XGEN Applications

Should We Develop Products with Artificial Intelligence?

2011-08-09T12:52:00.000-04:00

"There really is no viable market for creating things with human-like traits. The current tools and processes required for the mass production of thinking organisms is basically free-ware; I just think some people have trouble deploying the solution"

- Patrick Greene

How to Sign into Window XP if the Password is Lost

2011-05-04T09:00:00.000-04:00

by Stacy Craig

What happens when you lose your Windows XP password? When you install Windows XP, a default Administrator account is made. This account is not protected by a password. So if you have recently installed Windows XP, or bought a new computer, you can sign into your system using the unprotected Admin account.

Things get a little trickier when you have given a password to the account and you forgot it.

Here are a few ways you can take under such a situation:

Restarting Windows in Safe Mode

1^st Way

Here is one way in which you can log into your system after losing the password:

1. Restart your system

2. As the computer restarts, press F8. Though older systems required pressing F5, but with Windows XP, it is F8. Do this before the Windows booting screen shows up.

3. From the given options, select the one to start Windows in safe mode.

4. There will be some options that would be self explanatory and really easy to understand. When you select the given options, you will be led to another screen. As you will follow the instructions, your system will start working in the safe mode. As you will see, the options in safe mode are limited, and the screen resolution is decreased.

5. Now look for the Administrator account. Go to the control panel. It will be present in User Accounts. In case the default settings have not been altered, then it will not be password protected.

6. Log into the system as the administrator.

7. You will get a prompt that will ask you if you want to continue working in the safe mode. Press yes.

8. Open the control panel and go to User Settings. Now you can change the passwords of users working on the system.

9. Restart your computer. This time do not press the F8 key.

10. Now sign into the system as the user whose password you changed.

11. This should work fine. But if it doesn’t, you can use some professional support. There are many programs that can crack Windows passwords for you. Some of them are available for free, while some might require a little fee if you want to use them.

2^nd Way

If the first one doesn’t work, here is the second method:

1. Sign into the system that has an internet connection. Download Windows Password Unlocker and decompress it on that system. There will be an ISO file. You have to burn it on a CD.

2. You will now have a CD with an ISO file. Insert that CD in the drive of the locked computer.

3. Now restart the computer and follow the displayed instructions. There will be just a few steps and the password will be gone without any loss of data.

Setting up the new password

Windows Control Panel

Once you have removed the old password, it is time you set up a new one. Here is how you can set up a new password for your user account:

1. Go to the Control Panel.

2. Click on the icon for user accounts.

3. There will be some user accounts there. Select the one whose password you want to set up.

4. Click on Set up Password. There will be a small form. Fill it up and click on Create Password.

5. Now you have a login ID and password for your account. Now nobody can login into your system without the password.

Tips

You can use the Admin account via the login prompt. You don’t have to go into the safe mode for that.
If you are trying to log into someone else’s system, then the above methods will work only if you know their password. If they have password protected their admin accounts, then you need to have that password before you carry on.
If you want to crack the Windows Security Accounts Manager (SAM), you would need a special program, like LC5. This utility should be installed on your system, and the SAM file should be in the system32\config folder. If you haven’t already installed LC5 on the system, then you have to install it using DOS prompt
The tool SysInternals ERD Commander that is used to modify the administrator’s password does not work anymore. But there are many other options that help you reset the password if you can shell out a little money.
You can also try booting from the CD and selecting the locksmith choice to alter the password you want.
An easier way is to delete or rename the SAM file- it is safe to rename it rather than deleting it. You will have to boot the box for this, using a CD of operating system. Otherwise Windows will lock the SAM file and you wouldn’t be allowed to touch it. Another good tool for this purpose will be NTFSDOS. You can look for SAM file and change its first character. Once you restart, all user accounts will be there, but without passwords. But do not try this method on Windows XP SP2, because it fails to initialize when you reboot after renaming the SAM file. And then even if you boot in safe mode, you will get the same message.

Warnings

These techniques might work with systems running on XP SP2, but there are chances of failure too. You might have to use safe mode with networking. It will be present as an option when you reboot your system and press F8.
You must be the owner of the computer and must have a genuine Windows license. You should also have the admin rights to the information stored on the disk. Accessing Windows and changing password is illegal if you do not have all the necessary rights. Illegal activity can land you behind bars.
If you know the admin password already, then there is no need to follow the above mentioned techniques. So the above methods are useful only if you don’t have the user account password.

How to get to know your visitors for a successful web design

2011-04-27T09:00:00.003-04:00

by Maria Antonietta Perna

Think about your website as being your business’ spokesperson on the global market as well as a most effective business tool. In other words, it has the double function of representing your business and working for it. To design a website for success the basic principle is this: design around your visitors not around yourself. This means: know them better so you can please them more.

The core task of good web design

Visual impact and creative layout and graphics are fine, but they are not the guiding principles when it comes to designing a website. What we expect of a good designer is to achieve the following balancing act: reconciling what clients want their website to look like with meeting users’ expectations. Achieving success in such a demanding task requires that both the web designer, who has the technical know-how, and the business owner, who is the expert when it comes to knowledge of her business and customers, communicate effectively and consistently. The combination of the business owner’s goals and those of prospective website visitors will be the guiding principles in the web design and development process. Here are three well-tested approaches to achieving your goal.

Ask the right questions and listen to your client

Until and unless a focussed conversation between business owner and web designer takes place, it’s next to impossible to know who the intended audience for the site is. This is just the crucial piece of information the designer, or the information architect , needs as the ground on which to build the structure of the site.

Before having a meeting, I find that, if the client has the chance really to think through her website project beforehand, the meeting is usually more productive and the development process as a whole benefits from it. A great way of facilitating this is to prepare a client worksheet. This contains a list of questions to help the client draw up in writing her vision for the website. The specific content of the questions depends a lot on the services offered by the designer, but the sample below covers the essential preliminary info to start working on the site:

1) Information about the company:

company name;
what the business does;
main contacts for the project and their role in the company (e.g., who is the project manager?);
suggested start and completion dates;
allocated budget for the project.

2) Main reasons to build the website:

outline and ranking of business objectives;
how the achievement of objectives is measured.

3) Users:

A portrait of the expected visitors to the site;
current business customers’ perception of the company and of its product or service;
possible reasons why those customers will want to use the website;
what visitors are expected to do once they access the website;
reasons for people to come back to the website;
features the client would like for her website;
how those features help meet both the client’s business goals and users’ expectations.

Having the client answer these fundamental questions will pave the way for a productive meeting with the designer where further questions can crop up. For instance, you could ask:

How many types of customers does your business have?
How would you describe each category of customer?
What are the barriers for each customer?
What’s the most significant value this new website will add to your business?

Take out the creative actor in you: personas and scenarios

Drawing up profiles for each category of website visitor is a helpful technique that appropriately complements the conversations between designer and client. This is where personas and scenarios come in.

These are not new concepts in interactive technology. In fact, you could say that they go back to Alan Cooper’s great book The Inmates Are Running the Asylum (Sams, 1999). However, there’s still wide scope for their implementation and further study. Kim Goodwin, an interactive products expert, explains the concept of personas as follows:

“A persona is a user archetype … By designing for the archetype—whose goals and behavior patterns are well understood—you can satisfy the broader group of people represented by that archetype. In most cases, personas are synthesized from a series of ethnographic interviews with real people, then captured in 1-2 page descriptions that include behavior patterns, goals, skills, attitudes, and environment, with a few fictional personal details to bring the persona to life. For each product, or sometimes for each set of tools within a product, there is a small set of personas, one of whom is the primary focus for the design.”

Personas move within a concrete context, that is, the scenario. For instance, for an e-commerce site, the scenario could be the website visitor’s journey from searching the product catalog to successfully reaching the check-out stage. Here are some of Kim Goodwin’s great tips to draw up effective personas and scenarios:

To be effective, personas need to be based on sound field research, not derived from the functionality you've already decided to build
Personas should incorporate attitudes and experience goals when that's useful, but are first and foremost about behavior and end goals
Keep personas and scenarios distinct. The term "personas" is derived from the Latin dramatis personae, the cast of characters in a play. A set of characters is only interesting in the context of a plot, which is why we use scenarios. Personas should focus on current behavior, not speculation about future behavior with a product. Scenarios describe the personas' future behavior, first in an idealized and high-level fashion, and later in a somewhat more pragmatic and detailed way.

Conclusion

Planning an effective website that works for the success of a business involves a number of inter-related tasks and techniques that have one fundamental factor at their core: the user. But isn’t this the rule of every successful business? I have outlined three approaches to user-centered design, i.e., client worksheet, client-designer meeting, and personas/scenarios research. The era of social media provides the designer with one more fantastic tool to gain knowledge of website visitors, but this will be the topic of my next article. What methods do you use to know your customers?

How to Archive Gmail Data (Back it up)

2011-04-20T09:00:00.002-04:00

by Stacy Craig

Some while ago my friend lost all her Gmail data due to some ‘unexpected bug.’ It was later known that this bug had affected others as well, and the total affected users were about 0.02% of the entire Gmail user base. It seems like a small number, but out of 200 million users, 0.02% means 40,000 people with a bug in their mail.

But since Gmail makes backup of their data, those users got their email history back. But what if the bug was so deadly, data couldn’t be restored? In such a case, their data would be lost forever! And because many people have Gmail as their professional mail id, this could result in a big financial loss as well. Would you take chances in such a case? Another bug and your entire mail data could be swiped out. It’s like a horror story. You must have a backup in such a case. Here are a few steps to help you back up your Gmail data.

Step 1

You would find many options for desktop mail clients but the top choices are MS Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird and Apple Mail.

If you work on Windows, you would preferably like MS Outlook. But it does not come for free. You would have to get MS Office to get Outlook. Mac Users can also get MS Outlook by buying MS Office for Mac. But if you don’t want to get paid options, there are free ones as well.

If you are a Mac user, you can work on Apple Mail. It wouldn’t cost you anything, and would come pre- installed on your system. It also helps all your Mac systems stay synced with each other. But this option is limited to just Mac users. What if you are a Windows user and are looking for a free option? This brings us to the next alternative.

The next option we have is Thunderbird. It works on all systems- Windows and Mac. Installing it a piece of cake. The previous version required you to know SSL/TLS, SMTP, and IMAP settings, but now you just have to give your name, email id and desired password. Thunderbird will automatically pick the right settings for you.

If you want, you can set up these mail clients manually. When you do it, take care to select the right protocol to get the best results. If you just want to back up your emails and nothing else, then you can work on POP. It supports one way communication with the mail client. So it is basically a read only protocol. Whatever you do on your email client will not affect your Gmail account. If two way communication is what you want, then you should go for IMAP. In this case, keep in mind that whatever you do on your email client will have an impact on your Gmail account.

Step 2

I don’t especially like Hotmail but I must agree that it is quite useful as a Gmail backup. It is free and easy to use. It has so many backup options that it seems that for some reason; they want you to move your mails to them.

All you have to do is to sign up for an account at Hotmail. Now go to Trueswitch. It is the web interface of Hotmail to transfer Gmail mails. Provide your Gmail id and password and your Hotmail id and password.

Now TrueSwitch will copy your Gmail mails to Hotmail. And after transferring all your mails, you will need to sync from time to time. For this, you have to arrange email forwarding. This can be done by going to Gmail settings.

Step 3

You can copy all your Gmail mails to your Hotmail account. And after that, you can forward the new mails from Gmail id to Hotmail one. Forwarding mails to other ids works well with all mail services, and not just Hotmail. All you need is an email id- just about any email id. Now forward all your important mails to that id. It will take just an extra second to select the mail and forward it.

This way all your important mails will be safe and secure in case there is another bug with Gmail.

Step 4

If your Gmail mails are extremely important and you are ready to pay for them, then there are many tools to help you out. One such tool is BackupMyMail.

BackupMyMail will help you make a backup of your email account. You just have to sign up once and everything will be handled by it. It will take a bit of time to retrieve all mails from Gmail and then backing them up, but once the backup archive is all set, you will not have to worry. Once all the mails are safe, it will keep updating itself after regular intervals.

Though it is a paid app, but you can get a free trial. If you like it, you can purchase it. You can also use their additional services for backing up online photos, Twitter stream and blogs.

Another tool to try for making backups is Backupify. It is a multipurpose app and is used for archiving, searching and restoring services for Gmail, Twitter, Facebook, Picasa and Google apps.

It has a free version that allows backing up 2GB of data with many options.

Step 5

There are other options as well. There is a program known as Gmail backup. It works on Windows XP and Windows Vista. There is also another program called Fetchmail (with Unix style) and Getmail (for Linux users).

Use any of these options and protect your precious Gmail account.

