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I did for about 10 years. Much more efficient, got to see my kids ballgames, take my kids to school, eat lunch with my wife every day.
Some companies have a problem with telecommuting primarily because the managers have difficulty managing when they can't see the employees. There's also the problem of getting your employees to work 10-12 hours a day when you can't see them. But if you can get 12 hours work done in 8 hours they still want you to work more. Sweatshop is the best description I can give.
SS => Qualified in Submarines
"We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm". Winston Churchill
"Real programmers can write FORTRAN in any language". Unknown
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At one time, nothing. I was able to trade an 80 minute commute to work for 30 seconds to get into my basement computer room. I was able to do that for seven years before the company decided to dissolve the department.
I found I was far more productive. I could work all night if I wanted to and did not have to suffer the interruptions of the office. They had to be concise to give me instructions instead of, "Let's have a meeting" where 5+ people sat around trying to decide what they wanted done. When I was telecommuting, I'd be phone conferenced in to some of these meetings and unfortunately for me, when they would ask how long it would take, I could say "It's already done." I'd have been sitting at my computer and working on the problem while they jabbered among themselves. I should have said "a week" and then got it done after a few days of goofing off and develop a reputation for getting things done ahead of schedule. Instead there was nothing to be remembered at review time.
I did see others who couldn't telecommute because their boss wanted to do "bed checks" that everyone was at their desk at 8 AM. There were also bosses who were unable to articulate what they wanted done and you had to come into their office so they could gesture at a screen and express what they wanted done.
As a manager now, I have to come in to help my minions and more importantly perform tasks on systems that are in a secured location and not on the network.
I do let my minions telecommute if the weather is bad or their kids are at home from school holidays or illness.
Psychosis at 10
Film at 11
Those who do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it.
Those who do not remember the past, cannot build upon it.
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 My employer. It's company policy _not_ to telecommute. He probably didn't read that study.
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I did it when working at Sun Microsystems and was very productive. It allowed me to communicate with people in Europe in the morning and China or India in the evening.
Plus we had a VPN solution that made my system act like it was in the Menlo Park campus network, which was not possible within the office network. Code checkouts and checkins had to be done from there or they were terribly slow if you used an NFS mount across the WAN. Unlike a lot of VPN, I still had visibility of my local network devices, so I could print to my network printer.
Since my home network was as fast or faster than what I had to share at the office with 75 people, I got better network performance as well.
We also had a phone setup that allowed us to have an extension on the company phone network that could be directed to whatever phone you happened to be at, complete with voicemail. We could also get faxes and place outgoing calls so there was no additional costs you had to expense.
My round trip commute was 3 hours before that, assuming there was no traffic problems. So putting in a 10 hour workday to resolve an issue was still less time than I used to spend when you figure in a commute. I turned the system on when I woke up and it stayed on until I went to bed, keeping me in communication for a good 12-16 hours per day. I know my productivity improved because I didn't have to allow for my commute time.
The key was my office was at one end of the house, away from all other distractions. It probably didn't hurt that my boss worked in a different office than I did, so face time with him had always involved one of us traveling.
Mike
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2 days a week works fine for me and my company , I need limited face to face meetings , and everyone knows my schedule. I do it primarily to avoid traffic , I work in one of the central business district in Johannesburg and getting in can vary between 30 mins and 90 mins , depending on who has run into who on the feed roads , working from home I start relaxed and not frustrated and wanting to throttle some one.
AND the coffees better
Mike
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I'm surprised that no one mentioned this yet, so maybe it doesn't apply to everyone, but I have an issue with working from home, and that is that the family doesn't appreciate that although I am home I am actually working. This means that at any given time, I have to be available to go shopping, look after an unwell child or just simply babysit, etc.
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http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/31/building-for-the-internet-of-things-and-the-demise-of-the-client-server-model/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=linkedin[^]
This is an interesting view. Back 30 years ago when I started to learn IT it was on 6805 circuit board and I was studying electronics and automation. There was no interaction with any UI, programs were more like micro-programs and autonomous. Then my last graduation was A.I. At a time where there was not yet the internet as we know it, I worked few years for a digital acquisition and processing company, but I never really used A.I and automation.
Windows made its debut and it became more attractive to use a screen, so UI IT became the main IT and the revolution of the internet came.
Maybe we are at the beginning of a new era where A.I and automation (as in autonomy) and interconnection would be combine... sounds a lot like a robotic era!
