While I was in Canada, my cousin lives in an area that is still under construction. Totally new roads, some roads don't even have names yet, etc... (Milton, Ont for those familiar with the Toronto area) - and I'm at another relatives house and we're emailing back and forth, and he's like call for directions cuz GPS won't have it (we brought our Garmin, which of course did not have such a new address on file).

I knew the iPhone automatically highlights phone numbers in an email, so that all you have to do is click on the number and it dials it for you.... but it detected a physical address (unstructured mind you), and turned that into a link - so that in one click... blam, brought up the location on Google Maps.

Everyone was blown away (including myself) when I showed them that. Curious to know if Android email automatically turns addresses into links?

Story #2:

I like CNBC's Mad Money show with Jim Cramer. However, it's on at 5pm... way to early for me to watch (I leave work around 6:30pm-7:00pm). If I left work early enough I could catch it on Sirius as well. And of course, I could just DVR it and watch it later, but I really only have an hour of TV time at home per day so that time is already spoken for.

I decided I'd see if I could get it in podcast format. Sure enough, it's available on iTunes for free - which automatically downloads the latest as they become available and automatically syncs to the iPhone once plugged in. And I figured I'd listen to it in the car.

So I'm at the gym, and when it comes to weights I could do that for hours if I had the time. But these later years of the 30s along with a sedentary job are proving to be a challenge when it comes to not gaining weight (the bad kind), so I'm having to mix in more and more cardio.

Time flies when I do weights (I feel like I have to rush it goes so fast), but when I do cardio... wow time slows down to a crawl! I'll try not to look at the timer, and when I check to see the progress only 3 minutes have gone by! And the gym has TVs on the wall with various shows, but it's usually garbage at the time I go.

So I had downloaded my first podcast of Mad Money earlier that day, and launched the episode, propped the phone up on the tray of the elliptical machine I was using and the time flew by watching the show like a portable TV.

I have to admit, the seamless flow of using one app (iTunes) to subscribe to the podcast, having it do the work of downloading and sync'ing to the phone is great.

How do Podcasts work with Android? I did some quick searching and it seems like you have to manually go to the separate sites, download the mp3 or video files, then manually copy them to the phone... ?

Disclaimer

I'm not an Apple fanboy... I'll post equally negative stuff too... I'm actually hoping Android can at least catch up, as it's healthy to have a competitive market. ]]> Thu, 22 Jul 2010 22:56:00 PST http://www.dopejam.com/shownewsitem.cfm?NewsID=577 products http://www.dopejam.com/shownewsitem.cfm?NewsID=576 One of the phases of our Agile Evolution plan is to evaluate and incorporate a tool that enables us to do Agile Project Planning. Generally what we're looking for includes:

• Super fast to use (drag and drop, inline editing, etc...)
• Intuitive user interface
• Focus on the basics, and do them well: Releases, Backlogs, Sprints, Stories, Tasks, Estimates, Effort Tracking, and Reports.

In the past we did a round of evaluations on open source/free tools such as AgileFant, IceScrum, ScrumWorks, and a few Excel templates.

Overall, those tools didn't do it for us. Various combinations of too slow, too difficult, unintuitive, cumbersome, and poor documentation. A few of them are on the right track, but not quite 'there'.

So the next is to conduct an evaluation of commercially supported Agile Project Management tools, and that includes Seapine TestTrack Pro, Atlassian JIRA w/Greenhopper, AxoSoft OnTime, and VersionOne.

We haven't completed our evaluations yet, but here are some early reactions and thoughts.

Seapine - TestTrack Pro (TTP)
We're currently a Seapine shop with their TTP tool. They have a powerful easy to use desktop client (PC and Mac), web client, and the software is hyper configurable (workflow, events, states, automatic escalation, notifications, customizable fields, field relationships, etc...). I've yet to actually look at the manual and have been able to configure workflows that model our processes exactly the way we want it. It includes a powerful custom reporting engine, Web Services API, ultra customizable interface, etc...

We use TTP to track our bugs, enhancements, and projects; so if we're able to stick to one tool that'd be preferrable. Their latest 2010.1.0 release focused on adding Agile capabilities, and they demo how to use it in an Agile process in their Agile Expedition webinar.

