Latest Links
Derren Brown – Subliminal Advertising
If you don’t believe in the power of subliminal advertising, just take a look at this six and a half minute video as it’s successfully applied on two marketing advertisers.
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex
In software development, too often a very complex and over the top solution is devised when something very simple would have solved the issue.
Why You Should Polish Your Code
Having read and refactored a lot of other people’s code, I can’t express how important it is to clean up your code afterwards. Would you want your painter to leave his mess after he finishes painting your house?
10 Developers For The Price Of One
I’ve just talked about this in my last entry. This article goes into a lot more depth as to why this is often true.
A game of inches
Joel is a great writer, and in this article he really brings about the point that great software is achieved through continual improvements over time.
Compensation
This is a good explanation of why sometimes it can be more expensive to try and be cheap.
10 Steps to Improving Your Email Customer Service
I’ve been reading Ian’s blog for as long as I can remember, and here at LandlordMax we use his product HelpSpot to manage our technical support. And this is why I personally value, and so should you, his suggestions on how to improve email customer service.
23.4375 terabytes in a box (Sun Fire X4500)
On the lighter side of things, have you ever wondered what a large data server looks like? Take a look.
Free Blogging Tips Podcast with Darren and Yaro
I listened to the podcast in my car and found some very good nuggets of information. For example, you’ll now see at the bottom of every one of my entries a “Like this article? Subscribe to my RSS feed.” link.
Two Techniques That Help You Embrace Brevity
If you ever wanted to read a great blog on how to write, this is it. In this entry he offers two great tips to reduce your word count while increasing the quality of your copy.
The 4 Pillars of Writing Exceptional Blogs
Darren’s blog ProBlogger.net is always filled with great information for anyone interested in blogging. In this entry he provides you with a quick yet precise definition of what it takes to blog successfully.
9 Reasons Why I AM An Amazon Affiliate
Darren gets the honor of three full links this week (you can see now why I say he’s always got some great information to share). In this particular example he shows why the Amazon affiliate program can be very profitable if you don’t just look at the short term but also the long term.
The importance of targeted website traffic
Andy is another ISV’er who’s Successful Software blog I follow. In this article he clearly articulates why not all traffic is not equal. And once you understand this, it can really make a difference in where your ad dollars are spent.
Code Critique as an Interview Tool
Sometimes showing what’s wrong can be a better indication of your understanding than trying to solve an issue. Here Adam nicely argues an interview method where you hand the candidate a small snippet of code and discuss with them what’s wrong with it. From simple and obvious issues to subtle and complex ones. All within a page of code.
· July 29th, 2007 · 12:58 pm · Permalink
Great post.
Your links to
1. 10 Steps to Improving Your Email Customer Service
2. 23.4375 terabytes in a box (Sun Fire X4500)
are broken.
· July 29th, 2007 · 1:26 pm · Permalink
Hi JD,
Thanks for letting me know. I don’t know what happened… In any case I’ve just fixed them.
· August 3rd, 2007 · 2:09 pm · Permalink
I’m currently reading Derren Brown’s ‘Tricks of the mind book’. Its very interesting covering belief, memory techniques, mnisdirection, hypnotism etc. Its quite funny and surprisingly rude as well.
· August 9th, 2007 · 10:18 pm · Permalink
Hi Andy,
Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll definitely have to pick a copy since the recommendation is coming from you.
Would you mind posting the Amazon link, I can’t seem to find it…
Btw, I really enjoyed your latest article “If you aren’t embarrassed by v1.0 you didn’t release it early enough“. It’s very true!