That could be an interesting future!
Software Architect, COM, .NET and Smartcard security specialist.
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Developers, listen up: Everything you’re doing now will be irrelevant within the next ten years. That's where I stopped reading. The internet is built around the model he claims to be obsolete.
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That reminds me of a manager I worked for. She could sling the vocabulary pretty well, and used the words appropriately. It was only after you got to know her that you realized she didn't understand a word she was saying. Ironically, this didn't reduce her effectiveness as a manager in the slightest, and she was one of the best people I've ever worked for.
Software Zen: delete this;
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In TSQL, thats:
SELECT REPLACE(www,tsr,ai) FROM [alldata].[data].[alltime]
So start learning SQL today ...
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...is actually my old iMac.
My trusty old Toshiba has been appropriated by someone who evidently wants to do actual work on it, and I've been struggling with the problem of how to have a nice big screen, a small keyboard (my desk is a little cramped), and convenient access to a Windows and MacOS box.
So the 5 year old iMac that was our dev machine is now my new Windows machine at home (and MacOS machine for debugging iOS stuff) and I have to say I forgot how nice the Mac screens are.
Has anyone dabbled with the new all-in-ones that have come on the market to compete with the iMacs?
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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I e only played with the all in ones at the shops - and haven't been that impressed - generally just don't look as good or feel as well built as the Mac. Of course they are cheaper but they also don't run Mac OS too well!
I've been using my 27" Mac aas a windows 8 machine (vm) for a while and, full screen win 8 is great running vs2012 (I use dual monitors so the oth screen is my 'Mac' screen.
I had to buy a proper Mac keyboard though - the itsy Bluetooth ones are fine for a bit but I missed the numerical keypad and the lack of a delet key cramped my style a lot!
If you are doing any Mac programming I would recommend trying jetbrains' AppCode - swapping between it and vs is much easier than with xcode
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Interesting points. I'm using my 27" Mac with dual-boot (Win7). I tried Parallels but sometimes found the VM a little sluggish. Since dual-booting Win7 runs really smooth and I'm but a click or so away from booting back into Mac-mode. How did you manage to get a dual monitor running. From what I read it's a pain in the ass to setup and use? Macs don't have VGA cables and that's all my HP monitor has. Hence it sits up in the loft, unused.
If I were to do Mac coding, I'd go for AppCode myself. Just about anything that JetBrains makes is exceptionally good. I've been using Resharper for a few years now. I'd never consider anything else and AppCode seems to have excellent reviews as well.
"I do not have to forgive my enemies, I have had them all shot." — Ramón Maria Narváez (1800-68).
"I don't need to shoot my enemies, I don't have any." - Me (2012).
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I'm using VirtualBox on the Mac - and found Windows 7 slightly laggy sometimes, just those occasional mouse delays, but haven't found it so with windows 8 (although only been using that for a short while)
If I rebuild my Mac I will probably go the dual boot option also - just for ultimate performance and games playing ability really - and as my hard drive is on a recall list, that might be sooner than I thought.
dual monitor was easy with a DVI monitor, anyway. Had to buy a dongle thing to convert miniDisplayPort to DVI and that was it - plugged it in and it "Just Worked" No pain, in Ass or elsewhere (I had also read of folks having problems but I think they were software probs that have been fixed in the OS releases). VGA monitor - not so sure, but I did see this[^]
AppCode is definitely the dogs doodads for me. Taking time to discover all the tings it can do (but not so long as it did with XCode!)
To be fair, XCode isn't bad at all for a free product (I bought AppCode at 75% off - yep - I"m a cheapskate)
Best feature in AppCode so far -
Command-C / X / V for copy paste work on an entire line when nothing is highlighted (e.g. click somewhere on a line, press Command-C and the whole line is copied to the clipboard.)
This works just like VS2010 and is something that, after I discovered, I used all the time - so much so that I still kept trying to do it in XCode and ended up pasting all sorts of rubbish n my code!
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So that's how it's done. Trust Apple to come up with something and then charge the bloody earth for it. I'll bear the adapter cable in mind.
"I do not have to forgive my enemies, I have had them all shot." — Ramón Maria Narváez (1800-68).
"I don't need to shoot my enemies, I don't have any." - Me (2012).
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It's half that on monoprice[^]; and theirs is a 6 foot cable; which is about the same price as a dumb video cable bought almost anywhere else.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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I feel certain the fascinating rune you have created in your message, above, composed of "frown face" icons has cosmic significance !