The biggest advantage of this software is that it's super fast to use, by dragging and dropping anything to anything you can organize your stuff (backlogs, sprints, etc...) very quickly. The drawback is the software due to its customizability is that it's not Agile specific, it's anything you want it to be. Which is good if you want 100% total control, but the experience isn't necessarily optimized for Agile.

Another thing to note is that it's the most expensive of these options. You'd have to get a quote to know how much you'd really pay, but you'll be needing licenses for both their core TestTrack product, and then licenses to unlock the Requirements Management (RM) module. So roughly you'd be looking at $1500/user. You get a lot of functionality and capability for that amount, the question is do you want all that capability when all you're trying to do is manage an Agile project?

Atlassian Greenhopper
Greenhopper is a module that extends the JIRA platform, which is a bug/task tracking system. The biggest pluses include a large user base, and you can get a 10 user license for as low as $20 (if you have 11 users you have to jump to the 25 user pack which is $1800). So it's zero risk to buy it and try it out, which is exactly what we did (I didn't even bother with a purchase order or expense report, just bought it myself). Another major plus for developers is that it integrates very tightly with existing IDEs, predominantly the Eclipse platform (and a bunch of us use ColdFusion Builder, Flash Builder, and CFEclipse).

The drawback of Greenhopper is from a Project Manager's point of view, it's difficult to use. It uses a lot of pop-up windows (vs. inline editing or drag and drop), has web only client (click, wait, new screen, repeat). The PM's so far are finding it unintuitive, the one that has been using it the most so far tried to demo it to other PMs and got stuck, one of the developers who used it in the past life tried to demo it and got stuck (i.e. couldn't figure out what to do next).

But for $20 you can't go wrong, and they have a hosted option as well. So can't hurt to try it out. But it's one of those things that you either get it, or you don't.

AxoSoft OnTime
This is a top contender. They have both desktop clients and a web client, and their mission with the clients is to make the experience as identical as possible so that you can flip back and forth as needed. Another neat thing is that they have an iPhone application as well, so you can pull up and manage your projects using your iPhone.

They include a hosted option so that you don't have to deal supporting it, and the pricing is quite reasonable. You can compare editions, but they break down into an Express edition (hosted not avail, $395 for 5 users, or $995 for 25), Professional ($19/user/mo, or $250/user fixed if you install locally), and Enterprise ($449/user/yr hosted, or $449 fixed if you install locally).

What's most impressive about OnTime is their Planning Board feature which makes it incredibly easy to plan and visualize from various perspectives (e.g. by priority, by person, by sprint, by release, etc...). It's hard to describe in words, you have to see it for yourself - they have a bunch of videos online, and their sales will do a live demo if you want.

You can estimate and track time by various units (minutes, hours, days, story points), quick edit mode let's you add a feature/task & estimated time in one shot, customizeable workflow, customizable fields, release planning is very easy, Eclipse and Visual Studio plugins, estimation accuracy reporting, free support, SDK/API, customer portal so that non-team members and check out the project, etc... One drawback we found is that the software doesn't specifically recognize the concept of a story, you just have sprints and tasks within those (the tasks are stories basically).

Documentation is nice, but nothing beats video training. And another key plus for AxoSoft is the plethora of videos they have available (167!), and they have scheduled training, three of which are free (see their training calendar.

VersionOne
These guys are another top contender, a huge amount of their staff are certified Scrum Masters (if I recall correctly, their entire development team is). So these guys live and breathe Agile. The product can be installed locally, or they have a hosted option.

They have a free version which is limited to 10 users and ideal for a team working on a project. The next level after that are the Enterprise version ($29/user/mo hosted or $595/user fixed for installed), and the Ultimate version ($36/user/mo hosted or $745/user fixed for installed). You'd want to compare the editions to see all the extra stuff you get between each level as they are too many to list, but the main thing benefit of Enterprise is that it supports multiple projects and teams. The Ultimate version adds on advanced analytics/reporting, regression test management, and customer idea management. All versions are web only clients.

Allows you to quickly split a task (e.g. if a task isn't going to complete in the sprint, you can split it to track the time spent on it for that sprint and then if it's still a priority track new time for that task in the next sprint). Easy to conduct what-if release planning, estimation accuracy tradcking, drag & drop and inline editing, easy navigation (it naturally directs you through the Agile flow), customizable fields and columns, support for epics, etc...

