is a buggy, little, nasty critter

I'm writing an Add-In that provides a Rally Agile Project Management Software interface inside Visual Studio.  I was feeling a little jealous of the people using Microsoft Team Foundation Server and realized that the consolidated development experience is critical if one wants to get the greatest benefit from the tools they invest in.  I sometimes won't check my email for two days because Lotus Notes takes too much memory and too long to load.  Its not a matter of not caring, its a matter of limited resources and screen realestate.  I also believe that convenience encourages compliance.  Make it easy and painless and people won't mind participating. 

Now that I have a start, I am excited for what new possibilities might present themselves.  For example, if an add-in were to show a test case, then perhaps a developer could drop a test case onto a unit test to associate that code with that test case.  Hmmm, one step at a time.

I still have to work in paging, provide the ability to search tasks first (currently, I'm querying for stories then showing child tasks), provide more detail about each item, allow a user to add tasks, allow them to reassign tasks or stories to other users and link back to the appropriate url in Rallyin an intelligent way (doubleclick?).

Here are some screens to wet your appetite.

Today the Rentals.com team joined up with out RentClicks counterparts to estimate a joint project that was less the trivial in scope.  We started with a simple model of where we were and what needed to be changed, in what way, and then broke that down into digestable chunks.  We estimated each one as a team and I was surprised by how easy it was to have agreement with vague requirements.  We had a feel for what we needed to do and a hunch as to how long it would take.  Its fantastic to see the team operating as one with such efficiency.

After we logged points for each story, I counted up the points and came up with what represented, according to our time to point conversion factor, 10 developer weeks.  A quandry came over me as I realized we'd landed two months late on our current release and began to wonder how to factor that into our planning.  It is not reasonable, after all, to assume the same thing would not happen again.  A suggestion was made to bloat the estimates with a fudge factor.  This is the traditional way to account for unforeseen circumstance when plannig a project.  I think this would take 3 weeks so I'll add 30% to account for things that I haven't thought of.  I used to do this myself with amazing accuracy.  I'd tack on 30% to all my estimates and I would almost always be right on the money.  Something didn't feel right, however, with that approach.  First, this was essentially just lying strategically.  We think it will take two days so we'll say three?  Considering the whole purpose for using points in place of time is that you can adjust point translation according to circumstance...  ah hah!  The amount of work you can accomplish per iteration is called velocity.  Don't adjust the estimate, adjust the velocity!

During our last project, we lost one developer and I was split between two independent products.  I was also distracted with unrelated initiatives that sucked most of my time and energy and effectively lost me to the team.  This contributed to our missed Dec 20 target date.  Missing that date introduced the holidays which pretty much eats a week.  Then a separate, unplanned release was inserted right in the middle that caused a slide in both schedule and scope.  None of these things were accounted for in our project plan.  When something impacts the project, its important to reflect that in some visible way against one of the vectors of the project projection.  Its either going to complete on some other date or scope myust be adjusted to accomodate the changes.  The preferred approach is to adjust scope.  I did not and therefore had no idea when things would wrap up until the project started to show a steate of completion.

The appropriate thing to do would have been to subtract the scope of the developer who left and calculate the new velocity.  Then we should have reduced the scope of that iteration to meet the date planned for delivery or, if necessary, change the date. 

Looking back, this is what makes the most sense going forward.  Rather then fudge the estimates in some arbitrary way, I've tried to calculate the impact of the lost developer and the holidays and factor in the intermediate release.  From there I think a 30% factor is appropriate for adjusting or plan.  Rather then bloat the estimates, I will reduce velocity for iteration planning by 30%.  This will visibly show that we are experiencing some inefficiencies that have reduced our productivity.  If this is concering to decision makers, its a great topic for conversation.  Why have you reduced your velocity to 66 points per 2 week iteration?  ...well, our last release was off track and we're adjusting to reflect that something is slowing us down.  Our goal is to bring that back up to 80 points per week and we're activley seeking ways to accomplish that.  The reduced velocity will keep everyone aware of our present condition.  That's not a bad way to talk about it.  Its a good measure to keep an eye on and set a goal against.  In fact, the two new developers on the team will only provide a fraction of their optimal velocity until they are through the HR hurdles, familiar with the product and work flow and have their environment configured.  Now its really making sense.  We have a logical way say, "this is a two week task but it will take us a little longer."

