Technical documentation is critical to the success of any software. However, most creators of software struggle to provide adequate documentation for their product. Rare is the software that is praised for its documentation. When documentation is praised, it is often only praised for having some documentation, which is more than most, but in reality documentation is usually still inadequate.

So what constitutes adequate documentation? Well, if a user wants to do something with your software and the documentation helps them succeed in a timely manner, then the documentation is adequate. However, accomplishing this is not as easy as it sounds.

Why most companies fail to document properly

Most companies do not document their product thoroughly for a few reasons.

• Lack of a defined list of all types of documentation
• Lack of understanding of each type of documentation
• Documentation is not made a priority and lacks of funding

Lack of a defined list of all types of documentation

Many cannot name more than one or two forms of documentation. To be successfully with documentation, a software company must first enumerate the types of documentation. Then it must learn about each type of documentation and understand the role that each type of documentation plays. It is also critical to understand the different target audiences each type has. Also, what are the common mistakes made when trying to create each type of documentation so these mistakes can be avoided.

Attempts are made to document software in different ways. However, because a complete documentation set is not defined, success is nearly impossible. To make matters worse, there is little to no reporting or visibility into the level of documentation a given piece of software has. I have never encountered software that has reached a 100% documentation level.

In order to succeed there must be an understanding of the types of documentation.

1. Step-by-Step Walk-thrus – Also called Guides, How to’s, or Examples, Quick Start Guides
2. Product feature documentation – This is lists all the features and settings without really any real world examples. Often the help button inside the software points to sections of this document.
3. Troubleshooting Documentation – What to do when a failure occurs. Where are the logs and how to read them. How to turn on or increase logging and debugging.
4. Knowledge-base (Problem, Cause, Resolution), Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), and Forums
5. Code, API, or SDK Documentation
6. Internal Development Documentation – Such as code and development documentation, internal only features use by developers and/or testers, architecture documentation (Note: For open source projects this information is usually public)
7. Real life customer implementations – Examples of how a company has a product implemented in real life
8. Marketing documentation – Basic over views of the value the software has for the company, ROI claims, general feature lists, costs, etc…

The worst documentation of all is of course the absence of documentation. However, most software companies are unaware that there are entire areas of documentation that are lacking. To have complete documentation you must provide it in all of these areas.

Lack of understanding of each type of documentation

Since most software companies are unaware of the list above, it makes sense that they don’t understand the items on the list. This is why they have no direction and their documentation is a sporadic combination of the different documentation types, never fully succeeding to accomplish the primary goal of documentation, which is to enable the reader to succeed.

In order to create excellent documentation, a full understanding of each type of documentation is requisite. Without this understanding, documentation your documentation will continue to be lacking.

The lack of understanding also leads to assumptions that are not true. Some think that if they try to document every setting their software has they will have complete documentation. Usually when this is done, there is so much effort put into this that providing a simple example is forgotten. Often I hear this question:

Why would an example be needed, every feature is documented?

I would answer this question as follows:

Information overload. Now there is so much documentation in one white paper that someone who wants to do something simple is unsure that it is simple. They don’t know which features they must setup and which are unnecessary or should remain as defaults.

I often find this with Open Source documentation and unfortunately when a user asks for an example they are often rudely told to “Read the Manual” or RTM. However, the manual is usually hundreds of pages and they probably need to read one page of the manual but just don’t know where to start.

If have seen documentation using only examples as well. However, when an attempt is made to deviate from the examples, there is nothing left in the documentation to provide the guidance necessary to succeed.

Some documentation is better defined, such as that created from the results of support calls, forums, or mailing lists. Because this type of documentation is completely reactionary, this is one area of documentation that is better defined. The documentation is created after a problem is experienced and has to be dealt with. However, once created, it exists to benefit others. As this documentation type is better defined you might not be surprised to know that it has its own acronym: KCS or Knowledge Centered Support.

The goal of this article is to raise awareness of all types of technical documentation and make them all as well-defined as support documentation.

Documentation is not made a priority and lacks of funding

Investing in documentation is expensive. But it is usually and expense that pays off. If an analyst has to choose between two competing software applications and one is well documented and one is not, the well documented software application is likely to be chosen. Many organizations fail to see the ROI in documentation and therefore choose not to invest.

It is obviously that lack of funding for documentation is an industry wide phenomenon. While technical writing has been around since even before software, a standard for documentation whether it be creating documentation, updating documentation, managing documentation, and reporting on documentation has yet to formally exist. However, I did find this link, which shows I am not the only one who has identified this problem: http://www.hci.com.au/iso/

So lets get back to our list. Below I will go through each type of documentation and provide some information on it.

Type 1 – Step-by-step Walk-thrus – Also called Guides, How to’s, or Examples, Quick Start Guides

Description

This type of documentation is nothing more than actions that the reader will take to accomplish something with your software. This documentation, when done right, could be followed by the most computer illiterate. If they read and follow each step, even if they have no idea what they are doing, they should succeed.

You may also want to read: Your project’s ‘Getting Started’ tutorial sucks – Why time to success matters

Role

To provide the most common, most tested, most successful, and best overall example of how to accomplish some particular task from start to finish with your software.

Audience

Most commonly, trainees and new or evaluation users. However, anyone who wants to achieve the results the step-by-step guide leads to is included. This is most often, but is not limited to, users of your software. It includes deployment engineers, configuration specialists, support engineers, and demo or sales engineers.

Common Article Names

• Quick Start Guide
• Step-by-step Guide for setting up “Software X”
• How to configure “Some Feature” of “Software X”

Common mistakes

There are many common mistakes

• Not clearly defining the starting point of the walk-thru. Think of the starting point of a software that installs on Windows. What version of Windows, what other software must be installed, etc…
• Defining the starting point clearly, but using a starting point most people don’t know how to get to. For example, you starting point should probably not say “have SQL Server installed and a database created with credentials” without providing steps.
• Assuming the reader knows how to accomplish a task, so the documentation simply states to “do task x” instead of walking the reader through doing the task.
• Skipping steps or forgetting steps.
• The development department changes the steps just before release but the documentation is not updated to match.
• Trying to simultaneously provide Product Feature Documentation in the middle of your steps. A link or note is acceptable for steps or settings that customers commonly customize.
• Trying to provide comprehensive troubleshooting documentation after each step. It is great to have a link or a reference to troubleshooting documentation but it shouldn’t interfere with the walk-thru.
• Only creating step-by-step guides for a couple common features of your software.
• Failing to add documentation after use. For example, when a consultant, support engineer, or other employee struggles to set up a not-well-documented feature and once successful, they still don’t document it.

Type 2 – Product feature documentation

Description

This type of documentation is a description of every feature and setting. What it is used for, when and why one would use the feature or setting.

Role

This is for users who need to stray from the common walk-thrus and need to know what alternate and uncommon settings are used for so they can determine which they need in their particular environment.

Audience

Any customer/user who needs more than the most common features. Your own support representatives and architect or professional services teams. Consultants who recommend your product or are trusted to determine if your product meets a feature set for potential customers/users.

Common Article Names

• The Software X Handbook
• Software X: The Complete Reference
• Understanding Feature Y of Software X

Common mistakes

• Burying the features in other documentation, such as walk-thrus.
• Not including at least a comment about when the feature would be used.
• Not being aware of the features your customers/users are aware of and using. There are lots of “unintended features” and you should capture them in documentation.
• Not letting customers contribute to this documentation in some way, even if it is just comments (this is the best way to solve the above issue, too).

