Writing ... or Just Practicing?

There's a well known saying that goes something like "Please engage brain before shifting mouth into gear". And another that says "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen". Yet, after what's now more than a year as a fulltime 'Softie, I've managed to avoid being flamed for any of my weekly diatribes; and neither has anybody pointed out (at least within earshot) how stupid I am. So I suppose it's time to remedy that situation. This week I'm going to throw caution to the winds and trample wildly across the green and pleasant pastures of generics, and all without a safety net. Read More...

A great many years ago, when I was fresh out of school and learning to be a salesman, we had a sales manager who proudly advertised that his office door was "always open". What he meant, obviously, was that we could drop in any time with questions, problems, and for advice on any sales-related issue that might arise. Forgotten what step five of "the seven steps to making a sale" is? Having problems framing your "double-positive questions"? Struggling to find "a response to overcome an objection"? Just sail in through that ever-open door and fire away. Except that the only response you ever got from him was "...you can always rely on one end of a swimming pool". Read More...

I remember when I first started writing books about "Active Server Pages" how we had no end of problems creating sample code that users could easily install and run. There was no SQL Server Express with its auto-attach databases mechanism, no built-in Web Server in Visual InterDev (this was the days before Visual Studio as we know it now), and you couldn't even assume that users had a permanent Internet connection (the vast majority were on a dial-up connection). So you had to create complicate set of scripts and a setup routine, even for ASP samples, that registered the components you needed and populated the database, as well as providing a long list of prerequisites. Read More...

Oh well, back to work, holidays over for another year. At least I managed to morph from a sickly shade of pale to a faint shade of tan, and without catching airplane 'flu or any other weird tropical disease (at least not one that's shown up so far). In fact, it was one of the most hassle-free and relaxing holidays we've had. I even managed to forego the doubtful pleasure of email for a whole six days without caving in and searching for an Internet cafe. Read More...