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6376

DC Website Help and Extras / Re: How could I set PMs in my DC Inbox to auto- forward to my email address?

« Last post by IainB on June 28, 2010, 10:44 PM »

@JavaJones: Yes. Thanks, Oshyan.

6377

General Software Discussion / Re: Software for Business Process Modeling?

« Last post by IainB on June 28, 2010, 05:03 PM »

@superboyac

I recently PM'd a couple of the experts here (I forgot to include IianB!)

-superboyac (June 25, 2010, 09:50 AM)

Please don't refer to me as, or imply that I am an "expert". The term seems to indicate that the person knows everything there is to know on a subject.

I might be an experienced consultant and practitioner of business process analysis/modeling and improvement, and I certainly can see where people are going down the wrong paths that I might have been down, but I have already indicated that I am rich in "withdumb" and relatively poor in wisdom. There's probably still a lot to learn that I am not aware of.

6378

General Software Discussion / Re: Software for Business Process Modeling?

« Last post by IainB on June 28, 2010, 04:56 PM »

@steveorg: Points noted. I shall reply via Personal Message, to avoid taking this discussion even further off-topic.
My apologies, I should probably have done that last post - as addressed to you - via PM.

6379

General Software Discussion / Re: which system tray network monitor - like a graph or something.

« Last post by IainB on June 27, 2010, 09:46 PM »

@Innuendo: OIC. Thanks for that.     

6380

General Software Discussion / Re: which system tray network monitor - like a graph or something.

« Last post by IainB on June 27, 2010, 05:17 PM »

... 64-bit versions of Windows have been around since Windows XP x64. It's time to get the lead out and support what is new and modern.

-Innuendo (June 27, 2010, 02:56 PM)

Heh, I think you might be surprised to find that 64-bit versions of Windows have been around a little longer than that. I was working at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in 1992 when they introduced the 64-bit Alpha architecture (I think it came out of something called the PRISM  project). It came installed with OSF/1, but after a few months there was an option to have it with a 64-bit Windows NT install. It was blazingly fast, with amazing throughput rates on the I/O buses. Quite a few of my customers bought the NT version, and their support techos absolutely lurved it, of course.

Did you know that the Cray computers at the time were made from assembling arrays out of the DEC Alpha 64-bit chip?

That said, yes, I understand that Windows 7 has a software developer problem, and I absolutely recognise that it is arguably the only way to go - and it is certainly where I still intend to go.
However, I have some "legacy" (= "old") proggies that I use, which have no software developer maintaining them now, and I wish to continue to be able to use them.
The thing is, I do not want to install Windows 7 in order to find out which of my fav old proggies no longer work. I suspect that I shall end up with maintaining a dual-boot install (Windows 7 + XP) whilst I wean myself off the old but now obsolete favs. Kludgy maybe, but probably appropriately cautious.

6381

DC Website Help and Extras / Re: How could I set PMs in my DC Inbox to auto- forward to my email address?

« Last post by IainB on June 27, 2010, 11:47 AM »

@daddydave:
Ah! Thanks for that. After reading your comment, I went back and double-checked the settings for:
(a) Notifications and Email
(b) Personal Message Options

- and I saw that I had not ticked some of the things there that I had been wanting but which are not ON by default.

6382

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR Plugin: TimeZone [Update version 1.4.0]

« Last post by IainB on June 27, 2010, 11:33 AM »

I am using Windows XP Pro SP3, with all updates installed.

My processor is an Intel Centrion Duo. I mention that because I have one application that does not always work well with this processor and it just abends with no error message. I have to keep restarting the program after every abend until it seems to latch on and then it works fine.

6383

General Software Discussion / Re: which system tray network monitor - like a graph or something.

« Last post by IainB on June 27, 2010, 11:26 AM »

Ahh, bugger! Bad luck.
I was thinking of migrating to Windows 7 64-bit, but I shall defer it - I have heard of a few too many instances like this, where the thing is not yet supported by this or that application.

Fortunately, there's no compelling urgency for me to do the migration  right now.

6384

DC Website Help and Extras / Re: How could I set PMs in my DC Inbox to auto- forward to my email address?

