PDS Labs

Human effort over the life of the product is the highest product development cost. Do not be penny-wise and pound-foolish by taking shortcuts during initial development that will cost dearly to correct later.

Arrange and write your code in such a way so you will be relieved you did it that way in six months or a year, when you have to come back to it and modify it.

Being right is not nearly as important as being gracious. Being gracious means considering the needs and interests of others as equal in importance to your own. All ideas are not of equal quality, but all people are of equal value. Do not destroy another person for the sake of promoting an idea. 

Being gracious means seeking project owner well-being, not personal victory, when creating solutions.

During the months (roughly a year) that I used Arq for backups, I grew weary of its complex interface. Functionally speaking, it works great; no complaints there. But its UI lacks the simplicity I longed for after using Time Machine for so many years prior. So I went back to Time Machine.

This time I didn’t try to use a NAS drive as a central data repository. I just bought an external hard drive for each of my computers and used those for backups. That eliminated the TM problem that motivated me to find a TM replacement, and it restored the data accessibility I always enjoyed in TM.

A week or two ago, I discovered that the admin software on my QNAP TS-251+ NAS doesn’t play well with Time Machine (or maybe vice versa) – instead of deleting oldest files to make room for the new, the space allotted for TM just fills up and TM fails silently. So I’ve been reading about all the products out there, searching for an adequate replacement.

Today I turned off Time Machine on all our Macs and started using Arq for all backups. Its non-Java native app backs up everything to my NAS as well as to my Amazon Drive. If I used Windows machines for anything except testing, its native Windows app could back those up as well.

I chose not to keep my old TM backups. I’m sure there’s nothing there I don’t also have in some other form. (So I ask myself, “Then why do you need backups?” Well, “other forms” means on the hard drives of various local machines. In the case of theft or other device loss, it would be gone forever.)

Problem solved! Now I can quit stressing over potential data loss.

Here is my post that describes my first entry into homeschooling. My toes are barely in the water, and I can already tell this is going to be FUN.

RunRev’s KickStarter project ended on February 28, 2013 and the final funding numbers came in at 141% of goal. In addition to preparing the decades-old LiveCode code base for going open source, they will now also be able to fund all their very significant “stretch goals“. Suddenly the future of software development is looking much brighter!

I use LiveCode every day; I literally couldn’t produce the results I produce without it.

Now Runtime Revolution Ltd, the owner of LiveCode, is seeking Kickstarter funding to ready the ancient LiveCode codebase, which began its life in the 90’s as a Unix app, for going open source! This is a VERY good thing! Once it becomes open source, everyone – teachers, kids, hobbyists, YOU – can use it for free.

Remember HyperCard? Probably not, unless you were using a Mac in the late 80’s. HyperCard gave ordinary people an ease of accomplishment with digital data they had never experienced. Today you can still find pockets of HyperCard activity, though Apple pulled it from the market in 2004. And it won’t run on modern Macs.

LiveCode is the rightful heir of the HyperCard legacy, and offers similar personal empowerment but with current-world capabilities. It can be a rocket ride!

You may have heard it said that technology (or some other thing) is like fire. If you keep it under control and make it serve your purposes, it can be very beneficial; but if it is allowed to grow without direction and purpose, the outcomes can be disastrous.

I’ve been reading about Ray Kurzweil today, so please pardon the big-picture frame of reference.

But what about in your business? How much technology is enough? Or maybe it’s a question of which tech.

I am finally replacing my years-old web site with one based on WordPress. I hope you like it.