The oDesk Experience: Freelancing Versus the Traditional Work Environment

2011-04-13T09:00:00.001-04:00

by Jenifer Wilbanks

A career, regardless of where and what you do, is a vital part of the modern human experience. Obviously, you must have a job so as to provide for your basic needs, but jobs are more than that - at least that is the dream that most of us are fed. One's job is, in the best case scenario, an expression of who we are, what we know, and how we feel about the world at large. But for most people, sadly, the work experience is one of endless monotony, dislike of one's job, no sense of purpose or meaning, and is simply a means to a paycheck. Was the dream of a meaningful job lost somewhere in the mix?

It wasn't lost - not, at least, in my humble opinion - but what was lost has been peoples comfort with thinking outside that proverbial box, a willingness to fail, and the confidence to know that there is something better out there. Somewhere in our education, we get an idea of what a "job" and a "career" are supposed to look like. What our parents, friends, and neighbors do with their lives can have a significant effect on us as well - in terms of expectations and future goals. For many, this means a 9-5 job of drudgery. But for those rare and lucky few, they wake up daily, loving what they do.

So how do they get there? Through risk and a tempering of expectations. That is part of what finding a worthwhile working environment takes. As a college educated individual, I have had the (wonderful) opportunity to work in a professional, post-secondary education environment, and then I stepped outside of the salaried life to see if I could make it on my own, doing something completely different. Now that I have been able to step away from the life of a data analyst and begin a life as a freelance writer, has it been worth it? And how does the experience of one compare to the other?

The Real World Experience

Just as with most college graduates, my main concern upon being thrust into the "real world" was finding a job. Pie-eyed dreams that somehow, I would find the perfect job for me, that utilized my education in psychology and sociology seemed believable. That is, until I began to actually look for a job. This was when I realized that for every "me", there were about 20 others in the same exact position. The naivety of what a degree could provide for me, in real life terms, began to fade upon this realization.

Thus began the journey that many graduates find themselves in: finding a job, whether it utilized what you had studied or not. After many months of searching, I was one of the lucky ones. I was hired by a state university as a nicely salaried data analyst, while many of my peers continued to work as baristas at coffee shops. Though the job had nothing to do with what I studied, I considered myself very lucky (and still do).

But it wasn't fulfilling, and that was a struggle. To me, it did, at times, seem like there was more happiness, and in ways, more freedom in being an educated barista than a data analyst. I was smart enough to know that not many people get the chance to do something that is truly fulfilling to them, but it seemed pretty depressing to think that the next 40 years of my life were going take place within the confines of a tiny office, doing monotonous tasks, sitting through endless meeting after meeting, running in place while getting nowhere, and being at the whim of state bureaucracy. Had I stayed there, that is exactly what my life would have looked like.

I was treated as a professional with respect, yes, but it was about the numbers, not me, or what I could bring to the table. Basically, I had no special skills and talents for the job, they could have hired anyone with a college education and trained them to do what I did. The co-worker relationship was one that was rather detached, we were all so busy and backlogged, that you couldn't really get to know each other. The lack of direction and guidance from our superiors was shocking at first - but my boss was so busy being ferried around from meeting to meeting that our environment was the natural result.

The real world experience began to jade me. I considered graduate education, but then faced the realization that even then, finding a job that utilized my skills and passions is not a given, no matter how educated I was.

Those years spent sitting at a desk and crunching numbers continued to wear to the point where I wanted to try something else. I needed to do something else. I wanted to do something that gave me some sort of control over my life, what I did on a day-to-day basis, and that also utilized my skills and talents. What's the point of having talents if you spend your life crunching numbers? So I did what any (sane?) person in my position would do, I quit my job. Bad move? In some ways yes, as at the time I didn't have a backup plan. But on the other side of the coin, I have never been happier and more fulfilled than I am now, and I would have never gotten to where I am, had I not taken that risk.

The oDesk Experience

I come from a family who has deep respect for people making their own way, doing whatever it is that they feel can best showcase the talents they have - basically, those with an entrepreneurial spirit. With that said, I wasn't discouraged by my foray into professional bureaucratic life - I did know that counting everything that wasn't nailed down was not where my talents lie, but I was proud to utilize my brain to earn my living. Furthermore, a "pre-ordained" job that provides what you need, and is exactly suited towards your skill set doesn't really exist. The only way to get to that point is to create the job for yourself, at least in my opinion, and thus that is the approach I took.

Writing has always been a passion of mine, but being a realist, I did not obtain a degree in English or journalism, as there was no work in the former and I wasn't cut out for the latter. Truly by accident, when I was looking for something I could do to utilize my talents, and I stumbled across freelance writing and oDesk. At first, it seemed too good to be true, being able to work from home, writing, and that somehow equaling a living. Upon entering the field of the freelance writer, I found that it requires a lot of hard work, and the occasional frustration. Ultimately, however, it provides for an incredibly fulfilling career, as I am using my passion and skills to earn a living.

Starting off, I was at the bottom of that proverbial ladder. I had never done any freelancing before, and the relationship between client and writer is very different, and more peer-like, than the relationship between boss and employee - this took some getting used to. I also found that, as opposed to being paid to put your butt in a chair for "x" number of hours, I got paid for what I actually produced. That lit a fire under me, as this was exactly what I was looking for.

I started off with small, really low paying assignments, so I could prove myself as a talented writer. Again, as a realist, with a degree in psychology and sociology, and a background in data analysis, why would anyone assume that I could write? There isn't really much correlation between those skill sets. Was it a loss in terms of income earned as opposed staying at the data analysis job? Of course it was, but now, I make just as much if not more, and I am so much happier with what I do to earn my living. There is a learning curve with any job, and compensation is adjusted accordingly.

With time I did prove myself - both to myself, as well as those who were considering hiring me to write professional, technical, or academic content for them - and was it ever worthwhile. I set my own hours. I determine what I will do and when I will do it, but it took a lot of hard work, steps backwards, and dealing with some pretty unpleasant people along the way. That said, I don't believe that this aspect of freelancing is any different that moving up that proverbial ladder in any career. There are personality clashes, assignments you don't enjoy - just as with any other job - but the difference in my current position is that I have given myself freedom and an "out".

One thing that I've learned, and is a common misconception of the freelancer, is that many think or assume we work for someone or some company, just like a regular employee. While I have seen jobs that offer full-time work, I do not want to put all my eggs in one basket. Part of why I decided to freelance was because I felt that, in the long-run, there was more job security in having a wide number of small jobs that, when put together, created something that actually started to resemble a career. Not only does this keep things fresh, allow you improve your skill (which is a lifelong journey), and learn new things, but it also protects you in the event that something happens with a client or company you work for. Sure, it might hurt a bit, if it was a big assignment or a job I enjoyed, but I wouldn't be left "out in the cold", and I like that kind of protection.

Freelance work, whether writing, programming, accounting, or whatever you do, is not for everybody. You have to be a self-starter, willing to prove yourself, and cultivate your own relationships and jobs. This, for many, is a deal breaker. You must learn to protect yourself from people who try to "rip you off", and you have to deal with the consequences of poor quality work, missing deadlines, and more. If you don't produce, you might not get paid, and this is a risk that all who freelance take. Getting sick can mean a week without income, so it helps to know from the get-go that you only get paid for what you produce. Like starting a small business, you have to begin to save to reinvest in yourself, whether that be the money to take a week off (or allow you to rest when you are ill), to get a new computer, or to put away for that inevitable rainy day.

For me, I like the accountability, because with that, comes a level of freedom that no other job can provide. With freedom comes responsibility, something that we all learn, but often forget as we get older. I am free to do the work I want, when I want, being a freelancer, but if I fail, there is only one person to blame. For some, that is too much pressure - for me, it is exactly where I want to be.

How to open up your small business to social media

2011-04-04T09:00:00.003-04:00

by Maria Antonietta Perna

I’m not exaggerating by saying that a must-have feature of contemporary websites is a well-placed set of links to social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn .

How is social media changing the face of business?

The core meaning underlying most definitions of ‘social media’ is “…blending of technology and social interaction for the co-creation of value.” This is done through sharing views, photos, videos, etc. Websites are great tools: they promote your business by generating knowledge about your product or service. If you add social media to the mix then you can generate value in collaboration with your customers. Consumers have a two-way relationship with the human face of the company. Major shifts in the mindset of both customers and businesses have been taking place. The most important change is that self-promotional slogans are being replaced with informative blogs and comments, making connections, being helpful with tips, and sharing one’s expertise with others. Can you really afford not to take part? Social media expert Soren Gordhamer doesn’t think this would be a winning move:

“Businesses who choose not to adapt to the new culture will be at an increasing disadvantage, as their customers slowly build personal relationships with their competitors. We are now in the age of open communication, engaged dialogue, and transparency, and business success may now have less to do with the size of ad budgets, but on the quality of interactions with customers.”

I think Gordhamer is right, but it’s not enough to just jump on the social media bandwagon. Doing so with your eyes closed could do more harm than good. Here’s what you need to know.

Have a social media marketing plan

Interacting with prospective clients and peers is fun, absorbing, and time consuming. Therefore, it’s important not to lose sight of the fact that your business is involved. Here are some overarching goals that social media, if used effectively, enable you to meet:

boost website traffic;
conversion and sales tracking;
page views, ad exposure;
increasing brand awareness;
creating and maintaining a positive brand association;
business development and a wider customer reach

Doing so successfully requires setting up one’s business goals. For instance, Christopher Barger, former director of global social media at General Motors (On April 11 he will take up a new position at the digital shop Voce as Senior Vice President for Global Programs), is reported to have had the following goals set up for his social media marketing campaign at GM:

The new challenge for businesses, small and large alike, in relation to social media is to combine the human connection with the hard-faced business goals. Here is what Barger has to say in a recent interview for AdAge:

“So on front end, to the audience, you are still leading with the relationship, but on the back end, you're looking at whether this is contributing to a business goal. And the onus is on us as social-media professionals to start building in those goals from the very beginning.”

This is what Crystal Kendrick from The Voice of Your Customer reportedly had to say about her strategic approach to social media marketing:

“We matched our target customers to the demographics of our connections and identified gaps in our networks. From there, we began to focus on making connections with persons in target companies, industries and geographic regions and joined groups and lists of industry groups to ensure that we maximized our exposure and business opportunities.”

To conclude: identifying and measuring your goals and objectives, working out a marketing plan, and committing yourself to it, are your top priority.

What about small business?

Yes, what about it? Giants such as GM and Voce can spend huge capital on marketing experts and staff dedicated to social media campaigns. Does this mean that a small business owner is cut off from his share of networking joy? Not at all. Mark Hayward, solo entrepreneur and small business owner, breaks his initial plan of action into 4 easy steps as follows:

1) tell the story surrounding the product or service on offer;

2) set up a simple, clean and easy to navigate website;

3) use a blog to engage with others and show you’re an expert in your field;

4) upload videos and images using YouTube and Flickr to illustrate your product or service.

There’s a great offer of free tools and online services out there to help your small business become social media friendly. Mark says:

“…the type of online promotion that I have done (am doing) comes down to being consistent and devoting time to actually drafting blog posts, uploading photos, and engaging in forum discussions. … with the free tools available today the power of marketing and promoting your business is in your hands.”

Display Facebook feeds on your website in 3 easy steps

So you have a website to showcase your great product and service. If your site is built using free tools like WordPress or Blogger then your page is already powered with links to the main community sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc. But you don’t need to be an expert programmer to be able to accomplish much more than this. Networking sites have powerful widgets that make it super easy for you to display your Facebook wall, comments and likes, your twits, or your LinkedIn status directly on your website page. Here’s what you need to do to display your Facebook wall feeds on your business website:

1) Go to http://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/ and choose one of the social plugins on offer. For this demo I opted for the Activity Feed plugin, so to follow along click on it.

2) You’re in front of this form that contains specifications for your widget, such as domain (www.mywebsite.com), height, width, color, etc.

As you fill in the form fields the image on the right updates accordingly giving you a preview of the result. When you are satisfied with it, just click the Get Code button at the bottom of the form.

3) This dialog box pops up with 2 types of code: the iFrame and the XFBML (Facebook own proprietary tags) code.

Select the iFrame code (Ctrl + A), press OK to close the dialog, access the HTML in your website page, and paste (Ctrl + V) the code into the section of the page where you want the wall feeds to appear. You’re done!

Is there a strategy behind your twits and feeds? I’d love to hear about it.

“A. Become more responsive to people/consumer audiences;
B. Incorporate audience/consumer feedback into your organization more quickly and effectively than has happened traditionally;
C. Make your brand a little more ‘human’ to the outside world, and show people the smarts, personality and passion of the people behind your logo;
D. Increase awareness of the strength of your current product lineup, and provide perspective/accurate information about your company.”

How to Stop Ads from Tracking your Activity

2011-03-28T11:00:00.001-04:00

by Stacy Craig

When we watch our favorite shows on the telly, there are many commercials that come in between and we have to watch them- because we have to watch our show. And then there are billboard ads on the roadside to distract us. I’m not against commercials- in fact I like the ones that are unique and innovative. But I don’t want to watch them against my will.