« Last post by IainB on June 27, 2010, 10:59 AM »

No, wait - I am mistaken.
I had not spotted that until just checking it now: The full text of the PM seems to be copied into the Notification that is sent to the user's email address.

I had mistakenly thought that it truncated the content of the PM, but I now realise that is not the case.

I am making mistakes because I am tired.
Must go to bed.

Thanks!             

6385

DC Website Help and Extras / Re: How could I set PMs in my DC Inbox to auto- forward to my email address?

« Last post by IainB on June 27, 2010, 10:53 AM »

@lanux128: Ah, no, I don't think that will do it - but many thanks anyway.       
I had already set the Notifications ON for when PMs went to my Inbox, and that is working OK.

What I wanted was for the full content of the PM to be forwarded to my email address, so that I didn't have to go and use the blasted DC Forum's proprietary and constipated Inbox thingy to read the PM - I hate using it. (Same goes for the Inboxes in Facebook and LinkedIn.)

6386

General Software Discussion / Re: Software for Business Process Modeling?

« Last post by IainB on June 27, 2010, 09:43 AM »

@steveorg:
This is just a quick response, because I think I have covered off the most necessary/relevant points in my response (above) to superboyac.

...strongly held opinion, bigotry, ego...

-IainB (June 25, 2010, 07:50 PM)

Am I the only one that sees the irony?

-steveorg (June 26, 2010, 09:31 PM)

I am sorry, but arguments ad hominem are largely wasted on me, and please see in my response (above) to superboyac regarding this.
The point is that my training leads me to ensure that anything I say must be rational and based on and substantiated by referenceable experience (as research done for the client, or as recognised case studies, for example). I don't get paid to dish out opinions, and my opinions are irrelevant anyway, but whenever I am asked for an opinion, I will state it prefaced with "This is only my opinion, you understand, and I could be wrong of course, but...", because it could be a pile of unsubstantiated cr#p (like most, if not all opinions).

If I gave my clients an opinion without that rider, and if they then acted on it and it then caused a loss/damage, then this could be actionable as professional negligence. My company could be liable for either punitive damages or to make good for any consequential operational losses incurred (but not both of those things, in law). My professional indemnity insurance premiums would go sky-high, and I might not be able to remain in business or afford to remain in business. You see, my professional reputation would have been tarnished, and my operational costs could have escalated phenomenally.

When I put this quote at the end of one of my posts above:

"Nullius in verbo." Motto of the Royal Society, London. Take nobody's word for it; see for yourself.

- I did so for a very good reason - i.e., The Age of Enlightenment included a transformation of our methods of thinking about "truth":

• Legitimate science seems to be based on rejection of trust. Saying something purely on the basis of trust does not resemble genuine knowledge.
• 16th century: Montaigne: no harm in the fact that "almost all the opinions we have are taken on authority and credit".
• 17th century: Gilbert, Bacon, Descartes and Boyle made a big thing of taking nothing on trust/authority.
• Natural knowledge founded in evidence in nature - individual reason. Not in authority of tradition. Real knowledge not based on trust but on direct experience.
• Reliance on the views of others produces errors. The best scientist is thus incapable of functioning as a member of society.
• Objective truth may exist, but human nature may preclude us from being able to experience it.

I tend to agree with superboyac, I believe you know what you are talking about.

-steveorg (June 26, 2010, 09:31 PM)

I feel somewhat gratified that you might agree with him that I know what I am talking about, but, as per my response to him, I am not so sure that I do - I only hope that I do know what I am talking about regarding business processes(etc.), but I certainly do know about the mistakes I or my colleagues have made.
In any event, your agreement is irrelevant as it is an opinion and an appeal to the consensus (a logical fallacy, and therefore meritless), and your belief is irrelevant. They do nothing to substantiate the rightness/validity or otherwise of anything that I might have said/written, or what you say/write.

That's despite the fact that you've demonstrated little insight into superboyac's situation and needs, and that your writing is sometimes obtuse and disjointed. I'd expect someone successful in your profession to be perceptive and a good communicator.

-steveorg (June 26, 2010, 09:31 PM)

Please see my comments above and earlier posts, regarding arguments ad hominem.

