When i  watch news channels and follow politics there is one name and one channel i always stop at

When Tim Russert is on the show.

Meet the press was such a great show and kept me

focused for an hour or so.

Of all the interviewers i have seen so far he is clearly the best. I had no option when his show was on, but to stop what i was doing and watch his show.When i change channels looking for a news channel, if i saw Tim, i knew what i was watching.

You will be missed Tim. May you rest in peace.

This is a simply amazing video by Dr Randy Pausch. Every minute spent is worth your time. dont miss it.

I wanted to get his book. But found this video instead.

Here is the list of lessons learned

• Loyalty is a two-way street.
• Never give up.
• You get people to help you by telling the truth. Being earnest. I’ll take an earnest person over a hip person every day, because hip is short term. Earnest is long term.
• Apologize when you screw up and focus on other people, not on yourself.
• Get a feedback loop and listen to it. … Anybody can get chewed out. It’s the rare person who says, oh my god, you were right. … When people give you feedback, cherish it and use it.
• Show gratitude.
• Don’t complain. Just work harder.
• Be good at something, it makes you valuable.
• Work hard.
• Find the best in everybody. … No one is all evil. Everybody has a good side; just keep waiting, it will come out.
• And be prepared. Luck is truly where preparation meets opportunity.

This song is hilarious from the movie Madagascar.
Love the guy with the indian accent.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_r2psdrQkM

If you happen to use mex endpoint together with other endpoints in a configuration file for your service, AND if you get error “There is already a listener on IP endpoint”, just remove the port number for the mex end point or if you want you can add the “portSharingEnabled” property in the binding configuration.

portSharingEnabled=”true”

Don’t use

Instead use

You still can WSDL Even if you don’t have port number

The error looks like this:

Service cannot be started. System.ServiceModel.AddressAlreadyInUseException: There is already a listener on IP endpoint 0.0.0.0:8081. Make sure that you are not trying to use this endpoint multiple times in your application and that there are no other applications listening on this endpoint. —> System.Net.Sockets.SocketException: Only one usage of each socket address (protocol/network address/port) is normally permitted

at System.Net.Sockets.Socket.DoBind(EndPoint endPointSnapshot, SocketAddress socketAddress)

at System.Net.Sockets.Socket.Bind(EndPoint localEP)

at System.ServiceModel.Channels.SocketConnectionListener.Listen()

— End of inner exception stack trace —

at System.ServiceModel.Channels.SocketConnectionListener.Listen()

at System.ServiceModel.Channels.BufferedConnectionListener.Listen()

at System.ServiceModel.Channels.ExclusiveTcpTransportManager.OnOpen()

at System.ServiceModel.Channels.TransportManager.Open(TransportChannelListener channelListener)

at System.ServiceModel.Channels….

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

There are two errors that may be encountered at run time which relate to the amount of data being received by the client application.

1. The maximum message size quota for incoming messages (65536) has been exceeded.

2. Maximum number of items that can be serialized or deserialized in an object graph is ‘65536′.

In general, the first error will surface when the total number of bytes that the service is attempting to return exceeds the configuration values (the

default is 65536). To raise the total number of bytes that can be returned, the following changes are required:

In the Binding configuration(s):

<binding name=”YourBindingName”

maxBufferSize=”2147483647″

maxReceivedMessageSize=”2147483647″

…other values…

Note that the values being configured above are the maximums possible. It is advisable to configure only the highest values required. All three values

should be configured to the same values.

The second error (from above) may be encountered after making the first set of changes. The second error is caused by the total number of (.net) objects

being returned exceeding the configured value (default = 65536). This value is set on individual endpoints and is not usually explicitly set in the

configuration file. To increase this value, first create a new (or modify an existing) endpoint behavior.

Then assign this behavior to the endpoint receiving the error.

Note again that the value configured above is the maximum.

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My dad is a great speaker. When i was a kid I had a huge stage fright. I could barely speak in public. In school in my seventh grade, i would hardly be able to utter a few words. I remember a tip my dad had given among many others that, when on stage try to indentify the one or two people who can cause trouble by asking questions, early on in the speech and to look into the eyes of people while talking.

I took his advice then and I am glad I lost the fear of the stage. But in life i find there is always a odd man/wo man in every project i have worked on. This person’s sole job seems to be to cause trouble, to disagree or to argue for the sake of argument.

What a waste of time and energy working with such folks?. In some cases these are customers, some cases friends and in some colleagues.

If i put a dollar value to the amount of time spent in unnecassary arguements, i could be building a mansion for myself by now.

Here are some symptoms of such strange characters

1) they tend to talk abstract. They talk to the wall or the door instead of talking to you on your face

2) they agree to what you say in front of you, but once you leave they clap thier hands and do what they want.

3) they have power positions and take full advantage of that.

4) In order to cover their weakness they put the blame you.

5) They are typically in the same rank as you are at work and do not like the fact that you are in the same rank as them

6) They dont tell what they dont like about you directly, but complain to their boss or your boss to get rid of you

To Err is human -but with the odd man to err is a complete waste of time.

Find this person early on, there is one in every project. Have a plan. Stay clear of the OMO ( Odd Man OUt) if at all you can

So long….

I now have another website now exclusively for agile definitions apart from my personal blog.

http://AgileFAQ.net

I often get asken similar questions an what a certain term means in Agile practices when i am out teaching / coaching on agile teams. I have started keeping a catalog of these questions that have been asked in teams before instead of thinking or making up something each time.

They are all intentionally small so that you can easily print them out.

Feel free to send me more definitions you want to add.

Pun intented here.
If you do a lot of pair programming think again

here are some reasons why you should use your own keyboard at all times

1) Your pair has a virus ( real kind ) and is sneezing all over the keyboard
2) Your pair had a flu and is recovering from it.
3) Your pair is holding fries in one hand as he./she types and uses the keyboard with the same hand . Umm french fried keyboard.
4) You turn your pairs keyboard on the side and see all the food particles and dandruff fall.
5) Your pair went to the bathroom * enough said
If i have convinced you enough carry your own keyboard for pairing sessions and use purell when in doubt

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For those of you that missed the Live earth concert, MSN has most of it live. Two hours have rolled by and I am hooked to the concert.

SOS all starts, Paoloa Nutini and i guess many many more to come.

Check it out.

If you are interested in scrum as an agile practice or a practicing scrum engineer , then this book Scrum from the trenches is a must read.

I have been practicing so many forms of scrum like practices over the years. Most of them are some form of iterative , XP like processes. What I find interesting is why do companies stress so much over a process. Time and again i have seen that in the end the only thing that matters is how good, dedicated, fun loving, hardworking and smart your development team is.

All other factors process, tools etc are just means to achieve the end goal. You could have the best possibe process scrum, waterfall, no process, etc etc.

Scrum masters, project managers please note:

Build your team. Make it interesting. Give them responsibilities , trust them. Just keep monitoring and help the team keep focus.

When building a team pay attention to the team factor. Would she or he fit in the team. The first few times you see that the developer is not fitting in the team for whatever factors, change them.

Every person fits in certain kinds of teams. I think in playing this game of process process, we tend to forget that we are all human first ,developer next. if someone does not fit in a team, thats not the end of the world. Change the team. Hear to the team members.

The team is all you have for a successful project. Go Team