Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Great Little Productivity Enhancing Software

We all have to handle multiple projects for various customers and internal development.

How do you keep track of each one, How do you know what is the status of the last project that you have not touched for 2 weeks.

I always had trouble shuffling projects. I found a very effective tool called to-do list from abstract spoon and it is very effective.

Please evaluate for your self

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/applications/todolist2.aspx

Friday, December 05, 2008

Looking for Jobs in Difficult Times

It is difficult and painful to look for job in SoftwareEngineering in this time of turmoil. However there are couple of things you can do.

1.0 Join Education Extension Services ( Most Universities have this )to do meta learning- This means you have to find out what is important that you must be willing to learn.

2.0 Learn to discipline yourself- In this economic times measurable , reproducible and desirable skills are necessary.

For instance you need skills at ground level and University will provide knowledge at 50,000 feet level. Learn to differentiate between knowledge and skills. Do put special emphasis on the skills part of it.

3.0 Learn to understand the unstated rule of the game- in most countries people will not hire Govt. sector employees in private sector. In this economy SMB market is poised for rebound faster tahn others and you should be looking for assignment there. This also means the SMB market will be looking for hard skills. If you have worked in soft skills area. this will be definitely difficult. In this economic climate a large number of people will be redundant with soft skills. What is your employment strategy.

4.0 You may have to embrace GTD-getting things done. You may have to network during day and study during night. I recently came across a cultural mind-set in Europe. If you have no jobs for 2 years , your are not employable.

5.0 The criteria for interview in SMB market Place are the following- (a) Smart and Get things Done --- The book.

(b) Humble, Hungry and Smart.

5.0 In SMB market, you have to be aligned with market dynamics. If for any reason you give the impression that you are reluctant to learn- You can not be called for interview.

6.0 For new graduates- The onus on you to educate yourself for the application of your knowledge. The days of training someone for 3 years in the hope that you might produce something is gone. Take a look into dice.com of the reality of the Job market. If the masters program at CS/EE did not prepare you for SystemC/.NET Programming-- too bad. you have to prepare yourself.

7.0 Time for extreme competition is on us and we can embrace it or watch TV and drink beer- the choice is yours.

Ref:

1.0 Smart and Gets things Done ISBN-10: 1590598385

2.0 Execution- ISBN-10: 0609610570

3.0 Humble, Hungry, Smart

These are some of my personal views.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Software Engineering Jobs

I see many people are putting software jobs in the group discussion. I have created a separate blog for this and you ware most welcome to put the job ads there. Use the Jobs forum

The Url is www.ias-research.com/blog

In another note I need people to contribute to this blog and its maintenance. I need your ideas.

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Acceptance of SOA, WCF, WPF in Enterprise Development

I am working on SOA acceptance with WCF and WPF in Enterprise development.

Please post your thoughts in this subject matter.

Economic Crisis and Software Industry

The impact of Global Economic Meltdown will have couple of very significant effect on the It and software Industry:

1.0 More Telecommuting and VPN will be embraced.

2.0 Managed Services will be wide spread

3.0 More Software Development will be outsourced.

4.0 More Technical Jobs will move to India/China.

5.0 Web 2.0 will be embraced aggressively

I think the middle management in Post industrial economy will be brutally reduced.

These are my personal opinion.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Open Source .NET Framework Integration in your Development

How are you using open source .NET Development frameworks in your current and near future projects.

Please post your comments

Reference

CodePlex

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Scalability of Web Application

Scalability for Web applications is crucial and perhaps more important than desktop applications. In desktop applications you have control of the number of users using the application, while in web application the number can jump drastically without any hint. This is however a good thing because we need more traffic . A majority of the developers however do not have formal background in application instrumentation and analysis. Load balancing is another area that needs to be investigated in such areas.

The following Google presentation based on ruby on rails and dtrace explores the idea. I like the web cast and it is simply brilliant.

Google Scalability Video

The two books and conferences that you may find useful are the following:

1.0 Usenix Conference

Usenix Site

2.0 Cal Handserson Book

Cal Handerson Book

3. Theo Book

Theo Book

I would love to hear your reaction to this video. I am personally slightly amused.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Flight of the Creative Class

Flight of the Creative class- dated but still relevant.

