Updates-a-plenty

- Work -

Today we had our "Sprint" #3 kickoff meeting for most of the day. GAIC is using the Scrum as its agile project management methodology. Basically, in order to enable the project team to adapt to changing requirements the project is divided into many "sprints". Prior to each sprint set tasks are picked to be completed in that sprint, and their efforts estimated. During the sprint a "scrum" meeting is held each day where everyone gives a 2 minute description of what they did, what they are doing, and what impediments they have.

From the few meetings we have already had, it seems like a good plan in theory .... we will have to wait and see how well it works out, but I have heard good things. It is definitely a better plan than a monolithic waterfall model, but it really depends on the PM and how well the team can follow the guidelines. Only time will tell. ;)

This new sprint I have been tasked with writing up a new set of web services that will expose the billing system's account information and policy information to users who request it via the IVR system (Interactive Voice Response). I am psyched that I will be getting to do some real development and development with new things. I have no idea if my estimates for the work will be anywhere near correct, but we will see.

- Life -

The other night I made some really good risotto. I sauteed some chicken with peppers and then made up some risotto with various herbs, chicken broth, white wine, onions and garlic. At the end I added a stick of goat cheese, some parmesan, and the chicken and peppers. It was very yummy.

Not a whole lot has been going on other than work, working out (which I am glad to say I have been doing a decent amount of), sleeping, and trying to help Em study. Em found a flier at the rec. center saying they were going to have dodgeball leagues in April. I let our "activity committee" know and we may be doing that instead of indoor soccer for the spring. :-D

Yesterday I found this link (can't remember from where). Its from the Instructables.com website which I read every once in a while. It has some great tutorials on it for really out-there projects. I would love to make a set of invisible book shelves for our apt even if I have no idea where to put them. Maybe some day when we have our own house. Either way they are pretty cool.


- Tech -

Unfortunately I haven't had time or the chance to work on my mosaic project in the past few weeks. I spent some time this past weekend researching various methods of working with very large image files, but haven't gotten any more code hammered out really. This is also due to the fact that the latest code I wrote is sitting on the HD of a machine in Sark's office which I don't have daily access to. Hopefully I will be able to stop by on my way home tomorrow so I can start it back up. I want to rework some of the design and get the code into a new Subversion server on my new Mac so that I can track my changes and various attempts better. Also, if I can come across a free license for Jira I would really like to setup some project stuff and bug tracking for it so that I can keep track of what I am doing between coding sessions. If I can't get a copy of Jira, I may setup Trac or something like it (although I don't really want to have to setup new programming environments just to run the bug/project tracking software).

Last night I finally got around to using SuperDuper to backup my iMac to my external HD. So far I have to say I am fairly impressed. The interface is clean, simple, and straightforward. The initial backup (which is a full 1:1 backup took under 2 hours ... subsequent backups will be "smart" and just do the files and data that has changed). I am still on the fence if I will buy the "pro" version. It gives you some extra features, scheduling, etc. Things I want but I can probably do some other way.

On a somewhat interesting note, yesterday afternoon I was talking to a coworking about if there was a way to sync google calendar with iCal. From what I have found online it looks like you can only do read-only sync's each way assuming you publish your iCal to some WebDav server. However, yesterday we found a program some people are working on called SpanningSync. It allows you to sync both systems read/write and it will sync changes almost immediatly. Only problem was that it is currently in private beta .... well it was when we found it around 4pm. As of 6pm they opened it up for a public beta test ... and took it back down around 10 b/c their servers were maxed out. I didn't find out until this morning. I guess the early bird does catch the worm. After looking into it more and reading that it is probably either subscription based or a lifetime fee to use the end product ... and that it may use an intermediate server to sync the data ... I probably won't use it when its done. But the product is really cool none the less.