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  • Is it possible to remove buzzing from headphones which occurs only when scrolling / window redrawing?

    - by Billy ONeal
    Whenever a lot of drawing is happening on my laptop a buzzing noise is emitted by the sound hardware, which is clearly audible with headphones (similar to this question or this one). I've tried both the headphone jack on the laptop itself, and also on the dock. I've used other laptops and they all seem to have similar problems here, which leads me to believe this is more a function of relatively low quality laptop sound hardware than any fault with the headphones or this laptop in particular. I'm curious if there's some piece of hardware I might use to eliminate the buzzing. For instance, would an external USB sound device fix the problem or is it likely subject to the same kinds of issues? Would a simple filter/choke on the headphone cord itself possibly help? Or is one simply stuck with poor quality audio from laptops period?

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  • How to use data of one table in 'where' clause of another table?

    - by sahar
    hello, i need ur help guys..i m making website for 'home docor ideas'..i have a log in form(login-form.php) in which when 'log in' and 'password' is inserted,after verification through login-execute.php, redirected to viewOrder.php where user can view all of the orders ordered by clients.. all is fine up till here.. but what i want is,when user get logged in ,he view only that order which is ordered by him not all customer's orders.. two tables are there in database: members and order_insert.. in 'members' table, login and password is stored and in 'order_insert',orders of customers is stored.. codes of these three pages is as follows.. ......................... login-form.php ......................... <form id="loginForm" name="loginForm" method="post" action="login-exec.php"> <table width="300" border="0" align="center" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0"> <tr> <td width="112"><b>Login</b></td> <td width="188"><input name="login" type="text" class="textfield" id="login" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td><b>Password</b></td> <td><input name="password" type="password" class="textfield" id="password" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>&nbsp;</td> <td><input type="submit" name="Submit" value="Login" /></td> </tr> </table> </form> ......................... login-execute.php ......................... <?php //Start session session_start(); //Include database connection details require_once('config.php'); //Array to store validation errors $errmsg_arr = array(); //Validation error flag $errflag = false; //Connect to mysql server $link = mysql_connect(DB_HOST, DB_USER, DB_PASSWORD); if(!$link) { die('Failed to connect to server: ' . mysql_error()); } //Select database $db = mysql_select_db(DB_DATABASE); if(!$db) { die("Unable to select database"); } //Function to sanitize values received from the form. Prevents SQL injection function clean($str) { $str = @trim($str); if(get_magic_quotes_gpc()) { $str = stripslashes($str); } return mysql_real_escape_string($str); } //Sanitize the POST values $login = clean($_POST['login']); $password = clean($_POST['password']); //Input Validations if($login == '') { $errmsg_arr[] = 'Login ID missing'; $errflag = true; } if($password == '') { $errmsg_arr[] = 'Password missing'; $errflag = true; } //If there are input validations, redirect back to the login form if($errflag) { $_SESSION['ERRMSG_ARR'] = $errmsg_arr; session_write_close(); header("location: login-form.php"); exit(); } //Create query $qry="SELECT * FROM members WHERE login='$login' AND passwd='".md5($_POST['password'])."'"; $result=mysql_query($qry); //Check whether the query was successful or not if($result) { if(mysql_num_rows($result) == 1) { //Login Successful session_regenerate_id(); $member = mysql_fetch_assoc($result); $_SESSION['SESS_MEMBER_ID'] = $member['member_id']; $_SESSION['SESS_FIRST_NAME'] = $member['firstname']; $_SESSION['SESS_LAST_NAME'] = $member['lastname']; session_write_close(); header("location: viewOrder.php"); exit(); }else { //Login failed header("location: login-failed.php"); exit(); } }else { die("Query failed"); } ?> ............................. viewOrder.php .............................. <html> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" > <? $host="localhost"; // Host name $username="root"; // Mysql username $password=""; // Mysql password $db_name="mydatabase"; // Database name $tbl_name="order_insert"; // Table name $tbl_name2="members"; // connect to server and databases mysql_connect("$host", "$username", "$password")or die("cannot connect"); mysql_select_db("$db_name")or die("cannot select DB"); $result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM $tbl_name "); print "<center>"; $output .= "<table width=1100 border=1 bordercolor=black>"; $output .= "<tr align=center><td>ID</td><td>First Name</td><td>Last Name</td><td>E Mail</td><td> City </td><td> Country </td><td> Phone</td><td>Decoration Type</td><td>Service Description</td><td>Budget</td><td>Update</td><td>Delete</td></tr>"; $output .= "<th></th><th></th>"; $output .= "</tr>\n\n"; while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)){ $output .= "<tr>\n"; foreach ($row as $col=>$val){ $output .= " <td>$val</td>\n"; } // end foreach $keyVal = $row["id"]; $output .= "<td><a href='update.php?ID=$row[orderId]' >Update </a></td>"; $output .= "<td><a href='delete.php?ID=$row[orderId]' >Delete </a></td>"; $output .= "</tr>\n\n"; }// end while $output .= "</table></center>"; print "$output"; ?>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br> <br> <center><table > <tr><td> <form action="home.php"><font color="#FF0000"><input type="submit" name="btn" style="color:#CC0000" value="<--Back" ></font></form></td></tr></table></center> </body> </html> ..... your help and suggestions will be appreciated

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  • Ways to improve completeness of files for data recovery and scanning?

    - by SteveO
    I am using R-studio for data recovery on one of my ntfs partition. There is a pdf file about 16MB, but the software can only recover 15MB of it. So I am thinking about what ways can be used to improve the quality of scanning and recovery by the software? I am looking around its preferences. I am not quite sure whether there are some adjustable parameters for scanning and recovery which can be fine-tuned to improve the quality? R-studio has a free demo version, for which scanning is free,but recovery isn't. It is downloadable from http://www.data-recovery-software.net/Data_Recovery_Download.shtml Its manual is here http://www.r-tt.com/downloads/Recovery_Manual.pdf. I have tried my best to search for answers in the manual, but failed to find one. Their technical support is not as good as their software, and helpless usually in my opinion. Thanks!

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  • Why can't I right click on flash videos in Chrome? (Ubuntu 9.10)

    - by user242065
    I'm trying to change the "quality" to low of a Hulu video so I can full screen it with out it being choppy but right click does nothing. When I right click in firefox it brings up a menu. I'm running Chrome on Ubuntu 9.10, is any one else having this issue I tried Google and got nothing back. I use chrome as my main browser, I have to switch to firefox every time I watch Hulu videos. Is there another way I cant change the quality of the flash video in Chrome?

