I took a full four weeks of paternity after we had this little guy. It’s surprising how full a month away from work can be.
When I thought, “My foot slips,” your steadfast love, O LORD, held me up. When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.
—Psalm 94:18-19
What is lost in all of this recent discussion is the nuance between features, schedule, and quality. It is like having a discussion with a financial advisor over income, risk, and growth. You don’t just show up and say you want all three and get a “sure”. …
In practice when building Office (and later Windows) whenever someone on the team would panic and ask “are we date driven, feature driven, or quality driven” we would just roll our eyes and pull up a chair…This was so common we just called it conversation #37 and move on.
—Steven Sinofsky, on building products at Microsoft (via Daring Fireball)
I added a Sketchcase dry erase marker cover to the top of my laptop this week. This feels like a great place to brag about it. Given the 2015 MacBook Pro is, arguably, the best laptop ever made, the Sketchcase has transformed my laptop into the best tablet computer ever made.
I’ve been so pleased with the fit and finish of the Sketchcase—it’s not exactly Apple-y, but it is very nice. The white surface is a close match to the MacBook charger and a bit of a throwback to the days when Apple sold a white polycarbonate laptop (a machine I longed for when it debuted in 2006). The Sketchcase shipped with two Expo dry erase gone tip markers (like these, but only black and red). They write smoothly and are well-weighed, but some sort of pocket clip would be handy.
The Sketchcase clings to the lid of the laptop without glue or sticky adhesive, so it is removable. I placed it over top of another sticker cut out in the shape of our company logo. The company logo shines through both the sticker and the Sketchcase in a ghostly white, which is fun and looks good in the dark.
Today was my first real-world test of my new tablet computer. I sat with a fellow analyst to talk shop about a business problem and within five minutes, she reached for the pen to start sketching. It was refreshingly simple to have a whiteboard so close at hand in our sit-down cafe meeting. In a few minutes, we came to a mutual understanding of our business problem, no paper required.
Sketchcase is available for $25 from their website.
Well Within Limits 