ExeCoder

Excel Pivot Tables - Tutorial

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan Pasham) — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 01:02:00 +0000

While preparing for the Excel Class today, I came across this wonderful video explaining Pivot tables. I just want to share this for the benefit of my audience.

Free excel lessons in on Long Island

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan Pasham) — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 01:52:00 +0000

Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan Pasham) — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 14:51:00 +0000

On Jan 14, 2013 SAP released SAP Crystal Reports, developer version for Microsoft Visual Studio - 2012

New branding for the product

Now called “SAP Crystal Reports, developer version for Microsoft Visual Studio”

You can download here

Support integration with Visual Studio 2012 and 4.5 .NET Framework runtime.
Added support for following platforms:
- OS: Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8, Windows 2012
- Database: SQL Server 2012, HANA SP5
- Web Browser: Firefox 16, IE10 (limited support; more information forthcoming soon)
- Other technology: IIS 8, Flash 11
29 Customer Escalations resolved

This is the presentation article.
In this page you can find actual and previous releases.

Microsoft Windows Phone - 13 years Wasted... and counting

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan Pasham) — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 20:06:00 +0000

Pocket PC 2000, originally code named "Rapier",was released on April 19, 2000 .. Thirteen years ago..

I first started using Windows phone (then Pocket PC) back in 2003. It was well ahead of the market. Blackberry is started picking up in Enterprise world, but not a common user phone. Palm was hopeless.

Today I just visited a Microsoft store here in the city and want to try out a Windows phone, and asked for an unlocked phone. Without any surprise they said they don't carry any unlocked phones, but I can buy without a contract, then unlock the device.

Now I am assured that Windows Phone 8 will be another failed story. Schools in India teach the story of Mohd Ghory and Ghazni, to motivate people on the Morale of Try, Try and Try again.. eventually you should succeed. Not sure if this works in business though. But I am convinced that Windows 8 is going to be another failure, if the current trend continues.

Google sells their phones, most powerful as of today, at $300, fully unlocked and ready for developers to play around. They know that for the success of an OS, it needs apps to run on them. To build apps one needs a good set of developer tools and hardware to test. And to make those apps available you need a solid distribution platform, like Google Play Store. Google provides all these aspects to developers almost free and subsidizes the hardware.

For Windows 8 Phone OS, though, I think a reasonably good Developer Toolset is available. In fact Visual Studio is "The Best" toolkit anyone can get. Second, they have unproven App Store. One can build an App and even he can deploy.. the problem is we don't have hardware to test in real life. If Microsoft is really serious about the platform, instead of spending so much money paying celebrities and advertising, they should also focus on improving standards, like Google, and also promote app development by providing what developers need, first and foremost hardware (phone) to developers so that they can test the products they built.

Word for Microsoft Management: Look back into your own history on how you are successful with DOS and Windows 95.

Windows 8 ... Couple of questions of my own...

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan Pasham) — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 15:25:00 +0000

Couple of questions of my own...

1. Why in the world you need a touch pad like that in a Laptop when you already have a touch screen. Can't you just touch on the screen instead of clicking on the screen? Touchpad is provided as standard in both Asus Transformer series keyboards and also Microsoft's Touch and Type Covers, which are essentially keyboards which can used as covers (or screen protectors) too.

2. If Windows 8 is really serious about transforming Desktops to Windows 8, they should have at least included touch screen drivers for handful of multi-touch displays available in the market (there are about 6 good ones). Why didn't they.. it is typical Microsoft.

3. Oh.. BTW.. Windows 8 doesn't yet support dual touch screens natively yet. Who on the earth in the right mind would have dual touch screens? I have two DELL ST2220T touch screen monitors.. so just to test I connected them. The result is a very awkwardly behaving desktop computer. When I touch on the second display it thinks that I am touching the first one. I hope Microsoft will release a service pack to fix this.

Windows 8: You should or Shouldn't?

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan Pasham) — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 15:12:00 +0000

I found an interesting two part article on PCWorld about this question.

Why you should upgrade to Windows 8

Why you shouldn’t upgrade to Windows 8

Couple of weeks ago they also has a lot questions on Windows 8

hope they got answers by now...

Fresh Windows 8, but Where’s the Start Button?

