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  • Best way to save complex Python data structures across program sessions (pickle, json, xml, database

    - by Malcolm
    Looking for advice on the best technique for saving complex Python data structures across program sessions. Here's a list of techniques I've come up with so far: pickle/cpickle json jsonpickle xml database (like SQLite) Pickle is the easiest and fastest technique, but my understanding is that there is no guarantee that pickle output will work across various versions of Python 2.x/3.x or across 32 and 64 bit implementations of Python. Json only works for simple data structures. Jsonpickle seems to correct this AND seems to be written to work across different versions of Python. Serializing to XML or to a database is possible, but represents extra effort since we would have to do the serialization ourselves manually. Thank you, Malcolm

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  • Asp:table bordercolor different html rendered for 1.1 and 2.0.

    - by Malcolm
    Hi I have the following markup .NET 1.1 app. I want the grid lines of the table to be darkgray this is the goal here. <asp:table id="tbl" Runat="server" CellSpacing="0" BorderColor="darkgray" GridLines="Both"></asp:table> I have the app in IIS set as ver 1.1 in my dev box and 2.0 in production for various reasons. The page source in 1.1 renders this <table id="ctlTimesheetMonthly_tbl" cellspacing="0" rules="all" bordercolor="DarkGray" border="1" style="border-color:DarkGray;border-collapse:collapse;">` 2.0 renders this <table id="ctlTimesheetMonthly_tbl" cellspacing="0" rules="all" border="1" style="border-color:DarkGray;border-collapse:collapse;"> Which is wrong as it produces a white border for some reason. Any idea how to get both the same?? Malcolm

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  • Converting datetime.ctime() values to Unicode

    - by Malcolm
    I would like to convert datetime.ctime() values to Unicode. Using Python 2.6.4 running under Windows I can set my locale to Spanish like below: import locale locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL, 'esp' ) Then I can pass %a, %A, %b, and %B to ctime() to get day and month names and abbreviations. import datetime dateValue = datetime.date( 2010, 5, 15 ) dayName = dateValue.strftime( '%A' ) dayName 's\xe1bado' How do I convert the 's\xe1bado' value to Unicode? Specifically what encoding do I use? I'm thinking I might do something like the following, but I'm not sure this is the right approach. codePage = locale.getdefaultlocale()[ 1 ] dayNameUnicode = unicode( dayName, codePage ) dayNameUnicode u's\xe1bado' Malcolm

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  • ASP.NET MVC How to call a secured page from a windows app?

    - by Malcolm
    Hi, I have a MVC app that has forms authentication enabled. The app allows printing of invoices. I have an external app that converts html to pdf. How can I call the secured page from this pdf converter app so that some security remains? The PDF converter app just requires a URL. One thought was to create a HttpHandler for an extenion of say .print and pass a public key in the URL qureystring that can be validated by the MVC app. Any ideas on this? Malcolm

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  • Import module stored in a cStringIO data structure vs. physical disk file

    - by Malcolm
    Is there a way to import a Python module stored in a cStringIO data structure vs. physical disk file? It looks like "imp.load_compiled(name, pathname[, file])" is what I need, but the description of this method (and similar methods) has the following disclaimer: Quote: "The file argument is the byte-compiled code file, open for reading in binary mode, from the beginning. It must currently be a real file object, not a user-defined class emulating a file." [1] I tried using a cStringIO object vs. a real file object, but the help documentation is correct - only a real file object can be used. Any ideas on why these modules would impose such a restriction or is this just an historical artifact? Are there any techniques I can use to avoid this physical file requirement? Thanks, Malcolm [1] http://docs.python.org/library/imp.html#imp.load_module

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  • Technique to limit number of instances of our application under Terminal Server

    - by Malcolm
    I'm looking for simple ways to monitor and limit the number of instances of our application under Terminal Server (2003 and 2008). The purpose of this restriction is to make sure we don't overload our servers. This is an internal administrative requirement - I am not looking for a licensing solution. The application in question is written in Python 2.6 (32-bit) but I'm happy to receive development tool agnostic answers. Although we are not using Citrix, I am happy to receive Citrix related ideas with the hope that I can use a similar technique with Terminal Server. Thank you, Malcolm

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  • While in CMD shell, copying files from host OS to guest VM locks files (VMware Player/Workstation)