And from billboards and TV, life moved on to the digital age. Now everything is on the internet- I even watch TV on it. And like hundreds of different forms of advertising, there is internet advertising as well. You might haven’t noticed it, but it is an important part of the internet. Thanks to advertising- a lot of stuff on the internet is available for free. If there weren’t ads, we might not be on the internet so often, simply because we couldn’t afford it. So whenever you see some ads, either you can click on them, or ignore them… but you have to get used to them. So why do we run from ads? Let’s probe further.

Behavioral Targeting

It costs money to place an ad on the web, and thus the advertisers want good ROI. So they have to make sure that they target the right audience. It won’t be wise to advertise hockey sticks in a hospital - ads must be presented to the right demographic. So the more centered the ads are, the more profits they would generate.

Behavioral targeting means that the ad companies would track your online presence and show you the ads that represent your interests. Now, ads can be good or bad, but tracking someone’s online activity raises privacy issues. While the ad companies track you as you go from site to site, calling it remarketing, I call it stalking.

How do you stop it? How do you make sure that the ad companies are not seeing whatever you are doing? There must be some way to make sure private stuff remains private. Yes, there are some simple ways- I’m going to discuss them here.

Method 1

The simplest way to beat this invasion of privacy is to use NAI (Network Advertising Initiative). It is a cooperative group of online companies that build consumer awareness and establish responsible business practices and standards. As newer types of advertising come into form, there is a need to find their impact on our privacy. NAI can address all such concerns and get protection for online customers.

If you are ready to defend your privacy, visit the website of Opt Out tool. There you can see that many companies have put advertising cookies on your computer. As I visited it, I found a huge number of such companies. The numbers were alarming.

I was shocked to see the cookies that were placed on my computer to monitor my activity and show me relevant ads. How can you get rid of those cookies? You can select the cookies you want to clear, or you can select them all. Then click on Clear. You can later come back and see the opt-out status.

Note: Opting out of cookies does not mean you will not see any ads. It just means that the ads you see will not be according to your browsing history. You may want some ads to be relevant to your needs. If that is the case, then you can leave some cookies, and opt out the rest of them.

This is not the only way- there are other ways as well. Consider the next option

Method 2

Visit the website privacychoice.org. You will find many solutions there and there will be features like combined opt out bookmarks to help you opt out of more than 100 advertising networks. These include the ones listed in NAI. You can see the websites that are tracking your moves, and another feature will let you know that how common it has become on the World Wide Web.

Almost all companies use ads. The most common form of advertising is Google Adsense.

Now you want to kill these marketing voyeurs. There are many ways for that:

PrivacyMark

It is more like a bookmark. You just have to drag it and drop it into the bookmark toolbar of your browser. This way you can opt out of several companies, but you need to update it periodically, especially when you clear the browser cookies.

It allows you to opt out of tracking done by companies that do not follow industry standards. You can also opt out of all kinds of tracking. To know more about the cookies, you can click on More Info.

Profile View

This is a webpage that will let you view your profile from large companies like Yahoo and Google, and you can opt out of ad tracking directly.

TrackerScan

It can be used as either a Firefox add on or as a bookmark. Whenever you feel that a website is leaving a tracker, click on the TrackerScan button. If you do not want to add another add-on to Firefox, you can use the bookmarking option.

TrackerBlock

This option comes with many choices depending on your browser. I tried it on the three browsers I use- Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer, and found that it works on all three of them. It operates by stopping the tracking action of companies. This stops them from writing or reading cookies from your system. This utility is even able to delete other types of files like Flash cookies.

There are tons of companies who leave ad cookies on your system, and there are new companies joining the list so TrackerBlock keeps updating the block list. This keeps the list fresh and you get to know when some additional companies are ‘stalking’ you.

PrivacyCheck

This works quite like TrackerScan and PrivacyMark.

This is how you can control your privacy on the internet. If you want your personal stuff to be personal, then follow any of the given methods and be secure.

Code for America: Changing the Way We Look at Public Service

2011-03-25T13:18:00.001-04:00

by Jennifer Wilbanks

The advent of the web has, for many industries, brought about massive change in not only the environment one works in, but too, the very ways in which we do certain jobs. A whole array of businesses and groups such as full fledged online businesses, community groups, advocacy associations, and businesses who simply want to expand their potential customer base have found the web to be a boon. Many technologies, and new ways of doing things have sprung up as a result of this new working environment, and it has the potential to do much more than just make money. The knowledge and technologies we have gained since the inception of the web actually has the power to do good, which is the basic credo behind the Code for America project.

What is Code for America?

Code for America is an organization that wishes to bring the knowledge and technologies of online business pioneers into both the public and governmental realm. They feel that, with the use of these new technologies, and new ways of doing business, that governments can become more efficient, effective, and more transparent too.

The basic idea behind the Code for America project is to bring together web-based professionals, with their special skill set, and team them up with city officials. This collaborative environment too, is part of the credo laid forth in the project. The Code for America team communicates closely with city managers around the country in order to identify areas and projects that web-based technologies and work strategies could benefit the city.

Each project is unique in terms of the skill set brought to the foray, as well as the actual project being worked on. But the great thing about the Code for America motto is that what works for one city can then be shared with another. This means there is no "reinventing the wheel", and the transparency of the project allows for others to use what was learned in previous projects in order to move forward with their own projects.

How Does it Help?

The skill sets and level of experience of the fellows at Code for America is certainly vast. The virtual nature of the collaborative working environment allows the teams to tackle problems, projects, and issues that cities are hard-pressed to address through traditional means of communication. Both cities and actual team members are actively sought after by the management team in a very competitive application process.

What Code for America looks for are cities that can benefit from web technologies and the different management strategies employed on the web. Once a city is identified and a team is put together, the project is funded via Code for America. The projects are all done in as transparent of a manner as possible, and all knowledge gleaned is shared with other cities and future teams, leading to a large body of skills, knowledge, and principles to be shared amongst those who can see change through.

One of the biggest advantages that Code for America can bring to cities is a reduction in administrative costs through the use of online and other web-based resources. Online communication is easier to manage, track, and doesn't require the bureaucratic red tape that traditional forms of communication require.

Once a project is "greenlighted", city and team are introduced. For an 11-month period, the chosen team will work closely with city management in order to work towards a specific goal. But during their tenure as "city helpers", the web team can also help cities to integrate other helpful mechanisms and technologies that will help them operate more efficiently and be more transparent to the public at large.

Model City Projects

With so-called "Model City Projects", Code for America has defined a number of central "core" problems that create fundamental issues for a city. In response to these identified problems, they have developed a number of different projects that help all to understand and alleviate said issues. What follows are the key issues that Code for America sees in cities, and that it actively encourages cities to try to tackle as part of the project.

· New Business Gateway

Code for America understands the well functioning cities start and end with the cities internal economy. Businesses equal jobs, and new businesses are what facilitate the growth and maintenance of cities. One of the biggest challenges facing cities is how to bring in small businesses in a way that doesn't guarantee them to go bankrupt. We all know how difficult it is to actually get a fully functioning business off the ground - there are many start-up costs, maintenance expenditures, technologies needed, as well as a labor force and folks willing to buy what is being sold - and that is once you get your doors open, you have a whole host of official documents that must be obtained before one can even get to this point.

The basic problem here is that cities, due to the red tape and bureaucracy, don't make it very easy, or timely, to get a business up and running. There is a long lag time between filing for the necessary permits and being able to open one's doors for business, and one doesn't have to get just one permit. Code for America sees the usefulness of a community web application that allows potential business owners to, in one place, find all the permits they need, as well as how to go about obtaining them in a faster, more efficient manner.

· Asset Tracking and Transparency

This is, for all intents and purposes, a clear and public way of showing the money coming into a city versus the money going out. It is a way for citizens to understand where the money they pay in taxes is going and why they are charged what they are charged. Not only does openness about finances make people more comfortable with government, it also shows, in so-called "black and white" what the actual situation is - and we all seem to agree that the numbers don't lie.

Most citizens understand that cities need money to function, but they often forget that roads, street lights, trash systems, sewer systems, and other basic components of having a functioning city have to be paid for - and paid for by the folks who make that city home. This level of transparency, whereby an individual citizen can see what is happening in the city, and where the money is going, leads to a far better relationship between city and government. Not only that, but it also allows all involved parties to access the same data to be able to work, real time, towards fiscally responsible solutions in a more timely and effective manner.

· Harnessing the Power of the People

We often forget the power of the people, and the importance of the actual members of the community to the very nature of that community itself. Anyone in a community group knows that most "interaction" with even one's city government is one-sided. You have a common concern, so you and your neighbors start a community group. But when you go to speak to city officials, you are often brushed aside and left to speak with aides and interns, and when you try to communicate in writing, at best, you tend to receive a form letter or a standard "scripted" call.

Not only does this tend to add to the widespread apathy that most folks feel in relation to their local and national governments, it also misses the point. The citizens are the city, and any citizen or group that is working towards the betterment of the city is an asset, and on the same proverbial "wavelength" that the government is. "Collective action", or action that is bolstered by both government and community, has an incredible potential for positive change.

The basic underlying idea behind the Code for America organization, and the projects they sponsor, is to use what we already know and learn how to tailor that technology or mindset to a completely new paradigm. This project allows for concerned individuals, with a certain skill set or talent, to get on board and actually get out into a community, to see how web-based applications and strategies can make the community more cohesive, efficient, and ultimately a better place to live for all.

web: codeforamerica.org
twitter: twitter.com/codeforamerica
facebook: facebook.com/codeforamerica
email: info@codeforamerica.org

How to Secure Wireless Networks

2011-03-21T17:24:00.001-04:00

by Stacy Craig

Do you have a home based internet business? I do. Many of us use wireless networks to connect to the internet because this way we can work in any room- it’s very convenient. But if the wireless connection isn’t secure, anyone can get access to it. It’s not just about your neighbors using up your network bytes, it’s more than that. Hackers can use your connection to upload any illegal material, and the FBI can track down your address. Make it secure. Here’s how:

1. Gateway IP Address

Connect to the router through your browser. Input the gateway IP address. Now, what’s your gateway IP address?

Find the gateway IP address on Mac

· Run ‘Terminal’ from Utilities under Applications

· Type ipconfig-a and press Enter

· Find the line that says Gateway, and note down the following number. It will be somewhat like 192.168.1.1

· Open a browser

· Type this address into the address bar

Find the gateway IP address on Windows

· Go to Run from Start

· Type cmd and press Enter

· Type ipconfig/all in the MS Dos window and press Enter

· Find the line that says Gateway, and note down the following number. It will be somewhat like 192.168.1.1

· Open a browser

· Type this address into the address bar

2. Enable encryption

You can make your wireless connection secure by using 128 bit encryption. WPA and WEP are different schemes for encryption. WEP can be broken by using some free apps easily available on the internet. WPA is more secure, but it is also hard to set up.

3. Router Access password

If anyone gets access to your router, he can disable all the security mechanism. So you must set a router password to secure it. And you can select a long sequence of numbers, because you don’t have to learn it- just type it once and you are done. As you connect to your router using the LAN cable, you can paste the password on the router settings.

Use a secure password. “Password”, or “ABC123” are extremely weak passwords and can easily be broken. Use something that is difficult to guess, and uses both upper case and lower case letters, numbers and special symbols. Special characters are not supported by some routers, and in that case, you can limit it to alphabets and numbers. The longer the key is, the better it is for security.

Using a weak key can make anyone crack your WPA in a day or two. You can generate a secure key with the help of random number generators. You can do it on your own as well. Just pick up some numbers out of sequence and make your key from them.

4. Change your SSID (Service Set Identifier)

If you stick with the default SSID, this would tell the hackers that the wireless network is being managed by an amateur and the password also might be default. So it is best to change the SSID. You can use any name that you can identify and remember. It does not have any direct effect on network security. You can even choose not to broadcast it, but it’s a bad idea.

5. MAC address filtering

MAC address means Media Access Control address and it is a code that is unique for every network card. When you do MAC address filtering, the device hardware MAC address will be registered and it will allow only known devices to connect to the network. The system will check for MAC addresses and will not allow external devices to connect. Though it is a good security mechanism, but MAC addresses can be cloned, and so MAC address filtering cannot replace WPA2 encryption

6. SSID Broadcast

As mentioned above, do not disable SSID broadcast. Disabling it might seem like a great idea to counter any attack, but it’s actually not. This would make your network invisible to your neighbors, but a hard working hacker can still find out your SSID. It is best to change your SSID from the default one to a simple string of your choice.

7. Remote login options

Disable the option of remote login. It is easy to brute force into the router using remote login. This is because most usernames are simply Admin, and a simple worm can crack the password once the username is identified. The good thing here is that remote login feature is disabled by default. Whenever you set up your router, make sure that it is disabled. If you have to update router settings from a remote location, give the access for only a specified period of time.

8. Wireless Administration

Disable the option of wireless administering. This means that if someone needs to change the router settings, he would have to connect using the LAN cable. This makes sure any hacker cannot penetrate your system using wireless.