Post your comment.

1.0 http://creativeclass.com/

2.0 http://creativeclass.com/richard_florida/video/index.php?video=KUOW_Seattle

Friday, July 18, 2008

SEO Resources and Books

I found the following book very useful.

Particularly the resources list.

Check the link and digg for the details.
http://buildingfindablewebsites.com/resources.php

Monday, May 26, 2008

Application Frameworks-

I am doing research on windows application frameworks.

All pointers will be appreciated.

1.0Theoretical papers

2.0 Tutorials

3.0 Web Videos

4.0 Integration methods

5.0 Testing Methods.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Important Books that Have Changed my Thinking ...

1.0 Rules for Revolutionaries- GUY Kawasaki
2.0 Principals of Operating Systems- Sacha Krakowiak
3.0 Object Oriented Software Engineering- Ivar Jacobsen
4.0 Extreme Prrogramming Explained- Kent Beck
5.0 Beyond Software Architecture- Luke Hohman
6.0 Object Oriented Software Development- Anton Eliens

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Ajax in Action-

I am reading this book Ajax in Action.

It is good read but I think there are better one for AjaX ISBN-1-932394-61-3

The following Article for Code project is also useful.

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/ajax/IntroAjaxASPNET.aspx

Sunday, May 04, 2008

Open Source Diva- Please take a few minutes to Watch this Video

This is about Sun's Open Source Initiative

http://www.linux.com/feature/132699

Thursday, May 01, 2008

http://workatjelly.com/

Collaboration at New level and this I think is My Pick as a winner.

BTW workatjelly is a collaborative website for working together.

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Attaching SQL Database in MDF Format

Quite Often I have to attach sql server database in mdf format to my development platform . However primary file location can not be recreated due to various reasons.

I am looking for a methods to attach such mdf files to sql server express 2005.

All Pointers will be appreciated.

Monday, April 28, 2008

OASIS Launches New Group to Optimize SOA for Telecommunications

The OASIS open standards consortium today announced a new initiative aimed at bringing the full advantages of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) to the telecommunications industry. The OASIS Telecommunications Services Member Section (OASIS Telecom) will work to pave the way for a new business model that will make telecommunications services more intelligent, deployable, and easy to consume.

Read More

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Not all databases are created equal...

In today's IT environment, many think of the database as just the persistence layer of objects, or as a commodity. If your database isn't performing well enough, then just throw more hardware at it. While this belief is pervasive, it isn't true.

I recently had one example that shows that each database vendor had a different solution to the same problem.

I have a customer who had overloaded a table's purpose. The table stored different types of comment lines associated to an object. So the layout looked like:
id - the id of the object that it was describing.
type - the type of comment.
sequence - used if there are more than one entry of a given type for this comment
comment_text - the actual text we want to store in the database.

Now the problem arose due to a requirement that we only allow a single entry per id of a comment who has the type = 'c'.
All other types would allow multiple entries.

I looked for a solution in IDS, DB2 and Oracle.

In Oracle, because their indexes allowed nulls, you could create a functional index where the function was inline and returned either the unique id, or null if the id was already in the database.

In IDS, you had two solutions. First was a functional index that you'd either error out if there was an entry of type = 'c' for the given id, or you would return a combination of the id, type, and sequence.
The second solution... use their VII to create an index that mimics Oracle and you can use their solution.

In DB2, you'd have to create a trigger.

While I support all three of the databases at various clients, I have to admit that I loved the simplicity of Oracle's solution.

I also like the fact that IDS's solution as it would also work in Oracle, and that IDS has the ability to extend itself and mimic other features in other databases that are not native to itself.

I was less impressed with the DB2 solution, however I was told that it was extremely efficient.

The point is, while each of the two database vendors (Oracle, and IBM)[IBM owns DB2 and IDS], has the ability to solve the problem, they do so in slightly different methods. Each method has a slightly different cost and will effect performance.

An alternative would have been to separate the table in to multiple tables, the use of an Index had the least amount of development impact.

So the next time you look at choosing a database platform, don't buy in to the idea that they are all the same thing aka a commodity.

