UMPC and Tablet PC Application Contest

Develop and Win a UMPC

Handango is looking for fresh Tablet PC and Ultra-Mobile PC (UMPC) software content. Are you up for the development challenge? By converting your existing Pocket PC or smartphone applications or creating an entirely new title for Tablet PC and UMPC, you’ll be eligible to win one of three Ultra-Mobile PCs! Personal productivity, travel, fitness, medical, multimedia, and entertainment titles are all great fits for Handango's catalog. The contest runs from now until August 31. Start coding!

How to get started:

1. To begin development, please visit the Ultra-Mobile PC Development Quick Start Guide.
2. If you have questions, please visit the MSDN Mobile PC and Tablet PC Developer Center or e-mail mpcisv@microsoft.com.
3. For ways to optimize your UMPC applications for touch and ink, check out Microsoft Sudoku.
4. Test your application in the UMPC Display Emulator.
5. After completing your application and verifying that it’s compatible with Tablet PCs and Ultra-Mobile PCs, e-mail the Handango Tablet PC team to submit your titles.

The deadline for all entries is August 31, 2006.
 
Winners for top personal, media and entertainment, and multimedia and communications applications will be announced in September.

Please contact tabletpc@handango.com if you have questions or need additional details. We look forward to seeing your applications.

Web Site: http://www.impactevents.com/biztalkconference

Microsoft’s SOA & Business Process Conference is the event for our partners, customers and field personnel to get up to speed on new and updated solutions for Business Process Management (BPM), SOA and Workflow. Over 4 days, attendees will learn about the strategies and technologies that Microsoft is delivering over the next year, such as BizTalk Server, WinFX, and Office 2007. Three technical tracks will provide depth and detail into best practices for building BPM solutions, SOA guidance, and implementing BizTalk Server. A business development track will focus on the business value of BPM for both customers looking to optimize their processes and for partners looking to expand their practices. Whether you need to get up to speed, or are ready to dive deep, this is the event for technical training, networking, and business development for partners and customers interested in BPM, SOA, and Workflow.

Registration

Join Microsoft staff, valued partners, customers and industry thought leaders at the Microsoft Conference Center from October 3-6, 2006. Registration is $199.00, with an early bird discount price of$149.00 if you register by July 21st.

Agenda & Sessions

Each session, meeting, and program event at the Microsoft SOA & Business Process Conference is designed to expand your knowledge of key emerging technologies, demonstrate proven strategies for implementing solution, explain Microsoft’s long-term strategy and roadmap, and add value to your organization’s integration and workflow solution portfolio.

Sponsors & Exhibitors

Over 20 Microsoft partners are expected to showcase their latest solutions and technologies demonstrating their newest innovations- allowing attendees to test-drive key technologies and receive one-on-one, informed answers to questions.
If you are interested in sponsorship, please contact Robert Bannerman at robann@microsoft.com.

Community & Networking

Beyond the structured sessions, the Microsoft SOA & Business Process Conference will also provide many networking opportunities with people who share your professional interests.  We will be hosting several evening events to help encourage and foster community-building activities between partners, customers, and Microsoft employees.  Throughout the year be sure to check out the community sites to access the most current information.

Instructor Lead Training

Conference sponsor and BizTalk Server training partner, Quicklearn, is offering a series of classes before and after the conference for the convenience of attendees. Furthermore Quicklearn is providing a 35% discount for conference attendees. Use the links below to find out about the specific classes and to register. Make sure to include the discount Registration code: ‘BPI06’ when you register for one of these classes.

9/25-9/29 (5-days) – BizTalk Server 2006 Deep Dive
9/30-10/2 (3-days) – BizTalk Server 2006 - Service Oriented Architectures (SOA)
10/9-10/13 (5-days) – Double Header - Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) & Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)

Web Site: http://www.impactevents.com/biztalkconference

Questions to ask before hiring a web developer. 

SEOmoz recently posted some questions that they would ask when interviewing web developers. Figured I'd have a go at the questions and let you know where I stand:

1. What Industry sites and blogs do you read regularly? I consistently read Matt Cutts and Jeremy Zawodny , Jim Boykin , and Brue Clay . I also have some other favorites like Shoemoney , 9-rules (Design) , Aaron Wall , SEOmoz , Devlounge , and Stuntdubl .
2. Do you prefer to work alone or on a team? Alone, unless I can find a competent team. I've known too many "experts" that couldn't code their way out of a wet paper bag.
3. How comfortable are you with writing HTML entirely by hand? What, you mean people don't normally do that? We do everything by hand because of the control it gives over the code.
4. What is the w3c? World Wide Web Consortium. They are the group that is trying to bring standards to the web (although there are way too many that don't listen.)
   
