DMS Experiences - Tips & Tricks for a Better Business online

I just had to write this up quoting George Orwell’s guidelines…

I have given examples to help you out. Please print it out, if it helps.

i. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

fad: I “stood shoulder to shoulder with” with tenzing.
better: I stood ‘besides” tenzing.
bad: I would like to take the pleasure in announcing our refreshing redesign of Exoticbuddha and humbly look forward to your grateful feedback.
good: Look at our ‘refreshing” redesign of exoticbuddha and I appreciate your feedbacks.
bad: I would appreciate it if you could understand our concerns and pay us in due time.
good: Thank you for paying your bills on time.

ii. Never use a long word where a short one will do.

bad: Nepal is a beautiful place with lots of adventures, treks and cultural wonders; i.e such as……
good: Nepal is a beautiful place. It is full of adventures, treks and cultural wonders. Places like…..

iii.If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

bad: On the other hand, i think he might just be right.
good: I think he might just be right.

bad: I like Ujwal very much so.
good: I like Ujwal.

iv.Never use the passive where you can use the active.

passive (bad): Mount Everest was climbed by tenzing and hilary on 1953.
active: Tenzing and Hilary climbed Everest on 1953.

bad (passive) : the bill should be paid on time. Otherwise you will be kept in our black list.
good (active): Please pay the bill on time. Otherwise we will keep you in our black list.

passive: You will find a lot of restaurants are run by local people in sherpa villages.
active: Local people run most restaurants in sherpa villages.

v. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

bad: The spring water in mustang tastes like “amrit”
bad: The “H2O”in mustang tastes……
bad: the spring water in mustang tastes like “virgin”

good: The spring water in mustang tastes like “nectars from paradise.”
good The spring water in mustang is “heavenly”

vi. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

these rules don’t work always. if you feel, something’s not right when applying these rules. .break them!

Clients on a remote location and workers themselves remote from each other (will it work? )
We are thinking of implementing a remote workplace where people work from their own homes /places and come together only when needed.

-few things to think about

Voice over IP system ( every worker has to be linked with at least 256kbps connection) and their special phone (or computer) acts as a communication tool. The server could be an “astreisk” open source VOIP system in linux. (free)

A special online time log system which logs time for your projects and makes you basically efficient.
(we are still trying to find one which suits our purpose).

Everyone has to have a backup system for electricity outages (which is notorious in Nepal.) Recommend usage for laptops.

An online project management system such as the free open source ProjectPier system.

or Basecamp by 37signals.

An online client invoicing system (such as Freshbooks).

and every employee gets paid directly to their bank account.

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Don’t forget to add more suggestions !!!

got this  helpful tips for database managers enjoy the link /video

http://www.catonmat.net/blog/performance-tuning-best-practices-for-mysql/

enjoy…

here are the fine points from the video transcript:

The most interesting performance tuning tips from the video:

