Scale usage of the SDLC

What if there is a small company that does not believe in the SDLC process? Does this mean they will fail as a company??

Of course not! As with all things, there are several ways to do the same thing. A small business method could not follow the SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) at all, but upon closer examination it might have traces of the SDLC process and they do not even know they are using it regardless of their belief.

When your home computer is broken and/or you want to upgrade it, you take it to your favorite computer store or you do it yourself. This meets the definition of a project.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=67&q=project

Does a simple repair or upgrade require an elaborate SDLC? ...for the most part no. It is reasonable and manageable to do it without SDLC.

The scale usage of SDLC:

• BIG: Use SDLC in all it's glory for big business and big projects, but not as company LAW.
  
• MEDIUM: Use a scaled down version(s) of SDLC for medium size business and projects.
  
• SMALL: Use a checklist type format and/or quick evals without all the massive detail of a formal SDLC.
  
• REALLY SMALL: For really small projects and small business hardly any SDLC at all is needed.

Now lets scale this a bit. Lets say you have 5 computers that need service. Would you need a SDLC? ...for the most part no, because the number of devices and the complexity are still minimized.

Ok, lets scale this a little more. Lets say you have 35 computers to upgrade. Would you need a SDLC. ...yes and no. I would highly recommend that you come up with an action plan and costs before taking on such a project both for your sake and the customers.

Finally let really scale this up. Lets say you now have 10,000 computers to upgrade. Would you need a SDLC. Absolutely yes There are too many devices and too many variables that not having a SDLC could result is a huge disaster and be very costly. Then everything that is being taught in the lecture and text are applicable to a very high degree, and yes you had better have your CYA component in place.

Small Business and SDLC

The SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) is not as attractive to smaller business and projects. The business dynamics between the two are very much different in many ways. Small business and small projects are low budget and need to react quickly. Since the small budgets and business have very limited resources there is a great need to compress the timeframe and detail analysis. Since the smaller projects have less of an impact and do not cascade multiple sites and millions of dollars the risk analysis and assessments are much more limited and easier to scope. Therefore that teams and recourses would be a few people doing most all the work.

As a small business every moment of my time is tied to a billable resources in which I am accountable in order to pay the bills and put food on the table. The needs of volume and scope of work is not as great as an SAP type project. To attempt a full formal SDLC process would be too costly for both the customer and myself.

In the stages in the lecture where there is a lot of analysis prior to proceeding on the project, your company is paying the tab for the evaluation as both the developer and the customer. In my case we are separate and one is paying the other for the analysis. In your lecture everyone is getting paid as being part of the big organization. In my case I would have to create and estimate for each phase of the project and the customer would have to sign off at each phase and pay.

If I am asked to create a simple program or utility that would take me several hours as I do now. It would greatly increase the time and cost using a formal SDLC. So a $1,000 project without SDLC might cost the customer $6,000 with a formal SDLC. If the customer knows it may cost $6,000 for a small utility, then there may not be a project and that would be zero dollars earned. Do that 100 times a year and one would have made far less with the formal SDLC than compressing the scale of SDLC or none at all.

So profitably for the vendor and cost saving for the customer with working on a small project would be a definite reason NOT to follow a full formal SDLC.

The SDLC is a very delicate engine that requires a lot of fine tuning and self discipline to keep it on track and working. It can easily break down if all parties are not participating equally. In some cases they do not and you have to be flexible to compensate for the absence of their effort.

The SDLC is usually driven by management as they are the ultimate responsible person. That said having been a consulting analyst working for a large company you can be pigeon holed into just one area and not aloud to work in multiple areas at once or gain additional experience.

On a large scale project where there is a budget and people get paid no matter the outcome for a larger organization, I agree that SDLC should be used and have no argument with the text and your lecture in that respect.

So the moral here is use the right size hammer for the project.

The Important Stages of the SDLC

Explain why the first phases of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) are more important than the later steps. Reasons why they are and/or reasons why they are not.

Explain why the first phases of the SDLC are more important than the later steps.

Setting: Large company with deep pockets.

Why: The first three phases in the text is very important as it is the foundation upon which the project is based and are the most important. A great deal of leg work in preparation is required. It requires a great deal of time and effort to compile and analyze the project long before a single line of code is written.


