spong.tech.blog

What I love about Microsoft

2009-09-08T07:15:00.000-05:00

I am primarily a Microsoft software developer. But I was not always a M$FT user/developer so to speak. I used to use Windows 3.1 back in the heyday, followed a little with Windows 95/98. But by then, I was a college student at Boston University. The computer labs there had primarily Unix terminals and Solaris boxes. So I naturally had to use and learn these technologies. Everything from using the command shell, pine, star office, gcc compiler, etc. It wasn’t easy to pick up, but a great learning experience nonetheless. I later used Linux (Red Hat/Mandrake) on my home PCs.

Now, to the point of my blog.

I love how Microsoft treats college students so well. Over my undergraduate years (1997-2001), more and more terminals were turning into Windows NT/2000 workstations, donated of course by Microsoft. There were group meetings that they setup on campus to promote their products and give away free software and development tools such Visual Studio 6.0 and Windows 2000 Professional beta.

Present day: Hundreds and thousands of dollars worth of software are still being distributed. Check out the following sites that offer students (high school through graduate level students at colleges/universities) free Microsoft software:

Now, from a business standpoint, this is smart. Microsoft gives these software freely to poor college students and gets them hooked. When these students graduate and move into the working world, they’ll naturally want to continue using all the Microsoft software.

From a developer’s point-of-view, Microsoft gives so much to academics. I was a PHP/MySQL developer before I started developing projects with ASP.net. Why did I switch over?—Because I got their IDE, Visual Studio .Net for free! All I had to do was attend a Microsoft launch event. If I had to personally pay for the software, I probably would never have gotten started using Microsoft technologies. I would have been happy freely using LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQl, PHP).

Now, this probably does sound as though Microsoft is a crack dealer or something. They get you hooked and you never get out! Funny, but somewhat true.

Eric Schmidt's Keynote Speech at Carnegie Mellon

2009-05-19T12:08:00.002-05:00

I always enjoy speeches made by Eric Schmidt. I wish he spoke at my undergrad and/or grad commencement!

My favorite quote:

“How should you behave? Well, do things in a group. Don’t do things by yourself. Groups are stronger, groups are faster. None of us is as smart as all of us.”-- Eric Schmidt

Free Microsoft Development Tools for Students on DreamSpark

2009-02-28T17:38:00.008-06:00

On Microsoft Dreamspark, they have a very nice list of Microsoft development tools that you can download for FREE. Mind you, these aren't just the free editions of their software, these are Standard to Professional editions that individuals and companies pay a lot of money for.

The catch is that you need to be a student with a student email. (Something like student.name@myuniversity.edu).

They currently offer:

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Developer Edition
Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition
Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition
Microsoft Expression Studio 1.0
Microsoft Expression Studio 2 Trial Edition (includes Web, Blend, Media, and Design)
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition
IT Academy Student Pass

My Favorite Web App: Google Reader

2009-02-21T08:09:00.008-06:00

Google Reader is by far my favorite web application. I reorganized many of the labels as well as added/deleted some feeds. But I truly consider this app as my gateway to the Internet. I have it set as a tab that always opens up in any of my browsers.

What makes it my favorite is that it collects all my favorite websites/blogs into one simple screen. I don't care about actually visiting the website unless it has an article/blog post that I'm actually interested in commenting or reading comments on. Right there is a time-saver. I can get my daily reads done quickly and efficiently rather than surfing the web for something of interest.

I used to use Microsoft Outlook, Google's personal homepage, and even NetVibes to collect my feeds, but as I use several computers to read my news feeds, they would never sync what I already read.

Other Web Apps
A close second would be Gmail. But lately the application has been getting features which I consider somewhat "bloating". And I do mean this through the Labs feature. There are just too many options that just add clutter and confusion to what's supposed to be a simple and fast interface for email. Thankfully, I didn't enable many of them, but I do notice that Gmail seems to load slower than before.

I've also become more a bigger fan of microblogging through Twitter. I've armed myself with some software and services to help me 'tweet'. I have the twitter client TweetDeck installed on my PC and I'm using free services through TwitterFeed and TwitPic. I definitely think there's some value behind real-time conversations through the sharing of interesting links.