    - by Malcolm
    We're running the latest versions of VMWare Player and Workstation for Windows. The following behavior is identical across both products. Problem: We open a CMD prompt in our guest OS (XP, Vista, Windows 7) and copy files from our host OS using the standard CMD shell copy command: copy z:\C$\testfiles The copy completes successfully, but from that point forward, all the files that were copied to our guest OS are now LOCKED on our host OS. This does not happen if we use Windows Explorer to copy files - it only happens when files are copied via the CMD shell. As mentioned at the start of this question, this behavior is reproducible in both VMWare Player and VMWare Workstation across multiple machines and multiple guest OS's. I've googled for a workaround, but without success. Any ideas appreciated. Malcolm

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  • Trying to connect phpMyAdmin to remote mySQL server ( 2002: can't connect )

    - by Malcolm Jones
    Trying to get phpMyAdmin to talk to a remote mySQL server. The config is below and there is already a user set up in mySQL DB to be able to log in from the specified host that PMA sits on. Hosting is provided by Rackspace (Rightscale) and both cloud servers behind the same firewall. [config.inc.php] <?php $cfg['blowfish_secret'] = ''; $i = 0; $i++; $cfg['Servers'][$i]['host'] = 'XX.XX.XX.XX'; // MySQL hostname or IP address $cfg['Servers'][$i]['port'] = ''; // MySQL port - leave blank for default port $cfg['Servers'][$i]['socket'] = ''; // Path to the socket - leave blank for default socket $cfg['Servers'][$i]['connect_type'] = 'tcp'; // How to connect to MySQL server ('tcp' or 'socket') $cfg['Servers'][$i]['extension'] = 'mysql'; // The php MySQL extension to use ('mysql' or 'mysqli') $cfg['Servers'][$i]['compress'] = FALSE; // Use compressed protocol for the MySQL connection // (requires PHP >= 4.3.0) $cfg['Servers'][$i]['controluser'] = ''; // MySQL control user settings // (this user must have read-only $cfg['Servers'][$i]['controlpass'] = ''; // access to the "mysql/user" // and "mysql/db" tables). // The controluser is also // used for all relational // features (pmadb) $cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] = 'config'; // Authentication method (config, http or cookie based)? $cfg['Servers'][$i]['user'] = 'USERNAME'; // MySQL user $cfg['Servers'][$i]['password'] = 'PASSWORD'; // MySQL password (only needed // with 'config' auth_type) $cfg['Servers'][$i]['only_db'] = ''; // If set to a db-name, only // this db is displayed in left frame // It may also be an array of db-names, where sorting order is relevant. $cfg['Servers'][$i]['hide_db'] = ''; // Database name to be hidden from listings $cfg['Servers'][$i]['verbose'] = ''; // Verbose name for this host - leave blank to show the hostname $cfg['Servers'][$i]['pmadb'] = ''; // Database used for Relation, Bookmark and PDF Features // (see scripts/create_tables.sql) // - leave blank for no support // DEFAULT: 'phpmyadmin' $cfg['Servers'][$i]['bookmarktable'] = ''; // Bookmark table // - leave blank for no bookmark support // DEFAULT: 'pma_bookmark' $cfg['Servers'][$i]['relation'] = ''; // table to describe the relation between links (see doc) // - leave blank for no relation-links support // DEFAULT: 'pma_relation' $cfg['Servers'][$i]['table_info'] = ''; // table to describe the display fields // - leave blank for no display fields support // DEFAULT: 'pma_table_info' $cfg['Servers'][$i]['table_coords'] = ''; // table to describe the tables position for the PDF schema // - leave blank for no PDF schema support // DEFAULT: 'pma_table_coords' $cfg['Servers'][$i]['pdf_pages'] = ''; // table to describe pages of relationpdf // - leave blank if you don't want to use this // DEFAULT: 'pma_pdf_pages' $cfg['Servers'][$i]['column_info'] = ''; // table to store column information // - leave blank for no column comments/mime types // DEFAULT: 'pma_column_info' $cfg['Servers'][$i]['history'] = ''; // table to store SQL history // - leave blank for no SQL query history // DEFAULT: 'pma_history' $cfg['Servers'][$i]['verbose_check'] = TRUE; // set to FALSE if you know that your pma_* tables // are up to date. This prevents compatibility // checks and thereby increases performance. $cfg['Servers'][$i]['AllowRoot'] = TRUE; // whether to allow root login $cfg['Servers'][$i]['AllowDeny']['order'] // Host authentication order, leave blank to not use = ''; $cfg['Servers'][$i]['AllowDeny']['rules'] // Host authentication rules, leave blank for defaults = array(); Please let me know if you need anymore info. -- Malcolm