5. Can you write table-less XHTML? Do you validate your code? Yes. and Yes to a point. If we don't put an alt tag on every image, we are still good people.
6. What are a few of your favorite development tools and why? I like Textpad for coding, Photoshop for image editing, and HeidiSQL for database interaction.
7. Describe/demonstrate your level of competence in a *nix shell environment. (not really necessary in my opinion, SQL knowledge would be a bigger requirement)
   % If I had a ( for every $ Congress spent, what would I have?
   Too many ('s.
8. What skills and technologies are you the most interested in improving upon or learning? Right now I'm looking more at DOM scripting. With AJAX going mainstream and more and more UI's expecting more dynamic interaction, I expect to learn even more about javascript (DOM) and CSS interaction.
9. Show me your portfolio. OK. Take a look at my portfolio .
10. What size websites have you worked on in the past? Everything from one pagers to 100% user defined dynamic websites with hundreds of pages.
11. Show me your code. OK. Right click, view source.
12. What are a few sites you admire and why? 2Advanced. They have amazing flash design. 9rules. Great community. Good Organization. Nice clean straightforward look.
13. Fix this code, please. Haven't I already told you about all the "expert web developers" I've interacted with (or that my previous clients had interacted with before they found me.) Been there, fixed that.
14. I just pulled up a website you built and the browser is displaying a blank page. Walk me through the steps you'd take to troubleshoot the problem.
1. Did you type the URL correctly?
2. Do other pages from the same site show up?
3. Are other site that are on the same machine available?
4. Does it show up in a different browser?
5. Can you view the source?
15. What is your favorite development language and why? PHP. Open source. Simple, yet powerful. Good documentation.
16. Do you find any particular languages or technologies intimidating? I never really cared for C (I liked C++ much better). I'm quite interested in what the "up and coming" technology is. I just find there isn't as much time to explore all of them to figure out which one is going to be beneficial.
17. HTML, CSS, WYSIWYG? Hyper Text Markup Language. Cascading Style Sheet, What you see is what you get (plus normally a lot more code than you wanted)
18. What web browser do you use? Firefox 2.0 for normal browsing. IE 6, IE 7, and Firefox for most testing.
19. What are a few personal web projects you've got going on? Constantly updating, tweaking, and improving the websites I oversee.

After nine years of being an award-winning Web authoring tool, FrontPage will be discontinued in late 2006. We will continue to serve the diverse needs of our existing FrontPage customers with the introduction of two brand-new application building and Web authoring tools using the latest technologies: Office SharePoint Designer 2007 for the enterprise information workers and Expression Web for the professional Web designer. Link >>

INETA has recently launched a new program to let the community help with their great program. If you are a business or just interested in helping out a good cause then send them an email!

(from the INETA NORAM website:)

On June 1st INETA North America launched an extensive new Sponsorship Program aimed at raising funds to expand and improve services for our members. Over the past six months the INETA NorAm Sponsorship Team, led by Sponsorship Director Pat Tormey, has designed a great program with many options for sponsorship at a variety of levels. In the four years since our founding, INETA has grown tremendously and to deliver programs and services to our members requires substantial funding and volunteer time. During the past year the INETA NorAm Board of Directors has targeted key areas for expansion and growth to better serve our members. As part of that strategic analysis it became evident we needed to establish a substantial and diverse sponsor base.

The new Sponsorship Program consists of four main levels of sponsorship (Platinum, Gold, Silver, and Bronze) and a wide range of services from which a custom sponsorship program is designed for each sponsor. The services available to sponsors focus on INETA's key strength of providing the opportunity to reach a targeted audience of software developers focused on Microsoft technologies. 

If you are interested in learning more about INETA sponsorship programs, please email marketing@ineta.org.

It took nearly two years, but two days ago on 26 February 2008, version 1.0 of the WCAG Samurai Errata for WCAG 1.0 were finally published. As stated in the Introduction, this version is also likely to be the final version.

A quick summary for anyone who is not familiar with the WCAG Samuari or their WCAG 1.0 errata: The WCAG Samurai consisted of a group of accessibility and standards-aware web developers brought together by Joe Clark in 2006. The group's goal was to create a document that provides corrections and updates for the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0.

