mrc's Cup of Joe Blog

Join us in exploring the world of modern development, evolving technologies, and the art of future-proof software

Month: February 2013

5 uncommon reporting features that will impress your boss

By /

EducationWhen your boss (or any other executive in your company) asks for a web report, what do you create? Do you create a standard web report that displays the necessary data, includes some interactive charts and graphs, and lets the user drill down to more details?

Those are all nice features, but they’re fairly standard. What can you do to make that report really stand out? What can you do to make your boss say, “Wow!”?

I have some ideas that might help you. If you want to create reports that really stand out, they should… …

5 uncommon reporting features that will impress your bossRead More »

Turn procedural character based programs into event driven web apps (in 3 minutes)

By /

Save TimeIs your company still using those outdated character based programs? If so, here’s a short video you’ll want to watch. It explains the limitations of character based programs, a couple of different approaches to modernizing those programs, and even walks you through the process of turning a character based program into a modern web app. All that in under 3 minutes! I hope you find it useful.

Note: This video is best viewed in 720p(HD) resolution at full screen. Click the “gear” icon below the video to change the resolution.

Weekly recap: 2013 IT priorities, why BI is failing businesses, and more…

By / ,

EducationEvery week, I share the most interesting and useful tech articles that I’ve found over the past week. This week’s top articles focus on why BI is failing business, 2013 IT priorities, and more. I hope you find them useful:

Why business intelligence software is failing business
While the need for business intelligence is growing, many BI solutions don’t adequately meet the company’s needs. Why not? This article highlights a few reasons, like poor usability and a lack of personalized notifications and alerts. BI software should be simple to use and should automatically alert users when certain data thresholds are met. …

Weekly recap: 2013 IT priorities, why BI is failing businesses, and more…Read More »

How to get the most out of a small IT staff

By /

ProductivityAccording to our 2012 survey of IT professionals and IT management, small IT staffs are one of the biggest barriers to success. In the survey, we asked two questions:
1. What are the biggest problems or challenges that your company deals with?
2. What keeps you from addressing those challenges?

Can you guess some of the most common answers to question #2? Most of them sounded something like this:
– We don’t have enough staff
– No time
– IT staff is too small

While IT department size is a perpetual problem for many companies, it seems to be getting worse. More and more companies point to limited staff as the reason they can’t accomplish what they want to accomplish.

So, if your company is dealing with this problem, what’s the answer? How can you get the most out of your small IT department? To help you out, we posed this question to some people who deal with small IT staffs on a regular basis. I’ve included their advice below, as well as some of my own. I hope you find it useful. …

How to get the most out of a small IT staffRead More »

More questions to ask before building a mobile business app (Part 2)

By / ,

EducationA few weeks ago, I started a two-part article for businesses who are considering building their own mobile apps. As mentioned in that article, smartphones and tablets are spreading faster than any other technology in history. As businesses rush to take advantage of this trend, they often dive into mobile without a proper understanding of their options.

In part one, we focused on 4 essential questions to ask before building a mobile business app. Today, I’d like to finish up this two-part article with 4 more questions your business should ask before building mobile apps, which you can find below: …

More questions to ask before building a mobile business app (Part 2)Read More »

Weekly recap: Tech upgrades that make your business run faster, the first step on legacy code, and more…

By / , ,

EducationEvery week, I share the most interesting and useful tech articles that I’ve found over the past week. This week’s top articles focus on the first steps of legacy modernization, tech upgrades to improve your business, and more. I hope you find them useful:

First step on legacy code: Classifying
The difficulty with modernizing legacy applications is understanding which code to keep and which to replace. Some code might be essential to your company, while other code must be replaced ASAP. This article outlines the steps for classifying your legacy code before a modernization project. …

Weekly recap: Tech upgrades that make your business run faster, the first step on legacy code, and more…Read More »

7 key security features of business-class development software

By / ,

EducationWorking in the business software industry for over 30 years, I’ve seen my fair share of pretenders–amateur software posing as professional business software.

The problem is, this “amateur software” is often hard to detect. It looks great in the demo. Unfortunately, its limitations become apparent after you’ve already purchased the software…when it’s too late to go back.

Today, I’d like to share some tips that will help you separate business-focused application development software from the “amateur” software. I’m focusing on web application development software because that’s our area of expertise (we’ve been doing this for quite a while), but I’m sure these tips apply to most any business software.

So, what separates the pretenders from the legitimate, built-for-business software? Architecture and security. The cheap amateur software focuses mainly on the look and feel, but skimps on the architecture and security. Application development software that’s truly designed for business will include flexible architecture and business-class security features.

What types of security features should good application development software include? I’ve compiled a list of 7 security features that are absolutely essential in professional business application development software: …

7 key security features of business-class development softwareRead More »

How much does native mobile app development cost?

By /

Save MoneyCost is one of the reasons we advise businesses against building native mobile apps. Of course, there are many more reasons we advise against native apps, but I won’t get into them in this article. You can always read this white paper if you’d like to learn more.

Today, I’m focusing on native app cost. Simply put, native apps are significantly more expensive to both develop and maintain than hybrid or mobile web apps.

So, how much do they cost? I did a little digging and found a wide range of cost estimates, some of which may surprise you. I’ve listed four of these cost estimates below: …

How much does native mobile app development cost?Read More »

Weekly recap: 7 HTML5 predictions, why banks will face more software glitches, and more…

By / , ,

EducationEvery week, I share the most interesting and useful tech articles that I’ve found over the past week. This week’s top articles focus on HTML5 predictions, why banks will see more software glitches this year, and more. I hope you find them useful:

More bank software glitches in 2013?
As companies keep building more and more modern features into their outdated systems, software glitches will become more common. With every new enhancement or alteration, an outdated system only becomes more complex and difficult to understand. Companies looking for ways around this issue can address it in a couple of ways: Modernize, or build apps over the top of their system (without altering it at all). …

Weekly recap: 7 HTML5 predictions, why banks will face more software glitches, and more…Read More »

How to build a dashboard that your executives will love

By /

EducationA recent study by Aberdeen Group uncovers some surprising information about the need for real-time data. In that study, 42% of respondents claimed they needed to make decisions on business events within the day that the event occurred. Going even further, 28% put the time frame at one hour.

All in all, Aberdeen finds that decision-making windows are shrinking. Businesses are forced to respond to incoming data faster than ever before.

What does this mean? For many businesses, it means they need more than traditional reporting software. They need executive dashboards that deliver clear, real-time business data to the right people when they need it.

If your company falls into this category, and you need to build dashboards for your users and executives, you’ll inevitably run into a few questions: What goes into my dashboard? What makes a good dashboard? How can you build useful dashboards that your users and executives will love?

So, what’s the answer? Rather than simply list my opinions, I decided to try something new: I posed those questions to a few dashboard experts, and have compiled their advice (as well as some of my own advice) into the 6 key points below. Follow these steps, and you’ll be well on your way to building useful dashboards:
…

How to build a dashboard that your executives will loveRead More »