STAGE 1 DETERMINATION OF SCOPE AND OBJECTIVES
I believe that this is self explanatory.

STAGE 2 SYSTEMS INVESTIGATION AND FEASIBILITY STUDY
This phase in the text is very weak in its explanation. It is basically a simple analysis "Do we think we have the resources, man powers and money to do this?" What assets can we utilization, sharing or do we need to acquisition of new capital hardware and/or expenses?

STAGE 3 SYSTEMS ANALYSIS
There are a lot of variation on what needs to do at this stage. I agree with what has been published about this phase, however it is not all inclusive. There are additional items that need to be look at during this phase.

• Risk analysis: (to company, people, process)
• Security Analysis (to company, people, process)
• Impact Analysis (to company, people, process)
• Regulatory Analysis (for company, people, process)
• Company Policy Analysis (for company, people, process)
• What are the Bench marks, water marks, goals achievement points (for company, people, process)

STAGE 4 SYSTEMS DESIGN
Wow, now we get to start writing code...


Reasons why they are and/or reasons why they are not.

As with anything situation dictates the need. The bottom-line is there is no magic bullet for all situations. The reading text SDLC theory is great for a large organization with really deep pockets and does a good job of keeping the giant wheel balanced.

For the small projects, a lot can be knocked out with simple evaluations of the situation, it's impact and gains. An elaborate SDLC is not required in many cases, and would be too costly for the smaller projects. The need for a structured development process should be used, but not in all cases.

Examples a user needs to convert data from one data source to another. This is a one time thing and will not be needed again. A quick assessment by the developer that it will only take about 8 hours to do the data conversion by writing a small program. The SDLC process would be too much over kill as one can quickly assess that all the above analysis is not needed.

So bigger projects SDLC is a good fit, but may require a bit of modification. SDLC for smaller projects can be skipped for the most part as the assessment can determined that the SDLC is not needed in its entire form.

Large Projects and the SDLC

This is a good example where Software Development Life Cycles (SDLC) is appropriate and needed. A very large project, being done over a very long time where lots of money, people and resources are required is a when the SDLC should be used.

However the larger the project it can be frustrating manage and coordinate. The more people added to the mix the more personality collide and defenders of territory come into play. SDLC would help guide the project, but it does create an unavoidable human element of frustration with other groups, areas, vendors, consultants or departments.

This is not a project that I would recommend go without some type of SDLC process.

CYA: If a formal SDLC is not in place, the initial formation of a SDLC could meet resistance from the existing management structure and org chart. The initial formation can be stifled by politics and personal agendas. After it is established and everyone understand the process then Ray is correct. It aids in damping the effects of politics.

This is a good concept for vendor to customer relationship and maybe in some business organizations, however this will not work in all cases. Every large company has different polices and procedures. It is more difficult to be creative and to correct a known customer requested design flaw with this method. It also greatly extents the development cycle which is why SAP, Peoplesoft and other very large deployments take so long.

The level of detail and interpretation between the customer and vendor can be annoying. The steps of clarification by phases so the customer knows exactly what they got matches what they asked for can take time. That is not a billable process in some cases.

However it is a good tool to keep things in check. It is good where it is appropriate.

When Not to use the SDLC

Reasons and Examples why developers or support analysts would NOT want to use a FORMAL Software Development Life Cycle?

There are a number of reasons why a formal SDLC is not a good fit.

The following are contributing factors that directly affect the formation of the SDLC process, its structure and organization.

• Logistics
• Costs
• Available Skill sets of people
• Number of people in the project
• Budget, Funding, Retainer or PO
• Available tools (software, hardware, communications and connectivity)
• Collaboration tools (software, hardware, remote access)
• The utilization of the most current RAD tools
• Leadership Skills
• Team Developer Skills
• End User process knowledge and skills
• Time-Frame
• Project "In-Demand" need
• The personal motivations of all the people involved in the project
• This is NOT and all inclusive list. There are many more factors too.

With each factor being a variable the SDLC structure as presented in the text does not allow for flexibility. A development process success is dependant upon many factors to include all parties being flexible to change as things change. The only constant in IT is change.