Upcoming Tech Events in Chicago for February

2009-02-11T23:10:00.004-06:00

Chicago Twestival!
Date: Thursday, February 12, 2009
Time: 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM (CT)
Place: Catalyst Ranch - 656 W Randolph Dr Chicago IL
Cost: $10 donation
RSVP: http://www.chicagotwestival.eventbrite.com

Event: TECH cocktail Chicago 10
Date: Thursday, February 19, 2009
Time: 6:30pm - 9pm
Place: John Barleycorn’s - 3524 N Clark (where it always is)
Cost: $0 (per usual)
RSVP: http://techcocktail-chicago-10.eventbrite.com

What's next for Social Media?: GPS-enabled applications

2009-02-07T19:17:00.006-06:00

There are some really cool GPS applications out there that are about to push the boundaries of technology and social media as we know it. I remember years ago when I shared a link to Loopt with friends, pretty much everyone didn't like the idea of sharing that much information with each other. Today, I already have a few friends jumping onto to use such an app. Google has now also released a similar application out called Google Latitude, but based on their Google login system. I also just finished manually updating my G1 phone to use RC33, just so I could be one of the first to use the app.

What I'm a little surprised about is how Facebook doesn't have a social GPS application of their own. Loopt already ties in to both Facebook and Twitter status feeds. But there is so much untapped potential with what can be done with users that choose to interact using these applications. Imagine a service that is able to provide relevant ads or suggestions based on your location? The sky is literally the limit to what can be achieved.

Links:

How to manually update T-Mobile G1 phone firmware to RC33

Basic Combinatorial Mathematics

2009-01-02T11:58:00.007-06:00

I absolutely love reading CodingHorror.com. It's easily one of my favorite blogs to read about problem solving from the viewpoint of a programming/developer. Recently, Jeff Atwood posted a problem:

Let's say, hypothetically speaking, you met someone who told you they had two children, and one of them is a girl. What are the odds that person has a boy and a girl?

I was surprised by the number of readers who responded who got it wrong, very wrong. Quite a few who commented answered one-half, 50%. Reasoning ranged from it's always half, or because the ordering doesn't matter-- and that there are only 3 sets to choose from. The latter of which I want to discuss.

Note: B = Boy, G = Girl

Some argued that the combinations to work off of is: BB, GG, BG (3 sets)
The full combination is: BB, GG, BG, GB (4 sets, where BG and GB are treated as separate sets)

The 3 set argument is that the BG, GB should be considered as one set, since order does not matter. But I beg to differ. Although order (older/younger) was not implied in the problem, it must be considered.

Here's why:
Having only 3 sets is basically saying that it's equally likely that a couple with two children will have either a Boy-Boy, Girl-Girl, or Boy-Girl set. This is not true. It is a 50/50 chance they will have children of the same gender (Boy-Boy or Girl-Girl versus a Boy/Girl combo). So a full 4 set combo must be used to deduce the answer to the problem.

The answer then, since we know that at least one is a girl, the BB set needs to get tossed out, leaving GG, BG, GB. So then 2 out of the 3 sets can have boys, so there is a 2/3 chance that the couple's second child is a boy.

Links:

Setting up WRT54G as a wireless bridge with DD-WRT

2008-12-24T23:39:00.011-06:00

My parents have a Thai TV ethernet box of some kind so they can tune in to their Thai stations, shows, and even radio on their HDTV. However, I had to run a 50 foot CAT5 cable from the upstairs to the first floor great room, which is quite messy. So for Christmas this year, I bought them a Linksys-Cisco WRT54GL Wireless-G Broadband Router.

The setup I wanted was to have the Thai TV box, which uses an ethernet port for all data, connect to the wireless router, and have the wireless router connect to the wireless router upstairs. This setup required a wireless bridge, which the router did not come configured with. So after some googling, I found the proper links to set it all up with:

First thing to do, is to figure out what to do with your particular router: Linksys WRT54G/GL/GS/GX. For me, I had to Flash the WRT54Gv8.

Unfortunately for me, I messed up the installation, and "bricked" my router. But after more googling, I found out how to "unbrick" it: UnBrick your Linksys router - WRT54GS v7. Apparently my problem was that the tftp program was just incredibly slow in uploading the firmware, and I closed the DOS window too quickly due to what appeared to be inactivity.

The last thing I had to do was set up the wireless bridge, which was the easy part. So there you have it, how to set up a wireless bridge using DD-WRT.

