What are you, people? On dope?

Eliciting Requirements (Business Analyst, Designer)

Visualization and wireframing tools are the bees knees.  My favorite is http://www.wireframesketcher.com that integrates with eclipse, can be managed with change control (SVN).   I was a proponent of doing this on a piece of paper (but wireframesketcher makes for even LESS throwaway) while allowing a document

Capturing Requirements (Business Analyst)

I used to try to capture things in UML — I still think class diagrams and sequence diagrams are great, but there weren’t good tools for it.  http://www.objectaid.com is good for UML in Eclipse (also Green).  There might be better paid for tools, but I like these two.

Also for sequence diagrams, I really think  http://www.websequencediagrams.com/ has the right approach.  Plus styling to make it look like you wrote it on a napkin.  I found that too often there were edge cases that could be captured in UML if you knew the right syntax, but even if you did, the person READING the UML had to know it as well.  This is where I found comments (little notes) to be a better mechanism for the explanation.  There is another tool I found:  http://sdedit.sourceforge.net/example , but have not used which supports multithreading, etc.

I’ll update this post with other tools that I think are useful.  Like a carpenter, I have a bunch of tools in my toolbox.  Tools make the difference.  I’ll include tools for source control, build, etc.

I went to go out and get an HDTV yesterday with the family, but I couldn’t pull the trigger — too many options. Looking for the best deal. I have two needs: 1) living room: fairly well lit, but dark for movies, I want to be able to play action video games on this (although wife does not want it to be used for that); — maximum physical width 40″ — maybe a 37″ – 42″ — 46″ would be pushing it 2) basement: fairly well lit when lights are on, but otherwise dark, definitely to be used for video games. This can be bigger, but I don’t want to spend a ton on it since the kids will horse around down there and I don’t want it in pieces.

I’m leaning toward a 40″ 120Hz LCD for upstairs and either a 52-55″ plasma or a 52-55″ 120Hz LCD for the basement.

One way I’m thinking about getting is a UPNP media client for the living room (perhaps an Xbox 360?) I looked at Twonky Media server (http://www.twonkymedia.com/TM_server_download.html) and PS3 Media Server (http://code.google.com/p/ps3mediaserver/ and http://ps3mediaserver.org/forum/). I think it makes more sense to have it in the basement, since the games are kinda loud and I if we want to watch a movie or listen to music upstairs — the xbox would compete.

Curious what others do.

PS3 Media Server 1.10.5 has some issues with XBox (extra folders show up), but perhaps someone can help with the project:  (http://fuppes.ulrich-voelkel.de/wiki/index.php?title=Xbox_vfolders, http://ps3mediaserver.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3217, https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Ps3MediaServer#Configuration)

Since PS3 natively supports M2TS (high def video format) from our Panasonic ZS3 camera — maybe I just need a PS3 for upstairs.

Man, this was really frustrating on my new T400 Thinkpad. The wireless connection kept dropping. I finally got so frustrated that I thought it must be a config setting. It turns out there is. After googling for ‘thinkpad t400 wireless power off’, I found this: and it worked like a CHAMP!

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/CommentView.aspx?guid=dc75de35-c310-43c9-9adc-eba0e0c072d5

As some of you know I picked a riding lawnmower out of the garbage so my son and I could turn it into some sort of go cart or train or something. The engine is pretty noisy though. I think either there’s a problem with the muffler or the style. I’m going to try either this:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B001NZR5T0/ref=ord_cart_shr?_encoding=UTF8&m=A219HML0CVO0HP&v=glance which is a replacement for a 34185B or this: http://www.jackssmallengines.com/tquiet_muffler.cfm

It doesn’t shrink the file at all and the quality is spot on.

ffmpeg -i movie.mov -f mp4 -vcodec copy -acodec copy output.mp4

I was really struggling with using GWT and having to give up all of the great stuff in JQuery. But then along came GQuery. Check it out here: http://code.google.com/p/gwtquery/wiki/GettingStarted

If you use the code, make sure you look at this issue and grab this jar or apply the patch to get the compile to work right in GWT 2.0. http://code.google.com/p/gwtquery/issues/detail?id=22

Ray Cromwell did a nice job on this library — making valid syntax that looks like jquery. And since it’s java, you get code complete benefits, javadoc, etc. Sweet.

Place this in a .cmd file on Windows to remove all the .svn folders.

FOR /F “tokens=*” %%G IN (’DIR /B /AD /S *.svn*’) DO RMDIR /S /Q “%%G”

http://www.gametrailers.com/user-movie/call-of-duty-walmart-commercial/333674

We’ve made more progress on the bathroom.  The dumpster’s almost full.

Full Dumpster

Here’s a shot of the cutout window:

Window removed. Cutout will be for glass block.

I have a neighbor at our office that I’ve been get to clean up their front yard.   This seems unreasonable.  I hope the city does something about it.

Anyone have any suggestions on how to help them clean this up?

Messy Front Yard

Side Yard