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  • Why does this vertical-align:middle fails in Jquery mobile

    - by SJ GJ
    Am trying to middle a set of icons to the middle of screen, below is the code: <div data-role="content" class="ui-content ui-body-a" style="vertical-align: middle" data-theme="a"> <fieldset class="ui-grid-a icon-set" style="vertical-align: middle" data-theme="b"> <div class="ui-block-a center" style="vertical-align: middle"> <a href="test"> <div> <img src="css/images/test5.png" style="width: 80px;height: 80px"/> </div> <div> Login </div> </a> </div> <div class="ui-block-b center"> <a href="#settings" data-transition='slide'> <div> <img src="css/images/test4.png" style="width: 80px;height: 80px"/></div> <div>Settings</div> </a> </div> <div class="ui-block-a center"> <a href="test"> <div> <img src="css/images/test2.png" style="width: 80px;height: 80px"/></div> <div>Aboutus</div> </a> </div> <div class="ui-block-b center"> <a href="test"> <div> <img src="css/images/test1.png" style="width: 80px;height: 80px"/></div> <div>Contact Us</div> </a> </div> </fieldset> </div>

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  • IE8 ignores absolute positioning and margin:auto

    - by tuff
    I have a lightbox-style div with scrolling content that I am trying to restrict to a reasonable size within the viewport. I also want this div to be horizontally centered. This is all easy in Fx/Chrome/IE9. My problem is that IE8 ignores the absolute positioning which I use to size the content, and the rule margin: 0 auto which I use to horizontally center the lightbox. 1) Why? 2) What are my options for workarounds? EDIT: The centering issue is fixed by setting text-align:center on the parent element, but I have no idea why that works since the element I want to center is not inline. Still stuck on the absolute positioning stuff. HTML: <div class="bg"> <div class="a"> <div class="aa">titlebar</div> <div class="b"> <!-- many lines of content here --> </div> </div> </div> CSS: body { overflow: hidden; height: 100%; margin: 0; padding: 0; } /* IE8 needs ruleset above */ .bg { background: #333; position: fixed; top: 0; right: 0; bottom: 0; left: 0; height: 100%; /* needed in IE8 or the bg will only be as tall as the lightbox */ } .a { background: #eee; border: 3px solid #000; height: 80%; max-height: 800px; min-height: 200px; margin: 0 auto; position: relative; width: 80%; min-width: 200px; max-width: 800px; } .aa { background: lightblue; height: 28px; line-height: 28px; text-align: center; } .b { background: coral; overflow: auto; padding: 20px; position: absolute; top: 30px; right: 0; bottom: 0; left: 0; } Here's a demo of the problem: http://jsbin.com/urikoj/1/edit

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  • Vetical and Horizontally Align an image in a box

    - by Rhyso
    The problem: I have a set width and height image Lets say height:160px; width:200px; with an image in each box. The image can vary in size but I need a solution that will always center the image vertically and horizontally within the box no matter what it's size. Horizontal doesn't seem to be a problem by using margin: 0 auto but vertical is proving difficult. I have tried vertical align: center but this doesnt appear to work either Any help is appriciated Thanks

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  • how to return success message in session variaible using jquery.get() method

    - by I Like PHP
    Hello All, i m using jQuery.get() to delete row from a table from a page main.php. now i want to show success message after deleting row ,that success message should be in session variable($_session['suxesMsg']) how do i set success message on a session variable and show on specific span ? or is there any other method in jQuery that a message appear for 5-10 seconds only and then disappear? Here is my code main.php <?php if($_SESSION['suxesMsg']!='') { ?> <span class="msg"> <?php echo $_SESSION['suxesMsg'];unset($_SESSION['suxesMsg']); } ?> </span> <table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" id="promotionTable"> <tr> <td align="left"><img border='0' src='images/just.gif'/>First Promotion</td> <td align="center" >View Detail</td> <td align="center" id="deleteMe"> <img src='images/delete.png' alt='Delete' width='14' height='14'id="45"/> </td> </tr> <tr> <td align="left"><img border='0' src='images/just.gif'/>First Promotion</td> <td align="center" >View Detail</td> <td align="center" id="deleteMe"> <img src='images/delete.png' alt='Delete' width='14' height='14' id="48"/> </td> </tr> </table> <script type="text/javascript"> jQuery(document).ready(function(){ jQuery('#deleteMe img').click( function() { if(!confirm('Want to delete!')) return; jQuery.get('deleteThis.php', {oid:this.id}); jQuery(this).parent().parent().fadeTo(400, 0, function() { jQuery(this).remove(); }); }); </script> deleteThis.php if(isset($_GET[oid])) { $offerID=$_GET[oid]; $delsql="DELETE FROM some_table WHERE promotion_id=".$offerID; $db->query($delsql); $_SESSION['suxesMsg'] = "Promotion deleted sucessfully."; } Thanks for helping me alwayz

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  • RAID striping on a desktop machine

    - by Blazemore
    I currently have a 120Gib SSD which is pretty fast for things like game loading times and video editing. However, I was wondering about getting another identical drive and hooking it up with a striping RAID array in hardware (I boot multiple operating systems). This would have the dual benefits of providing a larger logical drive, while also providing greater performance. However, I have a few questions: What kind of performance increase can I expect to see with a pair of good quality SSDs? How expensive is a quality desktop RAID controller? Will the controller present the OS with a single logical drive? Does this mean I can still partition it and multi-boot? Basically, can I treat the RAID controller as "a hard drive" at the OS level?

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  • After-meeting Free Pizza Social is back to Fladotnet's West Palm Beach .Net User Group

    - by Sam Abraham
    Sherlock Staffing is bringing back the free Pizza/Soda after-meeting social to Fladotnet's West Palm Beach .Net User Group. Group members will have ample time to network and share experiences while enjoying pizza and soda after each meeting. Alex Funkhouser, Sherlock Staffing's President and Chief Talent Agent, is a continuous supporter of the .Net community with Sherlock Staffing maintaining a strong presence in every user group and quickly stepping-in as sponsors to meet any arising community need. In addition to providing the Free Pizza and Soda, Sherlock Staffing will also maintain on-site presence to bring to members of the West Palm Beach .Net User Group the latest insider view on the Job Market and keep the group posted with available opportunities. Alex can be reached at: [email protected]. Check out Sherlock Staffing's Website at: http://www.sherstaff.com About Sherlock Staffing SherStaff is the premier staffing and consulting source for technical talent in Florida and beyond. The company provides recruiting and consulting services to both Fortune 1000 companies and to job candidates in a wide range of technology areas of expertise including the Microsoft Technologies, Oracle, WebSphere, Java/J2EE, and open source/Linux based technologies.  The primary focus is recruiting application developers, network engineers and database administrators. The company prides itself on the long term relationships established with both employers and employees to ensure placement of the best quality candidates in the top quality jobs.

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  • Does a site's bounce rate influence Google rankings?