Eric Schmidt on what's ahead in 2009

2008-11-29T02:25:00.003-06:00

I tremendously enjoyed this video of Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt's optimism for 2009. You can also read this on Google's Public Policy Blog here.

YouTube Link

My Favorite Firefox Add-ons

2008-11-23T00:26:00.006-06:00

Firefox is my favorite web browser. In this day and age, I see no need to use Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE). Although I do like Google Chrome, it's still not available for Linux yet. But this isn't an entry about browsers and the pros and cons of each. (I do plan on writing about browsers and operating systems in the near future.)

This is the list of add-ons that I install on any computer I use running Firefox.

Adblock Plus - Blocks Ads (a must for anyone serious about web browsing)
Forecastfox - Weather monitor
Delicious Bookmarks - Social Bookmarking
Fast Dial - Nice thumbnail size shortcuts to websites you choose
Server Spy - Shows what kind of server is running on the page I'm viewing
ShowIP - Shows the IP address of the site I'm viewing

Links:

Installed Ubuntu Linux onto my Thinkpad T60

2008-10-29T21:44:00.005-05:00

Last weekend I installed Ubuntu Linux onto my Lenovo Thinkpad T60 laptop. I wanted to keep Windos XP Professional installed, so I chose to dual-boot it using GRUB. I also upgraded the 40 GB hard drive to a 250 GB hard drive using a laptop hard drive upgrade kit. I copied the files over to the new drive, and then installed Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) in another partition. It was amazingly simple.

My reason for installing Linux is because I miss it. Almost ten years ago I got into Linux (Mandrake and Red Hat) in the first place because I was sick of Windows 98. Win98, which I do not consider an operating system (OS) simply because it does not manage system processes whatsoever.

What made me sick was that I could not get my work done on it and I truly enjoyed my school's Solaris machines (I was an undergrad at Boston University). It's been a few years since I truly used Linux for many of my computing needs. And here I am getting back into that.

Tomorrow, 8.10 will be released and I will again be upgrading my OS. The picture below is of my system running 8.04. Notice my G1 next to it.

On the screen I have Conky running along with Songbird. You probably can't see it from the angle this was taken.

Tech Cocktail Chicago 9

2008-10-14T18:40:00.004-05:00

Another digerati networking event coming up in November! Last time I went I had a pretty good time talking with various people in the Chicago tech community. Only wish my company would sport me with actual up-to-date business cards!

When: Thursday, November 6, 2008 - 6:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. CST
Where: John Barleycorn Wrigleyville
Tech Cocktail Chicago 9

I also recently joined the community: iam.techcocktail.com

You can see my personal blog's previous posting on Tech Cocktail 8 here.

Using Google Docs as a Collaboration Tool

2008-10-01T23:49:00.011-05:00

A few weeks ago I visited San Francisco (SF) for the first time with my baby sister. My sister was busy with law school, so the planning was mostly up to me, and I needed recommendations on what to do there. So I started a Google Docs for myself at first and then added collaborators to help edit it. These collaborators were all friends from SF.

It then turned into a wiki-style collaboration document. I was getting recommendations on where to stay, where to go, what to eat. It was great. This simply goes to show the power of the Google's free collaboration tool and friends that are willing to help others.

Check out the result of the collaboration below:

Steven's San Francisco Trip (Sept. 2008)

The Math behind TinyURL

2008-09-30T00:33:00.002-05:00

TinyURL is a website that condenses a submitted URL, usually a long one, into a short readable URL on tinyurl's website. In turn, this shorter URL then redirects to the original url. This is quite handy.

As of this writing, the text below their logo reads:

Making long URLs usable! More than 90 million of them. Over 1.5 billion hits/month.

From what I've seen, they only use letters and numbers. So that gives us 26 possible letters, which are not case-sensitive (in other words, "A" is the same as "a"). There are 10 numbers then, zero through nine (0-9). So through TinyURL's website, that gives us 36 possible links that are of 1 character length. To get number links of length 2, we would multiply the total possible of the first character by the total possible of the second character, luckily they're the same, so 36 x 36 = 1296. For each additional, we again multiply by 36. If n is the number of characters, then the formula can be represented by 36^n, also read 36 raised to the power of n. Mathematically it's represented as 36ⁿ.

So one of the things I'm wondering is, how long before the tiny url isn't so tiny anymore?

