Category: engineer
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A quick follow up to the simple tipping app for Andoroid
This is the iOS version of the How To Tip app
Get How To Tip on Apple App Store -
I use Trello to keep track of my long term life goals. I setup ‘organizations’ for ‘health goals’, ‘work goals’, ‘money goals’, ‘family goals’.
Then setup boards for each goal.
I still use Remember The Milk for single task todo. Using Trello allows for multiple taks for each goal. I also look over all the goals to remind myself what my long term goals are to keeo me focused.
One change I am making is to copy what Marissa M. does with writing down a list of todo for the current day on paper.
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How To Tip Calculator – Android Apps on Google Play.
Calculate how much tips to pay. 10%, 15% or 20%
Also includes a guideline on tipping in restaurants, bartender, barista, delivery person, hairstylist, cab driver, chauffeur, hotel housekeeper

Get How To Tip on Google Play -
In trying to pick iPhone 5 or Samsung Galaxy S3 to replace my Blackberry.
I was torn and have switched back and forth for the last 4 days. I finally found an old document written on November 1, 2011 7:52 AM in Evernote. I wrote this document when I had the Blackberry and why I actually enjoyed having it. It’s nice to have an objective document written before any of these phones were released.
The winner is Gallaxy S3 for me personally
Must Haves
– replaceable battery S3 wins
– easy to type up emails S3 wins
– allow for internet tethering S3 wins
– easy to read screen to read nytimes, software documentation without eye strain tied
– easy to type up tasks and capture meeting notes tiedNice to have
– easy to deal with large volume of emails tied
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http://radar.oreilly.com/2012/04/computer-book-market-2011-part4.html
Large Programming Languages — 50,000 — 200,000 units in 2011
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It’s that time of year for me to reflect on why we are here working everyday. Please chime in with your thoughts.
What motivates us to be happy and motivated at work?
- Money
- Recognition
- Being valued
- Making a difference in the world and self motivation
Money is a great motivator, it’s an enabler for future security, giving our family what they need and want and a validation of our worth in society. There have been a lot of studies online which show that incremental increase beyond your basic needs do not increase happiness.
From personal experience, throughout my work life, I have received large bonuses, increase in pay, stock option pay outs. The increase in happiness has lasted at most a few days. Surprising even myself. I told myself to enjoy the increase in monetary longer, but it fades quicker than you expect.
Recognition by your peers and your upper management can have a much long lasting affect on your happiness. As more people recognize your good work and actually regularly make comments about it, this can contribute to your long term happiness because it contributes to your sense of purpose in society.
Being valued by others as a source for advice goes beyond the output of your work. You are being seeked out to help others to grow their own career. This will have lasting impact to the people you affect. Sometimes this will even create life long bonds after both of you leave for different companies.
Making a difference in the world and self motivation would be the highest level of sustained happiness. When you feel like your work is your life calling, then your happiness is fueled by the opportunity to work. Your work increases your happiness. Your happiness makes you want to do better work. And the cycle fuels your growth of happiness.
Keep in mind this doesn’t mean you have to work more hours. A balance between work and personal life will lead to happiness long term.
T
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Heads up…Do you communication enough with your direct reports?
What about your peers in the same group?
What about other peers across the company?
And your management chain, 1 level, 2 level and ultimately up to your CEO?
How often should you communicate? What is the most effective way to communicate (email, face to face, blog post, tech talk?)
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The Livestand from Yahoo! iPad app launched on Nov 2nd and became the #1 News iPad app and #2 overall app on the iTunes AppStore in 1 day. Today on Friday Nov 4th, it became the #1 app in 3 days on iTunes. You should try it yourself and compare it with Flipboard and Zite and see for yourself which one you like. Perhaps it’ll be another app on your iPad to satisfy your reading needs alongside those other great apps. There is always room for 3.
It’s testimonial to the great work done by the Livestand team, Alison, Jin, Mike, Ric and the engineering members whom I don’t know personally. I know internally it was great feat for the following reasons.
- It’s a BHAG within Yahoo! not just to build YAA (yet another App). It’s forward looking to build a platform for our users, our advertisers and our publishers.
- Along with this launch, Yahoo! also launched a platform to deploy HTML5 applications called Cocktails.
- The entire iPad experience runs on HTML5 (CSS, Javascript), inside of another Yahoo! platform which provides the native iOS services to Livestand. This Yahoo! platform will also be ported to Android as well a open sourced in 2012
- Pause: The Livestand app launched alongside 2 brand new platforms! 3 launches at once!
Why am I re-energized to work for Yahoo!?
- I haved worked on a project for the last 2 years on rebuilding Yahoo! publishing system call Yahoo! Publishing Platform and I have seen our ability to excuted on BHAG. We have launched almost 100+ Yahoo! media sites (OMG, News, Movies, TV, Sports, Finance) in more markets that I’ve seen in my 12 years at Yahoo!
- Livestand is another example of launching a product and platform at the same time and our ability to execute in less than a year shows that we can execute as an engineering community
- I found the internal docs to setup a Livestand development environment, I ran the scripts, got Livestand built on a iOS simulator and open up Safari and was able to run Livestand on my browser, in .. less than 1 hour! What? that is just awesome!
- The Cocktails platform is just a start for Yahoo! to build more native-like apps in less time and at scale
- Even with all the crap going on in the press, internally our leaders are focused, supportive and willing to tackle more BHAG
- We have been working hard at 2012 planning and I’m even more excited to see what we can excute on in the next few years
Thanks Livestand team for injecting more energy in this 12 year Yahoo! veteran !
You might also like: Why I Came To Yahoo! And Why I Am Still Here?




