More difficult than crayons

Crayons are easier to create than software.

When you spend your career helping people deliver software, it quickly becomes apparent that the biggest challenges you face are not technology problems.  The biggest challenge is working with messy people.  Machines can make pencils and crayons by the thousands each hour, but before that happens, someone has to design the product for manufacturing.  The people who do this are engineers and product designers.  Software relies on Scrum Masters, Product Owners, and software developers.  The creative process is the same, but it is much easier to manufacture crayons than software.  Today, I will try to answer why it is so hard to write software.

Software has only existed since the aftermath of World War Two.  The first documented “bug” was a moth which died among the vacuum tubes of the first computer.  In spite of technological advances, the way we write software is still primitive.  Developers continue test code on local machines and then push that code to remote servers to see if they work.  Testing is manual, and the ability to automatically push code through the web or large enterprises is limited.  The software craft movement is making progress in this area along with the DevOps movement are helping with this antiquated process, but it is still a long, tedious trudge to get software written.

The key adverb here is “written.” The writing of software is a creative process.  People take the vague directions of others and translate it into web pages or client-server applications.  Unlike traditional prose, software contains code, markup, and data.  The disciplines working with each is different and filled with plenty of nuances.  Business people compensate software professionals generously because it is such a rare skill to cultivate.  Developers are also under tremendous pressure to ship code and work long hours to do it.  Imagine, Earnest Hemingway, attempting to write “A Farewell to Arms,” with management standing over him demanding updates each day. Furthermore, imagine the Nobel laureate is required to write one character’s dialog in English, another in Spanish and finally hexadecimal code for each letter on the page for a different character.

If the above was not challenging enough, the people paying for the creation of software are not actively involved in its production.  Software projects often begin with a problem which does not have an answer.  A marketing executive blurts out, “I need a client website!” or a Human Resources professional asks if it is possible to manage timecards online.  The business set aside money hired consultants to do the work, and begin writing software with no idea how it should work.  Agile fixes this problem by requiring rapid time boxes.  Often, lack of participation and vision from business partners thwarts the benefits of agile.

Combined with the difficulty of writing software and the apathy of the people how to pay for the software, the final challenge is the hypercritical nature of everyone who cannot write software have for the people who can write software.  It is similar to the Austrian Emperor mocked in the movie Amadeus whose only criticism of Mozart’s opera is, “There are too many notes in it.”  Many people have opinions about software and provide critiques, which is either nitpicking or unhelpful.  As a developer, a color pallet I used for an application caused controversy, and we spent countless meetings reviewing color chips.  It extended the life of the project by three months and made it over budget.  In a different episode, punctuation on a page sparked hundreds of revisions and emails.

The reality is like a committee of proofreaders, executives, and people not involved in the creative process demanding edits to Hemingway’s work.  The final straw might be the demand that “A Farewell to Arms,” not have one of the main characters die at the end of the book.  The entire narrative arc of the book changes because of the “suggestion,” but if Hemingway does not make the changes, he does not get paid or published.  Considering this type of feedback, Hemingway would have consumed more alcohol than he did.

So this is why writing software is so complicated.  It is a creative process.  Next, the people who want and pay for the software are not actively involved.  Finally, if customer partners are in the project, they provide feedback and guidance, which is often removing value from the software rather than adding it.  I have been in this career for a long time, and I know how to write and deliver software.  It is much more complicated than creating crayons.

Until next time.

How to write a good user story.

Tell a story and get work done. 

When you are working as a scrum master or agile coach, your biggest challenge is getting others to understand the concepts of agile.  It is like teaching young children to read.  The concepts seem natural to an adult, but to a six-year-old, it is an alien skill to master.  It occurred to me this week I have written numerous blogs about the different aspects of agile development, but I have never written a blog about authoring user stories.  Today, I want to change that oversight.

Let me begin by saying I am sharing with you how I teach others to write stories.  Each coach and each environment is different.  Feel free to treat this blog as an informed suggestion of how you can do things at your organization.

In the early days of agile, a user story could fit on a post-it note.  Team members would see the story ask the product owner for some discussion about what to do and then the work would get done.  The early approach assumed the development team was in the same room and the product owner was always available to answer questions.  Today with team members scattered around the globe, product owners focusing on customers, and countless tools to track work items, it is not realistic to rely on just post-it notes.  Regardless of what system you use to track user stories, the first thing you should do is boil the work down to one sentence.  I use the following format.

As X I want/Need Y because of Z.

The template is easy to follow and works in most situations.  Here are two examples.