Monday, April 14, 2008

E commerce Framework with PHP/ASP.NET

I am exploring what are availability of Commercial Grade E-commerce Frameworks available. The framworks should integrate with Dreamweaver/ASP.net Development in VS 2005/Vs2008.

I need to explore both PHP based and ASP.NET solutions.

As I explore the situation , I will post the Results

Please post your usability experience, if you have any

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Consulting and Delivering Values

I have found this material to be quite good.
I always watch out for people who can talk and can not deliver. Consultants without implementation experience is useless.

http://www.summitconsulting.com/articles/index.html

Also look into marketing your skills

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4622195&affil=wftv

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Universal Data Models

I have to design database schema quite a number of time and I simply consider designing from scratch a waste of time.

I have the two particular reference very use ful.

1.o The Database Source book Vol-1- Len Silverston- ISBN 0-471-35348-5

2.0 The Database source Book Vol 2- Len Silverston- ISBN 0-471-38023-7

These books are very good , however each CDROM has asking price of 500 dollars. I do not recommend purchasing the CDROM Auth code.

The material in the Book is very much time saver.

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Books That I keep Near my Desk

There are some books that I keep near My desk while working

1.0 Building Applications and Components with VB.net, Ted Pattison, dr. Joe Hummel-ISBN- 0-201-73495-8

2.0 Windows Forms Programming in VB.net , Chris sells, Justin Gethland- ISBN- 0-321-12519-3

3.0 VB.net and C#.net Cookbooks from Oreily's.

These core set of books are very helpful as I waste a lot of time wandering through MSDN documentation.

I also found that MSDN documentation becomes slightly useful when I have dynamic help turned on in VS 2005 and 2008.

Monday, April 07, 2008

Microsoft Solutions Framework

I have started my journey involving MSF-3.0 and will post all the discoveries and pitfalls on the way. I will be using Enterprise Architect-7.0 and Vs 2005 for the Journey.

Here is the Url from Microsoft.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/solutionaccelerators/msf/default.mspx

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Transaction Processing - Advanced Topics

I was doing some research related to transaction processing and came across this book

Database and Transaction Processing- ISBN 0-321-18557-9

and found the material to be better in terms of easy grasp tham Reiters Classic Work on Transaction(Acm biblography).

The idea is how do we introduce concepts of transaction to junior programmers, and this book fits the bill.

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Want to Increase Productivity 4 Times

Follow the simple procedures

1.0 Buy GTD:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done

2.0 Life hacker:

http://lifehacker.com/software/geek-to-live/getting-things-done-with-google-notebook-256844.php

3.0 Use Google Notebooks: Create 5 notebooks

4.0 Install Fire Fox Extensions:

http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/

Not Done: back to 1.

Friday, March 28, 2008

How to start a Software Business

This is an interesting video of how to start a software business.

I will recommend it.

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=2680114700674428424&q=software+engineering&total=1519&start=20&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=5

Here are the PDF slides

http://www.plambeck.org/howtoquit.pdf

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Socratic Methods and Competitive Strategy

I am going thorough Competitive Strategy of Michel Porter and Socratic Methods to Increase Performance i IT and Software Business.

I will appreciate your input and feedback in this

Ref:

1.0 Competitive Strategy- Michel E Porter- ISBN -0-684-84148-7

2.0 http://www.socraticmethod.net/

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Starting your Own Software Business

If you are thinking of starting out your Own Software Business- this is the time.

I recommend the following books:

1.0 Success Thorough Positive Mental Attitude- ISBN- 0-671-74322-8

2.0 The Magic of Thinking Big- David Schwartz-0-671-64678-8

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Software Reuse- Architecture, Process and Organization for Business Success

It is one of the MUST READ Books, if you have any thing to do with software. I recommend it very much. The book is dated, but the contents are very valid

Authors: Ivor Jacobson, Martin Griss, Patrick Johnsson

ISBN- 0-201-92476-5

Also look into- Why software reuse has failed historicaly

http://www.cs.wustl.edu/~schmidt/reuse-lessons.html

ZEND 1.5 PHP Application Frameworks

I am working on Zend 1.5 PHP application frameworks.

If you are working on any aspect of PHP, it will be worth while to look into ZEND 1.5.

