Education Archives - Page 45 of 51 - mrc's Cup of Joe Blog

7 development mistakes that make you look bad

Have you ever used a web application that made you ask, “What was the developer thinking?!” Maybe it had a confusing interface or didn’t work right in your browser. Maybe it just didn’t work as expected.

Over the years, I’ve seen all types of application development mistakes, ranging from confusing to downright annoying. I’d even classify some as “dangerous.” Some mistakes hurt the user experience, and others even harm the business. However, they all have one thing in common: They make the developer look bad.

If you develop web applications for your company, how can you avoid embarrassing mistakes like these? To help you avoid making the same errors, I’ve outlined some of the most common web application development mistakes below. If you can think of anything that I left out, feel free to add it in the comments: …

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What to look for in a good Business Intelligence solution

By Joe Stangarone / Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence (BI) solutions come in all shapes and sizes. Some emphasize architecture while others tout their flashy interface. Some cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, while others cost hundreds.

With all of these options, how do you separate the good from the bad?

We just released a BI Guide aimed at helping you do just that. It outlines which essential features and capabilities make a good BI solution, and even separates each feature into 4 different categories:

High-level features

Security features

Must-have applications

Advanced features

The guide is free and you can download it right here: Essential features to look for in a good Business Intelligence solution. I hope you find it useful.

Application architecture: Ignore at your own risk

By Joe Stangarone / Application Architecture

I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in the world of business web applications. It seems that emphasis is shifting away from application architecture and shifting towards application design. These days, flashy interfaces beat out well-built web applications.

Why is this happening? I recently read an article over on techrepublic.com that highlights a major factor driving this trend: End user’s expectations are rising. They expect enterprise applications to be as well-designed and easy to use as the apps and tools they use every day. After all, if their enterprise applications don’t meet their expectations, there are plenty of other web services they can use.

Now, I get it. I understand the problems this creates for businesses. But, in the rush to please the end users with well-designed interfaces, let’s not forget about the most important aspect of business applications: Architecture.

For business web applications, architecture is infinitely more important than design. While application architecture might be invisible to the business users, the effects of application architecture are clear as day.

Let me try to highlight a few tangible benefits of good architecture, and help you understand why ignoring it might be the worst mistake your business can make. To help drive this home, I solicited feedback from a few experts in the field of application architecture. You can find their responses below, along with 5 big reasons why application architecture is so important. …

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5 ways software vendors try to trick you

By Joe Stangarone / Software Purchasing Advice

While speaking with one of our customers a few years back, he remarked that our software didn’t have any “gotchas”–bad surprises that spring up after the purchase. In dealing with software vendors for many years, he told me that he had come to expect “gotchas” in all software purchases.

In other words, he actually expected that software vendors were trying to trick him. I don’t know about you, but that makes me sad. Should a customer be surprised when software does what it’s supposed to do, and costs what they expect it to cost? Of course not!

Perhaps a better question: How did it get to this point?

I think much of it starts with pricing. Business software licensing models aren’t exactly straightforward. In fact, they’re downright confusing. I’ve been in this industry for over 30 years, and I still run across licensing structures that confuse me.

The problem is, many of the licensing structures are confusing by design. Vendors lure buyers in with cheap price tags, only to sneak in a few “gotchas” when it’s time to buy, or after the purchase.

I’d like to help you avoid these unpleasant surprises. I’ve listed below 5 common vendor tricks to watch out for when buying business software: …

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5 uncommon reporting features that will impress your boss

By Joe Stangarone / web reporting

When 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… …

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7 key security features of business-class development software

By Joe Stangarone / Application Development, Security

Working 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: …

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How to build a dashboard that your executives will love

By Joe Stangarone / Business Dashboards

A 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:
…

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How to turn a spreadsheet into a web app in 3 minutes

By Joe Stangarone / Spreadsheets

I’ve mentioned the dangers of spreadsheet misuse on many occasions, and explained why it’s so important to put that spreadsheet data into your database. However, I realized that I’ve never showed you how to turn your spreadsheets into database-driven web apps.

So, we created a video to do just that. The following video explains why you should convert your spreadsheets into web apps, and even shows you how it’s done. You might be surprised to learn just how simple this process is.

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

How to control BYOD without going insane

By Joe Stangarone / BYOD

The shift from company-controlled devices to employee-controlled devices is one of the biggest IT trends in recent history. According to a study from Logicalis, 57.1% of employees already use their own devices for work-related tasks in some form or another. Another survey puts that number at 80%.

Can IT ignore BYOD?

What are IT departments doing about this Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend? The study listed above answers that question with some interesting statistics: 46.1% of employees who use their devices for work claim their IT departments are either unaware of or ignore BYOD. Is this a viable approach? Not at all. Let me give you two reasons why your IT department needs a BYOD strategy: …

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