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• Silverlight TV 23: MVP Q&A with WWW (Wildermuth, Wahlin and Ward)

  John interviews a panel of 3 well known Silverlight leaders including Shawn Wildermuth, Dan Wahlin, and Ward Bell at the Silverlight 4 launch event. The guest panel answers questions sent in from Twitter about the features in Silverlight 4, thoughts on MVVM, and the panel members' experiences developing Silverlight. This is a great chance to hear from some of the leading Silverlight minds. These guys are all experts at building business applications with Silverlight. Relevant links: John's Blog...Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• Ubuntu 12.04 "Do nothing" when "lid closed" blanks out external monitor

  - by Elijah Lynn

  This is not the same as this question. I have Ubuntu 12.04 running with an Nvidia card on a W510 Thinkpad. I have one external monitor connected. When I change the power settings to "Do nothing" when "Lid closed" it still keeps the system running which is great. However, it blanks out the display on any external monitors making the system useless. I plan on getting a dock soon and having to identical resolution monitors and would love to be able to dock the monitor and work as normal on the external monitors. Does anyone have a suggestion or fix for this? Should I report this as a bug or feature request?

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• Lost the config of my monitor once I connected it to a KVM switch.

  - by jfmessier

  I used to have a monitor (Acer 20", AL2017) connected to the external video port of my laptop. Everything was great and I could get a rather high resolution available when setting it under Ubuntu (all versions). But since I connected it to a KVM, the monitor is no more recognized, and I cannot go beyond 1024x768. My video adapter is an Intel chipset 9xx from an older Pentium Core 2 Duo laptop. The same monitor, using another video chipset (Intel 82G33/G31 rev 02) is properly detected through the switch box. Looks to me like the video chipset is not the best, and I can live with this. I see that I have no xorg.conf, and I understand that I would need to generate one so I can then use it to force the available modes on the X system. How can I generate the xorg.conf file for my Intel video chip, so I can use it then ? Merci :-)

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• Thought Oracle Usability Advisory Board Was Stuffy? Wrong. Justification for Attending OUAB: ROI

