mrc's Cup of Joe Blog

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

Stop wasting money on legacy application maintenance

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Save MoneyAccording to a recent survey, the federal government spends $35 billion every year maintaining legacy applications. In other words, it costs $35 billion dollars just to keep everything running smoothly. When I hear numbers like this, a couple of questions immediately come to mind. How do they determine maintenance cost? How much would it cost to maintain modern applications?

I think the better question is this: Why is maintenance for legacy applications more expensive than maintenance for modern applications? After all, if you modernized your applications, you would have to maintain the new applications too. What makes legacy application maintenance so expensive? While I’m sure there are more, here are 4 big reasons: …

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Create business dashboards the easy way

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Save TimeWhy don’t you have business dashboards yet? In my experience, if a company doesn’t have business dashboards, it’s usually for one of two reasons: Either they don’t see the value, or they think it’s too difficult.

What’s the value of a business dashboard? A good dashboard gives you a clear view of your business, improves your decision making, and helps you find problems before they get out of hand. …

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Mobile applications: Why architecture matters

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Save TimeA couple of months ago, I wrote up my thoughts on developing mobile applications for business. In short, I believe that creating web apps designed for mobile use makes more business sense than creating platform-specific applications. I’d like to go one step further and explain how this concept works from an architectural perspective.

First, you must understand n-Tier architecture. While this sounds like a complicated technical term, I assure you that it’s relatively simple and makes sense from a business perspective. In short, n-Tier architecture breaks an application up into separate layers, or tiers. Typically, there’s a presentation layer (what you see in the browser), an application layer (your business logic), and a database layer (data storage). …

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2 ways a portal will help business (and how to make one)

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Save TimeA customer portal (or customer extranet) is a secure area of your website designed for your customers. They can log in and perform a number of different tasks, such as pay their bill, view their information, purchase new products, ask a question, etc… If your business has customers (and I hope that it does), you should really have a portal set up. Why? I could rattle off a number of reasons, but here are the two biggest ways a portal/extranet will help your business: …

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4 reasons why software purchases fail

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Save MoneyHave you ever been in a “blame” meeting? It’s one of those meetings called when numbers are down or after a project or purchase failed miserably. As you might guess, there’s a lot of finger pointing and blame spreading. Not only are these meetings painful, they are completely unproductive. Since everyone is too busy deflecting blame, no one learns from their mistakes.

I’d like to help you avoid these meetings. Obviously, I can’t write a definitive guide on how to avoid failure, as every business and situation is different. However, I can help you avoid failure in one area that applies to most companies: Software purchases. In my experience, software purchases usually fail for one of four reasons. I’d like to explain those reasons and then tell you how to avoid them. …

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What is business intelligence?

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EducationJust the other day, someone asked me this question: “What is business intelligence?” It got me thinking…I frequently write about business intelligence (BI) and why it’s important, but I’ve never really defined the term. In this post, I’d like to take a step back and give you the what, why, who, where, when, and how of business intelligence. Sound good? Okay, let’s get started…

What is business intelligence?
Most companies collect and store data covering all areas of their business. This data sits in a database and is really pretty useless in this format. What do I mean by that? If you looked at data in a database, it wouldn’t make any sense and would most definitely overwhelm you. This is where business intelligence comes into play. Business intelligence is the process of taking that (overwhelming) data in your database and presenting it in an understandable, accessible, and useful fashion. …

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The key to business dashboard integration

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EducationI’ve recently noticed more and more companies asking this question: “Can you integrate this dashboard with Sharepoint?” While it seems like a basic question, it highlights an underlying trend. I’ve noticed a shift in the business dashboard landscape. Business dashboards are no longer good enough. The question is not, “Do you have a dashboard?” Now, the question is, “Where can you integrate/access your dashboard?”

What do I mean? I’ve noticed that more and more companies want dashboards that:

  • Integrate with other business software (like Sharepoint).
  • Are accessible from any web browser.
  • Are accessible from a smartphone.
  • Integrate with other web services.

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The risks of application modernization

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Education You probably know the benefits of application modernization – more capabilities, decreased maintenance cost, increased integration with web services, etc… All in all, most companies stand to gain more than they lose from modernization.

If that’s the case, why isn’t every company rushing to modernize? Well, as with any big undertaking, there are risks, and these risks hold many back. However, most of these risks come from a lack of experience…a fear of the unknown. I’d like to go over 3 of the most common modernization fears and then explain how to avoid them:
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Building and using Pivot Tables (explained via video)

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EducationPivot tables are great analytical tools—they sum up large amounts of data and let you view it in just about any way possible. More importantly, they help you quickly analyze business information, discover trends, and make better and more informed decisions.

Pivot tables are typically found in spreadsheet software, such as Excel. Spreadsheet-based pivot tables are great as single-user tools, but you run into problems if you want to distribute, share, or let multiple users alter or view one spreadsheet. Also, if security or data accuracy are necessities, spreadsheet-based pivot tables aren’t ideal. …

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How to build a secure extranet in one day

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EducationAn extranet is an extremely useful resource for many companies. For those unfamiliar with the term, it is a computer network that allows controlled access from outside the company. For example, here are a few ways extranets are used:

1. Extranets can be set up for customers to log in and view important data.
2. Extranets can be set up for employees to log in outside the office. For example, your sales force could log in to the extranet and view their sales numbers.
3. Extranets can be set up for distributors to log in and view orders, purchase more products, and view new products. . …

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