    - by Joel Spolsky
    Does Google consider bounce rate or something similar in ranking sites? Background: here at Stack Exchange we noticed that the latest Google algorithm changes resulted in about a 20% dip in traffic to Server Fault (and a much smaller dip in traffic to Super User). Stack Overflow traffic was not affected. There was an article on WebProNews which hypothesized that bounce rate might be a ranking signal in Google's latest Panda update. According to Google Analytics, these are our bounce rates over the last month: Site Bounce Rate Avg Time on Site ------------- ----------- ---------------- SuperUser 84.67% 01:16 ServerFault 83.76% 00:53 Stack Overflow 63.63% 04:12 Now, technically, Google has no way to know the bounce rate. If you go to Google, search for something, and click on the first result, Google can't tell the difference between: a user who turns off their computer a user who goes to a completely different web site a user who spends hours clicking around on the website they landed on What Google does know is how long it takes the user to come back to Google and do another search. According to the book In The Plex (page 47), Google distinguishes between what they call "short clicks" and "long clicks": A short click is a search where the user quickly comes back to Google and does another search. Google interprets this as a signal that the first search results were unsatisfactory. A long click is a search where the user doesn't search again for a long time. The book says that Google uses this information internally, to judge the quality of their own algorithms. It also said that short click data in which someone retypes a slight variation of the search is used to fuel the "Did you mean...?" spell checking algorithm. So, my hypothesis is that Google has recently decided to use long click rates as a signal of a high quality site. Does anyone have any evidence of this? Have you seen any high-bounce-rate sites which lost traffic (or vice-versa)?

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  • ASP.NET mvcConf Videos Available

    - by ScottGu
    Earlier this month the ASP.NET MVC developer community held the 2nd annual mvcConf event.  This was a free, online conference focused on ASP.NET MVC – with more than 27 talks that covered a wide variety of ASP.NET MVC topics.  Almost all of the talks were presented by developers within the community, and the quality and topic diversity of the talks was fantastic. Below are links to free recordings of the talks that you can watch (and optionally download): Scott Guthrie Keynote The NuGet-y Goodness of Delivering Packages (Phil Haack) Industrial Strenght NuGet (Andy Wahrenberger) Intro to MVC 3 (John Petersen) Advanced MVC 3 (Brad Wilson) Evolving Practices in Using jQuery and Ajax in ASP.NET MVC Applications (Eric Sowell) Web Matrix (Rob Conery) Improving ASP.NET MVC Application Performance (Steven Smith) Intro to Building Twilio Apps with ASP.NET MVC (John Sheehan) The Big Comparison of ASP.NET MVC View Engines (Shay Friedman) Writing BDD-style Tests for ASP.NET MVC using MSTestContrib (Mitch Denny) BDD in ASP.NET MVC using SpecFlow, WatiN and WatiN Test Helpers (Brandon Satrom) Going Postal - Generating email with View Engines (Andrew Davey) Take some REST with WCF (Glenn Block) MVC Q&A (Jeffrey Palermo) Deploy ASP.NET MVC with No Effort (Troels Thomsen) IIS Express (Vaidy Gopalakrishnan) Putting the V in MVC (Chris Bannon) CQRS and Event Sourcing with MVC 3 (Ashic Mahtab) MVC 3 Extensibility (Roberto Hernandez) MvcScaffolding (Steve Sanderson) Real World Application Development with Mvc3 NHibernate, FluentNHibernate and Castle Windsor (Chris Canal) Building composite web applications with Open frameworks (Sebastien Lambla) Quality Driven Web Acceptance Testing (Amir Barylko) ModelBinding derived types using the DerivedTypeModelBinder in MvcContrib (Steve Hebert) Entity Framework "Code First": Domain Driven CRUD (Chris Zavaleta) Wrap Up with Jon Galloway & Javier Lozano I’d like to say a huge thank you to all of the speakers who presented, and to Javier Lozano, Eric Hexter and Jon Galloway for all their hard work in organizing the event and making it happen. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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  • New Trusted Status awarded to first Mobile Java Developer

    - by Jacob Lehrbaum
    Java Verified has just announced that GameLoft is the first developer to receive its new Trusted Status!  Java Verified is an industry-recognized Java testing and signing program backed and funded by companies such as AT&T, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Oracle, Orange, Samsung and Vodafone, and chartered with making it easier for mobile developers to certify and deploy applications for use across the billions of mobile handsets that run the Java ME.  Because of its breadth and diversity, Java ME provides an unmatched opportunity to reach more than 3 billions consumers, but at the same time, developers are faced with the challenge of working with multiple distribution channels and a range of handsets. To this end, the Java Verified program provides a suite of tests that help to validate identity, functionality, integrity, and quality.  Since its rebirth in 2010 as an independent organization, the Java Verified program has been actively working to make it even easier to create and distribute Java ME apps.  Example initiatives include updates to the Unified Testing Criteria to make it easier to test "Simple Apps," community outreach to better understand and address developer pain-points  and a new "Trusted Status."  In the words of the Java Verified Program, Trusted Status is:a privileged status to be granted to developers who will have proven that the quality of their Java ME apps is of a consistently high standard. These are developers who will have earned the trust of Java Verified by demonstrating unfailingly that testing to the UTC standard is a crucial part of their product development activityThe first developer to be awarded this status is GameLoft.  By achieving Trusted Status Gameloft can now test their applications to the Java Verified standard without needing to provide Java Verified with the evidence.  The apps then automatically get signed with the Java Verified signature enabling GameLoft to benefit from reduced costs and time-to-market for their new Java ME applications from here on out.  Learn more about the exciting news or apply now for Trusted Status!

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  • Professional Scrum Developer (.NET) Training in London