• [02:20] Don’t benchmark without a goal. Have a goal like “improve performance by 20%”. Otherwise you’ll waste a lot of time tuning milliseconds out of your application.
• [02:50] Change just one thing at a time and re-run the benchmarks.
• [03:40] Disable the query cache by setting the cache size to 0 when running MySQL benchmarks.
• [05:22] The best tool for profiling MySQL queries is the EXPLAIN command. Understand it!
• [06:40] Log slow queries and use mysqldumpshow to parse the log. It also has an option (–log-queries-not-using-indexes) of logging any query that does not use an index on a table.
• [07:40] Jeremy Zawodny wrote the mytop utility for monitoring the threads and overall performance of MySQL servers.
• [08:55 && 11:30] Repeated queries on an un-indexed field will kill your application faster than anything else.
• [09:30] Don’t de-normalize just because you think it will be faster. Start with normalized database schemes.
• [10:15] Server parameter tweaking is not a catch-all. Tuning server parameters can help but it’s very specific to certain situations.
• [12:05] If you use MyISAM storage engine, exploit covering indexes.
• [12:50] Ensure good selectivity on index fields.
• [14:45] On multi-column indexes, pay attention to order of fields within the index definition.
• [15:40] Be aware that as your database grows, the data in the indexed fields can gradate, deteriorating the usefulness of that index. As you data grows, always examine if the indexes you originally thought are still relevant to the data.
• [17:02] Example of a common index problem, where an index is created on multiple fields.
• [20:30] Use the smallest data types possible. Don’t use bigint, when int will do. Or, don’t use char(200), when a varchar or smaller char() would do. Using the right type will fit more records in memory or index key block, meaning fewer reads, resulting in faster performance.
• [21:30] Consider horizontally spitting many-columned tables if they contain a lot of NULLs or rarely used columns.
• [23:35] Get rid of surrogate keys (with example).
• [24:05 && 33:20] Be an SQL programmer who thinks in sets, not procedural programming paradigms.
• [24:35] InnoDB can’t optimize SELECT COUNT(*) queries. Use counter tables! That’s how to scale InnoDB.
• [27:20] Always try to isolate index fields on one side of condition in a query (with example).
• [28:20] Avoid using CURRENT_DATE() as it invalidates the cache.
• [29:34] Example of using calculated fields when searching on top level domain. Idea - put a reversed TLD in the table.
• [33:20] Avoid correlated subqueries. Think in sets not loops! Here is a great article on visualizing SQL joins.
• [34:50] Example of using derived tables to avoid correlated subqueries.
• [36:25] Be aware of global and per-thread server variables.
• [37:50] Enable query cache if your application is doing a lot more reads than writes!
• [28:50] MySQL uses MyISAM for internal data storage.
• [40:00] MySQL loves ram!
• [40:35] Q and A.

I got this insightful article to share here.

7 mistakes while hiring for startups/small business

basically lists 7 mistakes not to make while hiring. common sense stuff but still it ain’t common, so,
enjoy the read:

Ujw

Kevin boss writes this and it is an insightful experience which our small firm itself has gone through and learnt in the process.
Link to Kevin Boss’s wonderful article

5 Mistakes That Made Me A Better Freelancer

June 9th, 2008

Doing Business, The Internet, Web Design

A few years ago I started offering web design services to those in need of a web site. Ever since, It’s been a constant learning experience. When I advanced from website coding to directly interacting with clients, I was taking a pretty big step. It was hard enough trying to understand this crazy markup language, and now I had to learn how to interact with clients? Sheesh. Thanks to trial and error, I’ve come to understand a few things about establishing and maintaining the best possible relationship with my clients.

My clients shared the same technical background: they had no idea how the Internet works, how websites work and what exactly it is I did. As far as they were concerned I waved my magical wand and poof, a site is born. Wouldn’t that be nice? Unfortunately that isn’t how it’s done (well for me at least). Because of my inexperience, I set myself up for a few nasty headaches. But I also learned a lot of valuable lessons.

The Never-Ending Design
“Hi Kevin, you know i see where that link is and well, can you make it blue instead of black?” Sounds innocent enough right? When you have a backseat designer who is continually revising the design, it can be a little frustrating. Especially when they liked your markups, then had a change of heart after you already coded everything. Getting calls a dozen times a day is also pretty tiring. You’d think your client would have the common sense to not call this often. Think again. When you don’t set guidelines and establish a clear work-flow, you’re just asking for trouble. Have your client sign off on the final mockup before moving to the next step. Define how you want to go back and forth regarding revisions.

The Midnight Caller
“How’s development going on the site? What? Of course I’m awake why wouldn’t I be? You were sleeping?” We don’t all keep the same schedule, and this is especially true if you’re dealing with someone that lives in another part of the world. Then again even when my clients lived 10 minutes away I was still getting calls at the strangest hours. Your client is paying you to get something done, and if you don’t state otherwise, expect them to need to talk to you at the most inconvenient times. If you give out your contact info, make sure you explicitly state how to contact you, and what time(s) are acceptable.

The Chatty Sally
“Hi Kevin, how are you doing? How’s the weather? Are you wearing shorts? I called to ask a quick question about the site and I’ll keep you on the phone for a while talking about general stuff not relating to the project at all” Having a good relationship with your client is important, but remember to keep it professional. Your working on their website, not becoming their new best friend. Socializing with a client isn’t bad, but it can become an issue if you don’t set clear ground rules. When you’re socializing, you’re either not working or at the least, distracted. If you have a time-sensitive project this can become a major issue. Make sure you clearly establish the purpose of your communications, and keep them on track. I’m not suggesting that clients and developers should avoid a social and professional relationship. I’m saying if you don’t set some ground rules it can get out of hand.