  - by ultan o'broin

  Looking for reasons tell your boss why your organization needs to join the Oracle Usability Advisory Board or why you need approval to attend one of its meetings (see the requirements)? Try phrases such as "Continued Return on Investment (ROI)", "Increased Productivity" or "Happy Workers". With OUAB your participation is about realizing and sustaining ROI across the entire applications life-cycle from input to designs to implementation choices and integration, usage and performance and on measuring and improving the onboarding and support experience. If you think this is a boring meeting of middle-aged people sitting around moaning about customizing desktop forms and why the BlackBerry is here to stay, think again! How about this for a rich agenda, all designed to engage the audience in a thought-provoking and feedback-illiciting day of swirling interactions, contextual usage, global delivery, mobility, consumerizationm, gamification and tailoring your implementation to reflect real users doing real work in real environments.  Foldable, rollable ereader devices provide a newspaper-like UK for electronic news. Or a way to wrap silicon chips, perhaps. Explored at the OUAB Europe Meeting (photograph from Terrace Restaurant in TVP. Nom.) At the 7 December 2012 OUAB Europe meeting in Oracle Thames Valley Park, UK, Oracle partners and customers stepped up to the mic and PPT decks with a range of facts and examples to astound any UX conference C-level sceptic. Over the course of the day we covered much ground, but it was all related in a contextual, flexibile, simplication, engagement way aout delivering results for business: that means solving problems. This means being about the user and their tasks and how to make design and technology transforms work into a productive activity that users and bean counters will be excited by. The sessions really gelled for me: 1. Mobile design patterns and the powerful propositions for customers and partners offered by using the design guidance with Oracle ADF Mobile. Customers' and partners' developers existing ADF developers are now productive, efficient ADF Mobile developers applying proven UX guidance using ADF Mobile components and other Oracle Fusion Middleware in the development toolkit. You can find the Mobile UX Design Patterns and Guidance on Building Mobile Apps on OTN. 2. Oracle Voice and Apps. How this medium offers so much potentual in the enterprise and offers a window in Fusion Apps cloud webservices, Oracle RightNow NLP and Nuance technology. Exciting stuff, demoed live on a mobile phone. Stay tuned for more features and modalities and how you can tailor your own apps experience.  3. Oracle RightNow Natural Language Processing (NLP) Virtual Assistant technology (Ella): how contextual intervention and learning from users sessions delivers a great personalized UX for users interacting with Ella, a fifth generation VA to solve problems and seek knowledge. 4. BYOD Keynote: A balanced keynote address contrasting Fujitsu's explaining of the conceprt, challenges, and trends and setting the expectation that BYOD must be embraced in a flexible way,  with the resolute, crafted high security enterprise requirements that nuancing the BYOD concept and proposals with the realities of their world of water tight information and device sharing policies. Fascinating stuff, as well providing anecdotes to make us thing about out own DYOD Deployments. One size does not fit all. 5. Icon Cultural Surveys Results and Insights Arising: Ever wondered about the cultural appropriateness of icons used in software UIs and how these icons assessed for global use? Or considered that social media "Like" icons might be  unacceptable hand gestures in culture or enterprise? Or do the old world icons like Save floppy disk icons still find acceptable? Well the survey results told you. Challenges must be tested, over time, and context of use is critical now, including external factors such as the internet and social media adoption. Indeed the fears about global rejection of the face and hand icons was not borne out, and some of the more anachronistic icons (checkbooks, microphones, real-to-real tape decks, 3.5" floppies for "save") have become accepted metaphors for current actions. More importantly the findings brought into focus the reason for OUAB - engage with and illicit feedback though working groups before we build anything. 6. EReaders and Oracle iBook: What is the uptake and trends of ereaders? And how about a demo of an iBook with enterprise apps content?  Well received by the audience, the session included a live running poll of ereader usage. 7. Gamification Design Jam: Fun, hands on event for teams of Oracle staff, partners and customers, actually building gamified flows, a practice that can be applied right away by customers and partners.  8. UX Direct: A new offering of usability best practices, coming to an external website for you in 2013. FInd a real user, observe their tasks, design and approve, build and measure. Simple stuff to improve apps implications no end. 9. FUSE (an internal term only, basically Fusion Simplified Experience): demo of the new Face of Fusion Applications: inherently mobile, simple to use, social, personalizable and FAST, three great demos from the HCM, CRM and ICT world on how these UX designs can be used in different ways. So, a powerful breadth and depth of UX solutions and opporunities for customers and partners to engage with and explore how they can make their users happy and benefit their business reaping continued ROI from those apps investments. Find out more about the OUAB and how to get involved here ... 

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• What program should i use for Ludum Dare?

  - by mFontoura

  I want to participate for the first time on Ludum Dare, but i'm not confortable yet with a language to pick one for making a game on a weekend. So i was looking for a program 'gamemaker' style, just to make something for LD. I was going for Construct 2, but i use Linux and they don't have a linux version. So the alternative i use is Stencyl, witch is great and probably is what i'm going to use. However, i wanted to know if there is something similar and better for Linux. Also, if i get a computer with Win8, is it worth the trouble for Construct 2?

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• Is there an open-source project that can be an example of well-written code?

  - by Renato Dinhani Conceição

  The title express my intention. I want to see the code of a big project that can be considered a good example of good code writing (clean code, modularization, comments, etc.) I don't want to know if the tool is good or not, but only how the code IS. There is some project that can be used as example? I'm asking this because must great projects have their flaws, some pieces or entire code that appears to be writing to a new person presented to system development (I think that maybe everyone do this in some part of their projects).

