We have finished!!

Hello people:

Tonight I have great news, at least for us and I hope that also for our customer. As of 21:00 of today we have finished the project un.linkito.no.mx!!!!!!!!!!! with good comments that have left us with a good taste and feeling proud of ourselves.

So, if you are a company and looking for software engineerings, contact us, we already have experience !!! LOL

We only have to send again the last document with some correction typos, but that will take 10 minutes at most, so we are really really glad we have finished, because the effort was great and having to work in a software project with 5 other people is really demanding just in itself, so imagine doing it while at the same time you are doing other jobs totally different.

Anyway, we are really really happy and we can say that we have learnt a lot of things that are not only on the texts and standards, and I think that's the most important knowledge that you can get.

Apart from all that emotional stuff, also we had to grade our team members, I don't know how my team graded me (please, please, I think I have been a good project manager) but I can say that in general I am quite happy with my team and personally I think I have done a good job, okay I can be a little bossy but I like doing the things good.

Besides all that, I can inform you that the session on thursday will be in the university at 18h (don't know the place yet) and it will verse about what the IT companies are doing and what they are looking for (I think, if not, please correct me).

So on thursday night I will try to post a summary about the conference.

Keep safe and in touch

Nieves

NEWS: MySQL has been sold!!!

Hello all

I forgot to say that in class we have known that Sun had bought MySQL and as I was curious, I have begun searching the web and I have found some interesting web pages where it is explained, as I know that some of the readers of this blog speak Spanish I put two links, one for the english speakers and another for the spanish ones:

• Spanish news
• English news

Also, in those articles, it is explained how is the war between Sun and Oracle and if you can check the English site because it is explained in a very funny way.

What I have not found is the name of hte now Sun property MySQL, because they will probably change the name (stupid thing because everyone knows it as MySQL, but that's only my opinion). So if someone knows it, please tell us in a comment.


Thanks

Nieves

Deliverables and Job offer!!!

Hello people!!!

Today we have delivered the STD (that now that I think about it, it's not a good acronym because it has another and more famous meaning), and the fourth BPR without any problems.
The second draft of the SVVP is also going to be delivered tonight, but we are checking that the format of all the tables are consistent between each other. But hopefully, we won't have any problems with it.

Another topic, today while I was reading the newspaper (the digital one), I found a interesting new (click here): the president of google spain and portugal has left her job (it doesn't specify the reason). I find it quite shocking because of 2 things:

• First, the president was a spanish woman (yay!! for us)
• Second, she was or is one of the most powerfull business woman nowadays.

So if you are looking for a job, you can apply for it, you never know what could happen.

And finally, these last weeks we, my classmates and me, have been doing a survey to choose the lecturers that have made a deep impression in our college time.
There have been 2 surveys: one for the general degree (spanish and english) and another one only for the bilingual group (us). In the general one there have been lots of problems and these last days a huge discussion about the vote system arose.
Anyway, what I tried to say it's that in the bilingual group we haven't had that problem because we have kept the developed system that we follow in the SE3 course: each one votes what he/she thinks in a hierarchical way. Also if someone had some problems it was explained and then a decision was taken.

So, please if something like this happens again, follow our system, it's better and less painful for everyone :-D

Thanks to everyone

Nieves

Has Google met a possible opponent?

Yesterday, I was reading the newspaper waiting for the typical familiar lunch of the 6th ohf January (here in spain, it's holidays), and I read that Wikipedia has developped a new internet search engine, and also in the title Google was beginning to be cited, so I though what's this about??

I kept on reading and I discovered that Wikipedia has though expanding it's concept about users doing the work by small amounts of contribution, to a search engine. So they don't have to recreate a program with intelligence like google, but it is going to use the intelligence of the real people. At first you think it's not serious, but after the success they had with Wikipedia and how it changed the concept of the encyclopedia, you can just laught it off.

Also it is said that Google is shaking because the amount of users that wikipedia has, could change their searches to Wikia (name of the search engine of Wikipedia).