As of this writing, they have reached the 90 million (90,000,000) range. So let's see how big this gets:

1 character = 36¹ = 36 possible
2 characters = 36² = 1296
3 characters = 36³ = 46,656
4 characters = 36⁴ = 1,679,616 (over 1 million)
5 characters = 36⁵ = 60,466,176
6 characters = 36⁶ = 2,176,782,336 (over 2 billion)
7 characters = 36⁷ = 78,364,164,096
8 characters = 36⁸ = 2,821,109,907,456 (over 2 trillion, approaching 3 trillion)

So they just passed using 5 characters and are at 6 characters. Getting to 7 or 8 characters may take a while still. According to this Google Search wiki, in 2006 Google has indexed over 25 billion web-pages. So we're not even at the trillion mark just yet!

Plus, this isn't meant for everyone to use to index their page. But for giggles, let's see what adding a few more characters will yield us.

9 characters = 36⁹ = 101,559,956,668,416
10 characters = 36¹⁰ = 3,656,158,440,062,976 (over 3 quadrillion!)
11 characters = 36¹¹ = 131,621,703,842,267,136
12 characters = 36¹² = 4,738,381,338,321,616,896 (over 4 quintillion!)

So each new character that is added adds a significant amount to the upper limit on number of URLs. They won't need to add too many characters at our current pace! Wow, isn't math fun?!

A C# Code Solution for FizzBuzz

2008-09-15T22:20:00.010-05:00

I read a slashdot article earlier today which lead me to a Coding Horror article: Why Can't Programmers.. Program?. This lead me to the FizBuzz problem, which prompted me to write my own quickie solution in C# (as a console application).

Problem:
Write a program that prints the numbers from 1 to 100. But for multiples of three print "Fizz" instead of the number and for the multiples of five print "Buzz". For numbers which are multiples of both three and five print "FizzBuzz".

My Quick Solution:

for (int i = 1; i <= 100; i++)
{
    if ((i % 3 == 0) && (i % 5 == 0))
    {
        Console.WriteLine("FizzBuzz");
    }
    else if (i % 3 == 0)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Fizz");
    }
    else if (i % 5 == 0)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Buzz");
    }
    else
    {
        Console.WriteLine(i.ToString());
    }
}
Console.ReadLine();

I know my version is probably not optimal, nor is it the shortest way to write it. I just wanted to write it for fun, code for fun. I honestly can't remember the last time I coded something purely for fun. Now I'm wondering how I can optimize this in C# and even how to write it in other languages.

Where I formatted my C# code into HTML for Blogspot: http://formatmysourcecode.blogspot.com

The Problem with Voicemail

2008-09-01T08:17:00.005-05:00

Voicemail should be considered an old and somewhat out-dated process. It's inefficient and unreliable. Here's why:

A caller calls you, and you are not there to pick up. The call gets transfered to a voicemail greeting the caller needs to listen to, which then prompts them to leave a verbal message after the beep. *Beep* The caller leaves a message detailing why they are calling and then leaves a number where they can be reached.

The receiver (you), looks at your phone (cell or work), sees a missed call, and must then call the voice-mailbox to retrieve and listen to the message. This is where it can be unreliable. If the caller is calling from a cell phone, the message can come out fuzzy, there could be loud background noise, or they could have spoken too fast etc. In a nutshell, the message could have come through incomplete or unclear. It seems that humans weren't meant to talk to machines that know how to interpret if speeches are well-communicated or not. I certainly don't practice my talking skills to machines.

The inefficiency occurs when either party must always check the voicemail to figure out what was missed and what needs to be done. There is this extra step in dialing, listening, and then writing down important information. The other problem is in playing phone tag, when neither party is able to pick up a live call from the other.

There are generally two cases where the voicemail message left would be inefficient: short and long messages.

A short message is goes like: "Hey this is Bob, call me back". Although it is short and to the point, was it really worth leaving a message like that? It took longer to call in to the voice-mailbox than it was to listen to the message!

Long messages are the worst. There's a lot of information recorded which needs to be digested and even written down by the receiver. Multiple listening are probably necessary too.

The solution to these unreliable and inefficient process would be in sending an email, an IM, or even a text message instead. In all of these solutions, the message (long or short) will arrive visible and clear to the receiver. It will also be editable by the sender too. It allows the sender/receiver to set a level of priority to how the message needs to be answered (immediately or at their own convenience) rather than having to call into the voicemail box just to figure it out.

