CityBlogz Design Studio / Blog

I came across a very interesting web application/service called del.icio.us. After a few days of continous use, I’ve decided to comment on my overall experience using the web application. According to the website,

del.icio.us is a social bookmarks manager. It allows you to easily add sites you like to your personal collection of links, to categorize those sites with keywords, and to share your collection not only between your own browsers and machines, but also with others.

For now, this service is completely free. In my mind, it has some very interesting marketing potential. At the moment, it does one thing and does it well. I did have some performance issues during peak internet hours and I did get a 404 error during that time. Some future enhancements that I can think of are to include a favorites/bookmarks import/export feature in the same manner that Yahoo! Bookmarks does it. Anyway, here are my public bookmarks at del.icio.us. Enjoy!

I have been reading a few books about how to manage people to get results that you want. The simplest approach that I have read is by the One Minute Manager. I have never been in management but I have been the brunt of management mistakes before. Anyway, the theory that the authors explain are quite simple. The secret is being able to do all three.

• One minute goals
• One minute praisings
• One minute reprimands

Just remember the following tag lines: Set goals; praise and reprimand behaviors; encourage people; speak the truth; laugh; work; enjoy. If you are interested in what I briefly explained, go buy the book “The One Minute Manager” by Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my career options lately. The current company that pays my check has committed a number of bad moves toward me as an employee that I feel warrant a change of scenery. Firstly, all the PTO that I’ve saved up over the last 4 years have mysteriously disappeared. Secondly, I didn’t find out till last week that my wages were reduced by 5%, applicable since the start of 2005 (all without telling me before the start of the year). I had to find out when I took a look at my last few paycheck stubs and complained. Thirdly, they got rid of the tuition reimbursement program in 2003, when I was nearly half way into completing my Masters degree program. It will take me at least a couple more years to complete my degree because of that set back. Anyway, I’ve had meetings with my managers and I’ve communicated how I felt. I’ve done a lot of thinking lately and I think it is time for me to move on. From a wages and benefits standpoint, my current compensation is far below average. I’m pulling in only about $41,000 per year. Not good considering all the experience that I have. Although, I enjoy certain aspects of working at IBM (as a contractor), I must admit there is a glass ceiling as far as rewards structure, and leadership responsibilities are concerned. I was kind of feeling like my career had derailed or stalled. I have always observed that contractors/vendors at IBM were treated as second class citizens. Maybe this is not completely true for all organizations within IBM, but that was the pervasive feeling that I had gotten.

Anyway, enough of my bitter ranting. If any readers of my blog wish to give an experienced web developer/designer a chance at career bliss, please don’t hesitate to contact me. My resume is available here online. If anyone from Apple, Google, and any major web design firms come a knocking, I’m ready to listen.

Previously I wrote about a Google employee Mark Jen who blogged about his experiences at Google. Well, he was fired only several weeks later when other Google employees complained behind his back. I had an opportunity to see the original posts and the revised posts, and I must admit they were borderline inappropriate. Google reprimanded and fired him on the first offense (clearly not good management practice). Of course, he could’ve been smarter about what he posted, but everyone makes mistakes. It’s the fact that he was not given the opportunity to correct those mistakes that gets me a little miffed.

What he has done has brought up a very important legal topic for today’s electronic age. What happened to Mark Jen has happened to many bloggers. If you read the Washington post article titled “Free Expression Can Be Costly When Bloggers Bad-Mouth Jobs“, you’ll notice a trend. Free speech in the constitution does not apply to corporate settings. I took one law class in my Masters degree program at UoP, and there was a case that set a legal precendent that allows employers to fire employees for inappropriate behavior using email. It would be interesting to see if this precendent can be applied to the blogging world as well. In any case, companies should clearly have blogging policies, since it is becoming a very hot trend in the online world. This way, there is no grey legal issue if someone writes something inappropriate on their blog about the company they work for.  

Breaking news. Apple’s board of directors just announced that the stock will be split two-for-one on February 18th, 2005. Trading of Apple stock will begin on a split-adjusted basis on February 28, 2005, according to the statement. The last time Apple’s board authorized a two-for-one split was in June of 2000. This was almost to-be-expected since Apple’s shares have been quite bullish for the past 6 months, nearly reaching their all time high of $83.25 achieved on November 1999. What this means for investors is that shares of Apple stock will be more affordable come February 28, 2005. Instead of trading at nearly $80 per share, it will trade at about $40 per share. Current Apple shareholders as of February 18th will automatically have double their existing shares. Times are looking good for Apple. We’ll see if the momentum keeps going up after the split.

Sources: MacWorld, and The Register