Information Technology Dark Side

Reading fiction has been an important part of my life for as long as I can remember. We didn’t own a lot of books growing up, but the library was only a short walk away, and it had fantastic air conditioning. I spent more time in the library in the summer than some kids spent […]

[Read more →]

As many of you know, I am the managing editor of the Association for Software Testing‘s magazine, temporarily titled “AST Updated: Smart Stuff for Career Software Testers”. The current issue, of which I am particularly proud because of the steady improvements we’ve made over the previous issue, is available for free download from AST’s site. […]

[Read more →]

I’m pretty much allergic to any form of requirements documentation. Change control makes my skin itch, and big up front planning makes me vomit. But I also am not totally comfortable with winging it all the time. As a project manager, I need to get a sense of how big the project is, what are […]

[Read more →]

Today is my 35th birthday. It doesn’t feel particularly old to me, but it does feel like a milestone. It feels like I was supposed to have done something with myself by this age, that I should be more than just a tiny little cog in a gigantic, complex machine. I think it’s natural to […]

[Read more →]

Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management by Johanna Rothman is the best project management reference I’ve ever read, and I’ve seen my share of project management tomes. Here’s what I like best about the book: it’s not theological. By this I mean Rothman doesn’t advocate one “true” way of running projects. She […]

[Read more →]

Dave Christiansen is the founder and managing editor of TechDarkSide.com. He manages projects for a Fortune 100 financial services company and writes and talks about project management. He can be reached at dave@techdarkside.com. I’ve been wanting to test the self-publishing waters for a long time, but I’ve been a little hesitant to do so, particularly […]

[Read more →]

I have to admit I was a little bit uncomfortable purchasing this book. I don’t use “bad” language often. As a general rule, if my seven year old daughter isn’t allowed to say it, neither am I. Every now and then I’ll stress out and say “dammit” or call someone a “jackass” under my breath, […]

[Read more →]

When I was about 12, I used a Macintosh computer for the first time. I was amazed by the small disk drive and the little pointer device I’d never seen before: a mouse. It was my friends mac, and it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. BUT… the only software my buddy had was […]

[Read more →]

I got absolutely nothing out of this book, and I doubt anyone else will either unless they have very little experience interviewing. It might be a good book for high school graduates, or socially backward college graduates, but anyone who’s had more than three job interviews will find it lacks insight and is terribly boring. […]

[Read more →]

The first two books in his “Inheritance” trilogy, Eragon is the story of a young man who finds a dragon’s egg, which hatches shortly thereafter. Eragon and the dragon, Saphira, form a very close relationship and embark on an epic battle against evil. There is one really remarkable quality of this book: Christopher Paolini wrote […]

[Read more →]