Archive for category Plain Old Blog
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 [...]
DevOps; another ‘new’ thing that ain’t
Posted by Mark in Plain Old Blog on July 23, 2011
What is it with IT people? There is a tendency to take something that people have been doing for a long time, slap a label on it and call it ‘the next big thing’. ‘Agile’ is one that gets up my nose, ‘the cloud’ is another, and ‘DevOps’ is my current favourite. Don’t get me [...]
Why you’re wrong…
Posted by Mark in CMCrossroads, Configuration Management, ITSLM, Plain Old Blog, Software Configuration Management on June 28, 2011
…if you think build, change, or release management are part of configuration management. Bob Aiello lit the blue touch paper (again) on the debate about ‘what is configuration management?’ and, once again, he seems to be trying to redefine configuration management to fit the role of Configuration Manager identified (incorrectly) in many organisations. This is absolutely the [...]
Final Cut Pro X: Hit or Miss?
Posted by Mark in Plain Old Blog, Reviews, Something different on June 23, 2011
I’m a ‘casual professional’ user of Apple’s Studio products, which includes Final Cut Pro. I don’t produce video as a primary product, but I produce tutorials and other support video for my work. So, it was with some interest that I downloaded Final Cut Pro X yesterday. Blimey! It’s different! VERY different. In fact it’s [...]
Book review: IBM Rational ClearCase 7.0: Master the Tools that Monitor, Analyze, and Manage Software Configurations
Posted by Mark in Book Review, Plain Old Blog, Reviews on May 10, 2011
The book: IBM Rational ClearCase 7.0: Master the Tools that Monitor, Analyze, and Manage Software Configurations by Marc Girod and Tatania Shpichko Published by PACKT Publishing ISBN 978-1-849680-12-7 I am reviewing the eBook (PDF download) version of the book. Reading this book will not make you a ClearCase administrator, or user for that matter. It [...]
Building a CM system using Atlassian
Posted by Mark in Build Management, Change Management, CMCrossroads, Configuration Management, Plain Old Blog, Reviews, Software Configuration Management on May 7, 2011
I’m usually somewhat reluctant to make recommendations about specific tools, but every now and then something impresses me so much I feel I should at least draw attention to it. In the course of helping a client look for tools to support their development process I recalled that a couple of years ago I looked [...]
