I found interesting topic about software teems. Here it is:

"Ever since I can remember there is a background noise in the software development community around a relatively small set of topics:

Preproject Considerations
Most of our business comes through referrals or new projects from existing customers. Out of those, we try only to accept referrals or repeat business from the "good clients," believing their friends will be similarly low maintenance, high value, and most importantly, great to work with.

We have tried the RFP circuit in the past, and recently considered going at it again. However, after a review of our experiences with it, we felt that unless you are the cause of the RFP being initiated, you have a subatomically small chance of being selected for the project (we've been on both ends of that one). Since it typically takes incredible effort to craft a response, it just seems like a waste of hours to pursue.

On the other hand, we are considering creating a default template and using minimal customization to put out for future RFPs, and even then, only considering ones that have a very detailed scope, to minimize our effort on the proposal even further.

We're also trying to move ourselves into the repeatable solutions space - something that really takes the cheap manufacturing ability we have in software - copying bits from one piece of hardware storage to another - and puts it to good use.

Finally, I'm very interested to hear how some of you in the small software business world bring in business. I know we're technically competitors and all, but really, how can you compete with this?

The Software Development Life Cycle
I won't bother you by giving a "phase" by phase analysis here. Part of that is because I'm not sure if we do all the phases, or if we're just so flexible and have such short iterations the phases seem to bleed together. (Nor do I want to spend the time to figure out which category what each thing belongs in.) Depending on the project, it could be either. Instead, I'll bore you with what we do pretty much every time:

At the start of a project, we sit down with client and take requirements. There's nothing fancy here. I'm the coder and I get involved - we've found that it's a ridiculous waste of time to pass my questions through a mediator and wait two weeks to get an answer. Instead, we take some paper or cards and pen, and dry erase markers for the whiteboard. We talk through of what the system should do at a high level, and make notes of it.

We try to list every feature in terms of the users who will perform it and it's reason for existence. If that's unknown, at least we know the feature, even if we don't know who will get to use it or why it's needed. All of this basically gives us our "use cases," without a lot of the formality.

I should also note that, we also do the formal bit if the need is there, or if the client wants to work that way. But those meetings can easily get boring, and when no one wants to be there, it's not an incredibly productive environment. If we're talking about doing the project in Rails or ColdFusion, it often takes me longer to write a use case than it would to implement the feature and show it to the client for feedback, so you can see why it might be more productive to skip the formality in cases that don't require it.

After we get a list of all the features we can think of, I'll get some rough estimates of points (not hours) of each feature to the client, to give them an idea of the relative costs for each feature. If there is a feature which is something fairly unrelated to anything we've had experience with, we give it the maximum score, or change it to an "investigate point cost," which would be the points we'd need to expend to do some research to get a better estimate of relative effort.

Armed with that knowledge, they can then give me a prioritized list of the features they'd like to see by next Friday when I ask them to pick X number of points for us to work on in the next week. Then we'll discuss in more detail those features they've chosen, to get a better idea of exactly what it is they're asking for.

We repeat that each iteration, adjusting the X number of points the client gets to choose based on what was actually accomplished the previous iteration - if there was spare time, they get a few more points. If we didn't finish, those go on the backlog and the client has fewer points to spend. Normally, we don't have the need for face to face meetings after the initial one, but I prefer to have them if we can. We're just not religious about it.

Whiteboards at this meeting are particularly useful, as most ideas can be illustrated quite quickly, have their picture taken, and be erased when no longer needed. Plus, it lets everyone get involved when we start prioritizing. Notecards are also nice as they swap places with each other with incredible ease.

Within each iteration, we start working immediately. Most of the time, we have one week iterations, unless there are a couple of projects going on - then we'll go on two week iterations, alternating between clients. If the project is relatively stable, we might even do daily releases. On top of that, we'll interface with client daily if they are available that frequently, and if there is something to show.

If the project size warrants it, we (or I) track our progress in consuming points on a burndown chart. This would typically be for anything a month or longer. If you'll be mostly done with a project in a week, I don't see the point in coming up with one of these. You can set up a spreadsheet to do all the calculations and graphing for you, and in doing so you can get a good idea of when the project will actually be finished, not just some random date you pull out of the air.
 

1. What did you do yesterday?
2. What are you going to do today?
3. What is holding you back

The meeting is a time-conscious way (15 minutes - you stand so you don't get comfortable) to keep us communicating. Just as importantly, it keeps us accountable to each other, focused on setting goals and getting things done, and removing obstacles that get in our way.

On the code side of things, I try to have unit tests and integration tests for mostly everything. I don't have automated tests for things like games and user interfaces. I haven't seen much detriment from doing it this way, and the tradeoff for learning how to do it doesn't seem worth it at the moment.

I would like to learn how to do it properly and make a more informed decision though. That will likely come when time is not so rare for me. Perhaps when I'm finished with school I'll spend that free time learning the strategies for testing such elements.

