Intranet Portal Project - RAD or Waterfall?Written by David Viney
In this short article, David Viney examines whether Rapid Application Development (RAD) or Waterfall development methodologies should be used during Intranet Portal projects.Building Bridges I have often used analogy of building a bridge to explain to business colleagues difference between RAD and Waterfall. Let’s say that we are in middle ages and Mayor of Kingston-upon-Thames is evaluating whether or not to build a bridge over river to north side, to replace current ferry. The whole area has been growing rapidly and a bridge at Kingston should give his town a lead against competing local towns like Ham and Richmond (who also have their own ferries). However, building a bridge presents problems. Firstly, bedrock north and south of river are very different. Secondly, river is still tidal at this point and its path continues to vary across floodplain. Finally – and perhaps most importantly – there is no guarantee that projected growth in cross-river traffic will indeed materialise – or that people will wish to cross at this precise point, rather than further up, or down, river. A new bridge could prove an expensive white elephant and divert much-needed town resources away from other projects. The increased local taxes required could also scare very businesses he is hoping to attract away to other local towns. Option 1 - Waterfall Waterfall, as a methodology, is all about building reliable systems. At each stage of lifecycle, results are correct. The Mayor’s engineer believes that - when building a bridge - result needs to be safe, sound and capable of lasting for decades. He recommends a design phase, which includes thoroughly testing bedrock by driving piles and developing ways to limit future variance of river’s course. During build phase, bridge would be tested to ensure it can take loads that will be placed upon it and to deal with high winds or flood conditions. The engineer confirms that each stage would only start once previous stage had been proved correct beyond reasonable doubt. The stone bridge will take five whole years to build (with a high upfront cost commitment). If project were ever stopped, value tied up in phases to date would be lost. The engineer reminds Mayor that a collapsed bridge would not help his place in history! Option 2 - RAD RAD, as a methodology is all about building relevant systems. The argument runs that it is better to be there quickly with 80% of functionality in 20% of time, so as to take full advantage of business opportunity. The Mayor’s political advisors recommend RAD option; to lay a pontoon bridge first alongside existing ferry. This can be achieved in just three months, using a series of boats with a makeshift road surface and swing bridge lock for river vessels to navigate. The pontoon bridge allows business model to be tested very quickly; If expected benefits materialise, then further iterations of bridge can be constructed later on. Sounds good, but of course (overall) costs will be higher than waterfall if a full, stone bridge is ultimately required. In meantime, if river changes course, or floods impact area, then pontoon bridge will be washed away. His chief advisor reminds him that a bridge five years from now would not help his re-election prospects two years hence!
| | How to search your PC with Google DesktopWritten by Nowshade Kabir
In this era of Internet, most people are frequent users of computers. Many of us use computers through out day, accumulating morasses of information in various formats, which include email, digital photo, word document, spreadsheet, presentation file, ebook, article, other downloaded files, music, visited web pages, and many others. We stuff them in multiple folders in our PC. Before we know it, our hard drives become a storeroom of misplaced items. As a result, finding a needed file of information some times become a daunting task! The search function integrated to Microsoft Windows is not a big help either. It requires you to know, albeit vaguely, where file could possibly be located. If your data storage is significant and you made a search on your whole hard disk, it might take ages to get search results and, then again, there is no guarantee that you will find right file. Frustrating? Thanks to new Google Desktop Search this is about to change! What is Google Desktop Search? Google Desktop Search is a free downloadable small program, which will quickly and easily find your files no matter where in your hard disk they are stored. The great thing about this program is by making your computer searchable, this program frees you from having to manually organize and sort your files, emails, and downloads. You no more have to mull over where in your PC information you are looking for is residing – in your email, files or web pages that you browsed recently. At present Google Desktop Search works only with full text in Outlook and Outlook Express email, text, HTML, Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, AOL chat, and Web pages viewed through Internet Explorer. Other files like PDF will be probably added in future version. How it works? Google Desktop Search is fairly easy to download and set up. The address for downloading program is http://desktop.google.com. Once you installed program, it begins initial indexing process of your hard disks. This may take several hours for an average size disk. The one-time indexing process only works when computer has been idle for more than thirty seconds. Indexing for Google Desktop Search is an ongoing process, new files and emails get updated automatically. The search index created by program resides on your own computer. On your system tray you will see a swirled icon in Google colors, by clicking on it you will open regular Google search page with addition of Desktop along side with other search areas. Once indexing is done, files are searched in under a second and results are impressively precise. The top bar shows quantities of files found under four categories, which include emails, files, chat and Web history. The results are shown in much same way as regular Google interface. You can choose to see relevant results from all or any of categories. You can also sort results by relevance or by date. By clicking on any result you open file in respective application software.
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