Example #1 – As a sales manager I want the background of the shopping cart page to be blue because it reduces the number of dropped shopping carts.

Example #2 – As a user, I would like the website to save my customer information because I do not want to retype information. 

In both examples, the subject of the sentence is the person who needs the work done.  The predicate of the sentence is the actual work.  The modifying clause is a credible reason why the work needs to get done.  The sentence should satisfy the Who, What, Where and Why of the work.  It is up to the developers to provide a credible answer to When the work gets done.

Once you have authored a user story, it needs acceptance criteria.  Acceptance criteria are important because it removes misunderstanding between a member of the development team and the product owner.  Unlike waterfall techniques which demand long and confusing narratives, I show product owners the Gherkin or Given, When, Then (GWT) formatting of writing acceptance criteria.

Given: I am registered user of the website
When: I check out my shopping cart
Then: My billing information is retrieved
And: My shipping information is retrieved.

Notice the GWT does not say how to do the work; it just says what the product owner expects the development team to deliver.  The team could use session variables, cache objects, or cookies to do the work.  It does not matter.

A user story should look like this in the work item tracking system.

23 – Save shipping and billing info
As a user, I would like the website to save my customer information because I do not want to retype information.
23.01 
Given: I am registered user of the website
When: I check out my shopping cart
Then: My billing information is retrieved
And: My shipping information is retrieved.

The number is usually automatically generated by the item tracking system.  I use a ##.0# numbering system for acceptance criteria for clarity, and I provide a title for stories.  During stand-up meetings, developers refer to stories by saying, “I am working on number 23 save shipping and billing info.”

I hope this is a good starting point for how to write user stories.  With practice, it will become natural just like reading.

Until next time.

The Bull has Two Sides

You find lots of strange things online.  This week I turn to the pages of the New Yorker to enjoy a few lessons about web design.

Times Square in New York City is receiving a face life to make it more pedestrian friendly.  The work began in 2012 and should be finished sometime in the summer of 2017.  Leading the construction is an architecture firm lead by principal partner Craig Dykers.  His office overlooks the Wall Street bull, and it gives him some insights into the design.  According to the December 14th,  2016 New Yorker.

Dykers told me that he has observed the crowds around the bull for years, and that the tourists can be divided roughly equally into those who pose at its head and those who pose at its rear end. (The bull’s nose, horns, and testicles have been rubbed, for luck, to more or less identical degrees of shininess.) Dykers said the statue is a useful reminder that humans are diverse, and have their own ideas about design. “A lot of our work as architects takes into account that just as many people are interested in the backside of the bull,” he said.

There is wisdom in this observation as you are constructing websites or software applications.  No two people view a web page the same way again.  Some view it from the metaphorical horns and others view it from the metaphorical behind.  It is up to us to accommodate both of these perspectives and to test it accordingly.  As an engineer and scrum master, I look at a website very differently than a sales person or pricing managers.  I am a big believer in Agile and Scrum because I can test out concepts early and fold them into later releases so that I do not have to deal with the crushing disappointment of spending my life building something my customers will not use.

So remember the horns and behind of the bull, and build software iteratively.  It is not only a good practice but a healthy way to avoid disappointment in this business.

Until next time.

Graduating from BizSpark

Proud to have graduated from BizSpark

This week marks a special anniversary of sorts.  Three years ago I became a Microsoft BizSpark member.  This week I graduate from the program.  It has been a peculiar journey but I feel that I have learned a great deal.  I would like to discuss my experiences with the program.

I was between consulting jobs and was attending an ALM conference in Chicago when I asked if there was a program for a Microsoft professional to get Visual Studio in order to start building a software start-up.  I was quickly directed to the BizSpark program and I have not looked back.  I was provided with software licenses for Office and Visual Studio.  I was also given a network to share ideas and solicit for help.

It has not been perfect.  Sometimes I have felt alone in the wilderness of business.  The clients I thought I would get just by putting out a shingle have been elusive.  Still, I have been able to migrate from Visual Studio 2010 to Visual Studio 2013 and keep up on all the latest technologies.  I am now comfortable with MVC thanks BizSpark.  I have embraced Microsoft Tag until Microsoft decided to abandon the technology and thanks to NuGet was able to generate my very own QR codes to manage my business.

Plenty of ups and downs and BizSpark has been there for me.  Now I am officially an alumni of the program and I hope that I get an opportunity to follow in the footsteps of another member WhatsApp.  I understand that this is pie in the sky thinking but that was why I wanted to be an entrepreneur in the first place.