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• Google analytics tracking example.com and www.example.com

  - by danferth

  Our website is set up to direct all traffic for www.example.com to example.com with a line in the htaccess file. With google analytics new in page analytics feature we are thinking of removing the line and allowing people to visit www.example.com as well to play with the new features. My question is this. How will this change affect our analytics data. -will nothing change and we can start using the new feature with our existing data -Are the two domains tracked separately and we will have to start over with www.example .com Any help would be great, as I can find nothing on googles help site covering this. Let me know if you need further explanation.

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• Why USA produces the best / most popular software? [closed]

  - by user1598390

  Have you noticed that a disproportionate amount of popular software products comes from the USA ? Examples: iOS, OS X, Phosothop, Oracle, Windows, Final Cut Pro, MS Office, iTunes, iWorks Suite, iLife Suite, AutoCad, Aperture, Google search engine, Twitter and endless stream of software that are the best in their fields and that are the models the rest of the industry want to emulate. Few people would deny that the most popular software comes from American companies. Obviously there's plenty of good software coming from outside the US, like Linux or SAP but most great looking, killer software comes from USA. Maybe these companies outsource the code elsewhere but the inception and design is mostly done in the USA. Why is that? and, can it be replicated elsewhere given the correct "ingredients" ?

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• Sql Server Data Tools & Entity Framework - is there any synergy here?

  - by Benjol

  Coming out of a project using Linq2Sql, I suspect that the next (bigger) one might push me into the arms of Entity Framework. I've done some reading-up on the subject, but what I haven't managed to find is a coherent story about how SQL Server Data Tools and Entity Framework should/could/might be used together. Were they conceived totally separately, and using them together is stroking the wrong way? Are they somehow totally orthogonal and I'm missing the point? Some reasons why I think I might want both: SSDT is great for having 'compiled' (checked) and easily versionable sql and schema But the SSDT 'migration/update' story is not convincing (to me): "Update anything" works ok for schema, but there's no way (AFAIK) that it can ever work for data. On the other hand, I haven't tried the EF migration to know if it presents similar problems, but the Up/Down bits look quite handy.

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• Geek Deal: Refurbished Kindle Fire for $139; Today Only

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  If you’re looking to pick up a Kindle Fire on the cheap, Amazon is offering them–refurbished with a 1-year warranty–for $139. $139 is an even better price than we see on our local Craiglist (where Kindle Fires usually go for $180 or so) and it comes with a 1-year warranty. We’ve purchased several Kindle Keyboard units through Amazon’s refurbished warehouse deals over the last two years and, frankly, we can’t tell them apart from the brand new ones–if you’re looking to pick up a Kindle Fire this is a great deal. Kindle Fire for $139 How to Own Your Own Website (Even If You Can’t Build One) Pt 1 What’s the Difference Between Sleep and Hibernate in Windows? Screenshot Tour: XBMC 11 Eden Rocks Improved iOS Support, AirPlay, and Even a Custom XBMC OS

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• Internet Explorer 9 At MIX10

  Check out this great Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) video interview from this years MIX10 conference. John Hrvatin is a Lead Microsoft PM on the IE9 Project. Johns a smart guy who patiently answered all my questions about IE9. Thanks John! I highly recommend watching this video to see why IE9 sounds so exciting: In the video, John demos IE9 and openly discusses: IE9 Features and performance HTML5 support Gives a IE9 demo Explains new IE9 JavaScript engine (JIT, Multicore, GPU Powered)...Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• Silverlight Cream Monday WP7 App Review # 1

