Starting today I'll be writing at a new blog location: http://unweary.com/blog/ I've redirected the old RSS feed http://feeds.feedburner.com/davidweiss to the new blog. If you want to subscribe to the shiny new RSS feed http://feeds.feedburner.com/unweary please go right ahead. At some point I'll take down the old RSS feed. This change includes an upgrade from Blogger to Movable Type as my…
Especially with a code base that is mature, assumptions correctly made years ago can be terribly difficult to deal with later when the current and new assumptions reign. Writing code that lasts even 5 years and "is robust" is what everyone wants to do for sure, but the recipe for doing just that is not easy to learn and even harder to actually do. For example, you might know what changes need to…
As with most forms of art, there are those pieces of music or sculpture or painting that you'll dislike. Perhaps what they portray or teach don't match with your ideals of right and wrong. You'll disagree on a moral level. Perhaps they bring forth memories of the past. Maybe they just look or sound chaotic and simply don't make any sense to you. In all honesty you may not know why you don't like…
I just found this great quote by Dee Hock, founder and CEO of VISA. I ask each person to describe the single most important responsibility of any manager. The incredibly diverse responses always have one thing in common. All are downward looking. Management inevitably has to do with exercise of authority — with selecting employees, motivating them, training them, appraising them, organizing them,…
I've visited a lot of places around the world, but I've only really lived in a few places. I grew up in Redmond, Washington, the Redmond before Microsoft. The little town with one stop light on Leary Way and fields next to the Library where I would ride my BMX bike. I grew to love the green, tall trees, massive amounts of rain and the feeling of misty mornings and amazing sunsets. Rivers were all…
Microsoft's recent introduction of Live Mesh is a perfect example of a core difference between Apple and Microsoft. Apple is, at heart, a product company. Microsoft is, at heart, a platform company. Both produce products and platforms, but the way they approach the problem and communicate with developers is decidedly different. With Live Mesh Microsoft says, "Come, build on our platform and do…
A few tweets ago, (I always feel weird referring to Twitter in the past tense) I posted : Why are the unintelligent or uninformed so arrogantly confident while the intelligent and well informed so often unsure and apprehensive? There is something very human to thinking you know more than you really do about a subject or issue. While, this problem can be seen in many areas generally it's…
Here's a blast from the past. As Xcode continues to improve as the default IDE on the Mac and for the iPhone, the majority of Apple's current developers don't even how CodeWarrior saved Apple. With the release of the iPhone SDK, I think it's not far fetched to imagine Apple's WWDC attendance tripling . Someone sent me this graphic from an old Metrowerks t-shirt. If you have this shirt, you fully…
You don't have to understand calculus to appreciate this entertaining story : A teacher, trying to explain what a theory is, asked this question: “If you take a letter half the distance to a mailbox and stop, then start over going half the remaining distance and stop, then repeat the process over and over, theoretically will you ever really get to the mailbox?” One bright student said, “No, but…
When I was a little boy my Mom had me memorize this little poem: Stick to your task ’til it sticks to you; Beginners are many, but enders are few. Honor, power, place and praise Will always come to the one who stays. Stick to your task ’til it sticks to you; Bend at it, sweat at it, smile at it, too; For out of the bend and the sweat and the smile Will come life’s victories after a while. —Author…
Business Week's recent cover story on Lenovo's new ThinkPad X300 laptop caught my attention. Can you imagine spending 2 years working on a super thin, super light laptop for release in February 2008 and then have Apple announce the MacBook Air on January 15th? What a commotion must have been had at Lenovo after Jobs' keynote! It turns out that the X300 is actually lighter than the MacBook Air when…
I know I'm dating myself a bit here, but there was a time when friends my age would exchange songs via cassette tape. It was illegal I'm sure, but such a wonderful labor of love. The carefully selected list would exchange hands and then the recipient would spend typically 60 minutes straight listening to each song trying to deduce the "real meaning" for this song being included in the mix.…
Beloved Church President Gordon B. Hinckley, who led The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints through 12 years of global expansion, has died at the age of 97. President Hinckley was the 15th President in the 177-year history of the Church and had served as its President since March 12, 1995. I suppose he said it best: Death is a part of life. It is a fundamental, basic part of our eternal…
I just rediscovered this great quote: A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. - Max Planck I believe this doesn't just relate to scientific truth, but truth in general. My Dad would say, "Experience is always in the first person,"…
Starting today I no longer work at Microsoft. As many of you know, I started working at Microsoft after an illustrious post high school career as landscape architect. ;-) I loved the landscape work, but Microsoft paid better. I was just barely 18 and Microsoft was just realizing that the internet (lower case then) was amazingly NOT going to be replaced by the Windows 95 Microsoft Network. Much has…
In Google's recent Google Friends Newsletter we have this tidbit: Google Maps for mobile, now with My Location (beta) GPS-enabled mobile phones continue to rise in popularity - but most of us do not have that capability. Now, with the latest version of Google Maps for mobile, you can use the new My Location (beta) technology that uses normal cell phone towers to provide you with approximate…
If the folks over at Gear Live have the scoop on the newest iPhone firmware update, it looks like it will add some very cool features. My favorite will absolutely be the "Locate Me" feature added to the Google Maps application. Gear Live servers are slammed right now, but here are some of the small resolution images that look very authentic to me. With every iPhone software update, phone…
Every company, every team has their different traditions and specific culture and Microsoft is no exception. Christian Buckley of BlueBadgeMojo.com pokes some fun at what I think is a Microsoft specific tradition of "decorating" offices of people gone for an extended period of time. I remember carting in sand for a "beach house" office decoration way back. Where did it all start? I guess I'll…
One of the great benefits of working at Microsoft is that when you add a new little one to your family, you get 1 month of paid paternity leave. Recently, we've had the opportunity to take advantage of this benefit. Since our little baby was born, I've been home working as Mr. Mom. I've been mostly offline, except for early mornings and late nights when the kids are sleeping. My boss isn't going…
One of the most important responsibilities of a great leader is to clearly define the goal, the vision, the what and why stuff, so that everyone can understand and really "buy-in" to the deal. Steve Jobs just did this masterfully in the Q&A session following an Apple press event : Is Apple’s goal to overtake the PC in market share? Jobs said, “Our goal is to make the best personal computers in the…
I love working on the Mac. I enjoy working in MacBU. These days, however, I'm not so thrilled about the vibe hanging around here at Microsoft as a whole. We seem to have lost our self-confidence. There is a general and constant focus on "the other guys" these days. It's like everyone is continually contemplating competitive response, rather than acting for our customers. First it's open source…
I have a great friend in my Dad. He takes time to listen to me. He tries to help me. Our conversations are not so much about some grand conclusion as they are about exploration and discovery. Recently he sent me an email follow up to a conversation we were having. Here's what he wrote: 1. I am different. So I need to figure out how others think, because they don't think like I do. 2. Learning…
zPhone! Note: Many thanks to Andy Klepack for the Hi-Def image. Food and beverages not included. :-)
There's a cool little feature I just discovered thanks to a friend at work. If you are on a phone call, and turn on your iPod music, everyone on the call can hear your music! Also, the volume controls for the phone call and the music are separate so you can have some nice background music to your call while still being able to hear soft voices loud and clear. I can't decide if this is a designed…
A fun parody of Apple . The product? Paper napkins.