August 2005 Newsletter
Life is short. Be swift to love! Make haste to be kind! –Henri Frederic Amiel
The person who sends out positive thoughts activates the world around him positively and draws back to himself positive results. –Norman Vincent Peale
All human situations have their inconveniences. We feel those of the present but neither see nor feel those of the future; and hence we often make troublesome changes without amendment, and frequently for the worse. –Benjamin Franklin
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn
more, do more and become more, you are a leader. –John Quincy
Worry is believed to be a major contributor to illness. Every day people crucify themselves between two thieves: one, the regret of lost opportunity; the other, the fear of what tomorrow may bring. Worry never accomplishes anything. –Thomas D. Willhite
Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful. –Samuel Johnson
This article questions the wisdom of the continued reliance on
project-based worked considering how frequently they are over schedule and
budget.
http://www.economist.com/business/displayStory.cfm?story_id=4065653
The excerpt from a new book on software
development project management discusses in good detail the project
planning process, how planning fits into the project, and how planning (good or
bad) affects the project. The entire books is written with an easy-to-read and approachable
style.
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/artprojectmgmt/chapter/ch03.pdf
This brief 10-question quiz covering topics from planning to communicating to handling collaboration and risk management
can help identify some shortcomings that could be hampering the success of your
projects.
http://techrepublic.com.com/5138-10878-5793150.html
While originally intended for developers of free/open-source software (F/OSS),
this excellent article has general applicability to how to design GUIs for all
types of applications. The article helps
you to understand the important aspects for GUI construction and how to view
the application from the user perspective.
http://benroe.com/files/gui.html
This brief article examines the fundamental criteria for "good"
requirements and presents an "action plan" for how to gather and maintain
business requirements.
This article uses the paradigm of a house to compare some of the poor design techniques that developers and designers use when writing software. Although a little tongue-in-cheek, the article provides some good perspectives on good design principles for software.
http://www.userinterfacehallofshame.com/index.php?p=51
This article tries to establish some standard definitions for acceptance testing and operational testing.
http://www.cigital.com/papers/download/s3qua.lo.pdf
This article discusses how some companies are addressing software quality problems by implementing quality assurance efforts throughout the development life cycle and by improving testing.
http://www.computerworld.com/developmenttopics/development/story/0,10801,103378,00.html
One of the fundamental building blocks of the Linux/Unix systems
architecture is the concept of the process.
This sample chapter discusses processes and how they relate to user
permissions, file handles, communication, and more.
http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=397655
This article provides a nice overview of the new AJAX architecture for web
applications. It continues with a very
easy to understand, but complete, example of how to use
http://www.builderau.com.au/program/0,39024614,39195723,00.htm
This is an excellent 3-part series that introduces using PHP starting
with a basic PHP script and moving on to using PHP for database access and
streaming from the filesystem. The series discusses the topics in the
context of building a document workflow system.
(Requires free registration.)
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/edu/os-dw-os-phptut1-i.html?ca=dgr-lnxw07PHPtut1
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/edu/os-dw-os-phptut2-i.html?ca=dgr-lnxw07PHPtut2
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/edu/os-dw-os-phptut3-i.html?ca=dgr-lnxw07PHPtut3
This download provides a good overview of C++, including the obligatory
"Hello, world!" program. In
addition to the simple basics of C++, it gives some nice, non-technical
background on the language and links to other C++ resources.
http://techrepublic.com.com/i/tr/downloads/home/article_comp/bldrqs_cpp.zip
Annual report from Computerworld about the companies that provide the most innovative and enjoyable environments for IT employees. Report includes profiles of the top 5, the criteria used for determining the best places and scorecards from the evaluations. They also provide an editorial list of ways to make a company one of the worst places to work.
http://www.computerworld.com/careertopics/careers/report/0,11188,06272005,00.html
The CEO of SAS, Inc. discusses the principles behind motivating technical and creative employees. Some of the ideas include valuing the work (intellectual assets) over the tools (hard assets), rewarding excellence with new challenges, and minimizing administrative hassles.
http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/hbrsa/en/issue/0507/article/R0507L.jhtml
Without commitments, an organization would eventually come to a standstill. This article discusses implicit and explicit commitments and how following through on them helps each of us.
http://techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-5737009.html
After working with computers for so long, many cognitive scientists had concluded that computers were a good model for brain function, in terms of discrete processing. This new study shows fundamental differences, particularly that the brain processes continuously (non-linearly).
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/June05/new.mind.model.ssl.html
A survey by AOL and Salary.com found that workers spend an average of 2.09 hours per day on non-work-related Internet activity. This was more than twice the amount expected by managers. Younger workers wasted more time online than older workers.
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=165701397
Quality Assurance Agent (QAA) is an XUL Mozilla Firefox extension that allows scripted web site testing. It even supports record and playback of test scripts.
http://labs.libre-entreprise.org/projects/qaa/
CursorUS is a small background utility that allows the mouse cursor to reappear on the other side of the desktop when it is dragged off of the edge (left or right and top or bottom) of the screen. The wrap-around function can be temporarily disabled by double-clicking on the CursorUS icon in the system tray.
http://www.loonies.narod.ru/products.htm
This electronic version of the 40,000-entry Merriam-Webster's Concise Dictionary of American English includes clear, concise definitions, written pronunciations, and variant spellings. (Requires installation of iFinger plugin engine.)
http://www.download.com/Merriam-Webster-s-Concise-Dictionary/3000-2279_4-10247580.html
rcFTP stands for "right-click FTP". This handy utility adds an FTP upload option to the context (right-click) menu in Windows Explorer. Just right-click on a file and choose Send To | Upload with rcFTP to upload your file. Great utility for updating web site content.
http://www.chaozz.nl/?fileid=4
This is an advanced version of the built-in Windows Calculator that includes unit conversion functionality. The unit conversion functions include functions for currency conversions and current currency conversion rates can be imported from the Internet.
PHP Project is a free (GPL) web-based project management tool based on PHP. The system requirements are quite simple and the environment is quite easy to install and maintain. Of course, it doesn't have all of the features of MS Project, but it's quite good for simply project management and tracking.
CNet presents their top 10 fads from the Web for all time. They range from the Hampsterdance craze to the Bush vs. Kerry JibJab election funny.
http://www.cnet.com/4520-11136_1-6268155-1.html
This is a truly amazing advertisement for the Honda Accord. Even in today's world of effective computer-graphics animation, this advertisement was made the "old-fashioned way". It required 606 takes to get it correct and took over 3 months of night-and-day work to complete. Further evidence that in our virtual world, nothing takes the place of the real thing.
http://www.steelcitysfinest.com/HondaAccordAd.htm
While most of us are familiar with
some of Beethoven’s works, such as his 5th Symphony, amazingly there
are literally hundreds of his compositions that have never been recorded or
performed. This site aims to make all of
Beethoven’s known work available via
http://www.unheardbeethoven.org/
Online, Flash-based versions of classic arcade games, such as Pac-Man, Asteroids, Simon, Space Invaders, and many more. Very retro and very fun!
The Onion humor news site images some headlines from 50 years into the future, with their classic tongue-in-cheek style.
http://www.theonion.com/2056-06-22/index_b.php