3:11 PM

3:11 PM : You've seen photos where you photograph the same objects at different times right? 3:11 PM does the opposite. To participate, take a photo at 3:11:00 on the 3rd of November from wherever in Chennai you are and upload it to a flickr group (the website has the details). Once all participants have uploaded their photos, you will be able to see Chennai through one instant, what everyone is doing in different places at the same time.

Microsoft gets into web analytics

Adi just passed me a link to Project Gatineau, Microsoft's answer to Google Analytics. Project Gatineau is currently in invite only beta.

Just like how Google Analytics has tight integration with Google's AdWords, Project Gatineau has tight integration with Microsoft's AdCenter. Looks like the fight for the search engine marketing space is heating up.

Looking for Django developers?

Check out Djangogigs.com. Djangogigs is a new website for matching Django developers with Django jobs. If you are looking out for some Django work, add yourself to the site.

OpenCoffee Club @ Mumbai

The OpenCoffee Club meme spreads some more. Mumbai is having its first OCC meetup on November 4th. More information here. You might want to attend if you are in Mumbai at that time.

Django Screencasts

A few people have been asking for introductory Python + Django material, so I thought I'd just link up to the two intro screencasts that I did for Django.

Learn Django: Create a Wiki in 20 minutes

This is a beginners screencast that assumes no previous knowledge of Django. We illustrate the basics of creating a web app in Django by developing a simple wiki application.

Learn Django: Extending the wiki with wikiwords and search

Following on where the first screencast left off, this screencast introduces some more django features such as template inheritance, filters and newforms library.

Obviously I've managed to fool a lot of people

I had nothing much to do yesterday so I actually started looking at the facebook apps that I had installed. One of the apps on facebook is My Personality, which basically gives you one of those personality tests (this one is the Big Five test) and then ranks you on five axes. The app rated me on what would be the equivalent of "individualistic lazy daydreaming introvert" which is a pretty accurate description of who I am.

Another feature of this app is that you can get your friends to rate you. And can you believe it, they all rated the opposite.

The two offenders are Conscientiousness and Extraversion. While my Extraversion rating was 23% (highly introverted), the friend rating was 67% (extroverted). Something wrong there? The test rating for Conscientiousness even more mismatched. My rating was 15% (i.e lazy procrastinator) while the friend rating was 96% (always gets stuff done)!!

Obviously I've managed to fool a lot of people.

Want to upgrade your Silver Catalyst trial license?

If you've been following my agile tools blog, you would have known that Silver Catalyst v1.5 was released a few days ago. You would also have known that the free version of Silver Catalyst comes with a three team member license. This is perfect for use with small teams and for evaluation purposes.

But wouldn't it be cool to use the tool on a real project with the actual team? I know a lot of people would love that.

So I'm doing an experiment. Till the end of this month, I'm giving away a free upgrade of the trial license than can be used by fifty team members. This will probably cover your entire team, so you can use it on a real, live project. It is a license with no time limits and no feature limits. The only thing is that it's still a trial license so it won't be eligible for 'official' support. Not that it matters, because you can shoot me an email anytime nevertheless.

How do you get this upgraded license?

Download the latest version of Silver Catalyst, use it and then review it on your blog with a link back to the Silver Catalyst homepage. The latest version of Silver Catalyst is 1.5.1 released today, so if you've got an older version, you might want to download the latest one. There are no conditions on the review. It can be positive, negative, whatever. Just keep it unbiased and write what you really think about Silver Catalyst.

Then email me at siddharta@silverstripesoftware.com with the URL of your blog post and I'll reply with the upgraded license.

Sounds simple? It is. I'm looking forward to reading the reviews!

Introduction to Agile: Agile Chennai 2007 Presentation

This is the intro to agile presentation from Agile Chennai 2007. It was done jointly by Bala and myself, although Bala did most of it. I just spoke for five minutes at the end of slide 83 about how agile is not a set of techniques.

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Effects of ultimate frisbee

I've got rotator cuff tendonitis :-/

SearchCamp

I'm at SearchCamp. I'll be blogging from SearchCamp on my pownce stream.

Myanmar

http://ko-htike.blogspot.com/

Silver Catalyst v1.4 Released!

Quick note: Silver Catalyst version 1.4 has been released. Download it here.

Using python to teach kids programming

Horst Jens uses Python to teach kids how to program at Profikids in Vienna. In the following screencast, we see one of the kids, Leo, program a simple GUI button box. The screencast is in German, but it has English subtitles. Check it out below -

Get the Flash Player to see this movie.

This video originally comes from here at ShowMeDo from the Python category.

Design of Programmer Spaces - My DCamp Presentation

We spend a lot of time on improving productivity through better languages, tools and processes. How often do we look at the environment in which the team works? Cubicles are probably the worst environment for programmers because they are poor when you want peace and quiet to work alone and poor when you want to work collaboratively as a pair or group. In this talk we'll look at some environmental factors that impact teams and how we can design better programmer spaces.

Resources

• The Ultimate Software Development Office Layout: Tons of good links
• The Psychology of Computer Programming: The first book to look at programming as a social activity. Published in 1971.
• IBM's Santa Teresa Laboratory: A study on designing spaces for programmers while IBM was planning out the Santa Teresa Lab. This was done in the late 70s.
• Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams: Another classic book on programming as a human activity. First edition in 1987.
• Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game: Has a good discussion on programmer spaces, especially with regard to agile processes. Published 2006.

There is a narration for the slides available in the comments section here

DCamp Photos

Sagaro, Arpit and I just got back from attending DCamp in Bangalore.

I'll post about the sessions later. For now, here are some photos from Allagappan's flickr stream, more photos from Muthu's flickr stream and a description of the sessions by Saurabh Minni.