In my free time, I'm exploring the MEAN stack. My previous employer had a few teams running Node.JS & MongoDB and the resulting products and team-velocity looked slick! I'm following "Web Development with MongoDB and Node.js" by Jason Krol. Getting Started with MongoDB For this play-instance, I'm using a t2.micro Ubuntu instance (free-tier eligible) on... Continue Reading →
In large businesses, it isn't unusual to have different approaches to software delivery. The finance organization may choose to outsource development and prefer a detailed statement of work at the beginning of the project. They would choose the waterfall methodology leading to a higher confidence in delivery timelines. Their projects may last months, but the... Continue Reading →
We were way off. It started by hearing a customer requirement from an internal stakeholder. The customer was apparently pissed and threatening to leave for a competitor. They spent over $100k monthly and were trending higher-- but if we didn't get our act together and produce what they needed, we could kiss that revenue goodbye.... Continue Reading →
Whoah. It has been way too long since my last post. This week marks the end of a wonderful journey with Rackspace. Rackers (aka Rackspace employees) are brilliant and they didn't mind me listening attentively and asking absurd questions. And for some reason, they kept promoting me over the 6 years I was there. As... Continue Reading →
Work: "Want to go to Switzerland, Joe?" Me: "Visit a country known for chocolate, cheese, and particle physics? I'm already packed." This was an awesome trip. And yes, I'm going to bore you with pictures. First the geeky. One of the first world wide web servers (invented @ CERN in Geneva): Speaking of CERN, known... Continue Reading →
Happy Father's day to my Dad, his Dad, and my Step-Dad. : ) I recently got about 16 family home videos and started a project to copy them to DVD for preservation. I've counted 15 firework shows, 27 sunsets, and countless clips of me rolling my eyes at the camera. As father's day approached,... Continue Reading →
I took a trip with my son last weekend to Fort Worth. If you haven't met him, he is energetic, curious, and quite a bit more vocal than I am. His curiosity, while a good thing, sometimes gets to be a bit much. I find myself trying to divert his re...
After instructing my kiddo or giving him feedback, I often find myself questioning if I'm helping or hurting him. Did I give him too much praise for something that should be considered elementary? Am I setting the bar too low or too high for him? ...
One of the most valuable lessons I learned at PepsiCo was to listen to the salesmen vendors or startups send over. Not necessarily because they are right, but because they linked a product or service that they can provide to a plausible return on ...
Sorry about the lack of posts - weekends have been pretty busy. Since the last post, I've added about 30 things I want to do that have nothing to do with the media server. Sensing a trend in which nothing gets accomplished, I'm going to focus on t...