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 found this on the Microsoft Learning site.  These are 3 2-hour clinics and according to the site:

This collection of 3 2-hour premium clinics teaches about the new capabilities provided by the .NET Framework 3.0. These clinics are for experienced Developers and Software Architects who are looking to adopt Microsoft's next generation technology within their solutions.
Topics covered within the collection include:

• Windows Presentation Foundation
• Windows Workflow Foundation
• Windows Communication Foundation

I'm going to take a look at these and will report how they are when done. Here's the link:

https://www.microsoftelearning.com/eLearning/offerDetail.aspx?offerPriceId=127367

I'm not much of a runner, but I do try to run a few times a week.  I'll normally run about 2-3 miles at at time.

A friend of mine introduced me to a site (I believe it is written in .NET). Using Google Maps, this site allow runners to keep running logs, elevation profiles, and more.  It's very impressive.

Here's my run for today: The Run

Anyway, if you're a runner, you might want to check this out.

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.  

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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?

Recently, a colleague and I were discussing the merits of best practices amongst small teams.  The context of this discussion is of a development consulting company; companies that provide development resources from project managers to programmers and testers.

We agreed that "best practices" are often a difficult sell to clients that out source their projects to these consulting companies. The reason is that the there is a notion that best practices are time consuming tasks that offer no tangible benefit, but only perceived benefit.  In other words, to the client, adding an extra X hours to a task that takes X hours to develop and deliver seems like unnecessary time and money. However, there is a serious fallacy to this reasoning. 

Take, for instance, the best practice of code reviews. The whole purpose behind code reviews is to prevent defects in the software and to allow for their repair early in the project life-cycle. Generally speaking a defect costs much more to repair later in the development cycle. Therefore, it is advantageous to  find it and fix it soon. This is made possible through code reviews. 

One study involves a 10,000 line project done by two different groups of developers. One group did not perform code-reviews. The other did.  The amount of money that would have been saved is substantial as shown in the figures below.

Personally, if I am the the customer hiring a development company, I want to make sure that the company performs code reviews, otherwise, I may be agreeing to pay some serious dough when I didn't have to.

If I'm the development company, and if I'm honest, I want to offer my clients the best service for their money. If I really believe that code reviews work, then I am going to work it into the development agreement. If a potential client resists, then I must show the potential cost in my estimate realizing I may not win the client.

I'll leave the analysis up to the reader. For more on this study, go here:  Code Review Study.

Thoughts?