Look, I don't wish to be rude, but the rest of your post seems to me to be mostly more ad hominem and some weak attempts to rationalise and validate your past work/experience, so I shall not address that as it appears that it would not contribute materially to improvement in any rational debate on the subject. That doesn't necessarily mean that there is nothing in there that could contribute, it's just that I haven't spotted it after a quick sift through.

I do appreciate that I have put things in one of my posts above in such a way that it might have called into question the validity of a great deal of your and other people's past work/experience and preferred opinions. No-one likes being told to accept that they have been doing it wrong.

But that's just it you see. I was and still am rich in "withdumb" and relatively poor in wisdom. When I was literally forced to find a better way to do things, in order to retain the multi-million dollar contract that we had won (and I was a lead author for the RFP response that had won the business, so my job could have been on the line), I had to put in some seriously hard work to dig us out of the hole we were in. I was responsible - and I have a very strong locus of responsibility. It was up to me. I had to carry out some rapid research, and, without consciously realising it, I had to push aside conventional approaches and conventional wisdom - my "withdumb". I was very lucky indeed to discover the new methods, tools, and approach that I did, and in so short a time too.

And when I had time to stop, take a deep breath and review and actually think about what I had just gone through, I saw the awful and inescapable truth, that, regardless of how I tried to rationalise and validate my past work/experience:

   I HAD BEEN DOING BUSINESS PROCESS WORK IN AN ARCHAIC MANNER FOR YEARS.
           I HAD BEEN DOING IT THE WRONG WAY.
                    I HAD TO CHANGE.

If I had not been forced into discovering this, then I probably would never have done so. "Necessity is the mother of invention"? Maybe.
I kid you not, my ego took a serious bashing at that point and for some time after. I still cringe when thinking about it. But it taught me to systematically question and review my own training, thinking skills, education, motivations, pet theories, cherished beliefs and opinions. It made me realise just how much my negligent self-awareness of those selfsame things had enabled them to cluster around my potentially open mind like fats collect slowly to block an arterial pathway, fitting me into a tight paradigm straightjacket so that my mind could no longer be open. And my ego had prevented me from ever realising that this had been happening to me. Dammit! I was always right! How could I need any improvement in the thinking skills department? I was shocked at myself.

"Why are we all so damn stupid?" (W. Edwards Deming)

I had just turned 50 at the time, and I thought "Sh#t! This must be how we grow old and set in our ways." But I realised that I could choose to let my mind age like that, or do something about it. CHANGE.

This is just a quick response...

That opening line was, of course, a joke.    
Your post made me think and it deserved a thoughtful response, else I would have failed to take an opportunity to contribute to, and communicate on what I consider to be a very interesting and important area of human endeavour  - an area where we could all probably benefit by learning to do better.

6387

General Software Discussion / Re: Software for Business Process Modeling?

« Last post by IainB on June 27, 2010, 06:55 AM »

@superboyac:
Thanks for your post above. This is probably off topic, but I would like to respond to each of the points you make. I hope that's OK by you.

Firstly, I believe you know what you are talking about.  I apologize fore not closely reading and thinking about your very long posts.  I simply didn't have the time for it.  This weekend, I am rereading them and will have to spend time thinking about it.

-superboyac (June 26, 2010, 04:22 PM)

Do I know what I am talking about?              

• I'm not so sure. I hope I know what I am talking about when I talk about business process analysis/modelling (though there is always more to learn), but I can offer no proof of that other than by demonstration. (I might be making it all up, for example.)
• I certainly know what I am talking about when I talk about mistakes in the context of "I have probably made most of those mistakes - plus a few others - and seen my colleagues make the same or worse." (This was what I was referring to by "...whereof I speak")

Secondly, i feel you were rude in the post above.  I understand why you did that, and it may even have been effective in getting me to reconsider my methods, but it was rude.

-superboyac (June 26, 2010, 04:22 PM)

I am sorry if you feel it was rude. I did in fact preface my comments thus:

"With all due respect to you and the other members who have contributed in this discussion so far, and without wishing to insult your intelligence, I have to say that ..."

