Tralfaz

Blog

  • Phew, things to be thankful for…

    Long time Mac user here.  One utility that I just can’t live without is Alsoft’s Disk Warrior.  I have Drive Genius and MacTools Pro, but neither one “just works” as well as Disk Warrior.

    A month or so ago, my wife’s iMac was behaving wonky, so I grabbed my copy of DW and off we go.  When it is done, she dutifully removed it from her computer, put the boot DVD in the case and set it on her desk.

    Later that afternoon, Tate, our “puppy-like” greyhound grabbed it and ate it.  Grrrr.  Thought I wouldhave to go groveling to Alsoft for a replacement.  But it turns out I used the down rev version, and my version 4.4 is still pristine.  Woo hoo!

    Good thing too, because I need to clean up my disks on my Mac Book Pro.

  • A fucking shame – Boss 302 Mustang

    A wicked american piece of heavy metal, a real muscle car, the Mustang 302 Boss.  A bitchen car from 1969 and 1970 has been re-introduced.  A worthy successor.  However, it is a fucking crime against humanity to defenestrate such an awesome machine with a pussy automatic transmission, I saw one today.  I hung my head in shame.  It wasn’t even a chick driving it.

  • Sugar coating: Sometimes you have to tell your engineers their software SUCKS

    You get to a point where you can no longer hold back.  It is like that bad uncle with the Comb-over who is not fooling anyone.  

    Your software sucks.  It is a shitty UI, it looks like technicolor vomit erupted on the screen.

    It is so unusable, that people prefer to go to the engineering screen to get a better handle on system control.

    It crashes. A lot.  It takes out Windows 7, which is hard.

    Please don’t hate me for telling you the truth.  Let’s fix this.  

  • Market Analysis Oddities – Pulling my hair out

    I am doing a market analysis to help us decide where we want to spend our next development dollars on.

    To accomplish this, I really need to get a good idea of their revenue.

    Top down, I took the bible, the accepted research.  I also took the number uttered during the Q4 2011 analysts call, and started from there.  I have some historical knowledge of the business, so I could subtract big swaths right away.  They also reported “strong” performance in two segments that I knwo A LOT about.  Cool.  More clarity.

    I get a number that feels right.  It is damn close whether I do a top down, or bottom up analysis.

    It falls apart when I try to model for product mix, and units moved.  There is NO FRIGGIN WAY that they sold as many units as we calculate with known ASP’s.  Try a two tier (higher ASP when non-competitive) model?  Still too high.  Adjust the ASP’s to make the number reasonable, and it just is ludicrous (the ASP’s have to TRIPLE to match with what we think we know about their capacity).

    Poop.  Back to the grinding stone.

  • Things that make you go hmmmmm

    My wife has a touch of OCD.  When we are traveling, she will close the hotel door.  Then check to see it is locked. Then invariably, she will go back 5 seconds later to check it again.

    When shopping, after using the remote to lock the doors of the car, she will walk about 40 feet away, and then return to check the doors again (all the doors, not just one).

    Weird, compulsive and annoying.

    But in the online world, she uses weak passwords (about 4 of them) and repeats them everywhere.  Can’t remember anything really difficult, so they are rediculously predictable.

    I bought her 1Password, and have tried to teach her how to use it.  Can’t get it.  She must have 50 saved logins for her online banking site.  Sigh.

  • Disgusting Things

    I exercise by walking or running on public roads.  I do this everywhere I travel, and even at home.  In my “pounding the pavement” I have come across a lot of things, credit cards (returned), drivers licenses, cash (once I found a $50 bill.. It pays to watch the road…) and more than a few dead animals.

    But the one thing that I come across most often is the “spit bottle”.  For those unaware, folks who chew tobacco (or “snuff”) while driving need someplace to “spit” the juices.  Mostly, they use an old Water bottle, or a Gatorade bottle.  Better than just spitting on the road.  

    But, when it becomes full, do these people find a trashcan to deposit this brown ugly mess? No. They toss it out the window.  

    Hence I come across them very often.  