A few Tips

The WPA2 settings on your router and computer should be the same.
Use shared key for encryption. This makes sure that all data begin transferred is being encrypted properly.
Read the router documentation to know how to disable and enable the various security features.
You might have to upgrade the firmware of the access point if it does not support all required features. You might even have to buy new access point.

Warnings

Make sure you register all devices on the network. This includes laptops, computers and media players. Also, make sure that you enter the correct MAC address. If you enter the wrong MAC address, you will not be able to connect, and you will have to reset the router. There are some routers that allow changing MAC address while staying connected.

Window does not have individual settings for wireless connections over different wireless domains. So if you make your settings as ‘share files’ at home within your LAN, it will share files among other wireless networks as well.

Go to wireless connection properties of your computer and disable the file and printer sharing option. This makes sure that other computers cannot control your devices. You can use Microsoft network client for file sharing. So other systems cannot tamper with your files.

How to Maximize your Internet Speed

2011-03-15T13:18:00.000-04:00

by Stacy Craig

We all need internet. Some need it for entertainment purpose, some for educational, and some for business. But internet has become the backbone of society. We cannot think our lives without it. And we all want a high speed connection. A slow connection is downright frustrating.

There are many ways to speed up your net connection. There are many web accelerators available in the market, but if you do not want to use them, there are many other options as well. This article is specifically about Widows users who work on Internet Explorer. (But I have included details for other browsers as well. I work on Google Chrome myself).

Step 1

Maintain your PC regularly. Run disk scans, disk defrag, malware scan, virus scan, and empty the trash bin. Sometimes a virus might be the reason for a very slow internet connection. If your computer is free of virus, then unnecessary files might be the reason. Clean out your old and temporary files. Do not clog up C: drive. Make sure there is at least 10% of free disk space in C: drive at all times. If you maintain your PC, it will not only work faster, but it will also allow for faster internet connections.

There are many maintenance tools that come with Windows. If you want, you can also download some free tools from the internet to help you out.

Step 2

Try restarting your home network. If you have a home network, restarting it will increase your internet speed.

Step 3

Optimize your temporary internet files, or cache. Cache enhances your web browsing experience. It makes sure that you do not download the same things again and again. When you open a website, its files, like logos etc are stored in cache, so when the site is opened again, its logo is picked from the cache, and hence it is loaded faster. If you delete the cache or the temporary internet files, they will be downloaded again, thereby increasing the time of download.

In case you want to disable the cache, you can do it by selecting Internet Options in tools. Go to Settings given in Internet Options. Here you can change the disk space allocated to temporary internet files

In Chrome, you can do this by going to options under tools (it’s the wrench icon on the top right). There you can click on Under the Hood. If you are on Firefox, you can get Options under Tools. You will find the cache option under privacy tab.

Step 4

Do not bypass the router. Routers generally come with a firewall that cannot be broken easily. So if you can connect your computer through cable, then do not use wireless. Besides, physical media is always faster than wireless connection.

Step 5

If you cannot connect through cable, and you are on wireless, then take care that it does not clash with any wireless camera or cordless phone. Let’s say you are using 2.4 Ghz wireless router and a 2.4 Ghz cordless phone, then your net connection will become slow when you use the phone. Same goes for wireless cameras. But let’s say if the camera and the phone are of 900 Mhz, then things would be fine.

Step 6

Have a little talk with your ISP. There are many times when you may have a bad connection. Whenever I have a slow connection, I just call them and they rectify the problem in a few hours. So you can call them up and let them know that you are getting it slow.

Step 7

Upgrade your operating system. If you are still working on those old Windows versions like Windows 98 or 2000, you need to upgrade. Try getting Windows 7. If not, then at least get XP. Internet speed depends upon operating system as well.

Step 8

If you have an old modem, replace it with a newer one. Things stop working as they get older. If your broadband modem has become aged, then it will take more time on maintain a good and reliable connection. With time, the signal- noise ratio will get lower and there will be more resend requests. If you do not know where to get a new modem, you can go to the local electronic shop or try looking online. There are many online stores that offer modems.

Step 9

Your connection speed might be slow because there are some applications running in the background and using the internet connection. To know about such applications, click on Start, and go to Run. Type cmd there. It will open up the command prompt. Now type netstat –b 5 >abc.txt

After some time, press Ctrl+C. This will make a file named abc.txt that contains all the records of internet usage in that one minute. Now type activity.txt and you will see all the programs using the internet connection.

Now press Ctrl+Alt+Del and you will see the Task Manager. From there select the process list and terminate the process drawing up the internet bytes. Do not terminate system processes or your computer might crash.

Step 10

Completed all the above steps? Now connect to the internet again and see if things have become faster.

Tips

Here are a few tips to help you out.

· Call your internet service provider and tell them to verify the TCP/IP details. Also ask them to check if you have the correct proxy settings.

· Some sites are just heavier. If a particular website is taking extra seconds to download, it might be heavy. Also some sites might be temporarily down. Try checking your connection on other sites.

· Before you call for help, you can check your internet speed at http://www.speedtest.net/

· Use a download manager. Sometimes when you are downloading something, and the internet connection dies in between, your download is corrupted. A download manager will pause as the connection drops, and resume again later. So your download will not be corrupted.

· Firefox has an option to disable images. So if you are on a slow connection, you might want to leave out heavy images and just concentrate on text.

· You can use NoScript with Firefox to block unnecessary plug-ins and scripts that slow down the connection.

· Make sure you do not have a torrent running. Torrents slows down your internet speed.

How to Troubleshoot Printer Problems

2011-03-09T10:34:00.000-05:00

by Stacy Craig

If you are having problems with your printer, then correcting them would require a customized approach depending on the type and make of the printer. But here are some steps that you can follow to troubleshoot various problems that might crop up as you work on your printer.

1. Read the printer manual

This is the most basic thing that you should do. Though it seems obvious, but there are many things that the book can teach you. It will save you several dollars if you know just the basics. So open that book and read it once before you take the printer to the repair shop.

2. Printer’s website

If you visit the manufacturer’s website, you might find a solution to your problem there. If the difficulty you are facing is generally faced by a lot of people, then there are chances that the solution is mentioned on the company’s website. There also might be some forums where users post their problems, and experts answer them.

Is it plugged in? It doesn’t hurt to check...

3. Plug it in

I know this is the most basic thing, and your printer is most probably plugged in, but it doesn’t hurt to check. Make sure that it is plugged in- sometimes we try out everything just to find out later that the printer wasn’t even plugged in!

4. Online

Printers generally have to be switched on to work. There is an online light on the printer. So make sure that the printer is connected through the computer via proper cable, and it is online. Once everything is fine, you can carry on with checking the next possible cause.

5. Beep… beep

Printers generally beep whenever they are switched on. But if it is beeping continuously, then the poor little thing wants some attention as it might be hurt. A beep can mean that it is out of ink or paper, so take care of these two things.

Windows printer test page

6. Test printing

Printers come with a built in program for problem diagnosis. That will help you in the troubleshooting process. Print a test page. If the test printing is ok, then there is no mechanical problem.

7. Toner and ink

If you can’t get a test page, check if the printer cartridge is full. Ink jet printers generally have both black and color cartridges. Check to see if they have sufficient amount of ink in them. If they are out of ink, order new cartridges. Though you can get them refilled as well, but refilled cartridges generally give botchy printing.

8. Cleanliness

If the head isn’t clean, you can clean it up by following an easy process. It is good to clean the head regularly to make it work fine. If there are odd colors on the printouts, it means that the cartridge might be dirty. You might have to clean it a few times to make it work.

9. Check paper

See if the tray has enough paper. And also make sure that it is placed correctly. Printers have a detector for papers. If there is no paper, the printer will detect it, and might beep, or give some other type of signal. Generally there is a paper out light on the printer. If there is no paper, the light will show that either there is no paper, or it is not aligned properly.

10. Jammed

The printer might not be working because it is jammed with paper. Read your manual- it will have instructions about clearing out a paper jam. And make sure you handle the device delicately. Do not use force to clear out the paper. Before you begin to unclog it, turn off your printer.

Laser printers come with some very fine components, so if you are not careful, you might give rise to newer problems instead of solving the existing one.

Read the instructions in the manual. If they don’t say anything about moving the printer head, don’t move it. You might even damage the belt. Address labels can cause paper jams. To dislodge them, take a shirt cardboard sheet and feed it like a paper sheet. Then wiggle out the label.

Then there are other things that might lead to printer problems, like dog hair, cookie crumbs, paperclips, and staples. A staple can cause a lot of problems because of its sharp edges. Getting a staple in your printer can lead to some expensive repair.

If the printer is still jammed, or if it does not accept paper, then the rollers might be worn out, or the gears might be stripped. This problem requires special tools, so you will have to take it to the repair shop. If the problem is about rollers, you can try cleaning them. It might solve the problem. Though it doesn’t always work, but it is worth a shot.

If it is especially humid today, then this might be the reason for the jam. Slightly moist paper can stick together and cause jams. If it’s the humidity playing havoc, then remove the paper tray and fan it. Also take care that the paper is not curled from the edges.

11. Check other details

Still no good? Check the cable. It should be connected to the computer via the correct port. Make sure it’s the correct cable. Check its drivers. If you are working on a Windows PC, go to the device manager to see if the printer drivers are correctly installed. If they are not installed, use the CD you got with the printer.

12. Ask Windows

If you are still having problems with your printer, go to Windows help. Press F1, and you will get some steps to follow. Though we have covered most steps here, but it can help you know if your drivers are properly installed or not. You can even check Windows registry, but if you are not an experienced Windows user, it is best to stay away from registry files. You can use a registry cleaner if you have one.

Tip

If you printer is in the guarantee period, you can take it to the manufacturer’s store and get it repaired free of cost. Most printers come with a guarantee period of at least one year.

How to Work on Dropbox

2011-02-25T11:46:00.000-05:00

by Stacy Craig

There was a time when file sharing on computers meant storing them on devices like flash drives and CDs and carrying them to a different place and then using them on a different system. But with the development of cloud computing, there are easier ways of sharing files with the help of internet. There are many websites that allow people to share files online, and one such site is Dropbox. Dropbox is extremely easy to use and has become very popular these days.

It is especially very useful for business professionals who have to share data among their team. It can also be used by students who have to share documents. In essence, this application is good for anyone who wants to share data easily.

Let’s see how files can be shared using Dropbox.

Click 'log in' to get started

1. Go to http://www.dropbox.com/

2. You will see a ‘log in’ option at the top right corner of the screen. When you click on it, it will give you an option of creating your account. Click on it to make your own account there.

3. There will be a registration form. Fill out your name and email address along with a strong password. A strong password makes sure that your account is safe from hackers. After filling the details, click on ‘Create Account’.

4. After successful registration, you will be brought to the Dropbox web interface. Now you have your Dropbox account and you can share files with other Dropbox users. The online interface of Dropbox will look like this:

The Dropbox online interface

5. You will notice a tab named ‘Sharing’. Click on it.

6. From the Sharing tab, select the option of ‘Share a Folder’.

From the Sharing tab, select the option of ‘Share a Folder’ to share your files with others

7. Dropbox will ask you if you wish to make a new folder for sharing, or to share an existing folder. A shared folder will appear in Dropbox of anyone with whom you wish to share it. For now you can select the option of creating a new folder. You can name it according to your needs and click on ‘Next’.

8. You will see a web page with 2 text boxes. In the top text box, you have to write the email id of the person with whom you wish to share the folder. In the bottom text box, you can write a message for that person. The message is optional and you can leave it if you want. After you have filled the text box(es), click on ‘Share Folder’.

invite others to your shared folders using their email address

9. Now you will see your new shared folder in the next webpage. You have your very own shared folder now, and you can start uploading files.

10. Click on ‘Upload’ to upload files to your Dropbox.

Click on ‘Upload’ to upload files to your Dropbox

11. From the next menu, select ‘Choose File’.

select ‘Choose File’ to begin selecting file for upload

12. A window will pop up. Select the directory that holds the file that you wish to share. Select the desired file and click on ‘Open’.

13. Now you will be back on the Upload menu. You can select more files to upload if you wish. To upload additional files, follow the same procedure.

14. As you click on ‘Start Upload’, you will see a progress bar. It will show the status of your upload.

And as the upload completes, you can see the file within the shared folder. Mission Accomplished!

Desktop Dropbox

If you do not want to work on web browsers like Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome or Internet Explorer, you can still use Dropbox. To do that, you can simply download the Dropbox application from the main website. Go to http://www.dropbox.com/ and click on ‘Download Dropbox’.

1. When the download is complete, go to the Downloads folder and install the application. When it starts, click on ‘Install’.

When the download starts, click on ‘Install’

2. A menu will show up. Now create a Dropbox account or use an existing one. Now click on Next.

Give your Dropbox login details
and your computer name

3. Give your Dropbox login details and your computer name. Click on Next

4. They will ask if you wish to upgrade your Dropbox account. The default (free) account has the storage capacity of 2GB. If you want more storage space, then you can get the 50GB or 100GB Dropbox account. These two options are paid. After selecting the right Dropbox size for your needs, click on ‘Next’.

