Apr

16

A Little Crowded

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The countries who put stuff up in space should I think be responsible and safely drop all of the junk left up there. While the place is pretty big, collisions between objects in orbit are still pretty likely when there are so many items up there.

Apr

15

Fortune Cookie

Filed Under Fortunes | Leave a Comment

A routine trip turns into an enchanting escapade.

Apr

14

Hidden Project Pitfalls

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Project management materials always discuss things in the problem-solving methodology:

  1. Define successful criteria, constraints, and release criteria. (Define and understand the problem.)
  2. Write a plan, define tasks, identify risks, and estimate costs. (Develop a plan.)
  3. (Try the plan.)
  4. Record actuals and estimates. (Collect data.)
  5. Evaluate at milestones. (Evaluate data to determine if plan succeeded.)

This is all pretty good stuff, but I think it leaves out some pretty basic stuff which no one really quite cares is involved in any major software implementation project.

  1. Adequately staff the project. You are more likely to underestimate the amount of resources needed not overestimate. It would be better to overestimate as those resources can be applied elsewhere.

  2. Buy-in of the affected. The people who are going to be affected by changing software are the ones who most need to approve the decision to change and provide the information about what it will need to do. A high level manager in Finance probably does not know what the day-to-day needs are in Marketing. Yet all too often, someone without any understanding of what the business processes are makes the decision to go with one product or another because it fits his or her vision.

    This is asking for causing a massive amount of complaints, retro-fitting later, or even abandonment of the implemented product. The more objective and detailed view the decision makers have regarding the actual needs of everyone affected, the better match that can be made between prioritized needs and solution. No, not everyone’s problems can be solved. However, making no effort will result in the decision makers shrugging their shoulders in confusion as to why so many people are upset. They have no strong justification for why they picked on solution or another.

  3. Pilot tesing allows those truly masochistic souls to experience the learning curve and bleeding edge while the normal people are safe. Nothing will create more havok than a roll-out full of bugs and problems no one knows how to resolve.
  4. Transparency in the decision making process may not eliminate all complaints, but it sucks the wind out of rumor. The more people who know the hows and whys decisions were made, the less finger pointing there will be. When decisions are made in secret meetings and never disclosed to the affected parties, rumor mills have the fuel to burn down a project.
  5. Some people need a long exposure to something new to get used to the experience. Not everyone can “get it” the first time. The more complicated and difficult a program is to use, the longer people need to work with the program.
  6. Train, train, train, and train some more. Some people are going to need to attend training (more than once). Some people are going to want to just play with it. Some people are going to refuse to learn the new program. There needs to be available assistance with every aspect of a process in a formal instructor to class setting, one-on-one setting, and self-help materials.
  7. Every individual understands each nuance differently. The more diverse the affected users, the more diverse the approaches to helping them understand what it does and how it works. Users ultimately want to know, “How does this affects me? I just want to do my job and not get yelled at by my boss or anyone else.” Using Economics jagon in talking to a Graphic Designer may be the least effective approach. Essentially consider every individual as… an individual.

Apr

13

If Architects Had To Work Like Web Designers…

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Found at Software is Too Expensive to Build Cheaply…

Dear Mr. Architect:
Read more

Apr

13

Redefined

Filed Under Interweb | Leave a Comment

This video of a group called Redefined doing a capella Nintendo game themes is provided a great cap to my otherwise blah day. The classics: Super Mario, MK, and Zelda.

Video MPEG 48 MB

Was Mortal Kombat a Nintendo game? I only remember the first one on Sega?

Apr

11

NADD Free Electron Completionist

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Rands in Repose has been on my mind lately and re-read. This gem of a web site contains descriptions of techie and management personalities that I recognize.

Okay, several personality description are of me. NADD? My laptop connected to blogs and other web sites, a blaring TV, and desktop playing music, say “Totally!” I am a Completionist, dead to rights. At one time, I was a Free Electron.

I think ultimately I wish that I was still a Free Electron.

Strange projects were put on my plate so that I could bear the brunt of my indomitable will on them to create, develop, alter, or destroy every problem. Somewhere along the line, through promotions and reassignment of duties I no longer to research or development; I administrate. Two to three apprentices seek my guidance; meetings; policy; conferences. This perhaps marks the start of my decline in job satisfaction. In order to stay happy, I first thought I will have to change my job back into research first and development second. Perhaps if I read enough of this stuff as what I should be doing instead of what my boss does not do, then I can get back that job satisfaction?

Apr

10

Personal Security

Filed Under Interweb | Leave a Comment

I am not sure many of us take our personal security strongly enough. Nick Bradbury recently mentioned he had lied about being out of town in a previous entry. I say kudos!!

There are too many cases where I see people put in their blogs when they will be out of town. In most of those cases they feel that probably only their friends read the blog. However, how do you know exactly who is reading your blog? You do not.

Several years ago, I read about how criminals in the UK would send out emails to as many addresses as possible to see which would bounce back with an autoresponder saying the owner was out of town. It was easy to then look up the name in a phone book and often determine where the person lived.

When our house was burglarized when I was younger, the police said it was likely done by someone who was in the neighborhood because they were pretty specific what they went through. It was as if they had been in the house before and knew what to take.

Apr

9

Internet Multiplayer

Filed Under Computers | Leave a Comment

Playing online Halo PC is not really fun when there are superb (professional quality) players at a game and make sure everyone else knows they can beat you at whim. I played on a server last weekend where one side was a clan. The other side on which I ended up player were obviously not very experienced playing together on a team. We were slaughtered quite badly until I was left alone for a second to calm down because I was all alone.

I snagged a car, drove full force into their Blood Gulch base, killed 2 on the way into the base, grabbed the flag, killed the same 2 on the way back to my base, took an obfuscated route back their sniper on my base did not anticipate, juked just enough to avoid getting killed by him, and scored the point.

I was very elated and still laughing less than a minute later when I was banned.

Kicking the butts of 4 on my own by picking a great, unexpected tactic is “teh win”!!

Apr

9

Stream

Filed Under Photography | Leave a Comment



Stream, originally uploaded by sneezypb.

Took this yesterday of the stream for mom’s pond. I think the splashing is supposed to put oxygen into the water to help the fish breathe.

Apr

7

Netiquette

Filed Under Interweb | Leave a Comment

Online etiquette, aka netiquette, has always been a touchy topic. Thankfully, there are lots of resources out there for people who are interested in learning about how to properly behave online such as NetManners.com. Now, how to tactfully tell people face-to-face they should consult such resources?

:-)

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