Back in the late 90s when Ireland was starting to think about digital terrestrial TV a system called DVB-RCT was considered. Basically your receiver could also transmit back to the television transmitter. The system could handle thousands of concurrent connections, albeit each one had very low bandwidth - around 1Kbp/s in peak time.That was considered good enough for very basic interactivity and for authorising PPV purchases etc.In quieter hours or in areas were there were fewer receivers that bandwidth would be much higher, but in reality that would be rare.
In the end the company that the governement selected to start the rollout of DTT went bust and I don't think the system was used anywhere else. The developer of the technology abandoned it in 2006 as other connection methods (broadband/mobile data) were preferred.
Leaving aide the software and abilities side of things, I wish devices with this form factor were still available.
I used to own a Philips Velo, Psion 5mx and a Nokia Communicator. The keyboards were good enough be useful, great for typing something up whilst on the train or as a pocket-able computer to take with you on trips.
There are some mini laptops on the market which are certainly a lot more versatile and powerful, but they don't have the narrow rectangle form factor of all those 90s devices. They are small, but not really suitable for throwing in your pocket.
Yes, I know you can get Bluetooth keyboards for modern smartphones, but they just aren't as convenient as a single device you could fold up and put in your pocket.
In my experience the write a new test bit is where it all falls down. It's too easy to skimp out on that when there are deadlines to hit or you are short staffed.
I've seen loads of examples where the tests haven't been updated in years to take account of new functionality. When that happens you aren't really doing TDD anymore.
I stopped buying Samsung stuff years ago. I have never encountered a brand who products have consistently given me problems like theirs do.
It's not just phones. I've had their TVs (old CRT and flat panels) fail within a year of purchase. A camera with a zoom lens that didn't work out of the box. A microwave which only displayed 99:99 on the display and wouldn't turn on. A washing machine where the hoses to the outflow pump came loose and flooded our kitchen. Luckily I didn't have to deal with Samsung directly and sent all that stuff back to the retailer to sort out, but I did learn a lesson.
As for their phones, they just seem to be a little bit more delicate than other brands. Things like the glass seemingly being easier to break, charging ports getting loose and not allowing for a good connection and physical buttons that just fail.
I know other peoples experiences will be different, but for me I have decided to never again buy Samsung.
The 1998 DPA was still pretty strict. I have no doubt the DPA was violated when they called my wife.
I blame the manager who came from a sales background. His response to every problem was to "call someone", rather than have the team work out what was wrong.
I am a proponent of the lowest common denominator model of development. Basically this means that whatever you develop should be understandable by a relatively new or junior developer. You should develop in such away that a someone coming in off the street should be able to pick up where you left off with minimal effort. This is partly about code, but also docs. Think about the next guy/gal. Is your code clean and well commented? But do you also have docs explaining the bigger picture? Think about what sort of documentation would have helped you get up to speed with the project. If people have to use compile errors to figure out what needs to be done to get up and running then you could have done better.
This was in 2013, pre-GDPR but in 1998 DPA territory. Yes, I do feel it was probably a DPA violation even back then.
In Ireland next of kin is purely for cases where the person has been incapacitated/hurt and someone needs to be told. Nothing to do with dispersal of benefits etc. There's a separate process for all that.
In this case the server app had multiple DLLs imported from other projects and they had been compiled against a specific version of the Oracle .net driver.
My docs clearly stated that you should not update the driver unless you were willing to rebuild all the other projects as well. I could only deploy one copy of the driver file, so it had to be the version all the different parts of the application were expecting. It was an old app, whoever started development on it didn't know about repositories and DB singletons - there were DB connections all over the place.
The annoying thing is that the .net error message they were getting actually stated what the problem was in fairly clear terms, yet they still called me.
That would cross my mind. Most potential employers I've encountered have usually asked for references from my last two jobs. On another occasion I had to undergo a background check which involved contacting my last 15 years worth of employers. So no matter how much I may have disliked an employer I would be unwilling to burn bridges until I knew I would never need to rely on them again.