Areas of application development were SDLC is not a good fit are:

• Proof of Concept Testing
• Running a series of never before performed processes, functions or methods.
• Running a series of combination tests to see what happens.
• Running a series of tests to intentionally try to break the application process to examine for security and potential points of failure.
• Running a series of unorthodox user tests to observe the reaction and behavior of untrained or unskilled users to trap for the unexpected use of the applications.
• Experimentation
• Developing algorithms to perform tasks that do not yet exist.
• Refining existing methods and procedures for better performance and smaller footprint.
  Individual Projects
• An individual user doing small utility development.
• There are many more, but these are a few.

One might argue that these are individual components of the SDLC. Situation dictates the scale and perception of where and when the SDLC process begins and ends. The SDLC can be a used by single user or by a massive army of developers. In the development community the term SDLC is not used. Common terms that mean the same thing are process development, application development, team development and systems development. The life cycle part is a MBA buzz word.

SDLC can provide structure where chaos is, however if the SDLC is in acted as company Law it can actually impede, hinder and prevent creative application development.

Examples of where the SDLC was NOT used that resulted in creative and industry changing applications.

• Compaq's original IBM compatible XT PC
• The original Compaq system BIOS
• The original Apple computer
• Tim Berners-Lee development of HTML and the first Mozilla Browser
• Shawn Fanning's development of Napster
• The development of the original UNIX and DOS OS's
• The original spreadsheet application
• The original email application
• I could go on and on....

So the moral here is for the carpenter to apply the right size hammer to the right size nail.

Using the Software Development Life Cycle

Why is a formal systems development process needed for developing IT systems? What are its advantages and how does it help prevent a systems development effort from failing? Give an example where you think it could help.


Why is a formal systems development process needed for developing IT systems?

A skilled leader and skilled teammates drive the development process. The theory in the text leads you to believe that the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is the end all be all to development. That is simply not the case. The SDLC is a tool like a hammer. The carpenter is the one that uses the hammer to drive the nail. The hammer is useless without the skilled carpenter. Likewise the carpenter needs to know how to use the hammer. He also needs to understand that there are different hammers for different nails. If the hammer is too big, use a smaller one. If the hammer appears to not work, make one that will.


What are its advantages and how does it help prevent a systems development effort from failing?

The SDLC is a formal process and not a law, it is a guide that should be modified for the need. The SDLC is a process that was developed after many failed or inefficient attempts at success. The SDLC is to provide a better way of doing things, but is not the only way to do process development.


Give an example where you think it could help.

Since SDLC is not part of the three worlds largest software developers vocabulary, I would think that the Longhorn development team at Microsoft could use a skilled carpenter with a big hammer. If they continue to chop off major portions of the proposed product from 4 years ago, then there will not be much of a product left to use.

Book Stores Online

When looking for books I often find myself at Amazon online or Borders where my family hangs out for coffee, smoothies or a mocha. Borders is my favorite brick and mortar books store.

While doing research for this article, I quickly discovered that my favorite brick and mortar store had given up there website fight to Amazon. Now Amazon handles all of Borders Books online book purchases. I was completely shocked! So I am comparing Amazon with Barnes & Noble.

While doing the price comparison there was a sharp difference in pricing that I could not believe. I really do not do price shopping as I have a borders business card and get huge discounts at the store.

I found Barnes & Nobel to have their pricing as list price and you must become a member to get a discount that was not always disclosed. I was very sadness by the great difference in price. Also Amazon offers used books and both hardback and paper back pricing on the same page.

Here is the price comparison of some of the books I own and some that I do not own. I see that I could have saved a lot of money buying directly from Amazon.

1. Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Unleashed by Rand Morimoto
Amazon: $41.99 Barnes & Nobel: $59.99

2. Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Unleashed by Rand Morimoto
Amazon: $41.99 Barnes & Nobel: $59.99

3. Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Insider Solutions by Rand Morimoto
Amazon: $27.99 Barnes & Nobel: $39.99

4. Biztalk Unleashed by Susie Adams
Amazon: $35.50 Barnes & Nobel: $49.99

5. Microsoft Exchange 2000, Conferencing Server, and SharePoint Portal Server 2001 by Rand Morimoto
Amazon: $33.99 Barnes & Nobel: $49.99

6. Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Administrator's Companion by Bill English, Walter J. Glenn
Amazon: $37.79 Barnes & Nobel: $49.99

7. Windows 2000 Design & Migration by Rand H Morimoto
Amazon: $29.69 Barnes & Nobel: $49.99

8. Maximum Windows 2000 Security by Anonymous
Amazon: $33.99 Barnes & Nobel: $49.99

9. Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Administrator's Companion by Sharon Crawford, Charlie Russel, Jason Gerend
Amazon: $47.59 Barnes & Nobel: $69.99

10. Microsoft Windows Server 2003 TCP/IP Protocols and Services Technical Reference by Joseph Davies, Thomas Lee
Amazon: $32.99 Barnes & Nobel: $49.99

I do not patron Barnes & Nobel and now I see why with the price robbery. Barnes & Nobel also charges for shipping. Amazon does not charge for shipping.