The reason to provide corrections is that since WCAG 1.0 was originally published by the W3C in 1999, both web browsers and assistive technologies have evolved. At the same time, accessibility-aware web developers have learned and invented a lot of techniques for building accessible websites. Developers have also learned that some of the techniques that were useful in the past are no longer needed or even cause problems for users.

The WCAG Samurai errata thus removes, rephrases, and adds information that makes WCAG 1.0 more applicable to today's Web. You might also want to read Joe Clark's WCAG Samurai errata released, where he talks a bit more about the errata and the development process used.

So do the WCAG Samurai Errata actually contain any improvements? Yes, definitely. I don't agree one hundred percent with every word in the errata, but all in all I think they make a lot of sense and match what I strive for in my daily work.

Note that you can't use the WCAG Samurai Errata as a standalone document. It should be used in combination with W3C's WCAG 1.0.

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Posted in Accessibility.

The Business Leadership Forum was quite an experience and is hard to summarize. IBM did a good job of organizing it and everyone there appreciated it and learned a lot -- I certainly did. As with most conferences, a lot of the value was in talking to people at breaks. Dinner at the Vatican is next to impossible to describe. It was the proverbial "you had to be there" thing. Here are some of the key insights delivered by Sam and his speakers and panelists during the conference...

• Innovation is essential and what the 21st century is all about
• Change is faster and more disruptive than ever
• Globalization is inevitable
• Ubiquitous connectivity is breaking down physical borders and creating connections between people, economies, organizations and governments in ways that were never thought possible
• Businesses need to cultivate their uniqueness
• Businesses need to encourage employees to be multi-disciplined, collaborative, and global
• Innovation that matters comes from seeing problems differently and adding value quicker than anyone else
• Constant reorganization is futile but leaders must look at a company’s structure strategically, consider which pieces need to shift and then unfold change bit by bit
• Technology plays a leading role in innovation, but it isn't the only factor
• What were once disruptive technologies now are commodities
• To innovate, CEO's don’t need to control all the resources or build within their own frameworks. They need to partner and collaborate
• Governments can help spur innovation among the private sector
• Governments must be more flexible to respond to today's business needs
• Restrictive governments try to defend and preserve what has been achieved in the past, but if they rely only on the strength of their past, they put progress in peril
• Governments need to open themselves to market and labor reforms to stay relevant and competitive in global markets
  
  Intro to Roman Rendezvous Stories
  Index to Roman Rendezvous stories

There is a great discussion going on over at SearchEngineWatch about the "Top 10 Key Search Factors in 2007."

The initial proposed list looks like this (with my comments after the topic):

1. Content - As we've mentioned before Content is King. However, with so many social networks (digg, reddit, etc) you have got to be on your toes to provide "new and interesting" topics.
2. Key Word Selection - If you don't know what keywords your users are looking for, then you will not be found. Simple as that.
3. Site Architecture - If they can't find your content (or find it again once they come to your site, you've just lost a potential customer.)
4. Rich Media - With the explosion of video mashups and YouTube, this one might take off. However, I'm still not confident that it will drive sales compared to just wasting people's time.
5. Web 2.0 -Getting more people involved in any given project has a couple of effects. First you can quickly build a following and interest in any given topic. Second, with more "open architecture" you can cross sell your product into other existing technologies and gain notoriety even faster than ever.
6. Accessibility - This has been a topic for a number of years now, but still hasn't really seen the attention that it needs to really succeed as of yet.
7. Inbound Links - Linking is Queen. What can I say, PageRank rules.
   
8. Relevancy - I clarify this by saying specialization. More and more people are using specific websites for specific searches. Associate with a group that has like desires, customers, and is mutually beneficial and become the "know-it-alls" about that topic.
9. Popularity - I hate to say that this one will necessarily fade until social sites create a better way so people don't game the system. (Remember the issues Digg had with so called popularity)?
10. Constant Improvement - Refine, repair, review, repeat.
    

Things that I see as being influential in 2007 as far as search goes are the following:

• RSS - With IE 7 supporting RSS, I see RSS feeds becoming an even larger part of keeping people and search engines up to date with new information. This also gives the users the opportunity to chose the way they want content displayed (larger fonts, easier to read color schemes, less noise, etc)
  
• Micro-formats - This one might just jump into the ring. As more and more sites support these simple standards information will flow more freely between diverse applications. If the search engines started backing these different micro-formats (like they did with sitemaps) more and more applications would be built to track and share the information.
• Tagging - Tagging has the possibility to become as large as linking. People telling people what something is about and liking it enough to go out of their way to say so.

