Technology

I've written about the Burn Down Art site before. One unexpected result of the site is that people are visiting it based on a variety of different search terms and a few aren't getting the data they really need.

Template Burn Down Chart - Excel, Google Spreadsheet, OpenOffice.org

One thing that a lot of people have been looking for is an example or template version of a burn down chart that they can use for themselves. I won't claim that this is the best chart, but it's simple and it works pretty well.

A couple of suggestions:

• It counts your stories and sets them for number of stories to burn down
• It will count the days in your sprint and decrement the expected stories remaining row by that amount
• There is a row to show how to add a story mid-way through the sprint
• Some people like to add more columns to the raw data showing the priority and the status
• Some people like to add formatting to the 0/1 cells to show when it became a 0 as a more visual indicator on the data sheet.

Regarding the Google Spreadsheet - I created both of these documents using Google Spreadsheets and then exported them. But there's no way for me to share the current burn down spreadsheet from Google Docs to the rest of the world to use as a template. Bummer! However, you can import either of the attached documents and it will work just fine. Enjoy!

Nearly four years ago I created my first screencast about using iCal calendars in Google Calendar. At the time I used Wink (free) which is a fun tool and has some interesting features, but it's also a bit limited and time consuming to build the videos. Then I started using Camtasia from TechSmith (~$800), which is also a decent tool but is only compatible with Microsoft and isn't particularly fun to use.

Life with iShowUHD Pro

When I moved to a Mac a year ago I started using iShowUHD which costs $30 or $60 (I went for the $60 version) but has a lot of different options that are pretty confusing. I used iShowUHD to do a few short screencasts and then used it to record a live webinar so that we could share the webinar after the fact. It's impossible to redo a webinar - you've got people on the line who don't want to call back in, etc. And unfortunateley, iShowUHD failed to record the video. The audio was recorded fine, but the video stopped working after 10 minutes. I mailed support, upgraded to a newer version and the problem persists. So, I decided to look around for alternatives.

Screenflow: Screencasting Nirvana

I tried out the demo version of Screenflow ($100). The interface is drastically simpler than any of the other tools. It records everything and lets you zoom, rotate, re-arrange, etc. in its editing tools. The editing tools are perhaps one of the best features. They are enormously simple and yet very powerful. I've long wanted to do slow-motion and fast motion in iMovieHD, but it's simply not possible (this depends on your version of MacOS/iLife).

This was my second New Tech meetup (review of July meetup) and it was much better than last time, which is saying a lot because last time was pretty good. Perhaps that was because this was the 2 year anniversary, perhaps it was because all the demos were from TechStars, perhaps it was because I got there earlier so I could partake in the beverages and announcemens (like the wifi username/password).

Once again I'm keeping track of presentation software, browser, operating system, and this time I'm also keeping track of any software used to build their website and what their YSlow! rating is for their homepage.

EventVue Providing "community" Features to Conferences

Used Keynote and Firefox on mac osx. Blog: WordPress. YSlow: "C" (73).

EventVue participated in TechStars2008 and presented about a year ago at the NewTech Meetup. 2 weeks after they presented at the NewTech Meetup, they closed $250,000 in venture capital (they were very proud of this and challenged this year's crop to do the same).

In the past year, they've supported 28 conferences with their software (~2 conference signups per month). They signed up 9 new conferences in the last month.

The point is to make your time spent at the conference more valuable by helping you connect with conference attendees you already know or should know. They did a demo on the Defrag 2008 site where you can click on "who from my network is going" and also "invite people who aren't going" based on your LinkedIn network.

I recently received the following email and thought it would be good to share my answer.

To your knowledge is it acceptable to drop the use of www. before your web site?

This is not only acceptable, there are some people who feel that it's valuable to stop doing it in general.

However, the answer really depends on the context of the question.

Using www. in Email Clients

Send an email to yourself with the following text:

1) example.com
2) www.example.com
3) http://www.example.com
4) http://example.com

For me, the third and fourth are automatically formatted as clickable links but the first and second are not. So, the third and fourth are more likely to be noticed and clicked on by users of email software like mine. This is, of course, dependent on how and where people read their emails and varies wildly.

Also, as your eye scans through a body of text the second one is easier to recognize than the first one. However, some people feel that for emails the third format is disruptively long.

WWW or not For Search Engines

Another consideration has to do with search engine performance. If you have some links to your site that point to both versions this can confuse the search engines about your site. Most search engines have figured this out or provide tools to tell them which one is the "right" one, but it's best not to have the problem at all. You can use a "301 redirect" to forward the users (and search engines) to your preferred version and prevent the problem in the first place. If you are unsure how to do this, your website developer should be able to help you.

Final Decision on WWW or not?

This is a pseudo transcript I took of the Hivelive podcast from ColoradoStartups.com. When I read about HiveLive I was really curious because they are basically a hosted provider of a "social publishing platform" and it just so happens that I'm a developer who uses an Open Source "social publishing platform".

John Kembel's history:

• design consulting firm (like ideo)
• dodots - thin client browser/widgets before Dashboard was cool
• hivelive: "enterprise social software"
  • tap into power of social networks
  • marketing communication vehicles
  • amplify lead generation, insights, support
  • flexible, cost effective, on demand, platform

2006 Founded Hivelive

• Existing solutions are social software packages (blogs, wikis, forums)
• They were either overly generic or inflexible
• They didn't allow sharing
• HiveLive is a unified platform - permissions and content richness "not just blogs/wikis/forums" for sharing

Existing Solutions vs. HiveLive

• One common approach is to stitch together lots of technologies
• People take a blogging platform, a separate wiki, a separate forum, social networking and try to build build unified package
• The results are not good
• So, don't staple together a bunch of solutions
• HiveLive: Start with social networking, add on "hives" to share information

Why is social networking important to businesses?

• humans are social
• communities where socialization is part, but rather than being the focus, the business is the focus
• tie business to customers - delivers lead generation, loyalty, insights, support all in one trust based relationship

HiveLive Competitors?

• Hivelive is different in that they use building block rather than integrating point solutions
• Configuration is via "clicking not coding"

I was recently asked how I create the screencasts on this site. This has been an evolving process.

Wink from Debugmode

I used a piece of software called Wink to create the screencasts. It has the benefit of providing the "next/previous" widgets which are nice. A drawback is that it creates snapshots of the screen in bitmap and then merges them together into flash. So, you can only use the Wink editor to edit the screencasts.

CamTasia - Full Featured, Full Price

For a Drupal Dojo Session about CVS I used the CamTasia recording system. It was pretty good, but is quite expensive. I don't think the price is justified in the features that it offers. CamTasia is basically an all-in-one solution which is great in a lot of ways, but, as often happens with all-in-one solutions, it isn't the best in many ways.

Krut - Cross platform Java Recorder

For my own projects, I now use Krut which is cross-platform and creates regular movies/sound files which you can then edit using standard movie editors. The drawback to standard movies is the lack of "next/previous" navigation - but most movie players will give you a progress slider which is good enough.

Voice Recording

I had been using just a plain old headset/microphone combo unit which I used also for VOIP calls. I now have a Rode Podcaster and use a pop filter which makes it super easy to provide high quality sound.