5. The installer will ask you the location for your Dropbox. If you want a simple and convenient install, go for typical settings. Click on ‘Install’. Wait while it installs.

6. Now Dropbox will take you on a small tour. You can either go through it to learn more about it, or you can skip it.

7. When the tour is complete, your Dropbox will open up. It will be present in the My Documents folder. There will also be a Dropbox icon on your taskbar. It will let you know about the changes made in your shared folder.

8. If you wish to upload any files to the Dropbox account, you simply have to copy and paste that file in the Dropbox folder.

So as you can see, Dropbox can be used as a desktop app, or can be used from web browser. You can select the kind of Dropbox that would suit your needs. Dropbox works on various clients including Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. There are Dropbox apps for Blackberry, iPad, iPhone and Android as well.

Some competitors of Dropbox are ZumoDrive, Mozy, Sugarsync and Box.net. Out of all these options, Dropbox is probably the most famous.

How to Extend iPad Battery Life

2011-02-24T16:41:00.000-05:00

by Stacy Craig

Just like the battery of your laptop, iPad battery will also get shorter with prolonged use.

But there certainly are some steps that you can follow to make your device stay active for many hours. Here is how you can extend the iPad battery life:

1. Switch off your cellular data and Wi Fi

As your iPad keeps searching for nearest Wi Fi connections, it spends it battery power. So if you do not want to use Safari, or other internet based apps, it is best to stay disconnected from the network. To switch off Wi Fi, go to ‘Cellular’ or ‘Wi Fi’ Options under ‘Settings’, and then tap the ‘switch off’ option. This would switch off the network settings and your battery will not be drained.

2. Increase the data fetching time

Regularly upgraded data include RSS feeds and email notifications. When the system continuously checks for RSS feeds and new emails, it wastes precious battery power. You can either increase the time interval for data fetching, or turn it off completely.

Go to ‘Settings’. Select ‘Mail, Contacts, Calendars.’ Now select ‘Fetch New Data.’ From here, go to ‘Manually’ and from the given options, select ‘Hourly.’ This will increase your fetching interval.

3. Switch off the push notifications

This step might be useful… or not. It entirely depends upon the number of IMs or emails you get. If you get many IMs, then your battery will not last for long. To make your battery live longer, you can turn off IM notifications.

Select ‘Mail, Contacts, Calendar’ from ‘Settings’. Select ‘Fetch New Data,’ and turn the ‘Push’ option off.
If you do not get a lot of IM notifications, then this step will not be effective.

4. Reduce Brightness
It is very obvious that if your iPad screen is extra bright, then it will consume extra battery power. You can reduce its brightness to just the right level. Here is how you can do so: Go to ‘Brightness and Wallpaper’ under ‘Settings’.

With 'Auto Brightness' iPad will regulate its screen
brightness depending upon surrounding light

Choose ‘Auto Brightness.’ This will permit the iPad to regulate its brightness depending upon surrounding brightness.
You can also use the slider to increase or decrease brightness. For use during daytime, about 25% to 30% brightness should be enough. This brightness also works during nighttime for most people.

5. Manage sound effects

If you have turned on your sound effects, they will also consume your iPad battery. By default, these effects are turned on, and you receive sound notifications as you press the keys of on-screen keyboard. Here is how you can turn the sound effects off:

Go to ‘Sounds’ under ‘General’ in ‘Settings’. You will see five options on equalizer to increase or decrease the volume. You can either change the volume settings or turn it off completely. Turning it off completely will save the battery the most.

6. Location Services
If you use maps or any other location services, it will use up a large part of your battery. Maps keep updating themselves regularly and if you are not going to work on maps or other GPS data, it is best to turn them off to save battery power.

7. Avoid heavy graphic apps
Are you watching HD videos? This will drain your battery life sooner than you think. Also, if you like playing games on your iPad, your battery will soon be empty. So make sure you use light apps while traveling or other occasions when you want to let your iPad batter last longer.

8. Airplane mode on iPad 3G
This mode will block all the wireless signals on iPad and thus will increase the battery life. If you are not using Airplane mode, then the battery will die out sooner in places where 3G is weak or patchy. So it is best to switch to Airplane mode in case you do not want to work on the internet.

9. Extreme temperatures
Believe it or not, but extreme temperatures can drain the battery out like a hose. The best temperature for iPad is from 32o F and 95o F. This is equivalent to 0o C and 35o C
When you charge the iPad, be careful while using its case, because it can cut out proper ventilation and increase its temperature, thereby releasing extra heat and damaging the battery.

10. Update the software

Since Apple engineers are always looking for ways to save more battery life, it is best to keep upgrading your software. If they ever find any new methods to optimize the battery performance, they will be passed via software updates.

11. Auto Lock

When the auto lock is on, the iPad will automatically get locked after a certain period of time when it is not being used. You can turn it on, or decrease its interval to save battery life. To change its options, go to ‘General’ under ‘Settings’. You will find the ‘Auto Lock’ option there. Change its interval to a small time. One minute should work fine.

A few tips

People usually think that turning off their iPad when they don’t need it, and then turning it on again when the need arises, saves battery life. This works fine if it is turned off for a long period of time. But if you have to switch it off for a small duration, then it wastes more battery life than saving it.
Make sure you charge your iPad before leaving your house, especially if you are planning to go on a long trip. Though the iPad battery lasts for about 10 hours, this time duration will decrease with frequent use.
Calibrate you battery once monthly. Drain it out entirely, and then charge it back to 100%
Try to keep your iPad at a cool place while charging, because charging in a warm place reduces the quantity of charge that is accepted by the battery. This lowers the battery voltage.

You should understand that there is a difference between battery lifespan and battery life. Battery life means the time in which the battery stays charged in one charging cycle, while lifespan means the time period a battery works until it has to be replaced.

Developer Privacy is Not a New Concept

2011-02-01T11:00:00.000-05:00

by Patrick Greene

If we have ever worked together, then you know I can become rather excited (maybe even animated?) on a few choice subjects related to management of software development teams. One such topic is the notion of direct access to development staff by customers, management, or well... anyone at all! I am a firm believer that no one should ever have direct, impromptu access to a software developer ay any time. This means no dropping by their office and no phone calls.

This belief puts me at odds with most of the IT managers I have worked with (and for) over the years. I could chalk it up to a personal preference or different management styles except that I did not come to my opinions by accident. I am a software team manager - so I read books, white papers, blogs, and anything else that I can find on the topic of better software teams. Some of what I read is focused on new technology and design patterns that may help to build better software or reduce effort; while some is about effectively managing teams of creative individuals. A recurring theme across both technical and non-technical publications is the negative effect of interruptions and poor working environment on programmer productivity.

The earliest publication (of those I have read) on the impact of environment and interruptions on programmer productivity comes from the book Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams by Tom Demarco and Tim Lister published in 1987; so this idea goes back at least 20 years. This book has been a best seller and is widely referenced and quoted by others in the software industry.

The topic shows up again in later other important publications on software development:

Code Complete by Steve McConnell published in 1993
once again within Rapid Development: Taming Wild Software Schedules by Steve McConnell in 1996
Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering by Robert Glass in 2002

The negative impact of interruptions was addressed again in a 2002 book from Tom DeMarco - "Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency" - where DeMarco re-introduced the idea of lost time as a result of dropping out of the flow of one task to move into another. He referred to this in his book as the "task switching penalty".

Then we have Joel Spolsky, another former Microsoft developer, who pilots Fog Creek Software and is best know in the software development industry for his blog Joel on Software where you will find various insightful essays on programming, software, and hard lessons learned. On his blog, Joel has addressed the cubicle issue on multiple occasions:

Evaluation of programmer working conditions is also the #8 question on the Joel Test to assess the quality of a development team.

Finally, Joel wraps up the argument in his book "Smart and Gets Things Done: Joel Spolsky's Concise Guide to Finding the Best Technical Talent" where he simply lays it out that even if you provide a good salary if you also fall short on all of the other, "non-compensation" benefits you just won't get any good developers... at all...as in they just won't come work for you.

I won't go into the concepts covered in the publications I have mentioned above because honestly many of these books should be very familiar to those in the software development industry. My core job is to recruit and lead high performing software teams and my view of how to accomplish this job effectively is based in part on the resources above. Sadly, even two whole decades later it seems that each time I propose a quiet, uninterrupted working environment it's as if I were a visitor from another planet.

Leadership Habits (How to be a Good Leader)

2011-01-11T12:05:00.000-05:00

by Patrick Greene

The other day I had an interesting conversation with a colleague relating to his career goals in our state government. The general conversation revolved around what he wanted from his public service career - basically a "what do you want to be when you grow up" sort of discussion. His response declared the same goal I've heard a few times in the past: "I want to be a manager".

Me: "Why would anyone in their right mind want to manage people?"
His response: "Well I can organize our work better than my boss, but no one will listen to my ideas. If they let me manage then I can make a difference."

I've heard the "I can do it better" response more than once, but that second statement struck a chord - He was waiting on someone to allow him to take control of the situation. I realized that my colleague has confused the middle-management job with leadership and because of this may never really succeed in his goal to be heard.

The root of my colleague's problem is likely that he has never been exposed to the behavioral building blocks which could make him a good leader, and to make matters worse he is probably basing his assumptions of a leader on the many middle-mangers already toiling away unsuccessfully in the public sector. His true desire is not to manage people but to be respected by the organization and have his ideas used to foster change. In truth middle managers usually get neither. If you've spent anytime as a middle-manager you know that most individual ideas are not heard and in reality the manager is simply carrying the mission down from the person above to the people below. I've heard the point made that "everyone serves someone" and the idea that any employee from the bottom to the very top would ever achieve true power is a myth. I somewhat agree but the idea is not to be an all-powerful dictator but to participate in the organizational decision process and be heard. The fact of the matter is that a true leader is more likely to be considered a partner than an employee. So what should he do to become a leader (and be heard)?

Develop an understanding of what followers want and need

Let's set the record straight. Leaders are identified by the existence of followers; if no one is following you then you are not a leader. Followers can not be assigned to you; they are your followers by their choice. You may be given temporary reign over the daily work plan for a group of people but they are not required to help you succeed. Unless you can carry the load alone the team will fail and you will be to blame. The primary goal of a "forced follower" is to keep his or her head above water and wait for you to be replaced. So what would make a person gladly follow you? What do followers want?

Someone to follow - many people want someone to advise them on what to do next. Some people may not accept being told what to do by an authority figure but everyone is looking for guidance in on form or another. Whether it's Dr. Phil, the Pope, or Warren Buffet; people crave a mentor who can provide them with sound advice.
Someone they can trust - if a person does not trust their leader then they will not truly follow. People may move in the same direction with their leaders for a time but once they recognize a better path or a trustworthy leader they will leave the current leader behind. While people are following a leader they do not trust they are in limbo; they never really commit to the plan and must always check the direction of their leader against their personal goals and beliefs.
A personal gain - before any person will exert effort for a cause there must be a personal benefit. The personal benefit does not need to be tangible (money or property) and in many cases is simply the knowledge of making a positive change in the world around them. People do not require a leader before they will exert effort to get something, but before someone will put forth an effort on another person's behalf (the leader) they must know what is in it for them. Personal gain is not "getting to keep your job". Never use this argument with a follower as threatening to take something away from a person causes them to take a defensive posture and will undermine the need for trust outlined in item two above.

What about the need for a common goal or a vision? To be honest, people don't need a leader to achieve a specific goal or vision. Quite a few goals are achieved by ad-hoc groups of people who all have a common need (like obtaining food, water, safety, etc.); these groups do not always have a leader and may in fact make successful decisions based only on consensus of the group.

Learn Proper Leadership Habits from Other People (the least likely option)

One path my colleague could take in becoming a leader is to mentor under an already successful leader. The problem with this method is finding a good leader. You can't seem to just go to the top of the organizational food chain and shake hands with a good leader. There are many inadequate or outright poor leaders in the upper ranks of organizations and in some cases the top people are only successful because those below them have chosen not to let them fail, yet. The true heroes and leaders are usually mixed into the crowd and may only be noticeable in the midst of a crisis.

A more common problem is that if you do uncover a great leader he or she may not be able to vocalize their leadership methods and behaviors. Quite a few great leaders don't even realize they are leaders at all. To these leaders the behaviors come naturally and it could take you many years of observation to identify the nuances of how they lead and make decisions.

Learn Proper Leadership Habits from a Book

There are many great leadership books on the market by many great leaders. Unlike many other leadership articles I will not be listing my five, seven, or twelve leadership traits, habits, dysfunctions, or whatever. This would only server to regurgitate what I have learned from the leadership books I have read and to be honest I could have missed the author's point entirely. I encourage you to read the best-seller books yourself, but if you are short on time and patience I will offer my opinion that nearly all leadership books provide the same basic set of principles.