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan Pasham) — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 01:51:00 +0000

A very good review and collection of expert opinions is posted on New York Times

Enjoy this video review

Windows 8 Release Preview Baffles Customers

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan Pasham) — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 19:24:00 +0000

Huffington post posted an interesting review of Windows 8 ahead of the release. A good video in this article is the review by WSJ's Mossberg.. in layman's terms. Nice, educational and fair. Enjoy!!!

Windows 8 is Coming.. Finally!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan Pasham) — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 19:39:00 +0000

Agreed .. that is not a big news anymore and I can bet that no one is going to stand in the line at stores Microsoft is prepping up for this release.

I have received Windows 8 RTM two months ago and started playing with it on my Athlon2 machine whis equipped with Dell ST2220T multitouch display. As much I don't like windows 8, i have to admit that Windows 8 works lot better with touch screens than Windows 7.

That being said, will it succeed? Well... time will tell that.. but my gut feeling is that it is going to be another Millenium/Vista story. They changed the User interface so much.. that there is no Start Menu and Taskbar.. primary identities of Windows.. and surprisingly.. there are no more windows in Windows 8 anymore. Everything is like a freaking wall in a mall.. full of display which u cant look beyond. (Well you can run the app called Desktop.. to get your windows back.. that is a patch work to make users feel better). Instead Windows 8 has tiles. May be it's time for Microsoft to rename it to "Tiles".

They assigned touching each corner has an meaning. When there is a menu with name and descriptions over 80% of the people are confused, I don't think anyone is going to remember where to touch (or hit with mouse pointer) keeping that in their memories. Good luck to those customer service staff who are going to explain over phone.

Another big concern is that, business just started adopting Windows 7 and now Microsoft rolls out a completely redesigned OS with very confusing editions. I can't imagine any business with right mind will go for it. Just due to the immense re-training required for users to even flip between running applications. And I have not even discussed the topic application compatibility, VB6/Legacy apps, etc.

While those are my frustrations for over 2 months of playing with it on a touch screen, I found several positive aspects of the OS too. Even on a machine this old, Welcome screen comes up under 10 seconds and login takes another 10 seconds and the machine is pretty responsive. I still couldn't understand the need for welcome curtain though.People are begging for this kind of quick startup since the beginning... and let's hope that SP1 or other update wont slow it down.

Good luck Microsoft.

Microsoft Expression Blend: 5 Day Free Online Training

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan Pasham) — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 00:55:00 +0000

Microsoft is offering free 5 day online training on WPF and Silverlight design using expression blend. I believe this is a must have training for business analysts, developers and UI designers working on windows apps and/or Silverlight based web apps.

For a beginner, and college students this course will give a perspective of software development.. which is very useful in this market where there is an extreme shortage of windows developers.

More information on Microsoft Site

Then and Now: America’s New Immigrant Entrepreneurs, Part VII

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan Pasham) — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 02:36:00 +0000

As per the Kauffman foundation report released today,

Summary of the key findings about engineering and technology companies founded in the United States between 2006 and 2012:

24.3 percent of these companies had at least one key founder who was foreign-born. In Silicon Valley, this number was 43.9 percent.
Nationwide, these companies employed roughly 560,000 workers and generated $63 billion in sales in 2012.
Of the total of immigrant-founded companies, 33.2 percent had Indian founders, up about 7 percent from 2005. Indians have founded more such companies than immigrants born in the next top seven immigrant-founder-sending countries combined.
The top ten sending countries of immigrant entrepreneurs in descending order were India (33.2 percent), China (8.1 percent), the United Kingdom (6.3 percent), Canada (4.2 percent), Germany (3.9 percent), Israel (3.5 percent), Russia (2.4 percent), Korea (2.2 percent), Australia (2.0 percent), and the Netherlands (2.0 percent).
The 458 immigrant-founded companies sampled collectively created a total of 9,682 jobs. They
employed an average of 21.37 workers.
While the mix of immigrants varies by state, Indians tend to dominate the immigrant-founding groups of the top six states with the greatest representation of immigrant founders.
The states with the highest concentration of immigrant-founded companies were California (31 percent), Massachusetts (9 percent), Texas (6 percent), Florida (6 percent), New York (5 percent), New Jersey (5 percent).
Some immigrant groups showed a greater tendency to start companies in particular states. Of Indian-founded companies, 26 percent were founded in California and 8 percent in Massachusetts. Of Chinese-founded companies, 40 percent were founded in California and 16 percent in Maryland. While immigrant groups tended to concentrate the most in California, German immigrants demonstrated a preference for starting businesses in Ohio (22 percent), followed by California (17 percent).
Across engineering and technology fields, immigrant entrepreneurs displayed the greatest concentration in the innovation/manufacturing related services (45 percent) and software (22 percent) fields.