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  • A note to college students using forums to do research

    - by Malcolm Anderson
    Recently, on a software development forum, a person who shall remain nameless posted the following   Hi, Is there good material available on the net/elsewhere for the following topics? 1. Transitioning an Organisation to Scrum 2. Scrum Team Dynamics Thanks Name Withheld to protect the guilty   Of course one of the first answers the nameless one got was a link to LetMeGoogleThatForYou http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Transitioning+an+Organisation+to+Scrum     Here's a quick checklist to follow before asking geeks of any kind, a broad general question. My Suggestion, use the checklist   1) google it 2) spend at least 1 hour reading blogs and articles on the subject before bothering another human 3) ask your question in the following form     a) I am a (position, years and months in positon)     b) I am trying to accomplish (goal)     c) What I have done for my research is (spent x hours reading and y hours interviewing relevant people)     d) What I am (am not) finding in my research is the following     e) Express curiosity as to what resources you may have missed and request suggestions for your next steps. 4) When you come back after doing all the above, then you can ask almost any question you want. This checklist is also useful when you are training a new developer.

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  • The Unspoken Truth About Managing Geeks

    - by Malcolm Anderson
    Late last year, Jeff Ello wrote a great article for cio magazine entitled "The Unspoken Truth About Managing Geeks" (http://www.cio.com/article/501697/The_Unspoken_Truth_About_Managing_Geeks)   If you are a non-geek managing geeks you will find this article enlightening.  It doesn't provide much in the way of soltutions, but it does show you how you can stop digging the hole that you're in, deeper than it already is.   In the event that you are a geek with a manager that just doesn't get it, then just print out this sleek little 4 page article and drop it in your managers in-basket.

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  • Social Engineering approach to collecting from deadbeat ebay winners

    - by Malcolm Anderson
    You just sold something on e-bay and now the winner won't pay up.  What do you do?  I'm not sure what the legality of this kind of Social Engineering hack is, but I believe you've got to give it points for elegance.   Here's the link to the lifehacker.com post (I can't find the original Reddit post.) Reddit user "BadgerMatt" (we'll call him Matt for short) recently posted a story about how he tried to sell tickets to a sporting event on eBay, but when the auction was won the winning bidder backed out of the deal. In some cases this is mainly an inconvenience and you can re-list the item, but Matt was selling tickets to a sporting event and no longer had the time to do that. With the losing bidders uninterested in the tickets, he was going to end up stuck with tickets he couldn't use and a deadbeat bidder who was unwilling to honor their contract. Rather than give up, Matt decided to trick her into paying: I created a new eBay account, "Payback" we'll call it, and sent her a message: "Hi there, I noticed you won an auction for 4 [sporting event] tickets. I meant to bid on these but couldn't get to a computer. I wanted to take my son and dad and would be willing to give you $1,000 for the tickets. I imagine that you've already made plans to attend, but I figured it was worth a shot." The woman agreed, but for $1,100. She paid for the auction, received the tickets, and then Matt (of course) never re-purchased them. Needless to say, the woman was angry. Perhaps it was the wrong thing for the right reasons, but I'm mostly jealous I never thought of it back when I still sold things on eBay.

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  • Mirroring git and mercurial repos the lazy way

