Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

In a drastic worldwide attempt to curb the spread of COVID-19, one third of the global population is now experiencing some form of lockdown. For the millions of Americans who have filed for unemployment over the last few weeks, there is nothing to do but wait. But for those on the frontline, time has never felt so limited. As hospitals around the world face buckling under the pressure of wave after wave of new patients, increasing the capacity of our healthcare systems has become our priority.

The shelter-in-place requirements around the world due to COVID-19 have prevented us from getting out much, but it has also opened views into a world we probably wouldn’t see otherwise. Not only do we get glimpses into celebrity homes as we watch the news, late-night talk shows, and concerts, we get to see into the lives and homes of the people we used to see in the office every day.

More than 2,000 developers from around the world participated in our open source bot hackfest, which we hosted on HackerEarth from January 10 through March 2. The goal of the event was to work with our community to create open source chatbots that integrate with Mattermost to accelerate DevOps and DevSecOps workflows, and we received many amazing submissions! We gave away $10,000 in prizes, including $6,000 cash to our top contributors.

In the new normal of the COVID-19 pandemic, a spare room is an office, a handshake is a threat, and a full shelf of toilet paper at the grocery store is nothing short of a miracle. In these unusual times, IT teams are stepping up and stepping outside their job description to help their users adapt to the shifting landscape in which we live and work.

We've all been there. It's early in the morning and you're jumping on a call. But you forgot it was a video call, and you also forgot to cover your webcam before joining. So now everyone knows you as the person who wears cheetah pajamas and has a serious case of bed head. Not ideal. Luckily practice makes perfect, and with the upcoming weeks of remote working, we gathered a few video call tips from body language expert, Vanessa Van Edwards.

I’m into my third week of working from home and I’m starting to feel it. My back is playing up, my neck and shoulders are tight, and my legs are getting increasingly more restless. My make-shift remote work setup consists of a little desk and a dining table chair. Not exactly the ergonomic home office setup the health and safety department would recommend. Everyone is working under different circumstances, but we all want to be as productive as we can. Some of you may still be in an office.

Remote pair programming is an Extreme Programming (XP) methodology which is a part of the Agile software development model. It takes the principle of pair programming to the remote workplace. Pair programming leads to higher quality code and fewer bugs by making continuous code reviews and synchronous collaboration possible. In traditional pair programming, two programmers sit side by side in front of the same computer.