The UnSub

Joce and I found DotProject rather useful for planning our wedding. I believe common sense is required when using tools. It does not make sense for her to report to me for every gown that she has tried. But I was rather surprised that she managed to get the hang of it despite the many clicks required for various operations.

Nowadays, the trend is towards high-usability web applications, I wondered if there were alternative tools. I found Basecamp and went for a test-drive with a free account. It was very friendly and being friendly sells. Many folks complaint about DotProject’s complexity. It seems I am not the only one who likes to compare. Here’s an entry by a core member of Dotproject team.

I agree with the author. This comparison reminds me of someone who once commented that my Samsung i600 smartphone has too many buttons. To him, i600 was not as “sexy” as his Samsung 3.5G phone. Perhaps not everyone has the mental capacity to handle many features that they are not ready or need to use.

It’s usually not about the tool, but the people because they have the power to choose what is best for them. For me, I still prefer to be in control of my own information, I like to have features that I can exploit, as oppose to storing projects details in some hosted simplistic service that charges me for storage.

Most people around you are likely to be very good at telling you what cannot work, only few can think of ways to get things to work. What works for them may or may not work for you. Anyway, to each his own.

Recently I was tasked to perform another miracle in about 10 days (5 working days to be precise). During the whole exercise of getting this task done, i had to deal with a middle man. The only thing he did for me so far is to hand me the hardware and some incomplete documentation. Apart from that, I get nothing but constant hounding from this person.

Some people who are very insecure and distrusting when working with others are typically those who played others out during their career, because they have the fear of being played out…

After some discussion, it dawn upon me that I am not solving a technical problem, but rather a political and relationship problem. It is a good thing to help others, you never know that your kindness will be returned. This is what happened because without my initial inputs and direction, they would not have achieved what they have today. By law of reciprocation (and of course some pressure from the highest management), it was easy for me to get what I want within the short time frame.

Yet this middle-man who has the little value is not very grateful; trying to sow discord between a friend/vendor who can help me. I hope it dawns upon him that none of the projects are possible without the hardworking technical people who are doing the ‘dirty’ work.

Remember not to bite the hand that is helping you.

That hand is not really me, but the other party who already has the solution but refused to help due to accumulated resentment with this middle-man. I had to step in to come up with a win-win-win situation for all parties so that we can delivery in the shortest possible time. Of course it is not possible if this ally chose not to give face to my big boss. In the end, he helped. Now everyone can have a merry X’mas ;P

Recently we had a bright business idea that we wanted to developed. Over time, alot of activities but not much work is done. What is happening reminds me of “Prison break”. In the show, basically a bright guy planned an escape with his older bro who is bound for the zap chair.

What he didn’t plan was the accidents that happened and soon a bunch of jail birdies climbed onto the thin wire to their freedom. So you can imagine that a plan that was meant for a few to escape cannot work for too many folks. I believe it is likewise for IT projects.

Honestly, I got tired of it after the POCs and thinking. It is something that needs quite a sum to kick-off and nothing is guaranteed. At the rate things are going, perhaps it will just remain as an idea…