Tuesday, November 22, 2005

 

Slashdot: Finding a Ready-Made Dev Team?

So someone asked a question on how to find a [software] development team that is ready to go but the someone/small startup "don't have time or funds to go through a developer recruiting cycle, create a practice, get the team 'gelled' etc." In addition this team is only used for getting the product out the door, after that there is no guarantee the team will be with the small startup.
This someone must be on drugs. First this someone wants an entire team to work for them for free. Second this someone wants the team to somehow magically form a relationship with the someone/startup and be able to understand thoroughly the how the product works and be able to build it. Finally after the product is built the someone thinks the product is finished so the team is just working short term, after that it's anybody's guess.
Wow! What a way to attract talent. It's like wanting to know the answers but not doing the homework to get to the answers. And finally wanting to sell the answers off as their own.
This someone is definitely inexperienced and very much on drugs!

Saturday, November 19, 2005

 

Product Manufacturing, Wow!

Interesting article explaining some of the processes in product manufacturing. I like the parts that mention that there are two main factories in southern China, some of the parts are sourced from nearby local plants and during the manufacturing process a log is recorded for every product manufactured so that internal folks know where each part is from so as to trace problems quickly if anything occurs. Then I start thinking about any other product that has been manufactured before the XBOX 360, there are tons! So I'm thinking product manufacturing in general hasn't changed much. When it comes to the name brand products, they almost always have a warranty policy for customers big and small. So these name brand companies need to have some kind of log to help them identify problems if anything occurs. So for no name brand products, the customer big or small can forget about having their problems resolved. They just have to spend the same or more money replacing the broken product. I'm thinking this is the case because my wife recently bought a 3.5" hard drive enclosure USB 2.0 set. The company name, well I don't know who it is, but the product was very cheap. Actually the funny thing was there were other products that cost at least 2 or 3 times more and the company name was also unknown. Anyway back to the product, right now it works great. The case could have been designed a lot better for a much safer and easier way to install the hard drive. But if it ever breaks, I have no recourse but to write if off and buy another one. Compare that with a name brand product, at least there's some assurance that the customer can work with the company to resolve the situation.
So I guess at the end of the day, it's whether or not to buy a name brand product or a generic one. I bet the funny thing is some name brand products internally use generic products! So I guess these companies are taking the burden of assuring the usefulness of these generic products.

Thursday, November 17, 2005

 

Extreme Discipline

I caught this article titled Mom Makes Daughter Stand on Street Corner and it got me thinking about the topic of disciplining kids as I have been seeing this lately to my wife's nephew and niece along with my cousin's boys. These kids are between 2 to around 4 years old.
This article is interesting because a mom used an extreme disciplining tactic after growing tired of her 14 year old daughter's continuing poor grades and chronic lateness to school. So the mom made her daughter stand at a street intersection holding a sign that says "I don't do my homework and I act up in school, so my parents are preparing me for my future. Will work for food."
As the article also says, there will most likely be two camps on this issue. Some will think this further harms the child rather then benefits. And the other camp would think this is the perfect solution to deal with difficult to manage kids.
I think I would sit on the latter camp simply because this camp always works. And like my wife keeps saying, kids know what they're doing when they're howling and scowling for stuff even at an early age so it's best to nip it in the bud before it's difficult to nip when the kid is older.
But sometimes the problem with discipline is that the kid forgets about it the next day and then the cycle begins. I like the mention about reinforcing the negative effects of discipline with the positive effects of praise so that the kid isn't always under discipline. I think this is good because there must be a balance. Just as parents need to discipline when their kids cross the bad threshold, parents should also do the same when their kids cross the good threshold. I know that the kid should be made to understand that having free room and board is already the praise they're getting everyday. I totally agree with that as the kid should also understand how things come to be. But without the matching praise when the kid does good, I feel the kid and the parents will never know the good effects from praise. The way I see it, it's like at work. Most managers would tell the employee when they've done a good job. Besides money, this helps strengthen the employee-manager-company relationship.
This discussion can go on and on and I think no one belief will apply to all kids. At the end of the day, the parents have to do their homework and hopefully find out what works best for their kids. I'm also ending here cause it's getting late. Initially I wanted to write more but I'm getting tired writing this and watching tv. hehe

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