- About Tim King
- Business
- Christianity
- Entrepreneurship
- Friday Snippets
- Humor
- Intellectual Property
- Judaism
- Leadership
- Management
- Marketing
- Movies
- Music
- Novels
- Personal Improvement
- Politics
- Professionalism
- Recipes
- Self-publishing
- Software Development
- Tales of a Wanna-Be Software Entrepreneur
- Technology
- Uncategorized
- Writing
You Know You’re an Old Fogey Software Engineer When…
Software Development
Today, I came to a realization. I’m now officially an Old Fogey Software Engineer. You know, like those narrow-minded, intolerant, old-time veterans of the field I used to look down on when I was but a young Whippersnapper. They were so limited in their view, only being able to do what they have always done, always disagreeing with me, always putting roadblocks in my way, always wiping out my carefully crafted abstractions in favor of in-line code, always throwing out my object-oriented design in favor of procedural, always turning my portable, reusable code into use-once code. I never stopped to think that their objections might have been born from decades of experience and life-long expertise.
Now that I’m officially on the other side of the fence, I’ve discovered a new rule: When your junior colleague thinks his fancy object-oriented code is simpler than your straightforward procedural code, you know it’s time to raise your rates. Because they’re not listening to you, so you know you can’t be charging them enough. (Read more…)
Secrets of Business from Rainforest Cafe
It’s summertime. Lazy days. Vacations. Time off. The kids are out of school. And only 17 16 15 days before they go back! (But that’s a different story.) I’ve been working part-time while they’re home with me over the summer.
Last Friday, my parents took us all out to lunch at the Rainforest Cafe, and then we all saw The Simpsons Movie. (Worth seeing, BTW, especially if you’re a Simpsons fan.) The Rainforest Cafe is a theme restaurant, owned by Landry’s Restaurants. And there are a number of things they do there that serve as positive object lessons to all small businesses, in every niche. (Read more…)
I Finally Threw My Apple Mighty Mouse Across the Room
For software developers, the new Intel Macs are the best thing since sliced bread. And someday maybe I’ll write a blog post listing all the reasons why. Of course, Apple has already highlighted some of the reasons in their ads, including that it has all the power of *nix and can run Windows software. Who can turn down a combo like that? (But some of Apple’s ads stretch the truth, at best. For example, my Mac crashes about as often as a Windows box.)
When I struck out on my own last November, I got a MacBook Pro to develop software with. And ever since then, I’ve had everything I’ve needed right at my fingertips. And I’ve been generally happy with my purchase. (Read more…)
Sued for Reading an RSS Feed?
Intellectual Property | RSS | Tales of a Wanna-Be Software Entrepreneur | Technology
The blogosphere is coming of age. And the story of my recent experience with a well-known blog network illustrates a contentious issue in the blogosphere, contentious because blogging technology is just progressing too fast, even for bloggers. And because the law is moving even more slowly than the bloggers themselves. Before the dust settles, no doubt, many people will have spent many, many thousands of dollars (or maybe millions) in legal fees, sorting it all out.
My story began with an email from said major blog network, an email that was obviously written by a lawyer. (Read more…)