  - by Dave Campbell

  I'm going to try something here... if it seems useful, I'll continue, if it doesn't, I'll stop... so give me feedback! There are *lots* of Apps in the WP7 Marketplace, and heaven help me, but the Marketplace sucks for finding stuff. I won't rehash what's already been said in the blogs, but I agree with one and all. I went out last Saturday to find 2 apps that I knew were released, and couldn't do so on my device. Even in the Zune app, it took quite a while to find them... ok, I'll back off a bit, because I just found out I can do 'Search' now if I know the name... I didn't think that was working before. So my thought is on Monday (like today), I will post a review of 5 apps/games I either use or have played with on my device. These are strictly my opinions, you understand, but hey... it's better than a poke in the eye with an iPhone! A few disclaimers:     Feel free to write me about your app and tell me about it. While it would be very cool to receive a whole bunch of xap files to review, at this point, for technical reasons, I'm unable to side-load my device. Since I plan on only doing this one day a week, and only 5, I may never get caught up, so if you send me some info, be patient. Re: games ... remember I'm old... I'm from the era of Colossal Cave and Zork. Duke-Nukem 2D and Captain Comic were awesome. I don't own an XBOX or any other game system, so take game reviews from my perspective -- who knows, it may be refreshing :) I won't pay for an app or game just to try it. If you expect me to test-drive your app, it's going to have to have a Free Trial. In this Issue:   Jingo! is the first app I bought, just to see what the experience was like. It's very much like a game we used to play in school in the Army in 1971 on paper we passed around. Sort of a cross between hangman and Mastermind, you try to figure out the hidden word in 5 tries. You get really good at 5-letter words after a while. I like this because you have to think, and you're not pressured by a clock Jingo! is by James Furdell and is $1.99 I reviewed René Schulte's Pictures Lab a while back, and have not changed my mind. This is an excellent app for playing with any photo on your device... one you've just taken, one you've synced from your PC, or one you've saved from email. I like this because you can get some cool effects for your photos, and it just works. Pictures Lab is by Schulte Software Development and is $1.99 Since I work as a consultant, and from home, I wanted something I could track my time with. I've test-driven all the contenders I could find so far on the phone, and so far I like ONTRACK! the best. If asked, I have some suggestions, but it's probably just the way I work or think. What I do like is I can tap a project to start/stop/restart a counter, and at the end of the day it shows me how much time I've been working. If there's a way to make an adjustment in case you forget to tap the counter, I don't know how to do it, and that's my biggest complaint. I like this because you can get a daily readout which you can also email as a spreadsheet. The daily results display is very good. ONTRACK! is by Qmino and is $2.99 Remember Item 4 above... I've been playing guitar for 48 years... obviously since before the invention of 'tuners', so I'm not as dependent upon these as some folks are. I've tried some in the past and have always felt I can do just as good by ear (I have perfect relative pitch). So, I gave this app by András Velvárt a dance just to see how it works, and it is surprisingly good. If you're used to one of the stage tuners this may take a little getting used to, but it does the job. The difference with this one is there is no real 'null' point inside which you can think your guitar is in tune. The soundwave stays visible on the device, and if it's moving to the right, your string is flat, if it's moving to the left, your string is sharp. Getting it exact might be tricky, but it is exact! If you need to rely on a tuner, this is a good choice in my opinion, exactly because of the sensitivity.. tune up with this and you're dead-on. Guitar Tuner is by Kinabalu Innovation Limited and is $0.99 Popper 2 is the WP7 version of a wildly popular game by Bill Reiss named Dr. Popper. You can get a trial, or you can now get a free lite version of the game. Popper 2 is a fast-paced bubble breaker game. I find it something fun to play when I just want to buzz out, but maybe the best review is that my daughter didn't want to give my phone back when I showed it to her, and always wants to grab my phone to play 'that game'. A fun distraction with great graphics and a great price Popper 2 is by Blue Rose Systems, LLC and is $1.29 Let me know what you think of the idea of doing reviews, or the layout/whatever, and Stay in the 'Light!   Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• For what types of applications is Python a bad choice?

  - by Casey Patton

  I just started learning Python, and I'd like to get some more context on the language. I realize that Python is a slow language relative to C or C++, etc. Thus, Python is probably not the best choice for applications that need to run quickly. Outside of this, it seems like Python is a great general purpose language that is easy to read and write. The available libraries give it a huge amount of functionality. Outside of performance critical applications, where is it a bad choice to use Python (and why)?