Feel free to contact us and learn more about our business.  I want to take time out to thank Doug Crets and the BizSpark team for sharing my work with others and keeping my focused on the end goal which is quitting my day job and putting other people to work.  I look forward to letting everyone know when that happens.

Until next time.

Just because it is not glamorous does not mean it is not necessary.

How does software and portable toilets work together?

As I pursue this business, I learn a great deal about my potential clients.  One night at a gathering of the chamber of commerce, I was having drinks when I ran into a fellow who asked me what I did for a living.  I told him I was software entrepreneur and that company helped small businesses track fleet maintenance and inventory.  He casually asked me to show him my wares and I went through a standard demonstration showing off the general features of my product.  He was excited and then gave me his business card and told me to get in touch.  He worked for a company that provided porta-potty services for the county.

I was a bit shocked at this encounter but it quickly set in that a company that provides portable outhouses for public events needs my services just as much as any trucking company or fleet of vehicles.  Merely for health and safety reasons, a company like that needs to keep track of how the units they provide are maintained and kept clean.  That was why he was so interested in our Tony software.  We offered an economical means to track how he took care of his units and if they were safe for the public.

Tony allows a company like that to track how long a unit has been out in the field.  A company can track when the bio-blue fluid was changed in a unit and it can even send reminders via e-mail to make sure that this kind of maintenance is done. You can also use that information to coordinate with insurance companies and health care departments to get favorable treatment and better insurance rates.  So using Tony software for your Porta-Potty business makes sense.

We have been receiving inquiries for many kinds of businesses we did not expect to use our service.  Agriculture companies want to know if our software can use it to track hours of operation for farming equipment.  We have been hearing from school bus services and now porta-potty companies.  It seems that our software helps fill a niche.  This got me thinking that as technology grows into the economy and becomes a necessary tool than any kind of business could use our software.

That fits in with our vision of E₃ systems as we try to better help small and medium sized business use their money more wisely.  Contact us today and see how we can help.

Porta-Potties are not glamorous but are necessary.  If you have ever been on the search for one at a street festival or athletic event then you understand why.  Our software is not glamorous either but we feel it is necessary if you want your business to succeed.

Until next time.

Cabin Fever and Auto Show Trends.

Your Pick-Up Truck requires High-Tech;
 along with four wheel drive.

All work and no play makes for a dull entrepreneur and that was me before I decided to take a trip to the Chicago Auto Show this weekend.  There were plenty of vehicles to try out and see. I was also deeply impressed with the amount of affordable hybrid cars at the show.  However, what I noticed is that automobiles are becoming more connected and that means that software developers need to pay attention to how cars and software interact.  This means for a small and medium sized business must pay attention to the car and mobile device interface.  This week on the blog, I want to discuss how the future plays out in your new cars.

This winter in Chicago has been very hard with alternating sub-zero temperatures and snow during the last eight weeks.  Confronted with cabin fever, I attended the Chicago Auto Show.  Instead of going to the luxury cars and concept vehicles, I spent time looking at delivery vans, hybrid cars, and standard passenger vehicles to see what the latest trend were.  It was clear that the smart phone revolution has now joined the automotive industry.  When I viewed cars from Ford, Kia, Chrysler, Honda, and Mini all of them featured means to charge mobile devices and display information on a communal screen.  Even the working man’s stand-by, the Ford F-150 USB plugs for your smart phone.

This tells me that the mobile revolution which I am part of is not going to stop.  If automakers consider it a requirement to accommodate ways to charge and communicate with smart devices then you as a business person need to accommodate those tools into how you manage your business.  I had a great time and received a chance to meet the people at Connected World at the show.   I spent some time with their staff and it is clear that we have a shared goal and that is to understand how mobile technologies interact with homes and cars.

At E₃ systems we want to help you manage your small business better with mobile applications and tools to make your life easier.  Contact us today to learn more.

Cabin fever got me to the auto show but once there I was inspired because if the automakers of the world are on to something then I know that a small entrepreneur like me must also be riding the same wave.

Until next time.

The times and trends change

Always looking to the future

As a technology professional it is easy to get swallowed by the hyperbole and latest trends in technology.  While some ideas catch on like design patterns and object oriented design. Other trends look like ugly fads such as noSQL and Java Server Pages.  I am not immune to these trends but I tend to be much more pragmatic than the average developer regarding new technologies.  I suppose being in the development business for fifteen years does that to a person. This week on the blog I want to talk about keeping fresh as a technology professional.

