During this trying time, not only do we have to worry about the pandemic, the economy, and our friends and family, scammers and hackers are doubling (tripling?) their efforts to get a hold of your valuable information.

The "originality" that scammers use to try to get people to click on their emails... Nope, this doesn't look phishy at all!

Here at J Street, we say that we build and support database applications. But really, what we do is solve problems. Every day. That is our job. And it's a skill that we've developed.

At first glance, this email looks legit. There is the Microsoft logo. All the words are spelled correctly and proper grammar format is followed...

If your life is anything like mine, anything that can help your day go smoother would be welcome. Here are a few things I've learned over the years that I use to keep me organized and efficient.

The hardest part of software development isn't actually software development - it's estimating how long the software development will take.

A great leader can make all the difference between success and failure, productivity and frustration, satisfaction and disappointment. But how do you know when someone's a great leader?

A few months ago we moved out of our physical office and went completely virtual! No, that doesn't mean that we are all CGI characters (we are still real humans), but it does mean that we no longer gather to work at a permanent office.

Do you respond quickly to communications sent to you? I'm not talking about spam or unsolicited email. I'm talking about real, honest requests and questions. I think you should try to respond right away, for a few reasons:

One of the hardest subjects to broach, in business or personal matters, is money. People are often uncomfortable bringing up the topic, especially when they need a product or service they're not very familiar with.

Sometimes we try to spare someone's feelings by saying "maybe" or "later" when the authentic answer is really "no".

Some customers balk when we tell them that we'll do some planning and design to start their project. They want us to just start coding. But we know that's a bad idea...