Like AxoSoft, VersionOne puts a lot of effort into their video training. But they go one step further by integrating the training into the software, so whatever you're looking at there's a little "VersionOne TV" icon that'll load up a video on how to use that specific feature. They have 37 YouTube videos, a number of free webinars (that are worth watching, even if you don't use their product), and paid training.

AxoSoft is very Scrum oriented, whereas VersionOne is more broad in that it can cater to Scrum, XP, Kanban, AGileUP, and DSDM.

Agile is a value-driven mentality.

• Development of features are done on the highest value items first.
• Development is done first on what will be used the most, higher usage features represent higher value.
• Agile plans are structured on delivering value, vs. waterfall which is structured on feature delivery.
• Agile plans report on value delivered, vs. features completed.
• E.g., 40% of the features may deliver 100% of the immediate value needed.

"Fascists believe that a nation is an organic community that requires strong leadership, singular collective identity, and the will and ability to commit violence and wage war in order to keep the nation strong. They claim that culture is created by collective national society and its state, that cultural ideas are what give individuals identity, and thus rejects individualism"

Anti-competitive practices
Apple claims they don't want Flash on the iPhone because they think it is unstable ? that's not the actual reason; it's about control. Yet, despite that Adobe is like fine - we'll enable our tooling to export native iPhone/iPhad native byte. Which Apple responds to by blocking such apps as they don't want people using a software platform that isn't theirs. That's like Microsoft preventing Java applications from running on Windows.

Why Apple wants to crush Adobe is beyond me, it would seem they would make great strategic partners. Adobe's Creative Suite is hugely popular amongst the Mac centric design community (Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, Fireworks, etc...).

Beyond Apple's issues with Adobe, other practices that are questionable to me include:

• Applying for a developer license. Do you need a license to publish apps for Windows, Linux?
• Apple needs to approve who is worthy of a developer license.
• After you make an app for iPhone/iPhad ? then Apple needs to approve if that is worthy for the app store.
• You're only allow to download apps from the App store. You violate the user agreement if you try to loading software that Apple has decreed as not worthy of your iPhone/iPhad/iTouch (requires jail breaking the phone to do it, which is another act that violates the terms).

iPad Pricing
Unrelated to anti-competitive practices, the iPad is a neat device and kudos to Apple for having such pricing power that they can sell in mass quantity a device that does less than the competition and is priced more.

As a consumer though, for a $500+ computer that doesn?t have a USB, Camera, and no flash ability it seems hard to justify when there are more kick ass alternatives.

Example: The WePad

• Has a bigger screen: 11.6?, 1366x768
• Super fast processor: 1.66Ghz Intel Atom N450 Process
• It?s Linux/Android based so it can run Linux, Adobe AIR, and Android apps.
• You can run music from any format you want (there?s a rogue format called MP3 that Apple doesn?t want you to know about)
• Two USB sockets
• Flash/SD Card reader
• Built in Speakers
• SIM Card slot (wow, imagine being able to not use AT&T)
• 1.3MP Web Cam
• GPS

But for the hell of it, I wanted to try out C# with .NET to see what developing in that environment is like. It's very simple, and there are probably even quicker ways to do it (e.g. I've seen some recursive methods), so feel free to modify if you'd like.

If you want to use it, here's what you gotta do:

1. Download the package
2. The package contains a FlattenFolio.exe and the corresponding source.
3. Copy your Font Folio software to C:\FontFolio11
4. Create an empty c:\FontFolioFlattened
5. Run the FlattenFolio.exe file
6. All the files in the Western Fonts subfolder should now be in the FontFolioFlattened dir.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.IO;

namespace FlattenFolio
{
  class Program
  {
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
      DirectoryInfo di = new DirectoryInfo("C:/FontFolio11/Western Fonts");
      DirectoryInfo[] dirs = di.GetDirectories();
      foreach(DirectoryInfo subDir in dirs)
      {
        Console.WriteLine("Processing:" + subDir.FullName);
        FileInfo[] fontFiles = subDir.GetFiles();
        foreach (FileInfo aFile in fontFiles)
        {
          Console.WriteLine("Copying:" + aFile);
          File.Copy(subDir.FullName + "/" + aFile.Name, "C:/FontFolioFlattened/" + aFile.Name,true);
        }
      }
    }
  }
}