More on this later

Ref:

http://framework.zend.com/

Friday, March 21, 2008

Search Engine Optimization

I am in the process of writing an article about search engine optimization. Any help from your end will be appreciated.

I have gathered the following References:

1.0 Google Analytics: http://64.233.179.110/analytics/tour/index_en-US.html

2.0 Web Analytics Association

http://www.webanalyticsassociation.org/

3.0 Webtrends Webcast

http://www.webtrends.com/Resources/ExpertWebcasts.aspx

4.0 OnLine Marketing Blog

http://www.toprankblog.com/

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Competitive Strategy Linkedin Group

I am looking for Linkedin Group or website that discusses the following:
1.0 Dynamic Competitive Strategy- Like Wharton/Porter/S Day
2.0 Application areas being Software Engineering
3.0 Web 2.0 in Business
4.0 ERP- Like SAP/Salesforce/CRM
5.0 Information Technology- LAN/WAN/VOIP/Server/VPN/Biztalk

In short, I am looking for Information and ideas to align the following

Strategic Planning

Business Operation

Information Technology Implementation

ERP/CRM Deployment

Integration of Lean Six Sigma

Enabling Technology Like

.Net Development

Web 2.0 based Collaboration

Business Intelligence Integration.

Sales and Marketing Operation

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Design Patterns and Component Based Design

I understand design Patterns, and right now I am reading Ted Faison's book component based design. It is a wonderful book to begin with, since it touches on the UML at the beginning.

I am not clear at this point:

1.0 How component based design is different from design pattern and or application framework. I will post the details.

2.0 Since we can leverage existing third party components ( Read Software Class libraries, frameworks, components) in .NET technology, why I am not familiar with such.

3.0 Class libraries like LEDA, STL and Rougewave, I am aware of, but I do not see any three-tire business building components. I guess I will search www.dundas.com and others for that. May be code projects has some pointers on that.

Ref:

Component Based development with VS C#- Ted Faison- ISBN : 0-7645-4914-6

Sunday, March 16, 2008

My Feedback on Qi4j and Edward's Response

On 13th of March 2008, Thursday, I have attended a presentation on an old-new concept of programming, Composite Oriented Programming, presented by a well-known personality, Rickard Öberg. He is the guy behind XDoclets, WebWork, and Sitevision. He also wrote EJB Engine in JBoss 2.

The presentation was about Composite Oriented Programming for Java with Qi4j, at OUM Angkasaraya, Kuala Lumpur. I got to know this from Malaysian JUG. There were 15-20 folks attending the presentation. It was good, the presentation and question/answer session. Despite, I haven't asked a single question at that time. It was not that I was not having any. Actually, I waited for the other folks and finally I realised that few of my questions are now already got the answer. And the answers for the remaining I derived myself. :)

However, after coming the next day I have sent my feedback to the JUG. And just after few hours I have received the answers of my few worries from Edward Yakop. So, I would like to share those with you guys. Below is the thing.


Me - Too much abstraction

Edward - I'm not sure what this means? I think once u read the DDD book. You might conclude that this is needed.

Me - Big learning curve

Edward - Niclas and I had a chat over breakfast this morning. If we have two fresh programmer, who only knows java. And both of them are given task to create petstore. One use qi4j and the other use spring/jsf/wicket etcs. Who will get it done faster and better (in terms of quality, maintainable etcs).

If the document/tutorials will be as good as spring documents for example. I think we agree, that the qi4j guy will win. But then again, since we're not there in terms of documentation, tutorials, persistence. We better hold back our thoughts until all these are done.

But if we're talking about programmers who already know jpa, some view layer. Yeah, without investing time to learn qi4j. I think the programmer will be frustrated to work in this qi4j manner.

Me - Might be compelling in terms of maintenance

Edward - Sitevision is built on top of this concept. And based from Rickard observation. This should be a big plus in terms of project maintainbility.

One thing that I raised, is the fact that Rickard doesn't show the simple prototype that he did in order to see how module/layers/composite/concerns hang together.

From his blog post. And the screenshot.

