Project

Look how long this blog has been dormant! With the Winter solstice approaching I am reminded that darkness can again turn to light so I'm making an early New Year's resolution to post weekly once again. This is the first of those posts.

I've been digesting a lot of claims and ideas about the future. Things like cloud computing and Project Management 2.0 come to mind. One of those is a technology, a capability which may allow new practices. The other is a bit more foggy with a shifting definition. From Andrew Filev at Wrike software comes the Project 2.0 Definition 2.0:

Project Management 2.0 is an approach to managing projects that is brought to life by the use of Web-based, emergent, collaborative project management software and that focuses on collective intelligence, productivity and project leadership as the basic factors of project success.

Personally I think this definition misses at least one of the critical success factors that I've seen in projects. So I'm going to leap over 2.0 and start in with my derivation of Project Management 3.0. .

If you are familiar with my blog, you know I that I use it to help solidify my thoughts. So don't expect a manifesto at first, just some apparently random thoughts. The first is to reveal that the one basic factor of project success which went unsaid in the 2.0 definition is Trust.

Well, the sun must be out, because my cloud computing has gone away. I tried to upload a photo to illustrate my previous post at my usual photo-hosting site today, but it appears to have flickered out of existence for a while.

Here I get to rant about two things. First, what is it with the whole name of cloud computing? Sure, it is easy to draw the cloud on a whiteboard, but it appears to be some sort of magic word these days and people are getting remarkably excited about something which has been around for a long long time (in tech-years).

The second rant (or maybe it is a lesson) is that when the cloud evaporates there is nothing left. Just blue sky and the sun - or should that be SUN(TM).

If you are running your business in the cloud you should certainly take backing up or otherwise arranging for that rare sunny day when the clouds disappear. Every cloud has a silver lining, so it would seem that there is a business opportunity for an on-the-premises system which backs up everything as it goes into the cloud so you can support yourself in sunny weather. Something sitting at the edge.

With Windows 7 ready to release in two days, I thought I'd share my experience running it on an older laptop. The basic answer: Much better than Vista ever was. Here are the details:

Dell Latitude 800 circa 2004
2 GHz Pentium M processor
Windows Experience level 1.0!
2GB memory
This machine was never much of a performer even when new (see review here) and when I installed Vista on it on a lark it became unusable even for web-browsing.

So when Windows 7 was released to manufacturing (RTM) I installed it. Performance for everyday tasks like web browsing is acceptable. Applications work OK, but the more computation intensive they are, the slower they go. The main thing is that the operating system no longer chokes the machine to death. This has given the machine a new lease on life.

As part of the slim down program on this machine, I also decided to use Google Chrome which is billed as a slimmer and faster browser than the others. I'm pretty happy with it, but to reduce the computation and networking load I wanted to block all those spinning, flashing, video-playing ad's that show up on almost every website. Of course, Google makes the bulk of their revenue from serving ads, so the browser has no ability to block advertisements. Chrome doesn't offer any of the wide variety of ad-blockers like firefox does either. So I went to the most basic solution possible and used a hosts file to control what the browser finds and pointed it to the local machine for most of the annoying ad providers.

The way this works is that the URL for the ad which is embedded in the page has a domain name in it somewhere, for example google.com is a domain name. When you want to access that url, the machine goes to a DNS (domain name server) to find out where that domain is. For example, currently the IP address for this site is 74.200.29.57. If you query the DNS with "zo-d.com" that address is returned and the browser will go there. I won't go into details about DNS, except to say that for most operating systems there is what is called a "hosts" file which is looked at FIRST. It gives the IP address for domains, but because it is on your own machine you can edit it and specify what that address is.

So if you edit the hosts file and add a line pointing to your local machine instead of the real address

0.0.0.0 zo-d.com

then the browser will not find that host and will move on to the next thing it is supposed to do. Nothing will be downloaded, no scripts will run, nothing will flash or scroll across your screen. The browser will just skip right over it which is exactly what we want.

Editing the hosts file is simple and can be done with a text editor. The format is also simple, first the IP address you want it to use (0.0.0.0 or 127.0.0.1 will work for this) and then the host name. So if you want to block ads served by doubleclick.com, then add a line like this:

0.0.0.0 doubleclick.com

Of course this would be a tedious thing to do for all the things you would want to block, but someone has already done it for you. So just download the hosts file here and follow the instructions.

