Author: Yakov Fain

When purchasing stuff online I always pay attention to the design of the vendor ‘s Web site to assess if it ‘s a large company of a fly-by-night guys that quickly put together a cheap Web site. I know that creating of a professional-looking Web site costs tens of thousands dollars or more. If you play by the business rules, you must hire a professional Web designer – we all know this. But…

Yesterday, we realized that the heater in our house got broken. We have this air unit that started to make noise without pumping in the hot air. I ‘m not a handy man, but this time Iopened the heater ‘s cover and quickly realized that the ignitor was broke in this gas unit. What ‘s first thing that you should do when something like this happens? You have to unscrew the ignitor, try to find there any tatoo that resembles the model number and … go to Google. I did exactly this and found a Web site that sells them. When I looked at this Web site , it was clear that this site was created at least ten years ago by an amateur who never paid a dime to any Web designer. It ‘s just horrible. Some time ago I purchased a book that was called something like Web sites that suck. This Web site is worse than any imaginable poorly designed site, because it has no design at all.

I ‘d never returned to this Web site, but apparently not too many places sell these ignitors online so I decided to give this site another look. When I saw a photo of two grandkids at the bottom of the site, I immediately visualized a loving grandpa and understood that he can ‘t be a crook. Than in the middle of the page I found this text

“Below is a note from me, Steve Arnold, explaining my philosophy of business and life……

“I Kenneth S. Arnold (I go by my middle name, “Steve “), president of Arnold ‘s Service Company, Inc. guarantee you there will be no problems with Arnold ‘s Service Company, Inc. in standing behind any guarantee and warranty. I believe that you should always treat others as you would want to be treated. Always exhibit a Christian attitude…. honesty, caring, dependability, reliability are a must!

Sincerely, Kenneth S. Arnold, President/Owner of Arnold ‘s Service Company, Inc. ”

You can ‘t fake such a statement. Look at the banner of the Dodge pick up truck… Needless to say that Dodge dis not pay a penny for hosting their banner there. It just tells me that this guy loves his little truck and lives by the principle “American, buy American “.

This guy is real. The only thing that I did not like about this site was that he put an image of Santa Claus but did not have guts to say “Merry Christmas “. He did what ‘s a little better for business: “Happy Holiday Season ” . I guess heater furnaces get broken in the homes of muslims, jews, buddists, and voodoo followers too.

Anyway, I ‘ve order the ignitor from this guy and I ‘m positive that I ‘ll never have any problems with this small business owner. I wonder if this might become a new trend – instead of pouring thousands of dollars into development of rich Internet applications, just be sincere and people will make your business a success?

Merry Christmas Mr. Arnold and Happy Khanukah to all your Jewish customers!

Update. I placed this order on Sunday morning, then wrote this blog, and on Monday at 8AM I ‘ve received the shipment notification with the UPS tracking number. Told ‘ya!

Update #2. The ignitor was not even a problem. There was a crack in the housing of the Heater ‘s fan. Morale: If you are a programmer, do not try to fix heaters. Keep programming and pay the professionals to do other things.

I write about Indians without any disrespect intended. I picked them just because this nation produces the largest number of the offshore coders-for-living in the world. But Indians living here are not the same as Indians who are still there.

Local Indian programmers belong to two categories: those who are still in the process of getting the US permanent residency(5-6 years) and those who already got it. Those who are in the process know that they have to work hard and be loyal to their employer, or else hellip; Those who already got it, just keep working well. To put it short, the vast majority of the Indian programmers I “ve been working with in the USA are good and hard working IT professionals. I “ve met and learned a lot from highly educated people from India, who are fun just to spend time with.

That other group lives in the gold-software-rush India and is called “our offshore partners rdquo;. American programmers casually complain that dealing with offshore partners is pain in the butt, because they are slow, deliver not what “s expected, require a lot more detailed specs, and time difference can result in days of email correspondence just to clarify what has to be done.

What do you think comes to mind of a typical American enterprise development manager when s/he realizes that lots of tedious code has to be written to retrieve the data from a database, massage them a little bit and display the result on the Web? India-the-savior comes to mind. A typical manager still believes that Indian programmers are dime a dozen. As Julia Roberts said, “Big mistake. Huge! rdquo;

So why any non-deaf corporate US programmer hears constant complains about those Indian teams from overseas? Why an Indian-born entrepreneur asks me, if I can recommend him a team of programmers but not from India? What “s the difference between Indians here and there?