Type 3 – Troubleshooting documentation

Description

This documentation describes steps to diagnose problems. It includes information on logs files. It includes information on the behind the scenes business your software is doing, such as process/thread work, file or data interaction, etc…

If the users tries to do some task with your software and it fails, to them, a single task failed. However, to fix it, one might need to know that behind the scenes ten different processes occurred. It is important to be able to diagnose which background processes worked and pinpoint which one failed, so you don’t troubleshoot all ten background processes when only maybe the seventh is the problem.

Role

To help customers/users get pasts unexpected issues and to help support engineers diagnose issues. These don’t have to always be public, but should be in the hands of your support engineers.

Audience

This is for support engineers more than customers, though the more experienced and “get your hands dirty” customers/users will use it. Engineers who do on site installation or on site configuration may need this information for when they run into bumps.

Common Article Names

• Feature X: The complete troubleshoot guide
• Troubleshooting Feature X

Common mistakes

• Confusing “Problem, Cause, Resolution” documentation (also called Knowledge Base articles) with Troubleshooting documentation.
• Not creating this documentation because you assume product feature documentation covers this. It doesn’t.
• Providing this documentation but not providing complete troubleshooting steps for whatever reason. Especially if troubleshooting is done with 3rd party software and outside your own product it is assumed outside the scope when it is not. For example, a product that requires a DNS server, should provide steps to make sure that a DNS server is configured as the product expects. You may not have to write such documentation if the 3rd party vendor has some, but you should link to/reference it in your own documentation.
• Writing documents that have lists of “fixes to try”. This documentation should almost never include “fixes”, but instead should diagnose the issue or pinpoint the problem so precisely that the fix becomes obvious whether the fix currently exists or not.

Type 4 – Knowledge-base (Problem, Cause, Resolution)

Description

This documentation is most commonly the result of customer support tickets/cases. It lists a specific problem, a specific cause of the problem, and a single resolution to that problem. As mentioned early this is one of the more well-defined areas of documentation. Read more here about KCS or Knowledge Centered Support.

Role

To make it so an issue only has to be troubleshot and fixed once. Once an issue is fixed, the Problem, Cause, Resolution can be documented and the fix can be applied without troubleshooting when the same Problem and Cause occurs.

To keep knowledge in-house. Tech Support is a high turnover position so keeping knowledge in-house is not always the easiest task.

Audience

Customers who experience a problem. Support engineers or other employees to whom the problem is reported.

Common Article Names

Frequently Asked Questions or FAQ.

Common Issues.

Common mistakes

• Providing multiple Problems, Causes, or fixes in the same article.
• Providing a problem and a list of fixes with no way to determine which fix is the correct fix.
• Having an article that recommends a fix even when a customer is not really having that problem.
• Failing to provide a good search for the knowledge base articles.

Type 5 – Code, API, or SDK Documentation

Description

This documentation describes how others use your code or libraries to write add-ons, plugins, integration, or otherwise customize your application through code. Do not confuse this with Internal Development Documentation. This type is for external users or resellers or middle-ware companies.

Role

This documentation helps others code with your code and libraries. Software that a customer/user takes the time and expense to modify to fit their environment becomes “sticky”, meaning the customer/user is likely to be loyal.

Audience

Systems Analyst / Developers / Integration Engineers / Middle-ware companies / Resellers. Customers who need to extend your product to meet a business need. Or in an open source environment, how others can use your code to extend their own project.

Common Article Names

• Software X SDK Documentation
• Class or Function Reference for Software X API

Common mistakes

• Providing zero documentation on this
• Providing incorrect documentation about a function
• Updating code but not updating the documentation
• Deprecating code but not informing the consumer
• Not providing the first type of documentation: Samples, walk-thrus, etc…

Type 6 – Internal Development Documentation

Description

This is used for internal developers continue future enhancements and otherwise maintain a piece of software.

Role

To help developers work with a piece of code. To overcome turnover so new developers can pick up code another developer created. To provide architecture and design of each piece of code. To give UML (usually the classes and their methods),

Audience

Internal developers. Sometimes support.

Common Article Names

There are really no common names, but usually these types of documentation are internal only.

Common mistakes

• Not writing such documentation at all.
• Not documentation all parts of the code: Classes, Functions, design and architecture, supported features, etc…

Type 7 – Real life customer implementations

Description

This is documentation about customers success stories. About how they implemented your software in their environment (which is usually as messed up as everyone else’s environments).

Role

To demonstrate that the software can be successful and has proven itself in real life customer environments.

Audience

Other customers / System Analysts / Internal Employees in charge of future enhancements and road maps

Common Article Names

• Product X Success Stores
• How Company Y succeeded with Product X

Common mistakes

• Not providing any customer success stories.
• Providing success stories from unhappy customers who when contacted, speak poorly of your product

Type 8 – Marketing documentation

Description

This is documentation that doesn’t really say much more than is needed to let a customer know about a software solution.

Role

To acquire more customers. To help potential customers determine features sets quickly.

Audience

Systems Analysts / Consultants / Sales Engineers / Evaluation customers.

Common Article Names

• Product X
• The Product X Feature Set
• What Product X can do for you business

Common mistakes

I don’t know a lot of the mistakes made in this documentation type, as my exposure to marketing is limited. I almost forgot this documentation type.

• Too complex, including information or overly complex images or diagrams that are hard to understand

Conclusion

Hopefully after reading this article, you have a greater understanding of documentation.

Now that you know all the types of documentation, there are other problems to address. How to write the documentation. How to choose the priority for writing these types of documentation. How to balance the cost of documentation against the opportunity cost of not having documentation.

Some day, I will also have to write a post on how to deal with “versioning” documentation including updating documentation when Software versions change. I think there is a market for a piece of software that does nothing but track documentation. Hopefully it is well documented. 🙂

System.Array is an important class to know and understand as almost any programming work has arrays.

Array is an abstract class, so you cannot establish and instance of it. That is OK because it is really just a “function holder” class.  The term “function holder” is not an official C# term, but it is a name I give classes that really just exist to hold functions.  Array is a “function holder” for array functions.

Lets take a moment to learn a few of the functions in the Array class. We are going to use an array of high scores to learn from.

Array.Sort

Let start by creating an array of high scores. The following code has a function that takes a score and adds it to the list if it is greater than the lowest high score and sorting them.

using System;

namespace ArrayLearning
{
    class Program
    {
        static int[] highScores = new int[12];

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            // keep that top 12 high scores
            AddScore(10100);
            AddScore(13710);
            AddScore(14190);
            AddScore(12130);
            AddScore(12130);
            AddScore(16140);
            AddScore(19320);
            AddScore(07250);
            AddScore(18140);
            AddScore(08090);
            AddScore(10010);
            AddScore(14380);
            AddScore(18140);
            AddScore(12190);
            AddScore(19320);
        }

        static void AddScore(int newScore)
        {
            // Pre-sort the high scores in case somehow the
            // first one is not the lowest.
            Array.Sort(highScores);

            // If the new score is greater than the lowest
            // high score, replace the lowest high score
            if (highScores[0] < newScore)
                highScores[0] = newScore;

            // Now resort the scores as the new score may
            // not be in the right place
            Array.Sort(highScores);

            DisplayHighScores();
        }

        private static void DisplayHighScores()
        {
            // Print the new high scores
            for (int i = highScores.Length - 1; i > -1; i--)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(highScores[i]);
            }
            Console.WriteLine("Press any key to continue");
            Console.ReadKey();
            Console.WriteLine();
        }
    }
}

Ok, I am not saying this is the proper way to handle high scores in a game.  I am just demonstrating Array.Sort for you.

