Category Archives: Staff Picks

Featured, Office Life, Programming, Staff Picks

Troubleshooting Tools to Give Thanks to this Thanksgiving

November 27, 2013 elisek

thanskgiving

[Once a week I snoop around the office, bothering my coworkers with questions on what they’re reading, listening to, consuming, or any other random inquiries I’d like to subject them to. Sometimes they even respond.]

Debug, de-stress. This week we’re giving thanks to these troubleshooting tools that keep us sane. We chose troubleshooting tools not for the alliteration value (though, that was a happy coincidence), but to find time-saving ways you can stay on top of your coding projects this holiday season. See below as we show our appreciation for developer tools we can’t live without. What other tools do you use to debug and de-stress? Tell us about them in the comments section below.

Chad, Sr. Sales Engineer

Fiddler2 helps make debugging web service calls easy.

Paula, Director of HR

Don’t even need to think about that one – System Restore Manager!

Ozgur, Development

I’d definitely list Fiddler and WireShark as some of the top troubleshooting tools that I am thankful for.

Aviva, VP of Technical Services

I mostly use the debugger in Visual Studio or custom code I write myself. Although it’s not a development tool, Procmon can be helpful, for monitoring activities on the filesystem and registry.

Stephanie, Technical Services

Total Commander is great. The program does a ton of stuff, but I really like its Continue reading Troubleshooting Tools to Give Thanks to this Thanksgiving →

Office Life, Staff Picks, Webinars

Monday Melodies

August 19, 2013 elisek

In preparation for our webinar this Friday on music trends, we put together a Monday playlist to give you a peek inside what’s playing at our desks and through our headphones.

Haven’t registered for the webinar yet? What are you waiting for? Find out how we’re using music data to show you ways to make your Excel reports hit all the right notes.

via Grooveshark

[hs_action id=”5329″]

Office Life, Staff Picks

Staff Picks: What are you reading?

August 12, 2013 elisek

Once a week I snoop around the office, bothering my coworkers with questions on what they’re reading, listening to, consuming, or any other random inquiries of which I’d like to subject them. Sometimes they even respond.

The question:

1. What did you read this weekend/this morning?

The answers:

Dan, CEO of SoftArtisans

1. List of ingredients on my Entenmann’s raspberry danish twist.

David, CEO of Riparian Data

1. “Who’s in Charge?” by Michael Gazzaniga

Gazzaniga is a neuroscientist explaining how we make decisions

2. A ton of articles on encryption: Elliptic Curves, Learning with Errors, BitMessage

Aviva, VP of Technical Services

1. Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg

Nick, IT Admin

1. I’ve been reading about Salt, a new type of configuration management tool.

Claire, Marketing and Business Development

1. I read The Making of 158 Marimba by Jacklin Studios

Kelly Jacklin created what became the iPhone’s default text message alert sound in 1999, using LISP, Perl, and MIDI.

Continue reading →

Events, Meet the Team, Office Life, Staff Picks, Truth in Tech

Staff Picks: Apps to Use, News to Read on the Commute

March 12, 2013 elisek

Once a week I snoop around the office, bothering my coworkers with questions on what they’re reading, listening to, consuming, or any other random inquiries I’d like to subject them to. Sometimes they even respond.

The questions:

1. What did you read this week?

2. What is the latest app you are all excited about?

The answers:

David, CEO of Riparian Data

1. Reality is Broken

2. We’ve used GroupMe pretty extensively this week at SXSW and it has worked out well. GroupMe is a free group messaging app for your mobile device.

Christina, User Experience Designer

1. Would you buy Gucci off your Smartphone?

2. Little Inferno has been fun over the weekend. It takes about 15min of play before getting into the story line though.

Ozgur, Software Engineer

1. I read this article on Mysterious Bacterium Found in Antarctic Lake. Although, I just saw this blog post that disputed it, saying there was not actually a new bacteria. So now I don’t know what to believe.

2. Although it is not an “app,” I have been looking into the functional programming language F#.

Kristen, Sales Rep

Florida Anglers Liven up Spring Break by Reeling Sharks onto the Beach
Poshmark. It’s like ebay for clothes, but much easier.

Annie, Executive Account Manager

1. What Most School’s Don’t Teach by Code.org

2. Seconds – interval timer/training

Nick, IT Admin Continue reading Staff Picks: Apps to Use, News to Read on the Commute →

Staff Picks, Uncategorized

Staff Picks: Snowy Day Coding Playlist

November 27, 2012 elisek

A wintery mix is settling in to Boston today. However, to steal a line from the the 1964 musical Funny Girl, there will be no raining on our parade. With our Technical Services team supplying us with a blind taste-test pumpkin pie bake-off and our heaters humming beneath our desks, we’re cozying up with our code and playlists to get us through the work day. While we can’t ‘port pumpkin pie to your desktop, we can share what’s playing between our ears.

Featured, Office Life, Staff Picks

Apps We’re Thankful For

November 21, 2012 elisek

[cross-posted from the Riparian Data blog]

[All in the Family by Jeremy Miller]

Tomorrow, just before you nosedive into Great Aunt Muriel’s famously belt-busting pecan pie, take a moment to think some warm and fuzzy thoughts about those special, non-needy, non-inquisitive, non-forever asking you when you’re going to settle down and get married apps in your life.

Just kidding! That’s what today is for. Below, the apps that make Riparian Data’s team of Gander handlers and the SoftArtisans team of Office doc wranglers happy. Feel free to add yours in the comments!

David Wihl, CEO of Riparian Data:

Evernote
iOS Maps. Gwen, a random chimpanzee in Botswana, and I are the only two living creatures who actually prefer Apple’s iOS maps to Google Maps. [True–Ed]
The Trello app has grown up and is now better than using Trello via a browser.
The SephardiJews app, because it was written by a friend’s son who is only 13 years old.
The Loro Piana app so I can both drool and scoff at $18,000 men’s coats, in an app that often crashes.

Dan Medeiros, CEO of SoftArtisans

Open Table

Paula Marciante, Senior Talent Acquisition Manager:

Evernote

Nicholas Martin, Software Engineer:

Evernote
Mog
(I don’t really use many apps.)

Scott Dugas, Software Engineer:

Michael Fargnoli, QA Engineer:

Definitely Spotify. It’s made me a complete human being.

Jim Stallings, Egg Chef:

Productivity app: Evernote Continue reading Apps We’re Thankful For →

Featured, Office Life, Staff Picks

Staff Picks: This Week’s News

October 5, 2012 elisek

The questions:

What was one thing you read/watched this week?
What do you wish you would have read/watched this week?

The answers:

David, CEO of Riparian Data
1. Watched the debates and fell asleep, woke up an hour later and don’t think I missed much of substance since I saw Romney firing Jim Lehrer and Big Bird. Watched The Avengers on blu-ray and did not fall asleep.
2. “Git from the bottom up” and J.K. Rowling’s new book, “The Casual Vacancy”

Kristen, Sales Rep
1. Watched the debate
2. Missed watching The Voice this week

Claire, Marketing & Development Manager
1. I watched the debate until I got too annoyed, and then I read John Cassidy’s level-headed response and felt a bit better.
2. What I want to read: The Writing Revolution, about one formerly failing highschool’s successful revamp of its writing program. Continue reading Staff Picks: This Week’s News →