Something Pithy (Steve Donie) - All Comments

re: CCTray with Hudson

Peter — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 19:01:37 GMT

thanks, worked like a charm! I linked to this page from hudson

wiki.hudson-ci.org/.../Hudson+Build+Status+Lava+Lamps

re: Why a culture of quality matters

Mark Anderson — Tue, 19 May 2009 16:11:24 GMT

The text of the dialog is:

You have acknowledge the terms of the <FONT size=4>Plan Documents, Certificates of Coverage, Summary Plan Descriptions</FONT></FONT> polcy. Click OK to continue?

re: Why a culture of quality matters

Scott C Reynolds — Mon, 11 May 2009 20:36:40 GMT

as an aside...I can't use the ADP portal at all. programmer fail. quality fail. service fail. You're absolutely right. This is why it matters.

Arjan`s World » LINKBLOG for April 28, 2009

Arjan`s World » LINKBLOG for April 28, 2009 — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 19:17:37 GMT

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re: Why a culture of quality matters

Paul Alexander — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 07:50:36 GMT

We've been using ADP for a couple years now and I can tell every time my wife goes on to submit payroll due to the bellowing "OMG Why does it do this every time!" from the other room. Just about anything other than basic workflow opertions just don't work.

re: Why a culture of quality matters

Sergio Pereira — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 02:05:01 GMT

I'm actually amazed that they have never screwed up my paychecks (knock on wood.) Maybe they're still running of off the trusty old excel spreadsheet.

re: Why a culture of quality matters

Larry — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 21:05:10 GMT

I'd like to add that PayChex is no better. It's atrocious. In addition to their tiny fonts, and general Firefox incompatibility, their site insists on spawning a new browser window for every click. It seems like they cobbled together their service by acquiring multiple products, so every one behaves differently and requires some kind of single-sign-on passthrough.

Their login sequence is great. First, pick from a dropdown list indicating which service you need (FSA, retirement, etc). You're redirected to their "redesigned login page" whereby a div which you've seen dozens of times before welcomes you to logging in and hides the login controls until you dismiss it. The username and password fields lose focus when you alt-tab to your password database program, so all auto-type capabilities are off the table. So you type your username, password, and pick that all-important login graphic. Next is the "Secret Question" validation. Then they insist on wasting yet another page to tell you that THIS is your login graphic, and you MUST remember it to log in next time! Well duh, I wouldn't very well be reading this if I didn't already recognize it. Finally, remember that dropdown from which you chose which service you wanted? Well Paychex doesn't. So go ahead and pick from the menu and spawn yourself another browser.

re: Why a culture of quality matters

Rod Paddock — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 21:02:12 GMT

ADP software is notoriously bad. From a Usability standpoint as well as all APIs for importing data into the application

Which leads to the why of it all? Well the why is that ADP is a virtual monopoly on that stuff. ADP and PayChex are two of the biggest payroll companies in existance.

When you have no competition you could really give a crap about experience correct ?

re: Why a culture of quality matters

Andrew — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 20:24:26 GMT

I remember years ago the company I worked with moved from a macro'd up Spreadsheet to an intranet version of our timesheet. Our timesheet wasn't all that complicated, but for some reason the company that created the intranet application used some sort of wizard to create it instead of actually coding it. The result was a single webpage of over 250,000 lines of code. In 2009 that would be a joke, back in 1999 when offshore sites were connected via a 64k line, it all but ground our business to a halt.

The moral to the story? For some reason, every HR program I have ever seen has been horrible from a technical standpoint, especially useability. Frankly, I'm surprised nobody has come in and undercut the market with a good product consider most HR programs also complete bloatware that have ridiculous hardware requirements.

Most financial and accounting software is similar in this regards, but from what I understand they are improving. The problem is, most companies feel they are paying for the importance is in the back end processes, not the entire software package.

re: Updated Release Burndown Spreadsheet Template

Steve Donie — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 19:19:13 GMT

I just uploaded a slightly tweaked version of this - I found a bug in the formula that calculates the 'points remaining in this release' on the 'stories' tab. The bug (if you want to fix an existing spreadsheet) is to also subtract the points 'cut', which is cell C2. The formula for that cell should be "=$C$6-$C$1-$C$2-$C$3"

re: Updated Release Burndown Spreadsheet Template

Steve Donie — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 19:15:52 GMT

I haven't noticed that problem (blank pages between cards), but I suspect it may be something specific to the printer you are using and the printable area it supports. You might try shrinking the row height on a few rows in the 'Card Template' page and re-generating the cards to see if that helps.

re: Updated Release Burndown Spreadsheet Template

Scott White — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 21:12:11 GMT

This is great. Has anyone noticed that it prints blank pages between Cards?

re: Updated Release Burndown Spreadsheet Template

jdn — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 02:31:33 GMT

Awesome. Thanks for this.

re: Updated Release Burndown Spreadsheet Template

Chris Missal — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 23:00:06 GMT

Thanks for updating and re-posting this Steve. It comes with perfect time for me and my team! :)

Looking for a new team member - Something Pithy (Steve Donie) -

Looking for a new team member - Something Pithy (Steve Donie) - — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 08:18:33 GMT

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