hackoder

It was a bunch of different tasks. For some, we did use a read only account. Other tasks (updating top 10 scores, updating the users table with their geo-ip based location etc) required write access.

Just to add some more thoughts based on other comments.. yes a lot of companies do stuff like this, particularly startups. The upside in these situations is that you end up learning things extremely quickly which wouldn't be possible in a more controlled environment. However not having backup and restore working is just ridiculous and I keep shaking my head at how they blamed the OP for this mistake. Unbelievable.

I was in a situation very similar to yours. Also a game dev company, also lots of user data etc etc. We did have test/backup databases for testing, but some data was just on live and there was no way for me to build those reports other than to query the live database when the load was lower.

In any case, I did a few things to make sure I never ended up destroying any data. Creating temporary tables and then manipulating those.. reading over my scripts for hours.. dumping table backups before executing any scripts.. not executing scripts in the middle/end of the day, only mornings when I was fresh etc etc.

I didn't mess up, but I remember how incredibly nerve wracking that was, and I can relate to the massive amount of responsibility it places on a "junior" programmer. It just should never be done. Like others have said, you should never have been in that position. Yes, it was your fault, but this kind of responsibility should never have been placed on you (or anyone, really). Backing up all critical data (what kind of company doesn't backup its users table?! What if there had been hard disk corruption?), and being able to restore in minimum time should have been dealt with by someone above your pay grade.

Thank you for that voice of reason.

You make two very good points here and in your other post.

1) Kids are different. There is a whole spectrum of right and wrong decisions depending on what your kid is like. Would anyone suggest that the same methods would work with a kid who is stubborn and one who is easy going?

2) These decisions depend on a kid's age. A 2-5 year old is not logical or rational, and can do outrageous things just to see how you would react. Don't deceive them, let them be kids, yadda yadda are almost funny to read. Like you said, walk a mile in the parents' shoes.

Anyway, getting back to the original post, I do see an issue with this approach (to parenting, not the technical solutions): I'd rather solve the bigger problem of the kids not listening to what the parent is saying rather than fixing this single instance. On the other hand, it is easy for kids to get rowdy without realizing it and this method seems to fix that particular issue well.

Nicely done! Tried it out and will definitely be keeping it. I like the website as well, the utility of the app is obvious from one quick glance.

I think it'll be useful in convincing yourself to do that 15-60 min task that you've been putting off.. or just to get you motivated (I'll fix this bug quickly in 15 mins... and before you know it you've fixed a few).

The 13" Air and 14" Carbon are fairly similar in screen resolution (right?), however I believe that font rendering on Mac OS seems to be sub-par.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem like there is a way to achieve both. If you want a reasonably sized keyboard, the screen will end up being too large (as is the case with Surface). Or if you want a more traditional tablet sized screen, the keyboard will suffer (for e.g. the Transformer Prime).

The e420 is of the 'Edge' series. What you want to get is a T, X, or W series thinkpad. The E series is just thinkpad in name, so its no wonder that you had a bad experience.

Ofcourse, you are not to blame since Lenovo still markets it as a ThinkPad..

Why is this the arch linux demographic?

I have a working arch install. I don't touch it unless I have to reboot for some reason and then I read for known issues, do the upgrade and then reboot. Otherwise, no touchy.

A lot of ideas sound great to management, and they work too! I mean, other than killing employee morale and resulting in long term loss ;-)

At one of my past jobs, we worked like consultants (we quoted hours that a task would take to get done, tested etc). We filled daily timesheets to ensure that our hours did not exceed our estimates. In fact, the time on those timesheets had to total 40 hours every week. So we worked the full 40 hours. And we billed those 40 hours to the client. In those few months, I was as productive as I've ever been.

Unfortunately, we weren't paid like consultants.. we got a regular salary. Management was doing nothing wrong. They failed to realize that the 'consultant lifestyle' of billing and working in hours only works if there is an equally motivating paycheck to go with it. I've known multiple people to leave because of how hard it was.

You shouldn't need a person to blame field. Good responsible employees will know what they did wrong and work to fix it. And if they don't, having the field in there will only increase finger pointing and people trying to protect their own jobs. And your bottom line will still not improve. So why do it?

This is great. Keep up the fantastic work! The FF mobile team deserves a lot of kudos for the way they've been able to fight their way back onto Android. I remember it was kludgy beyond belief as much as 6 months ago. But since then, it has improved massively with each release.

Absolutely, price is on the higher side. I feel that they're looking to make it the "really really Pro" line. The existing MBPs (specially the 13") is used by everyone (students for e.g.), so its not really a Pro line.

Absolutely. Time and time again they've shown that they'll do the right thing. Like with firefox sync, where data is encrypted on the client.

And its not like they're lacking in features or speed. Firefox for Android (while buggy) could view the same bookmarks/history/open tabs as my desktop browser and this is a great feature which only recently came to chrome.