I would add that I think that more and more "in-page rich media" browsing (courteousy of the mainstreaming of AJAX) will happen as people realize the benefits and as the search engines find better ways to index AJAX content.

A long-running discussion related to web accessibility is whether it should be required by law or not. Some believe it is the only way of making organisations ensure that their websites can be used by everybody, while others argue that it should be up to each organisation to decide.

My opinion is that for the private sector the 'let everybody decide for themselves' argument may have some validity, but only some. Public sector websites, however, must be accessible to all, regardless of which browsing device they use or if they have a disability.

That's why I find it very interesting that on 12 June 2006, ministers of 34 European countries endorsed A pan-European drive to use information and communication technologies to help people to overcome economic, social, educational, territorial or disability-related disadvantages.

Two of the targets of this Riga Ministerial Declaration are to ensure that all public websites are accessible by 2010 and by 2007, make recommendations on accessibility standards and common approaches, which could become mandatory in public procurement by 2010.

Very interesting, and about time. There is a related memo (Information and communication technology for an inclusive society -- Frequently asked questions) that mentions WAI, so WCAG will probably be used or referenced in some way.

The full press release is available online: Internet for all: EU ministers commit to an inclusive and barrier-free information society.

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Posted in:

• Accessibility
• Quicklinks

One of the many innovations Sam Palmisano has spearheaded at IBM is the idea of reaching out to "alumni". The first initiative was a few years ago when he started a semi-annual reception for executives and former executives of the company. That was just the beginning and now the idea of reaching out has been opened up big time. The number of past and present IBMers is probably close to a million people. Establishing communications with such a huge base can be nothing but a good thing for the company.

When I left engineering school and joined IBM in 1967, it was common to look for a job at a company and expect to stay there your entire career. Nobody thinks that way anymore. If you tell someone you were with a company for decades, they might ask "what's the matter, couldn't you find any other jobs?". Another change is in the old days if someone left the company they were considered a traitor and barred from coming back. Today, there are many executives that left the company at some point, got some experience at one or more other companies, and then brought that experience back into IBM.

The Internet has enabled everything to be connected to everything, so setting up a blog to "connect" past, present, (and maybe future) IBMers to each other and with the company seems like a very good idea. The The first step was the Google Group, the logical step two is the new Greater IBM blog. Over time other forms of web technology such as wikis, audio and video podcasts, instant messaging, and various mobile technologies will likely enter the mix.

The possibilities are endless -- collaboration on projects, personal networking for jobs and deals, referrals to and from IBM, and social networking for the fun of it. I look forward to being part of this as it evolves. Upon e-tirement in 2001 with nearly four decades at IBM, I don't really feel like I left anyway! Feel free to visit patrickWeb. There are a number of categories that I have been writing about for more than ten years. Things related to IBM are at this site, I am sure I will be writing about and linking to the Greater IBM blog as will others. Cross linking will increase the overall "connectedness". That's what the web is all about. I am really proud that IBM is taking the blogosphere so seriously.

Greater IBM Blog
Greater IBM on Google Groups
read more:

• 

  That little mouthful is the full title of the latest book with my name on it. Published by Friends of Ed, it’s now gone to the printers and will be available sometime in July. I was extremely proud to be asked to contribute, as there are some real shining lights in the world of accessibility involved; how’s this for an awesome line up: Andrew Kirkpatrick, Christian Heilmann, Jim Thatcher, Cynthia Waddell, Michael R. Burks, Shawn Lawton Henry, Bruce Lawson, Mark Urban, Patrick H. Lauke and Gez Lemon (tech editing).

  As the subtitle implies, the book focusses on a web standards approach to accessibility, with chapters on HTML, Javascript and my chapter on CSS. But this is a practical book, and the web does not work on standards alone, so there are also excellent chapters on making Flash and PDF accessible, as well as details about assistive technologies. The issue of web accessibility in law and regulations is also of importance to many people. In my opinion this book covers these issues to the deepest, most pragmatic level I’ve yet seen. There was even time to squeeze in an appendix on PAS 78.

  Writing a chapter on ‘CSS for Accessible Web Pages’ was an interesting exercise in itself as it meant taking CSS in isolation. Some aspects are obvious – user style sheets for example. Others are less obvious such as discussion of highlighting areas of the page which have focus. I included a fairly deep discussion of image replacement techniques as these can be really problematic from an accessibility perspective. I also highlighted as many best practices as I could (for example including text colors with background colors) including a special section on zoom layouts.