    - by Martin Hinshelwood
    On the 26th - 30th July in Microsoft’s offices in London Adam Cogan from SSW will be presenting the first Professional Scrum Developer course in the UK. I will be teaching this course along side Adam and it is a fantastic experience. You are split into teams and go head-to-head to deliver units of potentially shippable work in four two hour sprints. The Professional Scrum Developer course is the only course endorsed by both Microsoft and Ken Schwaber and they have worked together very effectively in brining this course to fruition. This course is the brain child of Richard Hundhausen, a Microsoft Regional Director, and both Adam and I attending the Trainer Prep in Sydney when he was there earlier this year. He is a fantastic trainer and no matter where you do this course you can be safe in the knowledge that he has trained and vetted all of the teachers. A tools version of Ken if you will Find a course and register Download this syllabus Download the Scrum Guide What is the Professional Scrum Developer course all about? Professional Scrum Developer course is a unique and intensive five-day experience for software developers. The course guides teams on how to turn product requirements into potentially shippable increments of software using the Scrum framework, Visual Studio 2010, and modern software engineering practices. Attendees will work in self-organizing, self-managing teams using a common instance of Team Foundation Server 2010. Who should attend this course? This course is suitable for any member of a software development team – architect, programmer, database developer, tester, etc. Entire teams are encouraged to attend and experience the course together, but individuals are welcome too. Attendees will self-organize to form cross-functional Scrum teams. These teams require an aggregate of skills specific to the selected case study. Please see the last page of this document for specific details. Product Owners, ScrumMasters, and other stakeholders are welcome too, but keep in mind that everyone who attends will be expected to commit to work and pull their weight on a Scrum team. What should you know by the end of the course? Scrum will be experienced through a combination of lecture, demonstration, discussion, and hands-on exercises. Attendees will learn how to do Scrum correctly while being coached and critiqued by the instructor, in the following topic areas: Form effective teams Explore and understand legacy “Brownfield” architecture Define quality attributes, acceptance criteria, and “done” Create automated builds How to handle software hotfixes Verify that bugs are identified and eliminated Plan releases and sprints Estimate product backlog items Create and manage a sprint backlog Hold an effective sprint review Improve your process by using retrospectives Use emergent architecture to avoid technical debt Use Test Driven Development as a design tool Setup and leverage continuous integration Use Test Impact Analysis to decrease testing times Manage SQL Server development in an Agile way Use .NET and T-SQL refactoring effectively Build, deploy, and test SQL Server databases Create and manage test plans and cases Create, run, record, and play back manual tests Setup a branching strategy and branch code Write more maintainable code Identify and eliminate people and process dysfunctions Inspect and improve your team’s software development process What does the week look like? This course is a mix of lecture, demonstration, group discussion, simulation, and hands-on software development. The bulk of the course will be spent working as a team on a case study application delivering increments of new functionality in mini-sprints. Here is the week at a glance: Monday morning and most of the day Friday will be spent with the computers powered off, so you can focus on sharpening your game of Scrum and avoiding the common pitfalls when implementing it. The Sprints Timeboxing is a critical concept in Scrum as well as in this course. We expect each team and student to understand and obey all of the timeboxes. The timebox duration will always be clearly displayed during each activity. Expect the instructor to enforce it. Each of the ½ day sprints will roughly follow this schedule: Component Description Minutes Instruction Presentation and demonstration of new and relevant tools & practices 60 Sprint planning meeting Product owner presents backlog; each team commits to delivering functionality 10 Sprint planning meeting Each team determines how to build the functionality 10 The Sprint The team self-organizes and self-manages to complete their tasks 120 Sprint Review meeting Each team will present their increment of functionality to the other teams = 30 Sprint Retrospective A group retrospective meeting will be held to inspect and adapt 10 Each team is expected to self-organize and manage their own work during the sprint. Pairing is highly encouraged. The instructor/product owner will be available if there are questions or impediments, but will be hands-off by default. You should be prepared to communicate and work with your team members in order to achieve your sprint goal. If you have development-related questions or get stuck, your partner or team should be your first level of support. Module 1: INTRODUCTION This module provides a chance for the attendees to get to know the instructors as well as each other. The Professional Scrum Developer program, as well as the day by day agenda, will be explained. Finally, the Scrum team will be selected and assembled so that the forming, storming, norming, and performing can begin. Trainer and student introductions Professional Scrum Developer program Agenda Logistics Team formation Retrospective Module 2: SCRUMDAMENTALS This module provides a level-setting understanding of the Scrum framework including the roles, timeboxes, and artifacts. The team will then experience Scrum firsthand by simulating a multi-day sprint of product development, including planning, review, and retrospective meetings. Scrum overview Scrum roles Scrum timeboxes (ceremonies) Scrum artifacts Simulation Retrospective It’s required that you read Ken Schwaber’s Scrum Guide in preparation for this module and course. MODULE 3: IMPLEMENTING SCRUM IN VISUAL STUDIO 2010 This module demonstrates how to implement Scrum in Visual Studio 2010 using a Scrum process template*. The team will learn the mapping between the Scrum concepts and how they are implemented in the tool. After connecting to the shared Team Foundation Server, the team members will then return to the simulation – this time using Visual Studio to manage their product development. Mapping Scrum to Visual Studio 2010 User Story work items Task work items Bug work items Demonstration Simulation Retrospective Module 4: THE CASE STUDY In this module the team is introduced to their problem domain for the week. A kickoff meeting by the Product Owner (the instructor) will set the stage for the why and what that will take during the upcoming sprints. The team will then define the quality attributes of the project and their definition of “done.” The legacy application code will be downloaded, built, and explored, so that any bugs can be discovered and reported. Introduction to the case study Download the source code, build, and explore the application Define the quality attributes for the project Define “done” How to file effective bugs in Visual Studio 2010 Retrospective Module 5: HOTFIX This module drops the team directly into a Brownfield (legacy) experience by forcing them to analyze the existing application’s architecture and code in order to locate and fix the Product Owner’s high-priority bug(s). The team will learn best practices around finding, testing, fixing, validating, and closing a bug. How to use Architecture Explorer to visualize and explore Create a unit test to validate the existence of a bug Find and fix the bug Validate and close the bug Retrospective Module 6: PLANNING This short module introduces the team to release and sprint planning within Visual Studio 2010. The team will define and capture their goals as well as other important planning information. Release vs. Sprint planning Release planning and the Product Backlog Product Backlog prioritization Acceptance criteria and tests Sprint planning and the Sprint Backlog Creating and linking Sprint tasks Retrospective At this point the team will have the knowledge of Scrum, Visual Studio 2010, and the case study application to begin developing increments of potentially shippable functionality that meet their definition of done. Module 7: EMERGENT ARCHITECTURE This module introduces the architectural practices and tools a team can use to develop a valid design on which to develop new functionality. The teams will learn how Scrum supports good architecture and design practices. After the discussion, the teams will be presented with the product owner’s prioritized backlog so that they may select and commit to the functionality they can deliver in this sprint. Architecture and Scrum Emergent architecture Principles, patterns, and practices Visual Studio 2010 modeling tools UML and layer diagrams SPRINT 1 Retrospective Module 8: TEST DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT This module introduces Test Driven Development as a design tool and how to implement it using Visual Studio 2010. To maximize productivity and quality, a Scrum team should setup Continuous Integration to regularly build every team member’s code changes and run regression tests. Refactoring will also be defined and demonstrated in combination with Visual Studio’s Test Impact Analysis to efficiently re-run just those tests which were impacted by refactoring. Continuous integration Team Foundation Build Test Driven Development (TDD) Refactoring Test Impact Analysis SPRINT 2 Retrospective Module 9: AGILE DATABASE DEVELOPMENT This module lets the SQL Server database developers in on a little secret – they can be agile too. By using the database projects in Visual Studio 2010, the database developers can join the rest of the team. The students will see how to apply Agile database techniques within Visual Studio to support the SQL Server 2005/2008/2008R2 development lifecycle. Agile database development Visual Studio database projects Importing schema and scripts Building and deploying Generating data Unit testing SPRINT 3 Retrospective Module 10: SHIP IT Teams need to know that just because they like the functionality doesn’t mean the Product Owner will. This module revisits acceptance criteria as it pertains to acceptance testing. By refining acceptance criteria into manual test steps, team members can execute the tests, recording the results and reporting bugs in a number of ways. Manual tests will be defined and executed using the Microsoft Test Manager tool. As the Sprint completes and an increment of functionality is delivered, the team will also learn why and when they should create a branch of the codeline. Acceptance criteria Testing in Visual Studio 2010 Microsoft Test Manager Writing and running manual tests Branching SPRINT 4 Retrospective Module 11: OVERCOMING DYSFUNCTION This module introduces the many types of people, process, and tool dysfunctions that teams face in the real world. Many dysfunctions and scenarios will be identified, along with ideas and discussion for how a team might mitigate them. This module will enable you and your team to move toward independence and improve your game of Scrum when you depart class. Scrum-butts and flaccid Scrum Best practices working as a team Team challenges ScrumMaster challenges Product Owner challenges Stakeholder challenges Course Retrospective What will be expected of you and you team? This is a unique course in that it’s technically-focused, team-based, and employs timeboxes. It demands that the members of the teams self-organize and self-manage their own work to collaboratively develop increments of software. All attendees must commit to: Pay attention to all lectures and demonstrations Participate in team and group discussions Work collaboratively with other team members Obey the timebox for each activity Commit to work and do your best to deliver All teams should have these skills: Understanding of Scrum Familiarity with Visual Studio 201 C#, .NET 4.0 & ASP.NET 4.0 experience*  SQL Server 2008 development experience Software testing experience * Check with the instructor ahead of time for the exact technologies Self-organising teams Another unique attribute of this course is that it’s a technical training class being delivered to teams of developers, not pairs, and not individuals. Ideally, your actual software development team will attend the training to ensure that all necessary skills are covered. However, if you wish to attend an open enrolment course alone or with just a couple of colleagues, realize that you may be placed on a team with other attendees. The instructor will do his or her best to ensure that each team is cross-functional to tackle the case study, but there are no guarantees. You may be required to try a new role, learn a new skill, or pair with somebody unfamiliar to you. This is just good Scrum! Who should NOT take this course? Because of the nature of this course, as explained above, certain types of people should probably not attend this course: Students requiring command and control style instruction – there are no prescriptive/step-by-step (think traditional Microsoft Learning) labs in this course Students who are unwilling to work within a timebox Students who are unwilling to work collaboratively on a team Students who don’t have any skill in any of the software development disciplines Students who are unable to commit fully to their team – not only will this diminish the student’s learning experience, but it will also impact their team’s learning experience Find a course and register Download this syllabus Download the Scrum Guide Technorati Tags: Scrum,SSW,Pro Scrum Dev

