Tap My Mind

Use the Right Tool

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 06:06:00 -0700

My whole life I've heard, "Use the right tool for the job," and I am a big proponent of that and tell people all the time. But there are times that something is low-risk, and it's easier to try to use whatever is on hand than going to get the right tool. So you take a calculated risk and move on with your life. Sometimes, though, you're wrong. You mess things up with the wrong tool and end up having to try to patch it, taking more time and effort that it would have taken to do it right in the first place.

This especially sucks when the "right tool" is your electric beard trimmer and the "wrong tool" is the safety razor you thought you could use to touch up your moustache.

My Ideal Job

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 21:01:00 -0700

Eighteen months ago, I sat down and wrote out a description in bullet points of what my ideal job would be like. I described my position, the company, and my co-workers. My previous job had many of those qualities. It was a good job at a good company, but it wasn't everything I wanted. I wanted to change things, but they weren't mine to change.

I've been at SafeNet for about 7 weeks now. I realize that's not that long, but so far it seems like every single bullet point on my description of an ideal job has been satisfied. Here's my list from June 2010.

My Position

I want to be irreplaceable (see what I mean by "irreplaceable" here).

I want to focus on building relationships, both co-workers and customers.

I want to be able to mentor someone.

I want to be able to learn and be mentored.

I want to be challenged without being overworked.

I want to be expected to do things I don't know how to do.

I want to design and deliver important solutions.

My Company

Must be a place that outsiders get excited about when they see how we do things.

Must be known for its technology as well as for its business -- for execution as well as ideas.

Must be full of irreplaceable people.

Must be full of passionate people.

My Teammates

Must care.

Must have an opinion more often than they don't.

Must share their opinions.

Must debate.

Must be irreplaceable.

Must be passionate.

Must treat their work as a craft or art.

Must give "something" (intangible) more than their work..

Must have insight and understanding.

Must be able to troubleshoot.

Must act like they work for themselves.

Must be empowered.

Must be respected internally and externally.

Must be compensated enough to not worry about compensation.

I didn't realize until tonight when I came across that 18 month old list just how ideal this job is for me.

Do you have a description of your ideal job? If your ideal job is more like my ideal job than it is your real job, we should talk.

The First One

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 20:35:00 -0700

If it wasn't for dominoes, we wouldn't have the "domino effect".

Dominoes alone aren't enough, though. You also need someone to design what it should look like in the end, and you need someone to carefully place each domino where the design says it belongs.

But before you can stand back and watch the show, you need that first one to tip.

The first one has tipped. I'm excited to see what happens next.

(Image source)

Vizualize Me - A Visual Resume

Sat, 24 Sep 2011 11:55:00 -0700

The other day I signed up for Vizualize.me. Once I got over the fact that they misspelled "visualize", it looks like a pretty nifty little service. They make a graphical resume for you, like the one to the right. I'd always wanted my very own personal infographic, and now I have one.

If you are a LinkedIn member, they can optionally pull your work history, education, recommendations, skills, etc. from there so you don't have to enter all of that again. This was the choice I made and it had the additional benefit of making me update my LinkedIn profile so that there was good data to pull.

They have a number of different themes available, and you can customize colors and fonts, too. You can include a bunch of different data, such as work experience, education, LinkedIn recommendations and various personal statistics.

Do you have a visual resume to share?

Math Truck, Math Wiz

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 20:59:00 -0700

Back when I was around 18 or so, I used to have a truck much like this one (65 Chevy).

Mine was very similar but a little different. Some interesting facts about my truck:

