Gonzo is a freeware, opensource editor that generated markdown code and shows the html result during typing.

Advantages

• most useful markdown codes supported in the interface
• very simple user interface, codes also reachable with shortcuts (like ctrl+1 for heading 1)
• relatively intelligent: if you press ctrl+2 while a level 2 heading is selected, it does not add an extra code (##) for level 2
• shows wordcount
• multiple open files at the same time is possible (tabbed file interface)
• it generates markdown files that are picked up by Leanpub and produce a nicely formatted ebook.

Limitations

• bulleted lists and numbered lists not supported from the interface
• no support for tables
• no buttons in the interface: all commands can be reached with menu items or shortcuts only
• more complex markdown codes like images and hyperlinks are inserted as a template only; you have to fill in the blanks yourself

What is GeneLab?

You are the master of a tiny universe. You have total control on life and death of a bunch of little creatures.

You start with a universe of 10 organisms. These will develop as you feed or shoot them.

When you “feed” an organism, it will survive and possibly have children. Its survival score will increase to indicate it fits your plan.

When you “kill” an organism, it will be removed from the universe. Each time an organism is killed, a new one is born.

New organisms are born

New organisms are formed this way:

• First, two parents are chosen at random from the gene pool of organisms.
• Then, the parent’s genes are mixed. This process is called “crossover” in genetic terms. A piece of the genetic material of parent 1 is combined with a piece of genetic material of parent 2.
• After the crossover, mutations can occur in the genetic material of the child. This depends on the amount of creativity you allow in your universe. One or a few genes will be changed at random.
• At last, in very rare occasions, strange errors can happen: deletion of a gene, insertion of a gene, or inversion of a string of genes. These new organisms can differ significantly from their parents. Crossover recombines existing genetic material, and mutations cause genetic renewal and genetic drift.

Genelab Manual

Start with a totally new set of organisms. All current organisms die and are replaced by a new universe.

Get an idea for a new organism. Genelab will propose an organism you must try to develop.

Ideas for experiments with Genelab. These experiments help you to discover the idea behind evolutionary theory.

Feed the current organism. Its health score increases and it may give birth to children.

Kill this organism. The organism is removed from the gene pool and replaced by a new one.

Switch to advanced mode. Opens up the second part of the screen.

In advanced mode, you can select organisms, open/save gene pools, export to excel, and change settings (amount of creativity, survival bonus, and the number of organisms to start with).

Where to download GeneLab?

Download Genelab (exe in a zip file, no installation necessary, only the exe is needed)

GeneLab 2.0 is freeware. Download and use at your own risk.

Full manual: http://leanpub.com/genelab

Markdownpad is a freeware text editor that generates markdown code and shows the html result during typing.

 Advantages

Markdownpad as an editor for Leanpub files?

• most useful markdown codes are covered
• preview shows what you probably will get after conversion to an ebook
• no need to know the more complex markdown codes (images and hyperlinks)
• very simple user interface
• It actually works: the file generated leads to a well-formatted Leanpub manuscript, at least in my little test.

Limitations

• does not cover everything: for example, bulleted lists are supported but not numbered lists
• image insertion: not possible to select a file (only relative or absolute hyperlink)
• not “intelligent”: when you twice press H2, the markdown code for H2 (##) is also generated twice
• not possible to link to places in the same document
• not possible to relatively link to places in another document
• no support for tables

How to obtain the e-version

The e-version contains exactly the same content as the print version, but it is considerably cheaper because there is no printing cost.

After just four days online, the book was already on the bestsellers list at LeanPub: http://leanpub.com/bestsellers

Buy the e-version at http://leanpub.com/entarch.

Bonus:

• Sample chapter (about 20% of the book contents) available for free!
• In case of updates, e-version buyers will be notified and will get the update for free!
• All three electronic versions included: pdf, mobi and epub!

De site zelf oogt rustig en eenvoudig, maar toch schuilt er al heel wat leuke functionaliteit onder de motorkap. Zo kun je op een eenvoudige manier boeken zoeken, aangeven welke je reeds gelezen hebt en wat je ervan vond, en suggesties krijgen voor gelijkaardige boeken.

Ook zijn er enkele huisrecensenten aan het werk die je tips aan de hand doen, en vind je gelijkgestemde zielen door iemand te volgen. Omgekeerd kunnen andere gebruikers jou volgen. Er is zelfs een discussieforum waarmee je commentaar kan leveren op de aanwezige boeken. En dat zijn er ondertussen al vele duizenden.

Heb je zelf een aantal dubbels in de collectie? Niets belet je om een eigen winkeltje te openen op Bookido en zo je dubbels aan de man te brengen. Tot tien boeken is dat volledig gratis.

Professionele handelaars kunnen een grotere boekenshop openen en betalen dan een kleine bijdrage.

Uiteraard kunnen boekenwurmen via dit platform boeken kopen bij de handelaars die op Bookido actief zijn. De wijze van betaling hangt af van de handelaar, maar verscheidene betaalmogelijkheden worden ondersteund: van Paypal tot Visakaart, van bankoverschrijving tot Ogone-betaling.

Ook goed gevonden: je kunt via hetzelfde platform events aankondigen die boekgerelateerd zijn. Ik denk aan de release van een nieuw boek, een signeersessie, of een tweedehandsbeurs.

Inloggen kan door een eigen account aan te maken, maar als je reeds een twitteraar of facebookadept bent, dan kun je ook van je twitter- of facebook-account gebruik maken.