Frankly, this was a good day

I've realized something valuable after reading http://martinfowler.com/articles/itsNotJustStandingUp.html.  A pattern emerged on my present team where people show up to work around 10am, usually.  Sometimes they call in to the scrum and lately, often really, we end up with more then one caller.  Frankly, more times then not, the caller is me.

I have been curious as to why I have shifted my schedule unintentionally and why the whole team now works a later day.  We all have families so its unlikely that anyone is out partying late into the night.  The article pointed out that the daily stand-up either starts the day or it doesn't.  If your stand-up is in the morning, make it appropriately early so that it kicks of the core work hours.  If its not on by, say 9:30, move it to the afternoon.  Psychologically, the team will associate that meeting with the beginning of their day and they won't be motivated to begin any work until that commitment is behind them.  This is perfectly normal and makes sense in hindsight but it hadn't occurred to me until I read it.  I'm not advocating strict working hours or even suggesting that a later start is inherently bad, merely that one should be aware of scheduling impact.

I believe there is tremendous value to starting the day with the daily stand up or "scrum".  Don't wait until its is convenient for everyone to be present.  Rather, schedule it at a reasonable time that everyone can agree to be ready.  9:30 for example.  The team should plan to be at work around 9, log in, check their email, reboot Windows 6 times, and fill their coffee.  Then, at 9:30, come together and hit it like gangbusters. 

Granted, if the team is composed of a bunch of young punks who like to stay out late and prefer to start work at 10 am and work into the evening hours, there is nothing at all wrong with a 10:30 scrum.  Adjust accordingly but understand the impact of your kick off time.

I use NUnit extensively.  Since discovering the virtues of unit testing a couple of years ago, I will never turn back to unverified code.  However, that does not mean I do not have, nor sometimes write, unverified code.  There's all the legacy code (technical baggage) that you carry with you as well as the things you write in a rush when you just miss the test first philosophy.  I won't go into philosophy here and I understand that generating tests from existing code violates the very priciples of test driven purists.  duly noted...

After the fact, I want the tests to be so easy to write that there just ain't no good excuse for not writing them.  Doubler to the rescue!  Doubler has several features but I was most interested in unit test generation from concrete classes.

Since I failed to make this work more then a year ago and still yearn for a tool like this, I tried again, this time with success.  It turns out to be an unexpected config requirement, possibly due to my old computer having three frameworks on it.

If you don't have Reflector, get it!  Next, download Doubler.  Unzip the dlls into a directory above Reflector.  I am not sure why this is necessary but it will fail to find references if you have it as a Reflector sub directory.

Follow the Doubler installation video.

If Reflactor fails to load the add-in, double click on the failure message to see the exception details.  Read on if you see the following message: System.BadImageFormatException: The format of the file
'ReflectorDouble.dll' is invalid.

from here

Create a config file for Reflector
(Reflector.exe.config) and add 'supportedRuntime' elements to it so
the .NET runtime will bind to the 2.0 framework 
ReflectorDouble.dll will load successfully. The other two
release versions are there to make the configuration more flexible for those who
may need it.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
   <startup>
      <supportedRuntime version="v2.0.50727"/>
      <supportedRuntime version="v1.1.4322"/>
      <supportedRuntime version="v1.0.3705"/>
   </startup>
</configuration>

An unhandled exception of type 'System.Data.OracleClient.OracleException' occurred in System.Data.OracleClient.dll

Additional information: ORA-12154: TNS:could not resolve the connect identifier specified

I've gotten this before and its usually easy to resolve.  Check your TNSNames.ora and SQLNet.ora files in your "[Oracle Home]\network\ADMIN" directory and make sure your connection string is using the right values.  Try a TNSPing from the commandline to ensure that the database location is accessable. 