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  • Surface RT: To Be Or Not To Be (Part 1)

    - by smehaffie
    So the Surface RT has been out for 9 months and Microsoft just declared a $900 million dollar write-down. So how did this happen and what does it mean for Microsoft’s efforts to break into the tablet market? I have been thinking a lot about most of the information below since the Surface product line was released. If you are looking for a “Microsoft Is Dead” story, then don’t read any further. But if you want an honest look at what I think led Microsoft to this point and what I think can be done to make Surface RT devices better, then please continue reading. What Led Microsoft To The $900 Million Write-Down Surface Unveiling:Microsoft totally missed the boat when they unveiled the Surface product line on June 18th, 2012. Microsoft should’ve been ready to post the specifications of both devices that night. Microsoft should’ve had a site up and running right after the event so people could pre-order the devices. This would have given them a good idea what the interest was in each device.  They could also have used this data to make a better estimate for the number of units to to have available for the launch and beyond.  They also lost out on taking advantage of the excitement generated by the Surface RT and Surface Pro announcement. They could have thrown in a free touch keyboard to anyone who pre-ordered. The advertising should have started right after the announcement and gotten bigger as launch day approached. Push for as many pre-order as possible and build excitement for the launch. Actual Launch (Surface RT): By this time all excitement was gone from the initial announcement, except for the Micorsoft faithful. Microsoft should have been ready to sell the Surface in as many markets as possible at launch. The limited market release was a real letdown for a lot of people.  A limited release right after the initial announce is understandable, but not at the official launch of the product. Microsoft overpriced the device and now they are lowering it to what it should have been to start with. The $349 price is within the range I suggested it should be at before pricing was announced. (Surface Tablets: The Price Must Be Right). Limited ordering options online was also a killer. User should have been able to buy the base unit of each device and then add on whatever keyboard they wanted to (this applies more to the Surface Pro).  There should have also been a place where users could order any additional add-ins that they wanted to buy (covers, extra power supplies, etc.) Marketing was better and the dancing “Click In” commercial was cool, but the ads comparing the iPad with Siri should have been on the air from day one of the announcement (or at least the launch).  Consumers want to know why you tablet is better, not just that is has a clickable keyboard and built-in kickstand. They could have also compared it to some of the other mid-range tablets if they had not overprices it to begin with. Stock Applications (Mail, People, Calendar, Music, Video, Reader and IE): This is where Microsoft really blew it. They had all the time in the world to make these applications the best of breed and instead we got applications that seemed thrown together.  Some updates have made these application better, but they are all still lacking in features that should have been there from day one. This did not help to enhance a new users experience any. ** I will admit that the applications that were data driven were first class citizen’s and that makes it even more perplexing why MS could knock it out of the park with the Weather, Travel, Finance, Bing, etc.) and fail so miserably on the core applications users would use the most on a tablet. Desktop on Tablet: The desktop just is so out of place on the tablet  I understand it was needed for Office but think it would have been better to not have the desktop in Windows RT, but instead open up the Office applications in full screen mode, in a desktop shell (same goes for  IE11).That way the user wouldn’t realize they are leaving Metro and going to the desktop. The other option would have been to just not include Office on Windows RT devices. Instead they could have made awesome Widows Store Apps for Word, Excel, OneNote and PowerPoint. In addition, they could have made the stock Mail, People, and Calendar applications contain all the functions that Outlook gives desktop users. Having some of the settings in desktop mode and others under “Change PC Settings” made Windows RT seemed unfinished and rushed to market. What Can Be Done To Make Windows RT Based Tablets Better (At least in my opinion) Either eliminate the desktop all together from Windows RT or at least make the user experience better by hiding the fact the user is running Office/IE in the desktop. Personally I ‘d like them to totally get rid of it and just make awesome Windows Store Application version of Word, Excel PowerPoint & OneNote.  This might also make the OS smaller and give the user more available disk space. I doubt there will ever be a Windows Store App versions of Office, but I still think it is a good idea. Make is so users can easily direct their documents, picture, videos and music to their extra storage and can access these files from the standard libraries.  A user should not have to create a VM on their microSD card or create symbolic links to get this to work properly. Most consumers would not be able to do this. Then users get frustrated when they run out or room on their main storage because nothing is automatically save to their microSD card when saved to libraries.  This is a major bug that needs to be fixed, otherwise Microsoft’s selling point of having a microSD slot is worthless. Allows users to uninstall and re-install any of the Office product that come with the Surface. That way people can free up storage space by uninstalling the Office applications they do not need. Everyone’s needs are different, so make the options flexible. Don’t take up storage space for applications the user will not use. Make the Core applications the “Cream of the Crop” Windows App Store applications. The should set the bar for all other Store applications. Improve performance as much as possible, if it seems to be sluggish on a tablet consumer will not buy it. They need to price the next line of Surface product very aggressive to undercut not only iPad but also Android low end tablets (Nook, Kindle Fire, and Nexus, etc.) Give developers incentives to write quality applications for the devices. Don’t reward developers for cranking out cookie cutter, low quality applications. I’d even suggest Microsoft consider implementing some new store certification guideline to stop these type of applications being published. Allow users to easily move the recover disk “partition between their microSD card and main storage. My Predictions for the Surface RT and Windows RT I honestly think even with all the missteps MS has made since the announcement  about the Surface product line, that they are on the right path. I was excited the Surface tablets when they were announced, and I still am. The truth be told, Windows 8 on a tablet (aka: Windows RT) is better than both iOS and Android. My nephew who is an Apple fan boy told me after he saw and used Windows 8 (he got the beta running on his iPad), that Windows 8 kicked Apples butt as a tablet OS. So there is hope for all Windows RT based tablets. I agree with my nephew and that is why whenever anyone asks me about my Surface, I love showing it off and recommend it. The 6 keys to gaining market share in the tablet market are; Aggressive pricing by both Microsoft and their OEM’s Good quality devices put out by Microsoft and their OEM’s (there are some out there, but not enough) Marketing, Marketing, Marketing from both Microsoft and their OEM’s (Need more ads showing why windows based tablets are better than iPads and Android tablets) Getting Widows tablets in retails stores all over, and giving sales people incentive to sell them. Consumers like to try electronics out before they buy them, and most will listen to what the sales person suggest. Microsoft needs sales people in retail stores directing people to buy windows based tablets over iPads and Android tablets. I think the Microsoft Stores within Best Buy is a good start, but they also need to get prominent displays in Walmart, Target, etc.. Release a smaller form factor Surface, Hopefully the 8”-10” next generation Surface is not a rumor. Make “Surface” the brand name for all Microsoft tablets and hybrid devices that they come out with. They cannot change the name with each new release.  Make Surface synonymous with quality, the same way that iPad  is for Apple. Well, that is my 2 cents on the subject. Let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment below. Soon to follow will be my thought on the Surface Pro, so keep an eye out for it. var addthis_pub="smehaffie"; var addthis_options="email, print, digg, slashdot, delicious, twitter, live, myspace, facebook, google, stumbleupon, newsvine";