Onnodig te zeggen dat ik dadelijk verkocht was en m’n eigen boeken, Quiztig met Wijn en Fifty Enterprise Architect Tricks, onmiddellijk op Bookido heb gezet.

In de pers:

• Nieuwsblad

A task may take 4 hours, if everything goes well, but can also take 8 or 10 hours if we are unlucky. When the task is on the critical path, this may have quite an impact on the total project duration.

CrystalSoup offers a simulation method to estimate the variance of project duration, given the task duration variances. In short, you can

• define tasks and their estimated duration on three levels (min, average, max)
• define dependencies between tasks (currently only finish-to-start)
• simulate multiple executions of this project, each with different settings, controlled by probabilities that are user defined.
• generate a report with the findings, so that you can use these to convince management that you really need this project buffer.
• export the statistics to excel, for when you need to prepare graphical presentations other than that provided by CrystalSoup.

Download CrystalSoup here.

If the information item conveyed is stereotyped, the name of the stereotype is added to the label. Like in this example: (<<InfoConcept>> is the stereotype name)

Can you turn it off? Yes, you can!

Open Tools | Options and uncheck “Show Stereotypes in the box “Project Browser”. Restart EA. The stereotype label has gone, as well as the stereotype indicator in the project browser.

More EA Tips can be found here.

The game can be played with 3 to 6 players. If you want to play a competitive game, use two teams instead, each with their own deck of cards, and after each round, note points earned for each team.

Material

You need

• a deck of cards (normal playing cards)
• a piece of paper
• a pencil
• these game rules

Game preparation and the first round

Remove the jokers and any other special cards, shuffle the deck of cards and take one card for each player in the team. Put it face up on the table. These are the task cards.
Each player will now decide which cards he will try to score. He can choose to score on 1, 2 or 3 cards. Players tell each other what cards they will try to score this round.
Then hand three cards to each player, face down. These are the scoring cards. From the moment the scoring cards have been handed out, players cannot change their mind about what task cards to score on, neither change the number of task cards to score on.

Every player in turn will now put cards next to the task cards as follows:

• when the player announced one task card to score, he puts all three cards next to this task card.
• when the player announced two task cards to score, he puts two cards next to one of these task cards and the other scoring card next to the other.
• when the player announced three cards to score, he puts one scoring card next to each task card.

Players can see the faces of the scoring cards, so they can make decisions about what combinations would be best.
Also, players cannot give information about their cards or their strategy before it is their turn.

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The round score

After each player has put his cards on the table, the round score is calculated.

• If a task card has a face value between 1 and 5 (included), it needs one card from the same suit next to it to score.
• If a task card has a face value between 6 and 10 (included), it needs two cards from the same suit next to it to score.
• If a task card has a jack, queen or king as value, it needs three cards from the same suit next to it to score.

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After the round

After each round, count the score (one point per task card that can be removed) and remove the task cards and their scoring cards. Put the cards back to the deck, below the cards that were still there, if any.
Note the score and the total number of task cards for that round on paper.

Next, the players can vote whether to increase the number of task cards for the next round, to decrease, or to keep the same number.

Exception: the number of tasks for a given round cannot be below the number of task cards that were kept from the last round. For example, if no point was scored in a round with four task cards, participants cannot decide to decrease the number of task cards to three.

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The next round

The next round starts. Add task cards until the number agreed on is reached. Hand out three cards to each player and repeat the steps above.
Exception: if there are not enough cards in the deck to give every player three cards, hand out two cards (or one, if it is not possible to give each player two). During that round, players can score on only two (or one) cards.
Stop after round 10. Note down the total score and try to improve this score the next game. For the first games, you should be able to score about 7 points per player.

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The link with lean and Kanban

• Task cards are tasks: some are hard, some are easy, all must be done
• Scoring cards are people’s attention and energy
• The rounds are days
• The number of task cards on the table is the WiP limit

Despite the fact that use cases have been around for ages (in computer terms, that is) and that user stories already celebrated their tenth birthday, lots of confusion remains about what a user story is and how it relates to traditional use cases. In this presentation, I try to clarify to what extent use cases and user stories are similar, and how they are different.

Following topics are discussed:

• use cases and the “striped trousers” model
• why agile projects cannot always work with use cases
• the classical way of putting user stories (As a … I want to … so that I can …) – but remember, user stories are essentially free format!
• the INVEST checklist for user stories
• how user stories relate to the striped trousers of use cases
• user stories as a promise to talk
• how exceptions developers come up with are handled

not convinced that it was funny and valuable at the same time? Some examples:

• we played Fruit Estimation Poker and compared different countries for their population size (of course, this is just a toy example). We later looked up actual population sizes in Wikipedia and we had reached a perfect ordering…
• we played the spinning tops simulation game with a “pull” team and a “push” team. It turned our that the “push” team got stuck in the first round (though they could have restarted the production if they got some new raw materials) while the “pull” team was able to correctly identify the bottlenecks… in that same first round! More about the spinning tops game later…
• we had a discussion on how to get customer feedback. Conclusion: when you want to encourage people to give feedback, give feedback yourself… even about people’s feedback. Not the way some big software companies are doing it: they make it easy to report a bug, but then you never hear anything about it anymore. Also we got a few demos of companies doing this very well.
• we played the Evil Waterfall Sorcerer game to learn… uhm, actually, that was just for fun…