mrc's Cup of Joe Blog

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

Weekly recap: Will the cloud end the IT department, CSS tricks, and more…

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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 cloud, BI, and more. I hope you find them useful:

10 reasons why your users won’t use your BI solution
Did you know that half of all BI projects fail? Why is that? The biggest cause of BI failure is user adoption. Specifically, it’s difficult to make users start using a new BI solution. How can you fix this problem? While this article gives some good tips, there’s another great solution mentioned in this article: Why users don’t use business intelligence. …

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5 big questions to ask before moving to the cloud

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EducationHas there ever been a more confusingly vague term than “cloud computing?” To get an idea of just how confused people are, take a look at the numerous cloud adoption rate surveys. Depending on which survey you read, anywhere from 37% – 91% of companies are using the cloud. That’s quite a range.

Why the discrepancy in the numbers? I doubt all of the survey respondents have the same definition of “the cloud.” While it may mean one thing to some people, it may have a completely different meaning to others. So, what exactly does cloud computing mean? The “cloud computing” umbrella covers many different areas, such as… …

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Can IT really drive revenue?

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Save MoneyHow 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…

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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 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

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ProductivityDo 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

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EducationHTML5 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…

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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 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

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EducationMobile 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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Weekly recap: 10 time management tips, predictive analytics, and more…

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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 time management tips, predictive analytics, and more. I hope you find them useful:

Predictive analytics. Making little decisions with big data
As I mentioned in this article, predictive analytics is one of the next big trends in Business Intelligence. What is it, and how is it useful? This article attempts to answer those questions. …

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The huge trend that no one is talking about

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Save MoneyThe cloud may get all of the press these days, but are companies actually doing anything about it? Probably not as much as the press would have you believe. I recently spoke with an IT professional at a large company about that very subject. When asked if his company had any plans for the cloud, his response was simple and straightforward: “Our whole business runs on the mainframe, and it runs well. Why would we move to the cloud?”

While it’s just one company, and one opinion, I get the feeling that many businesses are in a similar situation. There are many, many companies that have invested so much time and money into their current systems, they couldn’t possibly justify ditching everything and moving to the cloud any time soon.

That begs the obvious question: If these companies are stuck with old systems, how can they possibly keep up with tech trends? What if they want modern features and capabilities that aren’t supported by their outdated system? …

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