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  • Third-party open-source projects in .NET and Ruby and NIH syndrome

    - by Anton Gogolev
    The title might seem to be inflammatory, but it's here to catch your eye after all. I'm a professional .NET developer, but I try to follow other platforms as well. With Ruby being all hyped up (mostly due to Rails, I guess) I cannot help but compare the situation in open-source projects in Ruby and .NET. What I personally find interesting is that .NET developers are for the most part severely suffering from the NIH syndrome and are very hesitant to use someone else's code in pretty much any shape or form. Comparing it with Ruby, I see a striking difference. Folks out there have gems literally for every little piece of functionality imaginable. New projects are popping out left and right and generally are heartily welcomed. On the .NET side we have CodePlex which I personally find to be a place where abandoned projects grow old and eventually get abandoned. Now, there certainly are several well-known and maintained projects, but the number of those pales in comparison with that of Ruby. Granted, NIH on the .NET devs part comes mostly from the fact that there are very few quality .NET projects out there, let alone projects that solve their specific needs, but even if there is such a project, it's often frowned upon and is reinvented in-house. So my question is multi-fold: Do you find my observations anywhere near being correct? If so, what are your thoughts on quality and quantitiy of OSS projects in .NET? Again, if you do agree with my thoughts on "NIH in .NET", what do you think is causing it? And finally, is it Ruby's feature set & community standpoint (dynamic language, strong focus on testing) that allows for such easy integration of third-party code?

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  • US GAAP and IFRS Convergence May Be Delayed Even More

    - by Theresa Hickman
    Yesterday, on March 10, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) met to discuss the changes in financial statement presentation. Over the last six months, the FASB and IASB have been working feverishly to converge US GAAP and IFRS standards to meet the 2011 deadline. In March alone, the standards-setters met eight times. Many people fear that this accelerated pace is compromising the quality of the end product and that maybe they should slow down and do their due diligence. According to WG&L Accounting & Compliance Alert Checkpoint 3/10/2010, (which requires a subscription to view the full article) "Some statement preparers and investors who advise the FASB believe that the process would be better served if it was slowed down so that more attention could be paid to quality." "Should 2011 be looked at as a line in the sand?" asked Joan Amble, executive vice president and corporate comptroller for American Express Co. "We don't think that due process should be compromised for the due date," concurred Lewis Dulitz, vice president of accounting policies and research for medical products supplier Covidien plc. I personally have mixed emotions about this. On one hand, I have been growing impatient with how slow the US has jumped on the IFRS band wagon. On the other hand, being the conservative that I am and knowing this convergence will be costly and disruptive to businesses, I would prefer to be safe than sorry and get it right the first time.

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  • Schedule for my session at MIX10

    - by Laurent Bugnion
    Microsoft has published the schedule for the MIX10 sessions. I have a sweet spot, and I dearly hope that it stays this way (Last year I had a great spot, but it was changed last minute and then I had a much better one, “competing” against Vertigo and their Playboy app… yeah try to explain to a bunch of geeks that MVVM is better than Playboy… good luck with that ;) Anyway, this year my sweet spot is on the very first day of the conference (there are workshops on Sunday, but this qualifies as pre-conference), Monday after the keynote which should get everyone pumped and excited. Schedule and location I would be really happy to meet y’all at Understanding the Model-View-ViewModel Pattern in Lagoon F on Monday at 2:00 PM http://live.visitmix.com/MIX10/Sessions/EX14 See you in Vegas (or in video…) Everything I saw so far hints that this should be a very, very exciting edition of MIX, maybe the most electrifying ever. The great news is that everything will be available even if you cannot make it: The keynotes are typically streamed live, and if you remember last year’s experience at PDC, it is a really good alternative. Built with Silverlight, the feed uses smooth streaming (adjusting the quality according to your bandwidth automatically), possibility to pause and rewind if you miss something, and a great picture quality. As for the sessions, the message at MIX is that the videos will be available online approximately 24 hours after the session is being held. This is a great feat! So, see you in Vegas (or in video)! Cheers, Laurent

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  • Catch Me If You Can

    - by Knut Vatsendvik
    Suppose you have a Proxy based Web Service using Oracle Service Bus. In a stage in the request pipeline,  you are using a Publish action to publish the incoming message to a JMS queue using a Business Service. What if the outbound transport provider throws an exception (outside of your pipeline)? Is your pipeline able to catch the error with an error handler?? This situation could occur because of a faulty connection, suspended queue, or some other reason. Here is the Request Pipeline in our simple test case. With an Error Handler added to the message flow containing a simple Log action. By default, the Publish action will invoke the service in a fire and forget fashion. Therefore any exception that occurs in the outbound transport will go unnoticed as shown in the following Invocation Trace. So what now? In a message flow, you can apply a Routing Options action to modify any or all of the following properties in the outbound request: URI, Quality of Service, Mode, Retry parameters, Message Priority. Now add the Routing Options action to the Request Action as shown below. Click the Routing Options to display its properties in the Properties View. Select the QoS option to set the Quality of Service element. Select Exactly Once to override the default setting, and Republish the project. The invocation will now block until the message is completely processed. Trying the same test case as earlier generates the following Invocation Trace showing that the Error Handler is now triggered.

