Wednesday, July 13, 2011

The best Animation Movies ever

Lately, IGN Movies amended their Top 25 Animation Movies Ever, as an animation movies fan I've decided to share this list with you guys, so in the 25th place is Batman: Mask of the phantasm, where in the first place is The beauty and the beast, and below is the full Top 25 Animation Movies Ever according to the latest IGN Movies List:
25. Batman: Mask of the phantasm

24. Metropolis
23. Fantasia
22. Ghost in the Shell
21. The fantastic Mr. Fox
20. My neighbor Totoro
19. Sleeping Beauty
18. Ratatouille
17. The Lion King
16. How to train your dragon
15. Finding Nemo
14. Akira
13. Toy Story 3
12. Spirited Away
11. The nightmare before Christmas
10. Snow white and the seven dwarfs
9. Toy story
8. The little mermaid
7. Up
6. South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut
5. The iron giant
4. Toy story 2
3. The incredibles
2. Wall-E
1. The Beauty and the Beast
I've watched them all, and they are incredibly nice movies, Enjoy family movie nights ;)

Sunday, July 10, 2011

What is Scrum Method?

Scrum is one of several light-weight agile methods that use an iterative and incremental approach for the development of information systems. The Scrum method brings a small team together to work on a specified set of features over a period of 30-days (called a sprint).
Both the term Scrum and sprint are borrowed from the sport Rugby. A scrum is where the two teams are engaged in a huddled to begin play following a period where play has been stopped. The fast moving period of play from the point of the scrum until play ends again is called a sprint.
The Scrum method starts each 30-day sprint with a kickoff meeting (a period where the entire team comes together). The kickoff meeting lasts a full day and the features of the system to be developed are discussed. The outcome of the kickoff meeting is a set of features that will be developed over the 30-day sprint along with estimates of how long the analysis and development of each feature will take.
In order for a feature to be considered completed, it needs to be Analyzed, Designed, Coded, Tested, Refactored, and Documented. If this life-cycle is not fully accomplished during the 30-day sprint, perhaps due to an initial underestimation of the time required, the feature will be pushed to a later sprint.
Following the kickoff meeting, and throughout the duration of the 30-day sprint, each day is started with a short meeting lasting approximately 15 minute called a daily scrum meeting (also called a daily stand-up meeting). The purpose of this meeting is for the team to discuss what they accomplished the day before, what they will accomplish over the coming day, and to raise any obstacles that they have encountered that may impede progress.
One aspect of Scrum, that is intended to keep the Scrum team and method very agile, is its size. Most Scrum teams consist of no more than about 7 people with each falling into 1 of 3 roles.
  • Product Owner – identifies the features that will be included in the next 30-sprint and set the priority of each. This is typically a high-level stakeholder in organizations where a true Product Manger/Product Owner role doesn’t exist.
  • Scrum Master – acts much like the project manager. While the Scrum Master does not micro-manage the teams deliverables, this person ensures that the 30-day sprint is on track and enforces the key rules that guide Scrum such as; no new features can be added to the sprint once it is kicked off, and team members cannot be pulled off to work on other side project in the middle of a sprint.
  • Team Member – unlike traditional software development methods, in Scrum there is little separation of duties between team members. Each team member may fill the role of analyst, designer, coder, tester, and documentation writer.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Enabling GodMode in Windows 7

Windows 7, Server 2008, and flavors of Windows Vista provide an unpublished ability to create a control panel called GodMode that allows you to have easy access to almost all administrative tasks that you would like to use in Windows. This new window is called GodMode because it puts all aspects of the management of Windows at your fingertips in one location. This allows you to quickly configure Windows settings or hardware from one screen. In order to access GodMode you must first create a special folder on your desktop as described below.
It is important to note that GodMode only works for 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 7, 32-bit versions of Windows Server 2008, and 32-bit versions of Windows Vista. It is known, though, to crash Windows Vista 64-bit, so please do not create this folder on those versions of Windows Vista. If you decide to test it on 64-bit versions of Windows Vista, you may need to reboot into safe mode to remove this folder.
To enable the GodMode folder on your desktop, please follow the steps below.
  1. Go to your desktop.
  2. Right-click on an empty portion of your desktop and select New and then select Folder as shown in the image below.
  3. Edit the title of the new folder so that it is named the following and then press enter: GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}
  4. When done, you should have an icon on your desktop that has the above title and looks like the icon in the image below.
  5. Double-click on this icon to open GodMode. When GodMode opens, you will be presented with a screen similar to the one below
  6. You can now scroll through the list of available configuration options and tasks that are available for your version of Windows and tweak Windows from one location. Note that the list is categorized into the following:
  7.  If at any time you would like to remove GodMode, all you have to do is to delete the folder you created.
Action Center
Administrative Tools
Auto Play
Backup and Restore
BitLocker Drive Encryption
Color Management
Credential Manager
Date and Time
Default Programs
Desktop Gadgets
Device Manager
Devices and Printers
Display
Ease of Access Center
Folder Options
Fonts
Getting Started
Home Group
Indexing Options
Internet Options
Keyboard
Location and Other Sensors
Mouse
Network and Sharing Center
Notification Area Icons
Performance Information and Tools
Personalization
Phone and Modem
Power Options
Programs and Features
Recovery
Region and Language
RemoteApp and Desktop Connections
Sound
Speech Recognition
Sync Center
System
Taskbar and Start Menu
Troubleshooting
User Accounts
Windows CardSpace
Windows Defender
Windows Firewall
Windows Mobility Center
Windows Update