If we create a better tooling for this, instead of rdf -> xsl -> html. We would have a powerful tool to figure out how does my application looks like. How does the concerns are stack, and even better, if I call this method, what would be the order of constraint, concern and sideeffects. Would the side effect be asynchronous.

We believe that with this information and tooling (need to be created). This should give a great information for maintainer.

Me - Suits large enterprise applications where maintenance and adding new feature is really cumbersome

Edward - Agree.

Me - Wish it would be a success

Edward - Yeah :) We sure hope so too.

Me - Might look insane before trying it out

Edward - Probably :) But, after working on qi4j during spare time and coding standard java way for commercial project. I personally going insane with the standard way to code :(

Me - Performance would become a primary issue

Edward - Not really. Sitevision is a proof that performance is a non issue. I think with all the experience that Rickard had with sitevision. Qi4j will most probably does not have performance issue in the future.

Me - Not sure how we can bind the object with HTTP request, and how would we use it via JSTL. I hope there would be typical getters/setters behind the scene

Edward - Yeah, this is similar problem that I have atm with qi4j-ibatis entity store. If the project is opensource, I think u could try to convince them to create a pluggable getter/setter resolution. This way, we can hook qi4j way to get and set. Otherwise, there's probably nothing much we can do :(

The current plan is to have qi4j-ibatis, qi4j-neo and qi4j-wicket integration. I'm working on both qi4j-ibatis (in and qi4j-wicket intergation and Rickard and Niclas is working on Entity Session API and core. Once these are done. I will update chronos app.

Me - Not sure how we can integrate with JSF based frameworks i.e. Seam

Edward - You don't. I don't know much about seam. But in order for qi4j to replace seam, we will need to be at least seam feature complete.

Me - Looks we still need to come up with data access layer on our own or through using some other frameworks.

Edward - You don't really need to come up with data access layer at all. You just have to use what we have. if I batis is used, then you would need to create statementid for each composite, association. This way qi4j-ibatis will now which statement to call to delete, update, insert, fetch association.

More to this later, once I complete this.

Me - Time will tell where it is going and how

Edward - Yup

Me - Would love to contribute if I can. I believe we need to go through the DDD book, learn, at least,a basics of Ruby on Rails, and Java Annotations prior to contribute

Edward - Yes, I believe.

Me - We already used to have a cup of coffee or two while programming but now it seems, from the logo, that we should start eating coffee beans too through those chopsticks

Edward - It's closer to Eating steaming HOT rice with chopstick. :)

Friday, March 14, 2008

PHP Development Using Eclipse Europa

I program quite extensively using PHP for dynamic web sites and e-commerce, commonly known as LAMP architecture. So far I have been using Emacs and Vi and other editors in Unix system.

Recently I downloaded Eclipse for PHP called europa version. I was simply impressed by the eclipse feature. what is more interesting is that I could integrate Apache 2.0 running on Redhat Linux machine's PHP directory directly from the Project File location.

The result is 150% immediate increase in productivity. To make this happen, you have to map the Linux file system using samba.

The Next project is to do the same with Dreamweaver -8.

Using Windows Live Writer

I have started using windows Live Writer - it is free and seems to be very good.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

RPC-Socket-Threads-Signal- Distributed Programming

You Learn Good Programming Techniques by Working with Linux/SUN



It may sound funny , but I have observed that good programing skills are developed by working with SUN/Solaris/Linux.


Difficult concepts like

1.0 Inter process communication (IPC)
2.0 Multithreading
3.0 Signal Handling for Process
4.0 Garbage Collection /Memory Leakage
5.0 Remote Procedure Calls (RPC)
6.0 Common Object Request Broker Architecture(CORBA, WCF)
7.0 Distributed Programming
8.0 Dynamic Linking
are difficult to master in Windows environment. MSDN has no concept of explaining!!!!!

I have benefited by reading the following materials to really understand how they are implemented and how they work.

1.0 Doglas Comer’s Books- XINU/Networking 2 Volumes
2.0 Richard Stevens Networking
3.0 Sun RPC Tutorials
4.0 Unix Programming


I would suggest any one to look into these before jumping into Windows and .Net.