  As you can tell I’m somewhat pleased with Web Accessibility: Web Standards and Regulatory Compliance and I’m really looking forward to seeing the final book. I know it will make a really useful addition to our shelves at Clearleft.

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The shuttle buses dropped us off and we walked a few hundred feet through a large courtyard to the Auditorium Parco della Musica. It is quite an impressive place and of the thousands of "auditoriums" in the world, only this one has the url of http://www.auditorium.com. The "city of music" lies outside of Rome's densely-packed historic center where such a facility could never have been built. Four hundred trees surround the beautiful buildings where 3,000 spectators can enjoy concerts of all kinds -- from classical to jazz and rock.

IBM hosted it's fourth Business Leadership Forum at "the auditorium" earlier this month, and it was attended by several hundred of "the world's leading thinkers from across business, industry, government and academia", representing more than 50 countries. The forum facilitated two days of discussion about innovation and the challenges facing businesses in the 21st century.

IBM Chairman and CEO Sam Palmisano kicked off the meeting by saying that innovation is not optional for the leading institutions of the world -- businesses, schools, hospitals, and governments. "The bottom line of all this is that innovation is really a 'must do' unless we want to live in an environment that's commoditized and not unique, not differentiated". Sam's point was that if organizations focus only on taking out costs, they will be doomed with very low profits if not extinction. Everyone agrees that Innovation starts at the top and Sam practices what he preaches -- not just by innovating in technologies (IBM turning out more patents year after year than any company in the world), but by innovating in strategies and business models. For example, it was Sam who led the charge to transform IBM from a hardware company to a hardware, software and services company. Especially the latter, when he acquired Price Waterhouse Consulting and smoothly integrated it into the IBM portfolio of services. He also led the sale of the PC business. Some people viewed it as simply a "sale" but in reality it was a highly innovative change to the IBM business model -- selling off a low margin business but retaining the services aspect of it and at the same time gaining a stronger foothold in the Chinese market opportunity.

Note: See BusinessWeek's story about The World's Most Innovative Companies.

Sam then introduced Lord Brown, group chief executive at bp. The company had more than $20billion in profits for 2005 and is moving to even bigger numbers in 2006. Lord Brown described many innovative aspects of the company but I was most impressed with how they are using computer simulation to continuously increase the amount of oil they are able to extract from their drillings. He also described ambitious goals to put the hydrocarbon pollutants that come out with the oil back into where the oil was extracted, thereby reducing global pollution.

At the end of day we all got back in the shuttles to head to the Vatican.


Intro to Roman Rendezvous Stories
Index to Roman Rendezvous stories

Roughly eight years ago I bought myself a welder.  I was restoring the 1950 Bantam Jeep Trailer I had purchased and it needed a new floor and some other things welded up.  The costs for hiring it out were roughly half of the cost of a small 110V MIG welder so I figured it was time to make the investment in a new tool and new skillset.

Since then the welder has proven quite handy - I was able install the new floor in the trailer, and have also been able to create a tandem bike for my kids:

And a piece of artwork for our mantle:

Over the years I’ve also used the welder to make repairs and add-ons on the 1964 CJ6 Jeep that I’m working on, as well as small repairs for friends, relatives and neighbors.

So - what I’m thinking now is that if this web development gig doesn’t work out for whatever reason, I’ll be able to go apply for any welding job because I have eight years of experience welding.

Wait - why are you rolling your eyes like that?  And what was that small huffing sound you just made?

Well, OK.  You’re right.  Picking up a small welder and dabbling in it periodically doesn’t really add up to 8 years of experience that an employer would be interested in, does it?  I have a friend who is a certified welding inspector - he owns a business that does metal fabrication so he employs professional welders and has to inspect their work.  He likes to wander around my projects and point out which welds would and wouldn’t be acceptable to him - and I usually feel good if I shoot 20%.

Yet - I see this pitching of hobby work and playing around as “experience” in the web design and development world and it seems like people fall for it in a way they wouldn’t with my welding experience.  A few weeks back I was contacted by a person who just took on a internship with a client that I had done a site for.  The project included a new custom design and deployment on a content management system so all content on the site could be updated or changed without them needing to know HTML.  It was the perfect fit for them as a business because they are small and not in a field of business where they’d naturally have people on staff with web skills. The site was immediately beneficial to them - with their previous site you couldn’t Google their name directly and get their site in the results, and the new site got them in #1 spot for their own name in short order.

