Pending Changes

October 1st, 2008

Filed Under: Rants, Technology with 0 Comments

One of the great habits now ingrained into my being are doing diffs on code before committing a check in. It’s a great habit, and worth the extra quick 2 minutes. It’s also a great time to review your changes and get your head into the right space for your next move. Of course, having [...]

Howto Help the Economy

July 7th, 2008

Filed Under: Rants with 0 Comments

A bit of locally flavoured South African non-technical posting… on how to help an economy in need.
Indeed, when the chips are down, and prices are going up, and the economy is under threat of recession; what’s the most tactful move you can make? Why, organise a mass-action protest stayaway that effectively costs businesses billions of [...]

PAYE

June 19th, 2008

Filed Under: Business, Rants, Technology with 1 Comment

UPDATE: 3 July 2008
Updated code to reflect more recent tax tables (2009)
When I was asked to estimate PAYE on a gross monthly salary, i hauled out the calculator and started chipping away, according to the SARS Tax Tables. Not being a tax consultant or looking at various structured packages, the first stab is mostly always [...]

Clamour of Petty Kings

June 4th, 2008

Filed Under: Rants, Technology with 0 Comments

We have some serious issues facing our world today. Heck, in South Africa, the land of opportunity, we have more serious issues than we sometimes care to face up to. Tackling real issues is hard work. So, what’s the alternative?
Stop the press! Houston, we have a problem! In fact, call Heather Brenner out of retirement! [...]

World’s Most Annoying Dialog

April 9th, 2008

Filed Under: Rants, Technology with 0 Comments

No matter how many times you say “later” it just keeps on asking the same question.. over and over and over…

IT “Industry”

February 22nd, 2008

Filed Under: Business, Rants, Technology with 2 Comments

I say “industry” but there’s no real regulation put in by the government (at least here) which keeps the industry in check. For one, it’s not illegal to provide IT services or build software without a licence, while in more established industries, it is illegal to, for example, provide medical, financial, engineering or manufacturing services [...]

Crack My App

January 21st, 2008

Filed Under: Business, Rants, Technology with 0 Comments

What do you do if someone asks you to do something illegal?
Of course (and i do sincerely mean and hope, “of course”) the first response is to just say “No”. But does it end there? Maybe it depends, maybe it doesn’t?
Well, I was asked by a company to crack some software. Everything was totally illegal [...]

Recycled Software

December 27th, 2007

Filed Under: Rants, Technology with 1 Comment

What’s up with everything being ported to .NET? There’s nothing more boring than copying somebody else’s idea, unless of course, your own ideas are pretty crap
And (sup)porting a dozen applications to be used with the .NET framework surely cannot be considered as innovative either- it’s real name is “market strategy”. I must confess [...]

Quality

December 26th, 2007

Filed Under: Rants, Technology with 0 Comments

Much has been said about quality of software, and even more attention has been given to it. Further, a lot of methodology, and general how-to-do-stuff from project management to code implementation, even design and testing is focused on quality, including the ubiquitous “best practices” and framework collections out there. But then it struck me. All [...]