Blogging Retrsopective (or four months in the review)

Mark Levison — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 20:41:40 +0000

Getting Things Done, Nightmare with Sears Canada, Scrum and Photography are just some of the subjects that I’ve written about in my first four months of blogging. If you’ve read every post I’ve ever written (Hello to Ben and David), stop now, this one will add nothing new. Here are my top posts as chosen by me (far more interesting than letting a computer do all the work).

Tools

Getting Things Done!!! Can’t Keep Track of all the tasks you have to do? Need a better Tool to Implement GTD? Always chasing little scraps of paper around the office? Then consider "My Life Organized" (MLO) as a task manager…

Trying to recover files from a corrupt NTFS drive? A friend just asked me what tool I use to recover files from a corrupt NTFS filesystem…

Can Agile methods be applied outside software development? Join the discussion
I’ve always been intrigued by the application of Agile methods outside of Software Development. Beyond Toyota what other systems use or can benefit from an Agile approach to problem solving.

Nightmare with Sears Canada or when to purchase an extended warranty?
Adrian on Hardware 2.0 quoting a study from consumer reports says that you probably don’t need that extended warranty. However there are just sometimes when you really do need one.

Key Tricks in writing for the Web or more lessons learned at BarCamp2 in Ottawa
Make your keypoints in the first paragraph, include your keywords in the title and url. 150 words is all you have to capture your readers attention.Software Development

Tired of Notepad? Want a better text editor?
I’ve spend alot of time playing with little bits of text – sometimes from files, sometimes copy and pasted from some other app. I quickly grew tired of the built-in Notepad and all its limitations.

Want to get the best Life from your Lithium-Ion battery?
A lithium-ion battery provides 300-500 discharge/charge cycles. Do you know how to get the best life out of your batteries?

Photography

Is the Canon 400D/Rebel XTi – worth the price?
Unlike the D80, the 400D has only been around for a couple of months, so many of my favorite reviewers only have Initial tests up. However there are enough reviews out to give an excellent idea of the strengths and weaknesses of EOS400D.

Nikon D80 – hot or not
Want to to find the best reviews of the D80 and skip rest? This post is place to start. By now I’ve found over twenty reviews of the D80 and mostly they just repeat themselves. This post is your guide to the reviews.

Software Development

Scrum in a Nutshell or 5 minutes to learn scrum
Heard the buzz about Scrum want to learn more? Want to get a sense of what it is and why many teams choose to use it?

Too many bugs making it to production? The role of QA in Agile/Scrum
Do your team members spend a lot of time interpreting bug reports? The traditional waterfall QA model is broken.

Online Code Reviews suck – even Guido van Rossum can’t fix that
Guido van Rossum has created a new tool project called Mondrian for online code reviews. But even Guido can’t solve the fundamental problems of an online code review. Nothing beats face to face communication.

Nasty catch with: Royalty free licensing of the Office User Interface?
MS just announced the royalty free licensing of the Office User Interface. At first glance this seems like a very generous offer since it includes much detail on how to what behaviors you must implement (Ribbon resizing anybody?).

Top 8 Agile Books: Beyond the Basics
Now you’ve read the basic introductory books to Agile Software development and you want to learn more, here’s my recent reading list…

Too much abstraction?? Bah Humbug
Ted Neward laments the habit of building: "building abstraction layers on top of abstraction layers on top of abstraction layers…

Best Introductions to SCRUM
Looking for a good online introduction to Scrum? Here are my favorites

Retrospective Agility
"Retrospective Agility" by Tim MacKinnon (part of a long pdf – too bad you can’t easily link inside these beasts) is a great starting point for running a retrospective.

Influence Science Practice

Influence – How and why does it work?
I’ve never read a book twice and not since undergrad have I taken notes on a book. Yet Robert Cialdini’s "Influence Science and Practice” is so engaging that I’m enjoying a second read.

Influence: Science and Practice – other sources
After my introductory notes, I’ve received a few inquires about more notes on Cialdini’s Influence Science and Practice. So I dug around on the web and offer up my discoveries.

Why are we so easily influenced? Weapons of Influence
Do you ever walk into a clothing store just to buy a suit and walk out having bought the suit, tie, belt and several shirts? This chapter will explain what just happened.

Food

Cafe Chez Victor
I’ve never lined up to pay my restaurant bill but last Tuesday night at Chez Victor it was so busy that I had to.