A list of things I don’t understand about Thanksgiving: How I can’t peel my eyes off the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. Why I didn’t think to turn the sound off the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade ten years ago. Why I always resist the walk around the hill my parents insist on doing, but always end… more
Muddled. Our release was muddled. I was sitting at my desk talking to a white stone polar bear and trying to form an opinion about the release. The execs were going to ask. Soon. “Well, QA is freaked out, but QA is always freaked out, so I’ll call that a wash. The UI guys wanted… more
Worst meeting ever. It’s not that the attendee list is wrong. All the right people are there and they’re bright and they are the decision makers. It’s not that the topic is boring or poorly defined. It’s a big deal. The problem with this meeting is that it’s never going to end. See, about a… more
The creation of a Rands article goes like this. First, the idea strikes me at some random part of the day… usually in the car to or from work. I spend anywhere from a day to a month fine-tuning this idea in my head until it’s something I want to start writing about. It’s entirely… more
On the list of things I do a lot, typing is up there close to breathing. It started with the Apple II forever ago and now it’s now and I’m still typing every single day and each day I wait for the sharp pains to start racing up my forearms My only guess that I… more
Buried. Back at the start-up, we were shifting gears. After six months of talking about shipping a product, we needed to ship a product and nothing gets everyone’s attention like a deadline. The good news was that QA had been doing its job and there was a pile of work in our bug database. The… more
I still miss the West Wing of a few years ago. I don’t think there has been a show what was so consistently good on so many different fronts. Since then, the only show which has come close in terms of must-watch weekly TV has been Lost, but a chunk of that show’s magic faded… more
“Rands, I’ve got the idea. I’m serious. It’s going to be big and I’ve got my three MBA buddies lining up seed financing. Seriously big idea here, Rands. And I need a favor.” Uh oh. “I need a Free Electron.” There is a list of the six confirmed Free Electrons that I know. Every six… more
Actual conversation. DSL has been off for over 12 hours and that’s about my limit. There’s only so long I can do without a fresh set of bits, so I break down and do my third least favorite thing to do… call customer support. Customer support frustrates me because of the well-designed ability to do… more
Two days later and the WWDC hangover is just about gone. I’d like to say the hangover was primarily booze-related, but it was a stress hangover. We had some big things to pitch this year and getting that pitch refined took some work. That is an understatement. Thanks to everyone who dropped by to say… more