Steve's Seaside Life

Tagged: Desktop

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Daily builds.

Another link to Joel this time on daily builds another of my favorite techniques.  Many people rebel against the idea, especially project managers who like to see release schedules and milestones.  There is nothing in the daily build concept that contradicts good project management process however, its just that the progress towards milestones is tested daily, so that the chance of suprises are reduced and the dependency on key individuals is reduced.  Here is a snipit but please read the whole article if you develop and IT system, and take note that the concept can be applied to all types of development not just software.  I used the daily build concept on one of my projects and I think it was a great success.

Here are some of the many benefits of daily builds:

  1. When a bug is fixed, testers get the new version quickly and can retest to see if the bug was really fixed.

  2. Developers can feel more secure that a change they made isn’t going to break any of the 1024 versions of the system that get produced, without actually having an OS/2 box on their desk to test on.

  3. Developers who check in their changes right …

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Outlook – Domino Connecter.

I was seduced, (for the third time), into installing the Microsoft Outlook Domino Connecter for the following reasons:

 

  1. I wanted a single place to manage my RSS feeds, personal email, tasks, calendar and work email

  2. My trial of mNotes completes in a few days and I needed to decide whether to buy it, or whether I could use Active Sync alone, (as my Local Notes replica would now also be in Outlook)

  3. I would get a unified search environment, (because X1 would search my Notes data, which would now be in Outlook)

  4. Graham said it works fine for him

 

I have tried it twice before, and had to give up both times, despite considerable effort.  I kept telling myself the problems were to do with the sequence I did things, by interactions with mNotes, X1 etc, because I did not leave it alone – i.e. I tried to use it!  Having tried again a few times these are some of the problems I have had:

 

  1. Synchronisation is painfully slow

  2. It does not synchronise according to a regular schedule, it just does it in the background, but not as frequently as I would like

  3. It affects …

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Use Virtual PC, then you need this site!.

Absolute goldmine, lists every OS you can image and provides details on whether its works on Virtual PC.  I was pretty amazed by the list, especially compared with VM Ware.  Where a product has issues it also has notes of workarounds.  Even better if you want to keep up to...

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Diagram of my home network

I described my Office in a previous post.  In this post I thought I would provide a bit on insight into my home network.  The following diagram should give you the basic idea.

  1. The hub of the network is a little 4 port 100MB switch.  All three servers and one laptop are plugged into this

  2. There are two dedicated servers on the network

    1. Server 1 is a dedicated application server.  It only runs Windows 2003 Server and GSX Server 3.1.  All application servers and some test desktops run on top of GSX server.

    2. Server 2 is a dedicated management server, and Active Directory domain controller.  This server runs the MOM Express 2005, and acts as a backup of my main file server, using Windows 2003 Volume Shadow Copy.

  3. My desktop PC also happens to run Windows 2003 server, as this allows me the flexibility to access it via Windows Terminal Services from anyhwere in the house, mirror my data files, and also runs as AD domain controller for resiliance.  It also runs VMWare Workstaton.

  4. When I need access to my company network, I run up a corporate standard PC in a VM on my Desktop Server and VPN from there, …

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Microsoft and integration

I have thought for a long time that Microsoft don’t make much use of their own software to build pre-integrated solutions for their customers, (unlike Oracle for example).  They seem to have caught onto the idea at last, (not from listening to me though :-)).  Anyway a few months ago they started to talk about solution accelerators, which are solutions built from sets of MS products with associated processes, procedures and best practices as well as custom systems integration.  These solve particular business problems, like for example, the process of hiring new employees.  There is also evidence that Microsoft is doing the same at the infrastructure level where the range of tools available to them is even richer, SQL Server, BizTalk, SharePoint etc.  This is a good example:

Microsoft also plans to make available to enterprise partners a “zero touch provisioning” accelerator that will enable end users to self-service tasks such as requesting the installation of an application or resetting a network password.

“We built in a rules-based engine based on BizTalk that can automate requests, get approved by a manager, and install a new application,” Hassall said. “And the opportunity is not just for desktop deployment but add-ons for server …

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Office news

Office news. 

A new version of open office is available.  The main improvements are:

Enhancements to the open-source productivity suite include support for PDF and XHTML exports and improved compatibility with Microsoft Office, according to the OpenOffice Web site. The new release, for example, will support forms conversion within Word documents and import text document layouts with more fidelity. OpenOffice 1.1 also boasts enhanced support for mobile device formats such as Palm’s AportisDoc, Pocket Word and Pocket Excel.

IBM has ideas of its own, taking a thinner approach with its WorkPlace products

A wild card in the Office wars is IBM, which plans to offer server-based word processing, spreadsheet and presentation functionality to buyers of its WebSphere portal. At the very least, that could allow large customers to negotiate better Microsoft Office pricing/licensing, observers said. (See IBM Plans Sneak Attack On Microsoft Office.)

The MS Office team are majoring on quality for their next release, does this imply major changes, requiring major testing, or just good practice?

Software development, especially for a product as feature-rich as Office, is a repetitive process comprising what can seem to be endless feedback loops and rework.

“We’re trying to reduce the iteration of …

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My Home Office

In another post I am going to talk a bit about why I think multiple monitors are really important, but first I want to introduce you to my home office, so you can see my personal working practice in its full context.  First things first:

  1. Everything I need is within arms reach

  2. I try to scan all my paper, and its all there in PaperPort, see below

  3. I have two desks, a computer desk where I have my three monitors, and drive all my clients and servers from one keyboard and mouse and a layout, reading etc desk where I have space to organise.  The kids use this desk at night if I am happy to be disrupted a bit.

  4. I have a web cam on top of my primary display, again more on that later

So what does it all look like.  First the nerve centre:

One large desk with three monitors and one keyboard and mouse

The Main display, a 19″ flat screen running @ 1280*1024.  This is where I do all of my reading and writing.  Its a fab display very bright and crystal clear.  Its DVI connected to my main server, which runs Windows 2003 …

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More on PowerPoint

Powerpoint seems to be cropping up all over in my blogs at the moment.  I am a big user of PowerPoint.  I recently checked my local machine using X1 and I have 669 PP files at the moment.  Anyway I was pleased to come across this post by Michael Hyatt...

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Workspace design

One of my favourite topics just started to get an airing on the web, Work Space design.  It’s been an interest of mine ever since I can remember, it’s the frustrated Architect in me, (I was never good enough at art to take it at University).  Anyway what really bugs me about the topic is my belief that it has a huge impact on individual and team effectiveness, but receives very little focus and even less investment by many companies.  Even companies that reap huge profits from their consultants tend not to invest in their productivity.  I talked about this in a previous post, but mainly from an IT SW perspective. 

Since I have been working from home I have invested quite heavily in my own work environment and I certainly notice a huge improvement in my productivity.  The biggest improvement comes from two large monitors driven from the same desktop PC, supplemented by a management console that I use to monitor my lab and anything else that I need to check frequently.  I also have a dedicated portable that I can just pick up and carry away whenever I need to move around the house, I use a …