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• To implement registration page with Vaadin or not?

  - by JVerstry

  This is a tactical implementation question about usage of Vaadin or in some part of my application. Vaadin is a great framework to login users and implement sophisticated web applications with many pages. However, I think it is not very well suited to desgin pages to register new users for my application. Am I right? Am I am wrong? It seems to me that a simple HTML/CSS/Javascript login + email registration + confirmation email with confirmation link cannot be implemented easily with Vaadin. It seems like Vaadin would be overkill. Do you agree? Or am I missing something? I am looking for feedback from experienced Vaadin users.

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• Finding Database issue for iphone app

  - by David Liu

  I know this is a dumb question and it might not be "conceptual" but, as a self-starter I really want to know how to get connected to some sort of "commercial database"? I'm recently designing my local gas station utility app for iphone and ipad. I have absolutely no clue of find a relevant database. For example, if I want to make an app for pizza ordering in the great Chicago area. How do I get info (price, menu, location, etc.) of those pizza stores scattered all over Chicago? Can any one light something for me? I appreciated your help. **If this question is not suitable here please tell me and I will delete this post. Thank you.

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• Are there any examples of a temporal field/object updater?

  - by Bryan Agee

  The system in question has numerous examples of temporal objects and fields--ones which are a certain variable at a certain point in time. An example of this would be someone's rate of pay--there are different answers depending on when you ask and what the constraints might be; eg, can there ever be more than one of a certain temporal object concurrently, etc. Ideally, there would be an object that handles those constraints when a new state/stateful object is introduced; when a new value is set, it would prevent creating negative ranges and overlaps. Martin Fowler has written some great material on this (such as this description of Temporal Objects) , but what I've found of it tends to be entirely theoretic, with no concrete implementations. PHP is the target language, but examples in any language would be most helpful.

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• Liskov substitution and abstract classes / strategy pattern

  - by Kolyunya

  I'm trying to follow LSP in practical programming. And I wonder if different constructors of subclasses violate it. It would be great to hear an explanation instead of just yes/no. Thanks much! P.S. If the answer is no, how do I make different strategies with different input without violating LSP? class IStrategy { public: virtual void use() = 0; }; class FooStrategy : public IStrategy { public: FooStrategy(A a, B b) { c = /* some operations with a, b */ } virtual void use() { std::cout << c; } private: C c; }; class BarStrategy : public IStrategy { public: BarStrategy(D d, E e) { f = /* some operations with d, e */ } virtual void use() { std::cout << f; } private: F f; };

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• 12.10 Booting Into Variations Of Blank Screen

  - by user93954

  I've been running the Ubuntu 12.10 beta since about a month before the final release with almost no problems. However since the day of release (I'm assuming an update has caused this) I have had problems booting into the actual GUI interface. Trying to get it to work is just a case of hard shutting down until it works, but for most of the time I need to battle with various different kinds of black screens. These include a plain black screen, a flashing line and a flashing line that doesn't fit the resolution. Nine times out of ten the cursor will be displayed over these. It also sometimes manages to boot into Ubuntu, albeit text mode or sometimes it loads GRUB which it isn't setup to do. If anyone could help out with this it'd be great. I really, really don't want to have to go through yet another clean installation. Cheers.

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• No Cost 1-Click Remarketer Level Training

  - by martin.morganti(at)oracle.com

  The Remarketer level has proven to be a great success as a way of enabling Remarketers to Jump start a resale business with Oracle. As part of the Knowledge Zone for the 1-Click Products we have some no cost training available - the Oracle 1-Click Technology Products Guided Learning Path - which explains about the program and how to position Oracle products. We have been working to increase the training that is available for Remarketers and I am pleased to let you know that we have recently added more no cost training. The training path that we have released is the Oracle Database 11g 1-Click Technology Sales Guided Learning Path . This set of courses provides more detail on the Oracle 11G Database and will help you to better uncover and exploit opportunities for you to sell Oracle 11G as part of your solutions. So if you are interested in a No Fees, No Barriers No Excuses way to resell Oracle 1-Click products look at the Remarketer page and take the free 1-Click Guided Learning paths in the Training Section to kick start your activity.

