Insomnia

Do you remember the last time you actually purchased software? Right, I mean: excluding games, do you remember the last time you actually purchased software?

I know it’s a silly question but I remember a time where buying software was something that I did often. Well maybe I didn’t actually buy it but I had it bought by someone. Nowadays, I buy hardware more often that I buy software. I realized this today because I bought a new PC (It’s a tablet actually, I’ll talk about it when I have used it long enough to form an opinion) and I just spent the evening installing software. I can safely say that more than 80% of the software (not in Megabytes but in number of titles) that I use is free.

First there’s the OS and office suite (you can guess which ones) that ship with pretty much every new computer out there. I know that I did pay for that software through the price of my machine. I’m just saying that I didn’t purchase it.

Then there are the various development tools I use: editor, compiler, debugger, etc… There are free versions of high quality products in all these categories.

But I do purchase software. Just a few months ago, I bought an email indexing tool called “find”. So today, after moving my inbox to the new machine, I went to www.find.com to download the software. To my surprise… they had moved. The product is now called X1 and, the features that I bought it for then are now free. Nothing wrong with that.

And then there is the opposite case. I was ready to reinstall spamnet. (I have a major spam problem with my inbox and a good filter is a tool that I absolutely cannot go without.) To my surprise, spamnet is not a free service anymore. It is a subscription service costing 3.99$ a month. Had it been an actual purchase price, I would have gladly paid for the software. Since they insist on renting it to me instead, I had to shop around for something else. I stumbled upon the Spambayes Outlook addin. I Spent 20 minutes training it by dredging the old spam out of my deleted folder and voila. I don’t know how good it is going to work in the long run but so far this evening, the score is: filter 4, spam 0.

This whole thing is even more ironic to me because I recently took upon myself to convince The Powers That Be at my job to purchase Jira instead of using Bugzilla as our issue tracking software. I wouldn't say that this was an uphill battle but I had to make a strong case to support this purchase. There is nothing wrong with that... It's just odd that the reflex now is to look for free stuff on the web before taking the checkbook out.

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Over the past few months, my colleagues and I have been working on a very interesting proposal to develop a comprehensive terminology management system. From the get go, we knew that this was a unique opportunity and very enthusiastically poured a lot of effort in this. After many weeks of analysis, estimation, calculation and redaction we submitted the proposal and patiently waited for an answer.

Last week, we got the word that we had been selected for the short-list of vendors that made the first cut and that it was now time for the next step: A 90-minute oral presentation of our proposed solution. We reassembled the team that put the proposal together around a table and started brainstorming about ways we could convince them that our team was the right partner for this project.

Our (prospective) customer has conveniently supplied a structure for the presentation so we were frantically putting ideas down on paper and checking through the list to make sure we got a proper answer for all the items. When we got to risk management, the presentation plan asked us to identify a number of risks that we could see in this project and our proposed plans to mitigate those risks. Again, we lined-up the usual suspects for that type of project (like scope creep or poor performance) when someone said: "There’s a risk of not choosing the right vendor". We all looked at each other and made jokes about this being impossible if they chose us. We had a good chuckle and moved-on. But then, the topic came back and another brilliant idea (well it seemed brilliant at the time) was brought to the table: We should mention that risk and that the mitigating plan was a thorough selection process like the one they are putting us through. It will make them feel good about themselves. Then, still tingly with happiness because we made them feel so smart, they will be ready to start signing checks. It was a perfect plan.

We finally got out of that brainstorming session and, as I was speeding home (it was getting quite late), I realized that there was a lot of pressure on these guys making the choice of vendor for this project. From their point of view; there is no sure bet. No vendor that “no one ever gets fired for hiring”. For them, this week is a blur of well-rehearsed presentations at the end of which they will make a potentially risky choice and award a multi-million dollar contract.

I feel a lot of empathy for them and I certainly don’t want to be in their shoes right now. I hope that, in the end, they will be happy with the choice they make.

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As you might have guessed I am a programmer. More precisely, I'm a contractor specializing in software engineering projects. I help people solve their business problems by developing software. You know the drill: figure out what the customer wants, tell them how much it's going to cost, implement a solution, deliver the solution, repeat as necessary.