Array.Clear

Ok, lets show an example of Array.Clear. This is a very simple function that sets all the values in the array to their default value. Booleans have a default value of false. Double, Int32, Int64, etc, have a default value of 0. Reference types have a default value of null.

Here is an enhancement to the above snippet that allows demonstrates clearing an entire array. Notice Array.Clear takes the array, then the starting item in the array and the number items in the array. In this example we clear the entire array, but that is not required.

using System;

namespace ArrayLearning
{
    class Program
    {
        static int[] highScores = new int[12];

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            // keep that top 12 high scores
            AddScore(10100);
            AddScore(13710);
            AddScore(14190);
            AddScore(12130);
            AddScore(12130);
            AddScore(16140);
            AddScore(19320);
            AddScore(07250);
            AddScore(18140);
            AddScore(08090);
            AddScore(10010);
            AddScore(14380);
            AddScore(18140);
            AddScore(12190);
            AddScore(19320);

            // Clear the high scores
            ClearHighScores();
        }

        static void AddScore(int newScore)
        {
            // Pre-sort the high scores in case somehow the
            // first one is not the lowest.
            Array.Sort(highScores);

            // If the new score is greater than the lowest
            // high score, replace the lowest high score
            if (highScores[0] < newScore)
                highScores[0] = newScore;

            // Now resort the scores as the new score may
            // not be in the right place
            Array.Sort(highScores);

            DisplayHighScores();
        }

        public static void ClearHighScores()
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Clearing High Scores!");
            Array.Clear(highScores, 0, highScores.Length);
            DisplayHighScores();
        }

        private static void DisplayHighScores()
        {
            // Print the new high scores
            for (int i = highScores.Length - 1; i > -1; i--)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(highScores[i]);
            }
            Console.WriteLine("Press any key to continue");
            Console.ReadKey();
            Console.WriteLine();
        }
    }
}

Array.IndexOf

Maybe you want to display the place in the top 12 that the player scored. However, the way we are adding the score does not track the new score’s place. So we need to find the place. Here is a small enhancement to the above code that demonstrates the use of Array.IndexOf to find the place.

Notice the addition of the DisplayCurrentPlace function and it’s use of Array.IndexOf. Also since the array is actually sorted with the lowest number at index 0 and the highest score at index 11, I can just subtract the index from the max lengh of 12 high scores to get the correct place.

using System;

namespace ArrayLearning
{

    class Program
    {
        public static int MAX = 12;
        static int[] highScores = new int[MAX];

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            // keep that top 12 high scores
            AddScore(10100);
            AddScore(13710);
            AddScore(14190);
            AddScore(12130);
            AddScore(12130);
            AddScore(16140);
            AddScore(19320);
            AddScore(07250);
            AddScore(18140);
            AddScore(08090);
            AddScore(10010);
            AddScore(14380);
            AddScore(18140);
            AddScore(12190);
            AddScore(19320);
            AddScore(06320);

            // Clear the high scores
            ClearHighScores();
        }

        static void AddScore(int newScore)
        {
            // Pre-sort the high scores in case somehow the
            // first one is not the lowest.
            Array.Sort(highScores);

            // If the new score is greater than the lowest
            // high score, replace the lowest high score
            if (highScores[0] < newScore)
            {
                highScores[0] = newScore;

                // Now resort the scores as the new score may
                // not be in the right place
                Array.Sort(highScores);

                DisplayHighScores();
                DisplayCurrentPlace(newScore);
            }
        }

        public static void ClearHighScores()
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Clearing High Scores!");
            Array.Clear(highScores, 0, highScores.Length);
            DisplayHighScores();
        }

        private static void DisplayHighScores()
        {
            // Print the new high scores
            for (int i = highScores.Length - 1; i > -1; i--)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(highScores[i]);
            }
        }

        private static void DisplayCurrentPlace(int newScore)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(String.Format("You placed number {0} out the top 12.", MAX - Array.IndexOf(highScores, newScore)));

            Console.WriteLine("Press any key to continue");
            Console.ReadKey();
            Console.WriteLine();
        }
    }
}

Well, these were three simple examples of using the Array class. As you can see it is little more than a “function holder”.

If you have an example of a function in the Array class, please post it here in the comments.

So we all use the Strings in C# and most of us consider ourselves experts.  But are we really experts.  When you’re getting tested and you don’t have Visual Studio or MSDN in front of you, are you ready to answer the questions with confidence?

Sometimes it is worth while to re-learn the basics because often simple features you are not using would save you time and prevent you from failing to appear as knowledgeable as you really are. Especially if you have not had a project where you manipulate strings, because you do other complex tasks and you do little more with strings than assign them values and compare them.

Well, here are the two links to the String and StringBuilder objects on MSDN.

• String
• StringBuilder

Take a moment and read the MSDN pages about these objects even if you have read them before.

Here are some questions that you should answer about these classes.

1. Which is mutable and which is immutable? What does that mean?

   Answer:

   String is immutable.  That means that once you create a string, it cannot be altered in place in memory, but instead, any alteration causes a copy with the modification to be created in a new memory location and the reference is updated to refer to the copy. For example if you append a character you actually get a whole new string in a whole new memory location.

   StringBuilder is mutable.  That means that you can change the object in place in memory without creating a copy.  For example, if you append a character to StringBuilder it can add it to the same space in memory.  There is one exception.  If you add so many characters that the next character you add make the string bigger than the memory location’s capacity, a new object in memory is created. The default capacity for this implementation is 16 characters, and the default maximum capacity is Int32.MaxValue. (1) So if you are playing with Strings greater than 16 characters, you should instantiate your StringBuilder objects with a capacity greater than 16.

2. So can you modify a string in place in memory?

   Answer:

   No. And yes.

   Read this MSDN article: How to: Modify String Contents (C# Programming Guide)

   The short version of the above article is that you can’t normally. But if you use “unsafe” you can, the above link provides the following unsafe code:

   class UnsafeString
   {
       unsafe static void Main(string[] args)
       {
           // Compiler will store (intern)
           // these strings in same location.
           string s1 = "Hello";
           string s2 = "Hello";
   
           // Change one string using unsafe code.
           fixed (char* p = s1)
           {
               p[0] = 'C';
           }
   
           //  Both strings have changed.
           Console.WriteLine(s1);
           Console.WriteLine(s2);
   
           // Keep console window open in debug mode.
           Console.WriteLine("Press any key to exit.");
           Console.ReadKey();
       }
   }
   

   Would you actually do this though?

3. What is the easiest way to reverse a String?

       public static string ReverseString(string s)
       {
   	char[] arr = s.ToCharArray();
   	Array.Reverse(arr);
   	return new string(arr);
       }
   

   Notice another C# class called Array was used. This class, like String and StringBuilder, is another class that you may be forgetting about an overlooking.

