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Culture COLUG Meeting Success!
On Saturday, Innova Partners hosted a meeting of the Columbus Ohio Linux Users Group (as announced here). We think that the meeting was fun, and that we succeeded as hosts, but we did learn a few things:
- If you’re going to have catered food, make certain that people know this. In addition to boosting attendance, it will save people a trip to Subway before they come in
- Have a good place for the projector determined beforehand. If people are going to be seated for a presentation, make sure adequate seating is provided. We didn’t plan beforehand, and even though we managed to work things out we could have saved ourselves some hassle on the day-of if we’d set up on Friday.
- If people don’t know where to park, post a map of the area. This is especially true if you happen to be a hot downtown software company. People were parking several blocks away — at meters — because we didn’t mention that the parking lot two feet across the street from us was free on weekends.
- Apparently nobody cares if you offer Wireless Internet access.
If you weren’t there, you missed out on some awesome free food, and apparently free books! Someone (I didn’t catch who, I apologize) gave away a couple of awesome-looking books after the presentation on OpenID concluded. So, free food and drink, free presentation about a hot new authentication technology, and free reading material. Yeah, if you weren’t there, you missed out.
All-in-all, we think it was a rousing success. If the COLUG wants to meet here again, we’d be all for it. Next time, guys, feel free to hang out afterwards! We have a pool table, we have a keg of beer and a fridge-full of soda, and we probably have food left. Sit around, have a drink and a game of pool, and jabber about new scheduling methods in the kernel — maybe I’m just a geek, but that sounds like a good time. Maybe if we set up some tables? A couch?
As always, the few pictures I managed to snap off (one of which is previewed above) can be found on the Innova Partners Group on Flickr.
Culture COLUG at Innova Partners
This weekend, Innova Partners will host the Central Ohio Linux User's Group.
I've been a lurker at the COLUG for a while now. I remember going to my first meeting. I was completely new to Linux, hoping to network a bit with other computer geeks and hobbyists. That first presentation was on LDAP. Everything was completely over my head, and it confirmed that I was in the right place. Here was a huge repository of knowledge, waiting to be tapped, and all I had to do was ask the right questions.
Welcome COLUGers, one and all. Hopefully, we can host many meetings to come. Bring an appetite too – we'll have refreshments waiting for you.
Software Wow, That’s Slow
Chris recently posted about his new Dell laptop. And that got me thinking about my 15″ MacBook Pro, which is the most awesome laptop I’ve ever used, period. Granted, I can’t run it over with a truck, but it’s a great little piece of hardware backed by what I consider a fantastic OS.
However, while poking around today and migrating my work process to my Mac, I made a startling discovery — my Memory Speed is somewhat slower than was advertised:
Think maybe a call to Apple is in order?
Culture The spirit of productivity
Near the beginning of my journey with Innova, well over two years ago, a new Dell Latitude D505 was bestowed upon me. It wasn’t the fastest of computers, no gigantic hard drive, a screen to churn the stomach of even the most relaxed graphic designer. A base model in every sense of the phrase.
But it was a most excellent tool delivered at a difficult time for a wide-eyed new company with a brand new first employee on the payroll. With this simple machine and lots and lots of great work, I’ve helped grow that fresh company through those furious days to what is now arguably a mini empire. This little machine gave its all nearly 20 hours a day. In the office, on the road, client after client. For my personal duties, drag-racing projects, in the garage, sometimes in the rain. Conditions that frighten the burliest of computing power. That’s a lot to ask of a little machine and it never complained. Never one byte lost. Today, that wonderful little machine can finally take a sigh of relief. Continue Reading…
Software Two good reasons to write specs
Specifications considered harmful
Open source, the web, and super-high-level scripting languages have conspired over the past few years to make the idea of writing specs for software development sound downright medieval. Like if you wrote a spec, you'd not only insult the intelligence of your team, but David Heinemeier Hansson himself would come over to your office and give you a lobotomy with a garden hoe.
Knowing what you're dealing with
Modern abstractions have removed so much complexity from writing software that a common theme now is that writing good software is the same as designing good interfaces. This is true (at least initially) for many consumer web apps like to-do lists. Nothing gets you to a better interface faster than getting the real thing going quickly and then iterating. But what about moderately complex software? Software that is more than a simple interface to a database for CRUD operations?
Continue Reading…