I'm rather new to this whole Moleskine thing, but that does not mean I do not want to improve :). If you like me, try to save your eyes from computer at least for some time and want to have a writing appliance that you'll want to return to again and again, I hope you'll benefit from something I've read recently. Is it all about the Moleskine? Not really.

• Black Cover Archives. There are many of notebooks out there.
• Proving Moleskine Is Just A Style: The Piccadilly Notebook - can be a particularly good alternative. I want to get one next time I'm in the US.
• Field Notes. Some people like these.
• The Perfect Little Non-Black Book: The Rite in the Rain Notebooks. These are nice too. See how it works
  

You've got one. What do you do now? You hack!

• Definitive Collection Of Moleskine Hacks, Tips And Resources
• Moleskine Notebooks: The Ultimate Guide
• More Moleskine Hacks
• and finally The Monster Collection of Moleskine Tips, Tricks and Hacks

I did not try that all, but you can :)

If you are a manager, you've got everything to prevent this sign from ever appearing near the entrance to you department's area.

Today I had an inspiring chat with one of fellow QA engineers about one of the systems we recently developed. I had a new requirement in mind that triggers complete re-test of the system.

Me: How long does it take to re-test our solution?

QA: Any new features or components?

Me: No, "just" another communication protocol.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="180" caption="Great job!"][/caption]

QA: Give me 10 minutes, I'll consult with the Test Plan and Design.

Me: ...Ok.

And if initially I was going for really quick and dirty estimate, I just could not make myself ask for that. I've got my needs under complete control of a professional.

Professionals feel responsible for everything they say to you, their internal code of conduct just does not allow them to fool you or compromise quality of their advice, even if you ask for it.

Professionals, unlike amateurs, will always ask you for what they need to deliver you the best possible result.

They are near you, just look around.

Be reasonable with your requests. Be reasonable with your responses. Human actions (at least, in professional and business fields) are mostly driven by reasons. People never (or very-very rarely) do something out of spontaneous wish at work.

Yes, you can have a spontaneous idea, but it, anyway, will serve some particular purpose. Idea tries to solve a problem, and the is the reason why you do that - you want right the wrong or make something better.

Often times in order to do what you want to accomplish, you will need to request something from your fellow colleague. Usually, you will need to have it done by certain deadline. This is where the interesting part begins.

You know exactly why you want something to be done by certain date or time. But are you sure your fellow colleague, from whom you request, comes to know that by reading your e-mail? Does he get why this needs to be done today? Is it in any way more important than what he is working on now? Unless he is a powerful mind-reader the answer to all such questions is "No!". E-mail just does not bear with itself enough of  the mental energy to discover all of that!

Do you want you request to be handled in the best possible way? I bet you do. So, be reasonable. Write you request in a best possible way. Explain why there is a need to do something and why deadline is such as it is. Do not send unreasonable requests!

Same line of thought applies to responses. And even if you receive an unreasonable request - there is a reason why it went out. Help the requestor. Ask him questions. Unreasonable response will just turn into a dead-end. Often quickly bricked up behind your back while you drive there.

Do your best to explain your reasons and understand reasons of others. If you are not sure if you were understood correctly - follow-up your e-mail with a call.

And be reasonable with what you write and what you say.

Some time ago I've posted a couple of ideas around productivity and distractionless computer environment. Since then I continue trying to optimize my computer experience here and there. It is always interesting to know what ideas others have about problems you are thinking about. So it was very interesting for me to read how Leo Babauta of Zen Habits approaches his computer experience. A lot of good ideas there.

Iconless desktop. Great idea! Desktop is not a junkyard. On Windows XP it is as simple as right-click on the desktop -> Arrange Icons By -> Show Desktop Icons.

"Light" menubar. Now I switched from autohiding my Task Bar to completely removing it from the screen: only 2 pixels at the top of the screen. No more annoying appearances of the Tool Bar when your mouse is near the edge. You can still use Win-key to access the Start menu and Alt-Tab to switch between windows.

Keyboard shortcuts instead of icons. Brilliant! This is something that I started adopting very actively. On Windows XP you do not even need to install additional software tools: right-click on the icon in the Start Menu -> Properties, click in the Shortcut key box and select shortcut for an application.

Find your way to effective computer experience.These and other small tricks can take you one step away from chaos and give you some precious time to do what you do best - create!

Could not resist posting this quote by Lee Iacocca:

"The ability to concentrate and to use your time well is everything if you want to succeed in business - or almost anywhere else for that matter."

(via Happy-PM)

When people communicate they exchange facts, ideas and opinions. When they hear something which is not a sure fact like "At present, Earth orbits the Sun" they will either agree or disagree. As Paul Graham suggests this is a natural behavior. But disagreeing itself is somewhat simple: nothing remains after the conversation except for changed or not unchanged mind of participants.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="180" caption="Opposition"][/caption]

When people hear idea or proposal it is another beast. Something is going to remain after the talk is finished and that is a decision whether to proceed with presented idea. And that decision, be it positive or negative, is going to affect everyone involved in a conversation. As Paul noticed

Many who respond to something disagree with it. That's to be expected. Agreeing tends to motivate people less than disagreeing. And when you agree there's less to say.