The difference is not in them. The difference is in us. Poor performance of the offshore teams is a mirror of the poor job of the incompetent US project managers. They pretend that there is no difference in managing local and offshore teams, and it “s their fault that offshore projects are more expensive than the local ones. If you bring in an offshore team to your project, be ready to seriously improve the quality of your project documentation. Also your project will loose agility, if any. If a local developer can understand what has to be done and what are the priorities just by short phrase or a body language, this does not exist in the overseas communications. Do not go by this stupid book by Thomas Friedman “The World is Flat rdquo;. Yeah, right! The world is freaking round.

Sure enough, Bangalore is not a city of angels either. First, many of them have a heavy accent. Second, it “s the time to make a quick buck there, so if anyone offers them one extra dollar an hour, they “ll flee your project in a heartbeat. Do you know what “s going to be the two most popular words that you “ll hear from them? “I thought hellip; rdquo; These two words should give you goose bumps. This means that you “re not going to get what you “ve expected because your overseas partners did not understand the assignment, and very inexpensive rates become a huge burden to your project. Three people (just $20p/h) offshore programmers spend three days working on your assignment. Then you hear “We thought hellip; rdquo;, which means the $20*8*3=$460 just this very moment went down the toilet. And even more importantly, if a local developer would have questions about the job to be done, s/he would have casually stop by and asked. But your partners from overseas are often shy to ask, which might be a cultural thing. They are afraid to ask wrong questions and prefer not to ask any.

Indian vocational schools keep baking new programmers every three months beefing up their resumes with a fake industry experience, but do you care? Do you have a choice? Can you find local programmers that have real experience and demand rates that can be squeezed in your budget? Can “t? So shut up and sit down. American-born programmers will soon become a myth anyway. If I interview a programmer and like his technical skills, I do not care what “s written in his resume. If s/he “s good for the job, get on board. And do not give me this baloney that a seasoned Java programmer who was predominantly working on HR applications is useless if you are working on a Wall Street trading application. Do not worry, they “ll quickly pick up the difference between long and short sales.

OMG, you do not have derivatives in your resume! It “s a rocket science and we feel superior here. BS. Pretty soon all these snobs will be happy to find a person who understands how the bubble sort works and what “s the difference between a class and interface. The secret rolls revealing the bubble sort algorithm have been stolen from the USA and relocated to India. Accept this fact and move on.

Alex Iskold has written an interesting blog concluding that a few good developers can do any job. But he “s not accounting for the garage factor. Yes, a few good men can do the job if they are in the garage, which is the most productive place to develop software. But if you place them in an enterprise environment where covering your manager “s ass is more important than finding the right technical solution, these good men will soon suffocate and die unless they are supported by a good team of mid-level apprentices.

Try to find a small number of very good local developers (pay them premium) and an EXCELLENT LOCAL MANAGER of your offshore team that speaks their language to lower the chances of your project “s failure. And what “s more importantly (c “mon, admit it), your career won “t be in jeopardy.

Long Live India, and God Bless America! Amen.

Happily, I was quite busy all year. If American English is not your first or second language, this phrase means the following ndash; I was working my ass off and am tired as hell. Today, I had a half an hour break between the day job and the evening class at NYU. I went to a caf eacute; Europa on Fifth and 43rd, sat at the table and literally forced myself to not open the laptop.

Yesterday, I met with my business partners and suggested that next year we should take a longer vacation. One of them asked, “What do you call a vacation? rdquo; I said, “Vacation is when you are not available rdquo;. This is my definition of vacation. What “s yours?

This Thanksgiving weekend I spent in London with my family. I went there without my laptop, so let me spend fifteen minutes to record my notes from this visit. Otherwise I “ll forget.

1. First of all, London is a place when you can run into your friends from anywhere in the world. We were walking on the street on our first day there and ran into our friends from NYC. Also, I was corresponding with Dr.Heinz Kabutz from South Africa about organizing his talk at Java Users Group during his upcoming visit to New York. Only later I found out that he and I were in London at the same time staying in the same area one Underground station apart.

