Agile Project Management Software

I am going to take some time over the next few months to work with some different project management software. I would like to find something that is a good fit for small teams. I have been working in an agile shop for several years now. I hope to find some software that allows me to continue to work in an agile way. I don’t want to get weighed down with a lot of extra work. Further I want something that will work for both in house teams and remotely distributed teams.
It has been my experience that many software development techniques are designed for large teams working in a large corporate environment. For the majority of my career I have worked with small teams and have struggled to find development processes that were a good fit for small teams. This is why Agile is so attractive to me. It is light weight enough to not get in the way of developing the software. So now that I am comfortable working with Agile, I want to some help with bring together our remote developers and clients.
What I will be looking for is a tool for tracking user stories and tasks by user story. The software should provide assistance with agile estimating; building user story/task lists for each iteration, tracking project burn down and estimating project completion. The ability for remote users to stay on top of these stories and tasks is mandatory. I will throw in other requirements as they occur to me.
For evaluation of each package I am going to use a project that I am doing as a hobby with my son. We are working on a game for the Xbox 360 developed with the XNA game studio and C#. This will provide a familiar (at least for me) project without having to worry about disclosing any confidential client information.
This is not going to be a scientific look at each package. I am just going to figure it out as I go. I have not given much thought to what software I am going to review. I will start with a product that was introduced to me through an email list from The Code Project. The package is called onTime and is produced by axosoft. Axosoft has a 30 day free trail for its’ entire suite and a free single user license. After evaluating that package I will begin searching for another package. I you have any thoughts on other software I should look at or requirements I should evaluate I would like to hear from you. Leave me a message in the comments or email me at bud underscore wheeler at hotmail dot com.

Dell, Sigma-Tel, and Vista SP1

Looks like I am not the only one with these issues. I have read a couple of recent posts on this.

Vista.Blorge, Tech Arena, and Dell

The more I read on this the more I come to realize this is not a new problem. I have seen posts back 2007 that talk about this problem. Seems like there has been enough time for Dell to address this problem and offer a solution.

Possible Solutions:
Use the Windows Default Driver
Try a different Dell
driver.

I haven't tried any of these yet. Proceed at your own risk.

Blogger Updates

I saw that blogger made some updates today. I tried adding a page element and everything worked perfect. Thanks Blogger.

I now have the NGM widget running on the side bar. Whoopie!

Adding Page Elements

I caught this over on Pop Candy. I 've enjoyed Whitney's posts and her style.

I want to add this widget from
National Geo to my blog page.

When I click on settings and add page element everything gets goofy. I end up with half a page and nothing works. Anybody have any idea what is wrong?

I can add the widget as a post, no problem. In fact it is not adding the widget that breaks. It is simply that I can't get to the add-page-element page. It may just be a chair keyboard interface error.

If you are interested in photography you should check out NGM's Your Shot web site. They are publishing two photo's a month from these submissions. Who know's, you may be next. There are some great shots on there and the puzzel's are kinda fun.

You can view my submissions if you want to see some of my shots.

Anyway here is the widget.

[widget removed because I got it working on the side bar]

Vista SP1 Video

Micrisoft let loose this video about Vista SP1.




It seems there are lots of people that think it is really bad and really stupid, even to the point of being painful.

I don't know about the video, but not being able to install SP1 is painful to me. I wonder how long I will be stuck with this bad Sigma Tel driver.

Dell Audio Drivers Vista SP1

Ok, so my first real post is a rant. Not something that I am proud of but this is driving me crazy.

I have a Dell XPS M1710. It's a machine that I have really enjoyed and it has helped restore my faith in Dell as a company. I have bought at least six Dell machines. I started buying Dell exclusively several years back and I have had great success with them. The last computer I bought came with Vista Ultimate on it and I had some problems with it, that is another story for another blog, the end result is that Dell replace the computer.

Now that Vista SP1 is available I would like to get it installed. However I can't upgrade because the Sigma Tel High Definition Audio CODEC has driver issues. SP1 has been out for a while now and there is no word from Dell on when this driver will be updated.

It really sucks that I can't keep current on the OS. I hope Dell will remedy this situation soon.

Has anybody else had this problem? Have you been able to resolve it?

Let me know what your experiences have been.

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MS KB on Vista