Falafel Software showcased ActiveFocus on Telerik's web site. This is a great illustration of what ActiveFocus can do and it can do a lot!  I was the lead developer for the Windows version of ActiveFocus and I have to say, Falafel has really taken this project to levels I never imagined. It is extremely easy to use and richly functional.

You have to see this video - watch the filtering capability on how the graphs interact with the grid - wow!

One thing Lino (the president of Falafel) discussed was how the skins can be customized for different industries. Therefore, the terminology can be customized to a specific industry. I need to add, that for those engaged in Agile development, it would be easy to rename requirements to stories, events to iterations and so forth.  AF also maintains important information like estimated and actual costs and efforts - critical for teams trying to achieve repeatable processes and cost analysis.

You'll hear in Lino's video that the team plans for integration into Microsoft's Team Foundation Server - that's smart!

Falafel software will be showing ActiveFocus at TechEd 2008 in Orlando, Florida in June 2008 and at the PMI Global Congress 2008 in Denver, Colorado in October 2008.

If I sound partial to ActiveFocus, I am. Having conceived the idea, developed its first iteration and then seeing it turn into a state of the art web application by a rock solid team has been exciting to say the least. I am looking forward to using it with my clients and I will be showing how to use ActiveFocus in an Agile (Agile/hybrid) development setting. More to come later. For now, CHECK IT OUT!

I decided to start experimenting with Blogengine.net, an open-source ASP.NET blogging platform.  Installation was brainless.  Basically, unzip the zip file which you download from here into a directory.  You have the option of downloading just the web site or you may download the entire source. I opted for the web site this time.  You'll need to add a virtual directory under IIS. Make sure it is configured for ASP.NET 2.0. The installation instructions are very good. Follow them and you'll be fine.  Literally, it took me less then 10 minutes to get this site going.

After installation I could run the site flawlessly - quite impressive.  First thing was to change the theme as I wasn't too happy with the default.  This was another simple task. Simply login with the username/password, admin/admin. You'll get an extra set of links for maintaining the blog.  I took care of two things right off, I changed the theme and added my own account.  One of the features of Blogengine.net is the ability to have multiple user accounts. 

I logged off and that was it. I had a blog. The next thing I wanted to do was to get it setup with Windows Live Writer (WLW).  This part didn't go so flawlessly. 

I followed the typically procedure of adding a new Weblog account.  I specified that this was another web log service (not one of the defaults in WLW).  The next page asks for the blog's URL and username/password, I entered those and pressed next.  The next dialog (see figure) surprised me because it asked for a provider type.  I was under the impression that WLW would detect all that information.  Further research indicates that this is not necessarily so.  After several attempts, I could not get WLW to detect my blog.  Fortunately, this can be done using the Metawebblog API (one of the items in the drop down). You'll need to enter the path to the api which is in the format:

http://thedomain/metaweblog.axd

so mine was http://camaro/blogengine/metaweblog.axd

After entering that information, WLW detected my blog and from what I can tell, functions properly. I'll continue to experiment with Blogengine.net and will report my findings. I'm going to be looking into adding additional pages (non blog pages) which is a feature I've been wanting in dasBlog but is not there.

In my post on Blogging Newsletters/Email said I would like to present "teasers" instead of the entire text of my posts in email/feeds so that readers would be encouraged to visit the site (something important for those monitizing their sites).  Feedburner uses a feature called Summary Burner to accomplish this.  To use Summary Burner.

1. Login to Feedburner and click on your feed.

2. Select the Optimize tab (see figure).

3. Select the Summary Burner for the View menu (see Figure)

  4. Specify a Maximum Length and Teaser text to be included in your emails (see Figure).

5. Save your changes. Now when users receive your feeds, your text will be truncated based on the maximum length specified. 

Providing a way to subscribe to a blog via email is important. Many, and perhaps most people don't understand RSS, atom, XML nor would they know how to set up a reader.  Heck, I hardly understand this stuff.  These folks have no way of knowing about any new posts unless they frequent the blog.