Amazon was for the most part the first book store online. Barnes & Nobel has copied the look and feel of Amazon to even include the color schema. Both sites were easy to navigate.

Amazon offered more about the book to include sample chapters, index and table of contents. Amazon offers reader reviews both good and bad. Amazon offers the ability to search inside the book.

Amazon also offers the ability for recommending other books that users purchased along with the one you are looking at. They offer editorial reviews, what other books the book cites, other books that cite this book, recommendations of similar books, other books customers viewed while looking at this book, auctions that contain this book, other books by the author, similar categories, similar subjects, recently viewed history, easy shopping cart, easy buying experience, the ability to rate the product, and an inside look at the front and back covers.

Barnes & Noble had little to offer as a comparison.

Jeff Bezos, one of the founders of Amazon, doesn’t consider Amazon as a front runner for selling popular books. I found this surprising, as they beat Barnes & Noble in most all categories hands down in my opinion. He states that they cater to the hard to find books. While that may be true, I found Amazon's website extremely appealing for popular books in the mainstream.

By offering an inside look and searching inside the book, it gives you a pretty good idea of what the book is about. I find this very important as when you are at the book store you can quickly scan through a bunch of books at one time and determine if that is the book that you are looking for and desire. You can not do that at Barnes & Nobel.

In conclusion I found that Barnes & Nobel offered the same titles at a much higher price on average about $10.00 to $25.00 higher, no old book, a knock off Amazon website, with none of the extra features or ability to look inside a book. So why even bother shopping at Barnes and Nobel online.

Software Success

How important is management commitment to system success? How important is user acceptance to system success? Why do users not accept an installation? Why do users accept an installation?

How important is management commitment to system success?

If management does not believe in the project it can actually doom the success of the system. Throughout the history of application development the key visionary for the project is the one who was instrumental in making things happen and happen successfully.

Four key players that are industry captain used leadership to help shape the way we do computer today. Those are Bill Gates of Microsoft, Steve Jobs of Apple, Michael Dell of Dell and Steve Case of AOL. There are many software companies that have fallen by the way side because where leadership left or sold out. Atari sold out to Sears. Compaq sold out to HP. WordPerfect has changed owners more than I change my socks. Once leadership is lost the project can be lost too.


How important is user acceptance to system success?

If the people that will be using the system daily can not accept the system (no matter how good it is), it is damned. Two good examples are Backweb and Octopus. Two web companies with excellent ideas, but are no longer heard from again. Backweb collected news from many sources and would popup alerts on the desktop. Users revolted again the system because it used up too many system resources and crashed the computers. It was an awesome idea, but it never got off the ground. In 2004 a better method of getting your news was developed using XML for news sites called RSS (Really Simple Syndication).

Now I get my new like I did with Backweb. However it took 5 years later for that to happen. Octopus was another really cool web based application that allowed you to take certain sections from any website and create your own webpage with bits and pieces of different web pages on a single page. No coding, you just highlight and snatch. They were sued out of existence by the very websites that they were helping to promote. I am baffled by this and I have not seen any technology that is even close to what they did. That was 6 years ago.


Why do users not accept an installation?

User will not accept a system that creates more work than it resolves. They will not accept it if it is crashing all the time. They will not accept it if it is slow. They will not accept it if there is a perceived problem, even where none exist. Some users will not accept the system not matter how great it is. Some users are highly resistant to change.


Why do users accept an installation?

Users accept systems for the opposite reasons the do not. If it saved them a ton of time they will love it. If it does really cool things, they will love it. If it is fast and stable, they will love it. If it is quick and easy to learn and use, they will love it.

