My Internet Notebook

Via | CNET News.com – Microsoft: No more five-year waits for SQL Server | CNET News.com

Microsoft is changing to shorten its product release cycle for big things like SQL Server. SQL Server 2005 had customers in waiting for 5 years. Mark Souza, who is leading the so-called Software Reengineering Initiative (SRI), hope to change that painful process for the better.

Most software projects have release cycles shorter than two years, much less than five years. The most important thing I found that is vital in keeping a release short and on-time is the feature list. Do we have a feature list that is reasonable and practical? Also a feature requirement doc is a living thing, the team has to learn how to keep it from growing too much.

Another important misconception about features is that somehow marketing people think that re-writing of an existing feature (hopefully to make it better) does not count as a new feature. This is just plainly wrong. In my experience, re-writing a feature that is part of a big legacy code-base is even costlier than coding a new feature. Project managers also too often underestimate this.

eBay is challenging all you developers there to develop cool applications using their now free web services API.

The ideas listed by ebay looked pretty interesting:

Category/vertical search (re-mix eBay to help people find things more efficiently)

drag & drop UI components for search results page: Offer eBay user the ability to customize their UI for the features they want to use
item ticker/screensaver for eBay
search for eBay items widget
widgets or gadgets
toolbar-like mini-apps
calendar view of members’ eBay activities
auto-Add to Watch List: Allow members to specify advanced search criteria that automatically adds items to their Watch List
low-priced items portal that allows free listing
search personalization
search for eBay items over IM
seller tool to add streaming video to their listings
taxation invoicing tool for eBay sellers
eBay Motors: Find vehicles locally
eBay Motors: Find similar types of vehicle (search for Accord, also show Camry; search for one minivan, see others with more listings)
eBay Motors: Show vehicles and their corresponding Parts & Accessories in compelling layout
Web mash-up (re-mix eBay with another Web service)

eBay Motors: historical pricing data (e.g. show Kelly Blue Book prices along with listings pricing)
eBay Motors: Show consumer reports or government safety ratings along with vehicle listings
Search across multiple shopping sites (Froogle/Yahoo Shopping/Amazon, etc.)
Multi-platform (integrate eBay with PayPal, Skype, Outlook, GNOME, TiVo, etc.) applications

integrate with POS systems to deliver full inventory tracking for our seller’s online and offline world
VoIP enabled Ask Seller a Question
accounting package plug-ins: Quicken/Quickbooks for eBay sellers
Firefox plug-ins
demographics targeter: sellers can enter in target buyer demographics and receive recommendations on start and end time/auction duration, etc.
Apple Dashboard widget
lister application written on Mozilla in XUL and AJAX
eBay Affiliate Editor Kit Flash Ad module
eBay Alerts enabled on Skype

Many non-profit organizations do not have the IT expertise and resources to develop & maintain their ‘business applications’ that are central to their operations. A Salesforce.com or Micrsoft ‘Live’ would be a perfect way to go for them.

Here are some of the features a small to medium sized non-profit would require:

• Web hosting – every organization needs to have a web front
• Accounting – general ledger
• Accounts – Sister non-profit organizations, partners etc.
• Contact management – donors, volunteers, sponsors (personal, corporate), receipients
• Project management – funding projects
• Fund management – donations (cash v.s. non-cash),
• Campaign management – track and manage fund-raising campaigns
• Marketing function – newsletter, etc.
• Analytics – reporting
• Offline, Mobile – sync

And how big of an impact this offering will have? According to Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project, The nonprofit sector is a major economic force in the world.

In the 26 countries for which we have assembled data, nonprofit organizations as of the mid-1990s accounted for: (1) $1.2 trillion in expenditures;
(2) 31 million full-time equivalent workers, or 6.8 percent of the nonagricultural workforce

There seems to be a lot of complaints on internet forums that PocketPC Emulator – ActiveSync connection does not work. Some also complained that there is not enough documentation to explain how to trouble-shoot PocketPC Emulator – ActiveSync connection problems.

According to my experience, I didnot have any problems at all to make PocketPC Emulator – ActiveSync connection work, i.e. to establish a device partnership in ActiveSync. My only complaint is that the PocketPC Enulator is soooo slow.

If you are having problems connecting PocketPC Emulator with ActiveSync, see if my five step process helps you.

Good software engineering is hard, but good software engineering management is much harder.

Ask anyone who has been on a software project where more than one person was involved, you will be told the same: one person coding is easy but team-based software engineering is hard. I would say it is often not because there are no best practices in existence that people can follow. But instead, it’s because people don’t follow them.

How to get Engineers to follow the best practices? It takes good Software Engineering Managers. A good Software Engineering Manager will instill a culture of deliverying quality engineering work in the team; a good Software Engineering Manager will establish a good SDLC process and stick to it; a good Software Engineering Manager knows how to motivate his team; and a good Software Engineering Manager knows the importance of effective communications and encourages / facilitates them.

Unfortunately, these good Software Engineering Managers are hard to come by these days …