The Project that Doesn’t End
“The site looks great, but can you add an image gallery to it? I forgot that I wanted that before” Clients are notorious for wanting more work done than originally anticipated. I can’t remember a single project where the client didn’t want something new added as the project came to a conclusion. It’s natural - if something rattles around in your brain it’ll eventually spit out some new ideas. Since I agreed to make the client a website, I guess I agreed to add whatever they wanted right? Wrong. I failed to outline a specific scope, and as a result got stuck in a loop of additional work. Clearly define the scope of the project and what requirements need to be satisfied to complete the project. If they want to add more work after the fact, simply tell them that it’s not in the contract. Offer them the option of revising the project with added labor and a later completion date.

Hosting Woes
“Help the site is down!!! You suck at hosting!!!” I used to host my clients and charge them a few bucks for it. I figured hey why drive business elsewhere when I can offer a complete solution? Well that worked out well until my host started flaking. The site would be down once every week or so, and the people who I hosted weren’t too happy with it. I couldn’t blame them. I was angry at my host too. I’d constantly get calls about the site being down, call my host, and either get a machine or no answer at all. Now the obvious problem here is that my host sucked, but for a few dollars a month I was also being held responsible for something not in my control. I decided the profit wasn’t worth my reputation. I did explain that the hosting problems were beyond my control, but that didn’t make their site magically work. If you host your clients make sure you’re ready to accept the responsibility when something goes wrong. I do think hosts, for the most part, are more reliable now than 3 years ago. They are also cheaper now too. I refer my clients to the web host I use. I think it’s mutually beneficial that my clients deal with their host directly.

I never completed a project for a client without doing everything I could to completely satisfy them, but I sure did have some tough situations. Most of my work comes from word of mouth, so I place a lot of value on each individual client I have. These aren’t all my adverse situations, but they are my most memorable. Do you have any of your own? I’d love to read about them.

Oh, and not every single client can be satisfied - some people are just unhappy. There are other ways of dealing with them.

enjoy reading it ?

Seth Godin emphasizes on the importance of email checklist that makes us better communicators.

Communication is everything specially while emailing.

He teaches us ways to communicate properly when you are using Emails.

Here are his checklists ..
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/06/email-checklist.html

here are some of his points.

–>Am I angry? (If so, save as draft and come back to the note in one hour).
Could I do this note better with a phone call?

–>Am I blind-ccing my boss? If so, what will happen if the recipient finds out?

–>Is there anything in this email I don’t want the attorney general, the media or my boss seeing? (If so, hit delete).

–>Is any portion of the email in all caps? (If so, consider changing it.)

Enjoy reading it folks , tis a valuable piece of advice going on here…

Aptly titled,
Memo to a Young Leader: What Kind of Boss Are You?, this is a great set of tips for assembling and retaining a great team for any young manager or leader of a team or organization.

it starts up with asking, Why should great people want to work with you?
and includes tips about how a leader should act as an example and how you can start assembling the dream team and what examples you as a leader should set.

Enjoy reading folks,

Ujw
recommended for Leaders and Human resource managers specially.

Joshua Blankenship writes in his blog “why design” is the single most important part of our businesses.
By the way, “Design” is broad and if you think it is skin deep, and pretty looks, please please read this in depth. here is how he defines it.

I tend to define design as “the intentional ordering of components” or “logically solving problems.

So you see, design is a whole lot than what most people (and most clients) seem to think.

Here is the article. in depth. highly recommended.

http://soserio.us/design-will-define-you

Enjoy reading !

Have a look at how people are trying to differenciate themselves from others (through their business cards).
Click on the link below to view the innovative designs of business cards.
http://reencoded.com/2008/05/20/42-awesome-business-card-designs-with-links-to-100s-more/

photos courtesy of above link.

Here is a link that shows how to write a good case study online or offline both.

http://www.wordbiz.com/archive/writecasestudy.shtml

enjoy the link.