Understanding Databases

Design Specifications for Databases

When you are first wanting to use a database, the developer or user has to determine what the database will be used for such as an inventory database, accounting database, a work order database, a recipe, a maintenance tracking database, or a web blog or other web based database driven application.

Once the usage has been determined; then the need to know the number of users that will be accessing the data and the number of transactions or records that the database will require is next.

These are the basic bits of information that are needed in order to begin establishing and defining the database design specifications. If a user is only going to need to track recipes then a low cost database solution would be an Access Database. If millions of records are needed to be stored, queried and processed then a work horse database like Oracle would be needed. For a business web based solution a Microsoft SQL database would be best suited for cost and the size of the database being queried.

Then the developer needs to determine the number of tables that would be required to meet the needs of the usage. For a contact database that could be just a single table. For a work order database it might contain many tables such as a contact table, company table, work order table, project management table, and a document management table.


Database Organization

A database contains tables, tables contains records like a rows, and records contain fields, and fields are of a certain data type like text or string, integer, Boolean, currency, date, etc.

To eliminate redundant data, like contact information the tables can be linked together and enforced referential integrity with one to many connections called relationships. These relationships are formed by connecting fields called keys. These keys are called primary and foreign keys.

Table relationships can also be established by quires to created views of the data, but have no underling effect on controlling the data in a relationship. This query action allows for powerful ways to exam and review data.

Some database applications make it very easy to integrate multiple databases together to share and exchange information, provide enhanced security and are highly scalable to meet the needs of tomorrow demands.


File Processing verses Database Management

File processing is an old method in which data is contained in separate files. A table for contact information would be in one file and inventory information contained in another file. There are two common methods of file access sequential and random. These determine how the records are organized within the file. Examples of this method are dBase III, Clipper, and DAT files. These are older database file formats. The biggest disadvantage of these types of files are with multi-user and high record transaction rates. They do not perform well and record locking events often occurs, thus preventing the update of data.

A database management system can better manage these types of issues. It consolidates all the tables that would normally be multiple files into a single file or database. It assists in the record transaction process and ensures better data integrity. It is the preferred method. Microsoft SQL has an excellent database management system (DBMS). Access has a decent DBMS and is great for less than 5 users for simultaneous access.


Database Security

Database security is extremely important. It is even more important when commerce is involved. Not everyone needs access to the same information and not everyone needs to modify that information. Security can be very strict or very relaxed. A web blog is built upon a database. It is commonly open for everyone to query, but no one has the ability to modify it. The University of Phoenix has student logon accounts. These accounts only allow the individual student access to his or her data. That data is contained in many different databases such as student records, grades, class information and accounting. However the single security logon allows the students to seamlessly traverse many database systems in a single interface or presentation.


Database Management in My Work Place

In my work place we use a variety of database systems. Our old work order database system was in Access. Now it is in ASP.NET for the web interface language running Microsoft SQL server for its database on Microsoft Windows 2003 servers. My security website is running PHP for the web interface language and mySQL on Linux servers. The University of Phoenix is running ASP Classic and .NET with several SQL servers.


Proposed Improvements

The different databases are used for a specific need. For example you would not want to use a Simi-truck to deliver a post card. Using the database that fits the need is wise economical decision. To improve this better inter database data exchange could occur. This is currently in the works with Microsoft and other database developers with XML. This is a standard language to aid in the exchange of data in an agreed format from one classical system to another with little effort. For example exchange data with and Oracle database and a MS SQL database with the drag of a mouse in a web page. Once we have reached that level new business to business uses with be taken advantage of for the ease of sharing information.

Beyond the PC Life Cycle

In both big and small business the life cycle of a computer is 3 to 5 years. We redeploy older systems to other usage as new systems are purchased to squeeze a little more life out of them.

Some systems get used beyond there life cycle. I wrote a program to process remote data access 800 calls for a really big drug company to collect user ID and total minutes online in order for that call to be billed back to the department that the user belong. It was a stop gap program that took me a couple of weeks to write, test and deploy.

It was to be temporary till we could get the bigger more expensive system in place to handle the processing as it processes over $500,000 in charge backs per month to departments. Well that was in 1994 and it is still in place because it worked and I left to go onto other things. I was called back in 1999 to make a couple of minor Y2K adjustments. Today I look back at that code and go, wow I could have written that in 100 lines of code instead of the several 1,000 lines I did. However I didn’t put that effort into it because I thought there was something better to replace it, so why spend the extra time to tweak it.