This study demonstrates that the rate of immigrant entrepreneurship nationwide has plateaued. Silicon Valley remains the rubric against which national trends in the technology sectors are measured. That the proportion of immigrant founders in the Silicon Valley has declined since 2005 should raise questions about the United States’ future ability to remain economically competitive in the international market.

This report/working paper also presents some of the deep insights about concentration zones of immigrant startups based their origins.

Healthy foods - Fruits and Vegetables

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan Pasham) — Thu, 10 May 2012 20:05:00 +0000

Usefulness chart - I received this chart via email from a friend

Apples	Protects your heart	Prevents constipation	Blocks diarrhea	Improves lung capacity	Cushions joints
Apricots	Combats cancer	Controls blood pressure	Saves your eyesight	Shields against Alzheimer's	Slows aging process
Artichokes	Aids digestion	Lowers cholesterol	Protects your heart	Stabilizes blood sugar	Guards against liver disease
Avocados	Battles diabetes	Lowers cholesterol	Helps stops strokes	Controls blood pressure	Smoothes skin
Bananas	Protects your heart	Quiets a cough	Strengthens bones	Controls blood pressure	Blocks diarrhea
Beans	Prevents constipation	Helps hemorrhoids	Lowers cholesterol	Combats cancer	Stabilizes blood sugar
Beets	Controls blood pressure	Combats cancer	Strengthens bones	Protects your heart	Aids weight loss
Blueberries	Combats cancer	Protects your heart	Stabilizes blood sugar	Boosts memory	Prevents constipation
Broccoli	Strengthens bones	Saves eyesight	Combats cancer	Protects your heart	Controls blood pressure
Cabbage	Combats cancer	Prevents constipation	Promotes weight loss	Protects your heart	Helps haemorrhoids
Cantaloupe	Saves eyesight	Controls blood pressure	Lowers cholesterol	Combats cancer	Supports immune system
Carrots	Saves eyesight	Protects your heart	Prevents constipation	Combats cancer	Promotes weight loss
Cauliflower	Protects against Prostate Cancer	Combats Breast Cancer	Strengthens bones	Banishes bruises	Guards against heart disease
Cherries	Protects your heart	Combats Cancer	Ends insomnia	Slows aging process	Shields against Alzheimer's
Chestnuts	Promotes weight loss	Protects your heart	Lowers cholesterol	Combats Cancer	Controls blood pressure
Chili peppers	Aids digestion	Soothes sore throat	Clears sinuses	Combats Cancer	Boosts immune system
Figs	Promotes weight loss	Helps stops strokes	Lowers cholesterol	Combats Cancer	Controls blood pressure
Fish	Protects your heart	Boosts memory	Protects your heart	Combats Cancer	Supports immune system
Flax	Aids digestion	Battles diabetes	Protects your heart	Improves mental health	Boosts immune system
Garlic	Lowers cholesterol	Controls blood pressure	Combats cancer	Kills bacteria	Fights fungus
Grapefruit	Protects against heart attacks	Promotes Weight loss	Helps stops strokes	Combats Prostate Cancer	Lowers cholesterol
Grapes	Saves eyesight	Conquers kidney stones	Combats cancer	Enhances blood flow	Protects your heart
Green tea	Combats cancer	Protects your heart	Helps stops strokes	Promotes Weight loss	Kills bacteria
Honey	Heals wounds	Aids digestion	Guards against ulcers	Increases energy	Fights allergies
Lemons	Combats cancer	Protects your heart	Controls blood pressure	Smoothes skin	Stops scurvy
Limes	Combats cancer	Protects your heart	Controls blood pressure	Smoothes skin	Stops scurvy
Mangoes	Combats cancer	Boosts memory	Regulates thyroid	Aids digestion	Shields against Alzheimer's
Mushrooms	Controls blood pressure	Lowers cholesterol	Kills bacteria	Combats cancer	Strengthens bones
Oats	Lowers cholesterol	Combats cancer	Battles diabetes	Prevents constipation	Smoothes skin
Olive oil	Protects your heart	Promotes Weight loss	Combats cancer	Battles diabetes	Smoothes skin
Onions	Reduce risk of heart attack	Combats cancer	Kills bacteria	Lowers cholesterol	Fights fungus
Oranges	Supports immune systems	Combats cancer	Protects your heart	Straightens respiration
Peaches	Prevents constipation	Combats cancer	Helps stops strokes	Aids digestion	Helps haemorrhoids
Peanuts	Protects against heart disease	Promotes Weight loss	Combats Prostate Cancer	Lowers cholesterol	Aggravates Diverticulitis
Pineapple	Strengthens bones	Relieves colds	Aids digestion	Dissolves warts	Blocks diarrhoea
Prunes	Slows aging process	Prevents constipation	Boosts memory	Lowers cholesterol	Protects against heart disease
Rice	Protects your heart	Battles diabetes	Conquers kidney stones	Combats cancer	Helps stops strokes
Strawberries	Combats cancer	Protects your heart	Boosts memory	Calms stress
Sweet potatoes	Saves your eyesight	Lifts mood	Combats cancer	Strengthens bones
Tomatoes	Protects prostate	Combats cancer	Lowers cholesterol	Protects your heart
Walnuts	Lowers cholesterol	Combats cancer	Boosts memory	Lifts mood	Protects against heart disease
Water	Promotes Weight loss	Combats cancer	Conquers kidney stones	Smoothes skin
Watermelon	Protects prostate	Promotes Weight loss	Lowers cholesterol	Helps stops strokes	Controls blood pressure
Wheat germ	Combats Colon Cancer	Prevents constipation	Lowers cholesterol	Helps stops strokes	Improves digestion
Wheat bran	Combats Colon Cancer	Prevents constipation	Lowers cholesterol	Helps stops strokes	Improves digestion
Yogurt	Guards against ulcers	Strengthens bones	Lowers cholesterol	Supports immune systems	Aids digestion