Most leadership books can be boiled down to:

A discussion of core interpersonal values: Trust, Respect, Honesty, etc.
A collection of leadership parables and observations (to sum up these in one book read: 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership)
Discussions on various concepts of competition in business (sales, customer service, etc.)

I have found the leadership books I've read give accurate and enlightening coverage of the science of leadership; however none of them provide the reader with actionable guidance on becoming a leader. At the end of each book you are left to your own devices to discover what personal changes you should make in your actions and behaviors to move down the path of becoming a leader.

In my opinion there is one perfect plan which can build you into a person that others will follow: Dr. Stephen Covey's "7 Habits of Highly Effective People". I believe pairing the 7-habits with the Dr. Maxwell book "The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership" will net a well rounded education in the art (and science) of leadership.

The Seven Habits - building blocks to becoming a great leader

The Seven Habits of High Effective People is not a simple list of observations that once read will magically transform you into a better person or leader. The seven habits are personal behaviors you must practice and perfect over time to change the way you interact with the world around you. You may argue that the Seven Habits book is a self-help book rather than a leadership study but I would submit that unless you can help yourself you could not possibly help (or advise) another person. These life habits are not easy to execute nor to continually practice over time, but then again nothing worth doing is ever easy.

Habits 1 through 3 are concerned mainly with the personal behaviors of the leader, those behaviors which will center the leaders thinking and focus and help him or her create a valuable vision. If a leader cannot consolidate a collection of needs, wants, and goals into a common vision that leader will not be able to describe the vision to potential followers and will not likely gain committed followers.

Be Proactive - in business speak the term proactive has come to mean taking preventative action; however the original usage and the term by Covey is to describe a person who takes responsibility for his or her life, rather than looking for causes in outside circumstances or other people. This habit seems to be the most common stopping point for some as people can not readily accept personal failure as being the result of lack of personal action.
Begin With The End In Mind - this habit deals with the development of a vision and setting goals. This ability is a staple of good leadership as a true leader always has a goal and is always moving the group in a direction toward something.
Put First Things First - this habit deals with prioritization of the individual goals that make up the total vision and communicating these goals effectively to others when needed. Without this core leadership skill your followers will not be able to move as a group or recognize steady progress toward the objective.

Habits 4 through 6 provide a methodology for interpersonal relationships and communication. The habits collectively help the leader build a team by gaining a commitment (buy-in) from followers as well as provide a tool for the leader to successfully negotiate on behalf of his/her followers when working with outside partners.

Think Win-Win - the concept is actually expressed by Dr. Covey as "Win-Win or No-Deal" and proposes that all agreements or solutions must be mutually beneficial and satisfying to all parties or there is no-deal at all. For effective leadership this behavior is absolutely critical in helping the leader meet every follower's need for "personal gain" and trust. In may leadership books this important behavior is not given adequate coverage and you could see why once you consider that in the competitive environment of business (particularly sales) the idea of walking away from obtaining a deal is difficult to reconcile as not being a personal failure.
Seek First to Understand, Then Be Understood - this habit reinforces a behavior of listening to others with the intent to understand rather than the common habit of listening with the intent to reply. Even though the habits are not practiced in specific order, I have always felt this habit should come before Win-Win (#4) as truly understanding the needs of the other party is critical to identifying a Win-Win solution.
Synergize - the word synergize (or synergy) has become a bit diluted by sales presentations over the years but the general concept is to apply your full intellect in concert with the other party to create a solution that is better than either of you could develop alone. It sounds like basic team collaboration (and to some degree it is) but the word Synergy implies something more. In a "synergized" collaboration the outcome would be more than the sum of the parts.
A common example is given using the pairing of a presidential candidate and running mate. If a presidential candidate carried 1 million voters and a vice presidential candidate carried 1 million voters, you would expect the pair would carry 2 million voters. What if 1 million voters existed who did not particularly like either candidate alone but felt that as a team they would off-set each others weaknesses and became an unusually powerful team? This would result in a synergy between the two candidates that resulted in not only the expected 2 million voters but an addition of 1 million voters that would not be possible with any other pairing of candidates.

The last habit (#7 - Sharpen the Saw) is commonly overlooked but is an important habit for leadership growth. This habit always reminds me of a line from the movie Blade Runner - "The light that burns twice as bright burns for half as long". Sharpening the Saw encompasses all of the things you must do to make sure that you don't burn out or let your skills become stale and dated. The "habit" of habit 7 is simply remembering to pay yourself back and take the time needed to both relax and re-learn.

The final bit of advice to my colleague is to pay close attention to the "circle of influence" topic within the Seven Habits. You don't need permission to begin impacting and improving the areas with your circle. Make sure you collaborate well with the movers and shakers in your circle because they may be your future followers, or better yet partners.

Why Can't I Fill My Open IT Positions?

2010-11-04T11:00:00.000-04:00

by Patrick Greene

If you are an IT manager within a state agency in Tallahassee you have probably experienced the following scenario at least once. You find yourself on your third position advertisement, your third round of candidates, and while you've met some very competent people you just can't seem to close the deal. All the while the section manager (or CIO) keeps hounding you with "you have to get that position filled or it's going to be frozen or taken away..."
The fact is Tallahassee is an IT workforce oasis in the middle of a barren pan-handle. To the west there is not a sizable collection of IT resources until you get to Pensacola, east as far as Jacksonville, and once you turn south out of the panhandle all of the IT "oxygen" is sucked out of the universe by Tampa, Orlando, and Miami. What about North? Tallahassee is the "last chance" for a sizable IT market until you get to Atlanta. Add to this the fact that the job you are likely trying to fill is in high demand and you will see that in reality you are locked into a competition for talent.

Maybe you have made some offers but the candidates backed out or maybe you just are not getting qualified responses at all. Traditionally, state recruiters have leaned on government job stability and benefits to lure talent in but this just may not be enough. Here are a few "non-traditional" points to consider which may be causing your candidates to look at other options:

The salary does not match the position responsibilities
I'm not talking about the old standard complaint that "state jobs don't pay much", that is a given. Honestly people who want a six figure salary don't apply for public service positions anyway, so the below-industry government pay scale is common knowledge and not likely causing you to lose candidates. What I am referring to is the habit of government hiring managers to advertise a job description which is beyond the specified pay-grade - either because they cannot re-classify the position in time for their actual needs or are just being lazy.

Take some time to verify your position description against the class descriptions provided by DMS or better yet have a look at the O-NET occupation codes published by the USDOL/ETA. The O-NET codes have generalized occupational descriptions you can use as a sanity check.
The point here is that if you need a lead architect for your team don't try to advertise that low-level Programmer I position with a dressed up position description which includes responsibilities normally outside of that role (like enterprise architecture planning or management of a team). Any candidates you interview who are qualified at the Programmer I level won't meet your expectations for the more advanced position requirements and any candidates who are more qualified will feel like a bait-and-switch is in progress.

You don't "impress" the candidates in your interviewLike it or not when an IT professional comes in for an interview it is a two-way street. Just as you are sizing them up for your team they are sizing you up as a reflection of your team. If you don't know what you are talking about find someone on your team who does and have them run the interview.

I participate in government interviews on a regular basis - both as a candidate and "sitting in as the technical person". Probably the most egregious error I see in application development interviews is the team manager trying to sell the candidate on being part of an Agile team and then describing a waterfall work process. Agile is a good selling point for developers but it is far more painful for them to work for an IT manager who pretends to understand technology concepts.

You need to understand why someone would leave their current job and come to work for the state. Maybe you are offering more money but I doubt it. The most common reason is the person wants to be in an organization they can learn from or they want to make a difference. With that in mind, if you don't have something to teach or you don't have a burning vision to execute then you are not the organization they are looking for.

Your IT organization has a poor reputation
Remember the earlier "Tallahassee is an IT workforce oasis..." statement. Well ask yourself, what happened to the person who last held the position you are trying to fill? Did they win the lottery and move to the Bahamas? Did they land their dream job? More importantly, did they leave Tallahassee or are they still in town?

If the last employee left the job because they weren't satisfied then you have the beginnings of a problem. If a few more employees have left for the same reason then you already have a big problem. Just what do you think happens when you smack around the locals and send them back into the same small candidate pool? They tell their friends (your potential candidates) all about their experience.

On a daily basis I am asked by on of my IT peers to comment on the team environment or leadership of a local IT shop. Some I have worked for as an employee, some as a contractor, and others I may have partnered with. Maybe they want the scoop because they have an interview with you tomorrow or maybe it is just a table full of geeks shooting the breeze at the pub. Tech geeks aren't great politicians so we always give our honest opinions - sometimes positive, other times not so much.

So what can you do about all of this?

Go through your position descriptions and make sure they align with common industry descriptions. If you have "programmers" over-seeing the work of contract staff (or other employees) without a clear title distinction, realize this structure will seem suspicious to a candidate from outside of your organization.
Clean up any "dotted line" reporting structures. A matrix organization is fine for project management but if a new candidate meets three different bosses during the interview process they begin to get the idea that no one is in charge. Be aware that the problems with a poorly defined matrix organization go beyond the initial interview. Many employees who leave a projectized state agency will indicate that there were just "too many cooks in the kitchen" and they didn't know who they reported to. Note: This is not a negative reflection on shifting toward a project oriented business but reflects more on how such a change is implemented.

If you've developed a bad reputation, sniff around and see where it might be coming from. It is most likely your agency had a bad run at some point and you just haven't shaken the reputation. To find out where the problem is, make contact with past employees if you can and don't ever let anyone out the door without a good exit interview. If you find that you have a particularly "acidic" manager or lead technician you may need to reconsider the return on investment you are getting for that person's abilities.

Go that extra mile to put a public face on your IT shop and tell your story from your agency website. Remember, your audience is NOT the general public or John Q Taxpayer so don't write the site content for that purpose. Your target audience consists of your peers in the technology industry. Write for your partners (other government agencies) since anything that would be of interest to the techs at a partner will likely interest a potential candidate.
Get involved in local interest groups. Prompt your team to get in the mix on one or more local IT interest groups. If you can swing it, sponsor or host a few of the meetings or brown bags.

5 Steps to Turn Around A Weak IT Service Delivery Reputation

2010-09-08T11:00:00.000-04:00

by Patrick Greene

So, you've taken the reigns of a State Government IT shop and are beginning to find that not all is well with your service delivery functions. Maybe your IT managers are repeating the same status report each week on the same system updates or projects. Maybe you've noticed your IT technicians appear to be very busy but nothing seems to actually be getting done. Possibly you have just received the that dreaded shot across the IT bow in the weekly executive staff meeting:..."The status of my initiative is the same as last week and the week before that! We're waiting on IT!"

The root cause here is that either your team doesn't really understand how to operate efficiently or (more likely) the service expectations of your customers out of touch with what you are capable of delivering; either way here are 5 steps to help you start untangling the situation and establish a method to monitor your progress.

#1 - A task-based timekeeping system for IT personnel - we're not talking about your average time clock here, you need a system that relates the time each IT staff members expends back to an individual assigned task. If the system "rolls up" tasks into projects that is all the better. There are many good systems on the market and you could take a look at actiTime or MS Project Server 2007 as basic examples.

Why is this important?Time allocated to completion of a task is a critical measure for both process improvement and project management. If your budget is ever under the axe this data will be an outright life-saver. If you are managing projects you simply cannot measure earned value without near real-time task/time data. If you are running a "maintenance only shop" historical task/time data can be a lifesaver. Look at it this way, if you don't know how many hours it took to complete the last maintenance refresh cycle how could you possibly defend your estimates for the next cycle when you include that cost into your budgets? All of this data rolls into the IT budget - how many times have you been challenged on the "cost of IT" or the cost of maintaining a current systems vs. replacing it? If you are in Florida state government you've been challenged every session and lately a few times in between.
The usual complaint when implementing a time system in Florida government is "We already enter our time into the state time system. I don't want to waste staff time by keeping two time-sheets. Wewill just keep on estimating how long each task took." Well everyone - including your executive management - knows that most of your IT work statistics are "estimated" and because of this most will assume your numbers are either padded or just an outright guess. While it may take a while to gather substantial work statistics, in the interim you will be able to measure the earned value of tasks, how assignments are made across all resources (who is getting work piled on them and who is not), and how many times a task is being re-assigned to a different person.

Problem Resolution: Look into time keeping systems. Check your current Help Desk ticketing system first.

#2 - (Florida government) Define your Strategic Services for Schedule IV-C - if you don't yet know about the TRW Schedule IV-C, here is an excerpt straight from the TRW documentation: "The Schedule IV-C provides a consistent approach and data collection tool to help an agency better align its investments in IT resources (staff, hardware, software, etc.) with the business needs and policies of the agency". So is this just another legislative budget tool? Well yes it is a budget tool, but inside it actually contains so much more. Within the Schedule IV-C documentation you will find a "turn key" IT service catalog which covers the common, utility services provided by every IT shop in every state agency. These utility services are referred to as "non-Strategic" services. In addition, you will find instructions on defining the unique, specialized IT services provided by your Agency. These are referred to as "Strategic Services".