   When I was asked how to reverse a string, the Array.Reverse function did not come to mind and so I recreated it with this function, which obviously takes more time and a developer’s time is too expensive to recreate work already done for you.

       private static String Reverse(String inString)
       {
           char[] myChars = inString.ToCharArray();
           for (int i = 0, j = inString.Length - 1; i < inString.Length / 2; i++, j--)
           {
               char tmp = inString[j];
               myChars[j] = inString[i];
               myChars[i] = tmp;
           }
           return new string(myChars);
       }
   

4. Which is more efficient for concatenation or appending characters, String or StringBuilder?

   StringBuilder is by far more efficient. Microsoft has a knowledge base article on this here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306822

   I changed the code slightly to use the Stopwatch to time the ticks to get more accurate data.

   using System;
   using System.Diagnostics;
   
   namespace StringBuilderPerformance
   {
       class Program
       {
           static void Main(string[] args)
           {
               // The greater the loops the better the performance ratio
               const int sLen = 30, Loops = 10000;
               int i;
               string sSource = new String('X', sLen);
               string sDest = "";
               //
               // Time string concatenation.
               //
               Stopwatch timer = new Stopwatch();
               timer.Start();
               for (i = 0; i < Loops; i++) sDest += sSource;
               timer.Stop();
               long stringTicks = timer.ElapsedTicks;
               Console.WriteLine("Concatenation took " + stringTicks + " ticks.");
               //
               // Time StringBuilder.
               //
               timer.Reset();
               timer.Start();
               System.Text.StringBuilder sb = new System.Text.StringBuilder((int)(sLen * Loops * 1.1));
               for (i = 0; i < Loops; i++) sb.Append(sSource);
               sDest = sb.ToString();
               timer.Stop();
               long stringBuilderTicks = timer.ElapsedTicks;
               Console.WriteLine("String Builder took " + stringBuilderTicks + " ticks.");
               Console.WriteLine("Using StringBuilder takes " + ((double)stringBuilderTicks / (double)stringTicks * (double)100).ToString("F") + "% of the time that using String takes.");
   
               //
               // Make the console window stay open
               // so that you can see the results when running from the IDE.
               //
               Console.WriteLine();
               Console.Write("Press any key to finish ... ");
               Console.ReadKey();
           }
       }
   }
   

   Here are the results:

   Concatenation took 5338055 ticks.
   String Builder took 2213 ticks.
   Using StringBuilder takes 0.04% of the time that using String takes.

   Press any key to finish …

Anyway, I hope this post helps you remember the basics.

So this weekend my wife’s side of the family took a trip to Bear Lake, where we stayed at “a cabin” (a 6000+ square foot home near the lake). It is tough to ask for a better place to reside while on a trip to a lake. It is only a quarter-mile from the dock, so getting on and off the water is easy to do and possible to do multiple times a day.

However in the later hours of the night as I sat and relaxed my sore shoulders (from wake-boarding and yes I can wake board, do 180’s and cross the wake…maybe a little jump…OK, I barely get air if I am lucky going over the wake but it is fun). Anyway, I desperately missed having the one thing that I have been seldom without since 1999: The Internet.

That is right…there was no internet.  Sure, this is partly my fault as I don’t have an internet capable phone yet (normally I have wi-fi everywhere I go so I haven’t had the need yet).

However, life before the internet was possible so it had to be possible now right! Sure it is. I might be lame but I wanted to brush up on a few C# topics while I relaxed in just before bed. I did have a C# book.  Sure it is a PDF book but it was actually on my computer, not on the internet so I pulled the chapters and read them.  It wasn’t quite the same as seeing a dozen Google links to different blogs explaining the concepts in different ways, but it was still worth-while.

I did have a few hundred email to go through when I got back…I will probably be contacting my internet provider about the option to have an Air card.

Overall, the trip was quite enjoyable and as you can tell from this post…I am back in front of the internet.

I wrote a front-end to LDPing last week-end. You can check it out here:

LDPing

So I was writing a WPF front-end for LDPing, which is a method of querying a LANDesk Agent for its computer name and Inventory Id. There is a button that you click to launch the ping and I couldn’t get the thing to enable…Anyway, I figured it out and posted the resolution here:

Refreshing a button enabled/disabled by RelayCommand.CanExecute()

So here is a screen shot of LDPing.

I read this article today and found it very insightful.

ASUS Eee Pad Transformer tablet is a mixed bag

One of the biggest complaints about the tablet is the ability to type and this device eases that some, though not completely.  One interesting quote, I am not sure if I agree with yet, but I have thought it myself is this:

A coworker who owns an iPad displayed some gadget envy when I first brought the Eee Pad Transformer to the office, but he also noted, “with the clam shell format, I think I’d end up using it mostly like that, and not like a tablet.” It turns out that this was a very astute observation, because my experience has been that I haven’t had much desire or reason to undock the tablet. This makes me wonder if tablet mania may not be a bit of a novelty.

I don’t know if I completely agree that tablets are a novelty. I remember the Palm Pilot was novelty that wore off and I am on the fence right now as to whether the iPad and devices such as the Motorola Xoom will end up as paper weights on peoples desk because typing and other uses just aren’t there and a laptop or desktop computer is desired.  However, this ASUS Eee Pad Transformer tablet may be an important bridge to these technologies, something that didn’t exist in the Palm Pilot days, so problems that existed for the Palm Pilot and still exist in tablets today may have new solutions that allow the technology to go further.

You have heard of a CEO, CFO, CIO, CTO, CFO, but you have never heard of a CDMO or Chief Desktop Management Officer. That is because most companies don’t have a CDMO and those that do have one, don’t really know that they have one.  I am here to tell you and your company why you need a CDMO. Your company is throwing money away by not having this C-Level position filled.

If you are a large corporation, then one expensive item you have more of than you have employees is computers. The cost of maintaining one or more computers per employee is enormous. Add to that the cost of maintaining smart phones and tablets that are exploding into the work place, and the task of managing it all seems overwhelming. There is so much to deal with.

Your company needs a Chief Desktop Management Officer (CDMO)!  There is great ROI in this position.

Note: For the rest of this article I am going to assume for all number values and costs and prices that you have a company with 5,000 computers.  However, your company may have more or less than that but the principles are still the same. If you have more computers, multiple my numbers. If you have fewer computers, divide the numbers. Also, just assume that anytime I say “desktop” that could include any computing device you want to manage, Desktop, Laptop, etc…

What is a CDMO?

A Chief Desktop Management Officer (CDMO) is a C-Level individual who is in charge of Desktop Management.

Why does Desktop Management need its own C-Level position?

Not all companies need a CDMO. Companies with 2,000 to 5,000 desktop should consider hiring a CDMO. Companies with more than 5,000 desktops despartely need this position.

Desktop Management is a huge and expensive task.  Any mistakes can easily become million dollar mistakes.  If you have 5,000 desktop and you are making a mistake of $20 per computer per year, then the mistake is costing you $100,000 per year.  Now, how many mistakes are you making? One, two, or ten.  Ten such mistakes per year will cost you $1,000,000.

That is why a C-Level position is needed if you have 5,000 desktops or more.

The overwhelming list of Desktop Management Costs

Lets take a moment and list all the overwhelming tasks that are part of Desktop Management and that you must get a handle one.

