At a customer site, starting March the 1st, we have to book our hours in a tool called ProTime, based on SAP. My first impression: these guys should go to basic lessons on GUI design. Here is the login mask on my browser. Yes, you see it right: the font is about Arial 5, the mask on my 24″ screen is really small.
And this crap is coming from a huge software company selling it for gazillions of €€€. Go figure, are the customers all blind ? Or do I get old and need goggles ?
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Posted 22 February 2013
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fun § IT
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Well, we are Saturday 22, and the world did not end. Here is my explanation :
- 4’000 years ago, a stone-sculptor called Smarty was given a task by Nokopf, his manager: craft a stone agenda valid for the next 6’000 years.
- being a good worker, and wanting to satisfy his boss, Smarty searched for a very large stone, and found one near his village in south America.
- Smarty made a plan to display the specified 6’000 years on the stone, and then started to sculpt the stone.
- After one year sculpting, Nokopf (the boss) came to check the project status. He noticed Smarty was doing a very good job, but too slow for his taste. Nokopf had to report to his own boss, himself called Lehrkopf. Lehrkopf had the bad habit of cutting heads away when he was angry, and Nokopf had plans to keep his head atop his shoulders. So Nokopf asked Smarty to work faster.
- Smarty said : boss, I can work faster, but I have to use a bigger font. As a consequence, I will only be able to sculpt 4’000 years on this stone.
- Nokopf then answered : never mind, use whatewer font you want, but have it done in time !
- Smarty then continued the calendar using the bigger font, and finished it on time. The last day sculpted was 2012, 21st of December. No room for 22nd or further days.
- Nokopf then made a huge party, inviting Lehrkopf and all other bosses (there were many of them in those ancient times). He publicly noticed how well he drove the project, barely mentioning Smarty’s work. Nokopf got a bonus for his excellent manager talent: he was allowed to select one more girl for his harem (expensive swiss watches didn’t exist in those ancient times). Smarty got a bonus as well, he could eat a second banana during the party (Tirami’su didn’t exist yet, either).
4’000 years later:
- thousands of dumb asses make all sorts of stupid speculations about how the world will end on December 21st, 2012.
- engineers continue to work as usual, because they are the Smarties of our world.
- managers continue to get bonus for being smart and applying the Pareto principle
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Posted 22 December 2012
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fun § IT
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Definitely the best radio stream since I’m listening to online music. Go ahead and support them.
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Posted 13 December 2012
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audio
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The sailors doing the Vendée Globe are really great men, they deserve all our admiration for their courage. As a swiss citizen, I stand behind Bernard Stamm and Dominique Wavre even if all the competitors deserve our respect. Fair Winds guys !
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Posted 26 November 2012
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Sailing
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Asana managed to gather a few very good coders, and their shared task list is a really great tool. The workspace / project / task / sub-task model is nothing new, but they made it easy to use, and free up to 30 people. Amazing stuff, you definitely want it!
I have switched over many note-taking systems during the last years, but nothing come close to Evernote. If you don’t have it yet, go ahead, it’s extremely cool and easy to use. There is even a Linux version called Nevernote.
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Posted 27 September 2012
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I switched over from Swisscom POTS to Netvoip SIP (with phone number porting) end of July. After about 1.5 month, it already pays off : I went from about 50 CHF per month (25.- line subscription plus ~ 25.- calls costs) to about 15.- / month. I can only recommend Netvoip : good voice quality, easy switchover, quick support, worked out of the box with my Siemens Gigaset C475IP. In short, a good move !
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Posted 10 September 2012
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Reading this on Engadget :
Microsoft confirms no upgrade path to Windows Phone 8, unveils 7.8 for legacy devices.
and
The debate can now be laid to rest: devices currently running on Windows Phone 7.5 will not be on the receiving end of the long-awaited Apollo update (aka Windows Phone 8).
One of the best features of iDevices are their capability to get the latest firmware. People don’t want new phones, they want new features. Providing them with an upgrade path for their expensive smartphones is the best way to keep them on board for the long term. My bet : Windows Phone 8 will never get any relevance in the market. Remember the Zune ? Same people, same failure.
Thanks to the work of Eloy Duran, MacVim has now a file-drawer extension. Here is a screenshot to motivate you to try it : Continue Reading »
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Posted 22 March 2012
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IT
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