So Many Of My Blog Posts Rise To The Very Top Of The Search Engine Results. Cool!

Lately, I’ve noticed a pattern with my blog. So many of my posts rise to the very top of the search engine results. Cool!

Often it’s the number one result. Other times it’s near the top of the first page: the second, third, or fourth result.

My Posts Rise To Top Of The Search Results

As you can tell from my posts, I haven’t done a whole lot with internet Search Engine Optimization (SEO). But I sense that much of the reason why my posts rise to the top is that I always give the correct and complete answer to the difficult problem at hand. It’s not speculation or guessing. It’s a tried and true solution that I worked through and tested. Often over days of research. And sometimes over a week or more!

Often in my blog’s analytics, I see big engineering companies looking at my blog posts. Oracle Corporation

Building Better Systems Through Better Analysis

From Reqs to Specs.

In my other piece, I wrote how business requirements documents don’t work very well, how they create a trial and error process, and prototypes make it into production.

Much of the reason is that there is no analysis, general design, or detailed design. Nor is anyone in charge of these areas.

Much of my work in development has been doing the analysis and design that were not done in the first place. Here are some of the techniques that I’ve used. And some that have been very useful when others have done them for me.

Why “Business Requirements” Don’t Work

From Reqs to Specs

One aspect of IT Development that I’ve noticed for a very long time is that no one is thinking things through.

The result, is not a solid piece of software, but just a prototype. Unfortunately, these prototypes make it into production too much of the time.

Is it any wonder that so much software does not work? How many days since the last glitch in some website or software that you worked with? I’ll bet not many.

Why does this occur? A lot of it is the way that IT work is divided now. Think of the classic Waterfall Method and the responsibilities for the tasks:

Task	Responsibility
Requirements	User, Business Analyst
Analysis	???
General Design	???
Detailed Design	???
Build	Developer
Maintain	DBA

Thoughts On Useless Documentation

Have you ever noticed how useless so much documentation is?

Apple II Documentation

Microsoft:
Tell you everything, except how to get to the window, in order to do the thing you want to do.

Unix Man Pages:
Tell you everything, except what you need to know: a simple example that works.

Sourceforge Projects:
Documenation is sometimes completely erroneous, or leaves out very fundamental things, making successful installation or use impossible. See some of my other posts.

Why Is Your Software Such Crap??!!!

Recently I had the idea of copying some old VHS cassettes that I have, into MPEG files on disk, and then upload them to Youtube.  Simple enough, right?

I did manage to get the transfer to MPEG files to work ok.  It’s so much easier working with MPEG files than dealing with tapes.  Interestingly enough, I’m told some companies still use tapes for backups.  And I still wonder, why??  Disk is so cheap now, and has so many advantages.  Would you ever transfer your MPEG files to VHS cassettes?

The Simple Design I Was Looking For:

I knew that for Youtube, I would have to split up the MPEG files into shorter 10 minute segments.  What I was thinking of, was something that I’ve already seen.  The software would take a long mpeg file:

For Your Eyes Only

Before I worked with databases, while still in university, I started a wedding photography business which I ran for 11 years.

As I look back at the photography, I really did learn a LOT about business. Marketing: how do I reach those potential customers? Sales. Dealing with customers. And suppliers. Gross margin. Net profit. Cash flow. Operations: altogether, it was about 40 hours of work to shoot a wedding, when you counted up sales, preparation, shooting, and many hours of negative and paper handling to deliver the goods. Capital budgeting; how many more pictures do I need to shoot to make this 1500 dollar lens pay for itself? Break even points. Strategic alliances.

I read a book called Shooting Your Way To A Million, by Richard Sharabura.

There was one chapter called, For Your Eyes Only, where he described how to make a technical portfolio and teach yourself the technical aspects of photography.  Do many test shoots, and put them all in binder.  Different films.  Different lighting conditions, including all the variations in studio lights.  Different exposures.  Different film processing.  Different kinds of objects and people. And always, always, do a lighting test with Polaroid film before shooting.

Why?  When you got into a new situation, you could go back to your reference material for guidance and a starting point.