Preston L. Bannister { random memes }

Some folks at my employer have chosen to deploy Microsoft Office Project Server.

I have used Microsoft Project, on and (mostly) off over a couple decades. Each time I’ve come back to using Microsoft Project, the experience is less than satisfactory. I seem to detect an anti-pattern. Those folks that are hopelessly invested in the use of Microsoft Project offer a weak defense of the product. Pretty much everyone else thinks the product a poor choice. The single-copy price has always been somewhat high, so relatively few folk have tried to use MS Project.

In the last encounter with project planning software (several years back), I became convinced that a web-based solution was the right solution to the for this sort of problem. Schedules are inherently a shared thing, and passing file copies around via email was a poor substitute. A few years later Microsoft came up with a web-based variant of Project, but by then I was too busy (fortunately) to mess around with project-planning software. (Some other poor guy had inherited the job of making and updating the MS Project schedules – a vast and singularly non-productive time sink.)

Still … there was a chance Microsoft could have done good things since the last time I had used Project. Turning out a web-based application is very different from turning out a desktop application. With the forced change there is the opportunity to re-think the design, and perhaps to make things better.

Nope.

The web-based version of Project is unbelievably lame. I could make a list … but it would be too long. (Hey, this is my personal weblog, not a paid-for review.) The static screenshots look nice, but as a usable web application, this is not. For the design aspects, the words that come to mind are “completely clueless”. (Again, I am puzzled that Microsoft – with all their vast resources – could do anything so badly. Though from my own experience at other companies, I might have a pretty good idea why this can happen.)

Did a bit of searching to see what others were saying about the product, and mainly found folk selling training or consulting – a sign of a pain-in-the-ass to use product. I’m guessing that anyone who has a choice and a bit of intelligence uses something else.

Supervisor Pat Bates’ Fifth District Report.
OCTA Proposed Fare Adjustments

Due to rising costs and a decline in revenue, the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) Board of Directors will consider a proposal to increase fare amounts at its November 24th meeting. Since fares were last increased in 2005, fuel costs have soared 185 percent, employee pension costs have increased 92 percent and healthcare costs have risen 28 percent. Due to the weak economy, the largest OCTA transit revenue source, the quarter cent sales tax enacted under the State Transportation Development Act (TDA), declined by more than 3 percent for fiscal year (FY) 2007-08 as compared to FY 2006-07. Additionally, the recently approved state budget is expected to provide $7.8 million less to the State Transit Assistance funds than expected.

While OCTA has experienced growth in ridership in recent years, fare revenues have not kept pace with escalating costs, thus reducing the farebox recovery ratio. The TDA mandates OCTA meet a minimum 20 percent farebox recovery ratio to continue to receive full funding and for every 1 percent below the minimum, OCTA will be penalized approximately $2.7 million. In order to continue to be a good steward of taxpayer dollars and to increase the farebox recovery ratio, OCTA will consider increasing fares along with reducing expenditures where it can.

Right. The fares charged to ride the buses in Orange County are only covering about one fifth of the costs of running the buses. Not exactly what you would call a profitable operation. The county bus service in Orange County was started in the 1970’s. For a while, just after high school, I used the buses to get to classes at the local community college … at least until I realized that riding a bicycle was faster and far more convenient.

Orange County is not laid out to allow any sort of efficient mass transit. We do get periodic attempts to establish various taxpayer-funded forms of mass transit (light rail, subways, etc.). I actually like the idea of being able to read/work/doze while traveling to work or other destinations, but the simple fact is that mass transit is impractical when destinations are too diffuse.

For mass transit to work, you have to zone and build a region from the start in patterns with few, highly concentrated clusters of destinations. That is not what we have here.

Frankly I am annoyed at reading yet-another article about the “long lines” on election day. Checked Google – search on “polling” and “long lines” and I get 762,000 matches. Is this a sign of careless reporting, or an intentional lie?