Crystal Reports - List of Downloads - Unofficial

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan Pasham) — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 00:52:00 +0000

I used to believe that Crystal Reports is the best report building platform available and it used to hold true until Crystal Reports was taken over by Business Objects and started tinkering around to fit it's enterprise reporting platform. It got heavy bloated and unstable. Performance in a winforms app became horrible. Crystal Reports XI was a disaster. They even had to release the software and called it XI-R2. In that version they even tried to embed flash based reports. I still could not get a rationale around it.. I still don't get why that feature is required at the expense of everything else.
Now coming to the point why on the earth SAP want to kill Crystal Reports? They are moving the location of updates every time they release a new version and Google doesn't index their downloads area. So I thought of posting few these locations in the interest of fellow developers - Ordered by Descending

Crystal Reports 2011 Support Packages
http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-27201

Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 2010

Support Pack 3

Version 13.0.3

Fixed Issues

Redist Install 32-bit

Redist Install 64-bit

Merge Modules

ClickOnce

Installation Guide

Release Notes

ClickOnce

Merge Modules (32-bit only)

Recent Older downloads from the business Objects days are still available on their old site

Some Older Downloads are available here

Please feel free to add additional download locations in the comments sections.

Big Apple Apple Store getting ready for the new iPad launch

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan Pasham) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 20:18:00 +0000

I strongly believe these Apple fans is quite crazy. Even if I agree that this version is a big leap for iPad, I don't it is worth standing in the line for days just to be one of the first get them. Think about all the crazies in New York city.. and this overhead to the police department for crowd controlling and street restrictions due to this launch.. they have to work for St Patrick's day the following day.

Pictures from 59th & 5th Ave Central Park Store

This guy is very enterprising.. want to sell his "third" position in the line

People in line since morning

NYPD just dropped barracks in tomorrow's preparation

Indian flag across the street .. No that's NOT Taj hotel or Consulate.

