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Esther's Articles

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Link Care & Feeding of the Press
Internet Press Guild. I was lead author of this long document explaining to PR people how to effectively interact with journalists.
Link Esther's CIO.com articles
This link leads to my author bio and all the articles I've written for CIO.com. (It doesn't include my blog posts, but the bio leads to those too.)
Link The ABCs of Web 2.0
For CIO.com: Web 2.0 is a set of technologies, a huge set of related functionality and almost a lifestyle choice. This straight-up, non-techie tutorial will help you separate the facts from the hype.
Link Getting Clueful: Seven Things the CIO Should Know About Telecommuting
For CIO.com: CIO.com presents input from several telecommuting IT professionals about the benefits the practice brings to the enterprise, about processes that help remote workers interact with other team members, and about the irritations that twist telecommuters' shorts in a knot.
Link Five Things IT Managers Should Know About Software Requirements
For CIO.com: Software requirements documentation was supposed to itemize everything that the application required. But the project was late, the users were unhappy, and the budget spun out of control. Why? Just ask the developers.
Link Getting Clueful: Five Things CIOs Should Know About Fighting Spam
For CIO.com: The battle for your users' e-mail inboxes probably will never end, but it's not a failure of technology. Experienced e-mail and system administrators share the key points they really, really wish you understood.
Link All Firewired Up
For IT Business Network, 2006, feature: "In all likelihood, you have a device that uses IEEE 1394, better known as FireWire. It might be a hard disk, a memory card reader, or a digital video camera. But that's today. What's coming up in 1394c? And how will that change the hardware landscape?"
Link Would You Fire This Person?
For IT Business Network, 2006, feature: "No one likes to show an employee the door, and few of us (thankfully) have reason to acquire the skill to fire someone gracefully and fairly. This article describes a Problem Employee and explores how several dozen IT managers — and workers — would deal with the situation. See if you'd make the same choices."
Link Keep Yer Paws Off Your PC: Preventing End-Users from Installing Applications
For IT Business Network, 2006, feature: "IT professionals need to strike a balance between user freedom (such as letting them install any app they want) and keeping a predictable and safe computing environment. Several network admins give their advice about the best way to find and maintain that balance -- with tech tips for each operating system." This extremely popular article received a lot of attention from groklaw, and it's one of my favorite ways to craft a "best practices" (or at least real-world) piece: asking people how they address a problem.
Link Stupid Résumé Tricks
For IT Business Network, 2006, feature: "IT recruiters share the really really dumb things that otherwise intelligent people have done to (and with) their résumés, in the pursuit of a new position. Learn from other's mistakes, before you repeat them."
Link Review: Is That A Scanner In Your Pocket?
IT Business Network, 2006, product review: "The DocuPen scanner is the size of a fat pen, and does a decent job. Decent, not great. But what do you expect from a full-page scanner that's smaller than a cheerleader's baton?"
Link The Refactoring Factor
For DevSource.com, 2006, a researched commentary: "Developers rank refactoring — the process by which one improves existing code — at the bottom of their pile. Surely, that doesn't imply that programmers don't *want* to improve their code."
Link Interview: .NET Rock Star Scott Currie
For DevSource.com, 2004, a one-on-one Q&A: "When customers want help on technical topics in C++, Microsoft's Scott Currie is the one they ask for. Learn his views on Visual Studio's new features, the right questions to ask in a technical interview, and the most common developer mistakes."
Link Bjarne Again: C++ Poised for its Next Stages
For DevSource.com, 2005, a trade show news report: "C++ might be viewed as a legacy, 'old style' language. Yet at its annual conference, coders see evidence of significant changes in the works, such as debates over the next steps in the C++ Standard Libraries."
Link Stalking The Wild Software Defect
SD Times, August, 2002, feature article: "Some development managers release impressive software armed with only a spreadsheet, a pile of Post-it notes and a confident attitude. Others, equipped with every QA tool imaginable, have never met a deadline. Clearly, bug-stomping success isn't the result of tool quality, but of your ability to get the most out of the tools available."
Link Stalking The Wild Software Defect
SD Times, August, 2002, feature article: "Some development managers release impressive software armed with only a spreadsheet, a pile of Post-it notes and a confident attitude. Others, equipped with every QA tool imaginable, have never met a deadline. Clearly, bug-stomping success isn't the result of tool quality, but of your ability to get the most out of the tools available."
Link OS/2 Has A Future -- It Just Isn't with IBM
eWEEK, 2005, an opinion column. My initial journalism career was founded on my expertise with IBM's OS/2 operating system, my expertise in explaining its technology, and my involvement in its user community. So when eWEEK asked me to comment about OS/2's formal end-of-life, I had to say _something_.
Link OS/2 Will Run Windows Applications Again
InformationWeek, October, 2001. Connectix's Virtual PC for OS/2 will let OS/2 users run Windows and Linux applications. Short news item
Link E-learning course: Working on Virtual Teams
I wrote two online courses about virtual teams: this one, about being a member of a virtual team, and another one about managing such teams. I'm rather proud of the results, as the courses really do address the day-to-day issues of living and working in the same house. (For good reason: I've been a full time telecommuter for more than ten years.)
Link How to Write a Product Review
I've written hundreds of product reviews, most of which appeared in print publications and aren't online. I've also mentored plenty of authors on the process of writing a *good* review; the talent, it appears, does not come naturally. This article appeared initially in my user group newsletter in 2000, but I've pointed a lot of people to it, over the years.
Link Mobile IPV6 on Linux
For LabRat Magazine, 2005, technology feature: This article explores the issues in developing and testing mobile applications with IPV6. Even if you don't care about the topic (or aren't quite sure what it is), it's a fairly good example of my writing style. [Updated: Labrat, alas, seems to be folded back into its Spirent parent, and the articles are no longer online. This link goes to the Wayback Machine.]
Link Girl Power
January 2000, Sm@rt Reseller. A column about the role of women in IT.
Link Return on Interaction
InformationWeek, July 2001. A feature about online community development.
Link Open Book: Time Out
InformationWeek's "Breakaway" section, May 2002: This week's book has a time-travel paradox, a ginger-ale swilling cat, and an alternate future that never happened. (The Open Book feature encouraged readers to identify a different book each week, for the chance to win a spiffy prize.)
Link Discussion Software: It Ain't No Party
December, 1998. Sm@rt Reseller. A comparative review of online discussion applications.
Link Hops To It
InformationWeek, January 2002. An "outside the office" article about home brewing beer. Be sure to note the sidebars.
Link Beyond Saurkraut
August 2002, ChefMom. A comparative review of German cookbooks.
Link Exploring the Black Forest by Train
For German Life magazine, 2006, short feature: "An old railway gives you a unique view of the German countryside as it twists and turns through mountainous terrain." You need to scroll down quite far to find the excerpted text of this article.
Link Product Review: Timestrip Monitors Product Freshness — With No Effort
I occasionally review consumer electronics items that have little or nothing to do with computers. This article examines "smart tags" that let you track how long items have been stored.
Link Inroads for the Electronic Slush Pile
Feature, BookTech (now Book Business), 2003: A business feature about how one publisher employs technology to acquire new mystery novels.
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