This time however, I could connect using my database development tools, SQLPlus, even my local asp.net website using the same connection string.  When I tried to connect from the project in "C:\projects\Subversion\Rentals 1.0.2.1(feb 1)\Rentals", it failed.

I then verified that the trunk version of the same project could connect.  Sure enough, successful connection.

The code and connection string were identical.  The only difference was the location.  Was it permissions inside the directory?  Wait, was it the directory name?

I copied the entire directory to a new location named:"C:\projects\Subversion\RentalsTest\Rentals", rebuilt and ran the project.

Successful Connection!

You're kidding me, right?!

I then renamed the directory "C:\projects\Subversion\Rentals 1.0.2.1(no)\Rentals", rebuilt and ran.

failure!

OK.  No more parentesis in folder names.

That sure was a waste of a day!

I've been putting together a PC for some time. I started the project more then six months ago.  As I can stand to spend a little money, I get a few more components.  I started out with a micro atx mother board and a few hard drives.  I believe I have over a terabyte of storage though I have to review the box full of parts.  When I purchased the motherboard, I decided to give AMD another try since I'd discovered that my failing AMD a few years ago turned out to be a bad IDE on the motherboard, not a bad cpu.  I wonder if my extreme overclocking had anything to do with that...  Until the IDE controller failed, the computer was very reliable and incredibly fast.  Gamers across America can't be wrong!

I researched the system carefully in the beginning.  However, as the project dragged on, I started looking for a way to work within my means and get a great value.  I went with an AMD Athlon 64 4000+.   Apparently, this is good.  I have no idea.  I picked up the CPU at TigerDirect for around $80.  I also got a gig of PC3200 ram for $80.  My friend and business partner, Jason, let me have his old micro case.  Unfortuntely, the board I have is incompatable.  I was still unable to assemble my brain sucking device.  Jason is also the inspiration for this entire project.  His media center freakin' rocks!

The TigerDirect order arrived and I realized only two things stood between me and my media center: a case and a cpu cooler.  I had taken notes long ago regarding what parts I had decided were best and searched for this document on my dying-a-slow-death Dell PC.  I am so glad I took the time to review my own notes.   The case you see here is quite sweet, ain't it?!  In addition to being easy to use, my wife will insist that it look pretty in the living room.  I think I can convince her to work with this.  The CPU cooler I'd selected was not in stock so I pulled the trigger on the "Blue Orb".  I'm not sure if it was the fact that it is the last required component or if I just lost my head but the blue light sold me.  I really need to grow up...

BizZoo.Net is a new website focused around providing e-commerce websites for folks who have a passion for something specialized.  Right now its in stealth mode but it looks to be the next ebay. 

I'll update you when there's more information related to its development

With the recent development of Rentals.com, I've learned a great deal about teams, capability and myself.  With a small team of fantastic people, a tremendous level of productivity was accomplished.  Next year, we plan to better that.  IT will be an immense challenge but I am excited for the opportunity.  Along with that opportunity came a promotion to Development Manager for Rentals.com and a new office space just across the parking lot from the old.  The move is to truly empower the small team to operate as one.  Up until now we've been trying very hard to work  within a medium company that behaves like a giant company.  I believe this is going to be a significant year for all involved, especially the competition. 

In the last few months, I have received more employment opportunities then ever before.  Six months ago, I would have accepted the offers I've recently declined.  I love nothing more then to build things and there's nothing better then feeling a sense of ownership and responsibily for an outcome you are proud of.  I helped build ApartmentGuide.com over the years, not to mention NewHomeGuide.com, AutoGuide.com and a previous incarnation of RealEstate.com.  Each of these had varying levels of success and I played various roles and contributed on different levels at different times.  I am ecstatic to be intimately connected with this next venture. 