Why is this important? Most IT leaders are keen on defining the IT service catalog as soon as they take ownership of the team because this data provides they lay of the land. In addition, this data is a key input into processes such as IT budget control, IT governance, and service level management. It is nice to know if you are with a Florida State Agency or Department that you do not need to re-invent the wheel! More than half of your IT service catalog is already documented in the IV-C Non-Strategic section. Once you define your Strategic Services you can immediately begin matching the hourly data from item #1 to show how IT dollars impact your agency's customers (the people) and once you have step 3 in place you can begin organizing an IT Governance structure (if that was your plan) based on the IT services that have the greatest visibility to executive leaders.

Problem Resolution: Go to http://trw.state.fl.us/iv-c_downloads.cfm, download the templates and instructions, start filling them out. Simple.

#3 - Define a Service Request policy and process- probably the most important policy document a government IT unit can have is an Agency-wide policy describing how to request services from IT. Most agencies have policies and procedures on Internet usage, desktop software, or information security but in many organizations there is no policy direction to internal customers of IT describing how to obtain services from IT. This lack of direction leaves many business customers to find their own path to IT and that path usually involves emailing or calling their favorite IT worker, who incidentally is never the IT manager you left in charge.

Why is this important? First and foremost, if you don't know how requests are coming into IT and from where you can't even begin to manage them. Without a control point in place to record incoming requests you have no hope of task prioritization or IT governance. If your managers have no idea what direction or at what frequency new requests are likely to come in they cannot forecast workloads or prioritize team work effort. Lack of request organization leads to a reactionary resource management style where work assignments are regularly reallocated (switched) to address previously unknown "agreements" and customer expectations.
At this point most IT managers will point to their Help Desk ticket system or something similar and say that all customer requests are recorded here. The Help Desk ticket system is probably capable of tracking the request but ask yourself "Did I ever tell my customers they are required to ask for service through my help desk?" If not, then the "path of least resistance" your customers have probably already discovered is to go around that help desk unless they just need a simple task like a printer installed or their password reset.

Problem Resolution: Write a procedure at the agency level describing how to request services from IT. Make sure you have the infrastructure (Help Desk) to support the request process first or it will back-fire!

#4 - Develop a RACI matrix for the IT Organization - if you are not already familiar with the RACI matrix it is a table-based diagram which describes the roles and responsibilities of team members in delivery of a process, project, or service. To get the most from a RACI matrix in state IT, remember the following suggestions:

(R)esponsible means someone who is able to respond. If the task is to restore service to a server then a manager who cannot trouble-shoot a server is NOT able to respond; the server technician is.
(A)ccountable should really be a single person and this should be the person who is held accountable if the server is not restored. This could also be the technician but it should be the manager; otherwise why do you need the manager.
(C)onsulted usually represents someone who has answers... if the server goes down I could ask my dog for advice but I might be better off calling Microsoft. On another note, if I am making a change to the server I should "consult" the Change Advisory Board (CAB) on the potential risks.
(I)nformed someone who needs to know that an incident occurred or the status. In the server outage scenario this could be the manager, the CIO, the customer, or any number of stakeholders.

Why is this important? So you can see who you are relying on to deliver service. You can read the matrix any number of ways but here are my observations on common issues exposed by a RACI matrix.

Your line staff (technicians) are mostly listed as Responsible and Accountable and your management staff are (I)nformed. This indicates that your line staff are running the show and the results are passed up to you through management - who may be filtering the truth.
Your Consulted list has more than a few entries per item. You have a bureaucratic system in place; the one Responsible person must cut through a phalanx of consultants before he or she can respond.
Your Accountable list has more than one entry per item. No one can be held accountable and if challenged finger-pointing will ensue among the "Accountables". The finger-pointing will likely end with all Accountable parties pointing to the one Responsible party.
Your Informed list has more than 3 persons or groups per item. Your Responsible person (the one who should be doing the work) probably spends more time generating status reports than doing work.

So what would I consider a good matrix balance?
The line staff (technicians) are mostly listed as Responsible and Accountable, the management staff are mixed across Accountable and Consulted, and the CIO and/or assigned Project Manager are Informed.
This indicates that the line staff do the work and are mostly accountable for their results. The managers are accountable for some results but primarily act as mentors (Consulted) making them generally accountable for the quality of the results provided by the line staff. Status reporting is limited to no more than two sources.

Problem Resolution:Use the service catalog from step #2 and complete a RACI matrix for each system in each service. Use the matrix to sort out your "heroes" from the people who don't seem to add much value. Remember "heroes" are a higher risk than someone who does almost nothing; sometimes your "slackers" are the way they are because the heroes don't share information or collaborate. The goal is to have a level matrix.

#5 - Re-think any Open Door Policy that may be in place
This last one is almost a repeat of #3 but honestly if I had not already seen too many "Open Door" policies enacted in state government (with disastrous consequences) I would not even bring up the topic. This may seem counterintuitive but I will make my case and you can decide. Basically an "open door" policy allows any business customer to walk into IT and discuss a concept or solution or maybe just ask for help directly at the source. While this may initially seem to be a good idea to improve customer service, if you have read or taken action on Step #3 then you see the root problem here. This policy actually opens the door for (and condones) customer behaviors which undermine the request process. The point that many IT managers may miss is that any interaction with the business customers they serve results in an agreement to provide service at some level. No one cares that you don't have the authority to take action or that you weren't the right person to talk to - they told "IT" and now "IT" owes them a solution to the problem.

The argument for an "open door" policy will usually be heavy on customer service ideals, so to illustrate my point I will use a highly customer service oriented industry; the car dealership repair shop. When you pull into a dealership repair shop you are greeted up front by a repair shop manager and your needs are assessed. You are given an estimated time of completion based on the number of customers in front of you. There is a sign on the door to the shop floor that says "No Customers Beyond This Point". This "closed door" policy is in place to protect both the customer and the mechanics. Protection against customer injury is obvious but if a mechanic is distracted he or she may make a mistake on the repair job or may damage something. The customer could also inadvertently damage another customer vehicle.

The reason the customer's don't seem to mind the "closed door" is that they receive adequate support for their needs from the service manager.

If you have an open door policy it was likely established to address a lack of connection between IT and business by "opening up the doors" and making the IT section more inviting. It will be much easier to maintain a positive IT presentation by closing the doors to the back office, straightening up the showroom (Service Desk), and holding the managers accountable for customer satisfaction.

How Scrum Adoption Can Curb Government IT Waste

2010-08-02T12:45:00.000-04:00

by Patrick Greene

First let's qualify... the government IT waste I am referring to is the waste which occurs in the waterfall development methodologies used by so many government application development shops. Government applications teams don't always purposefully choose a waterfall model, sometimes it is all they know and other times it is prescribed in various organizational procedures and policies. In Florida the state has inadvertently prescribed a waterfall methodology under Florida Administrative Code 60DD-7. Thankfully, it appears this issue may be addressed in the coming year by our new State CIO.

The PMP Effect

Another common driver behind execution of a waterfall software development processes is dogmatic execution of the PMBOK by a project manager. The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) is the recognized standard of project execution by those project managers certified under PMI as Project Management Professionals (PMP's). The PMBOK itself does not prescribe a waterfall methodology (or any other development methodology) for systems development; instead the PMBOK prescribes common processes and behaviors for the project manager to follow during the life cycle of the project. The project could be anything from a barn raising to a mission to Mars.

The problem arises when a PMP with limited software development experience takes the reigns of a software development project. Without a keen understanding of the development process, the project manager may fall back on the organizational structure offered by the PMBOK. Since the five process groups in the PMBOK (Initiating, Planning, Executing, Controlling and Monitoring, and Closing) lend themselves to "hand-off" from one process to the next, the project manager's behavior takes on the qualities of a waterfall and as a result the team's development processes begins to act as a waterfall.

Basics of a Scrum project

Scrum is a project management and development methodology structured to enable the most efficient and effective software (or other product) development process. The best description of Scrum is the description below from the Scrum Alliance website (http://www.scrumalliance.org/pages/what_is_scrum).

"Scrum is made up of three roles, three ceremonies, and three artifacts.

Three roles: the Product Owner, who is responsible for the business value of the project; the Scrum Master, who ensures that the team is functional and productive; and the self-organized team. Read more about Scrum roles.

Three ceremonies: the sprint planning meeting, daily scrum meetings, and sprint review meetings. Read more about Scrum ceremonies.

Three artifacts for prioritizing and tracking tasks: the product backlog, the sprint backlog, and a burn down chart. Read more about Scrum artifacts."

Scrum is an Agile development methodology and therefore takes great pains to clear out unnecessary team processes which do not contribute directly to the development of the end product or diminish the ability of the team to accomodate change.

Scrum and PMBOK Comparisons

Product Owner (Scrum) vs. Project Sponsor (PMBOK)

The Product Owner in Scrum differs from the PMBOK Project Sponsor in that the Product Owner represents all facets of the business (funding, requirements/defining functionality, and priorities) where the Project Sponsor may only provide funding and delegate one or more Subject Matter Experts to define the system functions and priorities. This separation of the sponsor from acting as the key subject matter expert is usually where "scope creep" occurs; in these team structures the subject matter experts are too distant from the cost/value proposition. In Scrum, the Product Owner knows how much can be spent and then decides what functions and requirements will give him or her the most bang for the buck.

Scrum Master (Scrum) vs. Project Manager (PMBOK)

The Scrum Master is to all intents and purposes the project manager; however the Scrum Master does NOT set the work breakdown structure (WBS) or assign resources to tasks as might be common for a PMBOK project manger. The Scrum Master tracks start up and completion of tasks; but the order of tasks and who will complete them is determined by the team doing the work.

Commitment to a Sprint (Scrum) vs. Commitment to a full specification

In PMBOK projects (and waterfalls) the team is asked to commit to the full specification up front (prior to execution) in the form of a project scope and one or more requirements specifications developed during the project planning processes. In Scrum a high-level specification (or "wish list") is held in the Product Backlog and this document or list describes all of the desired functionality of the system in order of importance.

In contrast to the PMBOK and waterfall, the Scrum team never commits to delivery of the full Product Backlog but instead commits to deliver an agreed upon number of functions from the top of the priority list within the next 30 days. This 30-day "mini-project" is called a Sprint and ends with the delivery of a fully operable system containing only those functions and requirements committed to at the beginning of the 30-day Sprint.

If after reviewing the system the Product Owner wishes to continue and do another 30-days of development he/she can start another Sprint or can decide to keep what was produced so far and end the project. This approach is made effective in Scrum as the agreed upon goal of a Sprint is to deliver working software at the end of a 30-day period. Through the full life cycle of developing the system, the team works through multiple Sprints until the product is either good enough for the Product Owner or the Product Owner is out of funding.

PMBOK Scope Management ("Scope Creep Defense") vs. The Entire Scrum Process

In the PMBOK, scope creep is managed using a series of agreements between the project manager, project sponsor, and other project stakeholders. These agreements take the form of various plans (Scope Management Plan, Change Management Plan, etc.). The goal of Scope Management is for the project manager to ensure the list of tasks to be completed (scope) does not out grow the alloted time and budget available for the project. If the project sponsor wishes to add tasks then it becomes necessary to re-negotiate the alloted time and budget or remove other tasks from the scope to make room for the new tasks.

In Scrum the development team has never committed to delivering the full Product Backlog in a specific time frame or at a specific cost; therefore the Product Owner is free to re-prioritize, add, or remove items in the backlog at any time - with the exception of those items already committed to by the team for the current 30-day Sprint. By allowing the customer to re-evaluate the scope every 30 days (after each Sprint) and make changes, the Scrum process accounts for Scope and Change Management throughout the process. Any team who has developed software accepts the reality that changes to the scope are inevitable and the Scrum process operates accordingly, while the PMBOK seems to treat change as a process exception which will addressed only if a change occurs and then only if it is allowed.

So PMBOK is Bad and Scrum is Good?

No, the PMBOK is not bad at all Scrum is certainly not a silver bullet to replace the PMBOK. Both project methodologies are equally effective tools. As a project manager you could get most anything done using just the PMBOK, but as a software project manager you need both a formal tool (PMBOK) as well as an Agile tool (Scrum). If you only have one approach to managing projects you will inevitable get stuck at some point and fail to deliver "on time and on budget" - it is simply a matter of time.

As a government software project manager you will one day come across a project where time and value are of the essence. Maybe it will be a race to implement Legislative mandated changes by a specific date or possible a proof of concept needed ASAP to secure grant funding. In this case the process of executing the project will be greatly overshadowed by the need for a quality deliverable (the software) in record time. The initial inclination will be to ditch the PMBOK and go "wild west" but that could be a deadly move if the wrong cowboy is chosen.

