Agile vs agile

I must confess I'm the sort of person that gets completely taken by whatever argument I am reading at any given time and don't have a very good, critical (argument analysis) type mind. So I tend to get taken in by whatever point of view I'm reading. I lack an ability to pick holes in arguments immediately. When I watch one of those CSI/SVU/NYPD cop/courtroom dramas I tend to be completely convinced by whichever case is being put at any given time. God help the accused if I'm ever on a jury. Imagine my predicament when, as a self confessed "Agile" junky I read this article - postulating Good and Bad Agile (warning very long - see you back here, if you can remember where you came from, once you're done)!

Anyway, I was actually quite encouraged when it recommended throwing out the physical "index cards" common in Agile teams and move the work queues onto a software based queue - something my teams have done all the long, simply for the ongoing records, recoverability, sharing and flexibility offered by an issue tracking system - (my current favourite is OnTime although pretty keen to give FogBugz a try).

So my final verdict - Agile is by definition agile. Agile says to me, do what works. Here's a bunch of techniques that will help you solve some age old problems (Everyone wants everything tomorrow, they don't want to tell you what they want exactly - that's up to you to figure out coz you might have some good ideas, but they'll be happy to label you responsible if they don't get it, and by the way, how much will it cost and when can I have it - careful, there will be penalties if you're late - and be flexible coz some of this will change - now hurry up!). So these techniques will help you fight this mentality, and if you want to employ more/new/or varied techniques, here's some prinicpals to help guide you in their (the new techniques) inception.

I've often said the Software Development co-ordination should be the easiest job in the world - everyone else should make all the decisions for you, just do what they're asking. Putting this into practice is another story but Agile techniques can help. You still need common sense and some real pragmatism to get the job done though. There is no silver bullet and any marketing based initiative that purports to be said "silver bullet" will not only fail, but will immediately put all but the most niaive software developers, off-side. Developers are intelligent and synical by their very nature - a condition that is cronically worsened by the presence of Marketing people promoting their Software Marketecture techniques.

Phisher using Google

Aas pointed out on Jesper's blog today Phishing Scammers are now using Google to bounce links and slightly disguise where we are being sent. Just one more thing to worry about when you are trying to train users to be careful when following links - especially from Email.

Notice that at first glance these links appear to be going to Google, but then look to the QueryString being passed, which includes a url to which Google will bounce the request. The same occurs for MSN and ebayobjects.com according to Jesper.

The Biometrics authentication myth - busted

There is an interesting post by Steve Riley highlighting the vulnerabilities or traps in relying on biometrics for authentication, rather than just identification. The piece I like the most though, is the link to a document Steve wrote earlier in the year on this same topic - check it out on TechNet.

Here they come again

Universal Studios are at it again, this time going after YouTube and MySpace over what Universal believe is infringement of copyright in the use of these sites. I read this, in Melbourne's Age newspaper this morning and it reminded me of a speech by Lawrence Lessig on this very topic. I wonder where this will end up? Obviously everyone should have the right to protect what is theirs, but should we be looking more deeply into this - is this copyright infringement, or is this anti-competitive behaviour? This raises the question that has been won, and lost, before - is there infringement of copyright, in a tool that enables copyright to be infringed?

Firefox

Arrgghh! I just discovered that I busted this site, for Firefox, when I added the panel down the left hand side a month or so back! Bugger!

This is going to mean trolling through the mess that is the blogger template - now modified by yours truly (a bit of programming by "co-incidence" I must admit), and fixing it up. D'Oh!

Left margin is doubling on floating DIVs

I stumbled across this today, while looking up an unrelated issue to do with DIV appearance in Firefox actually. Anyway, the old, doubling of the left margin was something I was experiencing in the same web page, so I was going to get around to hunting that one down too, and there it was.

The problem occurs in IE, when you set a left margin value on a DIV that contains other DIVs, but only when those other DIVs are set to float:left. (Apparently it's the same for the right margin, if DIVs are set to float:right). Anyway, Holly 'n John to a much better job of explaining this, here.

ThanksNo.com

Just stumbled across this link - http://www.thanksno.com/ - no not because I was referred to it by a friend ;-) but via a post by Steve Riley on email security policies.

It's a "polite" way of saying, stop sending me this crap, or if you must, please stop telling the rest of the world my email address.

Security Vulnerabilities vs Economic Vulnerabilities

A interesting post here by Bruce Schneier on the irony of how Microsoft approaches its security patching - with Patch Tuesday every month, as opposed to how they handled a recently exploited flaw in their Windows Media Player, which saw not so much a security vulnerability being xposed but an attack on the profitability of a Microsoft product/service.

This post highlights obvious concerns with the way Microsoft addresses known security vulnerabilities with a release of security patches once per month, leaving us all exposed for up to a month leading up to those releases, however managed to release a patch to Media Player, when the vulnerability represented not a security threat, but an economic threat to MS.

Of course, this will have the anti-MS brigade up in arms, pointing at MS's greed, irresponsibility, etc, etc. However as Bruce points out, you can't really be surprised. Economics will always win out when setting priorities at any company - whether it's a one man band, or Microsoft.

It is fun to point out the irony of this incident. "How come they can patch this so quicly when we have to wait a month for patches that don't hit their bottom line so quickly?" But we must bare reality in mind. We are talking about one patch, that was completely motivated by protecting revenue of a commercial enterprise. Of course they patched it. Should this product wind up needing an endless supply of "3 daily" patches, it's commercial viability will quickly go down the toilet and they'd scrap it altogether. A fate that the world cannot afford for the hundreds of other products that are updated every "Patch Tuesday". So I for one, believe that MS have the balance about right - a result many may argue is the product of market forces at work.

One to watch...

This will be a blog to watch - new to the blogosphere, but certainly not to the world of System Administration and Tech in general, Will, will post plenty of useful advice and noteworthy experiences on his new log - The Cook's Tour. I've worked with him for a couple of years now and his knowledge, outlook and passion for IT is amazing. Keep an eye on it.