Finding the chase and cutting to it

Times are tough for everyone.

Only today, BBC 4 news stated how few people were able to do (and get paid for) overtime.

Smarter harder not harder is coupled with the need to promote yourself in the work place.

So here are some things I thought I’d share with you, dear reader.

1. Detlef Nauck has said a few times “data -> information -> knowledge”.  knowledge is achieved when you read and reuse.
2. Even Google has problems finding things in spread sheets, never mind people.
   Do not use spread sheets to store data – that’s the job of great databases such as MySql and Oracle.  I’ll be honest, they’re the only two transactional, sql based databases I’ve used, so I guess probase, mssql, etc can be swapped in here :-).
   I’ve not seen a wiki or blog based on Excel spreadsheets.  I have seen terrific graphs drawn with them though.
3. Data driven can work on different layers.  From adding a row to a table and not having to touch the underlying code, so automating the driving of all your rules.  Policy driving is the ultimate here, not easy to achieve in some cases and very easy in others.  I actually think where they work best is where the rules are described by queries rather than pattern matching.
4. Great programmers do make data driven programmes.  It allows them to move on to more interesting problems.
5. Wikis and blogs are not the only answers to information sharing.  They do make achieving publically avaialable information very easy.
6. Difference between a wiki and a blog: wiki documents are collaborative, your audience can change the information.  Blogs aren’t but allow the audience to give feedback regarding an article easily.
   I think it is much quicker to write my blog than write a page on my wiki to the same standard.
7. Dictation is difficult to transcribe automatically especially with a sore throat, but so much quicker for a blog entry.
8. If you want to make the same changes to multiple files, use imageMagick.  Fantastic tool and many, many people publish their scripts so there’ll be something you can reuse.
9. Allow multitasking – using Facebook along with the corporate mail client for example.
10. Have lunch: walk, talk remember there are people outside your office.  Some of them are your potential customers or end users.

Do you agree?  Do you have some better ideas?  Please share them.