I was working on my website and saw the following quote come up in my quote list. I didn't know what waterfall programming meant, so I did a search for the quote. I find it interesting that my site (when it was still using Postnuke) came up in the Google results. Made me happy. But the article I found is an interesting read. The quote was actually part of a reader response to the article.

The article is "Iterative vs. waterfall software development: Why don't companies get it?" by Bill Walton.

It discusses four methodologies for programming. I think I use the third one most often in my work, except that I rarely have a partner to work with.

• The iterative and incremental approaches involve a number of short cycles in which steps such as requirements gathering, coding, testing and deployment, are conducted to produce small parts of the final project. The software system grows incrementally, and user feedback can be used throughout the process.
• The waterfall philosophy is a strictly sequential approach in which a project is completed in a series of steps, such as analysis, design, coding, testing and deployment. Each step, such as requirements gathering, is undertaken only once and must be completed and verified before the next phase.
• Extreme programming is a software development approach built around rapid iterations, an emphasis on code writing and working closely with end users to achieve business results. The 12 basic practices of XP include continual testing and the idea that programmers should work in pairs. (See Computerworld QuickStudy.)
• Project Management Institute methodology involves recommended best practices that use a cycle of processes -- initiating, planning, executing, controlling and closing -- to manage a project's scope, time, costs, risks and so on.

I just got back from the doctor.  He gave me a "scar pad" to help make the scar look better.  It feels like jelly.  He also told me that I can go swimming now.  I'm excited.  He also told me start using some lotion on it, which is something I was going to ask him about anyway.  My next appointment is 9/15 at 2:40.

I came across an article in InfoWorld today that made me think.  It's about how all your beautiful programming and planning can fail when your procedures require human intervention.  I really hate to admit it, but a lot of the processes I've designed for my work's website are handled this way.  Not because I wanted to, but because I don't have the budget or manpower to redesign our systems to handle it properly.  It really annoys me somedays.

"The Last Few Inches" by Chad Dickerson

For some reason, about every 5 minutes, I get a logon failure to my mail server as myself.  At first, I couldn't figure out why my account kept getting locked out so I turned on some auditing options.  I've got a whole security log of these failed attempts.  Actually, it's two attempts every 5 minutes.  Very obnoxious.

I'm trying to track down the source of the problem.  According to the documentation I have, they are logon type 7, which is an "Unlock" attempt, like from the console.  I don't think that's entirely accurate though because the server is behind me.  I think perhaps it might be from terminal services.  I'd like to disable that, but I currently don't have a monitor on that system.  We'll see what happens.

I'm sitting here waiting on MySQL 4.1 to recompile. It doesn't want to. I've resorted to modifying the ports Makefile to use the --with-isam option and recompile it that way. We'll see if that works.

When I tried before from the work directory of the port, it kept failing at one spot that didn't seem to have anything to do directly with the ISAM option. Something about gen_lex_hash not being found, even though it was there, ready to be compiled. I just don't feel like doing that kind of troubleshooting right now.

It looks like it may be working, but it's still compiling at this point.

Update: Half an hour later, we have a working MySQL.

In addition to my MySQL problems, I've also had the owner's monitor die, a phone line that came unplugged from the punch block and screwy eyes.  The owner's monitor has been replaced with the server monitor from behind me.  I'll probably order a new one tomorrow when my boss is here.  The phone line came unplugged when I was working on a different problem.  That's been fixed now too.  It wasn't a critical line so it wasn't a big deal, but it needed to be fixed.

But I finally put my contacts back in this morning and my eyes don't like me.  They finally adjusted to the glasses and I've gone and switched on them again.

It's going to be a long day.

I upgraded MySQL on Uranus this weekend from 4.0.x to 4.1.13.  What I didn't know until I got phone calls about a website not working is that MySQL 4.1 no longer supports the ISAM tables by default.  Some of my databases for the websites have been around since 3.x and are still using that table type that is being phased out.  So now I have to recompile MySQL 4.1 so that I can convert the tables over to the newer format so I can get one with my day.  *grumbles*

I've just finished installing GT-NextGen on this site.  The goal of this modification to PHP-Nuke is to "htmlify" the links on the site so that sites such as Google will index it properly.

It was a pain to install because it required modifying a lot of core code (not huge modifications, just on several files).  The biggest problem I have with those types of modifications is that when I update versions, I have to redo it all.  This is the reason I'm trying to make the fn-comments modification I'm doing hold most of it's code in a seperate file.

My next goal is to find where to modify the Meta keywords in PHP-Nuke.  It's not that it's going to be hard.  I just haven't done it yet.

Shepherd and company have found a planet with technology that rivals their own.  However, this planet places it's criminals in a penal colony near the gate for the Wraith to feed on so that they ignore the main cities.  Apparently this has worked for hundreds of years.

My first thought is "Oh no.  Another Vala episode."  (I'm watching as I write this.)  It seems that SG-1 has traveled to a planet where a Prior has visited.  Vala says the people of this planet trust her. Once again, we'll break for spoilers.

The whole episode seems like it's a message of Technology vs. Divinity.  I may have to watch it again in a day or so to decide if I liked it or not.

On the bright side of everything, it looks like Sam is rejoining the team next episode (according to the preview).