Thursday, October 1, 2009

A practice commute

Today I took a practice run at the expected commute for the OMB gig. Up at 6:00 (well, a little earlier), a quick shower, a regular breakfast, and then a brisk walk to Penn Station. Arrived with time to spare -- which means I may be able to sleep until 6:00.

On the ride in I read a copy of InforWorld, some of "Communications of the ACM", and a bit of "Web Navigation" from O'Reilly. The last is an old book on web design, dating back to 1998. (Wow... is anything web-related that old?) While it predates a lot of the modern web stuff, it still has good ideas. Ideas that are now accepted as the norm, such as "keep your navigation controls consistent".

On the commute back I read a copy of The Washington Post. I also noted items for the OMB gig, mostly set-up such as access to servers, e-mail, and tools for building the application. It's a longish list, going on about meetings, core hours, building access, work location, resources, and procedures for technical support. An article from Fast Company gave me a shorter list:

 - Meet a bunch of people, talk with them, and learn about the application
 - Work on the application
 - When I need help, talk to the right people

It's things like this short list that make Fast Company useful.


No comments:

Post a Comment