December 2004 Newsletter
Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment. –Barry LePatner
He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. –Edmund Burke
The only people with whom you should try to get even are those who have helped you. –John E. Southard
However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. –Winston Churchill
Patience is also a form of action. –Auguste Rodin
Yes, risk taking is inherently failure-prone. Otherwise, it would be called sure-thing-taking. –Tim McMahon
Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones. –Phillips Brooks
Ward Cunningham, who
created the wiki, discusses his
recommendations for development. He
makes some interesting analogies between programming activities and finances.
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,1995,1684364,00.asp
Typically, when a system project fails, blame is placed squarely on
IT. This writer posits that perhaps the
users are more often responsible and that difficulties in IT projects are
really just a reflection of increased complexity of the business operations and
reliance of the business on technology.
http://management.silicon.com/careers/0,39024671,39125716,00.htm
This list of common mistakes in IT is based surveys of IT
organizations. Each vignette includes
some tips on preventing these mistakes yourself.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/11/19/47FEtop20_1.html
Tom DeMarco discusses the key elements of a successful risk analysis and
mitigation strategy for software development projects.
http://www.sdmagazine.com/documents/s=9352/sdmsde04b/sdmsde04b.htm
Interview with John Kotter, a
leadership guru, about how corporate culture impacts, both positively and
negatively, efforts for alignment between business units and IT.
http://www.cioinsight.com/article2/0,1397,1699401,00.asp
This author posits that software development is still stuck in the
"Stone Age", because all programming is based on the premise that the
programming think like the computer. He
suggests a model for reversing this paradigm using what he terms language
oriented programming.
http://www.onboard.jetbrains.com/articles/04/10/lop/
http://www.onboard.jetbrains.com/articles/04/10/lop/mps.pdf
Many researchers have conceded that "defect-free" software is likely unachievable. New efforts are underway to allow systems to recover from failure without losing system availability or data using so-called "micro-reboots".
http://www.computerworld.com/developmenttopics/development/story/0,10801,97230,00.html
This article discusses how testers and developers can work more effectively together. As with most such tasks, the key is communication centering on clear, concise, and timely sharing of information.
http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=351606
This article gives brief reviews and comparisons of some free, open source Java and web testing tools available via the Freshmeat site.
http://freshmeat.com/articles/view/1369
The entire computer world is based on microelectronics. This brief, non-technical article describes
how raw silicon is converted into CPUs and other electronic chips.
http://www.sudhian.com/showdocs.cfm?aid=619
This is a full online copy of a new text on developing GUI programs in
C++ using the QT
cross-platform GUI toolkit.
http://phptr.com/content/images/0131240722/downloads/blanchette_book.pdf
This companion site to Roger
Pressman's classic text Software
Engineering: A Practitioner's Approach provides links to hundreds of
free, downloadable resources on a variety of software development topics.
http://www.rspa.com/reflib/Index.html
This
comprehensive online reference provides details on all of the command line
commands in the Windows NT-based operating systems. (Note: Some commands
listed are only available in later OSes, such as Windows 2000 or XP.)
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/ntcmds.mspx
WorldWideLearn is a very well organized categorized listing of online learning resources, including online degree programs, personal and professional development, and free online courses and training.
http://www.worldwidelearn.com/
This article explores what companies and managers can do to foster creativity among technical employees. The basic premise is that challenging work, not "perks" are what motivates technologists.
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/resource/nov04/1104care.html
Lots of folks spend a good deal of time trying to measure the software development process. Here are some metrics that you might not have heard of.
http://www.elsop.com/wrc/humor/softmetr.htm
Carl Eller was a defensive end for the Minnesota Vikings in their glory days of the '60s and '70s. In this transcript from his speech at his induction to the pro football hall of fame, he talks about what separates winners from losers.
http://www.profootballhof.com/history/release.jsp?release_id=1256
This is a job search site that doesn't take itself too seriously. While it offers practical advice for the job hunter, it also has some tongue-in-cheek sections, such as the popular funny resignation letters.
This simple tool allows you to mount CD-ROM images in ISO format as additional drives on your system. While indicated for use only on Window XP systems, this tool works fine in Windows 2000, as well.
FreeQueryBuilder is a graphical SQL query builder that is compatible with any JDBC-compliant database, including Oracle, MySQL, MS SQL Server, and others. It queries the schema structure and allows you to graphically create joins in a point-and-click fashion and then execute the query.
Hide Windows places an icon in your system tray. To use it, simply set focus (make active) the window that you want to hide and click on the tray icon. The window will be hidden and removed from the task bar. Right-click on the icon to display a list of hidden windows and select the window to unhide.
http://www5.domaindlx.com/indoreforum/Hide%20Windows/
NetDrive allows you to connect to an FTP or HTTP (including HTTPS) server like it was another network drive mapped on your system. This allows drag-and-drop file transfers via Windows Explorer and simple management of server file systems. The tool is highly-configurable, but quite intuitive as well. (The site implies that the utility works only with Netware, but it really works on any Windows platform that supports TCP/IP.)
http://support.novell.com/servlet/filedownload/uns/pub/ndrv41862.exe/
By default, MS Word shows the filename of the file that is being edited in the title bar. However, when you work on multiple documents simultaneously, it can be confusing about which directory a particular file is in. With a couple of simple macros, you can have Word show the full path prepended to the filename in the title. Here's how:
(1) Select Tools | Macro | Macros… from the main menu in Word.
(2) In the Macros window, choose Normal.dot from the Macros in list, enter the name AutoOpen in the Macro name field and press Create. This creates the new macro in your Normal (global) template, so that it is available in all Word sessions.
(3) In the Microsoft Visual Basic editor, modify the shell of the AutoOpen macro to be:
Sub
AutoOpen()
ActiveWindow.Caption
= ActiveDocument.FullName
End Sub
(4) Add another macro with the definition:
Sub
FileSaveAs()
Dialogs(wdDialogFileSaveAs).Show
System.Cursor
= wdCursorNormal
ActiveWindow.Caption
= ActiveDocument.FullName
End Sub
(5) In the Microsoft Visual Basic editor, select File | Save Normal from the menu and close the editor to return to MS Word.
Now, whenever you save or open a document in Word the full path will be displayed in the title bar.
The Robot Hall of Fame established by the robotics institute at Carnegie-Mellon University pays tribute to robots, both from science and science fiction, and their contributions to society. One of the 2004 inductees is Star Wars' C-3PO.
http://www.robothalloffame.org/
One IT veteran's humorous look at how the number 3 comes up in many interesting ways in the software development process.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/27/1098667823448.html
This crazy site takes bits of text from post-modern literature and tries (actually quite successfully!) to string it together into a coherent discourse. The results are really quite humorous.
http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/postmodern/
Why waste time actually evaluating an employees performance when this one-stop shop can auto-generate a review for anyone with just a few simple questions?!
http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/dilbert/games/career/html/questions.html