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KirstenK

Member Since: May 30, 2012

Country: United States

Let's take a look at which OS(s) our engineers and customers prefer.

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Some surprising findings about a recent product release

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IoT, security, smart machines, home automation, VR, education tech, and more!

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In honor of Manufacturing Day 2014 (Friday, October 3rd) - We take a look at how SparkFun puts a dozen or so new products on the website each week.

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If you are entering the autonomous vehicle competition (AVC) for the first time, this information from last year's participants may help you get started.

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Web browsers are similar enough to each other that it doesn’t matter which one you use. Or does it?

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In this post, we’ll share the results of the survey, our plans to make some necessary improvements, and the reasons we decided not to make others.

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  • I can guess, but why do you "...avoid Windows as much as [you] can?"

  • Thanks all for your thoughts on this! I did a really quick tally of the results. Note that I upvoted tycen's comment pasted below because this is not a scientific survey ;o)

    your experienced customers (and the ones that hang out and comment) went the headerless route

    46% - Headers (in the “bag” but not soldered on)

    21% - Both options available (headers and no headers)

    15% - Headers (soldered on)

    13% - No headers

    5% - No headers (but provide selection of header options)

    Note that quite a few commenters conceded that addressing this issue would include some tough business decisions. Just the same, it was great to hear all of your feedback.

  • Perhaps it is because it is harder to find the right headers on our site than we would like.

  • Yes, documentation is critically important to SparkFun - exceptional documentation in particular - and is one of the reasons we are on the map. But my take on having an attitude (or a sense of humor) about aspects of our jobs that can be drudgery is different. Documentation is a necessary and a good engineer knows that and has the discipline to spend a fifth of their time on it, but if they personally do not find it fun, I am okay with that. And if they cope with it by having a sense of humor about it, all the better. Success requires discipline. But disciplined work does not necessarily have to be enjoyed.

  • Thanks for the comment (and the compliment). A couple of people on this end also questioned whether to leave the expletive in Mike's graphic. I said, "I will take the heat." The fact that you made a comment implies that there were probably others that were taken aback as well, so I wouldn't do it again. I kept it in because I found it more authentic. The fact that I have a teenager and given the language in popular culture these days - I guess I have become a bit numb.

  • Oops - that was my bad, I made the fix. Thank you!

  • Great observation. We do have deadlines - especially for the core aspects of our jobs - perhaps not so much for our side projects. For example, I have to get a report out on the same day at roughly the same time each week. In fact a lot of the "launch work" is on a weekly deadline basis. I know Engineering has and discusses deadlines, too, as does Inventory, but theirs are much more complex. Thanks!

  • Karl, OMG! Funny - you are right about the magnifying glass! My bad, I used Snagit to grab and size the photo. Here is the original image from Juan

  • Great catch Spec. Trevor here at SparkFun just let me know as well...I am going to fix in the text now. Thank you.

  • ChrisBob, Okay, last 90 days, those using Safari: Desktop/Mac 47%; Mobile/iOS 53%. As for Apple visits, last 90 days: 64% Mac; 36% Mobile (of that: 56% iPad, 42% iPhone, and 2% iPod (!?). Thanks!