Another cool story: At a big drug company I installed two IBM XT 8086 PC’s in 1988 each with two fax cards. They faxed about 800 faxes per day per card orders and shipping info. The PC’s were directly connected via a DOS 3270 terminal connection via COAX to the mainframe. I finally turned them off in Oct of 1997 as they were retired and we had a newer system in place in which we migrated to. I was a proud father of those to ole PC’s as they never gave us any trouble at all for 9 years.

So the moral here is even though there is a better system, some companies do not change things.

Anti-Virus Software

I recommend Symantec Anti-Virus Corporate Edition for business users. I am not a fan of the Symantec 2003, 2004 software. I think McAfee is better. For those that can not afford the cost of the software you can get a free home anti-virus software from AVG. I run all these on my different systems for testing, knowing and comparing.

• Symantec Corp Edition
  
• McAfee
  
• AVG - Free Version

Installing Software on Different Scales

There are many different scales of deployment and installation.

• There are large scale SAP or Peoplesoft Installs.
  
• There are medium scale installs such as critical updates to the server and/or desktops.
  
• There are small scale desktop application installs.

All of which have various degrees of trip points in which failure can occur.

The bigger the project, the more people, the harder it is to manage and the more points of failure are exposed.

That is why SAP type deployments take years to roll out and it only takes a few minutes for me to update my web page. These are the same concepts but way different scales.

When to use which Database Vendor

On databases one thing a number of people do not understand is which database vendor to use when. Below I have put together a basic comparison list to give you a better idea of the amount of data by the size and need. The price of each solution goes up as the need to scale and maintain larger data stores.

• File (.dat, .dbf, .xls, .csv) = Car, Motorcycle, walking
• SAM (.mdb (Access), MSDE = Van or large 4 wheeled truck
• SQL (MS SQL) = a fleet of semi-trucks nearing trains
• Oracle = a fleet of trains nearing 747’s
• DB2 (mainframe) = a fleet of trains, 747 airplanes and very large/fast cargo ships

So you use the database vendor for the need, size, cost and ease.

MS Portable Executable

Do you know if the PE approach Microsoft is looking at will affect all the program on the system?

No it will not affect older programs as they will try to maintain backward compatibility. It will require the DOT.NET Framework to be installed. You simply create a folder and copy the files into it. It is ready to run. To delete the application you delete the folder, thus the end of DLL Hell.

They are also work on application level security. This will be in Longhorn only. Today most applications have free reign of your computer and there is no authentication method for the OS to tell which is a good application and which is a bad one.

Once they get that built they will put an end to most of the evil that we have today or at least an end to script kiddy evil.

Why Software Installs Fail

Many businesses do not use the System Development Life Cycle. What is a likely explanation? Why do system installations fail? Is an unfinished system a failure? Why do system installations succeed?


Many businesses do not use the System Development Life Cycle. What is a likely explanation?
The most likely explanation is they do not know what SDLC is. This concept is still in it’s infancy as compared to other business practices concepts and theories. The reason no one knows what it is, because most every development project and development company are dramatically different. The driving forces are money available, costs, people, expertise, experience, budget and timeline.

When I started writing code there were no schools to teach code writing. We just invented things as we went along. Only the very large organizations and veteran programmers that have been dragged through the hot coals of the development cycle really understand what it is and its sub components.

Most development projects are done with small teams that share a portion of a much larger development program like at Microsoft. Most other upstarts and smaller companies are less structured and have more free spirited development teams.

Programming is like being an artist. They maybe a really good painter, but they may not be able to manage a project. Since development is a skill like being a painter not everyone can function in that structured manner or have been trained.

Like the really great artist, programming is something that has to be desired and the person has to have the vision for it. Managing SDLC requires someone who knows and understands both doing development and knowing what SDLC is all about.

Today there are very few managers that understand what the developers are doing and only understand time and money. In the industry SDLC is known, but the term is shortened to development cycle.

Here are a couple of sub components of SDLC that contain their own life cycle.