Now on Chrome this will leave some blank holes in the page which is kind of ugly, but I just want this machine to work so I don't care that much. But if I look at the holes, I find that Chrome is trying to look at those URLS and suggest a different address for them. This means that it is sending a message to google's server somewhere and trying to find an alternative URL. I don't want another better URL here and I don't want my browser sending more requests or creating anymore network traffic on my little old machine's struggling hardware. Fortunately, you can turn this feature off in Chrome by:

• Click on the wrench icon
  
• Click on "Options"
  
• Choose the "Under the Hood" tab
  
• Uncheck the "Show suggestions for Navigation errors" option.
  

There. That does it. The browser works much faster and reliably without loading and running all of that stuff that I don't care about.

There is probably some debate out there somewhere about the ethics of blocking ads. My hosting costs for this site are paid for by advertising as is much of the "free" stuff on the internet so I am generally in favor of them and I hope you to investigate any of the ads here that you find enticing and relevant, but this machine just won't run well without blocking them so I feel no remorse in this instance. Maybe in some small way it will encourage advertisers to make their ads consume fewer of my computing and network resources and find their way back to 2004.

An idea isn't responsible for the people who believe it.
~Don Marquis

A half-baked idea is okay as long as it's in the oven.
~Author Unknown

The way to get good ideas is to get lots of ideas, and throw the bad ones
away.
~Linus Pauling

Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it is the only one you have.
~Emile Chartier

An idea not coupled with action will never get any bigger than the brain
cell it occupied.
~Arnold H. Glasgow

OK, it's only an opportunity to show a few photos I took of the temporary section a while back, but they are closing the Bay Bridge to reroute traffic onto a new temporary section so that the rest of the construction of the new East Span can proceed.

The temporary section is supported by some of the slenderest concrete bridge columns I've seen

No, not the steel pipe columns, but the concrete ones. They are still quite slender but are packed with some beefy rebar cages. You could walk through the center of this one:

The canteliever section shown on the right in the photo below will be lifted out and traffic will run to the South on the temporary section.

This makes room for the new cable-stayed section (sorry no pictures until they build it) to connect between the convential concrete span on the East (shown below) and Treasure Island.

It is certain to be an exciting weekend for everyone involved. Operators will definitely be standing by.

I just read this blog post about being frustrated by search because it does not solve a user's problem. John Battelle writes:

But the next step is the harder one. I am not “smart” about how to buy a classic car. I don’t know enough to buy one with confidence. I don’t know what to ask about. I don’t know if it’s good or bad that an engine, electrical system, or transmission is original or rebuilt. I don’t know how one model does versus another in resale value, or insurance cost or…well, you get the picture. There’s a lot to consider, and I don’t know how to value everything. The world of classic cars is complex, like most major decisions. In short, there’s no easy way to decide in this case

In this case his problem is he is not "smart". But can a simple search make you smarter? Or move you any closer to your goal? I'm reminded of the old joke where a man rubbing a lamp finds a genie and commands "Make me a Martini". The next panel would show the man to be composed of gin, vermouth and an olive. A single simple request is just too ambiguous to respond to. And to be honest, anyone who has searched for any length of time has learned that you MUST put in enough information to have the search engine help you.

My point here is that to solve any complex problem, and looking up something on Wikipedia is not a complex problem, the problem must be explored and defined sufficiently before it can be solved. As a consultant I find this to be what I spend much of my time on. The client request may be simple: "We want to do X". But to get to a solution of that problem involves understanding the current situation (in John's car example - what level of expertise does the user already possess), understanding the end result (what does doing "X" do for you), understanding the tolerances around the solution (would "W' or "Y" be good enough?), and understanding what effort the client wants to expend on achieving that result (In John's classic car example, is he actually going to read all this stuff and track down the right kind of hose clamps? or is he just having fun imagining how nice it would be to own a classic car). The typical search box on a search engine does not allow this sort of input which is essential to giving an appropriate response. And knowing your search history, which may help to some extent, is still never going to understand your intent.

I don't know why using a search engine should lead to frustration any more than one would be frustrated by the responses from the magic 8 ball. Becoming a professional tennis player requires more than a trip to the library, Becoming a classic car expert requires more than a couple visits to Bing or Google. Imagining that it would be otherwise is apparently a recipe for frustration.

That said, perhaps the way search engines can help is by training people to search better. Give them search strategies which work. But I doubt that will help much. Like owning a classic car, most of the fun is in figuring it out yourself.

There is another issue embedded in the same post, that of making decisions, valuations and tradeoffs. It is probably a discussion for another time, but it all hinges on the quality of the information. In a world where information quality is uneven and can be gamed, I think this may be another windmill being tilted at.

I was at the De Young Museum viewing the King Tut exhibit and went up to the viewing tower which offers great views of San Francisco in every direction - assuming the weather is cooperating - and in September it is very cooperative. One of the features of this level is a giant aerial photo of the city mounted on the wall. You can see it in the picture above. The De Young is located on the map just above the left shoulder of the guy wearing the checked shirt.