    Please, if you chew, and spit in a bottle, toss it in the trash.  It is unsightly, unsanitary, and doesn’t belong on the roadside.

  • A product management community – just starting

    It has been a poorly kept secret that I have had an alter ego, the snarky, White Russian drinking league bowler known as the PM Dude.  Created to be an outlet for some truly bad management from above, and with a high level of snark, it was cathartic.

    However, as I have in the past 5 months started a great new job with a kick-ass company, the need for the snarky persona has lessened considerably.  What to do with the PM Dude’s blog?

    First, I migrated the most insightful (hey, the Dude did make some good points in the midst of the snark) to my main page: http://tralfaz.org so that you can go back and read the archives.  Look in “The Dude’s Corner”.

    Second, I started playing with some forum software.  Actually, as part of a beta test for my hosting provider, I saw this thing called “Vanilla Forums”.  Dove in and love this framework.  Clean, relatively lightweight, and it seems pretty solid.  Spent about a week testing it, and creating a theme (it is STUPID easy to adjust the look and feel by messing with the CSS file(s)).

    Now I am ready to launch.  Come on over to http://thepmdude.com and register, start some conversations, and in general hang out and talk product management, product marketing, and anything that tickles the fancy.

     

  • What I miss

    About 5 months ago, I left my cushy job as Director of Product Management, for a gig as an ordinary old product marketing manager.  So far, I am exquisitely happy with the change.  Great products, great people, small org (in a huge company) so I can really make a difference.

    But I did give up a few things.  My office.  Where I am at now there are only cubes.  VP’s of production? Cube. Director Marketing? Cube.  VP/GM?  Cube (or, actually on an airplane for how much he travels.  The only negative so far is that I have to use headphones for my music.  I guess I can cope.

    I did give up direct reports.  I no longer manage people.  And I am super happy about that. I can do it, and my employees all are super satisfied with my management. But, truth be told, I am far happier as an individual contributor.  Hope that lasts.

    I miss the MSDN account.  Being able to get your hands on all of Microsoft’s products was pretty bitchen.

    I miss a non-managed laptop.  I had pretty much free reign on my laptop there. Here? Not quite as locked down as at a bank, but certainly more restrictive than anywhere I have ever been (PGP whole disk encryption is the devil). And for the love of god, don’t update Java until they tell you to, or you can no longer access Oracle.  

  • The first Supergroup – Emerson, Lake and Palmer

    This weekend, I completed my collection of ELP albums.  I started listening to them in the 70, and had worn out so many copies of Brain Salad Surgery (with the H. R. Geiger art on the cover), that I was glad to finally be able to buy it as a CD.

    Ah, great times, great tunes, and in awe of Keith Emerson’s keyboard prowess.  From the piano pieces, to the wailings of the Moog.  Just awesome.

  • Losing faith in my fellow geeks

    I have long thought that us “geeks” who spend a large fraction of our existence working with, and trying to improve technology were a cut above.  Both emotionally and mentally.

    This belief has been shattered.  Two threads on Slashdot recently showed me that the geek community is as susceptible and gullible to false claims, and just plain incorrect urban legends.

    First was the discussion around the Stanford study that showed Organic foods are not nutritionally better than conventional agribusiness farmed/raised products.  It was truly astounding how many people attacked the study, and waved their belief that Organic produce is grown without pesticides (not true, usually they use non-synthetic pesticides, that are often much more harmful than the synthetics).  They also weighed in that “organic” farming was more sustainable, and could feed the world’s population.  Both are dubious to completely wrong (reduced crop yeields, leads to more land under cultivation to produce the same food, and the energy expenditure is likewise increased.

    Not to be outdone, a couple days later, there is a thread about the hazards of High Frequency Trading (HFT).  In the middle of this thread a battle about how shorting stocks should be outlawed because it is fraudulent.  Alas, all attempts to dispell this with facts, and the reason why shorting is and should be allowed seemed to fall on deaf ears.

    Truth is, idiocy and ideology exists in all walks of life, geeks being no better at all.  Sigh.  I will not be diving into the next “Global Warming” thread on Slashdot.  That brings out the worst.