as managers of corporate systems, (we) need to keep in mind that technology on its own cannot generate change. The users themselves have to understand and be willing to embrace the change.
Some tasty bits on integrating comments from Beanstalk check-ins into Basecamp. In conversations with a business partner today, sounds like Jira can do the same, so will explore that further as time permits.
"Being agile is about using the simplest tools available."
So true. I am currently in a tizzy trying to put together the best mix of tools for my growing team of iOS devs and external customers. We have been using Basecamp and Assembla, two competing products with pros and cons. Assembla combines SVN with ticketing (which I need) but is butt ugly and cumbersome. Basecamp is gorgeous and simple but missing ticketing and SVN. I can add repository management with Beanstalk (which I like and use with one of our clients), but ticketing seems to be the outlier. Sifter is being tested which has a clean and simple interface but is not the cheapest solution (nor the most expensive). And it does not play with Basecamp. Atlassian's Jira is $10 a month and we use that with a client, so it's familiar. It supposedly works with Basecamp, but only to feed comments via XML into the message stream. Plus, it's painfully ugly. Yeah, yeah, I know, these tools don't have to be pretty, just look at the Terminal. But, when our business is creating beautiful and functional apps, if you are stuck in ugly, hard to use tools all day, it kinda saps your creativity.
I posted a question to 37Signals to see what they do/recommend for ticketing. Beanstalk actually integrates nicely with Basecamp (you can add comments to your checkins that tie into a Basecamp task) so the repository side of things can be handled elegantly. We'll see about tickets. I just want one set of easy to use, web based tools that don't make my eyes and brain hurt.
The above article at http://highnotes.posterous.com/how-to-do-scrumxp-with-basecamp is a good jumping off point for using Basecamp with scrum (or any agile methodology). I'm sure I'll be posting more about this as the process of filling out the team toolbox continues. Big thanks to Ryan at High Notes for providing this article and viewpoints.
My new software crush. If I weren't so busy with two software releases due Monday morning, I would spend time this weekend playing with and learning this tool. Perhaps if I had been using this tool, we wouldn't be working this weekend. No, that's not really true, but what is true is that this is one of those examples of a cool tool I never heard of before today but stumbled upon while looking for something completely unrelated. Click the link above to check it out with me.
An interesting twist on simple blog publishing. Utilizes Dropbox (yet another reason to use that awesome file sharing/cloud storage toolset).
Warning - humorous rant coming. If you don't have a sense of humor, walk away now. You've been warned.
I have been an Instagram user for some time now, and I guess I am a purist when it comes to wanting all the pictures posted there to be iPhone images, taken with the app, of interesting things. Ok, maybe not all interesting things, but applying a cool filter to a stupid thing usually passes for art in my book. Lately, a look at the Popular photos on Instagram reveals maybe 3 good photos and an asemblage of the following that we can all do without.
1. Screenshots of your notes app, with stupid sayings. Really, we appreciate that you are 13 and consider yourself witty, but it's not really a photograph. And not really witty. Post it to Facebook. Or MySpace. With glitter text.
2. Mirror pics of the ladies - really? Considering the average age of the girls in these shots is probably averaging 15, just looking at the Popular page means we are all going to jail now.
3. Image not taken with Instagram. What's the point? Flickr too pedestrian for you? We want to see pics you took with your iPhone, that showcase your "Rainman" aesthetic of traffic signs and bridges, not professional images shot with a D3 and then edited in Photoshop. That's just cheating. Nice pics, but cheating.
4. Professional model images (ok, pornstar images). If the URL in your profile sends us to a pay per view site of you more naked than in your Instagram picture, you just got busted. Pun intended. I'm all for helping out a working guy or gal, but hey, wrong medium. Just sayin.
5. Justin Bieber - and not the real Justin Bieber. Get a haircut. And step away from the mirror. And get a haircut.
Bonus thing: just substitute Demi Lovato or Selena Gomez into number 5, sans the haircut. Number 2 now applies.
Ugh, this is taking forever. Die already IE6, and take some of your dinosaur customers with you.
Because it comes up so often with colleagues, family and friends, I am posting this Apple tech article on battery life (and preserving it). While this article covers laptops, there are links to iOS device battery life and preservation as well.
When you've got a super sexy product, you can make a super sexy website about it. These guys are awesome and they have an iPhone product in the works. Been using this email client since it left beta and love it more and more each day. That's the definition of a great software product, the more you use it, the more you love it and rely on it.
