On any given day, families around the world wake up, feed their kids, get them to school, work, come home, eat, clean, and go to bed.  There are daily tasks like brushing teeth, weekly tasks such as buying groceries, and long-term tasks or projects such as painting the house.

The success in managing these family tasks vary from family to family the same way business process management varies from company to company.  Let’s look at a few management techniques that can be found in any family or business: Continue reading…

One of the major challenges of developing software concerns striking the right balance between features and usability — the degree to which a product helps end users to utilize offered functions easily and appropriately.

Most software companies include more and more features in their products in an attempt to distinguish their applications from those of past versions and their competitors. They believe that more features will keep existing customers and entice new ones to buy their product. Continue reading…

This is part three of a multi-part series that describes a security interoperability project between a Secure Token Service (STS) built from Microsoft’s Windows Identify Foundation (WIF) and two open-source (java and ruby) web applications. The primary focus of the project was to secure the java/ruby web services using the STS. Continue reading…

“Why are we doing this?”

“I’m not even sure what it is we’re doing.”

“Funny. We’re building the item.”

“Nobody seems to like it. Who are we building it for?” Continue reading…

This is part two of a multi-part series that describes a security interoperability project between a Secure Token Service (STS) built from Microsoft’s Windows Identify Foundation (WIF) and two open-source (java and ruby) web applications. The primary focus of the project was to secure the java/ruby web services using the STS. Part one of the series can be found here. Continue reading…

As the grey hairs have collected, I have heard a range of arguments over the years about how many testers are enough for user testing, (or even alpha and beta testing).  Some argue that you should have large samples for statistical certainty, while others argue much less.  I am a much less kinda guy? Continue reading…

In Part 1 of User Design Makes Sense I compared usability design as it relates to software and automotive dashboards. My point was to show that usability design is critical regardless of what tool you are creating.

Today I want to dig a little deeper and first discuss what is good design and then outline some basic concepts that underpin usability theory and practice. As before, I will relate my discussion to software and automotive dashboards. Continue reading…

Approximately two years ago, I was asked to build security integration between the open-source applications I manage and a large web application written in .NET.  The knowns at the outset of the project included:

• The integration point was a custom built authentication/authorization server
• The server was a .NET application built on Windows Identity Foundation (WIF).
• The server implemented claims based authentication
• I was given a link to the server’s MetaDataExchange (mex) document
• I barely knew anything about claims based authentication
• I’d be hard pressed to cover the head of a pin with my .NET knowledge
• My Microsoft counterparts had little availability
• No one had any idea how cross platform  integration actually worked

Effectively, my team was completely on its own.

Continue reading…

I was discussing trends in technology with a colleague the other day. We were reminiscing about the “pre-internet days” and how far technology has progressed since. Near the end of the conversation I mentioned that I now spend more time collaborating through video conferences than I talk over the phone. With that thought I realized that the “cloud hype” generated by the media over the past few years has actually become my reality.

Continue reading…

Development teams are an interesting bunch. They can get into a mindset where all they have to do is deliver code for a given feature to be complete. This certainly makes sense… that is all which is asked of them. The requirements are met, the code is reviewed, QA has signed off.  What else is there? Continue reading…