office

Chairs and Small Spaces

I'll soon be returning to school, and living in an apartment. I figure I need a good programming chair, and there are have been a few discussions about them, from Jeff and Joel. But what about for a small space and on a small budget? What's the best chair I can get that (1) doesn't take up a lot of space and (2) doesn't cost a lot of mon...

What fun things do you do to release stress at the office?

In our office, we've got a bunch of finger blasters: And nothing beats shooting the hell out of QA who are just located meters away. One of our developers can consistently get "head shots" within a 10 meter range .. List other fun things that you guys do! ...

Osmotic communication -vs- closed-off offices?

What are people's experiences with osmotic communication (as recommended by Alastair Cockburn as part of Crystal Clear) as opposed to giving developers individual offices with doors (as recommended by lots of people; for instance, Joel Spolsky. Joel comes back to this here ) Has anyone found the learning-by-osmosis approach to work well...

Home Office Programming Setup (Post pictures if possible)

I am in a phase to move to a new house and was wondering what should the home office for programming looks like. If you have setup your home office for programming then please advise. Also, post your home programming office pictures so everyone can see your work environment. ...

Create a new Word Document using VSTO

How can I create a new Word document pro grammatically using Visual Studio Tools for Office? ...

What is your demand for a working software development environment?

Hi! I am currently setting up a new software development department with my employer. I'm a former programmer, project manager and director of development, so I have an idea of how the environment should be. I would like your opinions on the matter as you are the guys I am actually preparing this for :) My fundamentals: Office space;...

Good file management software

Currently all our files are stored on a windows network drive and with 15 members of staff and 3 external workers, file control is beggining to get a bit of nightmare. Even though we have a policy in place people still seem to save file to their pcs, make changes copy them back without notifying anyone, send files via email instead of it...

Home Office Programming requirements?

For people who do real actual programming from home, either part time or full time: What are some of the most important requirements, for encouraging productivity? Other factors to consider, for a home with a family and the normal distractions. Assume this is web application development, but open to comments for other types of systems ...

Must haves for developers office

We are designing our office right now and want to know what stuff you guys really care about or started loving in your office. So - What are your must-haves for a developers office? What things can't you live without? ...

How do you organize desk allocation?

When you move into another floor or another location and you are giving a bunch of desk, how do you organize the desk allocation within the team? How do you deal with conflicts of several people wanting the same desk or nobody wanting some desk. ...

Where can I find a geeky mug in the UK?

I'd like a coffee mug to use at the office similar to those offered by thinkgeek.com, but without the exorbitant postage expense (the postage for a $9.99 mug is $22.45). Does any one have any recommendations for a similar store in the UK, or for a store outside the UK without the astronomical postage? ...

Should developers *really* have private offices?

We will probably be moving within a year, so we have to make some decisions regarding office layout. At the moment, our company is basically one big office. When our developers can't bother to be disturbed at all, we all have our own headphones to mute the outside world. Still, it seems a lot of people feel that private offices are n...

High End Monitors (LaCie/EIZO/NEC) worth it for daily development?

Since quite a few here spend 10+ hours a day in front of their monitors and stress their eyes with it would you consider it worthwhile the investment to go with a LaCie, NEC or EIZO display instead of the common HP/DELL office screens? The biggest advantage even if you do not work with imaging seems to be the build in colorimeter to wor...

dsolefile - error handling when value does not exist (in excel)

I'm trying to update document properties and create new entries if they don't exist However this type of thing does not work Set objDocProps = DSO.GetDocumentProperties(sfilename:=FileName) With objDocProps If .CustomProperties("ABC") Is Nothing Then 'create it here and if I put an error handler in there it barfs as either being loc...

WPF control for viewing Office Documents

Hi, I am looking for a way to view Microsoft Office and PDF documents within a WPF application. Does anyone know about an Office viewer control that works well in WPF? Thanks Jay ...

programmer productivity studies, team room versus private offices?

Have there been any studies on productivity and code quality comparing team room approach aka bullpen versus private offices? I've only been able to find studies comparing the faux office (cubical) versus the real office. I've read about both Caves and Commons and peopleware. ...

How to hide Thinking at Work so that the Non-Programmers don't suspect Slacking?

Better programmers than me can write in essays about walking around with a coffee mug and call it programming. And it's perfectly accepted at a place that knows the business. Or see what Gregory House (TV show "House M.D.") does when he is thinking. But what about the other places where you are the only programmer? If you don't stare a...

How would you convert any document to a preview image?

I am using .NET and am looking for a way to convert just about any document into a preview image. I say any, but the priorities are Office Documents, PDF, and most image files. I would assume that I can somehow build upon the Windows Explorer's ability to preview documents... but I do not know how. What would you do? ...

Office Open XML (OOXML) Specification: Encryption

I am trying to understand how encrypted ("password protected") Office 2007 documents are bundled (specifically, Excel documents). I am experimenting with a known, password protected spread sheet. When I unzip the XLSX file, I encounter three entries: [6]DataSpaces (Directory) EncryptionInfo (File) EncryptedPackage (File) How is the ...

How to edit DsoFramer 1.3?

I'm using DsoFramer 1.3 in my project to hold Excel (2007) documents. But it have a big problem, that is: All the Excel documents opened by DsoFramer share only one Excel process. The result is when the second Excel document opened by the DsoFramer, the first document is uneditable. Even more, when I double click an Excel document in W...