Working Up

Working Up in Project Management, Systems Engineering, Technology, and Writing

Working Up header image 4

Entries from October 2010

The Library

October 28th, 2010 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Buy books? Sure, buy lots of the ones I have written. Read books? Go to the library. It works quite well, and you have already paid your part of the cost. I read yet another blog post the other day about how awful it is that Americans don’t buy and read books. […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Library · Writing

VMWare Player and Ubuntu on Win XP

October 25th, 2010 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips I have a virtual machine running on a Windows XP laptop computer with Ubuntu Linux running in the virtual machine. This is all using WMware’s WMware Player. I had a problem at work where I needed a Linux-based computer to run a test. To be candid, I first saw this as an […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Linux · Technology

RA

October 21st, 2010 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips summary I live in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington D.C. To be more specific, I live in Reston, Virginia – a planned community. This is a good place to live, have a family, find good jobs, good medical care, good entertainment, and so on. Just Google for “Reston 50 best places” […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Culture · Family · Geography · Government · Grand Canyon

Secure Election Software – Simple

October 18th, 2010 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Computer voting systems have proven to be insecure. I suggest building a secure one. The foundation would be a single-user single-task operating system (like CP/M). We could write this from scratch with very little money. There have been recent notes on the net about the Washington D.C. online voting system that was […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Ideas · Multitasking · Technology

Fewer Nouns and Verbs

October 14th, 2010 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips I continue to work with graduate students on their writing. I am working with engineering, computer science, and IT students. They continue to teach me. This week’s learning concerns the variety of nouns and verbs. In novels and other fiction, the writer uses a variety of nouns. It would be boring to […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Learning · Writing

Sustainability and Grandparents

October 11th, 2010 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Well meaning managers often start new activities. The activities are not sustainable, and the well meaning manager gains a reputation as a liar. I am a grandparent. I have one grandson who is now 23 months old (I have to put up a new photo of him sometime :-). Grandparents engage in […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Expectations · Family · Management · Meetings

Great! Write Those Words

October 7th, 2010 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips I work with grad students who are writing their dissertations. Often the simplest advice and exercise is the most effective. Here is one of those exercises. I work with graduate students in engineering and computer science at George Mason University. Most of the students are working on their dissertation proposals or dissertations. […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Writing

Experiential Learning Book

October 6th, 2010 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips After several years of drafting, waiting, drafting, revising, waiting, adding, waiting, revising … you know, the usual stuff … I finished (for now) a small book on experiential learning. The book is about a hundred pages long and is titled “Some Notes on Experiential Learning.” It includes: Some theory Tips for the […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Learning · Writing

When in Doubt, Call It a Thing

October 4th, 2010 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes I am stuck for a word while writing. Experience has taught me to put “thing” in the blank and move on. The right word will come later. There we were, writing a proposal. Three of us were gathered around the keyboard, one typing the words, the other two contributing the words. […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Design · Writing