I have been contemplating rolling an email subscription module for dasBlog (and other blogging engines). Then I started investigating further.   There are several such services available all of which have their pros/cons.  Some are: AWeber, Zookoda and FeedBlitz.

First, I didn't look into AWeber after seeing that the starting price was $19.95/mo. I'm looking for a free option so it wasn't worth my time to dig deeper.

FeedBlitz seems to be the front runner in terms of reliability (see this review). it has a free version that places ads in the resulting emails. The relatively inexpensive paid version will remove the ads and I believe will provide some additional functionality.  It seems feature rich, and the account setup was easy.  Once setup, you have tons of options for managing newsletters (specifying RSS feeds for bloggers, scheduling distribution, look and feel, etc). I have not looked into monetizing the emails but FeedBlitz appears to support it. There are two ways to incorporate it into your blog. One is to use the supplied Form based html code. The other is a link that will take the user to a FeedBlitz hosted subscription form. Obviously, the form based code will not work with dasBlog :(. Overall, I really like this service. 

Zookoda was very user-friendly and has a fairly nice feature set. After setup, it takes a day or so to receive a Sender account with which you can start sending emails. Basically, you setup your mailing lists, emails and broadcasts and specify how they are to be distributed. I particularly like that mailing list management  aspect of this service.  Also, incorporating it into your blog uses javascript and so you can have the email entry right in your site if you use a blogging engine like dasBlog. There are problems with this service however. Based on the review above, its not very reliable in that many subscribers never receive the broadcasts. Furthermore, the company is owned by PayPerPost. There appears to be some controversy around this company regarding their advertising model. I prefer to stay away from controversy.

Currently, I'm using FeedBurner which also provides an email broadcast service. It is more than sufficient.  Like FeedBlitz, it uses a form based script so incorporating the form into a dasBlog site is not doable. However, it also provides a subscription link that will take the user to a different screen.  One thing I'm not sure about (I'll have to look into this) is whether FeedBurner will allow you to put a character limit on each post that get sent out in email (both FeedBlitz and Zookoda do). This is important if you are trying to drive traffic to your site if you are monetzing with ads and such.

I may provide FeedBlitz as another option for my site.  Comments on other options/suggestions are welcome.

UPDATE Apr 28,2008: Looks like FeedBurner does not allow for a character limit on the emails sent.  So subscribers will get the full post in thier emails.

I'm always looking for great tools (particularly free/open source tools). Here's one called PDFCreator that allows you to create PDFs from any document that can print to a Windows printer.  Furthermore, it is free because it's an Open Source tool.  It's extremely simple to install and use. After running the installation program, PDFCreator shows up a a printer in your list of printers (see figure).

Here are a list of features directly from the PDFCreator website.

• Create PDFs from any program that is able to print
• Security: Encrypt PDFs and protect them from being opened, printed etc.
• Send generated files via eMail
• Create more than just PDFs: PNG, JPG, TIFF, BMP, PCX, PS, EPS
• AutoSave files to folders and filenames based on Tags like Username, Computername, Date, Time etc.
• Merge multiple files into one PDF
• Easy Install: Just say what you want and everything is installed
• Terminal Server: PDFCreator also runs on Terminal Servers without problems
• And the best: PDFCreator is free, even for commercial use! It is Open Source and released under the Terms of the GNU General Public License.

I've been asked how I created the headline animator that that I use as my email signature,  like the one shown below:

Xavier Pacheco

It simply, really. Its a feature of www.feedburner.com.  Once you have an account set up you simply navigate to the Publicize tab for your feed and then configure your animator under the Headline Animator section as shown below:

From there you can configure your animator as you like given the various settings.  Have fun!

If you intend to use the Product Cloud widget from the Amazon Associates program - CAUTION!  I used it on my page here, then later realized that it included to REALLY offensive material.  Please forgive me if you saw that and were offended. I have removed that widget. I'm surprised that Amazon actually allowed for that. Yikes!