There are polling places with long lines. Polling places are run by volunteers (of which I am one), and are not always as well run as they could be. (On the flip side, a random collection of volunteers at each polling place makes that part of the polling process generally more secure – a very good thing.) There are occasional foul-ups in supply, organization, and equipment malfunctions. With hundreds of thousands of polling places in use during an national election, some will function badly.

But telling voters to expect long lines at the polls, is going to discourage folks. To my mind, intentionally discouraging voters is unethical (at best – “traitor to your country” is the phrase that comes to mind). If very few voters will have to deal with “long lines”, then the news reports are a disservice.

I hosted one of the busiest polling places in Orange County, California during the last election. We did have a line about 100 feet long at 7am when the polls opened. By about 9:30am the line was gone, and by 10:30am the polling place was (briefly) empty. What that means is that we able to process voters faster than they arrived, from the moment the polls opened at 7am. Voters tend to arrive in clumps, and it takes a few minutes to get everyone signed in and voting, but after the first rush there was never a “long” line.

While I know it is common practice to assume government organizations are clumsy and inefficient, the fact is that the Orange County Registrar of Voters tried very hard to make sure things went well. They did make some mistakes, but from my point of view they gave me more than enough to make the election day a success.

Went to pick up my election supplies on Saturday morning (as usual). Got two(!) controllers, and two(!) supply boxes. Hauled in the (heavy!) supply box with a measure of dread. The supply box contains the rosters used to process each incoming voter. One election they gave me two different “precinct” lists, so each voter’s name had to be checked in two lists, taking twice as long. Fortunately that election had a low turnout, so the hosting the local polling place with inefficient lists was not a problem.

This election we expect a big turnout, so anything inefficient could make my day not fun, and could make long waits for voters. Was greatly relieved to find a single precinct list, split alphabetically into two lists – a very good thing.

Called the four adult poll workers to verify that they knew and were going to show up at my polling place. The very first year I volunteered to work the polls, they made me an Inspector. I did not call the poll workers to make sure they would show up (had no reason to think that was needed), and no one else showed up! The ROV re-assigned one girl from another polling place to help. Two people are not really enough, and that made for a very long and hard day.

In the afternoon talked to two, and left messages for two others. I cannot call the “student clerks” to verify, so I have to trust that the ROV (or someoneколи под наем) will make sure that the high school kids show up. In the past the high school students have done a terrific job, so they are very welcome. (The fact that I have three teenagers may help, in that I have no trouble dealing with kids of that age.)

In the evening I got a call from another poll worker assigned to my location, but he was not on my list! The ROV had told him (not me) there was going to be ten(!) people assigned to my location. News to me….

A couple hours later I got another unexpected call from someone who had a table and chairs to deliver, on instructions from the ROV. News to me! Asked about the chairs – hard metal folding chairs – and said no thanks. (Not going to inflict those on poll workers.) Asked for two tables – if they had them. Should be delivered on Monday. Otherwise I’m going to pick up a couple folding tables from the hardware store on Monday.

Since the new guy was assigned to the Registrar of Voters, each election has been a bit better organized than the prior – so I give the folks at the ROV a lot of credit.

Still, it would be nice to know some things ahead of time, such as:

• How many voters are in my precinct? (Found out the Saturday before the election!)
• How will the roster be organized? (Found out the Saturday before the election!)
• How many voting machines will I get? (Found out the Wednesday before the election!)
• How many controllers will I get? (Found out the Saturday before the election!)
• How many poll workers will I get? (Knew of 3 as of a week ago on Friday, and 8 on the Wednesday prior to the election.)

Not that I want the above to sound overly critical. For low-turnout elections (most elections) it does not matter much, and I am willing to adapt to whatever comes along. In recent years the ROV has done better job each year. Still – this election looks to be big, and I want to do whatever I can to make sure voters have to wait as little as possible.

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A reflection of scale and the interchange of ideas on the Internet. Of the 1900-odd voters in my polling area, I bet none have any idea I keep a weblog….