Stefan’s blog

I adore a great food. And by great I do not mean expensive posh dishes. It can be simple and great. Now I made simple sandwich for my late dinner. Whole grain bread with lettuce and cottage cheese. Cottage cheese is blended with spring chives which gives it a slightly spicy taste. It’s just simple and delicious.

If I would not be a web developer I would be a cook. I think it is amazing to be a cook and have possibility to design and create different meals. I would apply all the principles from web development to cooking. Starting with my favorite - KISS :). Even Gordon Ramsay would be jealous. Bon appetite :).

There is a huge difference between IT person a developer and a business person a developer. A developer (IT educated, computer science etc…) lives in models, math, algorithms, develops and writes a lot of “perfect” code, right to the specification! He uses first, second, third framework on top of one another. He does things because they are supposed to be done that way…

A business person, a developer educated on a business school has completely different approach, he is lazy to write a lot of code. He uses just one framework. He plans, he analyses and than he writes 80% less of the code than computer science person. Instead of doing things “the supposed way” he challenges dogmas and finds different approach.

I know some IT people, they talk bullshit. I can not stand some of them. You meet such a geek and he will tell you how exciting that piece of code is. I know some business people, they are right to the core. How to do it the most efficient and easiest way, how to do less. Well it saves money doesn’t it? They will tell you how exiting is that they manage to set-up e-shop in a few days, how exciting is the outcome and how much they saved that way.

What is the fundamental difference? Business people even though they may not know the Pareto principle they employ it and behave by it naturally. That is that 20% of causes results in 80% of effects roughly.  So business educated developers focus on those 20% of functionality to develop which provides the highest 80% value. Computer science educated developers focus on 100% and they waste 80% of their attention to unimportant bullshit providing just 20% of value.

The drawback? You never get 100% from a business educated developer. The benefit? You get what will fulfill most of your needs, costs less and it is highly manageable in the future.

Did you get it? Big advice to all computer science developers: Your work will suck unless you focus on those 20% providing 80% of outcome. And advice for you? Why do you need 100% anyway. I am sure you will be much better off with a business educated web developer than with a computer science developer, because they can provide that cumulative magic.

Now when I told you golden rule of business educated developers, I am going to kill you :).

I am happy business minded web developer and if you need agile web development you can still hire me.

Last few weeks I have several doubts about my future prospects. I like my job, web design gave me freedom during my university studies, but now I feel reluctant to continue and even simple small development task causes me a severe pain. Taking Clever Leap meaning into account, I should better make the leap and reinvent the web so I do not need to code it or do something different. Surprisingly enough even with a great publishing system, the bar just get higher and more and more difficult projects are reaching to me instead of making money doing those simple ones fast and efficiently with existing tools. No. Simple web sites with CMS and even e-shops are available for free now and anybody can do them. This way only high quality, hard to do staff seems to be the only thing left in the web design industry. Or is it just my progression into wrong field? Or my blindness to see new opportunities? I am not an IT person.

School was always my refuge. While others drop from the university to start-up their companies I was turning to the university to be able to work on that mine. It is not possible to work on your own. Freelancing and outsourcing to clients from whom 90% you didn’t meet in person, without going out into real world, between real people and have real fun, is extremely lonely job otherwise. School was a refuge from this environment full of abstract objects and models. I really enjoyed my studies and took out the most I could.

In my stupidity that perfect balanced life style will continue I joined PhD program, just to my surprise to find out later that it is completely different. You don’t get as much interaction doing PhD. It is very individualistic work, same as freelancing is. Now I found myself going from one empty room to another empty office. Most of the last weeks instead of working I am trying to fill the day by traveling around, attending lectures which interest me and trying to do some crazy things which I never did before (like handing out flyers to people to promote language school, just for the sake of experiencing it).

Self-diagnosis? Cabin-fever and burn-out. Terrible.

It would be all perfect if PhD would be more active. However this is difficult as most of the people on the faculty consider this just a warm seat, while others are just finishing their lives in there. But I do not want to die with them! I am young and I want to live and living doesn’t mean sitting in the office “doing nothing”. Don’t blame me, I know I am supposed to do research :). I like university environment very much. This is where Ideas should happen and sprout. Where new things should be developed. I considered this to be an active role. But nothing is happening. It’s quiet. It’s dead. Or I didn’t get it, yet.