Mine had more rust.
It appeared to have been painted with house paint. By brush.
After each rain stopped, there was a white rectangle on the ground where some of the paint washed off. Kind of like a truck-sized chalk outline.
The wooden bed had rotted through and about 3/4 of the bed of the truck was covered with plywood. The remaining 1/4 was open to the ground below.
The muffler was held on by a coat hanger until it fell off one day driving down the road. I dragged it for 1/4 mile before I could stop. It was too hot to pick up so I had to wait for it to cool.
The rear view mirror would not stay attached to the window so I kept in on the seat next to me and held it up when I needed to use it.
The defroster did not work, so I kept a "defroster" (a towel) on the seat next to my rear view mirror.
The horn only worked if you took the 4" diameter cover off and shorted a bolt in the center of the steering wheel to a contact a couple inches away. Fortunately the cover was conductive, so I kept it on the seat next to my defroster and rear view mirror so I could pick it up and use it to short the circuit and beep the horn.
The hood was secured with a piece of chain and a padlock. Otherwise anyone could open the hood from the outside. Someone did this once and stole my battery. So I bought chain and a padlock.
Only about half of the space under the hood was used. The rest was just open to the ground. Just like the bed of the truck.
It passed California emissions tests miraculously.
Sometimes, you had to slam the door about 20 times to get it to stay closed.
It was a manual transmission. When I got it, it was "3 on the tree". Once the clutch went out and I had to drive a few days with no clutch. I had to start the truck in first gear and be ready to go as soon as I turned the key. I had to learn to shift without a clutch. (Believe it or not, this story probably doesn't make the "Top 10 Ways Scott Should Have Died Before Age 25" list.) When I finally got it fixed, it was then "3 on the floor" which doesn't sound as cool. Also, the old gear shifter was left on the steering column for good measure, even though it didn't do anything.

I only had the truck for a short time (less than 2 years I think). As hilarious as this truck was (I'm not doing it justice here), I liked it.

In fact, I had plans to restore it. Well, maybe not plans, but at least a passing desire. I was pursuing a physics or math degree at the time (I switched from physics to math somewhere along the way), so I wanted to get it painted white and cover it with various equations (∫cos(x) dx = sin(x) + C, e^(iπ) + 1 = 0, etc.). I wanted to get a vanity license plate that said "MATH TRK".

That was half my life ago. Literally. I finally finished my math degree, although I never use it. I've forgotten 10 times more math than most people ever bother to learn. I gave up on studying physics, although I often regret that choice. I never got my "Math Truck". (I moved on to the Black Pearl, but that's another story.)

No, I never got my Math Truck, but that's OK. Instead I have my very own Math Wiz.

Charlie is in kindergarten now and is doing really well. We couldn't be more proud of her. Watch out, Hawking. She's coming to get you in 20 years!

There She Goes

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 20:34:00 -0700

It's been almost 5 years ago to the day since my daughter was born. In many ways it seems like yesterday, yet I can hardly remember a time without her.

In just a few hours, she's going to be starting kindergarten. She was so excited she jumped into bed with her clothes on.

Crazy.

Evolving .NET

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 21:52:00 -0700

Jason Bock will be speaking at this week's WI .NET Users Group meeting.

Evolutionary programming and computation have been used in the past to produce amazing and unexpected designs, yet a lot people don't know how powerful these concepts are. This session will describe these principles and show how you can use them as you develop .NET code by using LINQ expressions.

The meeting is on a special night this week: Thursday, August 11. More info and registration is at the link above.

What Would Happen

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 23:24:00 -0700

So I was wondering something tonight.

What would happen if the worst 10% of people in any given profession found a new line of work? Would there suddenly be a shortage of programmers, for example, if the worst 10% of all programmers quit their jobs? Perhaps, but I'd bet that most would not be replaced.

So what would happen if the best 10% of people in any given profession mentored someone?

Visual Studio Command Prompt Here

Mon, 24 May 2010 15:12:10 -0700

I'm rebuilding my computer after a hard drive failure, and I keep running into issues where things I've taken for granted are missing – things such as the "VS Command Prompt Here" Windows Explorer context menu items.

Years ago, Scott Hanselman posted INF files to add VS 2005 to the context menu. Using that as inspiration, I've created a version of the file for VS 2008 and another for VS 2010. For what it's worth, I tweaked his VS 2005 file because my copy of VS is installed in "Program Files (x86)" and on older versions of Windows, such as when he posted, it wasn't.

So enough with the intro; here are the download links:

Right-click to save your file of choice, then right-click on the saved file and choose Install.

Disclaimer-ish stuff: These modify your registry. You should open the files in Notepad first to understand what is happening. Use at your own risk. I'm sure you're not reading this part anyway.

Good luck.

These Are Mine

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 22:24:38 -0700

What are yours?

Happy Thanksgiving!