One thing I had to do was make sure the path of the songs in my iTunes xml file was the same as the Rhythmbox xml file. I was switching from OS X to linux, so the volumes/DRIVENAME needed to be media/DRIVENAME (at least on Arch Linux). I just used vim to do a search and replace.

Cheers for the excellent how-to. I’ve been looking for something that would enable me to do just this.

My only problem is… while running the Python script, I get the following error: Ran out of memory for input buffer at /usr/lib/perl5/XML/Parser/Expat.pm line 469.

My itunes.xml file is 7.5 megabytes – I guess this is too much for my setup of Python to handle? I’m sure there’s a config setting that I can tweak to get it working, but to be honest I’m not too fussed in the end.

It’s a shame though, because it looked like a pretty neat way of doing things.

I’m running Ubuntu 9.10 in case you were wondering.

Cheers for the article anyway.

Oliver

It’s Marta (reading old entries to catch up).
What about allowing developers to call themselves chicken or pig when estimating? (you know… the old analogy: a chicken is involved. A pig is committed!)

It helps. But you have to have a good reason to call yourself a chicken ;-)

Marta

I am following your blog with great interest! Good job.
Anyway, I thought I might share here what I did in my last project as Scrum Master when the daily stand ups got a little boring.

1- Subdivide people into projects. When later we decided to merge teams, we spent a couple of weeks with common stand ups so people could start familiarising with the other project. But, normally, have daily scrums with people who work in a common thing only! and focus the updates on common ground.

2 – We decided to “limit” the time a person can talk. That does not mean not to raise concerns, for example. Cover what needs to be covered. But people need to learn to be focused and explain WITH FEW WORDS the 3 “lines”: what I have done – what I will do – blockers. Keep it simple.

And 3- Add some “fun” if necessary. Try to add a joke and encourage people to do so if applicable. That is, if for example you are going on holidays, say “and tomorrow I won’t be in the office but as I am going to Belgium I promise to bring some chocolates.”

Hope it helps!
Marta

You are right, Nokia is probably the most known organization using Scrum extensively. I guess your point is around the lines of “if Nokia can do it, then everybody can…”, right?

Your point is fair but debatable for the skeptical around town. I would argue that Nokia is as I ironically describe it my post, that they didn’t radically change the way they work with strong support from the “higher spheres” and the many in between.

But I don’t know, so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt – that should give me hopes for the future! :-P