This all, of course, assumes the people involved actually use such technologies.

Best Free Software Recommendations for 2008

2008-08-31T11:52:00.011-05:00

For almost ten years now, I still find myself fixing computers for friends. It's not so much hardware these days as it is cleaning out viruses and installing software to handle a certain task. I don't mind so much, but I just hope my friends learn something from what I do and explain rather than to just rely on me to fix everything for them each and every time.

Anyway, for protecting a computer running Windows, an Antivirus software is required along with receiving regular updates. Just having it installed without updating it say once a week/month doesn't give the computer the best protection.

For installing productivity software, I often get asked, Where can I download Microsoft Office? Photoshop? Or Antivirus? The truth, my friends, is that you shouldn't go out there and download these software illegally, you should pay for them. Actually, I'll give a better recommendation, you should just download the freeware equivalent of them.

There is absolutely no need to risk your computer getting a virus by downloading a pay-for antivirus program illegally, to protect your computer from viruses. Somehow that logic seems lop-sided, but a surprising number of people do it anyway.

So I put together a list of software for 2008 that I recommend to friends and colleagues:

Function	Pay ($$$)	Free
Antivirus	Norton Antivirus and Mcafee	AVG Free
Compress files	WinZip and WinRAR	7 Zip
Office Suite	Microsoft Office	Open Office
Photo Editor	Photoshop	Paint.net and Gimp

Others worthy of mention:

Comodo Firewall (Firewall)
Digsby (IM client)
Filezilla (FTP Client)
Foxit Reader (PDF Reader)
Mozilla Firefox (Web browser)
Mozilla Thunderbird (Email client)
Programmer's Notepad (Notepad)
utorrent (Torrent client)
VLC Media Player (Media player- also get Divx)

Friends often ask how these companies can survive by giving away free software. And to be honest, I'm not sure I have the answer to that. Part of the answer would be in donations, advertising, and even some VC funding.

Some friends even say they don't feel comfortable not paying for software, that instead they are getting some second-rate software or that they will get constant nag screens. This may have been true 5-6 years ago, but not so for today. Those companies have either gone out of business or changed their business model. Besides, many people, including myself, have at least vouched for these software as being quite good and most importantly, legit.

Facebook to become the new AOL?

2008-08-20T06:00:00.003-05:00

I used to use Prodigy as my Internet Service Provider (ISP) back in the 1990s. It was fun to post to bulletin boards and participate in various discussions. I then jumped over to use America Online (AOL) because of it's nicer interface, live chat rooms, email, instant messaging, buddy lists, and overall better features. To be honest, back then I used the Internet for two things: to talk about wrestling and find Dragonball Z pictures.

Today, I find myself hooked on Facebook. I'm just fascinated with reading up on friends' profiles, what they're doing, events, birthdays, pictures, etc. In many ways, it's everything that I used to use AOL for, and more. If Web 2.0 is the current version of the web, then Facebook is basically AOL 2.0. Of course I don't mean this literally, because then we'd be going back quite a few versions.

With Facebook, I can:

Send/Receive Messages (like Email)
Maintain a social network (buddy list)
IM with friends (Chat)
Join discussion groups (bulletin boards)
Play games

I enjoy Facebook, but I do wonder if it will go the ways of AOL. Although it's a hot startup right now, I wonder what if their business is truly sustainable. There are so many social networks out there (MySpace, Friendster, Hi5). And there are other similar services (Twitter, FriendFeed, Digg), many of which operate on a more open network. What I mean by that is that Facebook requires users to login and only upon login to view and use their services. Although this provides a certain level of community and security/anonymity, it's far from being open which is what the Web is all about.

Having a closed network promotes the idea that only their users will benefit from their services. I like how they offer services to share links found on the web with a simple click (Heck, I use it!), but it seems to only drive traffic into Facebook, and not anywhere else. I feel many business minds out there are thinking What's wrong with that? That's great! What company wouldn't want to do that where all arrows point inwards?!

I'll tell you what's wrong, it doesn't contribute to making the web any better. The sharing that takes place is centralized on the here and now. Since when can we search to find that interesting post a friend shared from 3 months back? And even if we could find it, how can we share that with anyone else outside of Facebook users?