1. Cost for the computer hardware
   1. Cost of initial purchase
   2. Warranty costs
   3. Cost of repairing or replacing or even handling returning of hardware under warrantee that fails
   4. Cost to refresh the computer hardware after 3 to 5 years
   5. Cost to clean computer hardware (if you don’t vacuum out the dust from inside a desktop you might be replacing them early due to over-heating)
   6. Cost of the power to run the computer
   7. Cost to increase air-conditioning as computers put out heat
   8. Cost for knowing what hardware you already have
      1. Cost to discover your current machines
      2. Cost to identify the current machines (discovery and identification are separate tasks)
2. Cost for the Operating System (OS)
   1. Cost for the OS license
   2. Cost for a corporate image
      1. Cost for building and maintaining  one or more corporate images of the OS
      2. Cost to deploy the image or having the vendor ship the product with your image
      3. Cost to deploy the image whenever the OS gets “messed up” and a help desk technician determines the best fix is to re-image
      4. Cost for a server to hold the images
      5. Cost for using network bandwidth to transfer the OS image
      6. Cost for updating the image roughly every 6 to 18 months
      7. Cost to decommission and dispose retired hardware
   3. Cost for patching the OS
      1. Cost for tracking and being aware of all new patches
      2. Cost for testing all new patches
      3. Cost for deploying all new patches
      4. Cost for troubleshooting failed patches or patches that affect other software and cause support calls
      5. Cost for reporting to upper-management the security state of your systems
      6. Cost for storing the patches on a server
      7. Cost for using network bandwidth to transfer the patches
3. Cost for software
   1. Cost for evaluating software applications (to determine which to buy)
   2. Cost for licensing the software
   3. Cost to track the licenses of the software
      1. Cost to keep the license key
      2. Cost to track which teams have which licenses
      3. Cost to be able to transfer licenses between teams
      4. Cost if of over-buying licenses (if you don’t properly track)
      5. Cost for using software without a license (oops…you were fined during an audit)
   4. Cost for installing/deploying the software
      1. Cost for preparing software to be deployed to a large amount of machines (which may include creating a new installer)
      2. Cost for using network bandwidth to transfer the software from server to desktop
      3. Cost for troubleshooting failed install/deployments
   5. Cost for troubleshooting software that just stops working
   6. Cost for upgrading the software when needed
   7. Cost for uninstalling the software when needed
   8. Cost for all the times a user calls support due to software needs
   9. Cost for the Server version of the software where applicable (Email, AV, or any software that has to connect to a server to run)
4. Cost for managing drivers
   1. (See the Software cost above as all these apply to drivers)
   2. Cost of managing different drivers for different hardware (Unlike software that works on every computer regardless of the hardware model, each hardware model increases the driver maintenance costs)
5. Cost for Antivirus (AV)
   1. (See the Software cost above as all these apply to AV)
   2. Cost for testing the latest virus definitions before deployment to prevent breaking other software
   3. Cost if you don’t test the latest virus definitions and there is a problem (such as support calls, lost work, etc..) if you don’t test and you do break other software
   4. Cost to keep every machine up-to-date
   5. Cost to report on which machines are running the Real Time AV scanner
   6. Cost to fix machines where the Real Time AV scanner is not running
6. Cost for peripherals
   1. Printers, whether USB or Network (and there are a lot of Printer costs I am not going list)
   2. Mice, Keyboard, Monitors (dual monitors are often needed), Cables, Speakers, Head sets
   3. Custom peripherals (who knows what custom piece of hardware, especially a manufacturing company) has hooked to a PC
   4. Syncing phone and tablet data with the PC
   5. Cost to clean peripherals (yes, employees want to clean their keyboards and mice often)
   6. Cost of the power to run the peripherals
7. Cost of backup software and data
   1. (See the Software cost above as all these apply to backup software)
   2. Cost for data loss due to hardware failure if you don’t back up
   3. Cost for multiple backup-servers
   4. Cost for extreme storage space (No, these are not included in the backup server costs)
   5. Cost to restore backed-up data after a data loss event (hardware failure or oops I deleted…)
8. Cost for Security and Data Integrity
   1. Cost of constant Security evaluations
   2. Cost of data loss if you don’t have enough security (Oops…you were hacked)
   3. Cost of Security implementation
   4. Cost of enforcing security implementations
   5. Cost of encryption
      1. Cost of creating keys
      2. Cost of securing keys
   6. Cost of controlling access to data
9. Cost of support
   1. Help Desk and support calls were mentioned already through out but just to reiterate them, we will mention them again
   2. Cost of increased support calls (and loss of work) for every time you make a mistake on any change mentioned in this list.
10. Computer Policy and Rules
    1. Cost to design computer policies
    2. Cost to implement computer policies
    3. Cost to enforce computer policies

No, this list is not comprehensive…just what I could think of off the top of my head as I write this article.

Do these costs look overwhelming to you? You might be looking at this list and feeling overwhelmed. (Unless you are one of my fellow employees at LANDesk and then this list is just common everyday knowledge and you are probably recognizing anything that I might have left off the list.) But don’t be discouraged, you can save a lot of money by lowering these costs if you are willing to learn how.

Can your company handle all of this today?

Q: Can a CTO or CIO really have the responsibility for this along with else they are tasked with?
A: No. It is very difficult to succeed in this area without a focus on this area.

Q: Why can’t a CIO or CTO handle all this?
A: Because they have to handle the other parts of technology also have lists as big as the list above: Networking, Data Center, Software Development, Internet Presence, and more.  I am also a networking expert, so I could make a networking list for you, but for brevity’s sake, I will just tell you it is probably just as big.

Sure, this  position could report to the CTO or CIO, but make no  mistake, a CTO or CIO cannot be in charge of this on their own.

Are you failing at Desktop Management?

It is possible to get a handle on your desktop management and lower costs and save hundreds of thousands of dollars, even millions of dollars. But many companies fail at it.

In fact most companies are failing at it now!

Why do most companies fail at Desktop Management, even ones who have purchased Desktop Management software such as LDMS?

Reason #1 Because companies fail to invest

If your company hasn’t purchased Management Suite or a competitor, then you haven’t seen the importance in this investment yet.

If your company buys no desktop management software and hires no one to get a grip on their desktop management, you are still going to pay the costs I list above. They just won’t be obvious and they probably could get out of control. Your company may be completely unaware that they are spending more money because the expenses are distributed to the wrong “bottom lines”.  The cost of IT and help desk and loss of employee work all goes to a bottom line in some other category and nobody knows that they are spending millions more than they need to.

Lets say you have to hire four extra help desk guys at 75k after wages and benefits, which means you are spending an extra $300,000.  But then you have a big project, such as upgrading a piece of software to the latest  version and you have to pay everyone overtime and gets some temps.  The project costs you and extra $100,000.  This happens each quarter of the year.  So at the end of the year $700,000 have been spent on desktop management but none of the costs were attributed to Desktop Management. Wow, right there your costs, if you had bought a good desktop management tool and used it well, would probably be closer to $300,000 or $350,00, a savings of %50.  And not even all the possible ROI potential of desktop management software was put to use.

Reason #2 – Companies fail to follow through their investment.

If your company has purchased desktop management software, such as Management Suite, they then fail to follow through. And follow-through is important.