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  • Open source vs commercial game engines

    - by Vanangamudi
    How commercial game accomplsih stunnning graphics with smooth game play? I am a huge die hard fan and follower of GNU Stallman and his philosophies and other Libre people Cmon how wud I miss Linus. but I got to admit commercial games does excellent jobs. One such good example is Assasin's Creed from Ubisoft. It has good quality graphcis and plays smoothly in my Dual core CPU with Nvidia Geforce 8400ES. Rockstar GTA4 has awesome graphcis but it's slower than AC considering the graphics quality tradeoff. Age of Empires from Ensemble studios, does include Massive crowd AI simulation, yet it plays so smoothly with eyecandy graphics and very large weapon sets and different techtree elements on the other hand. Open source games like Glest, 0A.D(still in alpha :) are not so smooth even though they have very restricted abilities? Coming to question: how do game companies achieve such optmizations, or the open source community is not doing optimizations, or there are any propriarity technological elements that benefits only the companies exists huh?? e.g the OpenSubDiv from Pixar just released open to community?? something like that. and why it is hard to implement optimizations? are there any legal restrictions???

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  • Why My Adsense Account is not accepted

    - by Muhammad Adeel Zahid
    I have created a blog on blogger few days ago and created two blog entries on it. when i try creating AdSense account with blog's address it does not accept the application due to PageType. i have searched around on the net and found that its probably due to duplicate or insufficient content on the blog but either of my blog entry is more than 2,000 words and i have literally typed 80 percent of its content with only few code blocks copied from other sites. Below is content of email i received as response to my application. Hello, Thank you for your interest in Google AdSense. Unfortunately, after reviewing your application, we're unable to accept you into AdSense at this time. We did not approve your application for the reasons listed below. Issues: - Page Type Further detail: Page Type: In order to participate in Google AdSense, publishers' websites and application information must satisfy the following guidelines: Your website must be your own top-level domain (www.example.com and not www.example.com/mysite). You must provide accurate personal information with your application that matches the information on your domain registration. Your website must contain substantial, original content. Your site must comply with Google AdSense program policies: https://www.google.com/adsense/policies" which include Google's webmaster quality guidelines: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769#quality . If your site satisfies the above criteria in the future, please resubmit your application and we'll review it as soon as possible My Personal credentials are also same as they appear in my google account. i can't figure out the problem. Any Help/Suggestion is highly appreciated. regards

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  • Today's Links (6/21/2011)

    - by Bob Rhubart
    Keeping your process clean: Hiding technology complexity behind a service | Izaak de Hullu Izaak de Hullu offers a solution to "technology pollution like exception handling, technology adapters and correlation." WebLogic Weekly for June 20th, 2011 | James Bayer James Bayer presents "a round-up what has been going on in WebLogic over the past week." Publish to EDN from Java & OSB with JMS | Edwin Biemond Busy blogger and Oracle ACE Edwin Biemond shows "how you can publish events from Java and OSB." How is HTML 5 changing web development? | Audrey Watters - O'Reilly Radar In this interview, OSCON speaker Remy Sharp discusses HTML5's current usage and how it could influence the future of web apps and browsers. SOA Governance Book | SOA Partner Community Blog Information on how those in EMEA can win a free copy of SOA Governance: Governing Shared Services On-Premise and in the Cloud by Thomas Erl, et al. Keeping The Faith on 11i | Floyd Teter "The iceberg is melting, the curtain is coming down, the lights are dimming, the fat lady is singing," says Oracle ACE Director Floyd Teter. Configure and test JMS based EDN in SOA Suite 11g | Edwin Biemond Oracle ACE Edwin Biemond shows you "how to configure EDN-JMS and how to publish an Event to this JMS Queue." Choosing the best way for SOA Suite and Oracle Service Bus to interact with the Oracle Database | Lucas Jellema Oracle ACE Director Lucas Jellema illustrates "over 20 different interaction channels" covering "a fairly wild variation of attributes, required skills, productivity and performance characteristics." Oracle Data Integrator 11.1.1.5 Complex Files as Sources and Targets | Alex Kotopoulis ODI 11.1.1.5 adds the new Complex File technology for use with file sources and targets. The goal is to read or write file structures that are too complex to be parsed using the existing ODI File technology. Java Spotlight Podcast Episode 35: JVM Performance and Quality Featuring an interview with Vladimir Ivanov, Ivan Krylov, and Sergey Kuksenko on the JDK 7 Java Virtual Machine performance and quality. Also includes the Java All Star Developer Panel featuring Dalibor Topic, Java Free and Open Source Software Ambassador, and Alexis Moussine-Pouchkine, Java EE Developer Advocate.

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  • We Found 100 Manufacturing Heros That Focus on Innovation!

    - by Stephen Slade
    There’s a good piece written by Ann Grackin of ChainLink Research on the Manufacturing Leadership 100 Awards program held recently in Palm Beach Fl, Apr 30-May 3, 2012.  This article (link below) highlights the summary of the Summit with specific focus on manufacturing innovation.  There were several informative keynotes and sessions from industrial leaders who are leveraging the latest tools and technologies to make better decisions. Ann writes that she was a panelist with Cindy Reese, SVP, Worldwide Operations, Oracle; and Steven Tungate, VP/GM, Supply Chain & Innovation, Toshiba America Business Solutions about Factories and Supply Networks of the Future. Ann writes “So what are these manufacturers doing? Significant rationalization of the supply base (Toshiba, especially, has this issue since they have a long history of many acquisitions), streamlining production to increase productivity, and looking for lower-cost countries for manufacturing….  No doubt firms have global customer bases, so they need to be present in these markets. However, a low-cost-country manufacturing source does introduce more risk in the supply chain. And that was discussed. Quality, security, and intellectual property protection were the critical global manufacturing issues also discussed. “Cindy (Reese) told a fascinating story about Oracle’s acquisition of Sun and the supply chain that was subsequently created. Here was one of the key points: Although Oracle sells on a global basis, they now do their own factory-installed software. This keeps potential ‘factory-installed malware’ from getting into the servers at contract manufacturers, and prevents pirated software. In this way, Oracle ensures that they deliver the quality and security people expect”. Learn more about the Manufacturing Leadership 100 program from Manufacturing Executive at: http://www.mlsummit.com/ Full Article Link:  http://www.clresearch.com/research/detail.cfm?guid=52327213-3048-79ED-99D4-E433DA64D4F0

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  • Agile Testing Days 2012 – Day 2 – Learn through disagreement