I am looking for top notch developers in Atlanta.  We are based in Norcross.  We have a beautiful office building, updated workstations with dual lcd monitors, flexible schedules, casual dress and really, really sharp people.  We are going to be running a pure agile (scrum if you know it) development process to build an infant of a product to a $200,000,000 company in the next two years.  The parent company is stable and profitable, compensation top tier and work loads reasonable.  Sustainable pace, right?  Its all dot net 2.0 and we're finally going to start using SQL Server.  You'll have some opportunity to build your Oracle skills, however, if that floats your boat.

So, please shoot an email to rzarse -at- consumersource -dot- com if you are 1) a fantastic dot net developer 2) highly motivated and a great team player 3) Bored at your current gig and looking for a fun, exciting challenge

I've linked to Keith Rome's Blog after I foundmy old url on his blog.  Hey Keith, can you chnage http://vitaminzrecords.com/blog to http://www.vitaminzproductions.com/blog?  I'm really too lazy to add the wildcard domain entry to letthat url resolve.  We both know how well I manage domains, don't we?

Keith made me jealous with his media center and ashamed with his certifications.  My company has driven me to read books on sociology, management and conflict resolution.  Last year I was devouring technical books, now I am reading all the process and methodology books I can get my hands on just so I can confirm my understanding of how software development should work.

I'm going to volunteer to present on CruiseControl.net and continuous integration at an upcoming c#group meeting.  I've been away too long and miss my geek peeps. 

I'm looking forward to coding more in the near future.  Now I just have to figure out ...how.

I had recently moved from a usb modem to an ethernet modem and was empowered to use my LynkSys as my Dynamic DNS updater.  After a couple of months, however, I received an email stating that I was being blocked due to update abuse.  I asked for more info regarding the situation and the DynDns support rep was happy to reply and inform me that my router was updating on a timer, which is not allowed.  Unfortunately, three days later, I received another email stating that my DynDns account had been removed due to continued abuse.  The service they provide for free is absolutely fantastic and I certainly cannot complain that they have no patience for slackers who fail to fix their problems immediately.  So I finally spent about an hour getting things straight tonight.  I've disabled my LinkSys and returned to using the DynDns updater.  I was pleasantly surprised to find it now runs as a windows service!

If you're not famliar with Dynamic DNS and what DynDns provices, it allows you to point a url at your home computer that will allow you to access it from anywhere in the world as long as your computer tells the dns host what your ip address is every time it changes.  Simple but very powerful.  By installing a beacon service on your computer, you keep the DynDns server informed as to the address of your computer.  All requests are proxied through their server to allow access to your computer.  When your ISP changes your ip address, the beacon tells the DynDns server about the change.  You should never have to worry about it.  However, reboots can get tricky.  When I had a usb modem and the computer rebooted, my url would no longer connect to my computer until I physically logged in and established a connection.  I was very happy when I could use my router to update the server.  Too bad its an abusive piece of ...equipment.

To get a dyn dns account, go here: https://www.dyndns.com

create an account, then add a host to dynamic dns.  It will detect your ip address right there.  I won't go into detail about setting up wireless routers and port forwarding.  You can tackle that elsewhere.

Now download and install the preferred client: DynDns Updating Client

Set up an account that points to the domain you set up on DynDns.com. 

Once it is updating and the icon turns green, go to options on the dynDns client properties window, deselect "start with windows"  and click "install service"

Then exit the client by right clicking and selecting "exit"

Go to control panel > administrative tools > Services

Find "DynDNS Updater Service" right click and chools "start"

Leave a comment if you could use more information or some screen shots.  I'll add them.  I just wanted to illustrate how easy it is to set up remote access to your home or office computer if you don't have static ip addresses to work with.