2. We were flying by Virgin Atlantic, and I highly recommend this airline. Seats were convenient, food was better than on many other airlines, and the TV offered a selection of about fifty movies and lots of other programs, which made the flight shorter. My friend (see item 1 above) with his wife flew by British Airways, and this is his amazing story. A Japanese couple sat next to them on the plane. In the beginning of the flight she put on her hands on her belly and a smile on her face. He turned on the TV programs for her, and she did not change the position or said a word during the entire flight!

3. London is expensive. You have to pay $2.1 US dollar for each pound. The numeric values of the prices for goods and services are pretty much the same as in New York, but it “s in pounds.

4. Computer books are also very expensive. You can find only very thin books that costs under $50 USD. Can English programmers afford paying for the books? On the positive side, I found an entire bookcase with books on Java, which is impossible to find in the USA.

5. People are much better dressed in London than in NYC. Especially young generation. I did not see falling pants even once! Neither did I see women in expensive fur coats wearing sneakers.

6. We Will Rock You , the musical by Queen and Ben Elton is a must see. I bought the tickets at the ticket box in Piccadilly underground. The guy there is a crook ndash; he sold me tickets quickly flashing seats 2-3-4, and only at the theater we found out that the tickets were in different rows. We overpaid. But the show was amazing. If you like the musing of Freddy Mercury and Queen, go to see this musical. This is probably the best musical I “ve seen after Jesus Christ Superstar.

7. The underground is expensive ($8 vs. $2 in NYC, purchasing tickets requires college degree, and it “s unreliable. Not only you have to insert you ticket to enter, but you can “t get out without inserting the ticket again. You might go to an unpaid zone and may be killed for this.

On the way to the airport, I found out that there is not service on that line and this info was published in their brochures. I do not remember the need to read any brochures about closures in New York subway.

8. An average English lady has 1.6 kids, while an average immigrant Pakistani woman living in GB has 4.6 kids. Welcome to the Islamic GB circa 2050. Hey Brits, I do not feel sorry for you ndash; you “ve asked for it.

Several years ago I was thinking about finding a job that would pay me American salary for working in Europe. Forget it, I can “t afford living in Europe anymore. Also, I need to spend more time studying the Japanese culture.

Our company provides various types of Flex training, and based on the calls we are getting, it seems that people are confused by the word “certified ” in the name of this particular program. So I “ll try to give you some clarification here. But let me start with explaining what the title Adobe Certified Flex Instructor means. I “ll start with my own story.

In the Summer of 2006 I “ve been working with Flex at full speed. In addition to this, I “ve been writing technical articles and was a co-author of an advanced book on real-world programming with Flex and Java. Since I always enjoyed teaching programming, I decided to start teaching Flex. And when you teach any programming language, you need a good text book or courseware. I decided to purchase Flex courseware from Adobe, complete all the labs and start teaching Flex to the masses.

When I contacted Adobe, they “ve answered that the courseware is available only for certified instructors. This sounded reasonable, and my next question was, “How do I get certified? rdquo;

Since I was an early Flex adopter, has published numerous articles, worked on the Flex book, knew people on the Flex team, has Java medals all over my chest, and was teaching programming at NYU, I was expecting the following answer from Adobe:

rdquo;Dear Yakov, we are so happy that you “ve decided to become a certified Flex instructor! We “ll overnight you the diploma, and please start teaching Flex now. rdquo;

The real answer was a little different:

rdquo;Yakov, get your butt on the plane and fly to Seattle next month. Sit through the five-day train-the-trainer Flex class, then prepare and teach one hour training session in front of the audience using our courseware, and if we like it, you “ll become Adobe Certified Flex Instructor rdquo;. The wording was more polite, but the meaning was the same.

And I did exactly this ndash; took a week off at work, purchased the air tickets, booked the hotel, and sat through a very involved class at Adobe. I had a great instructor, Matt Boles, one of the original authors of Flex courseware. At the end of the class I ran a short class covering various units using the original courseware, and passed the test.

Since then, I periodically teach Adobe Certified training for our corporate clients and for general public (my next public training is on the week after Thanksgiving in New York City).

A colleague of mine became certified Flex instructor this year, and requirements were even more stringent ndash; he had to become certified Flex developer first , which is now a pre-requisite for becoming certified Flex instructor.

So when you see an ad about Adobe Certified Flex training, this means that the class will be taught by a person who knows Flex, went through the certification process and knows how to teach Flex using a very well done courseware right from the source.

