Blogs and articles by Craig Dean
OK I’m not going to lie to you, there’s no way to sugar coat this… I despise the Domain Registration system. Can’t help myself. I’ve owned thargy.com and unclecraig.com for well over 10 years and every year I go through the same renewal hell of trying to figure out who owns what – requesting transfers …
Update: This post has now appeared in the Oldham Chronicle as can be seen on the Web Apps Website. In Oldham we seem to find it easy to focus on the negatives, but having attended a number of events showcasing plans for regeneration, it’s difficult to feel anything but positive. Oldham is pushing forward, to show …
Anyone who knows me will tell you how important I take any opportunity to talk to young people before they enter the workforce, so when the University of Manchester invited me to give a guest lecture to their Advanced Computer Science masters students I jumped at the chance. So at 11AM on Wednesday the 18th …
So statics are generally considered evil, the enemy of TDD and IOC, and at odds with the purity of OO design. Shame they’re so incredibly fast! Whilst we’re talking about the TDD issue, I recommend you stop for a moment and go and take a look at the Fakes Framework added to VS11. Fakes is …
Hi everyone and welcome to the new thargy.com (and unclecraig.com). My old website was left untouched for 7 years and times have changed – as have I. For a start I’m posting this on my iPhone, which wasn’t even around when I stopped editing this site in earnest (around 2004). Most importantly I really want …
If you are a regular reader of my articles you will be aware that social responsibility is a key area I focus on. This policy needs to be addressed in order for any business, no matter what size to develop in the way it wants to. Without policies in place how can you determine where …
How do you measure success? In the business world there’s a misplaced obsession with two metrics – turnover and profit. Running your business within these parameters would be like choosing your life partner based only on eye colour and height – I suppose it’s a start, but you would be missing out on so much …
Legacy. At times it can be a boon, inspiring culture and rooting us with a strong identity forged in the fires of history. But it can also be a weighty anchor pulling us to the bottom. In business, there are no awards for being first out of the blocks; the gold medals are reserved for …
After more than two centuries it is probably a good time to ask, ‘Is the Chamber of Commerce still relevant?’ Businessmen in the last decade of the 18th Century were hardly worried about developing an effective social media strategy, or obsessing how their website would look viewed on an iPad. How could a Chamber founded …
Last night I found myself at the Bolton Lads & Girls Club. I had been invited for a tour of the facility by Claire Crossfield who is part of the team building a new youth zone facility in the heart of Oldham. The local young people have been very involved in this new centre’s progress …