Scrum seminar

I attended a short Scrum seminar today. Mostly an introduction to Scrum. I have never personally worked with Scrum, but I have colleagues who (almost) work with it.

One of the problems with Scrum is that it is not so easy to implement. It is not just the development department that needs to accept it, it must also be accepted higher up in the chain: product owner. The product owner must make time to get involved in the development with respect to features and prioritization. And this work is not something you can do one time per 6 month period, it must be done at each "sprint" (usually about 2-4 weeks).

One thing a learned from the seminar that I did not know was the positive side effect of Scrum: team spirit. It can be used as a motivational tools to get more out of developers!


Here is what Wikipedia says about Scrum

Ordered a web camera (Logitech C300)

 I have now placed an order for a web camera. Logitech C300:

I did a little research and a got to the conclusion that this camera should be a great budget camera.

Chat session with HP

Today I had a go with HP chat support.

The HP chat has very limited browser compatibility. Main compatible browsers Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2? What? Really? With Internet Explorer 8 it was possible to enter a "compatibility mode". This is something you should really fix HP!

Lennart Schedin : Where to a I buy an adapter (one 3.5mm male mic and one audio to 3.5 mm special combined audio/mic) as this link describes: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01633145&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&rule=15961&product=3892398
[An agent will be with you shortly.]
[You are now chatting with Sam Gale .]
Sam Gale : Welcome to HP Total Care for Notebooks. My name is Sam Gale. Please give me a few moments while I review your problem description details.

NOTE: For security reasons, PLEASE DO NOT send credit card information via chat.

Sam Gale : Hi Lennart.
Sam Gale : How are you?
Lennart Schedin : Fine thanks!
Sam Gale : Great!
Sam Gale : As I understand that you want to purchase an adapter, am I correct?
Lennart Schedin : Yes!
Lennart Schedin : I have a "normal" headset and I want to use it with my Compaq Mini.
Sam Gale : To assist you better, may I know the Product number and Serial number of your Notebook? You can check these numbers on a non-Microsoft sticker when you flip the notebook over. Please provide the numbers beside s/n and p/n on the sticker?
Lennart Schedin : s/n: XXXXXXXXXX
Lennart Schedin : p/n: XXXXXXXXXX
Sam Gale : Thank you.
Sam Gale : Lennart, you can purchase the part at any nearest store.
Sam Gale : I will provide you the contact details of our regional support.
Sam Gale : They will help you where to purchase the part.
Lennart Schedin : Probably not... The special connector required for the Mini is not that common.
Lennart Schedin : I will probably buy an external USB sound card instead, since it is so hard to find a 3.5mm audio adapter.
Sam Gale : Let me check.
Sam Gale : Are you looking for the same special connector which is there in the link?
Lennart Schedin : Yes (one the right in the picutre).
Lennart Schedin : My scenario is: I want to use skype. And my headset has two 3.5mm plugs (one for audio and one microphone).
Lennart Schedin : My Compaq mini has only 1 input a combined 3.5 mm audio and mic (with 4 analog wires, instead of the normal 3)
Sam Gale : Okay.
Lennart Schedin : (In my opinion it is rather stupid to use a combined input, but I guess it was used to save space on the Compaq mini).
Sam Gale : Thank you for elaborating the issue.
Sam Gale : May I have 3 to 5 minutes of your time while I check for information?
Lennart Schedin : One workaround is for me to buy an external sound card. Something like this: http://www.coolgear.com/images/USBG-X2X11.jpg
Lennart Schedin : Sure, I have up to 10 min!
Sam Gale : Thank you.
Sam Gale : Thank you for being online.
Sam Gale : I am afraid that this part may not be available with HP.
Sam Gale : The only option would be to check with your local dealership.
Lennart Schedin : I understand! That was also my guess. :)
Lennart Schedin : Well an external USB sound card is easy to find. And it costs less then $20. So that will be the solution I'm going with.
Lennart Schedin : Thanks for you help!
Sam Gale : Thank you for your time and patience.
Sam Gale : My pleasure
Lennart Schedin : Bye!
Sam Gale : Is there anything else I may assist you with?
Lennart Schedin : No that's it!