The word certified here does not mean that you will become a certified Flex developer after attending this class, but it does mean that you can expect a high quality training that will help you not only in passing certification exam if you choose to, but will also leave you with a very good understanding of how to create rich Internet applications with Adobe Flex. The market for Flex developers is extremely hot, so do not miss your opportunity. Find the Flex class near you, or get your butt on the plane hellip;Well, you know the drill.

I ‘ll attend the Java meetup on Nov 19, and will do a short non-formal preso on rich Internet applications with Java. If you need to kill a Monday evening come over. Remember Mamas and Papas – Monday, Monday, it ‘s so good to me …

It ‘s a free event, just register at http://java.meetup.com/59

See you on Monday, Monday.

I ‘m listening to the Bruce Williams talk show on my way from work. People call and ask for various advises (Bruce is a realy smart man with lots of life experience. This guy calls in and says,

“I have a house and some money in the 401K plan ”

Bruce asks:

“How much money do you have in your 401K and what ‘s the price of your house? ”

“$6000, and the house costs $80K ”

“What do you do you owe on this house? ”

“$80K ”

“Oh, so you do not own the house…Was it a zero down purchase? ”

“Yes, I had an 80/20 mortgage ”

“So what ‘s you question? ”

“I ‘m seeing this lady, and not sure if I should marry her ”

“Why not? ”

“What if in 20-30 years she decides to leave me and we ‘ll need to split the money? ”

Bruce suggested him to stay single…

But my problem is that this guy is not mental. He really thinks that he owns the house.

People are brain washed… They know that having a house is an American Dream…Unfortunately, these days American dream turns into an ability to obtain the mortgage, which gives you a feeling that you own a house. Let ‘s not even go into a situation with sub-prime mortgages in America, which affects everyone, regardless if you have a mortgage or not.

Do not kid yourself, you own nothing until you paid it off 100%.

Do you own a house? Yeah, right!

After Google “s Android announcement , at least four big guys should be irritated:Sun Microsystems, Apple, Adobe and Microsoft.

Google approaches telephony from the open source side ndash; Linux based platform, uses Java but does not care about sticking to Java ME ndash; they planning to use fast OpenGL libraries and are not afraid to be hardware-specific. Check out the Youtube videos at the android site. Performance-wise that device looks pretty impressive. Google has created an alliance of more than thirty parties ndash; phone manufacturers and service providers. Google knows how to do things right.

Obviously, Android is a direct outside threat to Java ME, which makes it two now. The first one is Sun “s own JavaFX which will should become a commercial product for creating visual telephony applications at the same time when Android will be officially released ndash; next Fall.

Apple “s beauty, the iPhone, has started as close proprietary platform, which originally did not even allow any third-party to develop applications for iPhone. The situation is changing now, they are going to do us a favor and allow writing software for their hardware. Thank you very much!

Adobe “s Flash Lite is a new kid on the block, that is moving into multimedia telephony mainly competing with Java ME, and here comes another bully hellip;Man, it sucks!

Microsoft is irritated just because Google exist. Period. Whatever Google does makes Microsoft unhappy. First, Microsoft has its modest chunk of this market with its Windows Mobile. Besides, now Bill Gates goes into the world of voip servers and has announced Microsoft Office Communication Server. Yes, this is not exactly about writing software for the phone devices, but still, it “s telephony, and having Google playing there does not help Microsoft.

Competition is healthy, and consumers should applaud Google for entering the stage in an open source way. Maybe the day will come when people will be able to switch from one cell phone service provider to another and the same software will work on all phones?

I personally use Skype a lot. I have my laptop with me all the time anyway, why waste my cell phone minutes? I also keep an eye on Ribbit, which will allow creating rich internet application for making calls.

And you know why Google ‘s offering may win? No licensing fees to the vendors. Interesting, very interesting hellip;

When I was planning my immigration to America, I was positive that this country is different from any other country in the world. This country was lucky to set the right experimental society more than two hundred years ago, and people managed to keep this experiment going, more or less, for all these years. Private property, freedom of speech, live and let live, work more and live better, people do not have be equally poor as in communist regimes, but are allowed to be differently rich, a small guy can carry a gun to simplify relations between people.

