One day, I got an email, a text message, a phone call, a Facebook message and two tweets within one minute.

Not because I work in Marketing, but just because that’s how life is for everyone right now.

If you feel that notifications run your life, you are not alone. We put together some information about how to manage your notifications mindfully, so you can be fully present in your life.

I have a love/hate relationship with test driven development and unit testing.

I’ve been both an ardent supporter of these “best practices,” but I’ve also been more than skeptical of their use.

One of the big problems in software development is when developers—or sometimes managers—who mean well apply “best practices” simply because they are best practices and don’t understand their reason or actual use.

To check out John’s first article on software development methodologies, please go here. 

One of my first official jobs in the software development industry was that of a tester.

My job entailed looking at stacks of papers that were printed out by a new printer we were testing at HP and comparing them to the “master” printouts produced by older printers.

I didn’t actually do the comparison of the pages myself; instead, I would execute the tests, someone else would compare the printouts, and I’d look at the differences they flagged.

With each difference, I would review and decide, based on the test, whether the result was a true failure or defect. If it was the latter, I’d write up a defect report for a developer to look at—and possibly fix.

The following is an excerpt from The Complete Software Developer’s Career Guide by John Sonmez. To get the entire book delivered to your inbox, go here.

Are you ready to put on your boxing gloves and enter the ring?

Are you ready to be confused?

Are you ready to endlessly debate semantics? To hire expensive consultants to tell you what you are doing wrong and coach your team to higher levels by getting everyone “certified?”

Well, welcome to the world of software development methodologies.

Working on a website launch or software update can be pretty stressful, and sometimes chaotic. We’ve all experienced the last-minute changes, new ideas and customer requests coming in right before you hit the “publish” button.

And then there are those moments where you wonder: “Have I already told John to fix this bug?“. And “Have I followed-up with John on…“, when what you really mean is something like: “Have I forwarded this Usersnap screen to our JIRA project for John to work on?”, “Ah…btw: Is there an update from John on this other Usersnap screen?”

Luckily, there’s help on the way. With the latest update from Usersnap, questions like these are a thing of the past.

If you are like me you would rather try to balance a laptop, coffee mug, charger, mouse, and your notes all at once rather than walking from your desk to the conference room twice.

A similar dynamic is at work when it comes to managing feedback or planning and tracking software development processes. You want to easily prioritize and assign a task and if possible – tackle multiple tasks at once.

That’s where our new feature comes in: Bulk Editing. Bulk Editing is a fast, flexible new way for you and your team to collaborate, manage, and organize internal or external feedback.