Archive for the ‘Collaboration’ Category
The End of Ignorance
Posted on December, 1 at 5:54 pm | Filed Under Bibliography Tools, Collaboration, Software, Web Tools
While the title of this blog post is over-reaching, the book by the same name is likely not and a is certainly a very important read. I’m not sure if this is available outside of Canada, but The End of Ignorance is a not to be missed book for everyone interested in how we learn. [...]
The Goal Is Not The Path – Software Training Thoughts
Posted on November, 5 at 1:36 am | Filed Under Collaboration, Python
I’ve been reading an interesting book that I’ll post more details on later, but it has me rethinking how I teach adults. A big part of what pays my mortgage is teaching software engineers how to really use configuration management tools well. Along the way we have to cover some pretty abstract ideas, and some [...]
The New Economy Drives Meetings Virtual
Posted on October, 15 at 2:36 pm | Filed Under Collaboration
Lately, I’ve noticed that more and more meetings are going virtual. Blame it on the economy. Blame it on increased work load … either way, more and more of our collaborative work efforts will involve virtual participants from around the world. Unless you are Cisco with their amazing telepresence stuff, managing virtual collaborative session can [...]
Vim Mode for Firefox – Perfect for Small Screens
Posted on October, 9 at 10:17 pm | Filed Under Collaboration
For those who are keyboard focused, now you can run Firefox using all the same key bindings as VIM. Take a look at vimperator, a VIM mode plugin for Firefox. When you install it, the menu bar, navigation bar and bookmarks are hidden, and all your surfing is controlled through a VIM like input area [...]
Make sure mod_python and python match unicode settings
Posted on October, 6 at 11:39 pm | Filed Under Collaboration
As part of a small weekend DJango project, I needed to have xml and xslt support in python on my hosting provider, Webfaction. lxml was recommended to me as the best library for xml and xslt, so I went ahead and built up a small test app and deployed it to my webfaction account. I [...]
Jython Bean Scripting Framework (BSF) Example
Posted on September, 17 at 1:11 pm | Filed Under Collaboration, Jython, Python
Every time I have to put my head back into java and figure out how to embed Jython, I have a hard time finding any examples. So, here is a quick example of getting jython working in BSF. The java class runs jython first by exec’ing a string that contains a python fragment, and then [...]
Sarah Palin – Never Cry Wolf
Posted on September, 10 at 8:29 am | Filed Under Collaboration
I caught a brief glimpse on CNN last night about the Palin – Wolf controversy. Apparently while Governor she was involved in permitting the arial shooting and large scale hunting of wolves in an effort to curb the dwindling caribou herds. This is terribly unfortunate since in fact a healthy wolf (arctic wolf I think) [...]
Is product management missing from open source?
Posted on September, 9 at 3:32 pm | Filed Under Collaboration
I often get to work with product managers in software shops and its a pretty fun part of the business to work in. Configuration Management is fun and exciting and all … but it sure is nice to get upstream of the decision making process and help to mold and facilitate good process there. In [...]
Google heading for antitrust trouble?
Posted on September, 9 at 10:47 am | Filed Under Collaboration
Picked this up from Battelle Media. The US government is getting serious about investigating Google for antitrust violations in the advertising space. John makes the point that antitrust investigations, regardless of their outcome, have a negative impact overall on the organization’s business. There are a number of platforms, technologies, and tools that I depend on [...]
Advanced Version Control Software with Change Sets
Posted on September, 3 at 1:52 pm | Filed Under CM, Collaboration
Following a track back from my post “Is Branching the Answer?“, I found this article on an Accurev blog that largely agreed with my misgivings about using branches in version management software to manage the flow of changes through an organization’s development process. The post mentioned that like Telelogic Synergy, Accurev also follows a change [...]
Install firefox 3.01 on Asus eee
Posted on August, 29 at 9:03 pm | Filed Under Asus eee, Collaboration
There are many guides on how to manipulate the apt sources.list, tricky package changes to do, and strange procedures all to get the firefox 2 default on Xandros upgraded to Firefox 3.01. In my case I really wanted to get Ubiquity on my ASUS Eee PC 900. After looking at all the options, the best [...]
