November 2005 Archives
Another "memo to self". But, also very useful. Every time you validate a page using the w3c HTML validator, irrespective of the perfection of your code, you get shown a "tip" for designing a better website. Like a tip-of-the-day, but without the annoying modal popup or the paperclip. I like.
[Sticky Minds] What To Do When Anger Strikes
Let's just call this a "memo to self" !
Procurement. That's what's annoying me about Boots and their sandwiches at the moment. (I'm still not sure why I decided to be kind enough to classify my postings about Boots Sandwiches as "Food")
Why can't they (being Boots) order a decent quantity of sandwiches? Surely they can't have sold out to the point where the fridges are virtually clear by 12.30 on at least 3 out of 5 working days? And if they, consistently, do then surely it would be logical to have additional stock available to replenish with.... It's all well and good having a range of "Seasonal" sandwiches which give customers a choice of something other than chicken. But, if they're constantly out of stock, (other than the Brie & Grape variety) then I can't buy them! :'(
I was looking around on codeproject.com recently and came across Subclassed System Menu. If I had any power at all, I'd eliminate every trace of sample code on the Internet that shows how to do this. Nothing is more annoying than random crap being dumped on the SYSTEM menu. Why should "Help" (Yes, that's you SQL Server Enterprise Manager) or "About" (yes, that's you a multitude of other evil programs) be considered a "System" command. It's not. Arrrrrgh!
Sysinternals blog: Sony, Rootkits and Digital Rights Management Gone Too Far
Sony really have taken the biscuit this time! Their behaviour, particularly the way they've handled the fallout, is nothing short of shocking! The only thing I haven't seen *any* mention of anywhere, in the various different news articles which have talked about this, is the opinion/feelings of the band whos album Sony have enforced this DRM-abortion on. What do they think about Sony putting such intrusive and potentially damaging software on their CDs? That's the one angle I'd love to hear.
BBC - Drama - Shakespeare - Much Ado About Nothing
Never having read Much Ado, I can't really compare it to the original Shakespeare but I really can't wait until next week when Macbeth receives the same treatment. Having read the tale of the scottish king I can't wait to see what the BBC do with this. For those who disagree with the licence fee, where else would you see money invested in a modern dramatisation of Shakespeare like this? Simply fantastic.
Grand Designs (on Channel 4 on November 2nd 2005) was all about a build in Belfast. After having seen the organised chaos that is many of the other builds that Grand Designs has showcased, this one was simply amazing. Not only did they finish for the planned date, they also came in under budget! This being despite them running anywhere between 2 hours (yes, their schedule was that tightly planned!) and 2 weeks behind at various times. I guess they really did prevent late tasks from creating late projects. I'm not quite sure how any of the principles in the linked article from Sticky Minds applies to the Grand Designs build, if indeed any do. But, it certainly makes for interesting reading.
The one point that is clearly common between the two though, is that whatever the project, the person managing it has to have their eyes on the ball 100% of the time. Even the shortest amount of time without that focus and it can all start to come rather horribly unravelled.
I really do loathe flu. Especially when I get it. But on the upside, as one of my colleagues put it, "I haven't started clucking yet!" :)
Next weeks episode of Spooks, is basically the "Who Killed Diana - was it the secret services?" episode. It'll be interesting to see how well this goes down with the general public and the media. Especially given the reactions some crazy yanks have had to Camilla and Charles. There was some mad woman from "The Diana Circle" or somesuch, waffling on about Diana this, Diana that, Charles bad, Camilla Whore, etc, etc. Yawn.
... and not the variety that sits on t'Internet and sends spam.
How to make little girls scream like... well, like little girls from Eric Lippert's blog made me chuckle. The best bit is, they do look like top tips for being a Zombie!
Joel of Joel on Software posted an interesting entry a while ago that makes a point about time vs developer resource.
The part I'm interested in starts about a third of the way down the page. (by the picture of a skyline) A former lecturer of Joel's began gathering statistics regarding the amount of time his students were taking for various pieces of coursework. The statistics and analysis make fascinating reading, especially when you see that the logical conclusion is that "The quality of the work and the amount of time spent are simply uncorrelated". This quite nicely reinforces the fact that throwing additional resource at a project will not help the situation. To quote, "the man month is mythical".
