Yo Ti Fy

Sat down to wander if I can have a new way to use internet. Instead of 'google'ing and 'bing'ing information I need, let someone deliver it to me based on my defined sets and preferences.
(I just wanted to negate my thought that most of us see search engines as the hub for our internet experiences, though its true uptill great extent.)

I started writting a small service for this task. Meanwhile I came across Yotify - a site which caters to specific task of tracking updates and information that pertains to our topic of interest such as an event, an item for sale on ebay, cragslist, an RSS feed, headlines etc etc.. (like a flavor of Google Alerts and Yahoo Alerts but broader in scope)

On Yotify.com, users track anything they deem worth tracking by sending out ’scouts’ that send back regular reports on a particular sports headline, job listing, real estate posting, etc. The frequency of updates can be set to a daily or hourly amount, and different preferences can be selected so that when users send a scout out to monitor an item on Craigslist, for example, they can find out when the price drops to the amount they’re willing to pay. Searches are also area-specific, and users can specify the state and area where they want relevant results from.

Transcript of a chat with Rob Bouganim, Yotify's CEO
http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/09/hands-on-and-invites-yotify-your-personal-web-secretary.ars

"Game" it up

In the hunt to break the "monotonous" routine of sprinting and activities for my team, I thought to experiment with a "Gaming" contest at Kiprosh. I picked up couple of strategy games from http://freeonlinegames.com.

We had 1 hr gameful of fun and laughter with interesting "quick" meetings to invent and come up with new strategies for improving scores (as I gave certain scoring target to be a winner). At the end it become very addictive to leave but team quickly became more charged up and rejuvenated.

It also helped us as team to keep on changing couple of strategies and not to repeat mistakes to achieve higher scores & goals.

Being KIS'ed

I started my journey this March'2010 towards building Kiprosh with foundation, goals and strong inclination towards

• Innovation
• KIS (keep it simple)
• Write Less Do More
• "wow" factor (my favorite and very close to my heart) in whatever we develop or deliver
  

Though its very early to comment but "KIS (keep it simple) yet effective" way of doing things in whatever we do is helping us achieve other important goals too.

I will appreciate thoughts / comments about your experience and experiments on the subject.

N2 vs. Umbraco - CMS made easy

Few days back I was evaluating open source ASP.NET based Content Management System (CMS). I shortlisted 2 of them for my purpose i.e N2 and Umbraco. Competition was not even close as N2 was a clear winner. Though both are categorically advised to be consumed based on web content management requirements i.e. Umbraco is preferable for heavy (or large) and N2 for light (or medium to small) contents.

Umbraco is well positioned in developer community as N2 is pretty new. Umbraco's user base is huge comparatively but still N2 delivers due to its sheer simplicity. I like KIS (Keep It Simple) philosophy while development and N2 enables me to deliver keeping KIS into consideration.

Thanks to Shivani for helping me finalize one of the CMS for our purpose.

Expect the Unexpected - Project Natal

Watch these videos to experience amazing stuff created by Microsoft. A whole new gaming experience. I am awaiting now to have it available soon :-)

Productivity ?

How would you define "Productivity" in a Software Development especially for Agile SCRUM ?

My thoughts, analysis and definitions:

Productivity can be defined as the rate at which the end users enjoy new features. Its like delivering business values continuously at a faster rate which sees higher RoI. Engineering practices should be applied to deliver these business values at higher rate.

A measurable unit of Productivity can be defined by individual Product owner or Scrum master for their respective teams depending upon the needs of the product / project. For example, I would like to define Productivity gain for a sprint as "P" where

P = (V + Q + F) / N

V - velocity gain over previous sprint

Q - no of quality, UI, automation and security related improvements adopted / implemented (eg. TDD, CI, AAT, improved product scores, automation, security, UI benefits etc.) Teams can come up with various scales for their improvements. Lets say having 10 points for improving unit test code coverage every sprint, 10 points for adopting CI and implementing smooth process, 20 points for improved security, 20 points for better UI and so on......

F - no of working features added over previous product or sprints. Again point system can be devised to quantify features added

N - team size excluding Scrum Master, BA and Product Owner

Teams should be challenged often to improve the value of P in every sprint.

I am doing more research on Productivity so will keep on improving this formula and adding more quantifiable units.

I Come to Bury Agile, Not to Praise It

Interesting video on "Software Development" and new methodology's. Recommended for all and not just for those who are working on SCRUM Agile :-)
(Length: 1 hr 10 min)

Check it out --> http://www.infoq.com/presentations/cockburn-bury-not-praise-agile

Ghost - My free virtual computer

Have you ever tried or used Ghost ?

G.ho.st offers every person in the world a free Virtual Computer (VC). G.ho.st is simply pronounced "ghost", an acronym of Global hosted operating system. The G.ho.st Virtual Computer includes almost everything you would have in a physical computer - a desktop, file storage (like a disk drive) and applications.

G.ho.st frees you from being tied to any one physical device - and frees you from the worries of installing software, backing up, and other administration.

"G.ho.st Lite" is a lightweight user interface to access VC using Mobile phones, an embedded widget in another web site like iGoogle and from a very old computer or dial-up connection.

Visit their home page to check out list of key features and services.

I would say good use of cloud computing powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and solutions from RightScale Technologies.

20 minutes to 4 seconds - Excel your excel's

SpreadsheetGear 2009 for .NET reduced the time to generate a critical Excel Report "from 20 minutes to 4 seconds" making his team "look like miracle workers" according to Luke Melia at Oxygen Media in New York. Microsoft chose "SpreadsheetGear"

With SpreadsheetGear controls, a 6,000 KB Excel workbook is loaded into the WorkbookView control in less than a second. This is over 100 times faster than other controls being tested so far.

Robbe Morris (Microsoft MVP - C# Co-founder of EggHeadCafe.com and former Gartner Sr. Software Engineer) says "ASP.NET and Microsoft Excel is a dangerous combination. ASP.NET and SpreadsheetGear is a match made in heaven. When you need your web or Windows app to interact with Excel files with lightening speed and no COM crashes, SpreadsheetGear for .NET is what you use. This product truly separates the men from the boys in the spreadsheet control marketplace."

With one safe managed assembly, SpreadsheetGear 2009 enables developers to easily add scalable ASP.NET Excel Reporting, dynamic Dashboards from Excel Charts and Ranges, powerfulWindows Forms Spreadsheet Controls, comprehensive Excel Compatible Charting, the fastest and most complete Excel Compatible Calculations and much more.

Simon Black (Software Architect, Nokia) says "SpreadsheetGear for .NET is a fantastically powerful spreadsheet component which is very easy to use and expand. We delivered our mandatory customer requirements well before time so we had plenty of time to implement the nice-to-have requirements nobody ever manages to deliver."

I will be evaluating SpreadsheetGear control this weekend so will post more details soon but initial feedback from top architects sounds very impressive.

INDIA INSPIRED