    - by Chris George
    I think I was in the right place! During Day 1 I kept on reading tweets about Lean Coffee that has happened earlier that morning. It intrigued me and I figured in for a penny in for a pound, and set my alarm for 6:45am. Following the award night the night before, it was _really_ hard getting up when it went off, but I did and after a very early breakfast, set off for the 10 min walk to the Dorint. With Lean Coffee due to start at 07:30, I arrived at the hotel and made my way to one of the hotel bars. I soon realised I was in the right place as although the bar was empty, there was a table with post-it’s and pens! This MUST be the place! The premise of Lean Coffee is to have several small timeboxed discussions. Everyone writes down what they would like to discuss on post-its that are then briefly explained and submitted to the pile. Once everyone is done, the group dot-votes on the topics. The topics are then sorted by the dot vote counts and the discussions begin. Each discussion had 8 mins to start with, which meant it prevented the discussions getting off topic too much. After the time elapsed, the group had a vote whether to extend the discussion by a further 4 mins or move on. Several discussion were had around training, soft skills etc. The conversations were really interesting and there were quite a few good ideas. Overall it was a very enjoyable experience, certainly worth the early start! Make Melly Happy Following Lean Coffee was real coffee, and much needed that was! The first keynote of the day was “Let’s help Melly (Changing Work into Life)”by Jurgen Appelo. Draw lines to track happiness This was a very interesting presentation, and set the day nicely. The theme to the keynote was projects are about the people, more-so than the actual tasks. So he started by showing a photo of an employee ‘Melly’ who looked happy enough. He then stated that she looked happy but actually hated her job. In fact 50% of Americans hate their jobs. He went on to say that the world over 50% of people hate Americans their jobs. Jurgen talked about many ways to reduce the feedback cycle, not only of the project, but of the people management. Ideas such as Happiness doors, happiness tracking (drawing lines on a wall indicating your happiness for that day), kudo boxes (to compliment a colleague for good work). All of these (and more) ideas stimulate conversation amongst the team, lead to early detection of issues and investigation of solutions. I’ve massively simplified Jurgen’s keynote and have certainly not done it justice, so I will post a link to the video once it’s available. Following more coffee, the next talk was “How releasing faster changes testing” by Alexander Schwartz. This is a topic very close to our hearts at the moment, so I was eager to find out any juicy morsels that could help us achieve more frequent releases, and Alex did not disappoint. He started off by confirming something that I have been a firm believer in for a number of years now; adding more people can do more harm than good when trying to release. This is for a number of reasons, but just adding new people to a team at such a critical time can be more of a drain on resources than they add. The alternative is to have the whole team have shared responsibility for faster delivery. So the whole team is responsible for quality and testing. Obviously you will have the test engineers on the project who have the specialist skills, but there is no reason that the entire team cannot do exploratory testing on the product. This links nicely with the Developer Exploratory testing presented by Sigge on Day 1, and certainly something that my team are really striving towards. Focus on cycle time, so what can be done to reduce the time between dev cycles, release cycles. What’s stops a release, what delays a release? all good solid questions that can be answered. Alex suggested that perhaps the product doesn’t need to be fully tested. Doing less testing will reduce the cycle time therefore get the release out faster. He suggested a risk-based approach to planning what testing needs to happen. Reducing testing could have an impact on revenue if it causes harm to customers, so test the ‘right stuff’! Determine a set of tests that are ‘face saving’ or ‘smoke’ tests. These tests cover the core functionality of the product and aim to prevent major embarrassment if these areas were to fail! Amongst many other very good points, Alex suggested that a good approach would be to release after every new feature is added. So do a bit of work -> release, do some more work -> release. By releasing small increments of work, the impact on the customer of bugs being introduced is reduced. Red Pill, Blue Pill The second keynote of the day was “Adaptation and improvisation – but your weakness is not your technique” by Markus Gartner and proved to be another very good presentation. It started off quoting lines from the Matrix which relate to adapting, improvising, realisation and mastery. It has alot of nerds in the room smiling! Markus went on to explain how through deliberate practice ( and a lot of it!) you can achieve mastery, but then you never stop learning. Through methods such as code retreats, testing dojos, workshops you can continually improve and learn. The code retreat idea was one that interested me. It involved pairing to write an automated test for, say, 45 mins, they deleting all the code, finding a different partner and writing the same test again! This is another keynote where the video will speak louder than anything I can write here! Markus did elaborate on something that Lisa and Janet had touched on yesterday whilst busting the myth that “Testers Must Code”. Whilst it is true that to be a tester, you don’t need to code, it is becoming more common that there is this crossover happening where more testers are coding and more programmers are testing. Markus made a special distinction between programmers and developers as testers develop tests code so this helped to make that clear. “Extending Continuous Integration and TDD with Continuous Testing” by Jason Ayers was my next talk after lunch. We already do CI and a bit of TDD on my project team so I was interested to see what this continuous testing thing was all about and whether it would actually work for us. At the start of the presentation I was of the opinion that it just would not work for us because our tests are too slow, and that would be the case for many people. Jason started off by setting the scene and saying that those doing TDD spend between 10-15% of their time waiting for tests to run. This can be reduced by testing less often, reducing the test time but this then increases the risk of introduced bugs not being spotted quickly. Therefore, in comes Continuous Testing (CT). CT systems run your unit tests whenever you save some code and runs them in the background so you can continue working. This is a really nice idea, but to do this, your tests must be fast, independent and reliable. The latter two should be the case anyway, and the first is ideal, but hard! Jason makes several suggestions to make tests fast. Firstly keep the scope of the test small, secondly spin off any expensive tests into a suite which is run, perhaps, overnight or outside of the CT system at any rate. So this started to change my mind, perhaps we could re-engineer our tests, and continuously run the quick ones to give an element of coverage. This talk was very interesting and I’ve already tried a couple of the tools mentioned on our product (Mighty Moose and NCrunch). Sadly due to the way our solution is built, it currently doesn’t work, but we will look at whether we can make this work because this has the potential to be a mini-game-changer for us. Using the wrong data Gojko’s Hierarchy of Quality The final keynote of the day was “Reinventing software quality” by Gojko Adzic. He opened the talk with the statement “We’ve got quality wrong because we are using the wrong data”! Gojko then went on to explain that we should judge a bug by whether the customer cares about it, not by whether we think it’s important. Why spend time fixing issues that the customer just wouldn’t care about and releasing months later because of this? Surely it’s better to release now and get customer feedback? This was another reference to the idea of how it’s better to build the right thing wrong than the wrong thing right. Get feedback early to make sure you’re making the right thing. Gojko then showed something which was very analogous to Maslow’s heirachy of needs. Successful – does it contribute to the business? Useful – does it do what the user wants Usable – does it do what it’s supposed to without breaking Performant/Secure – is it secure/is the performance acceptable Deployable Functionally ok – can it be deployed without breaking? He then explained that User Stories should focus on change. In other words they should focus on the users needs, not the users process. Describe what the change will be, how that change will happen then measure it! Networking and Beer Following the day’s closing keynote, there were drinks and nibble for the ‘Networking’ evening. This was a great opportunity to talk to people. I find approaching strangers very uncomfortable but once again, when in Rome! Pete Walen and I had a long conversation about only fixing issues that the customer cares about versus fixing issues that make you proud of your software! Without saying much, and asking the right questions, Pete made me re-evaluate my thoughts on the matter. Clever, very clever!  Oh and he ‘bought’ me a beer! My Takeaway Triple from Day 2: release small and release often to minimize issues creeping in and get faster feedback from ‘the real world’ Focus on issues that the customers care about, not what we think is important It’s okay to disagree with someone, even if they are well respected agile testing gurus, that’s how discussion and learning happens!  

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