will send him too LCA [1]. While that criteria is quite reasonable it seems overly specific. Among other things the varying location of LCA will result in the expense for the employer varying slightly year by year – which employers generally don’t […]

Mental Benchmarking

One thing that seems overlooked by most people who discuss productive work habits is the varying mental capacity for performing different types of work. While it’s well known that alcohol and other substances decrease mental ability and it’s slightly less well known that sleep deprivation has a similar affect to being drunk [1], the reference […]

Contract Pay Rates

In a comment on my post about Bad Project Management [1] Don Marti [2] says “the more money you charge, the less of your time people waste, and the more seriously they take you” and “you can affect the client more, whether you’re peddling idiocy or wisdom“.

That’s a nice theory, however I don’t recall […]

Apprentice Computer Journalist Wanted

In a comment on my post about apprentices [1] Don Marti pointed me to a blog post of his from 6 months ago where he mentioned a need for an apprentice [2]. I had read the post in question before but didn’t think about it when writing my previous post.

When I was about 17 […]

Bad Project Management

I have just read a rant by Sean Middleditch about bad project management [1]. He describes his post as “personal, rather angsty, and especially whiny” but I think it’s useful and informative. He makes some interesting technical points about PHP programming (I wasn’t aware that there were so many ways of easily getting things wrong […]

Apprentices

Shintaro wrote an interesting post about Rakugo (a form of story-telling) and Mottainai (a particular form of gratitude that is now becoming an English word in reference to environmentalism) [1]. My definitions of the two words are poor, I encourage interested readers to read Shintaro’s post for the links.

Recently I had been considering which […]

The Price of Food

If you live in a hotel for an extended period of time (which can provide significant career benefits – click on this link for details [1]) the issue of food price and availability is going to concern you.

If you are in a decent hotel you will have a fridge in your room that you […]