Lets just say for ease of math that you have purchased a Desktop Management solution and it is going to cost you $50 per node. (Costs vary based on the desktop management software and the features you buy, so don’t think this is a quote.)  That means you are going to invest $50 per pc, times 5,000 PCs . That is a $250,000 up front investment.  That seems like a lot, right? Believe me, it is more than worth it. You can save that much money on one feature alone.

So a company sets up one feature. For example, some customers who use LANDesk get it installed, and deploy an agent to all the machines.  They set up remote control and get their help desk to use remote control. Suddenly the help desk team is 1) Solving issues faster, 2) eliminating the need to get physically on the machine (which could sometimes mean travel or sending the machine to them). Maybe they eliminate three heads from help desk as save 75K per employee.  So they have already recouped $225,000 of their investment.  Any other use of LANDesk and they will break even and really start to get ROI. This usually happens, there is a big software distribution roll-out that they use their new desktop management software for and everyone cheers at how successful it was and reports are provided to show the ROI and their new desktop management software has now paid for itself.

However, LANDesk is installed and Remote Control is working. Their big project is over. So naturally you look for the next big ROI, right?  This might seem like the obviously next step but this is where companies go wrong.

The company puts the IT employees on other projects. Their shiny new desktop management software is shelved. No one is around to prevent this. (Obviously because they don’t have  CDMO, which is why I am telling you that companies need this new C-Level employee. ) So they have barely have touched the surface of their software and stop. This is the same problem that any company faces, regardless of the desktop management tool they choose.

Now they have really expensive remote control tool that they wish they could utilize more if they one had time to do so. They don’t understand that their desktop management software can do so much more.  It can save them more money. It can also save them more time!

Reason #3 – Tunnel Vision

The company really has tunnel vision and only sees the ROI of desktop management in one area. (See my list above, to remember that there are many areas.) This tunnel vision company finally buys desktop management software and gets it rolled-out. Unfortunately they run into an environmental problem preventing them from getting ROI on the one cost of desktop management they wanted to get ROI from.

So they stop the project.  Yes, you heard me right. They just spent $250,000 dollars and they just kill the project. Some try to get money back, some don’t.  Those that do end up back in Reason #1. Those that don’t sometimes end up in Reason #2 but are worse off because they never even obtained their initial ROI.

They don’t realize that they could get enough ROI to pay for the desktop management software and sometimes a lot more.

Reason #4 – Lack of training

Ok, so this is just a repeat of reason 1, but I put it anyway.

So your company just purchases a $250,000 desktop management tool.  Two weeks of training is included in the cost, but not the flights or hotel and the nearest training requires both expenses.  So your company decides not invest the $3,000 on airfare and hotel for it to train the IT guy assigned to use it. Instead, they decide to just hand this IT guy the software and say go.

One year later he has spent his entire years learning to just get the software rolled-out and has maybe got one other project done. He is completely unaware that a dozen projects and hundreds of small tasks that are still being done manually could be made easier or automated with their desktop management tool.

Reason $5 – The Desktop Management guy left

So you have purchased desktop management software. You have had great success initially, but then all of a sudden the guy over this desktop management project gets a new job.  So you promote some new guy in IT, but you don’t train him. Oops, you are now right back to Reason #4 – Lack of training.

How can your company get a handle on Desktop Management?

The steps are three-fold:

1. Hire a Chief Desktop Management Operator
2. Purchase the best desktop management tool available
3. Make sure that you have expert desktop management engineers to use it

Hire a Chief Desktop Management Operator

Yes, this is a C-Level employee so you are looking at a salary in excess of $100k plus benefits. But once you have so many desktops, the position pays for itself over and over.

You need a Chief Desktop Management Officer (CDMO) to make sure that your are constantly vigilant at lowering the costs of desktop management. The CDMO will manage the costs of desktop management in ways a company doesn’t even know are possible. The CDMO should appropriately work with the CFO and CIO/CTO to carve out the correct budget and to get the money showing in the correct “bottom line.” This individual should make sure that the CIO/CTO doesn’t run away with the IT department’s time and budget and spend it all on networking, data center, and web presence, but neglect finding the ways to save money by hedging up the desktop management costs.

Hiring a CDMO is the firs step because if you hire a CDMO, then the CDMO is going to drive the other steps. Your company is probably going to succeed in getting a handle on the desktop management costs by this one simple act.  However, the CDMO must follow-through on the next steps, so I am still going to explain them.

Purchase the best Desktop Management tool available

Well used desktop management software can pay for itself multiple times over.

Yes, I believe LANDesk Management Suite (LDMS) is the best desktop management software available, but I am not writing this post to sell you LANDesk (but I won’t complain if that is a side benefit). LANDesk has competitors and if your company has a bake-off and determines that a competitor is better and cheaper, you will go with them. But that still is only one of the three steps.

Make sure that you have experts using the desktop management product

You need the right people! A tool doesn’t use itself! (Well, LDMS with a well configured Process Manager implementation can almost use itself, but you get what I mean.)

You need well-trained engineers under the CDMO and in your IT department. You need engineers who can be effective and follow through on tasks needed to lower costs.

If you don’t have them, you need to either hire them, or you need to train your people on desktop management. To be successful you must do one or the other.  Sure a company might get lucky and have a gung-ho employee that trains his or her self, but do you want to base your success on luck? No, you need to either hire the talent or you need to train the talent. And once you have the talent, you need to keep it.

Hiring the talent

There are a lot of individuals like me who have the skills to fill any roll from CDMO to any position in IT.  Most of the ones I know are working for LANDesk or are working for LANDesk customers.  They are rare, and like all rare items, they are not cheap, yet their job performance will sparkle like diamonds.

I have heard of one large company that is taking this route and hiring some one amazing. To some extent that rumor inspired this post, except I have started this post three times so maybe they only inspired me to finish it.  I know the person well and he is a CDMO and an amazing desktop management engineer all rolled into one. I heard a rumor that they are paying him a good salary, as I mentioned above, well in excess of 100k.  This company is going to succeed because they are making the right investment. They probably don’t realize they are hiring a CDMO.  The think they are just getting a LANDesk Administrator.  You and I know better.

Training the talent

Many of your current engineers are more than capable of become talented desktop management engineers.  That means training both on the desktop management tool you choose, as well as training them on general principles of desktop management.  Do not hesitate to spend money on training. I have seen millions of dollars flushed down the toilet by companies who fail to train their engineers fully.

I read a quote on a LANDesk competitors site that said their software requires no additional lengthy training. I had to laugh, because desktop management requires training no matter what tool you use.  Desktop management training does not end with the tool and so few IT guys really understand all the technology around desktop management so training on these concepts is also necessary.  One prime example of this is Operating System imaging. None of the tools build an image for you.  Sure, they all let you deploy the image…but did you make your image correctly? Some one better know the answer because none of the desktop management tools are going to answer this question for you.

Keep your talent

Turnover for a desktop management engineer can be extremely costly.  More costly than you think.  Don’t let it happen.

I can’t tell you how many times I have spoken with a LANDesk engineer and asked them how things are going at company X and they respond by saying, “Actually I work for Company Y now.”  Sometimes I would get to speak to the new guy for Company X too, and they rarely have any idea what they are getting themselves into. They are usually calling in to accomplish the most trivial task in LANDesk because and usually start out by saying, “I have no idea what I am doing, I was just handed LANDesk when the previous guy left.”

