I (Ray Poshadlo) believe that you have the right to know who the heck makes the programs you use and what their qualifications are. You also have the right to skip all this gibberish. I also believe that the best software is produced by small teams. That's why I produce everything myself. But I'm not a true island since I listen to critical feedback from users/testers throughout the development process.
I've created a wide variety of business, educational, entertainment, engineering, and scientific software since the punch-card days of 1975. My background includes pioneering research in geometric (solid) modeling (3-D graphics). I enjoy every aspect of software development including: analysis, design, storyboarding, programming (coding), debugging & writing/typing on-screen scripts & manuals.
I strive for the impossible... Perfection! My attention to detail and quality makes money-driven, schedule-lovin' bureaucrats cringe! I often spend weeks agonizing over just the right (hopefully) easier-to-understand words to use in a menu or prompt. Months are spent optimizing performance and trimming excess fat. I believe that you're entitled to a useful, high-performance, resource-conserving program, starting with the first version ... Not years later! I draw on my bizarre background to improve the quality of my products.
In days of old when computers were room-sized, my late, beloved Grandmother gave me the biggest, bestest box of Tinker Toys in the world! This started my lifelong love of design, building & quality ("good jobs" got extra goodies)!
My wise mother once forced her unwise ninth-grade son to take a "sissy" (typing) class ... The single, most valuable time-saving class I ever took! Being able to type lets me concentrate on programming and writing instead of hunting for keys.
A smidgen of my talented father's musical genes and 8 years of music lessons contributes to my efforts to make programs flow as smooth as a symphony. Man/woman/computer in harmony. Alas, maybe someday I'll reach that goal!
Tougher-than-marines, penguin-outfitted nuns, ruled over my grade school. They demanded excellence, especially in English. Eye ain't no purfikt rightor, butt tanks ta dem, Iem en enjunear hoo nose gramer an spelin end injoys riteing... Just kiddin' sisters!
Public High School balanced out my grade school years of excellence and discipline. I excelled at just one thing in high school ... Classclownology!
I firmly believe that our society worships pieces of paper like degrees too much. It's disgraceful that qualified people are barred from professions just because they don't have the correct piece of paper. Regardless, I'm proud of my hard-earned accomplishments in the academic world. I did not work full-time while going to school just to get a job as so many poor souls do today. I worked my posterior off in college and loved every minute of it.
My sheep skins include a Master's degree in Computer, Information, and Control Engineering from the University of Michigan and a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from Wayne State University. For some mysterious reason, I'm a member of Tau Beta Pi and Phi Kappa Phi honor societies... I also took more than 3 years of Liberal Arts courses while working on an Industrial Education degree.
This oddball background (for an engineer) is invaluable for my play pretend method of software design. Ray, the pretend-I'm-a: customer, educator, writer, bad comedian, artist, or anthropologist continuously consults and argues with, Ray the techie. This one-man "team" approach improves my products.
In 1991, after 19 years as a professional misfit at Ford Motor Co. I became an independent software author. I was a systems analyst at Alpha (Ford's Think Tank). I wore a suit on that job, including an oxygen-depleting neck noose (tie)! I served on several cross-functional, process improvement teams. This strengthened my focus on customer satisfaction, quality, and continuous improvement. I was a also a recipient of a 1991 Ford Information Systems Customer Satisfaction Award.
My empathy for you ... the user ... was strengthened after I spent 2 years as a computer help-desk supervisor and 3 years as a technical training specialist ... writing training manuals and developing educational software including interactive videodisc programs ... several years before they were called multimedia programs!
Prior to all that, I was an electronic technician at Ford Motor Company's Emissions Laboratory ... Years of fabricating, calibrating, maintaining, and running various types of electro-mechanical testing equipment strengthened my traits of attention to detail and doing things right the first time ... That's why my software has always been famous for its unusually minute amount of "bugs" ... It's true that nobody can guarantee that a program is free of bugs. It's also true that the software industry, in general, releases products too early and produces garbage that is needlessly filled with bugs ... many of which could have been avoided in the first place ... and many of which are knowingly sold to the public ... Auto companies and other manufacturers would never get away with such shameful practices!
Here are a few of my favorite Projects:
Good software is produced by small teams... not by committees. Softwrights' team was very small. All software (including the SETUPS programs) and documentation (including this Web site) was designed, programmed, written & typeset by Ray Poshadlo ... A one-man team has many advantages like consistency, clear goals, and no wasteful bureaucratic nonsense.
Disadvantages include lack of group synergy and user input. To avoid the disadvantages ... users, corporate trainers, systems professionals, help-desk professionals, software retailers, and teachers reviewed the program throughout the development process. Their contribution to the improvement of this program before it was released was invaluable and greatly appreciated.
One example is the replacement of a prototype technoid's dream. The authorthought he had a brilliant idea. He built a prototype main menu that let you see, and directly access all 112 lessons/tests/options in the program. Technically oriented people liked it (at least for themselves). But most reviewers didn't like it, mainly because it was too different! So out it went. Back to the drawing board (more than once) ... The result was a greatly improved product!
The author is extremely lucky to know people who are honest enough to tell him that something is not so good, terrible, ugly, etc. For your sake, it's also good that he throws away his big, fat author's ego and starts all (or partially) over, in response to users' input.
Among those who deserve an enormous thank you for their help with the improvement of one or more of my products are: Brent & Jeff Bones, Ronald Brown, Earl Concors, Dave Cooper, Heather Clark, Tom Doyle, Jerry Girtman, Andrew & Karen Haeberlin, Curtis Hunter, Shirley Jallad, John Jarvi, Karen Kilroy, Robert Kutnick, Charles Lax, John Manoogian, Bill McCann, Dwayne McCarthy, Rick Miller, Hwa Sung Na, Gary Oberto, Paul Nappo, Diane Oakley, Tony Paridiso, Michael Popenas, The Poshadlo clan (Chris, Cliff Sr. & Jr. Gabrielle, Irene, Marsha and Spencer), Diane Schommer, Jeff Slabaugh, Patty Small, Ed Tomaszczyk, Elaine Traskos, Jim Vranich, Tony Woo, and Julie & Dave Wright.
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