However it was the classic case of having all the available tools at hand and never taking the time.  The site has sat, relatively unchanged, since we launched it roughly 4 years ago.  Then here comes the new college intern who assures me that he has been “designing websites for about 8 years now” so I wouldn’t “need to be concerned that he would end up damaging the site.”

Right.

I went to look at it yesterday and sure enough - the main navigation has been moved, the nice little main nav icons that tied into the company’s business area (and they paid for) are gone, and in the place of the main nav is now a “doesn’t quite fit in that space” blurb for “latest news”.  Latest news - for a company that had nothing new to say over 4 years time.  All the new content could have been integrated without requiring the design changes.

Specifics aside - what bothers me is my former client probably heard the same “8 years experience” line and, even though it’s coming from a college senior and therefore means that this persons “experience” started in roughly the 8th grade, gladly handed over their most prominent piece of business marketing to this person.

So business people - listen up:  Periodically noodling around with web technologies as a hobby doesn’t equal “experience”.  Sites built out of that context are rarely based on any real-world constraints of time, budget, or business requirements.  When someone uses the word “experience”, what they should be implying is “I spent a considerable portion of my day for that period of time working with this stuff” and (ideally) “people paid me for it”.

You wouldn’t look at my welding projects and hire me on to do structural, mission critical welding.  Don’t do the same with your website.

The single biggest item of feedback on the blog is everyone wanted to see more Agile posts from my personal day to day experience. I had written about the tools and technologies back in this post and several have inquired about Team System. We are using Visual Studio Team Software Architect Edition as our IDE. There are editions of VSTS Team Developer (8) and Team Test (2 for QA) on order. Although we are using VSTS/VS2005 as our IDE, that is as far as we are going right now. We still find that NUnit is vastly more flexible, agile and useful at this point than the unit test features in VSTS. We are using the Refactoring features in the C# edition all throughout the team except me, where I use the vastly superior Code Rush/Refactor! Pro. We are still using CruiseControl.NET as our CI environment and just returned to producing Click-Once published integrated builds (We have a Smart Client). We were using NANT as the build language but just this week switched to using the new CC.NET 1.0 MSBUILD task. We are now making MSBUILD as our standard build language throughout for future migration to TFS, as well as enjoying its power and flexibility. We are encountering more issues with VS2005 than I ever did in the long beta with IDE lock-ups and bizarre things although it tends to be more useful than VS2003.

In a bizarre Microsoft rendition of MSF-Agile and the VSTS Team Architect, that Architect product does NOT include the ability to write unit tests and the testing features that Team Test and Team Developer editions have!! I believe this is because Microsoft still does understand Agile and they still have these bizarre notions that Architects don't code (I have seen some of this in a mailing list that I belong to as an Architect MVP). As a full Architect on my team (I'm also the “Lead” now too), I practice Just-In-Time Architecture, Agile Modeling, and Agile Architect as well as Code is Model but I code every day just as much as any other member on my team. In fact, I pair every day and write code just as much as any member on the team. My whole team contributes to architecture, not just me, because I value each and every one of them in their ability to contribute. In that regard we use White-boards as our main “Architectural” tool. Not only is this better, but the Whitehorse designers don't do much for me yet as they do not support Indigo until the Orcas time-frame. I believe in Agile Modeling and that all such artifacts must be useful rather than just checking off some item on a checklist. In that regard, Code Is Model, and Whitehorse show promise as the SDM model allows the model to be the code and vise versa but we need Orcas-).

Not only are the testing facilities not available in Team Architect, but we are still finding that NUnit is far superior, more flexible and agile and run from our CC.NET build. At this point, we are still evaluating a TFS roll-out for Work Item Tracking and replacing Source Unsafe. We  are currently tracking work items on Flex Wiki. We are not seeing any benefits otherwise as our process is heavily XP rather than the “Agile” and using all the practices of it. This may change as we roll out a test TFS server someday. We are just finishing our 11th 3-week Iteration. The last two have been dramatically better in the team members adoption of Refactoring, TDD, Collective Code Ownership and especially their estimates. Our War Room has gotten a lot bigger and we now have 10 people sitting together. We are also getting better at our use of FIT and it's opening conversations between Business and Development.  I am also using Vista as my main dev machine but that's a whole another post-).