Category Archives: From the Yellow Notepad

Bon Mots – Part 1

Posted on May 10, 2010 by Jeff Mather

It’s time to share some of the French words that were new to me. If you speak or read French, maybe they’ll be useful to you, too. And if I have missed something subtle in their meaning, let me know. … Continue reading →

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The Checklist Manifesto

Posted on March 24, 2010 by Jeff Mather

How can you prevent mistakes? Some mistakes have extraordinary costs: airplane crashes, surgical infections, building collapses, nuclear power-plant explosions. Even the mistakes that don’t kill people — like software defects and leaky roofs — can slow you down by adding … Continue reading →

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Implementing Lean Software Development – Part 1

Posted on February 11, 2010 by Jeff Mather

At midday yesterday my carpool buddy and I looked at the weather map, saw a scary blob of impending frozen doom, and decided to heed the Governor’s advice to go home. But the snow that was forecast — the blizzard … Continue reading →

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What’s the Right HbA1c Target?

Posted on November 16, 2009 by Jeff Mather

In my most recent post I mentioned the matter of an on-going debate over the proper target for HbA1c values. I went back and listened again to the debate at this year’s EASD conference on the “right” A1c target. (You … Continue reading →

Posted in Diabetes, Fodder for Techno-weenies, From the Yellow Notepad, NaBloPoMo, NaBloPoMo 2009 | Leave a comment

Afternoon (basal) delight

Posted on November 2, 2009 by Jeff Mather

This post is inspired by Anna in Montréal, who is adjusting her basal rates. A Side-effect of Exercise I have a bike. This shouldn’t be a big surprise, as I’ve written about my border-to-border and Quabbin Reservoir rides recently. I … Continue reading →

Posted in Cycling, Data-betes, Diabetes, From the Yellow Notepad, Historical Record, Life Lessons, NaBloPoMo, NaBloPoMo 2009 | Leave a comment

AMD performance counters

Posted on May 27, 2009 by Jeff Mather

Here’s a little reminder for myself and for anyone on the web who’s searching for information about AMD Athlon and/or Opteron performance counters. AMD Performance counter resources: Doc #26094, Chapter 10 (very detailed!) Doc #22007, Appendix D (part of the … Continue reading →

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Surveying Quality in Object-Oriented Design

Posted on November 26, 2008 by Jeff Mather

Just a short post informing you about a survey paper I wrote for my object-oriented (OO) design class: Surveying Quality in Object-Oriented Design. In it, I look at the major books and articles concerning best practices for OO design. If … Continue reading →

Posted in C, Computing, From the Yellow Notepad, Software Engineering | Leave a comment

Announcing a Series on Design Patterns

Posted on September 24, 2008 by Jeff Mather

The first week of my final semester of grad school is in the bag. This go-round is all about software design, both low-level (“RSEG 109: Object-Oriented Design“) and high-level (“RSEG 290: Special Topics: Design Patterns”). When you add in the … Continue reading →

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From the Yellow Notepad: Project Management

Posted on June 24, 2008 by Jeff Mather

As promised before, here are some more notes from the classes that I’ve taken as part of my soon-to-be-completed Master of Software Engineering degree. This time: (software) project management. Most of this information comes from Effective Project Management by Robert … Continue reading →

Posted in From the Yellow Notepad, Life Lessons, Software Engineering | 4 Comments

From the Yellow Notepad: C

Posted on May 27, 2008 by Jeff Mather

Here are a few notes from the yellow notepad I’ve been using for school over the last six months. This first installment touches on C. Later I’ll add some UNIX programming and C++ notes. Basically these are the things that … Continue reading →

Posted in C, Computing, From the Yellow Notepad, Software Engineering | 2 Comments

Dr. Color’s Assistant goes back to his notes

Posted on September 28, 2007 by Jeff Mather

It’s Friday here at The Metrowest Homeopathic Imaging and File Rehabilitation Center, the day when I usually spend part of my time on 20% projects. [1] But I’ve basically been working on the results of my last such project full … Continue reading →

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Class-time purgatory

Posted on February 5, 2007 by Jeff Mather

There are two things you should know about me: I am not a good person, and I hate being bored or having my time wasted. Those two things combined pretty much say everything you might need to know about me, … Continue reading →

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Professional Software Development

Posted on October 4, 2006 by Jeff Mather

Going through some old e-mail at work, I found this review of Steve McConnell’s book Professional Software Development: Shorter Schedules, Higher Quality Products, More Successful Projects, Enhanced Careers that I wrote for my group a couple years ago. It changed … Continue reading →

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