Steppin Up
6.25.2008 - Mike Rustici
We've always said that our people are our most important asset...and as a software company, they're really our only asset. It only makes sense to keep employees comfortable, happy and productive. This Spring we decided that since we needed a few new computers anyway, we might as well take the opportunity to refresh everybody's work environments and step things up a notch. Here's what we came up with:
30 Inch Monitors Dell UltraSharp 3007WFP-HC
These are a godsend! If you've never worked with 2560x1600 resolution on a 30 inch monitor, I'm here to tell you it's a life altering experience and there's no going back. Combine the 30 inch monitor with the native display on our laptops, Mac's Spaces and VMWare Fusion and it suddenly feels like the entire world is at your finger tips (where the figurative "world" is defined as everything a geeky programmer could want).
MacBook Pro Laptops MacBook Pro 15 in, upgraded to 4GB RAM
When we told everybody they could get new computers a couple folks asked if they could get Macs instead of PCs. We said "sure" and told everybody they could have the same option. To my surprise, every single developer came back and said they'd like a Mac. Wow! That's a tectonic shift if I've ever seen one....especially since we're a Microsoft development shop! I decided to give it a try as well and I am a total convert. Sure, the the Mac isn't perfect and there are some annoyances, but by and large it's a much better working environment.
My newly computer literate father-in-law asked me what makes it so much better and I had a hard time coming up with an answer, but was able to use an analogy from something he once told me about shopping for a house. He said, "when you go into a house, shake the banister at the bottom of the stairs, if it's solid, then the house is probably well built, if it wiggles then the contractor probably cut a few corners". Well on the Mac the banister is solid as a rock.
I've been wondering what's behind this huge swing of momentum that Apple seems to be gaining. It's got to be more than the iPod and those snappy Mac/PC ads. Here's what makes it a better choice for us:
-Vista's not so hot. It really was a step backwards in productivity for us to have Vista installed for anybody.
-All our important applications are web based and with Firefox it doesn't matter what OS we're using. Our Email (Google Apps for Domains), CRM (SalesForce.com), Wiki (Confluence), Accounting (QuickBooks), Source Control (Subversion) and Defect Tracking (OnTime) are all web based applications and we even used Google Docs for a lot of things. Some web applications, like Quickbooks, are quite annoying in explicitly disallowing Mac clients, but we're able to work around the limitations.
-VMWare Fusion rocks. We do all of our development work on a clean Windows XP virtual machine. Development on a clean VM is actually much better than development on a native PC. Not only is it free of all the normal clutter, but when XP starts to drag after using it for 6 months, we can just start fresh with a new VM image...and since we all share a common image, improvements to the environment are naturally shared across developers.
Sweet Chairs Herman Miller Aeron
There just isn't a better chair on the market. They're comfortable, durable, and almost a decade gaining popularity with the dot coms, they still look cool. We like to take care of our employees, their mind, body, spirit...and yes, even their butts.
Desks We haven't come up with any ideas for new desks yet, but it seems to be the last missing piece of the ultimate workspace. Anybody have any thoughts on what makes a great desk? Is there an "Aeron chair of desks out there"?
9:30 AM
3 comments
LETSI, What's LETSI?
6.04.2008 - Mike Rustici
In the last post about helping to define SCORM 2.0, I mentioned LETSI. It occurred to me today that a lot of people probably don't know much about LETSI yet, so here's a quick synopsis.
ADL (Advanced Distributed Learning...the people who make SCORM) is sponsored by the United States Department of Defense (DoD). The DoD sponsors a number of research projects that benefit it's interests. However, it's primary mission is to defend our country, not to maintain technical specifications. Every once in a while, one of those DoD research projects gets big enough and important enough that it grows beyond the confines of a DoD research project. Just like the Internet and GPS, SCORM has reached a point where it is bigger than the United States DoD and it is time to turn it over to an organization that can foster its growth and facilitate more international adoption.
Enter LETSI. LETSI (which stands for Learning-Education-Training Systems Interoperability) "is an international non-profit federation dedicated to improving individual and organizational learning and performance". LETSI is basically a new organization with worldwide sponsorship to whom ADL will be handing over stewardship of SCORM. LETSI's mission is broader than SCORM, but is first major project will be the development of SCORM 2.0.
Now if you listen to some parts of the rumor mill, you'll hear people saying things like "ADL's abandoning SCORM". Nothing could be farther from the truth. ADL is still actively sponsoring LETSI and actively participating in the further development of SCORM. ADL is no more abandoning SCORM than a parent is abandoning a child by dropping him/her off at college. SCORM has grown up and it's time for it to leave the nest. ADL has done an excellent job in building up SCORM and I'm sure they will continue to do an excellent job in handing it over to the world.
9:04 AM
0 comments
Help Shape SCORM 2.0
6.03.2008 - Mike Rustici
SCORM 2.0 is coming and we need your help to figure out what it will look like. A lot has changed since SCORM was conceived almost a decade ago and everything about it is on the table for change. LETSI issued a call for white papers to solicit requirements for SCORM 2.0 from the community...THAT MEANS YOU!!! We need YOUR feedback! This is your chance to make SCORM work better for you.
--What has SCORM done well? What is good about SCORM that should be preserved?
--Where is SCORM weak? What is bad about SCORM that should be thrown away or replaced?
--What do you wish you could do with SCORM but can't?
--What little things annoy you about SCORM?
--What pain points do you have that need to be addressed? Think beyond content interoperability...what does the learning industry need to help it through the next decade?
--Are there new technologies that should be incorporated into SCORM? ex: web services, semantic web, etc
--What kind of changes do you foresee in the way you procure and use training systems and content?
--What kinds of learning activities do you want to monitor and track?
--What does the future of online learning look like?
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