Month: February 2016

Agile management

Agile management, or agile process management, or simply agile refer to an iterative, incremental method of managing the design and build activities for engineering, information technology, and other business areas that aims to provide new product or service development in a highly flexible and interactive manner; an example is its application in Scrum, an original form of agile software development.[1] It requires capable individuals from the relevant business, openness to consistent customer input, and management openness to non-hierarchical forms of leadership. Agile can in fact be viewed as a broadening and generalization of the principles of the earlier successful array of Scrum concepts and techniques to more diverse business activities. Agile also traces its evolution to a “consensus event”, the publication of the “Agile manifesto“, and it has conceptual links to lean techniques, kanban (かんばん(看板)?), and the Six Sigma area of business ideas.[1]

Agile X techniques may also be called extreme process management. It is a variant of iterative life cycle[2] where deliverables are submitted in stages. The main difference between agile and iterative development is that agile methods complete small portions of the deliverables in each delivery cycle (iteration)[3] while iterative methods evolve the entire set of deliverables over time, completing them near the end of the project. Both iterative and agile methods were developed as a reaction to various obstacles that developed in more sequential forms of project organization. For example, as technology projects grow in complexity, end users tend to have difficulty defining the long term requirements without being able to view progressive prototypes. Projects that develop in iterations can constantly gather feedback to help refine those requirements. According to Jean-Loup Richet (Research Fellow at ESSEC Institute for Strategic Innovation & Services) “this approach can be leveraged effectively for non-software products and for project management in general, especially in areas of innovation and uncertainty. The end result is a product or project that best meets current customer needs and is delivered with minimal costs, waste, and time, enabling companies to achieve bottom line gains earlier than via traditional approaches.[4] Agile management also offers a simple framework promoting communication and reflection on past work amongst team members.[5]

Agile methods are mentioned in the Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide) under the Project Lifecycle definition:

Adaptive project life cycle, a project life cycle, also known as change-driven or agile methods, that is intended to facilitate change and require a high degree of ongoing stakeholder involvement. Adaptive life cycles are also iterative and incremental, but differ in that iterations are very rapid (usually 2-4 weeks in length) and are fixed in time and resources.[6]

The Personal Software Process (PSP)

The Personal Software Process (PSP) is a structured software development process that is intended to help software engineers better understand and improve their performance by tracking their predicted and actual development of code. The PSP was created by Watts Humphrey to apply the underlying principles of the Software Engineering Institute’s (SEI) Capability Maturity Model (CMM) to the software development practices of a single developer. It claims to give software engineers the process skills necessary to work on a Team Software Process (TSP) team.

“Personal Software Process” and “PSP” are registered service marks of the Carnegie Mellon University.[1]

OneDrive not connected to Internet

Turn off Office Upload

If you’re having trouble syncing Office files, the Office Upload cache system may be interfering with OneDrive sync. Try turning off the related setting in OneDrive settings.

  1. Right-click the white OneDrive cloud icon in the notification area, at the far right of the taskbar.OneDrive app in System Tray

    (You might need to click the Show hidden icons arrow next to the notification area to see the OneDrive icon.)

  2. Click Settings, and then clear the Use Office to work on files with other people at the same time check box.

IMPORTANT   When you turn off the Use Office to work on files with other people at the same time setting, any changes that you and other people make to Office files in your OneDrive will no longer merge together automatically.

Amazon Prime Air

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Prime_Air

http://www.amazon.com/b?node=8037720011

Amazon Prime Air is a conceptual drone-based delivery system currently in development by Amazon.com.

On December 1, 2013, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos revealed plans for Amazon Prime Air in an interview on 60 Minutes. Amazon Prime Air will use multirotor Miniature Unmanned Air Vehicle (Miniature UAV, otherwise known as drone) technology to autonomously fly individual packages to customers’ doorsteps within 30 minutes of ordering.[1]To qualify for 30 minute delivery, the order must be less than five pounds (2.26 kg), must be small enough to fit in the cargo box that the craft will carry, and must have a delivery location within a ten-mile radius of a participating Amazon order fulfillment center.[1] 86% of packages sold by Amazon fit the weight qualification of the program.