    - by Greg Malcolm
    I maintain Python Koans on mirrored on both Github using git and Bitbucket using mercurial. I get pull requests from both repos but it turns out keeping the two repos in sync is pretty easy. Here is how it's done... Assuming I’m starting again on a clean laptop, first I clone both repos ~/git $ hg clone https://bitbucket.org/gregmalcolm/python_koans ~/git $ git clone [email protected]:gregmalcolm/python_koans.git python_koans2 The only thing that makes a folder a git or mercurial repository is the .hg folder in the root of python_koans and the .git folder in the root of python_koans2. So I just need to move the .git folder over into the python_koans folder I'm using for mercurial: ~/git $ rm -rf python_koans/.git ~/git $ mv python_koans2/.git python_koans ~/git $ ls -la python_koans total 48 drwxr-xr-x 11 greg staff 374 Mar 17 15:10 . drwxr-xr-x 62 greg staff 2108 Mar 17 14:58 .. drwxr-xr-x 12 greg staff 408 Mar 17 14:58 .git -rw-r--r-- 1 greg staff 34 Mar 17 14:54 .gitignore drwxr-xr-x 13 greg staff 442 Mar 17 14:54 .hg -rw-r--r-- 1 greg staff 48 Mar 17 14:54 .hgignore -rw-r--r-- 1 greg staff 365 Mar 17 14:54 Contributor Notes.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 greg staff 1082 Mar 17 14:54 MIT-LICENSE -rw-r--r-- 1 greg staff 5765 Mar 17 14:54 README.txt drwxr-xr-x 10 greg staff 340 Mar 17 14:54 python 2 drwxr-xr-x 10 greg staff 340 Mar 17 14:54 python 3 That’s about it! Now git and mercurial are tracking files in the same folder. Of course you will still need to set up your .gitignore to ignore mercurial’s dotfiles and .hgignore to ignore git’s dotfiles or there will be squabbling in the backseat. ~/git $ cd python_koans/ ~/git/python_koans $ cat .gitignore *.pyc *.swp .DS_Store answers .hg <-- Ignore mercurial ~/git/python_koans $ cat .hgignore syntax: glob *.pyc *.swp .DS_Store answers .git <-- Ignore git Because both my mirrors are both identical as far as tracked files are concerned I won’t yet see anything if I check statuses at this point: ~/git/python_koans $ git status # On branch master nothing to commit (working directory clean) ~/git/python_koans $ hg status ~/git/python_koans But how about if I accept a pull request from the bitbucket (mercuial) site? ~/git/python_koans $ hg status ~/git/python_koans $ git status # On branch master # Your branch is behind 'origin/master' by 1 commit, and can be fast-forwarded. # # Changed but not updated: # (use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed) # (use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working directory) # # modified: python 2/koans/about_decorating_with_classes.py # modified: python 2/koans/about_iteration.py # modified: python 2/koans/about_with_statements.py # modified: python 3/koans/about_decorating_with_classes.py # modified: python 3/koans/about_iteration.py # modified: python 3/koans/about_with_statements.py Mercurial doesn’t have any changes to track right now, but git has changes. Commit and push them up to github and balance is restored to the force: ~/git/python_koans $ git commit -am "Merge from bitbucket mirror: 'gpiancastelli - Fix for issue #21 and some other tweaks'" [master 79ca184] Merge from bitbucket mirror: 'gpiancastelli - Fix for issue #21 and some other tweaks' 6 files changed, 78 insertions(+), 63 deletions(-) ~/git/python_koans $ git push origin master Or just use hg-git? The github developers have actually published a plugin for automatic mirroring: http://hg-git.github.com I haven’t used it because at the time I tried it a couple of years ago I was having problems getting all the parts to play nice with each other. Probably works fine now though..

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  • Test Driven Development with vxml

    - by Malcolm Anderson
    It's been 3 years since I did any coding and am starting back up with Java using netBeans and glassfish.  Right off the bat I noticed two things about Java's ease of use.  The java ide (netBeans) has finally caught up with visual studio, and jUnit, has finally caught up with nUnit.  netBeans intellisense exists and I don't have to subclass everything in jUnit.    Now on to the point of this very short post ( request)   I'm trying to figure out how to do test driven development with vxml and have not found anythnig yet.  I've done my google search, but unfortunately, TDD in IVR land has something to do with helping the hearing impared. I've found a vxml simulator or two, but none of their marketing is getting my hopes up.    My request - if you have done any agile engineering work with vxml, contact me, I need to pick your brain and bring some ideas back to my team.   Thanks in advance.

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  • Interesting conversation about the nature of info-wars

    - by Malcolm Anderson
    Over at Schlock Mercenary, Howard Taylor has started a facinating conversation on the nature of Info-Wars. As Howard puts it:   Somebody (I forget who) tweeted that the Wikileaks fight right now is the first infowar in history. I disagree. I think we've fought numerous infowars in the last fifteen years. And that's really what I want to see discussed in the comments. We can argue right and wrong until the eCows come 127.0.0.1 but nobody is going to walk away convinced. I want to see a list of information-age conflicts that you feel qualify as "infowar." Me, I think the RIAA vs file-sharing qualifies. My buddy Rodney suggested RBLs vs Spammers (the spammers won that one.) Somebody pointed out that the Secret Service raid on Steve Jackson Games back in the 80's might qualify.