Do you really want your $250,000 desktop management tool in the hands of some one who “has no idea what they are doing?”

If you are training quality desktop management engineers, do you really want them to take all that training and use it to help some other company succeed, leaving you to start all over again. You are closer to failure when you let this happen, so don’t let it happen.

Give your desktop management engineers raises that prevent them from leaving.  These guys are key in saving you hundreds of thousands a year by hedging desktop management costs.  If you loose your employee because someone offered them 6k more a year, you are making a big mistake.

Conclusion

A Chief Desktop Management Officer (CDMO) is new position that your company needs to drive the costs of desktop management down and to have the power to make sure it happens.

Desktop management software is a must but it is only as good as those trained to use it.

Desktop management engineers, often called LANDesk Administrators which is not quite accurate, are valuable employees and must be trained and retained.  Turn-over is costly.

With the onset of mobile devices, the cost of managing the computers could triple.  A user could potentially have a desktop or laptop (and some have more than one of these already), a tablet, and a smart phone, (which are now as powerful as desktops) and all three of the are going to be in your environment, and who is going to drive costs down instead of up?  Your new CDMO, that is who!

So now that you know what your company needs, go and do it.

I stumbled this article today.

It was totally funny because some of the comments are what I tell my wife all the time. Here is a quote if you don’t want to read the whole article.

Perhaps it will help if more people understand that the way programmers behave is driven by the demands of the work they do. It’s not because they’re irresponsible that they work in long binges during which they blow off all other obligations, plunge straight into programming instead of writing specs first, and rewrite code that already works. It’s not because they’re unfriendly that they prefer to work alone, or growl at people who pop their head in the door to say hello. This apparently random collection of annoying habits has a single explanation: the power of holding a program in one’s head.

This article also clearly describes problems at see at my job, working on dev in an organization.

So that is why I thought I would share it with my readers as well.

I completely believe that the phones and tablets like the new T-Mobile 7″ Samsung tab are going to be continue to be huge industries and will not go away as the Palm Pilot did. However, will they continue to explode exponentially as many believe? Or is there a plateau coming?

I just reviewed the Motorola Xoom and it was a great tech toy. However, it wasn’t much more than a casual gaming tool. There is a crucial flaw that has yet to be solved with phones and tablets: Typing.

No matter how fast you can type on a phone or tablet, you will never type as fast as you can on a keyboard. Might there be a solution better than a keyboard that we just haven’t discovered yet…maybe…but even if we discover it will it work on a phone or tablet?

There are certain uses for a phone:

1. Making calls
2. MP3 player
3. Texting
4. Casual gaming
5. Visual browsing (such as checking the whether)
6. Reading email (notice, I didn’t put writing email)
7. Pocket Portability
8. GPS and Navigation
9. Quick low quality photos/video

There are certain uses for a tablet

1. Book reader
2. MP3 player
3. Casual gaming
4. Visual browsing (such as checking the weather)
5. Reading email (notice, I didn’t put writing email)
6. GPS and Navigation
7. Quick low quality photos/videos

However, will the Laptop and Desktop be taken over by a tablet?  What about 20″ to 27″ monitors? Some of use need so much real-estate we have multiple monitors.  Here are using for a computer that a tablet does not solve.  For those of you thinking of going 100% to phones and tablets, you may just want to hold on.

Here is a list of requirements and uses that are met by a desktop or laptop that the phone and tablet haven’t really solved yet.

Note: I am not going to repeat the items on the list for the smart phones and tables but be aware that the only feature the phone or tablet has that a desktop or laptop doesn’t have today is pocket portability.

1. Keyboard and typing
   1. Writing email
   2. Writing documents
   3. Creating spreadsheets
   4. Writing code, yes, even writing code for tablets
   5. Writing blog posts (like this one)
2. CD/DVD/Blu-Ray drive (yes, people are going to still want to play there DVDs and Blu-Ray movies 10 years from now)
3. Monitors
   1. 17″ or larger monitor
   2. Multiple monitors
   3. Viewing multiple applications simultaneously
4. Local storage of data.
5. Serious desktop gaming
   1. Joysticks
   2. Short-cut keys
6. Peripherals
   1. Printers
   2. External drives
   3. Cameras and Video cameras
   4. Projectors
   5. Custom peripherals (like those that are designed for one company, telescope, craft vinyl cutters, industrial equipment, etc…)
7. Ethernet, no not everywhere has wireless yet and some secure facilities will never have wireless or allow VPN from a 3G/4G device. Some places don’t allow web-cams or camera devices and unfortunately you can’t take your camera out of your phone or tablet.

We have been using desktops for three decades. Smart-phones and tablets are in their infancy. Many problems, including millions of custom problems for companies in all industries, have been solved using laptops and desktops. To replace desktops and laptops, these problems will have to be solved.

Many problems have solutions already.For example, blue-tooth and wireless technology can allow for peripherals but there are a lot of devices already out there that are not blue-tooth or wireless capable.

But another road block is in the way. Adoption.

Adoptions takes a long time.  First the manufacturers have to adopt a technology, design new products, produce them, distribute them.  Then consumers have to buy the new technology and if they already own an older version, that older version often has to go through its life cycle which can take a lot of years. I still have an HP LaserJet 5L from the late 90s that works perfectly. No, I am not going to invest in another laser printer until this one dies.

So will someone still be running a desktop or laptop with Windows XP/Vista/7 in 2020. Certainly.  Will they probably own a smart phone or tablet as well.  You bet!

I ran across this article and it rang so true to me that I had to share it.

How I Failed, Failed, and Finally Succeeded at Learning How to Code

This article talks about how college’s and schools and drab and can’t teach with excitement, and programming is just exciting when taught correctly.  It is basically saying that programming is best learned by just going at solving a problem and learn as you go.

I don’t want to offend any CSS purists out there, but the more I use CSS the more I realize that is isn’t the best tool in the toolbox for layout. I am not saying html tags such as table layouts are better, but I am saying that there were problems that CSS was written to resolve, and as I understand it HTML layouts and page design is one of them, but even after 10 years it is nowhere near where it needs to be in a few areas:

1. Feature set
2. Simplicity
3. Readability is low
4. Ability to translate functionality into an IDE is poor (as seen by the fact that there is not good CSS IDE)

A while back I found a three column layout and posted about it: https://www.rhyous.com/2011/02/26/the-perfect-layout-for-a-three-column-blog/

At the time, I thought, great someone has figured out all the complexities for me. Well, actually no, they didn’t.  Trying to implement this for a blog design has been a nightmare because I want even more features and adding them to the design has not worked out very well. The design is great, and the author, Matthew James Taylor, should not think that I am trashing his work. No, not at all. He provided an excellent solution. No, instead, I am trashing CSS and its sub-par implementation.

How is it that after so many years and so many versions, CSS is overly complex and the “tricks” such as making  div elements embedded in div elements as Matthew James Taylor used, work but barely and they cause almost as many problems as they solve.

Now I have a problem trying to make the columns on the left and right have rounded corners.  Not going to happen. The way the nested div elements were used to make the background color go all the way down also seems to mean that four rounded corners in each column extending the lengthe of the screen is not likely to happen without more CSS tricks.