How To: Calculate Compound Interest in Excel

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan Pasham) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 15:51:00 +0000

Compound interest is very commonly in Finance and yet there is no simple and usable function built into Excel. So I thought of making this function I have been using for almost 10 years (improved over time) to be publicly available.

Download Addin

You can use this from your spreadsheets and the function signature is pretty self explanatory.

CompoundInterest(ByVal principle As Double, ByVal rate As Double, ByVal startdate As Date, ByVal enddate As Date, Optional ByVal split As Boolean) as Double

The last argument split if passed as true, will use linear method for intra-year interest. This function can only be used for compounding Annually. You are free to modify it to work with other terms.

Download this addin and install it. You should be able the use the function =CompoundInterest.

And yes.. you can use XIRR function to validate these interest numbers. And this function only returns the interest part of it. To match with XIRR you need to add principal to it.

For those fellow developers who is interested just in code:

Public Function CompoundInterest(ByVal principle As Double, ByVal rate As Double, ByVal startdate As Date, ByVal enddate As Date, Optional ByVal split As Boolean)
Dim interest As Double
Dim days As Long
Dim leapcount As Long
Dim fullperiods As Long
Dim remdays As Long

If IsMissing(split) Then split = False

days = DateDiff("d", startdate, enddate)

Dim yr As Long
leapcount = 0

If days > 365 Then
For yr = Year(startdate) To Year(enddate)
If isLeapYear(yr) Then
If Not ((yr = Year(startdate) And Month(startdate) > 2) Or (yr = Year(enddate) And enddate < ("02/29/" & yr))) Then
leapcount = leapcount + 1
End If
End If
Next
End If

days = days - leapcount

If split Then
fullperiods = Application.WorksheetFunction.Quotient(days, 365) ' Abs(days / 365)
remdays = days Mod 365
Dim interestfull As Double
interestfull = principle * ((1# + rate) ^ fullperiods)

Dim remainingpartial As Double
remainingpartial = interestfull * (1# + (rate * (remdays / 365#)))
interest = remainingpartial - principle
Else
interest = (principle * ((1# + rate) ^ (days / 365#))) - principle
End If
CompoundInterest = interest
End Function

Public Function isLeapYear(yr As Long) As Boolean
isLeapYear = False
If (yr Mod 400) = 0 Then
isLeapYear = True
ElseIf (yr Mod 100) = 0 Then
isLeapYear = False
ElseIf (yr Mod 4) = 0 Then
isLeapYear = True
End If
End Function

Happy Compounding...

SharePoint Client Object Model

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan Pasham) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 19:51:00 +0000

For the past month or so I have been struggling to get a proof of concept on using SharePoint 2010 Managed Client Object Model. to the frustration there are lot of posts out there but lacks the focus on basic operations you might perform like "get list of files and folders". After lot of hours of searching through Google I was able to put complete my PoC. So I thought of putting some useful links together, that will eliminate some lookups.

First: start with this article by Joost van Schaik. This a nicely summarized article that will show you how to work with document libraries (very specific).

If you are want to work with Lists, you can download some samples here. Praveen packaged these samples nicely so that you can download. Explanation for these samples is available on MSDN.

Second, for any any advanced queries one has to understand CAML. so might want to download these tools:

U2U CAML Query Builder Feature. This is a SharePoint version of the U2U CAML Query Builder tool. It is installed as a feature; developers can use it to build queries directly inside of SharePoint.

Stramit SharePoint CAML Viewer. This is a Windows-based application that is similar to U2U CAML Query Builder.

If you dont want to use CAML, but want to use LinQ to generate these CAML Queries, Camlex.Net is a great tool. You can even generate a CAML Query with U2U CAML Query Builder and convert it online to LinQ Queries at Camlex-Online. It is interesting that someone actually thought of this concept. It is very useful.

Now that my PoC works, I will be working on this topic for at least another 6 months.

Don’t Just Roll the Dice

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan Pasham) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 21:42:00 +0000

This is a review about this great book on "pricing your first software product".

Neil Davidson is great author and keeps this short yet extremely useful guide on product pricing I am inspired and finally debuted on launching my first software product into the market.

