Making the ghettobook bag

Last week I bought a new Asus Eee PC netbook. So naturally I needed something to protect it, which meant that I needed a notebook bag. The only problem was that the existing ones are currently designed for notebooks that are somewhat larger than 10″. So naturally that meant that I needed to make one because I’m just like that. Enter the Great Big Netbook Bag-making Caper.

Step 1: prototype

Like any good engineer-type geek, you need to create a prototype of your project so that you can iron out all the bugs beforehand. Since I’m an agile proponent, I created a failing story test before starting on the project.

Note the detail of the card. It is expressed in true Agile fashion stating who I am, what I want, and why I want it. Since the project has been completed, both the estimate and the actual time taken on the project have been filled in. And yes, the actual is the actual number of hours taken to manufacture the end-product including prototyping, testing and QA sign-off. As they say in Agile, however, a story is just an invitation to a conversation.

So I spoke to myself. A lot. And as the project progressed, the conversations become less cordial and involved lots of things like “Fuckit! Goddamned needles! I’m so freaking sick of poking my fingers with them!” and “Ah shit, that’s not going to work”, followed by much whining like “Honey, my back is soooorrreee!”.

Step 2: create development tasks

Once you’ve had a conversation with the product owner, as the developer you get to create tasks for the implementation. In true Agile fashion, one uses whatever is appropriate for the task at hand. That means a spreadsheet template that makes creating a task list easier.

Step 3: Do the actual work

Oh yeah, under Agile you actually finally do get to do some work. Once you’re done with the meetings, of course. That means that I had to have several conversations with myself to truly understand the story and what I meant by “won’t get scratched, dinged, dented” because, of course, a scratch isn’t really a scratch unless you’ve talked about it for hours and come to a common understanding. And god forbid you try to actually explain to QA that they don’t need to test the individual parts because the end-user doesn’t give a rat’s ass that the stitching that they’ll never see isn’t quite as neat as the stitching on the outside of the sleeve.

Which brings me to the step-by-step guide to how to make your own Ghettobook bag