Month: February 2007

Gray-hat business idea: MySpace integration hack vendor

With all of the zillions of companies building “widgets” for MySpace, Bebo, etc., it’s only a matter of time before the gray-hat crowd starts to see the dollar signs. Maybe they already have. But it seems like a large waste of effort for all of those strange little VC-funded startups playing remora to MySpace’s shark to have to keep figuring out new ways to get their code to embed in MySpace layouts.
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HTML Wireframes vs. Wireframe Drawings

Related to Rapid Application Development vs. Big Design Up Front is the question of what exact format the UI design work should be done in.

This is more important than user stories vs. use cases, class diagrams vs. ERDs and other such decisions, because UI design artifacts are the most user-accessible artifacts. That means they’re probably the only ones you’re actually going to be able to get users to look at. Try emailing a CFO a 100-page Word doc full of use cases sometime, if you don’t believe me. Then sit that same CFO down in front of Excel and ask for a rundown of their least favorite Excel features. Big difference!
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Tips for Offshoring

Having just read Why you need to get rid of your freelance developer ASAP, and the comments under it, I can see that people are really clueless about offshoring. It’s a magic box that you put pennies in, and great code comes out a few weeks later!

Having worked for a few companies that sold themselves as “a magic box that you put millions of dollars into, and great code comes out a few weeks later”, I know that this is a serious misconception. Subcontracting is fraught with peril. Offshore subcontracting is fraught with more peril, but it costs less per hour. In both cases, the peril is avoidable, but avoiding it requires that you manage the relationship carefully.

I’ve worked with offshore teams on a couple of occasions, and in one case I was fortunate enough to get sent overseas to work with the team in their own offices. I think I probably have more direct experience with offshoring than most developers or technical project managers, and I’ve seen how offshored projects can go awry, so I thought I’d share some tips for those of you considering offshoring a software project, or those involved with such a situation already.
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