Jumping Straight into .Net gives you very superficial ideas of these concepts.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

VS 2008 and VS 2005 on the Same MAchine

Visual Studio 2008 and Visual studio 2005 on the same Machines


I just received a Dell Vostro 4000 Quad Core- (2.4GHZ) 4GB Memory with 500GB Sata drive and 19# monitor.


I am not too happy with the machine for the Following reasons:


1.0 It Has 300w of Power supply, which is not adequate
2.0 Speakers are powered from USB Outlet, which is pathetic.
3.0 The Monitor is running ar 1280*1024 in 32 bit mode, The colour and contrast rendering is very poor.
4.0 The Key board rattles
5.0 The mouse buttons rattles and accidentally by slight click turns into web page magnification mode while scrolling.

Any way, I was trying to work with Dreamwever 8 and VS 2008 professional on the same machine.

The machines has XPP with service pack 2 and all the updates.

Now the problem begins:

1.0 C# applications which interfaces with Ado.net and Sql express 2005 is crashing in VS 2008 with no apparent reason. The event log of the machines is Giving run time .NET Version 2 Error. I am yet to decipher this bug with MSDN knowledge base. Many people in code project has had this bug in VS 2008.
2.0 So to get the project Going I installed VS 2005 Prof on the same machine. I started getting, Security violation error- project locations is not safe etc etc.
3.0 Applied all the patches for VS 2005 service pack 1. After this Security violation error went away. However Even in Vs 2005 – Unknown run time error is still there.
4.0 I have a question, Do I have to Uninstall Sql Express 2005 which is part of VS 2008.
5.0 For some reason VS 2005 is unable to access SQL Express 2005 Tables.

Any suggestions will be appreciated.

One suggestions that I have received in CodeProject is to De-CRAPIFY the sytem.
Which involves RE Installing XPP and So on. I am trying to save some time.

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Software Project Failures-What Went Wrong

We understand more form failure analysis. To this effect it is only natural that we examine failed software projects:

If you would like to share failed projects, please post you thoughts here.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Free IT Information

We have created a free BB Site for IT Related Infomration. Feel Free to post your questions.
we will try to answer your questions in a short period of time. Also you are welcome to post answers to the questions that other people have.

Cheers

http://www.askushow.ca/

Sunday, March 09, 2008

Formal Specification and Research

Formal Specification has long history in the academic field. It is interesting that large amount is research is done in academics regarding formal specification


UML/SDL are actually implementation of the Formal specification in the Graphical Domain.


If you are interested in the research aspect of the formal specification and systems engineering please follow this link.


Please remember these are research tools at the present moment.
The ideas and projects will give you future directions to come in Software Engineering and Systems Engineering discipline.

Formal Specification can be used for Hardware Design for such language as VHD/Verilog/SystemsC and also in software design such as C++/C#

Formal Specification has not entered the Formal HYPE CYCLE ( still considered sissy-IE. difficult to understand) as they say it in academics.

Related Link:
http://nms.lcs.mit.edu/Larch/

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Eclipse Process Framework Project- Bacon

Eclipse Process framwork Project by Bacon - a Must Read. At least we should look at Bacon's Slides.

More on this later

http://www.eclipse.org/proposals/beacon/

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Application Framework in C#

I was told that I should be looking into Application Framework and C# book such as.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1590592883/ref=reg_hu-wl_item-added

There is no google preview and my local library/bookstore has no copy.

I am yet to acquire this book, however I have planty of GOF Patterns books. and

I have read this one

http://www.amazon.com/Enterprise-Development-Visual-Studio-NET/dp/1590590422/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203899131&sr=8-7
As I get the book and revise the Framework, I will post more details.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

MSDN Channel 9 Videos

I have a habit of watching Videos, when I am having a cofee and or taking a break:
Microsft Reasearch and Architectural Videos are worth watching, including Framewoks and stuff


What do you think?

http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/ARCast.TV
http://channel9.msdn.com/

Monday, February 04, 2008

Writing for the Web

Since a large number of E-commerce and Static website requires good amount of English Composition- The process can be frustrating since the objective of writing has no fixed goal.

Are we writing to create an online marketing campaign? Are we creating a Public Relations material that is supposed to create abuzz like strong German Schnups. Or the public relations will be low key like warm Glue Wine of Scandinavian Christmas.
Or are we just trying to create some stupid Web Pages with zillions of CSS so that we get paid and run!

