Category: IT

Posted on

“Reverse roadmap order” patch for Trac

If you prefer a descending order (like in changelogs, blogs, etc.) for milestones in roadmaps instead of an ascending one (= default), you might want to apply my tiny patch:

Roadmap.py.patch

It applies to Roadmap.py of Trac 0.8.4 (see ‘locate Roadmap.py’).

Note that this patch both sets a reverse chronological and a reverse alphabetical order for milestones. Like this, you can name your milestones like versions (e.g. “0.2”, “0.4” .. “1.0”) and they will still appear in reverse order (even if they don’t have any associated dates).

If you want a reverse chronological only order (while keeping an ascending alphabetical order), set “name” instead of “name DESC” in the SQL statements of Roadmap.py.

Note that iCal will not be affected by the display order of the items on Trac.

Posted on

“Deny project listing” patch for Trac

If you’d like to disable the project listing (“Available projects”) in Trac 0.8.4 when using mod_python (highly recommended as it greatly improves Trac’s responsiveness), you might want to use my tiny patch:

ModPythonHandler.py.patch

Apply it by executing

# patch

in Trac’s source code directory (see the result of ‘locate Changeset.py’). On Gentoo, the directory is /usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/trac/. Note that you don’t need this patch if you’re using the current trunk version of Trac (at the time of writing). In trunk, you can define your own custom template for the project listing.

Posted on

The meaning of blogs..

..or rather one of the meanings of weblogs:

WSJ: Marketers Scan Blogs For Brand Insights
Slashdot: Marketers Scan Blogs For Brand Insights

A note about the importance of mouth-to-mouth advertising, with blogs being one of its incarnations on the Internet:

NOTRE DAME USA — Ob ein Kinofilm zum Kassenschlager wird, hängt davon ab, was die Besucher der ersten Vorstellungen darüber erzählen. Das zeigte ein US-Physiker anhand eines mathematischen Modells, mit dem er den Erfolg von 44 Kinostreifen untersuchte. Demnach kann die Mundpropaganda die Besucherzahlen langfristig stärker beeinflussen als das Marketing oder die Grösse des Publikums, das ursprünglich mit dem Film angesprochen werden sollte. (Sonntagszeitung p. 81, June 19, 2005)

In English:
“Nature” article: Modellers measure ‘word of mouth’ for films
Original paper: The effect of social interactions in the primary life cycle of motion pictures

Currently, many companies are discovering blogs as an important medium to get in contact with customers and opinion leaders. And more and more consumers realize that they can actually have an impact on products and influence companies – through blogging.

In fact, blogs are “just” the beginning.. stay tuned for more information.

[Update: Related news: “The first-ever conference on measurement, metrics and standards in word of mouth marketing” organized by womma – the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (I doubt it’s the “first-ever”, though ;)]

Posted on

MS feedback :)

A premiere for me:

That’s pretty cool :) I always asked myself what MS will be doing with all the many error reports I already sent them. Do they just pipe them to /dev/null? Collect them in the marketing department to do some data mining on how much more stable product xy is than product yz? Forward them to Bayer so they can send me a free pack of Aspirin in order to fight the headache these bugs are causing? ;)

Well, after all, MS seems to use these reports to actually *fix* the errors (surprised? ;). Or at least some of them ;) And they inform their customers about new patches if available.. nice reward for sending bug reports! :) Like this, the whole thing makes sense. Instant feedback, that’s what customers want nowadays.