Hollitech started scrumming

Hollitech started scrumming. For our new generation retail application we adopted Scrum as the methodology. The concept was welcomed by the project team and accepted by the company directors.
Today we had the first stand up meeting, the response was very good, team looks motivated.

Pachoo's Story: Discovering The True Purpose In Life!

My Ex-colleague Ms. Sumitra Ramachandran has got her first book published.

Her eye for literature was often appreciated even when she was working for Alamy.
The book is available for purchase at:
http://www.dogearsetc.com/mainpage.jsp?type=2&id=36533.

The synopsis of the book says, simple story on how knowing your true purpose in life, changes the way you live! It's for all those who love a good story.

Lively - The VR Chat from Google

Google has released its own virtual world: Lively. Lively is available through a browser plugin for Firefox and Internet Explorer. It is Windows only for now. Lively does not feature one coherent world like Second Life but splits worlds up into different rooms. Lively was originally developed as a 20% project by Niniane Wang.

Lively runs completely in the browser and you use your Google account to log in and create your own avatars. Within the world, you can interact with other users. You can also watch YouTube clips on virtual TVs and share your own photos.

Users can choose from a number of preset animations for their characters, ranging from shaking hands with others, to applauding, crying, etc. By double clicking on certain items in the virtual world.

Progressive Enhancement and Graceful degradation

For any developer the browsers are considered as the most hostile development environment. Different browsers behave in different ways; there are text only browsers which will not render your MIME types like images and videos. There are browsers which will render only a specific sub set of HTML and JavaScript and so on.

When you develop a public web site or a web based application; developing a compatible application is very important. More often compatibility is equated to support.

According to Yahoo; the support is not providing the same user experience to all, but it is to support the tool the end user has. It is to present content the end user can understand.

The providers cannot ignore the users which are using an inferior tool to read the provided information. For example; no TV broadcasting agency can say they will support only color TV transmissions; they should make sure that the programs they broadcast will be received by the Black & White TV users as well.

The two concepts highlighted by Yahoo for the above context are; Progressive EnhancementGraceful degradation.

Progressive Enhancement - This concepts puts the Content at the center and allows the user to receive more.

Graceful degradation - This prioritize Presentation and and permits less widely used browsers to receive less, and give less to the user.

And there are 5 rules to Progressive Enhancement they are,

1. enrich Content with through , explicit markup.
2. Test core functionality with HTML only.
3. Enhance layout by externally linked CSS.
4. Enhance behavior by externally linked Javascript.
5. Respect end user browser preferences.

A related article is available in Yahoo UI Library on Graded Browser Support (GBS).

PMO Podcast

I have been blogging about my favorite podcast in my last few feeds ; the PM podcast. Today I have a new finding 'The PMO podcast'. The PMO podcast is in there for quite a long time. It helps the professional to learn, understand and explore the possibilities on a PMO set up and the challenges therein. I found this podcast from the International Community for Project Managers (ICPM)

Scheduling Professional credential from PMI

PMI is introducing a new credential for the project management practicing professionals. The new credential is PMI-SP ( Scheduling Professional). This is the first credential to validate your experience as a serious scheduling professional. If you have been juggling with CPM . PERT and forward and backward passes; this is a good opportunity.
The PMI also announced a 50% cash back for the first 100 candidates register for the examination. The pre-requisites for the PMI-SP is similar to PMP and the examination fee is $ 670 for a non-member and $520 for a member.
The details are available from PMI-SP web site

Image courtesy PMI

Project Management lessons from Britney Spears

You must be wondering what Ms. Charming naughty gritty Britney Spears can do in Project management. Believe me!! There are a lot to learn from her for a seasoned PM. Now listen to Fichtner's Project Management pod cast.

The Episode no 92 - Listen

Live Space Mandira

The virtual techdays hostess gorgeous Mandiara has a live space and it was being the spot of a mashup contest.

If you want to see the latest of web2.0 that Microsoft offers visit Mandira Bedi

Microsoft Virtual Techdays rocking !!! don't miss

Microsoft india and MSDN jointly hosting Virtual Techdays on 9th and 10th of April. Don't miss the sessions on Microsoft windows 2008 server, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008. There are lots of prizes to be won by joining quiz online between the sessions.

Microsoft virtual techdays

Remebering me again!!!

DSCN2111
Originally uploaded by vipinkailas

Be the model for an artist is not an easy achievement. This one is from my archive in Flickr. And I was also testing Flickr's direct blogger posting service.

Data Models - Free resourc to learn

Barry williams database design expert gives more than 500 kick-start free data models in his team web site Database Answers.

10 of his database designs are already featured in SQL Server express Starter databases.

Matsys technical forum blog

My current company, the offshore development center of PT Hollitech; Matsys infotech Pvt Ltd has a technical forum. They started a blog yesterday. The blog can be accessed from http://tech-xplore.blogspot.com/