In any event:
(a) It certainly was not intended to be rude and I do apologise if I gave offence.    
(b) What I was being was blunt and direct - calling a spade a spade - in order to drive the point home.
(I shall retrospectively update the post with this statement.)

Otherwise, the points I felt needed to be made could not really be made by pussyfooting around  - and I did state unequivocally that I was having a rant.

Thirdly, while you are throwing out a lot of information, you are not communicating effectively.  What is your point and can you state it clearly in one paragraph? There is an art to being able to say a lot with less words.

Well, again, with all due respect, I might opine a similar gratuitous and pointless (i.e., what point does it make about the subject) criticism about you - but I would not dream of doing so as it would seem to be an ad hominem (which is a logical fallacy and meritless). Any criticisms I might make would not be on the style of a debater's communication but rather intended to contribute thinking to the debate and the improvement of understanding and resolution of an issue.
Whilst I appreciate that the criticism you express here is opinion (and we are all entitled to our opinions, no matter how wrong they may be), I have no information to go on that suggests that it is anything more than that - i.e., just your opinion.

Is it (say) a professionally qualified opinion? For example, what rules dictate that it must be one paragraph? Why not two, and how long should a paragraph be anyway? Et cetera. Therefore, your comment as it stands is of questionable use, so I shall ignore it. Unless, of course, you are an expert on, and qualified to critique the use of English, English grammar and communications theory and practice - in which case then I am (as they say) "all ears", and I shall look forward to some detailed suggestions as to how I could improve my communications (that should probably be done via PM as it would be very much off-topic).
In other words, and to use a short phrase to say much, "Put up or shut up". (I think short phrases like that sound rude and so would not usually use them as I do not wish to be rude, but you seem to want 'em!)                    

Situation description:
Thanks for describing some of the situational context of the business process work in your organisation. In light of that, I would respectfully suggest that maybe you might like to review your post and consider deleting some of it. (Just a thought.)

Regarding that situation, I would suggest that you beware. Business process reviews in an organisation are usually (inevitably?) fraught with the politics of domain-protection, which is why external consultants are often brought in under contract to do the work. External consultants generally do not care who gets the chop as long as they get the freedom and scope of action to do their professional job as best they can according to the agreed terms of reference, and then can pick up a fat fee and performance bonus at the end of the contract. The virulent antibodies in most organisations can be very quick to make it a toxic environment for in-house exercises that might threaten the status quo - which exercises then often fail ignominiously.

"I am personally curious and willing to do things the best way."

-superboyac (June 26, 2010, 04:22 PM)

I would suggest that there may well be no "best way", and that anyway it all depends on what you mean by "best" in this context.
The choice would seem to me more likely to be like the example of hunters choosing between arming themselves with native instinct, loinskins, bows and arrows and pointy sticks to go hunt their dangerous prey, or arming themselves with a good strategic hunting theory, some reinforced battledress, semi-automatic rifles with infrared targeting and telescopic sights. Surprisingly, a lot of people seem to go for the former, because they don't know about the latter choice. If they did know, then arguably the answer would be that it's a no-brainer. Certainly, I fall into the latter group, and have turned down contracts where the client expects you to wear a loinskin and use bows and arrows and pointy sticks. I know this could perhaps be regarded as an unconventional approach by some, but that's one of the reasons that I am a fan of Copernicus' and not a member of the Flat Earth Society.

6388

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR Plugin: TimeZone [Update version 1.4.0]

« Last post by IainB on June 27, 2010, 01:38 AM »

@Perry Mowbray:

Do you know where? That's interesting, I've had issues with GooglePlus for some time, but TimeZone has been fine.
I'm sorry that you've had problems...

-Perry Mowbray (June 25, 2010, 05:57 PM)

My last post on the details of the crashes with FARR (caused by TimeZone and separately by two other plugins) is here: Re: Latest FARR Release v2.87.03 - May 4, 2010

I am sorry, I should have posted the details to this discussion thread at the time.

6389

DC Website Help and Extras / How could I set PMs in my DC Inbox to auto- forward to my email address?

« Last post by IainB on June 26, 2010, 11:49 PM »

How could I set PMs (Private Messages) s in my DC Inbox to auto-forward my email address?