Today, the main stakeholder for one of my contracts is leaving. The project is not over but she is leaving for Europe to pursue new opportunities with her family. Aside from a good working relationship, I can't say that she is a friend, barely an acquaintance. But I will miss her very much.

I will miss her because she is very knowledgeable about her domain. As a software expert, I often know very little of the application domain for which my projects are developed. I have to be completely reliant on the domain knowledge of another expert.

I will miss her because she is very patient. She understands that I know as little about what she does for a living that she knows about what I do. I'm not particularly thick but sometimes, it can take the better part of an afternoon to explain a little, arcane bit of domain knowledge. And she stuck with me, handholding me as I learned enough of what she knows to solve her problem.

I will miss her because she put the project before her ego. I also spent a fair amount of time explaining and re-explaining my little problems. She was very attentive and I never got a "nod" until she really understood. It also meant that no questions was answered just to get rid of me. All decisions went through due process and were taken very seriously.

The worst part of this is that today, we had a meeting and it was my last opportunity to bid her farewell and say thanks for all the hard work. Because of an unmoveable prior engagement, I missed that meeting. I sent an email and everything but I feel really bad about this.

So, all I wanted to say was: Farewell and good luck. You will be missed.

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After getting a brain-cramp writing my first ever weblog entry, I was basking in the glow of my own words "in print" when I realized that I over generalized the whole weblogging concept to its lowest form. You know, like judging the quality of TV after enduring an hour of "Who wants to marry my dad?" following an hour of "Canadian Idol" (yeah... I'm Canadian eh!).

A fair amount of people out there actually write useful or insightful content. Even compelling and dramatic at times. I'm stating the obvious here but there wouldn't be such hoopla about this if there weren't actual content to read.

Still, there is a large amount of reposting and borrowing in this soundbite universe. It would be an interesting exercise do do a "6 degrees of weblog separation" with all the content out ther. Try and map-out the "tree" of borrowing to find the roots of all this content. Actually, I bet I could build a degrees of separation database just using the "right-hand links" present in most of the weblogs.

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For the past little while, I have spent many evenings reading people's blogs. I am new to this blogging thing and I haven't started using an aggregator yet. Actually, I have tried to use NewsGator but I quickly ran out of feeds that I knew. So, I started actually going to people's weblog pages and reading straight from there. Most blogs are structured the same way (mostly because that's the default template of whatever tool they use) and there is usually a list of links to other people's blogs. Either blogs from people they actually know or people that they have heard of or simply links to famous bloggers. So, I found myself doing something that I hadn't done since the early nineties... I was surfing. Yes, actual web surfing. Not aggregating, not googling but surfing. Skimming from blog to blog, quickly assessing if that particular one might interest me. Sometimes pausing to read for a while. Often reading the archives (It's interesting to look at the evolution of people's blogs in time). Even bookmarked a couple. By the time I couldn't take anymore, it was time for bed.

Tonight, I was staring at my screen debating with myself the reasons why I wanted join the hordes of people that publish a blog (or a live journal or a plain old web site with pictures of their cats for that matter).

Why did I want to spend the time doing this? My first answer was that I like to write. But I am not a writer, and furthermore, blogging is not about writing. It is mostly about posting random thoughts about stuff you find on the internet (i.e: the blogThis feature). It is the publish and forget. It is the news for people with the attention span of a Chihuahua on crack. Writing requires time. Reading requires time.

Then I thought that I could use this opportunity to communicate some of the experience I have accumulated over the years being a software developer. That's one big bucket of horseshit. Most of the people that are interested in my fine words of wisdom are within spitting distance. Putting a blog together in the hopes of landing in the link list of someone outside my immediate network is kind of useless. I could make my blog public, register with Google. Make sure that I publish lots of posts about technology trends and current events and stuff. But if I stick to my own writing... It's a web ring of one for this blog. (remember webrings? That is sort of what those links on the right hand side of blogs look like to me but that's beside the point)

So, I could do like my friend Fred and use my blog as an archive of my ideas and brainwaves. It's a great idea and is a great way to avoid wasting time when you're busy: publish and forget. I guess my brain doesn't work that way. Or maybe I have yet to train it to think that way.

So here I am typing away. I don't even know if I'll stick to a topic or if I'll just post pictures of my cats. Or maybe this great blogging experiment is not for me. I don't know yet.

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