One Team to Rule Them All. Tonight’s Everyman begins with a quick WA-HOO! to celebrate my Tarheels winning the Final Four. I told my wife in January I wasn’t going to watch them again this season after they dropped their first two ACC games to Boston College and Wake Forest. Fortunately she convinced me to remain faithful to The Blue. We were both avid Tarheels fans when we met while living in North Carolina, and rooting for the Heels remains one of the important experiences we still share.
Sun Fun. The general spin on the failed Sun-IBM deal is best summarized in this SOA Center article, “Pundits are already spinning this FAIL WHALE as a repeat of the Microsoft Yahoo! debacle starring another egotistical company founder, Jerry Yang.” I visited this article because of the “Schwartz is Toast” tag in the title, but stayed for the Steve Gillmor Open Source Ponytail Video. I tired of Gillmor’s arrogance long ago and haven’t encountered him in a while, but this 5-minute video is very smart and funny.
The power of a tiny picture. Seth Godin with an important reminder of how avatars should make a positive first impression. I’d add a point Godin didn’t mention. Use a current photo to promote a more honest online presence reflecting who you are now, not some more youthful photo taken 5 or 10 years ago as is often the case (like on my dbvt.com home page. I need to update that!) Everyman Bonus Quote of the Day, “Avatars are a two-way street.”
Deadly DVD wait. My little girl and I were excited with the release of Deadliest Catch Season Four on DVD yesterday only to discover it’s a very long wait from Netflix. What an Empty Pot kick in the gut.
The Commoditized Freelancer. Very good article for fellow freelancers on properly charging for our services in a down economy to avoid commoditization. As for justifying my own hourly rate as a freelancer to new clients I acknowledge, “it’s higher than what I pay my plumber, which sucks,” I always say, but they know I’m all about getting the job done as efficiently as possible. Too many developers think clients give a crap about the technical details. They don’t. Our job as “higher than plumber hourly rate” guys is to shield our clients from those details. The app has to work with great performance and without error. That’s a given. The secret to successful freelancing is keeping it simple for the client, approach delivery as a daily process, and make sure everything the client sees is pretty.
Why I didn’t follow you on Twitter. I hope these 20 points from Paul Wilkinson on why he doesn’t follow people explain why I’m not following (or stopped following) certain Twitterers. Best bullets include “Self, self, self,” “You’re not useful,” “You measure Twitter value simply by how many followers you have,” and “Too much personal stuff.” The post also includes a link to The Ten Commandments of Twitter. Worth reading.
Pomposity, or is it just me? I’ve been reading Steve Rubel for years, impressed with his high signal to noise ratio output. But today a tweet of his put me over the edge. “Ideating on paper for a change. It's very refreshing to do so once in awhile.” Ideating on paper…how refreshing! Give me a friggen’ break. Then again, I have issues with certain words. “Ideating” is one such word. “Performant” is another, as in “handling images in a more performant manner.” I also don’t like “detritus.” Just say “stuff.” My wife has a list of words she knows I hate and have no tolerance for, which she lovingly avoids. However, being a fellow Tarheels fan I generally cut her some slack.
Happy Everyman Easter! The most special holiday of the year isn’t Christmas, it’s Easter Sunday. The resurrection is what it’s all about, Dude! Happy Easter to you, to those you love and who love you.