Regulations

Presently, the biggest hurdle facing Amazon Prime Air is that commercial use of UAV technology is not yet legal in the United States.[2] In the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, Congress issued the Federal Aviation Administration a deadline of September 30, 2015 to accomplish a “safe integration of civil unmanned aircraft systems into the national airspace system.”[3]

In March 2015 the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) granted Amazon permission to begin US testing of a prototype. The company responded by claiming that the vehicle cleared for use was obsolete. In April 2015, the agency allowed the company to begin testing its current models. In the interim, the company had begun testing at a secret Canadian site 2,000 ft (610 m) from the US border.[4]

The agency mandated that Amazon’s drones fly no higher than 400 ft (122 m), no faster than 100 mph (161 km/h), and remain within the pilot’s line of sight. These rules are consistent with a proposed set of FAA guidelines. Ultimately, Amazon hopes to operate in a slice of airspace above 200 ft (61 m) and beneath 500 ft (152 m), with 500 ft being where general aviation begins. It plans to fly drones weighing a maximum of 55 lb (25 kg) within a 10 mi (16 km) radius of its warehouses, at speeds of up to 50 mph (80.5 km/h) with packages weighing up to 5 lb (2.26 kg) in tow.[5]

Public concerns

Public concerns regarding this technology include public safety, privacy, and package security issues.[2] Amazon states that “Safety will be our top priority, and our vehicles will be built with multiple redundancies and designed to commercial aviation standards.”[6] However, while privacy and security remain concerns, the FAA’s recently proposed rules for small UAS operations and certifications only provides provisions on its technical and functional aspects.[7]

The fact that the drone’s navigational airspace exists below 500 feet is a big step toward safety management.[8]

Privacy

Concerns over the constant connection of the drones to the internet raises concerns over personal privacy. The primary purpose of drone internet connection will be to manage flight controls and communication between drones.[9] However, the extent of Amazon’s data collection from the drones is unclear.[10] Some proposed data inputs include automated object detection, GPS surveillance, gigapixel cameras, and enhanced image resolution.[11] Because of this, Amazon’s operating center will collect unknown amounts of information, both intentionally and unintentionally, throughout the delivery process. Neither Amazon or the FAA has formed a clear policy on the management of this data.

Cubans surf the web

This Workaround Lets 2.6 Million Cubans Surf the Web

Written by

J.M. PORUP

More and more Cubans are getting access to the internet, thanks to government Wi-Fi hotspots and a loosening of trade restrictions with the US. However, many locals still don’t have access to the web or can’t afford it.

That’s why not-for-profit Miami startup Apretaste set up a system to allow Cubans to browse the web via email, which more people have access to. Only about 400,000 Cubans can freely browse the web, according to Apretaste, but 2.6 million have access to email.

Anki

Anki is a program which makes remembering things easy. Because it’s a lot more efficient than traditional study methods, you can either greatly decrease your time spent studying, or greatly increase the amount you learn.

Anyone who needs to remember things in their daily life can benefit from Anki. Since it is content-agnostic and supports images, audio, videos and scientific markup (via LaTeX), the possibilities are endless.
For example:

  • Learning a language
  • Studying for medical and law exams
  • Memorizing people’s names and faces
  • Brushing up on geography
  • Mastering long poems
  • Even practicing guitar chords!

The Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS)

The Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) is a free and open industry standard for assessing the severity of computer system security vulnerabilities. CVSS attempts to assign severity scores to vulnerabilities, allowing responders to prioritize responses and resources according to threat. Scores are calculated based on a formula that depends on severalmetrics that approximate ease of exploit and the impact of exploit. Scores range from 0 to 10, with 10 being the most severe. While many utilize only the CVSS Base score for determining severity, Temporal and Environmental scores also exist, to factor in availability of mitigations and how widespread vulnerable systems are within an organization, respectively.

The current version of CVSS is CVSSv3.0, released in June 2015