Content

by Laurent Parenteau

Questions/Answers : Digest 0×0006

7 September 2010 - Filed under tips & tricks

Here the most interesting questions and answers I’ve read last week :

  1. What are great open source projects to see Rail’s best practices and code standards?
  2. Is there a list of all Linux system call, with the instructions?
  3. What’s the best way to start/control a background process in a PHP application?
  4. What are the good books about developing state machines in C?
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 ::  Share or discuss  ::  2010-09-07  ::  Laurent Parenteau

Book Review : Manage It!

3 September 2010 - Filed under reviews

In Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management, Johanna Rothman gives you all the possibles techniques and practices that you can use to successfully manage a project.  She isn’t dogmatic about any of them, or about any life cycle; she simply gives you the advantages and disadvantages of each one, indicates when they are particularly useful, and how you can adapt them for your needs and environments.

While it is evidently valuable for every project manager, I found that a lot of what is said can also be of great help for a software developer.  The schedule games she describes can be prevented with the help of the team, and if you notice of those games running, you too can help stop it.  All the chapters about estimation, multitasking, and planning would be valuable for software developers too.

At least, if it simply makes you better understand what your project manager’s life looks like, what he have to deal with, that can only improve the relationship.

Here’s the chapter list :

  1. Starting a project
  2. Planning the project
  3. Using life cycles to design your project
  4. Scheduling the project
  5. Estimating the work
  6. Recognizing and avoiding schedule games
  7. Creating a great project team
  8. Steering the project
  9. Maintaining the project rhythm
  10. Managing meetings
  11. Creating and using a project dashboard
  12. Managing multisite projects
  13. Integrating testing into the project
  14. Managing programs
  15. Completing a project
  16. Managing the project portfolio

All in all, I will recommend this book to all software developers, testers, and project managers.  It will help everyone working on a software development project.

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3 comments  ::  Share or discuss  ::  2010-09-03  ::  Laurent Parenteau

LinkedIn for Software Developers

31 August 2010 - Filed under tips & tricks

For the first time : a post from a guest blogger, Simon Hénault.  Have a good reading!

Still today, most people on LinkedIn are there because they received many invitations.  They then decided to join the wave and dropped their resume, then wait.  That’s sad, since LinkedIn offer many benefits, for free :

  1. External communication : Forget wrong e-mails, CRM, and mass e-mail software – LinkedIn simplified and integrated it all.
  2. Internal communication : Start a group reserved for your employees.  This way, you benefits from their contacts, share yours, and be informed of any changes.
  3. Business development : Increase your visibility and be found by millions of users.  Find new clients and partners.
  4. Job : Target businesses, be informed of job opportunities, or reach recruiters or anybody else inside the targeted businesses.
  5. Expertise : LinkedIn is a great source of experts.  Thanks to advanced research, find a specialist on anything, any subject, sector, business, or region.
  6. Formation : Get answers to your questions, read comments from members and get contents from your contacts.
  7. Business intelligence : Stay informed of your competitor’s job openings and your industry’s news.  Ask questions to your contacts, members of your groups, or your concurrent’s previous employees.
  8. Recruitment : More than 80 % of recruiters are using LinkedIn. Nothing surprising since this tool gives you the resume of millions of candidates.

I’m inviting you to listen to this LinkedIn online training (in french), the most consulted in the french world :

  1. Why use LinkedIn? (in french)
  2. How to fill your LinkedIn profile? (in french)
  3. How to create your LinkedIn network? (in french)
  4. How to optimize your LinkedIn presence? (in french)
  5. How to search on LinkedIn? (in french)
  6. How to manage your privacy? (in french)
  7. How to find a job on LinkedIn? (in french)
  8. How to find clients on LinkedIn? (in french)

More about the author

Founder of Linked Québec, Simon Hénault is a LinkedIn trainer (training in business development, recruiting solutions, and community development). He coaches professionals and B2B enterprises in the creation and implantation of web business development strategies, specially by creating contents and publishing it on LinkedIn.

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 ::  Share or discuss  ::  2010-08-31  ::  Laurent Parenteau

Questions/Answers : Digest 0×0005

30 August 2010 - Filed under tips & tricks

Here are the best questions and answers I’ve seen last week :

  1. How to launch an independent process in PHP from httpd?
  2. What is the best way to handle out of memory situation in C and C++?
  3. What were the languages used for developing OSes before C was used?
  4. How to programmatically get the address of the heap in Linux?
  5. How to call C++ class methods from C?
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 ::  Share or discuss  ::  2010-08-30  ::  Laurent Parenteau