Some Notes To Consider on the Technical Difficulties with Healthcare.gov

I’m not involved. I am not saying I’m for/against ACA. That said, a few things I’ve gleaned from a few of the technical views on the internet that weren’t from a higher profile source such as the NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/21/us/insurance-site-seen-needing-weeks-to-fix.html

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Breaking the $100 Per Hour Barrier

I get this question at least once a year so thought I would write a blog post on it to help others. “How do I make more than $100 per hour?”. I’ve learned a few ways and wanted to share them below. If you want to save time, simply do something other than programming such as flipping houses, investment banking, or being the boss of a mid size company. They make way more money than we do. If you still love programming, but just want to know your options for making more money, read on.

I won’t cover whether money can buy you happiness or not. All I’ll say is that for some people it does, and others it does not.

Many of the financial and tax nomenclature below applies to the USA, but the types of work are the same regardless of country.

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Consulting Chronicles #7: The Priority Pyramid

The Priority Pyramid - The 8 Tiers of Software ConsultingIntroduction

The Priority Pyramid is a tool I use to stay on track with new consulting clients. It prioritizes how, who, and what I engage in at any given time. It can be overwhelming when thrust into a challenging situation, a code base in dire straits, and a frustrated team. You need a strong pillar of guidance.

This article goes over what parts make up the Priority Pyramid from a high level. I’ll talk about what milestones make up each section and how you navigate back and forward between the priorities.

When done, you should know how to engage your client’s team and tackle working on a large code base at a frustrated client site with 99 problems.

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Consulting Chronicles #6: Refactoring

RefactoringIntroduction

Refactoring is the discipline of applying a multitude of small, low-risk techniques to a code base in order fix and improve it. While corroborated by the software community, employing such techniques in a consulting context can be challenging because people are involved, often in a negative situation.

You need 2 weapons to win the refactoring battle. First, you need to understand what refactoring techniques are at your disposal and how to implement them. Below, I’ve listed the core ones I see needed time and time again. Second, you need to have a plan on how you engage the client company and their employees to allow you to do the first. That’s covered in the next article.

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