• Windows Life Cycle
  
• Support Life Cycle

Why do system installations fail?
There are infinity + 1 reasons why an installation will fail. Because there are many different operating systems at different stages of patches and critical updates, with hundreds of localizations for a particular country, with 100,000’s of third party software with it own multitude of various versions, different hardware versions, firmware versions, device driver version levels, different levels of user knowledge about the products and systems and billions of lines of code running on trillions and trillions of billions of transistors. There is never the perfect installation for all cases and all situations. The best that you can hope for is the vast majority of your target audience.

The recent XP Service Pack 2 installation is a classic example. Microsoft has reported that there have been over 120 million downloads of XP Service Pack 2. The Gardner Group (an industry watch dog) is reporting that 10% of all XP SP2 upgrades will result in failure. That means that 12 million installations of XP SP2 have failed.

Is an unfinished system a failure?
NO! Software is one of the few products that you cailing, out of disk space, not enough system resources, file corruption, and all the items listed about under why installs fail.

Why do system installations succeed?
LUCK! LUCK! LUCK! And LUCK! System installs can be successful if they are very simple and not complicated. Testing, Testing and Testing and more testing on the various versions of your largest target audience will give you the largest base of success.

You will have has failed installations due to odd ball reasons, such as the computer is infected with spyware, the hard drive is failing, out of disk space, not enough system resources, file corruption, and all the items listed about under why installs fail.

I was introduced to Microsoft’s long range vision for software installations back in 2001 at Redmond, WA. Future software installs pulls out a chapter from the old school book from the DOS days. Back then to do an install, you just created a directory and copy the files into it. Microsoft will be doing future installs with the .Net platform OS’s with what is called Portable Executables (PE).

The install will create a folder and copy the files into it. To uninstall you just delete the folder. What a concept! Today’s software installs are so complex it is a miracle that we have successful installs. Thousands of files are copied to hundreds of locations, with hundreds of registry entries, often times over writing newer entries and with older versions of files.

It is a nightmare called DLL HELL. Microsoft is making great strides in this area to eliminate it. However it is taking much longer than I expected it before PE becomes a reality.

MS Anti-Spyware Software

We are getting a lot of enquires about the new Microsoft Anti-Spyware software. They released it yesterday. It is BETA1 which means that there are two more releases to come before the final release. The next two are RC1 and RC2 then the final release.

We ask that you NOT download and install the software unless you are having serious spyware issues. It is BETA software which is buggy and has issues per the internet buzz. Please wait for the final release for your business and home computers.

With that said, we have tested it in the lab (under ideal conditions) and have found it to be impressive as to the finding and proper cleanup of the registry, left over files and finding things that the others anti-spyware did not find. It has a bunch of new features that are going to be really nice and welcomed in the fight against spyware.

Please be patient as I do not think the testing cycle will last very long. It is nice as a BETA application and if you are having serious spyware issues then it is worth a try to kill the evil.

Here is the link to the BETA software:

When Your PC Crashes

Poor oh Bill Gates demonstration of the latest media center software crashed while doing a live demo at CES yesterday. So the next time your PC crashes be glad that you are not the founder of Microsoft doing a live demo in front of millions of people. That should ease the pain a little.

Shopping Online

If you are doing product comparison shopping please look at the shipping, warranty & return policies, taxes and the site ratings before making a purchase. Sometimes the cheaper price is not always the better prices after purchase.

Sales ethics online are not always as they appear.

Is IM Annoying You?

MSN Instant Messenger, is it annoying you? Is it launching when you do not want it to. I suspect that IM is launching when you open Outlook Express. Just go into Outlook Express under Tools, then Options and on the General Tab. The fourth one down uncheck “Auto logon Windows Messenger”. That should make that issue go away.

AOL Install Hell

Are you frustration with one of the most famous offenders of software development?

You are not alone. AOL should not be in the business of software development. They just can not follow a few basic rules in Windows development.

At one point we banned any business computer that had AOL installed as was actively being used. In the old days they really had their head up something. They tried to redo Windows networking and changed in the registry key location of files and created their own version of the WINSOCK.DLL which handles most all the TCP/IP communications for Windows applications. AOL is the poster child of DLL Hell.

It wasn’t until Microsoft and AOL started working together did they finally get the networking thing straighten out. Now that they are divorced AOL is falling back into their old ways.

There are hundreds of case studies that I could write about AOL. One would be “This is how not to write code”. The fact they shot to the number one ISP baffles me.