For instance, I would like to be able to download all my friends' contact information and store it in my Blackberry. But the current privacy setup prevents any application from getting to such information. I'm sure many privacy advocates love that idea, but if such information was to be really kept private, why publish it to be shared amongst your closest 100+ friends to begin with? The important thing is not how it acts by default, but that there is no option to turn it on, to share this information in such a way. The same can be said with picture sharing.

But maybe I'm just jumping the gun a little too soon here. Maybe down the road they will open up their network some more and play with everyone else a little bit more. Hopefully that will occur while people are still interested in them and not on the next fad.

Interesting Reads:

Software Development Comic

2008-08-18T13:02:00.002-05:00

I find this comic to be hilarious.

Tapping into the Cloud

2008-08-12T23:40:00.008-05:00

A few years ago I envisioned a world where computers would return back to acting more like terminal PCs connected to a mainframe. A world where accessing files/applications locally would be a thing of the past. In a way, that's what Cloud Computing seems to be about. A user can be on any computer (albeit a PC, a Mac, or a Linux box), all that is required is Internet connection and a web browser, and the user can run most of his/her computing needs.

I think it's interesting that applications these days are almost synonymous with web applications than with the original desktop application. I wanted to share some of my favorite online applications with everyone, and encourage you to also tap into the cloud.

Email and RSS feeds
I'm relying less on using Microsoft Outlook and/or Mozilla Thunderbird to collect my email and RSS feeds. I utilize both Gmail and Google Reader for all that now. I can read/add/search for anything on either my home PC, laptop, or work PC.

Bookmarking
One of the main reasons I wrote my own blog application back in 1999/2000 was because I wanted a way to bookmark interesting websites. I hated that I could bookmark a website on one computer, but I wouldn't be able to get at it from another PC. A classmate originally wrote it in Perl, but I translated it to PHP. Here is the link.

Delicious does a fantastic job of this. Good job Yahoo on acquiring them in 2005! As far as I know, this was the first site that I started to tag with.

Pictures, Videos, and Instant Messaging
Picasa is my favorite site to store all my picture albums. YouTube isn't so much a greta place to store videos, as it is to share them. But more or less becoming the same thing. Meebo is pretty nice in how it collects all the IM services in one place. Although, honestly, I'm still a big user of the Digsby desktop application.

Office Suite
I can't say I write my word docs or excel spreadsheets online yet. I know there's Google Docs, but I haven't really caught onto that just yet. I'm just really more of a Blogger.

CIO.com: Four Secrets to Becoming a Rising IT Star

2008-08-06T21:42:00.003-05:00

I thought this was an interesting article on CIO.com. Here it is in a nutshell (I'm not sure why they still chose to divide their articles up into pages when they could fit it all in one webpage).

Four Secrets to Becoming a Rising IT Star

Be good to your end users.
Go beyond the walls of IT and learn the business.
Understand the organization's structure and goals.
Build trust with your boss.

The list reads from easiest to hardest to accomplish. #1 just goes without saying and is part of the job. #2 and #3 are the most time consuming to achieve. Learning the business and organization structure takes time and careful observation on the employee's part. But if #2 and #3 can be achieved, I think it helps with #4, which is based on communication with your manager through information sharing.

Overall, I think this is an excellent list to work off for those of us who are looking to climb the ladder of success.

Agile Software Development

2008-08-01T06:00:00.000-05:00

Up to this point in my consulting career, too often I've seen consultants (myself included) spend time writing documents describing what will be and won't be included in the project. And pretty much every time, whatever the client committed to on paper, isn't what the client wanted in the end. Requirements change between the start and end of a project. This is software development as it truly is.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying documentation is bad all together. I can see the importance of writing some functional specification. Maybe some screenshots, workflows, and even the major business rules. I mean, as developers, we can't write code out of thin air.

But if change is so natural in the software world, should it not be built right into the development process?

The traditional Waterfall Model is simply not practical for software development. The phases/stages are like a series of dominoes. Phase 1, Phase 2, then 3, and so forth, much like a waterfall. But I have never seen a project run like this. Projects are more like the Phases jumping back and forth between each other because everything needs to be revisited multiple times!