I'm taking the week off next week.  Today I was writing a spider to crawl a website and inspect the pages.  I wanted to finish this week with some analysis on my new website and then let the data gel for the rest of the week.  Unfortunately, a "Service Unavailable" event interfered with my plans.  I guess I'll blog my psuedo-failure and move on to vacation.

The spider process starts at a given url and generates a request, retrieving the response from the site.  It then uses a regex to find all the href's, creates valid urls from each of those links, and queues each of the links for crawling.  Then it de-queues each of the links and crawls it if it hasn't already retrieved that page.  The whole thing repeats for each page sleeping for 1 full second in between requests, and stops when either the queue reaches zero links or the number of pages requested exceeds the maximum threshold.  At this time it is a single-threaded, simple app that closes its connections explicitly and makes requests very conservatively.  At least I thought so.  Does that description sound like it should crash a production website? 

I ran it against a local test site several times.  Then I hit http://www.openmicmadness.com.  I then ran it against the beta rentals site.  Everything went fine, I discovered several things about the site that I wasn't aware of, and I wanted to see more.  So I bumped the max threshold to 2000 pages and let it run for a few minutes against beta Rentals.  I didn't think much of it as it can only request 1 page per second.  Unfortuntately, the beta site is now showing "Service Unavailable".  I've performed several load tests in the dev environment on the rentals site.  While I was able to load it to the point of incredibly slow response, I never witnessed a complete meltdown.  I suspect that its only hosted on one server in production and something went kah-blewy.  Since I am not given any access to tools in production, I can't diagnose the problem and since its not a production site but rather a beta, I can't justify escalating the failure.  

OK, I just ran the thing against several local website applications and my blog.  None of them even hiccupped.  I think something definitely crashed on that server but I don't think it was anything special that I did.  I just happened to be the user(s) that got the error. 

I think I'll follow Google's example and extend the spider to crawl just one level per session.  Rather then crawl the queued links, I'll serialize them to a data store and then load that back up to kick off a future session.  I'll also extend the error response to store the context of server errors, 404's and bad links. 

Another realization I had during a crawl was how easy and useful it would be to set certain criteria to search for and then retrieve that content locally for later inspection.  For example, find all mp3's on a band site and store them in a folder.  Or you might want to scrape email addresses off of a website.  My initial purpose was to inspect pages for richness of content and compliance to html standards as well as accessibility compliance.  I've wanted to write a spider for various reasons for a very long time.  I even modified the spider example found here, once upon a time, but lost that project when nAnt deleted my C: drive.  I'm pleased to be back in the crawling game, the possibilities are endless!

Atlanta apartments

Atlanta Houses for Rent

Its been a work in progress for about 4 months.  Yep, that's all.  Granted, there's some piggy backing on top of ApartmentGuide logic and there is no back-end content administration system (its entirely driven by a windows service that retrieves xml data feeds to create searchable Apartment listing data) but 4 months ain't bad.  In a few weeks you'll see some bad ass mapping functionality.  This site, however, is completely different from what we've done before.  Its designed for the user who sends leads, not the client who pays for them. 

So have a look at my new Houses and Apartments for Rent site.  (google, looky here, please.  we're hoping you like us).

The quick and dirty is that it was designed to be very intuitive and highly searchable.  We have embraced the Google gods as more the a search indexer and truly a driver of technological advancement.  Consistent navigation and content (no matter who you are) is important to bots so it is a core principle in the site design.  We' ve peppered in some slick ajax and then, despite me resistance, dumped some flash on the home page.  I'm very proud.

COMMENTS WELCOME!

A bookmark is describes a static place in the world.  Its a place you wish to label for revisit.  Its somewhere you wish to come back because its properties still serve you some value.  I created a bookmark today that I should have been creating all along.  I bookmarked a Google search that had more results then I had time or energy to read. 

Then it occurred to me that my url was actually a search instruction to the google machine and this bookmark was, in fact, a macro.  Gives me an interesting idea for automated testing...