Think About What You Do!
My take on
“My take on…” contains my informed opinions on a variety of topics. Some of them may be right, some others may be wrong but all of them should be interesting.
The case for tinkering
01 month ago
by Alexandru Bolboaca
in My take on
When I was a boy the most common car in Romania was Dacia. Compared with modern cars, it is awful. It looks quite bad, you need a lot of force to steer it, putting it into reverse gear is a mix of force and accuracy and you are lucky if it starts when it’s cold outside. 
It requires a lot of maintenance or it will stop working. The bodywork erodes in a few years and it needs special treatments to stop it from falling apart. Its performance is low too; often when it got to 100 km/h it starts trembling like a rocket just launched to the outer space.
(more…)
Passion Moves the World
04 months ago
by Alexandru Bolboaca
in My take on
Something about special people always moves me. That something is passion.
Steve Jobs was from the beginning in the middle of a revolution that completely changed the world. At that time, it took real courage and burning passion to push for ideas that most people didn’t understand – and yet everyone uses today.
I admire him for keeping the passion alive over the years. His push for quality inspires me. I watch his keynotes because of how he talked.
Most people think of Apple when they think of him. I am not one of their fans, and I believe Steve Jobs created something even better than Apple. He was the artisan who unleashed the creative people of Pixar to create wonderful, touching animated movies: “Finding Nemo”, “Ratatouille” and “Wall-E”, to name just some of my favourites. I for one am very grateful for his gift.
He is an inspiration for me, even though he left us too early. I know something he had moves many other people.
That something is passion.
We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent.
–Steve Jobs
Games and Me
09 months ago
by Alexandru Bolboaca
in My take on
Last night, my friend Felix asked me for an article for No Time To Play, and since I owe him and this time I knew I can do it, I started thinking about games once again and my history with playing. And I thought about sharing with you as much as I can in a blog post. So, this is it: my (incomplete and far from final) story with games.
I used to be quite a gamer. I was playing around 2-3 hours a day on average, and I had 5-6 hours sessions at times. I loved it. I was escaping to alternate worlds, exploring different situations and having a wonderful feeling whenever I was winning.
Not anymore. Now, when I play games from time to time I can’t help myself analyzing them. I see most games as repetitive, dull, without substance. Maybe I learned too much about how my brain works. Maybe I’ve seen more of the real life and games seem artificial. Or maybe games are not what they used to be.
Read the rest here.
Technology
01 year ago
by Alexandru Bolboaca
in My take on
A few days ago I had a conversation about the mobile space with a Romanian entrepreneur. Before that, I finally learned that Nokia E51 has a predictive text ability and I learned how to use it. Shortly after, I had an epiphany. This is the story of my surprise finding.
I don’t like iPhones. Their battery doesn’t last. The touch screen is useless for me since I’m a power keyboard user. Their keyboard is completely inappropriate for fast typing, being too small and not responsive enough. As a phone, I’ve learned that it drops the calls and reports incorrectly the signal power. And the worst in my opinion is that I cannot really own the phone or the apps because Apple might decide to remove them for everyone.
Yet people stay in line to buy one.
While I understand their reasons, and that Apple managed to create a high level of desirability for their products, I don’t see myself getting one. I have always been insensitive to social pressure, especially when it’s about what I know best: technology. But how comes I don’t have this need? Shouldn’t I? I mean, technology is my life, right?
Apparently not.
Developing Software
01 year ago
by Alexandru Bolboaca
in My take on
I will try in the following to explain my preferred way of developing software. I hope you will find it interesting and useful.
Trust
The most important part is getting a capital of trust from the customer right from the beginning, for the sake of all people involved in the project. If there’s no trust, it’s better to run away because the team and the product will get hurt.
Once I get the initial trust, it’s my top priority to maintain it. I look for any sign of misunderstanding and discuss the root issues as soon as possible. I ask for feedback from time to time: How do you think we’re doing? What would you change? Is there something you don’t like about how we do things?