Maybe you could throw more resource at the QA/Testing side of the project? Maybe with contractors. However, every product has a learning curve. For someone to be able to test something, even with the most comprehensive of test scripts, the most controlled of environments, some knowledge of the system being tested is inherently required. Without it you won't get much, if any, value out of additional resource. Obviously this can be alleviated by only hiring the best of the best, maybe by choosing Testers who are:
- Self-motivated
- Quick on the uptake
- Independent and self-sufficient
But, If you don't have people that fit those criteria, adding more resource will just make the situation worse. Your current people will spend more and more time working with the new team members and overall productivity will plummet. Something that has to be watched for, and managed, very very carefully. Anyone (theoretically) could execute a test script. But a tester who knows and is familiar with the system, can then investigate a defect encountered, diagnose the problem and provide the maximum ammount of information to the development team possible. This has the benefit of providing development with as much information to reproduce the defect as is available. Possibly with additional test cases that came to light from the testers research. Maybe even a proposed fix if the tester is technically minded.
Compare and contrast that to the value of a tester who lacks experience with the system being tested and is merely following a test script. If they don't know the system they're likely to log the defect and then carry on with further scripts, possibly resulting in them wasting time as a defect could impact multiple areas of the system.
Are contractors really adding value to a project? Yes -- if the project is right and you can get sign-off 125% of the contractor resource you need to do the job.
Having recently finished airing on ITV1, I've only just got round to actually looking at the afterlife website. [Warning: Comes with music and sound effects. Best viewed with them] What a funky and very, very cool website. Almost as good as the TV series.
Hopefully the series will be released to DVD, and even more hopefully there'll be a second series!
One of the plus sides to Microsoft having given their employees a platform to blog from, and apparently permission to do so is that all the knowledge they have of the inner workings of Microsofts products is out in the open and available for all to use. Blogs like the old new thing (Raymond Chen) give an insight into the sheer volume of effort Microsoft makes to ensure that each version of Windows is backward compatible, plus lots of other really interesting tid-bits from the history of Windows.
My favourite set of blogs at the moment has to be those related to the upcoming Office 12 release. From a discussion of what's new in Access 12 to Office XML formats to an Office User Interface Blog to Microsoft Excel. I'd just really quite like it if the team/people behind the Access blog hadn't apparently "gone dark". Particularly as a new release of Office is a fantastic opportunity for Access to shine, more so given some of the things they've already told the world about via their blog. [Since writing this I've heard from the owner of the Access blog - we will be hearing from him soon, hurrah!!]
Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes
Of all the things I never expected to see, a list of guidelines for weblog usability is probably amongst the top 10. In fact, I'd have to have imagined someone putting it together to have it in that list!
Now for the science bit (it's like a cosmetics advert!):
Links Don't Say Where They Go -- There is nothing on this earth that annoys me more than reading a website and encountering links which say click here. I know I've done it in the past and it's a disgusting and bad habit which I'm going to try and break myself of. A hyperlink should be self-describing and you should have a fairly good idea of where it's going to take you. Unfortunately, this has its downsides. People (not necessarily stupid people, just people that don't know any better) trust what the hyperlink says. So a link which goes to www.a-really-bad-site-which-steals-your-online-banking-password.co.uk but actually says Click here to log onto LlloydsTSB Internet Banking. But that's a completley different kettle of fish.
The Calendar is the only Navigation -- Arrrrgh, a calendar is by far the worst way to navigate a weblog. Notice the layout to the left, the default MT calendar has been disabled. There is no value in a month-to-view calendar in a weblog that I can determine. I could well be (Read: probably am) wrong about that, but it's my opinion. Also note the "Categories" listing is above the listing of months. Which is above the listing of recent postings. That's my opinion as to the usefulness of the different methods of sorting entries that MT provides.
Irregular Publishing Frequency -- Admittedly this is something I'm guilty of, but it doesn't preclude me from being annoyed with others who do the same! There are some really interesting blogs that I read which are only posted to sporadically and they leave me salivating for more everytime a posting does turn up. Thanks to having discovered RSS I don't have to check to see if someone has posted anymore. Maybe RSS will make this one less of a problem... It won't make it any less frustrating for readers waiting for new entries, but it'll make it more likely that sporadic bloggers will retain their readership.
Having a Domain Name Owned by a Weblog Service -- Are Livejournal/blogger/typepad turning into the next "virtual social-pariah" like aol/geocities? I hope not! Besides, the wholw aol/geocities stigma thing only really applies to "net geeks" no one else really gives a toss. I don't. One exception is business use. XYZCoSales@aol.com sounds un-professional whereas sales@TheXYZCompany.co.uk dosen't. Again maybe that' just because I've been using the 'net for years...