I have to say that I am very happy with dasBlog's technology. It has been relatively easy to deploy blogs sites.  My only gripe is a combination of the lacking dasBlog themes and my own artistic inability to create my own theme. Then, I discovered that numerous designers make their designs freely available. One is simply required to credit the artist accordingly.  It took me only an hour or so to theme my personal site at www.xavierpacheco.com.  To find free themes, simply Google "Free CSS Templates". 

Have fun!

I can say unhesitatingly that every project on which I have worked has been a collaborative nightmare.  The reason? Because Email has been the primary means of team collaboration.

I am pretty much sold on the Wiki approach to team collaboration. At this point, I have not personally implemented a Wiki, I am currently in the process of reading about the various options available. Needless to say, I am only interested in free / open source options.  At the moment, I'm considering ScrewTurn Wiki.  I am also anxious to see what Google does with their JotSpot acquisition.

In the meantime, to see why Wiki is good for collaboration, watch this video.

If you have any comments/suggestions on Wiki tools - do tell!

I marvel at how the Internet has enabled our lives. I can still remember having to wait on hold for what seemed an eternity to make a plane reservation.  Now, our phone is even online and we get our voice messages emailed to us.

My family shares several calendars using Google Calendar to help us manage life.  We use about eight different calendars (Family, Kids, Work, Personal, etc) all selectively viewable within the same view.

Here's something interesting, rather than going to a traditional seminary I am taking classes from an institution where professors are located all over the U.S. and some living abroad.  Classes are streamed and I communicate with them over Skype where we can engage in conference calls with other students. Some of my classes will be with professors in Israel - now that's really amazing.

With all the online tools to enable collaboration (See my last post) we can pull together a team of the best developers without requiring them to relocate. This enables me to work in my home office with some of the best talent in the industry. I can honestly say that with rare exception, I eat breakfast and dinner with my wife and children every day - even if I have to work late.

With all this capability, I still cannot find a descent online course for SharePoint. I would like something I can do at my own pace without having to travel, and without having to spend 3K to sit in a stuffy room for 7 hours at a time. If anybody knows of anything, let me know.

Every now and then, I find something free ( or open source) that is absolutely valuable to my job. Occasionally, I'll announce them. here are some that I use

Notepad++

"a free source code editor (and Notepad replacement), which supports several programming languages, running under the MS Windows environment."

7-Zip

An open-source file archiver supporting numerous formats.  

-----------------

Here are some others I've used over the years:

PDF 995

Pdf995 comes with a PDF printer driver and PDF creator so that you can create PDF files. It displays a popup add which can be removed when purchased. Otherwise, it's totally free.

Skype - Free telephony.  This is essential for communication with people and you can buy an inexpensive account so that you can all regular phone numbers.

Color Detector - this tool has been helpful when I've needed to determine the color of something an artist has created when I work on user interfaces.

Not Free but extremely useful

Camtasia Studio - Screen recorder. I use this to create flash recordings for clients so that I can show them something I've done or something we need to look into.

GotoMeeting.  Online meetings with conference calling, Fifty bucks a month - unlimited meetings.   This tool is a must!

Beyond Compare - My favorite file comparison tool.

Have fun!  Any others I should add?

Well, I'm finally blogging again.  I've managed to get DasBlog up and running.  It is amazingly simple. It's really just a matter of getting the site copied properly over to your hosting service (if you are hosting on a service) and setting the permissions correctly.  For a service, I am using WebHost4Life which has excellent support I must say.

TIP: It is critical that you set the right permissions on the three subdirectories and don't forget to include DELETE permissions or you won't be able to delete blog entries. I know from experience!

\content
\siteconfig
\logs

All is explained thoroughly in the Setup instructions.  

At the moment, as you can see, I'm using one of the supplied themes while I work on my own. This is another aspect of DasBlog that is very simple and I'll post more as as I delve into this.

Thanks Steve for turning me on to DasBlog and for tips in getting it running!

So what am I going to blog about?  Numerous topics: Development, Project Management, The People Factor, Work Ethics, Technologies, and more. 

Stay tuned.

P.S. This blog was written with Windows Live Writer - a great initial experience.