And it seems, that it’s just me who wants to bother. I don’t care about the destination, getting paper and getting it the easy way does not fulfill me. The journey and the experience does.

Solution? Change of the environment always helps. Maybe even employment for some time. I start writing copy for Ideacamp - a networking club which I want to set-up. But overall, I don’t know what to do, and I feel lost as never before in my life. Someone could start research about postgraduation syndrome. You could easily call it by my name.

The most important thing is to start doing something. Immediatelly. Something local, with real people in real world. I have to find my future direction. I’ve learned my voice, now I have to use it.

One more time I am angry on a bank. I opened Passport account last year with HSBC UK. It was perfect as the account would automatically close after one year if I will not decide to prolong it. Good opt-in feature. But now HSBC decided to change the contract, so my account will automatically prolong until I decide to close it. They changed their services from opt-in to opt-out and locked me inside.

Now staying in Slovakia I have difficulty to close the account. Not to mention that there is £6 monthly charge.

HSBC sucks. Never open a bank account with this bank. Loyds TSB will give you current account free of charge.

I am looking forward to future encounters with banks cheating on me. This will never stop. I wish you fast death greedy banking institutions. Good luck financial crisis, you are doing good job hitting the right ones.

It has been few months since I posted on this blog. The reason? I was so busy. I had exams in Nottingham, parties, I almost missed my flight, I traveled home and back to czech republic for a New Year’s Eve party and back. Had no time.

These uni exams are killing me. I am frustrated when doing something I do not believe in. Analysing large companies strategies is so useless for somebody who is not going to pursue career in multinational company. But I have to force myself. I managed to get here with my studies and I have to finish them. However I would like to quit so much.

One chinese wisdom says, that temtetion to resign is highest when you are about to succeed. I feel exactly the same.

So keep going don’t give up. Will repeat this, and you should also never give up if you are struggling with something. Keep going, don’t give up.

Good luck to everybody doing research and studying for exams.

Traveling is something that I like very much. There is always something new to discover, wherever you go, even if you visit the same distant places you have already been to, again and again. It is a real adventure. Now I am in the UK but unlike most of the people who travel by plane or bus, I chose a train and ferry. On tuesday evening I departed from Poprad by night train to Prague. Early in the morning I was changing for a train to Berlin and at the noon I changed for a train to Amsterdam where I arrived slightly before 7. I had few minutes to eat some junk food on to me well known Amsterdam train station before I pop on train to Antwerp.

Luckily friend of mine was waiting for me in front of Antwerp Central station and I had a place to stay over night. It was very nostalgic, as in Antwerp, I spent the best time of my entire studies. I felt like I am traveling in time. Like I have never left this city or I am back in the past. I felt at home. Thank you Ieva. Early in the morning I pop on train to Lille which arrived late and I missed connection to Calais. But no worries, I had two more hours to relax and wait for the train to Calais. At 3:45 I was boarding ferry to Dover. In Dover I had a trouble to find local bus which would take me to Calais Priory train station. I get to know one traveler from Cologne who was heading to Ireland (also by train :). Luckily I managed and was sitting on local train heading to London. But new trouble occurred. I needed to be in Cambridge in the evening as my hostel was booked there. I was coming late and worried that I will not catch the train to Cambridge. I had only around 30 minutes to move from Bridge station to Kings Cross. On the train station I was so much stressed that I even forgot to take a change and the metro ticket cost me instead of 4 Pounds 10 which I left in a hurry. But I managed. Arrived to Cambridge around 9 o’clock on thursday. I left on tuesday evening and arrived on thursday evening. Pretty good, isn’t it? Two easy going days.

Next day I travelled from Cambridge to Leeds and from there to Manchester airport. This night I had no hostel and I needed to meet with friend of mine who flight to the Manchester airport. So after arriving to Leeds I was traveling three times the same route between Leeds and Manchester airport, there and back, and basically stayed over night in the train. Luckily there was constant night service, other way I would sleep on the train station :).

God bless InterRail. If you are looking for cheap train travel for longer distances in Europe, I recommend InterRail. You get pass for 150 Eur valid for 10 days. Plenty of time to get anywhere and back.

Few days ago I watched a cartoon which was my favorite one, when I was a small kid. That time it was like a fantasy for me. Now I understand it much better. I wonder how great the cartoons in my childhood were. Today it seems that there is only crap in the TV. However nice animation but no story, no education. This one from 80′ies has great story, nice animation and is educating. Enjoy it.