Only very bad ideas will not ignite discussion. If the idea is worth at least something the conversation will start. The conversation will start with disagreement and critique and will revolve around the problem idea tries to address and the idea itself.

The worst form of critique which often can be a "discussion killer" is when the reply is "This is not going to work" and nothing more. There can be several cases why one would say that and actual meaning of that response can range:

• from "Hey man! You are so stupid to propose this. Your idea is not even worth discussing."
• to "Dude, I had thought this idea in and out and you really do not want to implement it" and "The problem you are trying to solve isn't really a problem. Let's move on to the next item."

No matter what the actual meaning is expressing it with "This is not going to work" is wrong. You must uncover reasoning for "not going to work". Such unsound responses kill all the constructive outputs that can arise as a result of conversation on the topic. Such responses create forces which oppose to development of better outcomes for the concern raised.

Good response would be something that will help arrive at conclusion that will be both acceptable and accepted by all the parties engaged in the conversation. Something that will prompt for further discussion is already good enough, e.g. "I do not clearly see the benefit of implementing this. Can you please explain in more detail?".

When discussion starts it is important to distinguish two things about the proposed idea:

• problem the proposal tries to address
• the idea itself

First of all there should be an agreement on why dealing with the problem is or is not important. With readiness to attack the problem you can move on to define a solution to that starting with proposed idea. Once the problem is revealed a solution should be found. The solution might be completely different from what is proposed now, but there should be one. And only constructive dialog that gradually improves currently proposed idea can deliver that.

Jim McCarthy calls this a "better idea" approach. To quote Jim:

An accountable "No" is respected, but it's got to be accountable.

You can say "No", but no, you can't go away without a better idea. Because if you don't have a better idea, then that's the best available idea and you always act on the best available idea. You can always change it tomorrow, or next week if better ideas come around. But, by definition, if you don't have a better idea, you have to vote "Yes". So when you stop the show you are expected to carry the next vote, which happens immediately. And this makes people say "No" much less.

Mind how you respond to ideas of your fellows and be accountable for what you say. Let ideas emerge and be implemented.

All of that started with Twitter... I created an account on Twitter. My way to Twitter was quite long and there were, I guess, 3 major factors that made me do that: changes in my professional life, Bob Walsh's comments about Twitter and Hanselminutes episode about WPF Twitter client blu. In my 2 or 3 days Twitter "career" I've already seen famous "Something is technically wrong" so I can see myself as an experienced Twitter user.

But there are 2 other things that prompted me to think about software quality.

After listening to Scott Hanselman's podcast I installed blu. The second thing I noticed after slick UI was inability to work through proxy. I live and die by personal proxy which allows me to easily migrate between different networks during my day. So, what can I say? Nice piece of software, but almost completely unusable in my setting, which as I would guess is not uncommon.

Another sad experience is twitbacks. As a newbie I given in to temptation of working on form rather than the meaning first. I've spent quite a time with this tool, but was not able to produce any sufficiently good looking background. Main issue for me was strange resizing which made text blurry and also lead to incorrect alignment with functional elements of the Twitter page. Again, nice idea, but not usable.

Both of these cases look to me as an obvious shortcuts taken by the development teams on requirements definition or testing stage. Quality of the system output is determined by weakest link in the system. Determined to the extent that piece of software may be rendered unusable in certain common scenarios.

Network client solution cannot omit widely spread variances in Internet connectivity settings.

Image generation software can not afford generating funky images.

Check that you have not fallen into the same trap or start fixing that immediately.

Tell me who your friends are and I'll tell you who you are.

Old saying tells so. In modern world you often say who the person is by looking at what she reads or what she thinks of some books. Same this is applicable to blogs as well.

Recently the Time posted 25 Best Blogs 2009. It appears that I read 3 our of those 25 blogs which is not bad at all given that I'm not a US resident.

So today on my reading list are (among many others):

• Freakonomics. I just love all those subtle connections between things in a human society.
• Seth Godin's blog. Insightful and inspiring.
• Zen Habits. Life as experience at some point gets tough for everyone, but you can always help yourself if you put in a little effort.

Surprisingly right after 25th best blog when you click "Next" you get to Most Overrated Blogs of which TechCrunch is the first. I used to be subscribed to it but not any more.

I've got a few interesting links from that list, so looks like list of 3 might be extended at some point... What about yours?

Right now I'm really into staying focused on the things I need to accomplish. Most of my work time I spend at my computer and as you might have noticed from my recent posts I try to make it more rewarding experience.

If you are also interested in that you may benefit from rebooted 43 folders podcast by Merlin Mann. Merlin gives solid advice on getting some time to focus and produce. This advice basically consists of two messages:

• Have some kind of a "box" to put there some stuff to get back to later.
• Go offline to concentrate.

I'm absolutely aligned with the second message and kind of advocate the same approach. The first one is little bit more tricky. Not only should you have a box to put ideas, tasks and todo items but you need to actually get back to this box.

Getting back to stuff is not easy. Especially if what you need to get back to is not the most pleasant activity. Your need to have guts and discipline to regularly go through items in the box and cleanup it. At first it was not easy for me, but over time I get better and better at this.

Happy cleaning!