I strongly recommend this book to everyone who is planning to come up with a software product in the near future.

Official Free Download from Neil Davidson's site.
If you like to support this book please buy this book on Amazon (paperback $10.36 and Kindle: $6.99)

There are other free comics available on Neil Davidson's site which I found interesting too.

Definitions of different roles in Software project management

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan Pasham) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 21:45:00 +0000

This is bit of little aggressive hatred on these roles, but it is interesting to know how well they understood that concept.

Interestingly Apple Crazy people!!

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan Pasham) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 21:59:00 +0000

This is an interesting picture can I suggest Acer of using it in their Ads. Stand out of the crowd pro.

Why Indians are more successful as programmers

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan Pasham) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 03:33:00 +0000

To start with I am Indian living in US. I feel the way Indians deal with things is better suited to programming. Indian don't care about formalities and documentation. Tries to understand, and try to figure about getting around a problem. In programming there there, in spite of all the methodologies and patterns defined, there is no right way to code. there are always issues and roadblocks every hour of your coding life. You have to get around them. Then only one can deliver. Any level of formalization during coding reduces productivity. Another aspect is what we say "Jugaad", patch it up. Another great thing in India, is no one counts hours or days of work. Work until it is done. And once it is completed go party. People party a lot. It frees up mind so that one can get ready for next task. These are great qualities of programmers, whether you like it or not.

I don't like Apple

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan Pasham) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:31:00 +0000

As a software developer on Microsoft Platform I tend to dislike Apple on moral & professional grounds. Some reasons people love apple products:

Apple has great products like iPod, iPhone, iMac, Mac Book, etc, which are very stable. If you look into to the details, My Windows 7 computer works lot better if I lock down everything, and say getting admin rights on the kernel is a violation of support agreement, windows is lot better.
Mac book is very stable and gives a long battery life. Really? I Dells gives me over 12 hours of battery life I only use Outlook and Browser. That's all what you use on Mac I believe.
Mac doesn't get virus. For the people who don't know the history, PC viruses originally were developed on Apple Computers (in 1981) NOT on IBM PCs. Macs do get viruses even now.

Yes I still don't like Apple and the reason being I make a living designing and developing programs for Windows platform and on a daily basis we all use free services from Google. We cannot deny the fact that Microsoft is the basis of livelihood supported by Google or Microsoft (Bing, MSDN, etc) to gain constant knowledge. Even if you are an iOS developer, try living your professional life without Google or Microsoft. BTW, yahoo search was long dead. It is using Bing too. In an ethical sense apposing Google or Microsoft or wishing for the demise of these great supporters of software developers is equivalent of wishing yourself to go hell. I am NOT suggesting you to hate Apple. Hate is really bad. And I suggest not to develop hate for anything, including Apple, Google or Microsoft. I am merely suggesting, If you are software developer and your livelihood is not based on developing iOS applications, don't promote Apple. Don't buy an Apple device. I understand iPhone and iPad are really easy to use, but you never even tried an Android. Don't suggest someone else that Apple is Great and Windows is Crap. I have seen lot of people doing that, and they don't have any clue what they are talking. It is equivalent of cursing a lifeguard at the beach for not having a cell phone after saving you from drowning. It doesn't make sense on an ethical sense.
And on a side note, by every standard Windows 7 and Ubuntu are better operating systems than Apple OS X, and BTW if you don't know, Mac OS was retired in 2001. OS X is an adapted version of BSD Unix system and heavily uses open source code base from Unix and Linux systems.Yet shamelessly Apple rejects to support open source community. Just another reason why I don't like Apple.
For people who think they are part of this human society, go to sourceforge and download programs developed by the society and for the society. Help grow the society if you can, but please don't kill your own society.

Don't do it just because you can do it

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan Pasham) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:11:00 +0000

Most people can think innovative and most of them even do hard work and only to end up in to frustration. One of the fundamental problem of most hard working people, especially in the technology industry tend to do lot things by themselves thinking "that is easy to do". Yes that is easy to do but when you do that consider the opportunities you are missing by keeping yourself occupied.