I have searched the site looking for help on this, but have found nothing relevant yet.

Can the user set preferences somehow to auto-forward PMs to their email address?

(Thanks in advance.)

6390

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: AHK script to insert date and time to file name

« Last post by IainB on June 26, 2010, 11:21 PM »

@wetsmellydog: Thanks for your thanks. I cannot take credit for this as being "all my own work" though!

I actually lifted some AHK code from somewhere else (I forget where), and then later - after taking the time to discover/learn more about AHK - I simplified and modified the code to suit my particular requirements. So what you see is what I ended up with.

The sources I used were:

• http://www.autohotkey.com/
• http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/
• http://www.autohotke....php?title=Main_Page
• + some of the AHK scripts in the DC website and forum

These are all good. The tutorials I came across were very helpful.

As an encouragement, I would suggest that you might pick it up quite quickly if you have no techo background to cloud your thinking with preconceptions.

You might think it would help to have a techo background, but sometimes I am not so sure.

For example, take my case: Having been introduced to computer programming via a low-level programming language used for assembler programming on mainframe computers years ago, I have always had difficulty changing my thinking to use any higher-level languages. It was thus difficult for me when I later had to adapt and learn to program in the programming language FORTRAN (which has to be compiled before execution), but when I learned the BASIC language it seemed quite foreign (it is not compiled, but runs through an interpreter at run-time). Years later, I had similar difficulty wrapping my mind around a scripting language (I think it was called "Telix") to control and manipulate data flowing between the PC serial port and a modem (driven by the Hayes AT command set).
So, when I came across AHK, though it at least had a degree of familiarity in its general structure, I had to push to one side everything that I had previously learned, lest it get in the way of my understanding this new thing.

You might not have that difficulty, from the sound of things.
Interestingly, from what I have read, a lot of the PC viruses over the years are apparently thought to have been developed by "script-kiddies" - virgins whose first PC programming language was a scripting language.

6391

General Software Discussion / Re: Software for Business Process Modeling?

« Last post by IainB on June 25, 2010, 07:50 PM »

@superboyac: With all due respect to you and the other members who have contributed in this discussion so far, and without wishing to insult your intelligence, I have to say that your questions clearly demonstrate to me that, with a depressing predictability you would seem to have proceeded down the path that I had laboriously tried to warn you off and which others had, in their ignorance, encouraged you to follow. This pisses me off somewhat. I was already annoyed because I have just had to advise a client how to clean up a stupid mess in a project that had gone off the rails - a project situation that was clearly avoidable. Human error/stupidity. So, to let off some steam, please forgive me but I am going to have to have a rant.

WARNING! START OF RANT!----------------
The issue here is probably largely to do with the degree of critical thinking required to adequately pose your questions in the first place, and then answer them.

There is nothing necessarily wrong with ignorance except not attempting to overcome it to some extent. It is a normal human condition from which we can never hope to escape. For example, I am ignorant all of the time, but at least I am acutely aware of that fact. The best that we can hope to do is to dispel some of the gloom by learning from others' mistakes (thereby saving us from tediously repeating them) and communicating that learning, and seeking real knowledge and truth - for example, as to the options and the factors affecting the options, for determining what course to take under certain circumstances.

I have probably made most of those mistakes - plus a few others - and seen my colleagues make the same or worse. So I can show that I probably know whereof I speak. I made them when I was "Withdumb".

Withdumb is the best neologism I have yet come across to adequately define this state of ignorance, and I only read about it yesterday on Scott Adams' (Dilbert) blog:

Definition of Withdumb: A quality you possess if you hold a popular and unfounded point of view.

Withdumb is different from herd instinct. A person who possesses withdumb could achieve the condition with no help whatsoever from the group . For example, if you were the only person in Mongolia who believed in astrology, you would have withdumb, but it wouldn't be because your herd influenced you.

It's easier to cling to an irrational opinion if you know that somewhere in the world there are lots of people who think the same way, especially if those other people seem smart or authoritative.

