WEO's Blog…

According to Newton’s third law of motion “when one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the first body.” Based on this principle, one can conclude that for all cause and effects, every effect must affect the cause.  Therefore when you reap what you sow, what you reap will affect what you sow again.  With this in mind, practicing Karma or the Golden (or even Silver) Rule would seem wise.

I just upgraded my Samsung ATIV smart PC tablet from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1.  I should have checked the web before doing this.  The WiFi driver for the Intel Centrino Advance-N 6235 would no longer connect to any networks.  The after-upgrade installed driver is version 15.10.3.2 from Intel.  I found “version” 16.7.0 for Windows 8.1 at the Intel website.  I went for the file Wireless_16.7.0_De164.exe; downloaded and copied it to a USB stick and ran it on the Samsung.  Double-clicking on the driver executable launched a strange WiFi image with green cycling dots which closed without saying it did anything.  I was expecting it to extract driver files.  When I looked at the driver version it was updated to version 15.10.5.1.  According to Intel, I have the right version but I was still unable to connect.  Doing some more Googling, I found this link.  I followed steps 1 (uninstall old Intel PROSet/Wireless Software); and 2 (install newest driver); and 3 (turn off “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power”)…No luck!  I needed to turn off the UPnP on the router.

With all this pain I am tempted to wipe the Windows 8.1 OS and load Linux.

Below are some recommended online courses on programming:

http://scratch.mit.edu/ While for kids, it gets one to think about programming control structures in a fun way. Basically drag and drop programming.

http://www.codeavengers.com/#looking Again for a slightly younger audience, but the courses are good.

http://www.codecademy.com/learn Another fun and free site. I’d probably take the Ruby class (assuming you did the Javascript one from code avengers).

Once you have some training under your belt, you can play around at http://www.programmr.com/

And if you feel you need more online training, a good subscription site is https://www.codeschool.com/

While an older language, I am still very fond of Pascal.  You can learn Pascal/Delphi at http://www.pp4s.co.uk/index.html and http://delphi.about.com/od/beginners/a/delphicourse.htm and http://delphi.wikia.com/wiki/Delphi_Videos

When the in-app upgrade call to action looks like this:

I have my concerns about the future quality of the software.

• TEAM
  • Was the technology built by employees or contractors?
  • Which are the key resources?
    • Are those resources still employees?
  • Current team members and roles of each?
• OPERATIONS
  • Where/how is the solution hosted/deployed?
  • What internal security controls are in place?
  • How does the software scale as new business is on-boarded?
    • What is the on-boarding process?
    • Is development support needed in this process?
  • What version control system is used?
    • Approximately how many lines of code are under version control?
    • Change control process–traceability?
  • Development methodology used?
  • Product management
  • Release cycle cadence?
    • Ratio of new features vs. bug fixes per release.
  • Release notes?
  • Defect tracking system?
  • How are support issues escalated to development?
• SOFTWARE
  • What is the software written in?
  • Are any open source technologies used?
    • If so, which and under what licenses?
  • Is any 3rd party software in use and under what agreement?
  • Architectural review and code walk-through plus database design
  • Unique intellectual property (patents?)

Let R = the duration of the Requirements process in effort (e.g. person hours).

Then, a solid Design process generally trends towards 3R;

The Coding process typically trends towards 2R (assuming good Requirements and Design);

And the Testing process trends towards 2R as well.

So for a generic project, after properly gathering Requirements, overall effort could be estimated at ~8R.

Questions are the key to pushing forward…

According to Isidor Isaac Rabi, his mother would ask him “Izzy, did you ask a good question today?”  I think that is a much better question that “What did you learn today?”

And the wisdom is also written in the Bible: Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. Matthew 7:7

The one tip about using space space to end a sentence on an iPhone was worth watching this TED Talk by David Pogue.