In contrast, there are those projects where Scrum just doesn't provide the level of formal control needed for the job; particularly projects where multiple organizations have an investment in the project - even if they do not have a direct stake in the product being delivered. An example in government could be a grant funded project or any of the many projects funded by a legislative budget request. In these instances, a requirement from the project investors that a PMI certified project manager will follow the PMBOK when executing the project can have a similar effect as requiring the officers of a public institution to certify their internal controls under Sarbanes-Oxley; albeit without the related criminal implications. The reality being that when multiple investors have money invested into a project those investors want some level of oversight applied to the project process. These investors want to see that their money is being managed correctly and that risks to losing their investment are being adequately monitored. In some government projects, all project related meetings may be opened to the public and must be coordinated with advanced notice to the public. The formalized structure of the PMBOK is uniquely suited to these types of projects needs.

Hey, You Said We Would Curb Government Waste! (was this a bait and switch?)

Fair enough. If you run a government IT shop or government PMO - or have any impact on the operations of said shop - here's where you start:

Send one or more of your development team leaders or project managers to Scrum Master Certification training. This is the fastest way to get them up to speed on an Agile methodology with the least amount of trial and error. Scrum is a natural behavior for software development teams so most people who have participated on a software development team will immediately see the benefits.
Remove any Agile roadblocks. You may have internal project management procedures, processes, or standards that inadvertently prohibit Agile behaviors or methodologies. You don't need to immediately re-write all of your PM processes to include Scrum but you will need to give your new Scrum Masters a "pass" to get around certain areas of the current processes that may inhibit their success.
Clear off some wall space and meeting areas! Scrum teams need space for team member congregation and even more wall space for sticky notes, whiteboards, etc. There are Scrum management tools which can be used but some of the best teams may stay relatively low-tech since the focus is on the product being developed and not the by-products of the project management process.
Review your current project portfolio and if you have projects where project funding is completely internal (general revenue, etc.) then you should execute an Agile methodology (preferably Scrum) for those projects. Since the actual work will likely grow to fill the available time for the project (Parkinson's Law), a formalized project timeline might prevent the customer from recognizing when he or she could stop project spending early because the most important goals have been achieved. If you are able to see an opportunity for early release when it occurs you will be able to reallocate that operating budget elsewhere.

The savings in Scrum comes directly from item #4. Remember the 30-day Sprint concept in Scrum; in a 6 month project the customer has five chances to call the system "good enough" and stop the spending. Since to goal of each Sprint is to deliver working software the customer receives "version 1.0" of the system after the first 30-days and gets to decide what "version 2.0" should do better or if another version is even needed.

The rebuttal to the above is usually that any project plan could execute the development across multiple phases (iterative development cycles). While this is true, a formalized 6-month timeline assumes up front that exactly five iterations of the system will be required to meet the goals and assumes that the customer knows all of the goals in the beginning and will not change his/her mind.

Something Wicked This Way Comes... It's BI season in Florida

2010-06-10T11:00:00.000-04:00

by Patrick Greene

Usually it is around this time of year in Tallahassee when Business Intelligence (BI) vendors descend on government CIOs and executives to show the latest tools for slicing-and-dicing government data into something that may bring transparency to government or save taxpayer money.
The latest news of shortfall in the state budget will prompt many state agencies to aggressively seek out opportunities to do more with less. Add to this scenario the ever-present stimulus money from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and you have an orchard of seemingly low hanging fruit with an army of BI vendors and lobbyists waiting to help each agency pick their share.

While a well thought out Business Intelligence solution could probably have a dramatic impact on optimizing an agency to meet its goals at the lowest tax payer expense, there are a few points (truths) for the government executive or CIO to consider as he or she listens to each vendor's presentation.

First - There are no quick or cheap Business Intelligence solutions. No matter what the vendor tells you.
It is true that some of the major vendors may have products which significantly reduce the effort required to create a BI solution. When considering these rapid off-the-shelf solutions be honest with yourself about your expectations; you want a solution which will tell you something about your organization that you don't already know. Once you get beyond the presentation (sales pitch) and get to an estimate on the amount of time it could take the vendor to show you real, actionable data specific to your organization you may find it to be much more effort (money) than you were originally led to believe.

Second - A vendor is not likely to know your state government business better than you do.When a BI vendor shows you a neat graphical dashboard displaying dials, and knobs, and charts full of indicators on the health of your organization you should be asking yourself and the vendor "who decides what symptoms make my organization healthy or sick?". The common executive dashboards in private sector organizations display indicators geared toward sales trends and profit. None of these indicators normally apply to the "health" of a public service organization. So who will develop your specific measures? Your organization will. So back to item number one; the "quickness and cheapness" of the overall solution is going to depend on how fast your own management team can develop strategic measures for your organization.

Third - Data integration is never easy; especially in government.Government information systems are basically a patchwork of ad-hoc adjustments designed to meet the latest legislation, tack on improvements, or apply data integrity fixes. You can see evidence of this by reviewing the long list of Legislative Budget Requests each year asking for funding of IT projects to "re-engineer" or "consolidate" systems. I will certainly not lay blame on the state agencies for not having the fore-sight to build monolithic, integrated systems that do all things for all people - that notion is just plain silly. The current ad-hoc nature of state government systems is a direct result of limited budgets. The fact that there is generally no income generated by a state information system means not much measurable return exists to warrant the significant investment a monolithic system would require. Also, with no income there is virtually no measurable return on investment to fund regualr upgrades to these systems. The integration of systems and data is probably the greatest challenge facing any state government organization and will likely be the most expensive IT problem an agency will ever face.

So, with that said. What sort of magic beans could a BI vendor possibly drop which would immediately integrate all of your data into a neat little package and generate factual measures on that pretty display? What if the vendor integrates some of the data incorrectly? Will you find the error before you make an operational decision based on that faulty data or worse report that bad information to the public? How much time and cost will be required from your organization to test and verify the "facts" which are being presented by that BI solution are correct? (back to point #1 - nothing is cheap or quick)

Fourth - Who will feed, walk, and play with this new puppy.Who in your organization will be using this BI solution? If it is just your immediate executive team then how much money is it worth to you to see your agency's statistics on the big screen? Being logical business men and women you will likely say the data and indicators would be most useful to operational managers further down the chain of command. With that reality in mind, what you are seeing in the vendor presentation is only the tip of the iceberg. The underlying data presentations required for operational reporting are much more detailed and may require months of group discussions (your staff resources) just to pin down what is meaningful operational data and what is trivial.

Now here comes million dollar question... Who in your organization will maintain this BI solution? Assuming that today you don't know each and every measure you may ever need to run your organization, who will make the necessary changes to the technology solution to address the new measures and indicators you discover down the road. Better yet who will correct the faulty measures that were not discovered when testing the first release? Will it be this vendor? You can be certain that most technology vendors will not have a graceful exit strategy or transition plan and are not even looking for one. You can also be certain that your IT organization is probably not prepared to support a data warehousing solution that can grow as big and as fast as a BI solution can.

So How Can You Approach Business Intelligence in State Government?

This article is not intended to scare you away from Business Intelligence, just to warn you of the current pitfalls of vendor presentations for BI and just about any other technology solution. The moral is don't buy into "silver bullet" solutions or you will waste what little budget and time you have. Take your BI strategy one day at a time and in small bites. Focus on fixing the underlying system integration issues and a few intelligence measures may actually appear on their own through improved operational reporting.

One solid approach for state government is to build multiple, smaller BI solutions in specific business areas. At its core, a BI solution consists of a data warehouse pumping data up to a decision support tool (dashboard, operational reports, etc.). The data warehouse is the consolidated data from all of your systems with additional data mixed in to provide historical perspective.

In business intelligence terminology a smaller data model exists referred to as a data mart and you can create a data mart for a particular subsection of your organization - maybe a single business unit or agency function. Building a data mart is a much smaller investment and might possibly be supported (or even created) using your existing in-house IT resources. In fact it is much easier to integrate multiple, well designed data marts into a larger data warehouse down the road than it is to create one big data warehouse from the beginning.

Pick one area of your organization and try out a small data-mart with a basic dashboard. If nothing else you will at least gain experience on what is truly involved in the process.

UPDATE - September 28th, 2009:

The Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board unveiled their revamped Recovery.gov web site today. "The site was revamped at a cost of $9.5 million in stimulus funds and provides easier-to-use tools, such as a ZIP Code search that shows stimulus projects in local communities" (LA Times: "Website upgrade makes it easier to monitor federal stimulus")

At first glance the site just appears to be re-arranged, maybe a bit less photogenic, but with a clear emphasis on the information. A further review reveals that the web site is actually an ASP.NET web application with multiple zones containing data indicators. Yes, this appears to be your basic BI dashboard.

So why am I posting an update? Well a comment in the LA Times article "Website upgrade makes it easier to monitor federal stimulus" from Eric Gillespie, the chief information officer of Onvia (the company behind Recovery.gov) caught my attention.

"This is not about technology. You could build the sexiest user experience on the front end, but unless you have the data on the back end it doesn't matter," Gillespie said. "It's not about the map." - Well that says it all.

At 9.5 million this was clearly no quick and cheap solution, this appears to more like a planned attack at a true business intelligence solution. Still for the volume of data the ARRA stimulus is likely producing and the fairly rapid turn-around for the dashboard and underlying data back-end this seems to be a rather rapid deployment of a BI solution. A bit of further research into Onvia and I uncovered from their corporate web site just how this was possible:

"For more than twelve years, Onvia has delivered unparalleled coverage of government purchasing activity from federal, state, local and education agencies..."

"Onvia covers over 89,000 federal, state, local, and education purchasing offices and is tracking the government economic recovery projects. New opportunities are added to the Onvia database daily."

Well there you have it, I will say once again "you just can't cheat at business intelligence". You either know the "ins-and-outs" of the industry and how to analyze the data or you don't. Onvia evidently has invested a significant level of time and resources in the government purchasing and procurement industry and therefore they were in a unique position to leverage their knowledge investment to provide this specific BI solution when needed.

The State of Florida Official ISDM and Project Methodology

2009-01-28T11:00:00.000-05:00

by Patrick Greene

Did you know the State of Florida has adopted an official Information Systems Development Methodology (ISDM)? How about an official Project Management Methodology? Yep, both an ISDM and project management methodology are outlined in Chapter 60DD-7 of the Florida Administrative Code. This rule, also known as the "Information Technology Life Cycle Policies and Standards" was adopted sometime in December 2004.

Excerpt from Section 1.b of the rule:

"It is the intent of this rule chapter to establish an Information Technology (IT) Life Cycle which provides a flexible framework for approaching a variety of information technology projects. Primary emphasis is placed on the information and systems decisions to be made and the proper timing of decisions. The framework enables system developers, project managers, program/account analysts, and business/system owners and users to combine activities, processes and products, as appropriate, and to select the tools and methodologies best suited to the unique needs of each project. The purpose of the Information Technology Life Cycle is to:

Establish a common Project Management Methodology identifying the phases of an information technology project, specific processes to be performed within each phase and standard tasks that comprise each process.
Establish a common Information Systems Development Methodology outlining procedures, practices, and guidelines governing the initiation, concept development, planning, requirements analysis, design, development, integration and test, implementation, operations, maintenance and disposition of information technology.
Define minimum standards and provide a best practice model which establishes the framework and processes for a structured approach to the complete life cycle management of information technology resources. Standards are required administrative procedures or management controls utilizing current, open, non-proprietary or non-vendor specific technologies."

Wait a second! This rule is under DMS it doesn't apply to my Agency! Well check the fine print, the rule applies to all those entities described in Section 216.011(1)(qq), F.S. (and that includes just about everyone...)

The Details:

Section 002 of the rule specifies the Project Management Methodology to be used by State agencies and clearly aligns that methodology to the PMI-PMBOK.

The life-cycle outlined in the rule encompasses the common phases of a waterfall ISDM model and adds two phases after Implementation to extend the ISDM into a full life-cycle. The two additional phases are "Operations and Maintenance Phase" followed by "Disposition Phase".

The SDLC phases outlined in the rule are:

Initiation Phase
Needs Assessment or Feasibility Phase
Planning Phase
Requirements Analysis Phase
Design Phase
Acquisition/Development Phase
Integration, Testing and Acceptance Phase
Implementation Phase
Operations and Maintenance Phase
Disposition Phase

So does this mean that RUP or any of the more Agile models are off limits? Well no, but you do need to do a bit of homework and cross-map the phases to make sure you are covered.

For example, RUP and the Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) are still somewhat waterfall-like they just don't span as many phases. If you map each phase of you chosen framework to one or more corresponding phases of 60DD-7 then you should be fine. After all nothing says you can't execute two phases in parallel...

The key to cross-mapping to 60DD-7 is to make sure that you address the deliverable for each phase. This is where some good old fashion document templates will go a long way.

I found the easiest framework to map was Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) 3.0; it is a hybrid "iterative-waterfall" model so it is very flexible; in addition the project management functions within MSF are already aligned to the PMBOK and reference it judiciously.

Ok, so all of you Florida agencies and vendors out there who are still winging it and calling your process "RAD" (or worse claiming to be Agile), you can stop now... "it's the law".