When I was a kid, my own withdumb included the idea that eating before swimming meant certain death. I assumed that someone had actually done research on that topic. I recall wondered why I had never heard of anyone dying from a sandwich-related swimming incident. But when you are young, you assume there are plenty of things happening that you don't know about. The only thing I knew for sure is that lots of people believed that eating and swimming was a dangerous combination.

The "good advice" you have had from some people (not so much from me, I hope) in this discussion is arguably crawling with conventional wisdom, weak or unstated assumptions, weak theory, unsubstantiated and therefore irrationally held belief and/or strongly held opinion, bigotry, ego justification, rationalisation, ignorance, and all apparently in a relative vacuum of critical thinking. (Discussion forums seem to rarely encourage the converse of these things.)

So, no more answers from me. I am not going to bib-wipe your chin. We all need to endeavour to help ourselves to a greater extent to sort things out, and besides there is nothing wrong with doing some legwork and research. I shall therefore provide a link to a set of some of the most relevant and extremely useful base material that I can think of to help you. You will need to study it yourself. You will not understand a lot of it (especially the Red Beads Experiment, I suspect) because it is so simple that it will probably escape you. Like the time I attended a W.E. Deming 4-day seminar in 1985 and only began to understand what that then 82-year old intellectual giant was talking about on the morning of the 4th day, when I realised that what I thought I had previously understood was actually wrong and I had completely missed the simple truth of what he was patiently trying to get us to understand. He even warned us at the outset that a lot of what he was going to say was very simple and yet difficult to understand, and that it was very profound. (It was all of those things!)

You are already clearly set, it seems to me (from what you have said), to make a lot of the classic mistakes in your business process analysis. You will trip over some obvious obstacles, fall flat on your face and say, "Ah! So maybe that's what that grumpy sod IainB was talking about!" You will be presented with opportunities to incrementally develop your critical thinking, improve your knowledge, and thereby become less ignorant. These are all aspects that I am continually trying to improve in myself. Seize all such opportunities.
END OF RANT-----------------
File: BPR - notes - copies for a public domain collection.zip

________________________________________
"Nullius in verbo." Motto of the Royal Society, London. Take nobody's word for it; see for yourself.


Update 2010-06-28:
I have been told in a post below that this post is rude. As a result, I promised to post the following:
(a) It certainly was not intended to be rude and I do apologise if I gave offence.      
(b) What I was being was blunt and direct - calling a spade a spade - in order to drive the point home.

Otherwise, the points I felt needed to be made could not really be made by pussyfooting around  - and I did state unequivocally that I was having a rant.

6392

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR Plugin: TimeZone [Update version 1.4.0]

« Last post by IainB on June 25, 2010, 12:59 PM »

@Perry Mowbray: I have had to uninstall:

• Gmail Tasks
• GooglePlus
• TimeZone

Each one of them appeared to be causing FARR to crash on start-up.
(I did post about this elsewhere.)

6393

Find And Run Robot / Re: What hotkey(s) do *you* use to trigger FARR?

« Last post by IainB on June 25, 2010, 12:43 PM »

Because I was starting to run into Hotkey conflicts, and because I wanted to avoid using the (reserved) Windows key, I have started to use Pause/Break to make FARR pop up. Prior to that, I used Ctrl+Space.

By the way, for starting applications generally, I have moved to using this scheme:

• Use remapkey.exe to map CapsLock to RightShift.
• In AHK, Use the key combination LeftShift+RightShift+x - where "x" is any other single key - to start proggies up.

Since LeftShift+RightShift is such a daft combination normally, I figured there would be no conflicts (none found yet, either).

6394

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: AHK script to insert date and time to file name

« Last post by IainB on June 25, 2010, 12:26 PM »

I use this - prune it how you like.
Having the date in ISO format at the front of the file name makes for good document filing/sorting.

AutoHotKey script:

^+d::  ; Ctrl+Shift+d outputs current date+time
   FormatTime, CurrentDateTime,, yyyy-MM-dd HHmm  ; It will look like 2010-12-21 0353hrs
   SendInput %CurrentDateTime%hrs
   return

6395

Best Archive Tool / Re: Versions??

« Last post by IainB on June 19, 2010, 07:15 PM »

@Deozaan

Have you tried 7-Zip?

