Category Archives: The Business

The management of people and money, and the choices that lead to the creation of new wealth (or don’t.)

Real World Advice for Fledgling Web Developers

A fellow front-end engineer here at Yahoo! asked for bits of real-world advice that we would give to up-and-coming front-end engineering students. He’s doing a talk at a school, and was curious about what we’ve learned. It struck me as a perfect idea for a blog post.

Any other front-end professionals out there? What would be your pieces of advice? …Read More

Whiting out ads: Is AdBlock even Necessary?

Some people are blocking Firefox users because they feel that the AdBlock Plus plugin is “tantamount to theft.” This attitude is woefully wrongheaded—even without the plugin, you can’t stop Banner Blindness. …Read More

The New Spam: Broken Unsubscribe Methods

Want to not piss off your users? Don’t send them crap unless they really really want it, and make it easy for them to stop getting it. Here’s how mass-mailing subscriptions should work. Unfortunately, it seems that they rarely do. …Read More

When will the Bubble Bubble burst? (Or: Who really listens to these pundits?)

So, I stumbled across an article by John Dvorak, who seems to think that we’re headed for another bubble burst in the next few years, and that it’ll be worse than the 2001 tech crash. In fact, he asserts that “Every single person working in the media today who experienced the dot-com bubble in …Read More

Companies, Don’t Eat Your Brains

Until recently, I was spending a lot of time building one brand site after another. There’s nothing at all wrong about making a big deal and then building a one-off site. We were making money doing this, and making money is what a company is, ultimately, all about. Anything else is irresponsible …Read More

The Art of the Resume: Why You Probably Shouldn’t Use MS Word

A resume is an advertisement. You are selling your time and attention, and trying to get some potential employer (who is a buyer, and a potential customer) to purchase said time and attention at a competitive price. Advertisements exist to make someone want something.

Most engineers aren’t all that savvy about the subtle art …Read More