Unfortunately, today, I am feeling merely mortal: and; while my mind is caroming around my neural networks, bouncing off Cantor, Godel, Szilard, Heisenberg, Bohr, Oppenheimer, Teller, Fermi, and Maldacena, I have yet to have a partial-seizure, or get into trance, so that even a hint of a dribble of what you significated has reached any state in which I am even partially conscious.
Care to give a hint ?
thanks, Bill
“Thus on many occasions man divides himself into two persons, one who tries to fool the other, while a third, who in fact is the same as the other two, is filled with wonder at this confusion. Thinking becomes dramatic, and acts out the most complicated plots within itself, and, spectator, again, and again, becomes: actor.” From a book by the Danish writer, Paul Moller, which was a favorite of Niels Bohr.
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I used the sick smiley, and drew it puking from the side.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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How long did it take you to create your reply? It's Saturday today. Have you been outside this weekend yet?
"I do not have to forgive my enemies, I have had them all shot." — Ramón Maria Narváez (1800-68).
"I don't need to shoot my enemies, I don't have any." - Me (2012).
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PHS241 wrote: How long did it take you to create your reply?
About 20 minutes. I drew it in Excel with cells resized to be square using X's to mark the faces, and filled in the white space with 0's. I then copied that into a text editor replaced the X's with X| the 0's with 5 nbsp's. I tested in the preview window did a global tweak of spacing by doing a 10 to 9 replacement of the nbsp's, and then finally adjusted the right edge manually where it was a bit ragged.
PHS241 wrote: <layer>It's Saturday today. Have you been outside this weekend yet?
I've only been out of bed for ~10 minutes; so no, not yet. Once I've finished my morning reading and showered I'm sure there's a bit of fresh snow to deal with and I need to go down the street to have my my hair cut.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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Dan Neely wrote: all the other parts are obsolete.
Do obsolete parts suddenly stop working? 
My 3.5 year old 27" iMac still runs smooth and fast for OS X or Windows 7 (dual boot or VM).
Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. ~ George Washington
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Mike Mullikin wrote: Dan Neely wrote: all the other parts are obsolete.
Do obsolete parts suddenly stop working?
For my purposes they're no longer adequate. The 5 year old HD I'm using for media storage is old enough to make me a little nervous; and despite having them, restoring from backups is slow and emergency hardware purchases are more expensive than anything you wait for a sale on.
Going from 6 to 4 ram slots means I need higher density dimm's, probably 8GB to give myself upgrade headroom later if I need it.
For gaming the CPU's speed is already starting to impact performance both in overall frame rates and more importantly in latency on the slowest frames; it's the latter (often referred to as micro-stuttering) that generally set maximum playable framerates. The Tech Report's[^] has been measuring frame rate latency to pound the drum on this issue for the past year or so.
I game at 2560x1600; which means I can't skip more than 1 generation of GPU if I want to be able to play at native resolution with the eye candy cranked up. I suspect that the new generation of consoles may end up pushing even that back into a yearly upgrade cadence for a while just by no longer being hopelessly obsolete anchor chains on AAA titles. Even if they don't; I intend to buy a 4k screen as soon as one is available at <$2k <40" (preferably ~35). Doing that's going to give a major bump in GPU loading and wipe out lots of headroom; probably for years.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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What I wonder about any all-in-one box with a display like an IPS LED driven at 2560 x 1440, and some high-power CPU, like an i7, with lots of ram (as in 32 gigs or more, which I think will be about average by the end of this year), is: what about "life-expectancy," given the assumption that significant heat is generated.
Personally, I think I probably will never "get over" wanting to have a big aluminum box (like the Lian Li I have now) with lots of fans, and the opportunity to swap in new motherboards, video-cards, CPU's, etc.
But, the aesthetics of the new all-in-one iMac: oh yes; I definitely like the design. Whether my large hands could learn to speed-touch-type "naturally" on what appears to me as a "midget" standard Apple keyboard, or adapt to a one-button mouse: unknown.
yrs, Bill
“Thus on many occasions man divides himself into two persons, one who tries to fool the other, while a third, who in fact is the same as the other two, is filled with wonder at this confusion. Thinking becomes dramatic, and acts out the most complicated plots within itself, and, spectator, again, and again, becomes: actor.” From a book by the Danish writer, Paul Moller, which was a favorite of Niels Bohr.
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