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Archive for August, 2009
Sprintometer as a SCRUM management tool
Aug 6th
On my endeavor to find the perfect SCRUM project management tool I came across a freeware option named “Sprintometer”. It is not entirely free as it sounds but the options it gives to a manager for free is quite outstanding. The application can be downloaded from their website { sprintometer.com } for free.
Sprintometer support project mangement in both XP and SCRUM methodology. Once you create a project it first of all asks the way the project is going to be managed. Then onward a product backlog can be prepared with stories and tasks assigned to it. Each task then can be assigned to a developer or a coder or a tester.
On the basis of the project specification the application itself generated some very useful charts that give the manager a good understanding about where the project is actually heading. Some of these charts are -
- Track Chart: Tracks the amount of work done and the amount of work remaining through a line graph.
- Scope Chart: Shows in hour(s) the amount of work left against a story.
- Resource and Budget Chart: A matrix showing the resource and cost both story-wise and day-wise
- Story Readiness Chart: Shows how much closer to completion a story is through a table.
- Summary Report: Gives a overall report about the story in terms of work done, remaining and days left.
- Workload Report: This shows the amount of workload taken on by each project team members.
From a project manger perspective it gives me a complete hold on where my project is heading. But the only thing it lacks is integration of team members to give their inputs directly to the system. Hope they are working on it and will be made available to the freeware version in near future :p
take care,
- thephpx
Compress PNG files while retaining quality
Aug 2nd
Most of today’s site uses PNG images due to use of transparencies. While they give a fine solution to the transparency problem with finer edge but it also brings about page load time issues.
To solve this problem i recently came across a PNG file compression utility. This tiny utility is hosted on Source Forge and can be downloaded from here. This utility claims to have compressed PNG files upto 50%.
Though the utility is somewhat crude and runs in command prompt but there is a nifty post about how to call it from the windows shell.
For the shell add-on you may visit the following post.
take care,
- thephpx
My Zen-Environment for WAMP development
Aug 1st
Hello everyone,
Every developer has there very own zen settings so do i 
. Today I am going to writing about the stuffs I use while I am at development. If you have any better alternatives or suggestions to these applications please feel free to come forward
My preferred application development platform includes the following -
Local Work-Station/Laptop:
- WAMP – Quick fix windows apache mysql and php server setup
- Free SMTP – my very own SMTP server
- TortoiseSVN – my personal undo
- SQLyog – for MySQL database management
- FileZilla – for FTP management
- EclipsePDT – My PHP IDE
Central Repository Server Applications:
- WAMP – for basic windows, apache, mysql, php server on central repository
- Free SMTP - for SMTP server on the central repository
- KpyM Telnet/SSH Server – for SSH access to my central repository
- VisualSVN – for SVN repository server management at central repository
That is the whole host of applications that are involved in my development process which I find very helpful and agile. I work on two-stage development, my local workstation/laptop and then to my central repository where I host my SVN repositories and also live demos.
The two stage method has so far proven extreamly helpful, specially if you have a VPS account where you are at your will to install applications.
I hope this one helps you setup your zen environment :p.
take care,
- thephpx