planning quotes

couple of quotes about planning that i find useful: "In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969) i've seen many variations of this, and even attributions to other people. but this one is from the columbia world of quotations, so i think it's more authoritative. it's a pithy summary of how the mental discipline and attention to detail required by planning is usually more important than the plan produced. "the contemporary advanced-technology project demands advances that cannot depend on accident or chance; breakthroughs are increasingly the result of steady, planned, technological pressure under economical and political conditions which demand advances -- on ever-shortening time cycles. we have arrived at a point where we must _schedule_ creativity and invention, as well as the production which follows right on its heels, and must attempt to predict with some accuracy when operational hardware will be delivered and what it will cost." archibald and villoria, network-based management systems (pert/cpm), p. 77 i like the way this quote rejects the attitude that creative advances are haphazard and serendipidous. if i can plan well enough, i can predict and depend on them.

the success or failure of projects is determined in the first 10% of their lifetimes. fergus o'connell "how to run successful projects" (1994). very true in instructor's experience. you have to start the right way and know how you'll get there.

definition: a project is a unique exercise which aims at a defined outcome. it is not part of otherwise routine operation.

don't use microsoft project; it is useless. people are notoriously bad at estimating time required for tasks. ususally it takes about twice as long as you think. visualizing task dependence can help to envision concurrence and keep track of the critical path (longest minimum time, not necessarily most important) which can change.

project management software

i've been searching in vain lately for software that will magically make my projects organized. i'm most interested in using network-based methods, though these seem to be out of fashion since their peak in the 60s. the best book i've been able to find so far on this is 'network-based management systems (pert/cpm)' by archibald and yilloria (available pretty cheap on amazon). it's so old that most of the computational stuff is probably worthless; just monte carlo the thing and go home. the thing is, i don't care so much about resource leveling, since i'm the only resource. i do care about uncertain time estimates, but i would like to go beyond that to account for uncertain success for task alternatives. i tend to do more r&d type projects, where there is more than one way to approach a problem but not all approaches will work. i want my project plan to help me decide what to try first, either to eliminate unlikely possibilities or to confirm prerequisites quickly. i think this can fit the old network methodology if i use boolean inputs at event nodes or (probably better) i use a hierarchical network where multiple approaches are abstracted as a higher-level activity. i can't believe no one has done this before, but i can't find any refs. i guess the typical gantt/work breakdown structure has a hierarchical structure, so maybe i can take advantage of that when interfacing project management software. taskjuggler uses text format input files for gantt-chart-like dependencies that i might reasonably generate from a network topology. that would allow me to make reports that are intelligible to other people, but i would still have to write all the code for the network operations, especially dealing with probabilistic time and success representations (probably unavoidable anyway). openproj.org is another one worth looking at. relatively feature-rich, including hosting and (i think) some m$ project compatibility. probably this or taskjuggler would be the best to work with. definitely best for simple and/or one-offs; i've used it this way before, on windows and linux. kplato is less than impressive, and i saw some mention of them wanting to merge with taskjuggler anyway. www.sharedplan.com offers hosted planning. nice for security and collaboration, but i'm not sure what exactly their features are.

circuit protection

i've been thinking that if i want to be a real grown-up with probes or circuit-pc interfaces, i'll need to use some protection. ptc resistors are cheap and easy overcurrent protectors. they basically increase in resistance by orders of magnitude when they pass a critical current. digikey has one that trips at 25 mA, about right for mcu io. varistors (eg mov) and avalanche diodes have a complementary role, passing large currents at critical voltages. so maybe a transient voltage suppressor in parallel with a load with a series ptc (with maybe a ~high power resistor to absorb the energy) could protect against both esd and stupidity in a cheap and easy way. according to littelfuse, though, the tvs can have too much capacitance to use them on high-bandwidth signal lines. they recommend their powerguard pgb0010603, which mouser carries for ~30 cents each.

avr microcontrollers

some frustration with the lack of good open source high-level language support for pics has lead me to investigate accessibility for the avr and other platforms made by atmel. apparently isp is at least as easy, judging by this parallel port programmer. other designs leave out the pull-up resistor on reset and drive it directly; some even leave out all the current-limiting resistors, leaving nothing but a homemade cable. can't get any simpler (and less safe) than that. (one note: some people use pin 18 instead of 20 and 21 on the parallel port for gnd.) plenty of designs out there for usb programmers, too, so i could use my netbook to flash an avr. but i think they all use an avr, so the 2-resistor programmer will always have its place. i couldn't find any refs on using the parallel port to power the mcu during programming, but i guess it doesn't matter since it will need power from the circuit to test/use. still need to familiarize myself with all the available options for avrs. here is the atmel product guide with feature tables, etc. apparently atmel is much more stingy with samples than microchip, so i'll just have to order some from digikey or mouser. gcc has an avr backend! it seems almost too good to be true. and there is the pymite project; still looks young but under active development. if i go far into embedded stuff, i'll eventually need to use a rtos, like freertos, to keep my code modular and simple and to give me some platform independence.

network hard drive vs. vista

managed to get my network hard drive mapped in *blech* vista *blech* *wipes mouth with back of hand* thanks to the hard work of others. this guy told me the right setting to crowbar into the registry as well as the 'net use' command, since the smiley-face, hand-holding "Map Network Drive..." still won't work. ('the thing i like about windows is not having to use that command line thingy...' harumph!) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa\LMCompatibilityLevel from a 3 to a 1 net use Z: \\I-drive\Share password /USER:username /PERSISTENT:YES now i just need to figure out whether i should use ftp+fuse or smbmount on my linux box.

easy svn server

here's a very handy command to use a remote subversion repository without needed a svn daemon running all the time. for example, to check out: svn co svn+ssh://username@server.name/path/to/repository ssh starts and stops the server for you. can't beat that!

microlending

there are a few microlending efforts out there that i think are worth a closer look. kiva allows lenders to review and select loans to make. microplace looks like more of a fund for investors interested in providing capital for microlending. i should check these out, along with the others reviewed and ranked in the forbes article.