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• Why are people using C instead of C++? [closed]

  - by Darth

  Possible Duplicate: When to use C over C++, and C++ over C? Many times I've stumbled upon people saying that C++ is not always better than C. Great example here would be the Linux kernel, where they simply decided to use C instead of C++ because it had better compilers at the time. But that's many years ago and a lot has changed. So the question is, why are people still using C over C++? I gues there are probably some cases (like embedded devices), where there simply isn't a good C++ compiler, or am I wrong here? What are the other cases when it is better to go with C instead of C++?

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• JavaOne - Java SE Embedded Booth - Servergy Micro Server

  - by David Clack

  Hi All,  So it's been awhile, I've been working with all the ARM and Power Architecture partners we have now on testing Java SE Embedded. We will have a Java SE Embedded for ARM and PPC at Java One next week, I'll be bringing in some of the great ARM and PPC systems to demonstrate.  The first system I'd like to tell you about is a really cool 8 core Power Architecture Micro Server from a company in Dallas called Servergy. Java One will be it's first public outing, Bill Mapp the CEO will be doing a talk at the Java Embedded @ JavaOne conference in the Hotel Nikko, right next door to the JavaOne show in the Hilton. To read more about Servergy https://www.linux.com/news/enterprise/cloud-computing/641488-linux-based-servergy-advances-data-center-efficiency http://www.servergy.com/ If you are registered at JavaOne you can come over to the Java Embedded @ JavaOne for $100 Come see us in booth 5605 See you there Dave

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• Rationale behind freeware projects

  - by VexXtreme

  I've seen some freeware projects in the past where the author(s) invested a significant amount of their personal time and resources and never even considered charging for the software. A lot of these projects were donation based, and from what I've heard, donationware can never be a viable business model (even to simply support development costs) because most people choose not to donate if given an option. A lot of these projects eventually shut down because their authors could not sustain them further. Granted, some people simply like making the community happy (or something), but if you're struggling to keep your project alive, why not charge some small amount such as $10 simply to stay operational? If people find your software useful (and a lot of people found those projects VERY useful) they won't have a problem paying such a small amount. The question is: if you have a popular app that people like and download in great numbers, why not put a price tag on it? Why do it for free?

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• Screen split oddly when OS is installed from a Live CD

  - by Brian

  Never used Linux before but I decided I want to start somewhere and Ubuntu seemed like the right place to start. I burned the 64bit version ISO onto a CD and installed it onto a fresh new hard drive I have. The Live CD works and the Live Distro thing works great. However when I attempt to install it, the screen splits oddly in a way where part of the right is on the left. Furthermore, after attempting to log in, the GUI doesn't show up and the computer would freeze and stay that way. However you can still move the cursor. I can't really get in or do anything (possibly because I don't know how) and tinker around since I am not too tech savvy. But I can follow instructions. Graphics Card Radeon hd 6670 I just tried the install with windows thing. There was the exact same problem.

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• Can't access certain web sites - reset router, any ideas?

  - by IniTech

  EDIT: This problem was resolved by my ISP - had to do with damaged fiber in one of their locations. Thanks to everyone that helped. Not sure if this is the right site (I'm a StackOverflow user) so I thought I'd give it a shot. I'm having trouble connecting to certain sites on any of the 3 machines that are on my LAN. The following sites are returning "Problem Loading Page - The connection has timed out" Sourceforge.net CNet.com Microsoft.com OpenDNS.com even my company's webiste I was worried about possible malware/virus, but I don't think that is the case (given the inability to access my company's site and the fact that all 3 machines are having the same issues.) I've tried with IE8, FF, and Chrome I have reset my router (WRT54G) and my machine(s) multiple times. EDIT: It is also worth noting that this page spins constantly and no avatars show up (I'm assuming it is trying to access gravatar.com with no success.) EDIT: I have the same issues directly connected to the modem. So, any router config is probably not the issue I'm a programmer, not a network guy - any ideas?