If you want to know more about Wikia, you can click here

That's all we will have to see who is the winner between google or wikia.

Bye

Nieves

Bad SW update in Microsoft Office!!

Just now, while reading the last post of the blog MELIDS (see The others section) I have remembered that I wanted to talk about the new Microsoft Office 2007.

Everyone who knows me, know that I am a pro-windows fan, but in this case I have to say stop. Based on what SE-3, SE-2, SE-1 and all the other subjects about knowledge acquisition, have shown me, it's that when you develop a SW project you must take into account what the user needs and wants and not do some showy application or interface that people is going to get frustrated with.

This is the case of the last Microsoft Officec 2007, over all Power Point and Word. Almost all the people that I know and try to work with them, get mad and shut off the computer where it is installed and try to do it again with an older version of Office like 2002 or 2003. Why??

Simple, because nobody can really understand the interface, you get lost, you don't find the icons or the functionalities. And if you save without really looking, it saves the doc into a new format called .docx or something like that.
So when you try to open it in your personal computer you can't.

This is my example of a very bad SW update; people don't like it, and if WE (engineering students) can not really get it, how are the normal users do it?? )

Please follow the rule:

"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools". Douglas Adams

Thanks

Nieves

Huge Discovery!!!

Hello bloggers:

Today I have realised a very important fact, but first I have to explain the situation.
This last month, I have been in some job interviews (yeah, I know, bu that's not the point), anyway in everyone of them, they have asked me:

• How do you work in group?
• How do you solve conflictic situations?
• How do you deal with someone that does not do his/her job?
• Can you follow an schedule and a list of tasks?
• etc.

And let me tell you, in that moment I though: Hey, that's what I am doing in this project!!! And also what we have been doing for almost the last 3 years of the degree.
So, that has been my discovery, that although the project can seem boring, hard-work, and all those things that we know; in reality it is preparing us for what is about to come, so we don't go blind in the next 4 or 5 months when we begin really working.

But although all this seems like I should thank my teachers of SE3, sorry but cannot do; it goes against the student rule:
"the student is always the one that suffers"
LOL

Anyway, you can contradict me, support me, etc. But if you do, please say so giving reasons.

Thanks a lot

Nieves

Elevator Pitch

Hello people!
While looking for information about elevator pitch in order to do a good job next thursday; I found this great web page. It is a summary of a whole book about this topic: Elevator Pitch 101.

In it an idea that I found quite interesting and that it changed what I though about what I had to prepare is:
One reason why so many people deliver completely ineffective elevator pitches is they don’t understand the purpose of an elevator pitch. They act like the purpose of an elevator pitch is to close the deal while in truth the purpose of an elevator pitch is to just interest The Audience in continuing to talk.
No more, and no less.

So now, that I know that important topic I can concentrate on what to tell following the rule of the 8 Cs:

1. Concise: Few words but to the point.
   
2. Clear:use non-technical expressions, acronyms... explain to a 3 years old (ok 5 is also valid, haha)
   
3. Compelling: explain the problem to solve, why is a problem and who are the final users
   
4. Credible: why we can solve the problem; merits, etc.
   
5. Conceptual: what the system is doing
   
6. Concrete: specific met goals and what has been done (very briefly)
   
7. Customized: addressed to the public
   
8. Consistent: don't create misunderstandings

So in those 2-3 minutes we have to convey all that infomation.. the question is how will we do it?

The answer on Thursday night.

Thanks and Cheers

Nieves

Oldie Joke and pic I have found in the Internet:

A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts: "Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?"

The man below says: "Yes you're in a hot air balloon, hovering 30 feet above this field."

"You must be a software developer," says the balloonist.

"I am," replies the man. "How did you know?"

"Well," says the balloonist, "everything you have told me is technically correct, but it's of no use to anyone."

The man below says, "You must work in business as a manager." "I do," replies the balloonist, "but how did you know?"

"Well," says the man, "you don't know where you are or where you are going, but you expect me to be able to help. You're in the same position you were before we met but now it's my fault."

And then the typical image that shows the process of SW Engineering.