For many of us who are out there using Social Media, sharing our lives and thoughts with others, we have a tendency to communicate the same way in print as we do face to face.  This is usually a good thing because the messages are received as if we were there.  It’s an easy way to connect our readers, sometimes on an emotional or spiritual level. However, we need to be careful how and when we communicate when it’s not face to face. Here’s why. Timing is everything. Stress changes the way we receive messages Depending on the person’s stress load or stress tolerance...

Steps to avoid feature creep Create a list of features for the planned product version. Some people call this a specification. You know you can ship when the planned features are implemented and tested. Get product stakeholders approval on specified features before implementation begins. The agreement on specified features helps everybody (developers, testers, sales, marketing, customers) know what the product is supposed to do when it’s done. Create a feature wish-list to collect suggested future features. The key to avoiding feature creep is to prevent the features from...

Advice:  Finish the job before the storm comes. Background: A week ago, I started repairing a gate damaged by the wind.  I removed the gate, rebuilt it with a reinforced gate kit.  This made the gate stronger than it was before.  I was in the middle of attaching the gate to the fence when the storms came.  I figured it wouldn’t be that big of a deal to stop installing the gate, it’s just a little rain I thought.  By the time the storm had finished there were some pretty strong winds. Setback: Instead of picking up the project where I left off, I had a new problem to deal...

There’s a phrase that most people don’t usually think about very much until they’ve exceeded their limit.  And that phrase is “bandwidth usage”.  It refers to the amount of data being transferred between an entity on the internet and the server that is serving the data.  Most hosting plans focus on data storage, but it turns out that data transfer is the number you have to worry about. When I originally selected my web hosting service, the thought never entered my mind that I would ever exceed the limit.  Silly me for not realizing that a person who has a...

Spring seems to be here in full force this year.  Many who live in the Central Valley experience allergy-related symptoms.  Sneezing, watery eyes, sinusitus and sinus infections.  There is some good news though.  You may have never heard of it before.  It’s called the NasaFlo Neti Pot by NeilMed Pharmaceuticals. The reason I’m sharing this information, is that I suffer in the spring & fall. In the spring it’s from all the pollens in the air and in the fall from the dust related to the harvest.  The good thing about the Neti Pot is that it reduces the severity of...