Continual Improvement

• YubNub - YubNub.org
  Command line for the Web
  (tags: yubnub command-line command software web tools social)

• www.canvaspress.com - Canvas Prints, Custom Canvas, Put your photos on Canvas Today!
  Doak’s company has a new Web site. It’s cool seeing high tech ideas that are useful for everyone.
  (tags: doak digital image canvaspress picture)

• How To Be A Good Product Manager: Product management tips
  A blog on product management… Looks like Roger and Brandon have a new addition in this space.
  (tags: product-management software blog marketing product)
• Fun with Scrum
  The daily standup in mockumentary style…
  (tags: via:texflats meeting humor SCRUM agile standup work)

It seems that many bloggers are doing fewer posts these days, and I’m not the only one to notice the situation, which many would be quick to tag as a fad. The Austin American Statesman recently had a front page article about how the number of new blogs is slowing and the number of dead blogs is increasing. In the article, Gallaga suggests that easily unloadable photos, video, and audio are where future bloggers will spend most of their time. It’s hard to argue with this notion as Flickr integration has been a part of my blog since inception, and the popularity of YouTube is undeniable.

But, the question remains as to whether plain old blog posts will go the way of the dinosaur. There’s no doubt that I’ve had fewer posts over the course of the past 3 or so years, including a one year hiatus where I only posted 1 or 2 times. From my point of view, the blogging world appears to be in a consolidation mode with bloggers grouping together to keep readers coming or with a few bloggers who have figured out ways to make money. For many other casual bloggers, the motivation to keep going just isn’t there.

The other slant on this story is whether the readers of blogs have become information inundated, causing a reversal of the chicken and egg. For instance, the motivation to write for many is knowing the content is being read, and as readers have become bored with weak content or too much content, they have slacked off on subscribing entirely. While a decent percentage of my techie friends actively maintain a blog and/or read blogs, 90% of my non-techie acquaintances have never blogged and claim that reading blogs takes too much time.

Blogging may not be going away any time soon, but as a Darwinistic consolidation increases, those who are left will most likely be the ones with the best content, which should lead to a resurgence in subscriptions. As for myself, I cannot yet image a situation where audio and video completely capture the market for freeform expression; thus, I predict a long life for blogs or some similar format.

• Rating the Best 529 College Savings Plans - 06 Mar 2007
  I’m feeling good about my 529 getting a top ranking!
  (tags: 529 college savings CollegeAmerica Virginia)

• MoMB: most anticipated - Most Anticipated
  The 50 most anticipated applications in the webosphere, as measured by the number of bookmarks at del.icio.us for apps which are not publicly released yet. This list will be updated each Saturday.
  (tags: software ideas web startup)

• An introduction to Agile Project Leadership – Part 1
  Some good reminders for those leading Agile teams. There are some interesting graphs showing Agile versus Waterfall as well.
  Trackback
  (tags: agile ProjectManagement software leadership management)
• Michael Mah: offshore-developed software projects have 2.8X as many bugs as average software projects
  “…software defects are strongly correlated to the number of “lines of communication” between the developers on the team; and that number increases combinatorially (i.e., N*(N-1)/2) as the size of the team increases…”
  (tags: agile offshoring metrics communication)

As someone who is quite particular about the words I write, I constantly make the assumption that anything written can and often will be published to more than the present/intended audience. For example, I try to punctuate and spell correctly when typing in IM, even though I use my fair share of chat abbreviations for speed. Others choose to strive for speed in chat and email, often leaving all words lower case and misspelling about half of the other words. So, what does all this babbling about “writing” have to do with anything other than personal preferences? Almost nothing, it’s all about style and old habits in many cases, and it really doesn’t matter. What is important is the content, and specifically, how well the message is delivered.

In a recent email exchange with Coté, I congratulated him on his usage of “has had” in a sentence. My simple amusement of this seemingly insignificant detail was derived from an encounter I once had with an English literature teacher in college, where I used this combination. After a lighthearted demonstration to her showing where several famous authors wrote this in their books, she caved, and I became one of her favorite students. After the story, Coté remarked that things get a lot easier once you start writing to say what you mean. (Put that one in the old memory banks, and use it often.) Granted, it’s unlikely any of us would tolerate complete gibberish, but I would take this a step further and pass a little caution onto those who admonish clichés and other society-driven terms. Unless the line clutters the meaning, why not throw it in?! Because, you can’t have your cake and eat it too, since he who lives by the sword, shall die by the sword.

• Visualization Methods
  This is an awesome showing of visual tooltips that is much richer than what most UIs have today. What’s interesting about it is the relative simplicity of adding these. Sent via Scott Isensee (http://talk.bmc.com/blogs/blog-isensee/scott-isensee/).
  (tags: usability GUI tooltip visualization design programming HTML popup)
• Agile Journal - Scaling Agile Development Via Architecture
  Doing Agile architecture correctly.
  (tags: agile software process via:mrchippy development project-management)

After reading 100’s of articles and discussing with various brokers and investment bankers, I’m convinced that the perfect mix for an investment portfolio will be a never ending debate. After this many years of stocks, bonds, real estate, etc., one would think a universal equation would have been derived that would take into account one’s asset amount, age, risk tolerance and investment timeframe. In the absence of such an equation, I’ve decided to publish yet another proposed “magic formula” to simplify the thought process of diversified investing. While none of the individual rules are original, they do represent a mix of various opinions and suggestions on the topic.

Rule 1: Percentage invested in stocks: 100 minus current age.
Rule 2: Percentage invested in fixed income: everything else not invested in stocks.
Rule 3: Use future investments to keep the first two rules in check and avoid transferring money to and from investments as much as possible.
Rule 4: Point at which readjustment should be made: when the first two rules are off by 5% or greater.

Some FAQs for the equation:

• An example for a 35 year old: 100-35=65% invested in stocks. 35% would be in bonds and/or other fixed income investments.
• The equation does not account for investments one might have in their primary residence. A future post will discuss this matter.
• The stock mix could (and most likely should) include mutual funds and individual stocks in a variety of sectors.
• An additional method for keeping the first two rules in check is to use money from the fixed income and/or dividends to fund the lagging area.

• Nature’s Path Organic Optimum Power Cereal Blueberry — 14 oz - Vitacost
  A friend is eating this cereal as a healthy alternative to breakfast tacos.
  (tags: fitness cereal health)

• http://martinfowler.com/articles/itsNotJustStandingUp.html
  I’ve written about stand ups in the past, but this is an all-inclusive article. If your stand ups seem stale, your team is mostly likely doing something wrong. Read the article for more details.
  (tags: via:klobetime agile standup meeting SCRUM software)

• Google Testing Blog: Introducing “Testing on the Toilet”
  This is an interesting idea sent over by JC. Implementing definitely requires the right combination of culture.
  (tags: google testing toilet software management motivation)

• Agile 2007 Submissions - Experience Report
  I’m submitting an experience report on our global QA organization. Here are the details on submitting an abstract for approval.
  (tags: agile conference experience report)

• Mike Lunt - QA Overload - Agile with a quality assurance perspective — TalkBMC
  Blog entry on why you should not skimp on QA resources during the software development life cycle.
  (tags: agile software quality overload cross-functional)