Use Pictures to Communicate Not Words

As I move up the ranks at work I find myself asked more to share my ideas; as I get to present my ideas I noticed that the more casual (i.e. drawing on a white board) I present my ideas the better they "go-over" and get remembered by others.

Not only do my ideas "go-over" better with others, they also are more memorable to people. The order seems to go, from worst to best, verbal/Word without images, check list, Power Point/Word with text and pictures, and best of all, white board. I believe this happens for a few reason, but I the number one reason is words can have different means to different people.

Think about it, how often do two different people get the same mean from reading the same thing? Not often. If we did then we would not have introductions to books and teachers would not do anything but read to their classes. No, it seems that just words are bad at communicating ideas to people. Pictures are much better at communicating ideas and staying with us after the presentation. In fact most of our brain (75% according to Unfolding the Napkin) is used for processing what we see.

Which do you find communicates how a Data WebService works better?

Next time you need to communicate something to someone, try using a picture or two.

Software Testing 101: Boundary-value analysis

Welcome to Software Testing 101, a guild to assist in the testing of software. Today's topic, boundary-value analysis also known as boundary testing.

Boundary-value analysis is used to test the boundary of a process. For instance, say we have a process which can take inputs between 1 and 100. How can we test the process with the minimal amount of test cases (in most work environments it is hard enough to get enough time to test the cases needed).

What we want to do, to test this process, is to test the boundary or edge condition. The boundaries of this process are 1 and 100, therefore if we test integers around 1 and 100, we would be testing the boundary.

In order to test any boundary, fully, you would need three test cases:

• Out side the boundary
• Exactly on the boundary
• In side the boundary

In this case for the lower bound of 1, we should test 0 (one out side of the boundary), 1 (exactly on the boundary), and 2 (one in side the boundary). Likewise for the upper bound of 100, we should test 99 (one in side the boundary), 100 (exactly on the boundary), and 101 (one out side of the boundary).

By using boundary-value analysis we are able to limit the number of test cases and fully test the boundary of a process.

Upgrading to Ubuntu 10.04 LTS

Just upgraded my Dell Vostro 1500 to Ubuntu 10.04 LTS on Saturday (May 8, 2010) and so far I love it!

I made the upgrade because it is a LTS (long term support) release, but the main reason was, I was having issue with my wireless connecting to U-verse. I am happy to say, the upgrade has seem to resolve my wireless connectivity issues. I can go back to watching Bleach in my bedroom if my wife wants to watch something in the living room (I am on episode 263, 幽閉？！千本桜＆蛇尾丸).

Other benefits of the upgrade include:

Faster boot time (it seems to be faster to me)

Better looking default desktop and style

Sound working out of the box (even Flash sound in Chrome)

Over all I am loving the upgrade. Nice work Ubuntu team!

How I Fixed Flash's Sound In Chrome

I recently upgraded to Ubuntu 9.10 (which is really fast, very nice looking, and all around great). Everything worked great out of the box for the most part. A few issues with the Wireless (it was picking an unsecured network instead of mine). One big problem, my sound in Flash did not work, which means I could not watch Bleach on YouTube!

It took a bit, I installed many different version of flash, moved files around, but atleast it did not work. Then I came across this thread, entry number 7. I brought up alsamixer (just type alsamixer in your terminal).

Arrowed over to Speaker (just use the right arrow key on your keyboard):

Do you see the MM, right above 64<>64 on the far right? Well, that is what is stopping your sound. That's right the speakers are muted!

Hit m (just type the letter m on your keyboard) to unmute:

See the OO, that means that you are no longer muted. Hit Esc to exit and return to the terminal.

I did this all while running Bleach in Chrome on YouTube and what happen?!? I heard sound; lovely sound!

All is well with my computer now (sad, but true).

Upgrade to Ubuntu 9.10

For few years now, I've been running Ubuntu on my Dell Vostro 1500. For about a year I've been using Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron). I have never really had any issues but I would like to run a much newer version of Eclipse. You see I am running Eclipse 3.2 and I would like to run Eclipse 3.5 so I can use newer plugins like the Orc plugin. To be able to run Eclipse 3.5, I will need to upgrade to Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala).

Upgrading to Karmic Koala from Hardy Heron, will require an upgrade from 8.04 to 8.10, then from 8.10 to 9.04, and finally from 9.04 to 9.10. I believe this will take about 3 1/2 hours. I am thinking that since I am running on a Vostro 1500 on the upgrade from 8.10 to 9.04 (Intrepid Ibex to Jaunty Jackalope) I will most likely either have to enable my Wireless again through Backports or just use a cable.

Why would my Wireless stop working? Well you see the drivers I need to run my Wireless are not Open Source and as such I will need to use Non-Open Source; Backport; drivers to be able to use it. If you have only used Windows or OS X this most likely sounds odd, but what it comes down to is Copy Rights. Ubuntu does not install Backports, you have to enable them by saying that you will agree to their Copy Rights and then they will be downloaded and installed.

I did a quick Google search to make sure that I will not have an issues with Karmic Koala on my Vostro and what I found sounds like I will not have any. In fact it sounds like the Koala runs a lot better than Hardy. Even more import and the reason for the whole upgrade Eclipse 3.5 is in Synaptic.