Entries Tagged 'work' ↓

Moved to Zodeno.com.

Up early, i decided I’d go for an iPhone. It was not to be. Having seen the line at the Apple store on Michigan Ave., I trucked on over to AT&T. The line was much shorter, but they wouldn’t tell us their stock level and they in fact ran out before I got one. Very irritating. So irritating in fact I bothered to write about it somewhere where people might actually read it.

Video rant coming soon. (Sorry, ScooterGirl.)

If you go to that link you’ll notice the interview with the developer. I was in front of him. In addition to the sales tax idea (which is basically a mash up between the iPhone’s GPS and a Sabrix transaction tax engine — and if you look at that link you’ll note it ends in “campaign=70160000000Cg9P”; that’s a salesforce.com campaign ID if I ever saw one — nice!).

The developer’s other idea was tracking the residual value of non-durable consumer goods as part of an individual’s net worth. For example, if you could use Craigslist to convert a blender to $20, shouldn’t that be part of your net worth? Hmmmmm.

In final news, the company — or some photos we placed on Flickr, anyway — were featured on Office Snapshots. Note the beer, pizza and Galaga. I freaking love Galaga. I remember playing Galaga in a laundromat in Idaho Falls, plugging in quarter after quarter. And I have it for the XBox. Mmmmm.

It’s official: I’m booked for Dreamforce 2008. Maybe this year I’ll be able to get the somewhat coveted “blogger” credentials that my boss sported last year.

If you’re going to be there, look me up. Definitely like to meet other SFDC bloggers.

And I could use your help. Go here to suggest a band. Please suggest Modest Mouse. It would make my day if they made it.

I’ll post more details about the who the what and the when as the date gets closer.

See you at Moscone.

So maybe you’re one of the people who combine iPhone usage with a salesforce.com subscription and the need to track travel expenses.  You’ll want to check out Expense2GO.  (Link fodder: iPhone salesforce.com travel expenses.)  It’s by Model Metrics, my employer.  A few of my co-workers have been busy spinning this together for the last little bit.  Nice work.

No, I don’t sport an iPhone.

Yet.

Here are more details. Here are even more details. And here are even yet more details.  And finally if you still want more here’s still more details.

Moved to Zodeno.com.

Peter Harris, Youngstown, Ohio, 1934, originally uploaded by ReidCarlberg.

I have a dozen handwritten volumes from Peter Harris who lived in Youngstown, Ohio, in the 30’s. He was, apparently, a steel worker, a thoughtful person and a communist. The diaries span a decade, starting in 1933.

I’m not related to him. I just found them at my grandmother’s house a decade or so ago and have been hauling them around ever since. It’s pretty cool to flip through. The reading is interesting (for a while) and education (Dionne Quintuplets, anyone?)

I don’t really want to haul them around, but I don’t really want to thow them away either.

Anyone have any idea on how I might put these to good use?

The 13 reasons for UML’s descent article on Reddit today is pretty right on.  But one note:  he says:

I think most programmers still use only the class diagram and maybe occasionally when they write a document the sequence diagram.

This is true, but I just wanted to give a shout out to the sequence diagram.   I love it.  It’s clear, it’s concise.  It communicates a really perfect level of detail–actors, cause and effect, data movement, timing, etc.  The sequence diagram is probably the most useful tool I discovered during various graduate computer courses that focused on UML.

On a side note, I once lost points on an exam because my arrow tips on a sequence diagram that included an asynchronous callback weren’t correct.  They needed to be half heads or something ridiculous.  Whatever.  I rarely use UML in my day to day world.

If you’ve been paying attention, you might remember that I did a little Paparazzi Force demo in NYC for a Force.com thing … last month? Yeah — almost a month ago already. Hilariously, the director of public relations — and update apparently the VP of PR — over at Salesforce.com found it today. Emails have been flying around in a generally positive way (fortunately for me).

“We thought this was way too funny!” said one.

“Great example of how to build an app in just a few hours.” said another.

“Genius!” said my boss’s boss.

“Tell me you didn’t get beat up a lot as a kid.” said a co-worker.

Ha! Never underestimate the power of a mildly amusing demo.

As I already tweeted, I’ve been promoted at work.  The new title is “Practice Director, Technical Services”.

What does this mean?  Most of the team that was reporting to my boss is now reporting to me.  I’m still reporting to my boss.

The team is really good — they have a great variety of skills, awesome attitudes and pretty much kick ass when it comes to pleasing customers.

I’m really excited about this, but it doesn’t mean a whole lot is going to change on a day to day basis.  I might start sitting in a director’s chair.

In other work news, I was talking to a marketing guy the other day and he was asking me about what makes the job fun.  A big part of it for me is that our industry didn’t exist 10 years ago.  It barely existed 5 years ago.  Many of the tools we use are just out in the last year.

Here’s an interesting article about this emerging industry and the venerable McKinsey’s assessment of it.  Nicholas Carr is hawking a book, sure, but he seems to know what he’s talking about.

Moved to Zodeno.com.