Tuesday, January 13, 2009

SCRUM vs. Waterfall

I didn’t realize how frustrating it would be to take a new job that doesn’t do SCRUM. I was told it was an iterative development process. But, honestly, it’s more like old-fashioned waterfall than anything else.

I’ve had a few discussions revolving around development methodologies but there is nothing except anti-sentiment and near resentment for even bringing up any way to do things better! What’s the deal?

Why is it so hard for people to even consider trying it or even spending a couple lunches doing some practice exercises?

I guarantee it’s what they want. They just don’t know it.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Obama vs. Christians

1.  Obama is undecided on whether life begins at conception - Saddleback Church Forum Aug 16th, 2008. Obama voted against born alive protections for abortion survivors four times, and voted against a ban on partial-birth abortion in the Illinois state senate

SOURCES: http://www.bornalivetruth.org
Audacity of Hope written by Barack Obama


2.  Obama has pledged to Planned Parenthood to sign The Freedom of Choice Act, a law which would cancel every state, federal, and local regulation of abortion, no matter how modest or reasonable.  It would even abolish all state restrictions on government funding for abortions.  Catholics that pay income tax will be paying an abortionist to perform an abortion. It would also abolish state laws that protect Catholic doctors and nurses from losing their jobs if they refuse to participate in abortions.  It would abolish requirements for parental notification and informed consent for mothers who consider the procedure. – Obama speech to Planned Parenthood, July 17, 2007
He is endorsed by pro-Abortion industry leader Planned Parenthood and has a 100% NARAL voting record. -

SOURCES: http://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/campaigns/barack-obama-endorsement-111.htm
http://www.naral.org/elections/statements/obama.html


3.  Obama would repeal the Mexico City policy, which bars federal funding for international nongovernmental organizations involved in abortion-related services and would pit the US against the [Christians everywhere] on the international fight against abortion.

SOURCE: http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/nj_20080719_6257.php


4.  He strongly supports the 1973 Supreme Court decision on abortion rights and says he will oppose any constitutional measure to overturn it. -

SOURCE: http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/nj_20080719_6257.php


5.  Obama has pledged to choose Justices with a Pro Abortion agenda and he voted against Roberts and Alito.

SOURCE: http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/nj_20080719_6257.php


6.  Obama voted no on notifying parents of minors who get out-of-state abortions and prohibiting minors crossing state lines for abortion.

SOURCE: http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/nj_20080719_6257.php


7.  Obama supports the destruction of embryos for experimentation and voted to expand research to more embryonic stem cell lines.

SOURCE: http://obama.senate.gov/press/070411-obama_renews_su/


8.  He voted yes on $100M to fund contraceptives for teens and sponsored bill providing contraceptives for low-income women.

SOURCE: http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/nj_20080719_6257.php


9.  Voted no on defining unborn child as eligible for SCHIP a program that gives funds to states in order to provide health insurance to families with children.

SOURCE: http://www.ncregister.com/site/article/15942


10.  He opposed the federal marriage amendment in 2006 and also favors repealing the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which gives a state the right not to recognize same-sex marriages performed in another state. 

SOURCE: http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/nj_20080719_6257.php


from: http://catholicvote.com/

Friday, October 3, 2008

PowerCommands for Visual Studio 2008

PowerCommands for Visual Studio 2008 is definitely one of the best plug-ins available for Visual Studio..
Includes things like:
  • Undo closed window

  • Collapse all projects

  • Copy path

  • Email CodeSnippet

  • Insert GUID from right-click menu

  • Copy and paste project references!

  • Open containing folder

  • Open command prompt

  • Unload project

  • Sort using statements / also removes un-used ones

  • And more..

  • Thursday, September 11, 2008

    Integrating TortoiseSVN with Visual Studio

    Going back to using a file explorer separately for managing RCS, after using TFS built into Visual Studio has been a little irritating. That's not because I prefer TFS, because I don't. In fact, I hope I never have to go back to TFS again - at least until it doesn't crash continually and take minutes to perform actions that should take only seconds. And, of course TFS would have to actually perform the actions I request of it too. (But that's another post.)

    Nonetheless I've quickly become tired of switching between Total Commander and Visual Studio just to do updates and commits. I was about to resurrect my old CVS batch files again when I found an excellent set of scripts to enable TortoiseSVN from within Visual Studio.

    http://garrys-brain.blogspot.com/2007/07/tortoisesvn-and-visual-studio.html

    I have not tried all of the features yet, only the basics. But those have worked without any problems at all.

    Thursday, February 7, 2008

    My IRAM drive finally running!

    I finally got my IRAM drive running on my new work machine. I use it exclusively for my TFS local folders in Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 Team Editions. It literally cut my compile time in half. From about 3 minutes 10 seconds to 1 minute 30 seconds. Wow is all I can think to say. Oh, except it's about time. I've only had four IRAM drives for about 5-6 months now and no machine to use them on.

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    Wednesday, September 12, 2007

    Letter to Google

    First off, let me just say how fantastic the GMail web interface is. For my style and usage patterns, it can't be beat. I have used a two folder system in Outlook for four to five years now, since I gave up on trying to keep things organized into folders (and Google Desktop provided a search mechanism that worked for my emails). And, the conversation view is wonderful! I also think the Google Apps for Domains suite of functionality and tools is superb.

    So, naturally, I have all of my domains running on Google Apps for Domains and all email pointed to my one standard GMail account.

    But, there's a problem. I have missed several important emails during the last month, two of which has caused some missed deadlines with my own MicroISV. Not good.

    To be honest, I didn't think much about it until tonight when on the phone, my partner and I, were discussing some tasks that had to be done this morning and tonight, when I hadn't received either sets of emails. Very not good.


    So, I logged in to the Apps account directly and found that the only emails stopped in the SPAM filter are 12 emails from my business partner spanning the last 30 days.. (Out of all emails I receive from him, the twelve trapped in the last month were probably the most important ones he sent, but that's a different story.) That also explained several disconnects we've had.

    What is also really strange about this, is that I've gotten emails from the Apps account, forwarded to my standard account, then trapped as SPAM (rightfully so) in my standard account. So, what gives.. Gmail is forwarding SPAM, but trapping

    Anyway, I'm hoping to find a way to completely turn off SPAM filtering on my forwarded Gmail account so I won't have this problem again. Is that possible? Or at least a whitelist protection?

    My business partner is ready to go back to hosting our own email server again, including purchasing Exchange 2007. I'm hoping to stay with the great Gmail web interface, but... only if I can ensure this type of thing won't happen again.

    Please help?

    Friday, August 17, 2007

    Just had a funny thought...

    I was just thinking how much I love JavaScript and how it has been my favorite language/platform for years. People who consider themselves 'real' developers have always given me a hard time because of it. That and "you can use it just like an OOP language, but it's not really one"! Haha! Who cares if it only acts like it!?

    How could you not love it? It's so dynamic - you can do anything you want with it!

    It's funny that everyone is getting excited about the DLR in upcoming .Net releases. And, "it's so cool, because it supports dynamic language extensions to C#." Hehehe.. Well, at least the rest of the world is finally starting to catch up to me.. 8^)