In more technical sense, Are we substantiating an argument? Using persuasion and compare and contrast to establish a point. Are we just trying to educate some factual information? Who is our target audience? Why such person be interested in our website?
Does the end user needs to be entertained? excited? provoked? educated?

Some how the short answer seems to all the above- and that makes it difficult.

I have found a solution. A new book on web content design seems to be immensely practical and useful. I am reading it , right now-Killer Web Content- Garry McGovern . I highly suggest this book to any one involved in web design and content creation.


Reference:

1.0 http://www.useit.com/
2.0 http://websitetips.com/
3.0 Information Architecture- ISBN 0-596-52734-

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Continuous Inspection: Sharing A Practice

There are several ways to achieve continuous inspection. Some organisations do it by pair reviewing where one person types and the other is considered suggesting code and design improvements. Some teams have another developer review their code before committing it to the VCS repository. Some follow formal peer reviews, in which a developer's peers watch the code and offer better ideas. And may be few more.

In our case we do it using code reviews, which is more like the second form, I have mentioned in the paragraph above. But we do it after committing to VCS. Not a good thing right? I would elaborate it later. The other way we follow is pair programming which is not exactly the form of continuous inspection, but it helps in some way, if not exactly.


Pair Programming
It something annoyed few of our team mates, including me, in the beginning. Nobody was comfortable when someone is watching while the one programs. But after practicing it for a few weeks things changed. One important thing is we must switch in both ways for example, I watch, you code now you watch, I code; and the other is switching the partners so everybody knows everyones weak and strong points and the style of coding. That brings a drastic personal improvement. We found it as an efficient way for some tasks and bad, not really bad but inappropriate, for others. This works best when its about to train a new developer, to implement something complex or not routine and it helps transferring the skills as well. So, now we don't practice this for every other task.

After getting all these benefits, one benefits which it gives you the code quality and most of the time you don't really need to inspect the code exclusively.

Code Reviews
This is the thing, we merely follow for continuous inspection. In our team we found that most of us are very good in coding but not as good in reviewing other developers code. So, what we did was, we generated code review tickets using hook script provided by our project management system. Its your choice how you want to generate it whether you want the tickets to be assigned randomly or in a particular order. Now, on every commit we have a code review ticket assigned to any of the team mate. He/She needs to review it and then close it after making appropriate changes, if required. This way we got a good improvement in the skill of understanding other developers code and the design pattern we should follow for a particular scenario. We improved on software quality, bug reports, code clarity.

Please share your's in comments. Thanks.

Related Links:
Automation for the people: Continuous Inspection
Paul Duvall on continuous inspection with software inspectors
Peer Reviews in Software: A Practical Guide

Monday, January 14, 2008

Hello Everyone

I would just like to say hello to everyone in the group. This is my first posting on this blog and I look forward to blogging with everyone more. I would just like to share with everyone http://babajob.com/person.htm?user=10001

This is Sean Blagsvedt, a Microsoft alum who left a lucrative job with them to start Babajob and Babalife in Bangalore, the IT Capital of India. I think what he is doing is incredible and I am trying to help spread the word as much as I can because I think that he provides a great example for how empowered we can be if we believe in a cause and have the guts to follow through. Please also see my other blog on Wordpress http://benkross.wordpress.com/. If anyone wants to talk more about this or any other topic, feel free to call me at 212-204-1025 or my cell 914-523-6166. Please reference Blogger so I know where the call is coming from.

Cheers and happy blogging,

Ben Ross
IT Recruiter
Forrest Solutions
212-204-1025
bross@forrestsolutions.com

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Jommla, LAMP, Dreamweaver, CSS, PHP and ASP.NET

Trying to understand where Joomla, LAMP, Dreamweaver, CSS, PHP and Asp.net work together for SMB marketplace. More and more customers are asking for web maintenance/update functionalty; can Macromedia Contribute work with these technologies?


As I discover these answers, I will update the Blog.

Sunday, January 06, 2008

Push to Test- Google Tech Talk- Must see

Please watch this google tech talk-push to test, some thing new- and better
Push to test video
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-4427578441647658650