Do you Firefox or do you IE?

Intelligent Enterprise recently reviewed the changes to Firefox Beta 2 versus IE 7.0.
You can read the details here.

Footloose and Fancy Free - looking for a job?

If you are not in the city of your choice and looking for a change in both locale and employment, this article is for you. Forbes.com released its top 100 cities to find a job in. In first place is my favorite, Washington, DC. Click here to read the full article.

The Development Abstraction Layer

I wasn't sure I wanted to read this article at first. I am not a developer and I thought..."I know nothing of development abstraction and I probably won't understand a word." But being me I had to give it a try. What a surprise. The article is written in colloquial language and explains with lots of great analogies how one can make software developers successful in an organization. You can read it here. Please feel free to comment on it.

Seven Deadly Sins of Knowledge Sharing

I am part of a listserv for knowledge management and Matthew Moore a frequent contributor to the list and I am sure brilliant human being came up with this list that I wanted to share with all. With all the attribution to Matthew:

1. Pride
"We don't need to learn from anyone else, our operation is *completely* unique."

2. Envy
"XYZ's KM, CoP, SNA program has just appeared in a news article. We would like one too."

3. Wrath
"I don't want to WASTE time with any planning. Just ****ing do it!!!"

4. Sloth
"I want all you underlings to share what you know. But don't bother me about it."

5. Avarice
"Damn right I want to get organisational benefits. Invest to get them? Never..."

6. Gluttony
"I want a million documents in the database. No! Make that a billion. More is better!"

7. Lust
"I just love messing around with vendors & consultants. Meetings, workshops, everything. Just don't hang around in the morning."

Is Project Management a profession?

I am a member of PMI and have been part of their forum and listserv for a while. I came across this interesting article today written by a lifelong project manager who is trying to argue that project management is not a stand alone profession. I would not necessarily agree with Paul completely given the fact that I am a project manager and would like to think that I am a professional. Read Paul's arguments. What are your thoughts or opinions in this matter?

Do you have a methodology?

If you are a vendor you have probably heard your customer ask this very question. Do you have a methodology? If you are a customer you may have asked this question of potential vendors or systems integration vendors. In the software development industry a methodology is a critical success factor. Without one, the process would be chaos.

Over time, people way more brilliant than I have created and used many methodologies for software development. One that I find most useful is the Unified Process, based on which IBM created the Rational Unified Process product. I am considering writing an article on the differences between some of the more popular methodologies but while I was researching I came across this well written whitepaper that I wanted to share with you.

If you are not familiar with the Unified Process click here to read more about it.

Just another Microsoft security breach

Check this out. Microsoft has uncovered a security breach in PowerPoint. Hackers can now send us viruses through this software. Read the brief on Yahoo.

Do you need to upgrade your software?

Upgrading software can be a nightmare for most organizations. With certain types of software such as ERP systems, upgrades can cost in the millions of dollars. For any enterprise level software, whether its for accounting, supply chain management, portal, collaboration, content management, etc. you can do some basic pre-work to avoid headaches later. In our latest newsletter Bill Berger outlines five basic steps you can take to avoid a migraine when you are updating software within your organization. This article can be read at
http://www.xpediantsolutions.com/articles/Article-071806.htm.

Welcome to the X-Team Mindshare

Xpediant Solutions provides comprehensive Web based solutions to global 2000 and small to medium sized businesses. Our team of senior architects and developers fall in the top-notch category in the technology industry. At Xpediant we are committed to helping our customers find the most effective technical solutions for their business problems.

This blog is intended to share tips, tricks, and, experiences learned by our team during our project lifecycles. Our areas of core competency are portals, collaboration, content management, and business process management.

We hope you will always find value in our blog and share your thoughts with us frequently.

My name is Farida Hasanali, I am a member of Xpediant's management team and have a background in knowledge management, and IT project management. I focus more on the functional side of a project ensuring that issues such as governance and change management are addressed when IT solutions are implemented. Whenever possible we will share project snapshots with you with the goal that you may find something usable in our postings.

So buckle up, tighten your seat belts and get ready for the ride!