No, I have only tried a couple of archiving proggies - as a result of learning from taking part in this discussion. I had not planned on evaluating them all!
I have been using WinRAR for years, and just recently tried iZarc, and now PeaZip (out of curiosity).
I found the Wikipedia article on archiving proggies provides an interesting summary and some basis for comparison.

6396

Best Archive Tool / Re: Versions??

« Last post by IainB on June 16, 2010, 03:17 AM »

I've just been trying out PeaZip (Sourceforge.net).
It's rather good at what it does. It seems a little less clunky than iZarc, and looks as though it is designed for browsing directories and archiving on the spot as you browse. PeaZip looks/feels more like what I wanted.

6397

General Software Discussion / Re: Software for Business Process Modeling?

« Last post by IainB on June 15, 2010, 07:49 PM »

Yes, +1 for @Target's/@steveorg's advice for a minimalist and KISS approach.

And I still think it was a mistake to come down from the trees.

6398

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2009 / Re: Request: Please share your prioritization methods here

« Last post by IainB on June 13, 2010, 02:33 PM »

@tomos:

...could you go into more detail about how this worked with Lotus Notes ?
...
How did you get on with IQ ? - I could imagine it being very adaptable to the ABC approach.

-tomos (June 13, 2010, 08:47 AM)

It was Lotus Agenda that I used, not Lotus Notes. The two things were completely unrelated in the Lotus stable of products.

It would take too long to describe how I had ABC working with Lotus Agenda - even if if I could remember it all after so many years. Suffice it to say that Agenda was a very powerful text database tool, complex to use and necessitating that you were able to apply some good logic as a user. I became a power user and eventually had used most of the documented features of Agenda and some undocumented features that I discovered also.

Sorry, but I'm not much of a good user of IQ: My efforts with IQ tailed off (I rather lost interest) when I discovered that it was a good general purpose d/base PIM tool, but that it lacked some of the Lotus Agenda-like features that I was looking for. In theory, since it uses SQL, then, as a user, you might be able to frig the IQ system and emulate those features, but I did not have the time to invest in trying that approach out.

That was what surprised me about the Firefox add-on "GTD for Gmail" - it had some features that made me think maybe the developers had understood quite a lot about ABC. For example, they had some horizontal buttons you could set up for "Status", and which were dynamically mutually exclusive. Thus, when you clicked (say) "ToDo" for a task/item, and later clicked WIP (meaning you had started working on the thing), then "ToDo" was automatically "unpressed". However, for reasons that escape me, the developers seem to have just ruined the possibility for doing that with their latest changes because these buttons are now not mutually exclusive and have been buried in drop-down menus to boot. Very tiresome.

One of the most useful things that Agenda could do was to dynamically auto-set a logical attribute called "category" for a task/item, depending on a rule - for example, whether a certain character string was present in the item data. In the Gmail context, this would be like Gmail dynamically setting a label for an email discussion, if (say) the word "frog" was found in that email discussion. I think this sort of capability might be built into mouser's Clipboard Help & Spell - which employs virtual folders and SQL filters - but I haven't had time to play with that to find out for sure.

Hopes this makes sense. I tend to make mistakes when tired, and I am tired now.

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Living Room / Re: Second Wind - beautiful student animation

« Last post by IainB on June 13, 2010, 09:26 AM »

@p3lb0x: Thanks for that link. Lovely animation.

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The Getting Organized Experiment of 2009 / Re: Request: Please share your prioritization methods here

« Last post by IainB on June 13, 2010, 07:59 AM »

@Paul Keith: Ah yes, I first met this at a seminar by Deming, as the "PDSA cycle" (Plan, Do, Study, Act), which provides a rational method for making changes (improvements) to a process, when attempting to effect an improvement in quality of output of the process. I read somewhere that Deming said he borrowed it from the PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) of his teacher, Shewart.


Interestingly, Deming apparently disassociated himself from the over-hyped TQM (Total Quality Management) "movement" (maybe "gravy train" would be a more suitable term) - which included Kaizen - that was largely built upon his work by third parties and who generally seemed to have some difficulty in comprehending his 14-point philosophy.