One side of the argument start with what is possible.While lot of things are possible to do only some of them are plausible. Once, I started off developing a single point solution for the whole of company I worked for and wasted a lot of time trying to do it myself. My confidence is that I can do it. But the reality is that I can't. Only way I might have been successful is by hiring a team of people ad guiding them how to build it.Since the original Idea is mine and have full understanding (assuming) of what is required to do, I should have focused on getting it done the right way, Instead I setup myself for failure. Now focus on what is essential and finish it the right way. Don't do it just because it is possible. Do your homework.

Innovation is another side of possibility. Below picture shows what is possible, but is absolutely stupid to do something which you can do. Think about the picture below (Thanks for the innovation of it's creator).

And most important of all, Keep it simple. Try explaining it to your colleague or the sponsor what you are planning or going to do. Make sure you can explain it in one sentence what you are doing. If you really know and understand what you are doing you should be able to achieve this. If you cannot explain then there is a problem. Think seriously before trying to work on a project you don't understand in the beginning which you cannot explain simple enough. You might be setting yourself for failure.

The Project Management

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan Pasham) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 22:15:00 +0000

This is one of the most beautiful explanations I have found on the web on why projects fail. Projects doesn't necessarily be software, but in software due to reduced visibility of output until later stages, combined with developer's isolation into sanctum sanctorum of their cubicles or offshore development centers, lead to this huge gap in understanding of the end user's wishes. Thanks to projectcartoon.com/ for the nice graphics.

1. This is how the customer explained it

2. This is how the project leader understood it.

3. This is how the analyst designed it

4. This is how the programmer wrote it

5. This is what the beta testers received

6. This is how the business consultant described it

7. This is how the project was documented

8. This is how the operations installed

9.This is how the customer was billed

10. This is how it was supported

11. Marketing advertised it as iSwing

12. But this what the customer really needed

This is a classic and pretty popular cartoon explaining the loss of knowledge at each level of translation. I suggest to have at-least one person who understands the entire project, both the business side and technology side. If you don't have one, please don't start the project in the first place than than wasting resources.

Additional reading on this topic:
Business Balls: This post explains the history of this cartoon and its evolution over time.
Taming Data: Explains difference sides of this cartoon and various modifications based on applications.

Is VBA going away?

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan Pasham) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 17:10:00 +0000

I am a big advocate of moving away from VBA and adopting something like VSTO or Excel DNA based on your requirements. But I strongly advice to stop using VBA in your new projects.
Coming to the question, Is VBA going away? Answer is Yes. An Absolute YES. But When? I don't know and I don't think that any at Microsoft even knows. Microsoft stopped working on language enhancements of VBA, way back, at least a decade ago. Last improvement to VBA was made for Office XP, released in 2001.
Why is still being supported as the "primary" platform in Office 2010? No.. it is not the primary anymore, but is still being supported. Yes, even in 64bit editions. Microsoft is all about business, like any other company. Office suite generates more revenue to Microsoft than any of their products including Windows. They cannot afford to risk that by removing VBA from Office. Next best thing they can do is not improving it, and say that it is still being supported, and promote alternate technologies like VSTO and over time people forget about VBA, and Microsoft can slowly pull the plug.
How far are they in that path?
It is getting very difficult to find developers and I have seen developers threatening to leave if they are going to work full time on VBA. Developers are already seeing it as a dead end. I feel that we are close and at the most next version will be still have support to VBA. Microsoft might very well support it beyond 2015 though.

We are already working on VSTO for all our new office solutions development. However have no plans to convert out legacy VBA code to VSTO. It is too risky and too expensive to provide reasonable justification to business.

Good Luck for all who are still focused on VBA.

The Role of Stakeholder Perceptions during IT Enabled Change: An Investigation of Technology Frames of Reference in a Sales Process Innovation Project

noreply@blogger.com (Bhuvan Pasham) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 02:49:00 +0000

This is an extract from Brett Young @ GSU's article. This articles explores the dynamics of selling IT enabled change. As this was a dissertation paper, it is extremely long and very boring. However, it explores lot of valuable aspects of IT enabled change management very helpful of IT systems managers trying to sell a new project to the business. Here is y favorite diagram extracted from the article.

Conceptual Model of Frame Dynamics during IT-Enabled change