Agile Software Development recognizes that change happens, and it happens often. The work is done iteratively in short cycles with close contact with an expert user/client. It ensures that:

The client gets their hands on something they can use right away.
Feedback is given often.
Changes/adjustments can be made quickly.

In the end, it should be a better product for the client that is developed with a more reasonable methodology.

Some Good Reads:

Event: Chicago Fark Party

2008-07-26T06:00:00.001-05:00

Fark is having a little get-together in August over at Lincoln Tap Room. See the Chicago Fark Party Thread.

Hang on to your hats, it's summertime in Chicago and that can mean one thing, time for another huge Chicago Fark Party!

Mark your calendars for Saturday, August 16th, at THE LINCOLN TAP ROOM for the spot to be for the next huge Windy City blowout! We've had parties here before and it's always been a hit, and we have lined up a ridiculous party package again, so come on out and join us! Here are all the wicked grisly details.

WHEN:
Saturday, August 16th
8pm-12am, or whenever you feel like showing up and leaving

WHERE:
Lincoln Tap Room
3010 N. Lincoln Ave.
Chicago, IL 60657

DETAILS:

Lincoln Tap is a laid back bar with a nice beer selection and full liquor bar. We will have the entire back room reserved for us as well. Lincoln Tap Room is located on the triple intersection of Lincoln, Wellington, and Southport Aves. You can get there by the CTA's Brown Line by getting off at Wellington and walking West the six blocks or so to this intersection.

PARTY PACKAGE DETAILS:

We've done this before, so it's being lined up again, we've secured a party package for the date of the party. $40 will get you a complete open bar for 4 hours from 8pm to Midnight. That's right, for only $10 an hour, you can choose from any beer bottled or on draft, any mixed drink, any wine on the menu and it is all included! This deal is spectacular and I highly recommend you take advantage of it, but IT IS NOT REQUIRED FOR ENTRY, the special is just there if you wish to partake of it.(Source: fark)

Thoughts on Digg Meetup Chicago

2008-07-25T06:00:00.004-05:00

First off, let me say that I enjoy reading some of the articles posted on Digg... well, I want to emphasize some. It's a voting system, so there's a lot of crap stories, and just a few winners here and there. But sometimes those stories are worth it. Sometimes...

Anyway, I went to the Digg Meetup event yesterday with a co-worker and I thought it was just ok. Kevin Rose spoke a little, threw out some free schwag, interacted with the crowd, typical stuff. But the real reason I went was my hopes of hearing something about the Google in final negotiations to acquire Digg for $200 million headline. Which I didn't hear. Oh and the free schwag, which I also didn't get. Although a t-shirt did fly by my head, but Smartbar was so dark I couldn't even see the floor and chair in front of me.

I'm just really curious as to what Google or any Digg staff had to say publicly about this acquisition. Although the digg system is somewhat refreshing, the community and users are not. Too many stories and comments are entered without truly adding to the discussion. There is a way to bury these, which is nice, but again, that is based on their voting system.

Not that I'm saying Digg is like MySpace (which I hate, yes the word is hate). No, in fact I still prefer Digg over the moderated Slashdot.

I just don't see how this adds any value to what Google has. I like Google News as it is (although it could use a bit of a facelift). Is it for the money? I know Google would be good for Digg, but what does Digg do for Google?

Here is the Digg: Digg's Chicago Town Hall Pics.

I think their competitors are worth checking out:

Why Mentoring Matters

2008-07-24T02:07:00.000-05:00

I've mentored several co-workers over the past few months. Everything from our client's business rules, navigating across different applications, to running some SQL queries on some important tables in our database. And I enjoy doing this every so often. Why? Because not only is important for them to pick up this knowledge, but it's also important for ME to pass it along.

This process of passing knowledge to another co-worker or junior developer is important not only for the company, but for your career. At first you may feel that you are being replaced or training a "back-up", or even possibly that they don't trust you to be doing what you are doing alone anymore. Hopefully, this is not so. Instead, you should feel somewhat enthusiastic that:

They trust you to train someone else.
They may have something more interesting for you to move on to.

Ask yourself this, do you see yourself doing the work you are doing forever? Do you not want to move on and learn new things, and once you have mastered that, mentor someone else to do the same? And yes, wouldn't it be nice to have someone else support your work in case you are sick or on vacation?

It is all a cycle and part of the ladder in advancing your career. I look forward to doing more mentoring in the future as needed.