I am still here…
I haven’t been able to blog much in the last few weeks. I am in the middle of transitioning to a new job and have lots of pending errands and personal stuff that is keeping me busy. Just wanted to say that I look forward to blogging anew in the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned.
Welcome to My New Blog!
Hi!
This is my personal blog and I am in the process of transitioning my blog from my older blog at Sun, which will be discontinued shortly. All the previously posted entries on my Sun blog will remain accessible on that blog. Any new entries I post from now on will appear only on this blog.
More details later.
Thanks for visiting, please come back again!
On Jakob Neilsen's Top 10 Blog Design Mistakes
Thanks to Richard for pointing this out. Being a long time Jakob Neilsen fan, I am happy to see him share his thoughts on blog usability.
I found it interesting that the #1 and #2 on the list is about the identity of the blog/blogger. I have ranted about anonymous blogging before, see this and this, so I am really glad that someone this issue get attention from someone who is an authority on usability.
Anyway, looks like I personally am guilty of #8 (“Mixing Topics”). But, I am not sure I can keep my blog focussed on one topic alone. I don’t really feel like having multiple blogs and I do really want to write on several topics. That is why I named this blog “Whatever…” because I could not decide (still cannot) what the singular focus of this blog should be. So the question is if a blog is about personality or an idea/profession. If it is about the latter, then it is easier to keep the blog focussed to a single or related topics. Professionally speaking, I am passionate about software architecture, design, analysis, patterns, refactorings, programming and related stuff. So I have created these categories on my blog, which I hope will provide the necessary focus for the only 3 people across the world reading this blog anyway. 
More on Blogging Tips: Adding an image at top of entry
Rich Burridge gives some very useful blogging tips . In one of the tips he points out how he embeds a image at the top of most of his postings. He uses a HTML table to do that. As you will see on my blog, I too provide images to most of my posts and I do…
On Why Anaysts Aren't Blogging (Continued)
Richard Veryard (an analyst with CBDI Forum)
responding to my earlier post
has some interesting comments. I totally agree with what he says on vendors
falsely posing as independent experts.
You can‘t hide (forever) in Blogosphere. So be…
Blogging Tip #1: How To Add a Favorite Icon
Here are some instructions for adding a Favicon to your blog:
You need an Icon (.ico) file that is 16×16 pixels in size. If it
is not this size, the browser might ignore your icon.
If you have an image file (JPEG/GIF) that you want to use…
On Why Analysts Aren't Blogging…
I
have been wondering a bit on why IT industry analysts are not yet blogging.
Like many in my field, I occasionally look at what the analysts and pundits
are saying about different trends in the industry. 
” border=”0″>
I remember early days in my career when I paid great attention to many different
reports from many analyst reports on any topic from CASE tools to RISC vs. CISC
to CAD/CAM to RDBMS to almost anything I could get my hands on. Since these
reports were exorbitantly priced, the company I used to work for could only
afford to buy a select few and that too when the reports were slightly older
and probably obsolete. They were certainly entertaining and sometimes enlightening.
Am I glad the internet came around when it did. ” src=”http://blogs.sun.com/roller/resources/alur/flashbackend.gif”>
Anyway, I wanted to check out how my analyst brethren are doing in the blogging
world. And here is what I found. Almost no one really blogs in the analyst world.
Or if they do, I could not find them. I did a preliminary search to find any
blogs out there from any analysts and here is what I found so far:
- Forrester: This was the only analyst
site that prominently featured their bloggers
(there are 7 bloggers). - Gartner, IDC,
Yankee Group, Patricia
Seybold Group, Burton Group:
NO BLOGS!With the exception of Richard
who has been blogging before joining the Burton Group (no link to his blog
from Burton Group site though).
To
make some sense of this, I had a brief session with HAL
9000 and he came up with the chart shown here. According to HAL, the more
inclined you are to be an Analyst, the less probable it is that you
are going to blog because you already have a full-time job publishing your analysis
that makes money for your company. But then, I could have given wrong input
to HAL (GIGO, remember), in
which case if you know of an analyst blog(s), please provide the link(s) in
your comment so HAL can compute.
On IBM Blogging Policy & Guidelines
Interesting indeed.
From James Snell‘s blog:
As these guidelines were being drafted, we drew heavily upon our own experiences as bloggers and the excellent prior art in this space graciously provided by Sun, Microsoft, Groove and many others who have drafted policies and guidelines for their employees.
As you know, I have ranted before on anonymous (when-there-is-no-reason-to-be-anonymous) blogs before. So I find the following excerpt from the IBM Blogging Policy relevant and interesting to note:
Be who you are. Some bloggers work anonymously, using pseudonyms or false screen names. IBM discourages that in blogs, wikis or other forms of online participation that relate to IBM, our business or issues with which the company is engaged. We believe in transparency and honesty. If you are blogging about your work for IBM, we encourage you to use your real name, be clear who you are, and identify that you work for IBM. Nothing gains you notice in the “blogosphere” more than honesty — or dishonesty. If you have a vested interest in something you are discussing, be the first to point it out. But also be smart about protecting yourself and your privacy. What you publish will be around for a long time, so consider the content carefully and also be judicious in disclosing personal details.
For a somewhat funny outtake on this, check this out.
Dear IBMer's, Welcome to the Blogosphere!
1 comment