Up for the challenge?

Epinions has announced the sweepstakes rules and prizes for February. Write a Very Helpful review in 500 words or less and win up to $500.
Here is what you can win.

* The first place winner will receive $500 in eRoyalties, plus a set of Epi dolls.
* The second place winner will receive $300 in eRoyalties, plus a set of Epi dolls.
* The third place winner will receive $200 in eRoyalties, plus a set of Epi dolls.
* Five additional winners will receive $100 in eRoyalties, plus a set of Epi Dolls.

eRoyalties is the equivalent of cash. Not a bad deal, right?

The community is pretty excited about it. Have a look at what they're saying.


Technorati Tags:Epinions,sweepstakes,reviews,community

Rythms

I've used the word "rythm(s)" quite a few times las week at work. I've been spending a lot of time working on processes with my teams. We're being assisted by Alistair Cockburn and it's been a learning experience. Alistair is great to work with. I've decided to read his book Agile Software Development. I hope to be the first to review it on Epinions soon. :-)

I'm really enjoying this stuff, process development. It's especially exciting when the teams are deciding how to do it. This bottoms up approach to product development is where the industry is at. I'm fond of the Agile Methodologies without actually using any of them. I haven't used the traditional waterfall method in quite some time, at least 2 years. I'm truly grateful for the management at AOL to have let me pilot some short cycle development processes. At SDC we're not using SCRUM or XP or any other "agile" development methodology specifically. We've customized our process to fit the projects.

More to come on this topic and working with Alistair



Technorati Tags:Agile Software Development, Process Development,Alistair Cockburn

Playing around

I'm playing around with the blog template. Thoughts on this one?

I'm going to change the header image soon.

New Year's resolution - Not gaining the SDC 15

SDC (shopping.com) offers it employees snacks, cereal, drinks, and an excellent expresso machine like a lot of companies in Silicon Valley. I've gained a few pounds since I have been here, not bike commuting or playing soccer might be helping too. One of my resolutions was to resist the snacking that would lead to gaining what's commonly called the "Google 15". So far I'm doing ok, I just need to remember that water is my friend.

pictures/video to come of the kitchen





Technorati Tags:The Google 15,Losing Weight

Gantt Chart Graphic in a Web page

I haven't used MS Project all that much while at Shopping.com. Most projects are so short in duration that the schedule can be done on wiki (this is my opinion of course). There are some projects that do warrant the need for a heavier management tool than a wiki. Since wiki's are used for a lot of the project information a HTML form of the project file is needed. Having an image of the Gantt Chart is nice to have too. I'm posting these instructions for my fellow PJMs as well as for myself. :-)

How to display a Gantt Chart Graphic in a Web page:
1. View the Gantt Chart and on the Standard Toolbar, click Copy Picture button to open the Copy Picture Dialog box.
2. Select To GIF Image File option. The image field will be given the same name as the project file with a .GIF extension. (Graphic Interchange Format is a compressed graphics file format)
3. In the Timescale section, select the dates range or select As Shown on Screen to capture the timescale that is currently displayed on the screen.
4. Click OK.
5. On Menu, File, Save as HTML and select the filename and location and click Save.
6. In the Export Mapping Dialog box, select the map file that you want to modify and click on Edit.
7. In the HTML options section, check the option Include Image File in HTML Page and Project will display the information for the Gantt Chart GIF image.

8. Click OK and from the Export Mapping Dialog box, click Save.

9. Open the saved document in the browser to view it.



Technorati Tags:Gantt+Chart