When viewed from the side, the map reveals an interesting thing. Because the map can be touched, certain areas have been worn and are shiny. The shiniest spot on the map is the De Young museum itself. The other shiny spots reveal other areas of interest, and they are not really all what I'd expect. The other shiny spots are Van Ness Avenue, The Palace of the Legion of Honor and St. Mary's Cathedral.

I'd expect that some other more prominent landmarks would have been rubbed the same amount, but it doesn't appear to be the case. I guess my point is that you never can tell what people are interested in, given a choice. In this case, everything on the map has equal prominence, unlike those sorts of maps which highlight the attractions. The ones rubbed smooth here are not the typical tourist attractions, though they must serve as landmarks or familiar places to the museum visitors.

Windows 7 is coming out soon (October 22) and Microsoft wants you to celebrate and have a party. To encourage you they are giving out all sorts of stuff if you host a party:

All hosts will receive:

One limited Signature Edition Windows 7® Ultimate
One Deck of Playing Cards with Windows 7® Desktop Design
One Puzzle with Windows 7® Desktop Design
One Poster with Windows 7® Desktop Design
Ten Tote Bags with Windows 7® Desktop Design for hosts and guests
Also included in USA party packs:

One package of streamers for decoration
One package of balloons for decoration
One table top centerpiece for decoration
One package of Windows 7® napkins

Sign up here:
http://www.houseparty.com/windows7
Good Luck!

Click image to see at larger size

American Desert

A dry riverbed
hazy through summer skies
tracing a path to a white lake.

A circle of green
laid out by a length of pipe
awaiting the mower.

Through a smudgy window, landscape flies by
mocking months of walking in minutes flat.
oh Houston! calling me into darkness.

A line etched across the land
a light at the end of it
but nothing for miles.

East by Southeast, night accelerated
the grace of twilight punctuated by the beverage cart
the last of the light flees westward.

Oh Houston, damn your darkness
thief of evening, kidnapper
time to slide the shade and close my eyes.

Last night I replaced the screen (old one was cracked) with a new one from etech parts. It may just be because it is clean, but it looks a lot clearer and brighter than the old one. Since it is lit with a fluorescent, the new screen likely IS brighter. Unfortunately, the power connector for the backlight is hidden deep within the hinge so I had to remove the whole top cover and then put everything back together again - with no leftover screws.

With that done and Apple's new Snow Leopard OS X 10.6 just out, I installed upgraded it too. Went flawlessly, except that I needed to re-enter my wireless network key. I haven't checked all my apps yet, but I did hook up Mail to the corporate Exchange server - just a couple of clicks and it seems to work. Best $29 I ever spent on an OS.

The final thing is to get a new battery. It is showing "replace soon" as the status and it runs low very quickly. Still, it has been about three years so I can't complain too much.

It should come as no surprise that the hardware requirements of the Office 2010 suite continue to expand. The relationship between ever-increasing hardware capabilities and software which takes advantage of those capabilities is as inseparable as that between the chicken and the egg,

One way to attack the problem is pretty simple, make a thin client and put all the computing burden on the server. This is the approach that netbooks take. They have enough power to do basic tasks and rely on web-based applications for the rest of what you might want to do. The whole concept of cloud computing follows on this approach. It offloads the heavy database and computing loads (and the responsibility for building, maintaining and scaling them) to somewhere else than your PC.

But not everything can be done over a network. One area where control of and access to the servers is required is in giving demonstrations. You can't always count on being able to have access to a network or a port through a company's firewall so you HAVE to have a stand alone system. The tool of choice for this is the use of Virtual Machines. They can easily be copied and customized for a specific demo. Then the state can be frozen so it is always right back where you wanted it.

With Office 2010, a number of the compelling features make use of components which require a server (Sharepoint, Excel Services, SQL Server etc.) This makes them a heavy load for a virtual machine. Rumor is that at least 8GB of RAM is recommended to run one of these virtual machines. This requires a 64bit operating system in order to effectively use all that memory. It also requires a long time to load the virtual machine.

Some computer companies are already addressing the need with laptops capable of holding 16GB of ram and having space for 2 internal disk drives. The drive makers too are addressing it through the use of Solid State Drives (SSD's) which eliminate the rotating platters in typical drives with an array of semiconductor memory. This is similar to moving from a record player (some of you may not have seen one...) to an iPod. They offer nearly instant access to memory as there are no moving parts to worry about.