Mozilla Ubiquity – Firefox Rules
Posted on August, 28 at 11:17 pm | Filed Under Collaboration, Web Tools
Ubiquity is Quicksilver++ for Firefox and just might be the ultimate plugin. It lets you do user initiazted mashups of twitter, Google Maps, GMail, Wikipedia, Google Searches … Get it here. So far this runs on Windows and MacOS with minimal issues, and is coming along on linux. Once you install it there is an [...]
Is branching the answer? There is a better way…
Posted on August, 28 at 10:10 am | Filed Under CM, Collaboration, Software
Well, what is the question first. Here it is: How do I promote code changes through a team to release Version control tools since almost the beginning have supported some sort of branching scheme. We did this to allow concurrent changes to files without content loss. This was needed as soon as teams of software [...]
Google Reader Feature Request – Large Scale Feed Trimming
Posted on August, 27 at 2:51 pm | Filed Under Collaboration
I am an avid Google Reader user and currently am consuming around 400+ feeds. What I find I need to do every couple of months or so, is to review the feeds I have and trim out those that are no longer active or those that I am no longer interested in. What I need [...]
Dan Roam at Google – The Back of the Napkin
Posted on August, 27 at 1:25 pm | Filed Under Collaboration
I’ve picked up The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures by Dan Roam at least 3 times and haven’t bought it. His presentation at Google’s Author series has convinced me to buy it. As a consultant, I spend a huge amount of time at the whiteboard and this is just [...]
DJango on Jython!
Posted on August, 21 at 12:22 pm | Filed Under CM, Collaboration, Jython
Yes it looks like it is finally here via random.choice(['idea', 'rant', 'link', 'tip']). This I think is great news for both Jython and DJango and shows in particular how far Jython has come lately. The momentum on the Jython front is also great to see since I persuaded our product team to add Jython into [...]
More Ken Robinson
Posted on July, 24 at 8:06 pm | Filed Under Collaboration
I was surprised last week to hear myself recommending Ken Robinson’s Ted talk on children, creativity and education to another colleague. Its surprising because I don’t exactly work in the education field, and don’t really work with children … at least not for pay anyway. But Ken Robinson is one of those people whose work [...]
Offline Wikis and Google Gears
Posted on July, 24 at 10:59 am | Filed Under Collaboration, Python, Web Tools
Offline Wiki particpation has been something I’ve looked for a while. Witness this early post in 2003. With all the buzz about Google Gears and offline users for Web 2.0 apps, has anyone thought of marrying this to a wiki yet? As a Road Warrior who is only able to access our corporate wiki site [...]
QOTD – Donkeys and Grass
Posted on April, 25 at 5:35 pm | Filed Under Collaboration, Python
Heard when discussing replicating a feature from an older system in a replacement system: If you change the color of the grass the donkey will die … I suppose like donkeys, we all have trouble with changes.
Quick Ruby on Rails 1.1 Summary
Posted on March, 31 at 12:26 pm | Filed Under Collaboration
Here is a quick summary of the new Ruby on Rails 1.1 release. It now includes much improved AJAX support and tons (500+) of fixes.
The New Road Warrior Collaboration
Posted on March, 28 at 7:45 pm | Filed Under Collaboration, Jython, Python, Web Tools
I’ve moved my blog to a new domain and a new tool. This blog is powered by WordPress and I am happy for the switch from PyDS. I was finally driven to switch away from my beloved Python based tool by the overwelming amount of comment spam. All the posts have been moved over to [...]
Death By Powerpoint
Posted on December, 21 at 10:21 pm | Filed Under Collaboration
Death by Lots and Lots and Lots of PowerPoints. Hundreds … Maybe thousands … Run! Run Away Fast. [via Get Real]
Ning Is Live
Posted on October, 5 at 3:45 pm | Filed Under Collaboration
Yet another space to keep an eye on. It’s a social app/mashup/remixing “playground.” [via John Battelle's Searchblog]
Wisdom of Wikis
Posted on October, 4 at 11:38 pm | Filed Under Collaboration
I agree that a wiki can be a good tool for decentralized decision making … the interesting thing is a wiki ‘hides’ each users contributions behind the versioning capabilities that in my experience don’t get used too much … which means that it levels out the effect of lesser or more well known contributors. Reading The Wisdom [...]
Whither Ed Taekema?
Posted on October, 4 at 11:30 pm | Filed Under Collaboration
Thanks for checking on me Jack… I've been suffering through comment and trackback spam that made this blog difficult to maintain. I think I have a temporary solution for now with hopefully a better option down the road that will let me turn those features back on.