But now, I can see how this country “s lives under one rule ndash; just be politically correct. People are very cautious in what they say. They are afraid to speak up.

In the corporate environment, if you see a nice looking co-worker, you “d better behave. If you have to look at her, do it as if you look at a piece of furniture. Otherwise you may be accused of sexual harassment. During orientation days for the newly hired some firms show preventive videos illustrating what can be treated as a sexual harassment. Tell your colleague that you like his tie or her dress and you are screwed. Here “s another scenario from one of these instructional videos. Two guys are eating in the company “s cafeteria. A lady in a short skirt bends down to pick up her candies from a vending machine revealing her underwear. These poor men reflectively turn their heads to look at her legs, and she files a sexual harassment law suit.

What the fuck is this? Actually, to be politically correct, I should have written WTF.

The main goal of medical doctors is to protect themselves from potential law suits from her patients. If you “ll get into an emergency room in a hospital alive but with a bullet in your head, they will put you through a hundred of tests before removing the bullet just to make sure that you won “t sue them for malpractice. Talking about protective medicine hellip; When you get your diagnosis at the doctor ‘s office, do you think of the need of a second opinion? Do you trust you doctor? Do you trust your priest or rabbi?

In America, I “ve learned that if your car got hit from behind by another car, it “s a good thing. It makes your lawyers happy. It does not matter that your car did not even get any scratches ndash; the accident stressed you out, and now you can “t have normal sex with your wife. Smell money?

Divorce in America almost always means fight where the lawyers get richer and husbands get poorer. And interestingly enough, I would not blame layers, who are just the instruments in peoples ‘ hands. It “s people vs. people, not lawyers vs. people. The country has about 800 thousand lawyers, and their unemployment rate is under one percent.

Generations of people are collecting welfare and do not even plan to work. In other words, the government pays people for not even thinking of going to work.

When I was coming to America, I knew that people make multi-million deals just by shaking hands. Maybe some people still do, but in vast majority of deals, you ‘d better read the fine print in your contract.

You are not allowed to use the “N ” word if you are “W rdquo;. But if you are black , you can scream and shout this word off the stage and make money by releasing musical CDs or selling out stand up comedy shows. Can ‘t critique there…it ‘s a culture of minorities and we are for diversity.

When the President of the United States of America delivers his state of the union address, the audience gives him standing ovations two-three dozen times. I “ve seen exactly the same show thirty years ago while living in the Soviet Union and watching speeches of one and only Leonid Brezhnev.

Here “s one more. We are approaching the Christmas season. Oops hellip; What did I say hellip;How dare I hellip;It “s a Holiday season! You have to be political correct, otherwise you may offend someone who is not Christian. The country with about 80% of Christian population is ashamed of wishing Merry Christmas. Just go shopping between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and the sales clerk will politely say to you, “Happy Holidays! rdquo; Yeah, right. For retailers, the “Holiday season ” is as important as Oscars for Hollywood. I have a question to retailers, “Is this season important to you because people are buying Hanukkah presents for their kids? ” No? So call it Christmas season for crying out loud. BTW, I ‘m Jewish. I ‘m wondering, when someone will come up with lyrics to replace the words “Santa Claus is coming to town rdquo; with something more neutral.

So to compensate for the castrated way of life inside the country, we watch superman movies, and invade other countries for no reason. Did we scare anyone? This is not the right war and this is not a result. Fifteen out of nineteen of 9/11 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia, hence let “s destroy… Iraq. Or take this anti-terrorist campaign. FBI has created a terrorist watch list that includes more than 750 thousand people (!?). A mother of a six-year old kid is being told in the airport that her son “s name was found in this terrorist list . They force you to take your shoes off in the airports. How about protecting people in shopping malls, trains and buses?

Traditionally, America was THE country with the largest number of free people with balls. It still is, but this number is substantially less today than it was even fifteen years ago, let alone fifty. I love America, and want it to be smarter and better. But let me tell you, it “s getting a little boring living in a country where every other person is eunuch.

It ‘s ten in the morning on Saturday, and if you also were working since the wee hours, take a break and listen to some music.

If you like The Beatles, here ‘s an amazing cover of their song “Something ” by the band called Screaming Headless Torsos. This is not exactly an elevator music, but is very well done. Put on the headphones and do not get scared…

Enjoy your weekend!