Category — Reviews

During a recent trip I had the pleasure of reading and commenting a wonderful book about management: Lead Well and Prosper (15 successful strategies for becoming a good manager) by Nick McCormick. Please, note that I’ve read several books about management, but this is the first one I read on the management subject that does not feel boring in any way, in any moment. It’s a very concise book, not wordy and not vague. In fact, the book grasps your attention from the first chapter, “Adopt a serving attitude”, which sets up the dynamic for the rest of the book, and clearly demonstrates that the author has plenty of practical experience on the subject, i.e., that he knows what he is talking about. The book tries (and succeeds) to improve the reading and learning experience, by using a direct language and funny cartoons at the start of each chapter. Cartoons humorously depict a wrong management attitude or behavior, which the rest of the chapter will explain how to correct. Besides, cartoons are refreshing and provide and outlook of the topic to be presented in the chapter. More than a guide, the book turns out to be a friend.

The book’s structure is lovely simple. Fifteen chapters which focus on specific management issues:

Chapter 1 – Adopt a serving attitude: Be humble, serve and love your team (but don’t let your team members to walk all over you either… balance is the key).
Chapter 2 – Teach: Management is a teaching experience. Improving your staff skills, sharing your knowledge, will yield better results. I liked the book’s suggestion about hiring people with potential, rather than focusing solely on experience.
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Recently, I’ve thinking of replacing my old and faithful Toshiba laptop with a new and more powerful machine. I will surely keep my Toshiba in use, mostly to write articles for Life, Money & Development. However, I work as a manager for a software development company, and frequently have to run several applications that are steadily exceeding my laptop’s computing capacity. Then, it’s time to update. The question raises… what machine I should purchase? Additionally, now that I’ll have to visit the Electronics store, I think it may be a good chance to bring home some gadgets. I’m totally opposed to squandering, and thereby I will focus only on those machines or items that could prove useful for blogging and for my job.

1 The Laptop

Albeit my experience with the Toshiba has been good, I think it’s time to go Apple. The problem with the Toshiba is that one is forcefully restricted to Windows environment; we may also install Linux but it would be too cumbersome for my needs. On the contrary, by using an Apple machine I have access to the powerful Mac OS X operating system, and besides I can compile and test some applications originally targeted at Linux, without doing separated installations. The Mac runs all the software I need. Someone may also add that the Mac is stylish, but that really is not my motivation as I prefer functionality over appearance. For example, it is evident that the relatively new Mac Air is very stylish, but it is also evident that it relinquishes an important quota of computing power. Therefore, I think I will choose the Apple MacBook Pro MB133LL/A, which boosts a display of 15.4″, 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, 2 GB RAM, 200 GB Hard Drive, and DVD SuperDrive. Just all I need. I’m aware about the direct relation between big displays and laptop weight (this MacBook weighs 5.4 pounds), but I prefer to reduce any strain on my eyes.

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