mrc's Cup of Joe Blog

5 new skills necessary for modern development

By Joe Stangarone / Application Development, Web Applications, Web Development

The rapid rate at which technology evolves is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, new tech trends give companies new opportunities to improve their business. For instance, the rise of mobile apps is already helping all types of companies in many different ways.

On the other hand, keeping up with new tech trends is no easy task, as new tech trends require a new set of skills. For example, take a look at the ever-changing world of application development. Business application development is becoming more complex, driven in part by recent trends like the web, mobile, and the cloud. While these new trends expand business opportunities, they also require an ever-expanding skill-set.

How exactly have these new tech trends changed application development? What new skills are required for modern application development? To help you understand how development has evolved, I’ve created a list of 5 new skills that are essential for modern application development. …

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How to add a Twitter feed to your web applications

By Joe Stangarone / Web Development

I know what many of you are thinking: “Why would I want to add a Twitter feed to our web applications? How can it help our business?” Those are very valid questions.

The answer: When used correctly, Twitter can actually provide real business value. How so? Here are just a couple of ways that Twitter could improve your web applications:

1. Let you know what others are saying about your brand: Placing a Twitter feed on an executive dashboard can provide valuable information about what customers and prospects think of your products or services.

2. Improve customer service: Taking the first point a step further, you could place a feed on your customer care applications and let your employees monitor customer complaints. Your customer service team could even reach out to disgruntled customers on Twitter and try to resolve their problems.

While there are many different ways to use Twitter for business, the ideas listed above are just couple of common ways Twitter is used to help business. If you would like to add a Twitter feed to your web applications, it’s really simple. We’ve written up a short tutorial, which you can find right here. …

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Can IT really drive revenue?

By Joe Stangarone / Tech Advice

How does the business view your IT department? Do they see it as an added expense? Do they see it as a cost-center? If so, you’re not alone: This is a common problem faced by IT departments around the world.

The question is…how can you change this perception? How can you change from a “cost-center” to a “problem solver” or even a “revenue generator?”

One way to change this perception: Ask more questions. Talk to end users and learn what problems they deal with on a daily basis. What currently frustrates them the most about their job? Does anything keep them from accomplishing their daily tasks?

As you ask these questions, you’ll probably learn two things. First, you might find that many of these problems are easily solvable with technology. Second, you might find that fixing these problems will directly impact your company’s revenue.

Here’s a great example of one IT department that solved a problem in their company, which directly boosted revenue. How did they do it? They first identified a problem, and then identified the tools that would let them fix that problem quickly. You can read the whole story here.

Weekly recap: 10 strategic CIO priorities for 2013, concerns with BYOD, and more…

By Joe Stangarone / BYOD, CIO Challenges, HTML5, Mobile

Every 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 CIO priorities, BYOD concerns, and more. I hope you find them useful:

Why you’d be stupid to bet against HTML5
If your company is considering mobile apps, what approach are you taking? Native, mobile web, or hybrid? While each approach has its benefits, this article explains the big reason why the mobile web approach is so useful for business. …

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5 common problems that kill IT productivity

By Joe Stangarone / Modernization, Productivity tools, web reporting

Do you ever come to the end of a busy day and feel like you didn’t actually accomplish anything? Although you worked hard all day, you feel like you have nothing to show from all of that work?

Chances are, you got caught handling minor, yet essential tasks that kept you from tackling more important projects. Maybe you spent the day supporting untrained users, running end user reports, or trying to fix yet another problem with your company’s old, patched-up legacy software.

Tasks like these have a few things in common: They are necessary, yet time-consuming tasks that could (and should) be avoided. More importantly, they keep you from working on essential projects that could ultimately improve the company’s bottom line.

In other words: They keep you busy, but not productive.

How can you avoid these “productivity killers” and instead focus on essential tasks during the work day? First, you must identify which tasks fall within this category, and then you must figure out how to avoid them. So, what are some of the most common productivity killers? While it varies across companies, here’s a list of 5 productivity killers that commonly plague IT departments: …

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Tutorial: Avoid browser differences with conditional style sheets

By Joe Stangarone / CSS, HTML5

HTML5 and CSS3 bring some great new elements to web development. These modern standards let web developers add new interface features and improve their application’s overall look and feel.

There’s just one problem: Many people still use old browsers, which don’t recognize modern standards. Unfortunately, web developers cannot control their user’s choice of browser.

So, what can web developers do? HTML5 and CSS3 hold so many opportunities, but aren’t supported by older browsers. Should developers just ignore these new standards until the use of older browsers dies out?

Thankfully, there are ways around this problem. One such way is with the use of conditional style sheets, which let developers create separate styles for old browsers. How can you use conditional style sheets in your web applications? We’ve written up a short tutorial, which you can find right here.

Weekly recap: 10 hot IT skills for 2013, the data-less iPad, and more…

By Joe Stangarone / CSS, IT Skills, Mobile

Every 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 hot IT skills, small data, and more. I hope you find them useful:

Implement the data-less iPad
Do you want to know the simplest way to ensure that a lost mobile device doesn’t cause a data breach? Don’t store any data on the mobile device. How is this possible? It’s possible with web apps, which access data that’s securely stored on your database, but not on the device itself. And don’t forget that m-Power makes building web apps a breeze. …

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3 great ways other companies are using mobile apps

By Joe Stangarone / Mobile, Mobile apps

Mobile apps. They’ve taken the business world by storm. They’re helping businesses become more efficient, boost sales, improve customer satisfaction, and much more. The fact is, mobile apps offer all types of benefits to all types of businesses…yet many companies still hesitate to jump on board.

Why is that?

In my experience, companies hesitate for one of three reasons: They’re not sure exactly how mobile apps can help their business, they’re not sure how to build mobile apps, or they lack adequate resources.

Today, I’d like to take a look at each of these issues. First, let’s examine how mobile apps can help businesses. However, rather than explain all the different ways mobile apps can help a business, let’s look at some real-life examples. I’ve picked 3 great examples of ways that other companies are currently using mobile apps: …

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