Prices are coming down on these and you can get a replacement drive of reasonable size for a couple hundred dollars:

One good source for information about how these perform is Christophe Fiessinger's Blog. Here is his benchmarking of how SSD's helped with his demo images:

Flying is a different way to look at the world. For much of it (passing through security, waiting at the gate, boarding etc.) I wish I could close my eyes and make it go away, but the view through the window sometimes redeems the whole flight.

But even that is not for certain. The clouds may present a featureless prarie or snowfield hiding the world below. Flying out of San Francisco this is often the case as cool fog covers everything. Other times a dull haze washes everything out. Some days though the landscape above and the landscape below each present themselves and make that window seat worthwhile.

Master Projects in Microsoft Project don't always behave the way you expect, especially if you are trying to iterate through all the tasks in them. The reason is that the file doesn't really contain the subprojects, it merely acts as a shell to display them. So if you are writing some code which has to work on a master project you need to take this into account.

The simplest explanation is an example. The code below will start with a master project, then find the list of subprojects, open each one in turn and display a message box with the project name. You can of course do whatever you want with the subproject as soon as you have it open.

A couple of things to note here. First, I'm using the mProj and sProj variables to reference the different projects I have open. We want to return to the master project at the end so I set mProj equal to the ActiveProject when we start and then return to it by calling mProj Activate at the end.

The second thing is that the subproject object only has a few properties. It is a reference to a project and not a project itself. We use the Path of the subproject to open the file that it is referring to and then use sProj to refer to that file once it is open. Just to be sure you get the point, subprojects point to the file, we are using a project variable to refer to that file when it is opened. You can't get typical project properties (not even Name) from subprojects. You only use the subproject object to get to the project.

It goes without saying that this is a trivial example. You should probably close it once you are done with it, and maybe even validate that it exists before you do anything with it, but I just wanted to make this as simple to follow as I possibly can.

Landed in Houston today and took a walk around after dinner. The weather is a bit steamy for my taste. I believe that this used to be the Enron building but is now occupied by Chevron.

What is Project 2010?

Project 2010 builds on the Project 2007 foundation to provide an end-to-end work management platform. The key investment areas are targeted at letting you choose the right tools that can evolve with you:

Enhance user experience and appeal

• Fluent user interface
• User controlled scheduling
• Powerful new views
• Web-based project editing

Improve execution with effective collaboration

• Integration with SharePoint Server 2010
• Richer workgroup collaboration
• Enhanced time/status tracking

Unify project and portfolio management

• Common user experience through full PPM lifecycle
• Improved demand management
• Better reporting and BI

Simplify deployment and extend interoperability

• Microsoft Exchange integration
• 64-bit compatibility of client and server
• No ActiveX dependency

So what does this mean? First "Fluent UI" is the Microsoft term for the "Ribbon" interface found on Office 2007 applications like Excel and Word. I've previously expressed my thoughts that of all the Office applications Project is the most modal and most likely to benefit from the Ribbon. I do not like the ribbon in other applications because it works against the muscle/mouse memory that I've built up over the years, but in Project I think this will be a good thing.

Next on the User Interface list is "User Controlled Scheduling". What does this mean? Well... I can't tell you. But I will assure you that people control freaks who use Project as a tool for Critical Path Method scheduling will immediately ask how it can be turned off. The rest of the project user community will adopt it immediately. I'm torn between the two, but am sure that I'll be spending a lot of time figuring out what it actually does and helping people with it.

"Powerful new views" are a good thing. The Gantt views in Project have been nearly unchanged for a decade. or more.

The "Collaboration" features are probably less noteworthy for desktop users, but for enterprise users they offer a great amount of functionality. I've argued over beers that Sharepoint is a better project management tool than Project. For the price of a beer you can have my opinion on this as well. Time tracking fixes are WAY overdue. As someone who often has to tell people "just say no" to Project 2007 timesheets, I fervently hope that they get it right this time.

Unification of Project and Portfolio management has been talked about before. The expectation here is that Portfolio Server and Project get along better - the UMT look and feel and architecture will fade and it will be assimilated. Good news. Microsoft bought the technology for a reason - to fill the holes in managing projects over the lifecycle. Working across the two version 2007 tools is not easy, the two don't really share a common object model or database, so anything here will help.

"Deployment and Interoperability" - Not much to say here. Note the 64bit part. It has been announced elsewhere that Project Server will be 64bit only along with sharepoint 2010, so start lining up new servers now. Oh, and that goodbye wave to ActiveX will feel good.

The announcement is also interesting for what it doesn't say. I'll leave speculation about what is not included to others. WIth Project and the rest of the Office Suite, Microsoft is looking more transparent about things than they have been in the past. This is a welcome change.