The IT Report

Ladies and gentleman, I have launched a new website The IT Report (www.theitreport.com) which will cover a broad range of technology topics. Please subscribe to this new site, since I will not be updating this one anymore.

Since When Did IT Reach Rockstar Status?

I’ve been seeing advertisements like this more and more recently. As if IT is more glam than the likes of Guns N’ Roses or your favorite 80’s hair metal band. Did I miss the tour bus or something? Last time I checked IT is by the geeks for the geeks.

ReadWriteWeb posted an article describing the Top 10 Traits of a Rockstar Software Engineer. WTF? You’re telling me using design patterns will get me chicks? If you’re sitting at your office desk right now please take a look around and spot any rockstars. You might catch a glimpse of a guy whose vision has deteriorated over years of monitor glare. The most street cred anyone has is probably the old COBOL programmer who somehow managed to survive the 60’s after a decade of bad acid trips.

Listen, IT is not cool. You don’t get to rock out with your cock out or anything close. You’ve got a bunch of business stiffs who give you money, and a handful of nerds who build hooziwhatsees with that money. No face melting guitar solos, no crazy parties (Maybe if you hang with me at JavaOne), just a fat paycheck at the end of the day to frivolously spend to your liking. Maybe IT folks can be rockstars after all?

Setting up LAMP in 5 Minutes or Less

I’ve explained in an earlier post what exactly the LAMP stack is, and how it is powering web applications on the internet. Setting it up is pretty quick and dirty if you’ve got a Linux system but what about the folks on Windows and OS X? Speak no more. XAMP is here to the rescue. It installs mySQL, Apache, and PHP on your machine with no fuss. You can even launch Apache/mySQL as a service so you don’t even have to worry about starting it up (or shutting it down for that matter). You’ll be setup in 5 mins flat.

Is Agile Development a Myth?

The answer is yes if you work for a large corporation. There is no way to release enterprise software quickly in the IT world. Everyone on the streets would like to speed, but you’re governed by speed limits enforced by the police. The same goes for software. You *could* release the software quickly but you’d have to break the rules governed by your Chief Technology Office. As much as I support XP and scrum-style methods, we must leave it to the small business world.

iPhone Review – Urbanspoon

My first crack at doing a video review.

No, You are NOT a Project Manager

This post is available on my new blog The IT Report:

http://sheehan.viviti.com/entries/project-management/no-you-are-not-a-project-manager

I’m on Twitter

http://twitter.com/syalam

For all of your up to the minute tech needs

Lotus Notes is a Piece of Sh!t

(ugly ass splash screen that is SO1999)

I thought Sharepoint was a headache. Welcome to Lotus Notes. If you do a google search you will see how many thousands of people think it is poorly designed software. Not only is it extremely slow, but it also defies conventional Windows UI design. As if Window’s UI wasn’t bad enough, Lotus Notes merely adds on to the problem. Search is unusable, formatting documents is difficult, and its scripting language for automation is archaic. I never realized how good Outlook is when it comes to corporate e-mail.

Office Restroom Etiquette

When I want to take a leak at the office, I’d like to do it in peace. I don’t want to talk about scope, code complexity, whether or not Jimmy is getting fired. So when nature is calling, please take a moment of silence. We can go back to all things software related in 30 seconds or less. That is all.

Outsourcing can be a good thing

With more and more technology companies outsourcing development overseas, many complain about the job market here. I tend to disagree. Then again, I’m the type of guy who likes to exit through the entrance.

When your company offshores its development, new leadership opportunities come your way. This is a totally different skill set from your innate technical background. No longer will you be developing, you may be managing and assuring the quality of development being done off shore. These are great skills to have.

You may argue that you are a true coder at heart. No worries my friends’ outsourcing means there needs to be some in-house knowledge of the product your company delivers. They will need a technical guy who understands the architecture, because lets face it, developer retention is a big problem.

I’d like to hear thoughts from the developer community. Feel free to leave a comment.