A few years ago I left the company I was was working for. We had an internal doc wiki that hardly anyone used. I was one of the ones who did and I would document code changes and things like how to setup a dev environment and to list known gotchas.
During my final week when I was doing code handover I sent an email around the company pointing out that the wiki would answer most of the questions they might have about the apps I worked on.
Three months later my phone starts ringing. I was in a new job so I didn't answer, but they kept ringing. Then they started calling my wife as she was listed as my next of kin. My wife also didn't answer as she was with a client. After a few hours, my wife picks up the call and texts me that my previous employer was desperate to speak to me. So I called them during break and after a bit of an ear bashing I was informed their whole warehouse system was down and all business had stopped.
After a bit of diagnosis I realised that they had fallen for the first gotcha I listed in my docs, they deployed the wrong DB driver. I asked why they didn't read the docs. They responded "what docs?". I explained that I sent an email round before I left with guidance on the app. Rather than apologise they berated me for not doing more to alert people to the existence of the information. It was that attitude that contributed to me wanting to leave the company in the first place.
I think the moral is that no matter how good your docs, some people will always ignore them even when the world is collapsing around them.
I think the extreme opposite equally applies on social media, people who would moderate themselves in real life seem to let it all out on social media. So instead of pretending to be something they are not, they reveal their truest opinions and thoughts.
For example extreme political and religious opinions. I've seen long term real life friendships broken because someone said something extreme about Brexit on facebook. I have a very religious friend who berates me constantly on facebook for being an ex-Catholic, she tells me I need to save myself etc - but she would never say that to me in real life.
Social media is so good at making people say stupid things.
I ageee that YouTube sucks for many reasons. They have a weird undocumented algorithm that defines what gets popular and as a result creators are constantly playing games to bait it. Their monetization/demonetization policies are just bonkers. Their copyright enforcement system is Kafkaesque. Plus, as a consumer they seem to be going down the facebook route of trying to curate my viewing choices in a way that suits them.
But they can do that as they are a private company. They don't owe anyone anything. If you rely on YouTube for a living without a backup plan then you are dumb.
YouTube is no longer the only player in online video. If you don't like what YouTube is doing then look at alternative platforms.
I'm amazed that all the interested parties haven't got together to flesh out a microtransaction standard. The whole ad-blocking debate would be moot if we could pay a few cents to read an article free of distracting ads. If you choose not to pay, you get the ads and don't get to complain about ad-blocker-blockers because you were offered an alternative.
I know it has been attempted in the past with little success, but all those attempts were just companies going it alone and hoping for the best. If the W3C, browser makers, banks and publishers all got together a standard could be developed. Something that would be core to web standards. It wouldn't be easy, but it would solve a lot of problems.
Being able to sell and do the whole business BS thing is vitally important. If you can't do it, hire someone or get a friend/relative to help.
Under promise, over deliver. (slightly)
Become an authority on your subject matter. Write blog posts, post often on twitter, write to journals/newspapers - set yourself up as someone who knows what they are doing.
Charge for spec work.
Don't be afraid to turn down work that may challenge you more than you can handle. You are taking an unnecessary risk. In those circumstance you can offer to help the client find the right consultant/solution provider.
ALWAYS get a deposit before work begins. And then insist on regular payments for longer projects - if payments stop, you stop work.
Don't do fixed fee work, unless you REALLY, REALLY trust the client.
Good relationships are vital. If a client likes you they will market you through word of mouth and that's the best kind of advertising.
Have a plan in place to deal with non-payments or difficult clients. Be consistent and don't let bad clients take advantage of you. Offer no credit terms longer than 28 days. Offer a 5% discount for quick payment.
If you are providing software before full payment is received, don't be afraid to use a licensing mechanism to shut it down if payment fails to materialise. A friend lost €20k in a similar situation.
Also, bear in mind you will work long hours. That's why I couldn't keep doing it. I was making decent money, but the hours, and travel, were killing me.
In the end the company that the governement selected to start the rollout of DTT went bust and I don't think the system was used anywhere else. The developer of the technology abandoned it in 2006 as other connection methods (broadband/mobile data) were preferred.