I need to add a menu bar, as this layout didn’t have one, but I need the menu bar to also have a drop down menu for submenu items.  However, the way this CSS layout used the div inside div trick, makes the drop down menu below the middle column so that is a problem.

Had I used a table to layout my site, it would be done already. Now, it wouldn’t be the most maintainable but it would be done.  However, maybe a programming language such as PHP or ASP.NET could be used to improve the maintainability.

So to all those who are participating in the CSS standards, please go back to the drawing board when it comes to the layout:

1. It seems a sub-par job separating the design from the code.
2. It seems a sub-par job providing an easy tool for laying out a website. You have left us with a tool that is not good enough!
3. There are not any good IDEs for CSS and HTML (No, neither Dreamweaver or Expression Web are good for laying out web pages, but you know what, it isn’t the fault of the IDE!)

You did solve some of the easy parts quite well, most of the parts that are not “layout” but more just color schemes.

1. Change font-size and color works great.
2. Float something to the left, great.

However, a simple feature of “as tall as the page” or the idea of a few elements where all but one are fixed size and the one that isn’t stretches the width of the height of the screen doesn’t exist. It seems to be there for width, but not for height or else it is there but just too hard to get.  For example, look at the three column design.  The reason the author had to nest the div elements was to get the three column div elements to extend all the way to the bottom of the page.  Without this hack, when there are three columns (left, middle, right) normally each one is a different length.  Really, CSS hasn’t solved this with a simple solution, yet? Sorry to be critical, but after this long, it should be better.

Here is what I want it shouldn’t be so difficult.  These tags don’t exist, this is a hypothetical of what I want.  Funny that as I write this some is similar to WPF, which is far superior to CSS for layout design IMHO.

<div name="Header" width="stretch" height="100px"> .... </div>
<div name="Menu" width="stretch" height="sizetocontent> .. </div>
<div name="Columns" width="stretch">
    <Group type="Horizontal" width="stretch">
        <div name="LeftCol" width="250px" hight="stretch"> ... </div>
        <div name="MiddleColCol" width="stretch" hight="stretch" MinWidth="300"> ... </div>
        <div name="LeftCol" width="stretch" hight="stretch"> ... </div>
    </HorizontalGroup>
</div>
<div name="Header" width="stretch" height="100px"> .... </div>

First off, the readability of the above syntax is amazingly clear and simple (IMO) and one does not have to wonder what is intended.

So please, powers that be of CSS, lets start over. Yes, I am aware it could take a decade but it is worth it if this time, you get it right! Look at WPF, sure it is not exactly the same, but Microsoft invested a lot of time and money into Windows Forms and they still felt the need for a new solution in WPF and it has been around 6 years and still Windows Forms are around, but more an more everyone is moving to WPF. CSS should go the way of Windows Forms, and become the old solution that a better solution is designed to replace.

Here are some more articles where people agree that CSS needs to be replaced with a better tool.  Please note as you read these posts that I don’t think CSS sucks.  I think it was a descent tool written to solve a problem, and succeeded in some areas and failed in others, and now that we know what works and what doesn’t a new better tool should be developed that keeps what works in CSS bt also succeeds where CSS fails.

Ten reasons why CSS sucks « Greg’s Head

CSS Sucks (for layout) | Accidental Scientist (this is interesting because Layout is my main complaint)

Tables vs CSS: 15 points to consider when choosing (this one has a lot of links that are not in favor of CSS)

If you are a framer for a house, a hammer is better than a wrench for nailing nails.  But a nail-gun is better than a hammer. CSS is somewhere in between. Here is a good hammer/nail gun analogy to describe CSS. Once I had a nail gun but the air compressor wasn’t quite strong enough and didn’t send the nails all the way in. So I use the nail gun because this was still faster, and did all the nailing. Then I pulled out my hammer and to finish the job.  CSS is like a nail gun without enough air.  It is better than a hammer, but not as good as it could be.

Maybe CSS doesn’t need to go away, maybe it just needs to stop doing layout.  What if it just did size and color and decoration and a new tool integrated with HTML and CSS to do layouts. But maybe it is better to have one solution for design.

I had the Motorola Xoom for a month just to experience it. It was provided to me by work but only temporarily.  I just transferred it to a team member so they can now experience it.

If you don’t want to read anything more, and just want me to sum up my review here it is:

I want to buy one now that it is gone but the $599 price overcame my desire as I don’t need one.

So I that means that it is definitely a useful item but it is currently overpriced in my eyes.  I just bought my wife a 17.3″ widescreen HP laptop with a 4GB of RAM, a Blu-Ray, a web-cam, fingerprint reader, HDMI port, etc…It was $549.  Currently there are some Android 2.2 tablets that are in the $100 to $150 range. I think in a year these tablets in the $100-$150 dollar range will be running Android 3.0 or the next version and they will be everything your need.  So only spend the money if you need to.

I am going to own an Android 3.0 device soon, if for no other reason than technology is both my job and hobby so just to stay up to speed with technology, I will need one soon, just not right now.

Ok, let’s get to the positives and negatives.

Negatives

1. Apps didn’t work until I restored to factory defaults.
2. Wireless screen didn’t really indicate a scroll bar, took me an hour to figure out I had to scroll down to enter a password.  This was the first thing my team member ran into as well.
3. Some apps just crash (but many actually updated and started working, so expect app support to improve rapidly)
4. Learning to type on a touch screen. It is much better than typing on a phone, not as good as a laptop.
5. Didn’t fit in my suit pocket at church, maybe I should get a 7″ one for myself.
6. The fingerprints on the screen were annoying and I had to clean it often.

Positives of a tablet

1. Time to browse.  Once you have your favorite sites, just hitting a site really quick was much faster.
2. I loved the 10.1 inch screen.
3. I loved replacing big books.
4. A good casual game machine, especially for my 3-year-old.

Positives of the Xoom and Android 3

1. Having about 5 desktops to put icons on.
2. The first firmware update I received worked perfectly.
3. Notification system is awesome.
4. Flash web pages worked just fine.
5. The email integration with Gmail.
6. Plenty of disk space. (I never even used 2 GB as much is stored on the cloud)
7. Multi-threading – It never once felt slow.
8. Google Maps integration worked well.

Hopefully this review helps you.

Disabling row selection in the WPF DataGrid included in .NET Framework 4 is not really easy. It is extremely difficult to do, unless you have the right tools and know exactly how to do it.

But all the difficulty is in figuring out how to do it. Once you know how to do it, the steps are quite easy to perform.

First, you basically have to use a copy of the default DataGrid style. However, the easiest way to get a copy of the default DataGrid style is using Expression Blend.

Read more one my new WPF Sharp site here:

How to disable row selection in a WPF DataGrid?

Sometimes you need to make some advanced styling changes to a default control, such as a RadioButton, ListBox, DataGrid, Button, etc. However, you may want to keep the majority of the default style the way it is.

In Expression Blend, this is easy to do. If you don’t have Expression Blend and you are developing in WPF, get it immediately. There is a trial version you can test out.

Here is how to get your copy of any control’s default style….

Read more on my new WPF Sharp site
How to create a copy of a control’s default style?

So I introduced Kanban, the project management process we are using at work, to to my wife and she is going to try it out for her managing the tasks for her blog.

Of course, being a craft blogger, she made a craft project out of the idea for making a Kanban board. Check out her version of a Kanban board.

Old Window + Personal Kanban = Task Board