IR35 ‘help’
Posted by Mark in Business, Plain Old Blog on May 9, 2012
*sigh* Here we go again. HRMC have released a ‘business entity’ test to ‘help’ businesses decide if they are a business or not. Okay, maybe not. This is aimed at contractors like myself—those of us who have elected to work for ourselves and freelance skills to companies rather than working for an employer. If you’re [...]
Maven and OSGi repositories
Posted by Mark in Software Configuration Management on April 17, 2012
While researching for Omneity I have come across some interesting issues, issues directly relevant to the idea behind Omneity itself (and some that are more generally challenging to software configuration management). One of those issues was highlighted while I was researching the use of Maven to build OSGi bundles. Both Maven and OSGi support the [...]
New CM/ALM Website
Posted by Mark in Body of Knowledge, ITSLM, Plain Old Blog on April 10, 2012
Some time ago I set up http://itslmbok.com in an attempt to kickstart a body of knowledge project for ALM and CM related practitioners. That effort basically fell flat, principally because most people (including me I guess) wanted to read a body of knowledge but very few were willing to contribute. Add to this failure the [...]
Should Google+ messages have a character limit?
Posted by Mark in Plain Old Blog on March 19, 2012
This article by Farhad Manjoo, in which he suggests Twitter should double its 140 character limit on Tweets, got me thinking. In particular his observation that on Google+ there were more conversations, as a direct result of there being no imposed limit. The problem, as Manjoo observes, with having no limit is that this opens [...]
Omneity: ALM Knowledge Management
Posted by Mark in Development, SCM Tool on March 3, 2012
Many months ago I wrote about a project I have had in mind for many years. Now I’ve finally decided it’s time to get on and do something about it. This effort has been prompted by a number of things, not least my continue frustration at having to deal with many ALM components (different ALM [...]
Grinding my gears. Marketeers (again)
Posted by Mark in Plain Old Blog, Tools 'n' Tips on January 27, 2012
Yesterday I posted on how I get annoyed by marketeers making groundless claims for their tools (or at least claims for which they provide no supporting data). Here’s another thing tool vendors do that irritates the hell out of me… answering a question with ‘buy my tool’ or ‘my tool solves this problem’ type posts. [...]
Marketing claims
Posted by Mark in Business, Business Cases, Plain Old Blog, Tools 'n' Tips on January 26, 2012
One thing that’s always bugged me is unfounded, or at least unsupported, claims made by tool vendors (actually, by anyone, but in this context particularly tool vendors). I’m starting to call them out whenever I can. Here’s an example of what I mean, posts on forums where claims like the following are made. Eliminate the [...]
Is your project being killed by e-mail?
Posted by Mark in Plain Old Blog on November 25, 2011
E-mail. It’s a wonderful technology and we all have a lot to thank it for. E-mail. It’s a nightmare. Too much spam. Too much irrelevant crud. We should all be cursing the day e-mail was invented. Strangely I suspect most of you would agree wholeheartedly with both of these statements. I know I do. So [...]
Really? Redux
Posted by Mark in Plain Old Blog on November 14, 2011
Okay. Over on LinkedIn Bob Aiello (editor of CMCrossroads) made a comment on the reposted version of my last post about my frustration at being unable to attend the online ALM Expo. Here’s Bob’s comment: Mark – you contact Patrick and I directly on a regular basis. I was in the middle of conducting live [...]
Really?
Posted by Mark in Plain Old Blog on November 10, 2011
So, CM Crossroads have been taunting me lately. A constant stream of emails telling me how cool the ALM expo is and how I am invited to attend. Shame then that they’ve block my IP address and I cannot contact CM Crossroads. At all. I assume I’ve been caught in some broad IP address blocking [...]