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  • My Codemash 2011 Retrospective

    - by Greg Malcolm
    I just got back from Codemash yesterday, and still on an adrenaline buzz. Here's my take on this years encounter: The Awesome Nearly everybody in one place Codemash is the ultimate place to catch up with community friends. This is my 3rd year visiting and I've got to know a great number of very cool people through various conferences, Give Camps and other community events. I'm finding more and more that Codemash is the best place to catch up with everybody regardless of technology interest or location. Of course I always make a whole bunch more friends while I'm there! Yay! Open Spaced I found the open spaces didn't work so well last year. This year things went a lot smoother and the topics were engaging and fresh. While I miss Alan Steven's approach of running it like an agile project, it was very cool to see that it evolving. Laptops were often cracked open, not just once but frequently! For example: Jasmine - Paired on a javascript kata using the Jasmine javascript test runner J - Sat in on a J demo from local J enthusiast, Tracy Harms Watir - More pairing, this time using Ruby with the watir-webdriver through cucumber. I'd mostly forgotten that Cucumber runs just fine without Rails. It made a change to do without. The other spaces were engaging too, but I think that's enough for that topic. Javascript Shenanigans I've already mentioned that I attended a Jasmine kata session. Jasmine is close to my heart right now every since I discovered it while on the hunt for a decent Javascript testing framework for a javascript koans project earlier this year. Well, it also got covered in the Java Precompiler and Pillar's vendor session, which was great to see. Node.js was also a reoccurring theme. Node.js in a nutshell? It's an extremely scalable Event based I/O server which runs on Javascript. I'd already encountered through a Startup Weekend project and have been noticing increasing interest of late. After encountering more node.js driven excitement from my peers at codemash I absolutely had to attend the open space on it. At least 20 people turned up and by the end we had some answers, a whole ton of new questions and an impromptu user group in the form of a twitter channel (#nodemash). I have no idea where this is going to go or how big it is going to become, but if it can cross the chasm into the enterprise it could become huge... Scala Koans I'm a bit of a Koans addict, and I really need more exposure to functional languages so I gave the Scala Koans precompiler a try. Great fun! I'm really glad I attended because I found I had a whole ton of questions. Currently the koans are available here, and the answers are here. Opportunities While we're on the subject can we change the subject now? Hai Gregory, You really need to keep the drinking for later in the day. I mean seriously, you're 34 and you still do this every single time! Sure, you made it to Chad Fowler keynote ok, but you looking a rather pale weren't you? Also might have been nice to attend 'Netflicks in the Cloud' instead of 'Sleeping It Off For People Who Should Know Better'. Kthxbye PS: Stop talking to yourself Not that I entirely regret it, I've had some of my greatest insights through late night drunken conversations at the CodeMash bar. Just might be nice to reign it in a little and get something out of the next morning too. Diversity This is something that is in the back of my mind because of conversations at Codemash as well as throughout the year; I'm realizing more and more how discouraging the IT profession is for women. I notice in the community there has been a lot of attention paid to stamping out harrasment, which is good, but there also seems to be a massive PR issue. I really don't have any solutions, but I figure it can't hurt to pay more attention to whats going on... And in Other News I now have a picture of Chad Fowler giving me more cowbell! Sadly I managed to lose the cowbell later on. Hopefully it's gone to a Better Place. The Womack Family Band joined in with the musicians jam this year. There's my cowbell again! Why must you hide from me? I also finally went in the water for the first time in all the I've been coming to codemash. Why did I wait so long?!?

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  • Koans, now available in Python flavor

    - by Greg Malcolm
    Recently a Python developer friend with whom I was pair programming with suggested that I show him how to write a little Ruby. I responded by telling him to check out Ruby Koans as a starting point. However I wanted to try that in reverse at the same time with me learning some Python. I did a bit of googling, and sure enough someone had started writing some Python Koans. It just needed finishing... So, a few weeks later Python Koans is now complete and ready for action! It is available through Mercurial on Bitbucket: http://bitbucket.org/gregmalcolm/python_koans/wiki/Home It is also mirrored on Github: http://wiki.github.com/gregmalcolm/python_koans/ Converting it was fairly easy. Aside from the differing philosophical approaches behind the two languages, Ruby and Python are fairly similar. We had to come up with completely new material for a few subjects like multiple inheritance and decorators, but for most features in Ruby there is something roughly comparable in Python. I highly recommend writing tests (or koans) as a means to lean a new language or framework. I've learned a lot from doing this.