Luckily, when I'm working on a ColdFusion project, cfrails is pretty well tested so I get to skip a lot of tests I might otherwise need to write.

By the same token, I don't normally unit test one-off scripts, unless there are obvious test cases I can meet or before doing a final version that would actually change something.

I don't know how to do it in CF, but when I've use continuous integration tools for Java projects it has been helpful. If you have good tests, the CI server will report when someone checks in code that breaks the tests. This means bad code gets checked in less often. If you don't have the tests to back it up, at least you'll feel comfortable knowing the project builds successfully.

For maintenance, we normally don't worry about using a project management tool to track issue. Bugs are fixed as they are reported - show stoppers immediately, less important within the day, and things deemed slight annoyances might take a couple of days. I'd like to formalize our response into an actual policy, though.

Similarly, new requests are typically handled within a couple of days if they are small and I'm not too busy - otherwise I'll give an estimate as to when I can have it done.

With bugs in particular, they are so rare and few in number that I could probably track them in my head. Nevertheless, I mark an email with my "Action Required" tag, and try my best to keep that folder very small. Right now I've overcommitted myself and the folder isn't empty, but there was a time recently that it remained empty on most nights.

In any event, I normally only use project management tools for very large projects or those I inherited for some reason or another.

Summary
If you're a practitioner, you can tell the ideas above are heavily influenced by (when not directly part of) Scrum and Extreme Programming. I wouldn't call what we're doing by either of their names. If you're not familiar with the ideas and they interest you, now you know where to look.

Where would we like to go from here?
One thing that sticks out immediately is client-driven automated testing with Selenium or FIT. I'd also like to work for several months on a team that does it all and does it right, mostly to learn how I might better apply things I've learned, heard of, or yet to be exposed to. What else? That will have to be the subject of another post, as this one's turned into a book.

Source http://www.codeodor.com/index.cfm/2007/11/26/What-Im-Doing-To-Make-Software-Development-Work/1752 

This tutorial is meant for increasing the performance of Windows XP, either it can be a fresh installed windows or an old windows.
Actually these r some tips/tricks, which I always apply whenever I do a fresh installation of windows. So here I’m sharing many of those tips-n-tricks:

1.) First I’ll tell some Registry tricks, which can be applied without any problem or doubt and I believe these tricks will surely help in increasing the performance of your windows. Copy the following code in Notepad, save the file with name "Vishal.reg" (including quotes) and then run the file:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\Copy To]
@="{C2FBB630-2971-11D1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\Move To]
@="{C2FBB631-2971-11D1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Shell\DosHere]
@="Command &Prompt Here"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Shell\DosHere\Command]
@="%windir%\\System32\\cmd.exe /k cd \"%1\""
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\Shell\DosHere]
@="Command &Prompt Here"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\Shell\DosHere\Command]
@="%windir%\\System32\\cmd.exe /k cd \"%1\""
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer]
"Link"=hex:00,00,00,00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
"AutoEndTasks"="1"
"HungAppTimeout"="1000"
"MenuShowDelay"="8"
"WaitToKillAppTimeout"="2000"
"LowLevelHooksTimeout"="1000"
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
"NoLowDiskSpaceChecks"=dword:00000001
"ClearRecentDocsOnExit"=dword:00000001
"NoRecentDocsHistory"=hex:01,00,00,00
"LinkResolveIgnoreLinkInfo"=dword:00000001
"NoResolveSearch"=dword:00000001
"NoResolveTrack"=dword:00000001
"NoInternetOpenWith"=dword:00000001
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control]
"WaitToKillServiceTimeout"="2000"
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RemoteComputer]

 2.) Right-click on Desktop and select Properties, Now in the new window goto Appearance tab and click on Effects button. Now in the new opened window uncheck the following options:

a.) Use the following transition effect for menus & tooltips.
b.) Show shadows under menus.
c.) Show window contents while dragging. (you may remain this option checked as I hv in my screenshot. It depends upon ur choice.)
d.) Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts. You may select “Standard” for this. I hv selected “Clear Type” coz I hv a TFT, it doesnt work properly for CRT monitors.

3.) Right-click on My Computer icon on Desktop and select Properties (or press <WIN> key + <Pause/Break> key), now goto Advanced tab in new window and click on Settings button in Performance section:

Now uncheck all the options in Visual Effects, but u can remain following options checked acc. to ur choice:

a.) Show window contents while dragging.
b.) Smooth edges of screen fonts.
c.) Use common tasks in folders (If u use the left side pane in My computer, I don’t use it.)
d.) Use drop shadows on icon labels on the desktop. (to make the desktop icons label transparent.)
e.) Use visual styles on windows and buttons. (If u use XP themes.)

4.) Open Tools -> Folder Options and click on View tab:

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COMPATIBLE SYSTEMS: - Windows operating systems (98, Me, 2000, XP Home, XP Pro). - All drive types (IDE, SCSI, USB, and others). - Portable digital devices, such as digital cameras, music players, memory cards, flash drives, and more.