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• Agile Executives

  - by Robert May

  Over the years, I have experienced many different styles of software development. In the early days, most of the development was Waterfall development. In the last few years, I’ve become an advocate of Scrum. As I talked about last month, many people have misconceptions about what Scrum really is. The reason why we do Scrum at Veracity is because of the difference it makes in the life of the team doing Scrum. Software is for people, and happy motivated people will build better software. However, not all executives understand Scrum and how to get the information from development teams that use Scrum. I think that these executives need a support system for managing Agile teams. Historical Software Management When Henry Ford pioneered the assembly line, I doubt he realized the impact he’d have on Management through the ages. Historically, management was about managing the process of building things. The people were just cogs in that process. Like all cogs, they were replaceable. Unfortunately, most of the software industry followed this same style of management. Many of today’s senior managers learned how to manage companies before software was a significant influence on how the company did business. Software development is a very creative process, but too many managers have treated it like an assembly line. Idea’s go in, working software comes out, and we just have to figure out how to make sure that the ideas going in are perfect, then the software will be perfect. Lean Manufacturing In the manufacturing industry, Lean manufacturing has revolutionized Henry Ford’s assembly line. Derived from the Toyota process, Lean places emphasis on always providing value for the customer. Anything the customer wouldn’t be willing to pay for is wasteful. Agile is based on similar principles. We’re building software for people, and anything that isn’t useful to them doesn’t add value. Waterfall development would have teams build reams and reams of documentation about how the software should work. Agile development dispenses with this work because excessive documentation doesn’t add value. Instead, teams focus on building documentation only when it truly adds value to the customer. Many other Agile principals are similar. Playing Catch-up Just like in the manufacturing industry, many managers in the software industry have yet to understand the value of the principles of Lean and Agile. They think they can wrap the uncertainties of software development up in a nice little package and then just execute, usually followed by failure. They spend a great deal of time and money trying to exactly predict the future. That expenditure of time and money doesn’t add value to the customer. Managers that understand that Agile know that there is a better way. They will instead focus on the priorities of the near term in detail, and leave the future to take care of itself. They have very detailed two week plans with less detailed quarterly plans. These plans are guided by a general corporate strategy that doesn’t focus on the exact implementation details. These managers also think in smaller features rather than large functionality. This adds a great deal of value to customers, since the features that matter most are the ones that the team focuses on in the near term and then are able to deliver to the customers that are paying for them. Agile managers also realize that stale software is very costly. They know that keeping the technology in their software current is much less expensive and risky than large rewrites that occur infrequently and schedule time in each release for refactoring of the existing software. Agile Executives Even though Agile is a better way, I’ve still seen failures using the Agile process. While some of these failures can be attributed to the team, most of them are caused by managers, not the team. Managers fail to understand what Agile is, how it works, and how to get the information that they need to make good business decisions. I think this is a shame. I’m very pleased that Veracity understands this problem and is trying to do something about it. Veracity is a key sponsor of Agile Executives. In fact, Galen is this year’s acting president for Agile Executives. The purpose of Agile Executives is to help managers better manage Agile teams and see better success. Agile Executives is trying to build a community of executives that range from managers interested in Agile to managers that have successfully adopted Agile. Together, these managers can form a community of support and ideas that will help make Agile teams more successful. Helping Your Team You can help too! Talk with your manager and get them involved in Agile Executives. Help Veracity build the community. If your manager understands Agile better, he’ll understand how to help his teams, which will result in software that adds more value for customers. If you have any questions about how you can be involved, please let me know. Technorati Tags: Agile,Agile Executives

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