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  • Projet Doneness and Einstein's Razor

    - by Malcolm Anderson
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} I’ve started working on a series of articles about the value of having testers involved in requirements gathering.  Today I was reminded of a useful tool that has provided value to me for at least 20 years.  To those of you who already use this tool, I’m interested in your stories where it has made a difference for you, and to those of you who have never heard of it, I hope sharing it will make a difference in your careers.   I was reminded of it because I just finished a 3 month set of personal projects and was reviewing the success of those projects while putting together my next set of 3 month projects.  During this review, I noticed that a good number of my projects did not have the level of success that I wanted.  The results were good, but they could have been better.  Then it hit me, I didn’t have clear enough doneness criteria.  As a Scrum Practitioner, I wouldn’t think of running a sprint without reviewing the backlog with Einstein's Razor, so why wouldn’t I do the same for my own projects?    I can hear a few of you asking "What's Einstein's Razor?"   I'm glad you asked.  I was once told that Einstein told an audience, "If you can't explain what you do to a relatively bright six year old, you probably don't understand it yourself."    This quote had an impact on me, especially early in my career as a solo developer.  At the time, I was mostly doing end to end software development.  I found that I saved myself a lot of pain and trouble by turning that quote around to “If you can't explain your project's doneness criteria in such a way that a relatively bright six year old can't competently determine your projects success or failure, then you have not broken it down to a fine enough level.”  There are more negatives in that quote than I’m happy with, but it still gives me tons of value to this day.     In your opinion, in your current projects, could a 6 year old competently pass or fail your next sprint?  What risks are you running if your answer is “No” ?

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  • Using Wordpress as a client to GeeksWithBlogs

    - by Malcolm Anderson
    I am really missing the tools in wordpress, that seem to be absent from GeeksWithBlogs [GWB].   The biggest two are being able to store drafts and being able to set a publish date.   I have done a little research on google I have not been able to find anyone saying that they have used Wordpress as a client for GWB, let alone a how-to.  Anyone got any clues or suggestions?

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  • The only metric with any value

    - by Malcolm Anderson
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} There's a lot of talk in the Scrum world about metrics. What's the velocity? How big is a story point?  How many story points is that team producing per man hour?   People are sadly missing the whole point.  Take your measurements up a level or two.  When you get down to it, the only metric that makes any difference, is ROI.   The problem is that often times, the developers work in a dark hole, far removed from the realities of how exactly they get paid.  A bigger problem is that mid-level managers tend to be further removed from the realities of ROI.  A lot of times mid-level managers get tasked with tracking their teams "productivity" using things like, "lines of code", or "completeness of the productivity reports."   Monetize your projects and then track your velocity against business value (real dollars).    When your development teams can say, "Last year, our team cost the business 2 million dollars and we know that because of our efforts, the company saved 2 million dollars in waste and increased revenues by another 4 million dollars." At that point you have just moved your development team from a cost center, to a profit center.  You might have to give them a raise, but they have demonstrated that they have earned it.

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  • Tree Surgeon 2.0 - The future on the T4 Express

