Category: Opinion

6 Useful Things Google Search Provides That Are Not Search / Useful Google Search Tools 0

6 Useful Things Google Search Provides That Are Not Search / Useful Google Search Tools

Lately it is kind of popular to trash Google. Very much like Microsoft, people love to complain about companies that take an important part of their daily life. Google is now an integral part of our life not only for search but for many other things. A good friend saw me convert foreign exchange on Google search and was very surprised you can do that. So here is a list of things I do in Google search which are not search related.

Looking up What’s the Time in Other Places Around the World

Living in a far away island in the pacific with friends in Europe and America, this tool is a great help.

Forget About Software Configuration, Settings and Options – Choose the Right Defaults 0

Forget About Software Configuration, Settings and Options – Choose the Right Defaults

Common pitfall – “I am not sure what to do…. let’s make it configurable”

You hear this all the time in software companies – Some business analysts, developer or product manager trying to solve a dilemma in software development by pushing the decision to the end user side. “Let’s make it configurable” seems like a get-out-of-jail free card if you can’t make you mind about colors, screen layout and many other hard choices we have to make many time when designing our software.

Software As A Service Takes The “Free Beer” Out of Open Source 0

Software As A Service Takes The “Free Beer” Out of Open Source


Free software means that computer users have the freedom to cooperate with whom they choose, and to control the software they use. To summarize this into a remark distinguishing libre (freedom) software from gratis (zero price) software, Richard Stallman said: “Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of ‘free’ as in ‘free speech’, not as in ‘free beer’.1

The reality is quite different from this philosophy. Up until now open source software was, for most people, free beer rather than free speech. Well, the beer party is over, and cooperate companies have a new business model strategy called SAAS.

Open source community should employ Microsoft’s business strategies 0

Open source community should employ Microsoft’s business strategies

In one of the press conferences I attended 6 months ago, Steve Bulmer was asked “Why can’t Microsoft be cool like Apple?”

His reply was simple and to the point:

“I rather be popular than cool”

He further explained that Microsoft business strategy is to try to reach EVERYONE and not only the cool guys.

I suggest that we, as the open source community, employ the same logic:

“We rather be popular than the good and righteous”

Let me explain why we should be popular rather than right.

How much should a web site really cost? 1

How much should a web site really cost?

Lately I have been asked by many people how much should they pay for a personal or small business website. It seems that these are good times to get some extra cash from a web initiative.

The problem is that, for most people, building and hosting a website is somewhat of a mystery. And when people treat something as a mystery they tend to over complicate it and over pay for it. Some people I talked to spent 20-100$ on simple basic hosting alone! That is, in most cases, more than what they need to pay.

10 ways to spot a good software consultant 0

10 ways to spot a good software consultant


How do you spot a good software consultant? A good software consultant could be the key for your business success and bad consultants could be very damaging and counterproductive. Here are 10 cummulative ways to spot a good software consultant (can also be read as – 10 tips for the good software consultant)

He == he | she

1) He will listen to you very carefully

A good consultant knows that we were born to this world with one mouth and two ears and there is a good reason for that ratio.