So HP chat support could not help me find any adapter (probably because the 3.5mm plug is so custom). Worth noting is that HP support personnel does not know every computer at the top of their head, it took a while under I managed to explain that my Compaq Mini has such a custom plug.

Hibernation times: Ubuntu 10.04 vs Windows XP Home

I have two OS's installed on my netbook. I wanted to test how long it would take to go to and resume from hibernate. I think this time is an important time, because I always use hibernation on my netbook.

Computer: Compaq Mini 730eo (Atom N270 1,6 GHz with 4200 rpm harddrive)
OS 1: Windows XP Home (Service Pack 3)
OS 2: Ubuntu Netbook Remix 10.04
Scenario: One Firefox instance open that has loaded Gmail.

Time to boot computer to bootloader: 8 s. This number can be added to the below times to get the total startup time.

	Ubuntu	Windows
To hibernate	48 s	14 s
From hibernate	40 s	18 s

Why is Windows so much faster? I don't know. One guess I have is that Ubuntu saves the entire RAM to disc, including caches and buffers. But that would be rather crazy, so it is probably some other explanation.

How to create a bootable Windows install cd from an i386 folder

So you have bought a HP computer? Or some other brand that does not supply you with the proper Windows installation discs? If you are lucky you can find a "i386" folder on one of your hard drive. This folder can be used to create a bootable cd. I'm going to describe the Windows XP Home edition version on how to do this.

1. Create a new folder on your computer (for example c:\XPHOME_SETUP\).
2. Copy the i386 folder into the folder created above so you have  c:\XPHOME_SETUP\i386\
3. Create a file in c:\XPHOME_SETUP\ called "WIN51IC". The contents of the file should be "Windows " and a line break (note the blank space after the "s"). Other versions of Windows XP require some other files (see http://www.howtohaven.com/system/createwindowssetupdisk.shtml)
4. Install nLite (it is an amazing freeware tool that easily can create custom Windows bootable CDs). For Vista there is vLite.
5. In nLite point out the c:\XPHOME_SETUP\ folder and follow the programs rather simple GUI to create an ISO.
6. Optional: download a service pack from Microsoft website and integrate ("slipsteam") it into the installation with nLite.
7. Burn the ISO (I used CDBurnerXP)
8. Boot!

How to convince a company to start using a dependency management system

I have tried two dependency management systems (Ivy and Maven) for personal use. I clearly see the advantage of using this. But it is long way from convincing myself to convincing a company. For a company to start using it, it must have a return of investment analysis: How much time must we spend and what do we gain?

In my experience the following things happens when using Ivy:

• It is easier to develop since the source code is often (always?) included in the libraries
• It is easier to release because there is a convention on how to store and upload artifacts/binaries
• Checkouts is faster because libraries is cached and disc usage on source repository server is less.
• It is easier to mange dependencies between own projects with clear definition of what version of project A works with what version of project B.
• Release notes and other documentation can be published and stored along side with binarys because it all is an artifact.
• It takes time to educate developers
• It requires some one with experience with Ivy to setup an initial environment (ivy.xml build.xml and a local corporate server to store and cache artifacts)
• When using Eclipse to build there will often be build errors due to poorly written plugins (will probably be better with IvyDE 2.1.0).

How to delete password or change user login name for Subclipse

I got a new user to use when logging in to a Subversion (SVN) repository. I use "Subclipse", a Eclipse SVN plugin. I had added a SVN repository with my old user:

Unfortunately there is no GUI to change username or password. The usernames and passwords are stored in a SVN client implementation specific way. If you use SVNKit:

the passwords are stored in the Eclipse keystring (along with many other password-alike things). If you delete this file (configuration/org.eclipse.core.runtime/.keyring) and restart Eclipse then you will be prompted to enter username and password again. Note: while deleting this file you will delete other things stored by other Eclipse plugins!