    - by Malcolm Anderson
    If you've never been a fan of TreeSurgeon (http://treesurgeon.codeplex.com/) then skip this post.However, if have been there have been some interesting developments over the last couple of years.The biggest one is T4Recently Bill Simser wrote a detailed post about the potential future of tree surgeon, called "Tree Surgeon - Alive and Kicking or Dead and Buried" He raised the question:Times have changed. Since that last release in 2008 so much has changed for .NET developers. The question is, today is the project still viable? Do we still need a tool to generate a project tree given that we have things like scaffolding systems, NuGet, and T4 templates. Or should we just give the project its rightful and respectful send off as its had a good life and has outlived its usefulness.For myself, the answer is, keep it.I've spent the last couple of years doing agile engineering coaching and architecture and from my experience, I can tell you, there are a lot of shops out there that would benefit from having Tree Surgeon as a viable product.  Many would benefit simply from having the software engineering information that is embedded in the tree surgeon site be floating around their conversation.Little things like, keep all of your software needed to run the build, with the build in the version control system.Have your developers and the build system using the same build.Have a one-touch buildSeparate your code from your interfacePut unit tests in first, not lastI've seen companies with great developers suffer from the problems that naturally come from builds taking 3 and 4 hours to run.  It takes work to get that build down to 10 minutes, but the benefits are always worth it.  Tree Surgeon gives you a leg up, by starting you off with a project that you can drop into your Continuous Integration system, right out of the box.Well, it used to be right out of the box.  Today, you have to play with the project to make it work for you, but even with the issues (it hasn't been updated since 2008) it still gives you a framework, with logical separations that you can build from.If you have used Tree Surgeon in the past, take a few minutes and drop a comment about what difference it made in your development style, and what you are doing differently today because of it.

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  • Google Fiber to the Home - Joplin Edition

    - by Malcolm Anderson
    if you are within 30-40 miles of Joplin, you have got to check out http://www.broadbandbeyondborders.com/ Google is going to provide fiber-to-the-home in one community in the US. Broadband Beyond Borders will give them the experience of dealing with 6 counties, 3 states, and 10 nations (the US and 9 native american n...ations.) Follow the instructions on the web page. It was pretty simple.

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  • Asus Machine fails to start due to missing msvcr.dll - what?

    - by Malcolm Anderson
    So first off a thanks to the internet, knoppix and a post over at http://www.overclock.net/windows/879553-msvcr80-dll-missing-catastrophic-failure.html   My Symptoms: my laptop would not boot.  Would not let me get anywhere.  Just like the symptoms in the post.   Thankfully, all I had to do was go rename my avg directory and all was good.  But I needed something to boot from and I knew and trusted Knoppix from my past linux experimental days.    If it wasn't for Knoppix, I would have probably reformatted my machine and I didn't want that.

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  • Response: Agile's Second Chasm

    - by Malcolm Anderson
    William Pietri over at Agile Focus has written an interesting article entitled, "Agile’s Second Chasm (and how we fell in)" in which he talks about how agile development has fallen into a common trap where large companies are now spending a lot of money hiring agile (Scrum) consultants just so that they can say they are agile, but all the while avoiding any change that is required by Scrum.   It echoes the questions that I've been asking for a while, "Can a fortune 500 company actually do agile development?"  I'm starting to think that the answer is "usually not"   William ask 3 questions at the end of his article that I will answer here.   1) Have I seen agile development brought in and then preemptively customized (read: made into ScrummerFall)?   Yes, Scrum is hard and disruptive.  It's a spotlight on company dysfunction.  In a low trust environment like most fortune 500 companies Scrum will be subverted by anyone who has ever seen "transparency" translate into someone being laid off.   2) If I had to do it all over again, would I change anything?  No, this is a natural progression, but the agile principles are powerful enough, that the companies that don't adopt them will no longer be competitive and will start to fail.   3) Is this situation solvable?  I think it is.  I think that one of the issues is that you often see companies implementing Scrum, but avoiding the agile engineering practices.  I believe that you cannot do one without the other.  Scrum keeps the ship sailing in smooth deep waters.  The agile engineering practices keep the engine running smoothly and cleanly.  If you implement agile engineering practices without Scrum, you run the risk of ending up with a great running piece of software that is useful to no one.  On the other hand, implementing cargo-cult Scrum without the agile engineering practices and you end up (especially in a fortune 500 company) being steered in the right direction, but with your development practices coming to a dead halt because you have code that can not keep up with the changes in requirements.   If you are trying to do Scrum, make sure that you hire some agile engineering coaches, or else you may find your deveolpment engines grinding to a dead halt in the middle of the open ocean.

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  • Where is EasUS coming from?

    - by Malcolm Lawrie
    I have downloaded the Universal USB Installer and Ubuntu 12.04 Desktop as described on your site. I installed it to a 16Gb USB stick including the format option. Now when I try to boot from the stick into Ubuntu I get a couple of lines of script then a screen with EasUS Todo Backup with Backup. Recovery, Clone and Tools options, but no sign of Ubuntu starting. Where is the start Ubuntu option please? I can find no reference to EaseUS on your help pages.

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