Google posted an interesting statistic for technology professionals.  In 2001, a Gigabyte of storage cost roughly $10, today that same gigabyte costs ten cents.  In twelve years, the time from kindergarten to high school graduation the prince has fallen by an exponential amount.  In that same amount of time technology has changed dramatically.  When we founded E₃ systems we were excited about a new technology from Microsoft know as MS Tag.  Today the Microsoft tag technology is being discontinued and will disappear in 2015.  This is the inevitable march of progress and the invisible hand of the technology marketplace.

This puts technology companies and professionals in a difficult situation.  Keeping your technology skills up to date means making educated guesses about what trends to learn and which ones to ignore.  If you guess correctly you can make millions of dollars.  If you guess wrong you can wind up unemployed without any prospects.  So what is a company or professional to do faced with this reality? A professional or company concentrates on training.

A technology profession or company that does not focus on training is like a shark which cannot swim; it will drown and die.  As technologies come and go, training makes it possible to stay on top of what you need to know. This means to remain relevant a technology company or developer needs to update their skill set every eighteen months.

You see this progression at E3 systems as we moved from Microsoft.Net web forms to MVC4.  We have much cleaner data management with Entity Framework and code first than when we started using Advanced Data Objects .Net.  We are also migrating away from VB.NET to C#.  All of these moves are natural progressions and related to the technology needs of our potential customers.  We will continue to make these changes as necessary.

The most exciting of these trends is the growth of the mobile web and the user of technologies like HTML5, Knockout.js and CSS3 to build websites which look good on tablets, phones, and PC’s. I am proud of how we at E₃ systems have pioneered this approach to out applications.

Unlike many technology professionals, I have stayed alive in this business because I have kept my skills up to date and avoided the hyperbole and fads which plague this industry. It has also informed the products our company offers.  Drop us a line today and we can show you.

Until next time.

Introducing Tony - Our Latest Product

Your Fleet Maintenance never looked
so good. 

More than cash, the common currency of an entrepreneur is trust.  If customers and client can not trust you your business is doomed to failure.  Today we at E₃ systems are proud to announce that we are releasing our Tony fleet management system.  This week’s blog post features our new product and how we kept our promise to our customers.

Tony was conceived in February of 2013; as we looked at the marketplace and realized there was no good tool for tracking maintenance on a fleet of vehicles.  Trucking companies, school bus services, rental car companies and farmers did not have a good tool to keep track of when and what kind of maintenance they did on their vehicles.  We decided to write one.

The system like all E₃ products works on a smart phone, tablet or regular PC. It is based on the cloud so there is not software to install or upgrade.  Finally, we made our system easy to use and economical for consumers.

With Tony you can QR code your vehicles so that anyone with a smart phone can view the maintenance history on a vehicle.  Paperwork is a thing of the past as a few key strokes can pull up a vehicle and the history of maintenance for it.  In addition, when you are confronted with law-enforcement or insurance requests for vehicle maintenance you can provide them with that information from any device with a web connection.

We went through an exhausting testing program to make sure we had a great product to offer you.  Now we are pleased to say it is here.  Contact us today and we will tell you more.  This is just one more way we are trying to earn your trust.

Until Next time.

Patterns in the Code

Square Pegs is round holes. Could be design patterns

I spend a great deal of time reading other peoples code.  It is part of my day job as a Scrum Master.  It is also what I do as the president of E₃ systems.  It is a tedious task sometimes but I recommend it for every developer working today.  This week on the blog, I want to discuss code patterns and why they are important for any developer.

In the world of literature, there are countless critics and competing schools of literary thought.  Fortunately, the world of computer science does not have that problem.  The most important standard for software is that it works and that it meets the needs of customers.  This is changing as software becomes more complex and it has become more important to the operation of the business.  Standards cropped up thanks to this new reality and I think it has been a good thing for the industry.

Developers in many respects are like painters; they are creative, temperamental and a little crazy.  Ask two developers to write the same software with the same requirements, you will get code that is written very differently.  Multiply this by several hundred developers over three continents and you have a recipe for disaster.

Most coding standards are fairly common sense.  I personally like the standards from Microsoft regarding C#.  However, I am starting to see some troubling trends.  First, the Gang of Four, design patterns for Java are being used as a cudgel to punish self taught developers.  These design patterns have been taught in computer science classes the last ten years and the original book on the subject came out in 1994.  Today those patterns are used in numerous development languages.  A good developer with an understanding of the object oriented development doesn't need to use these patterns but some architects and a sizable minority think they should be the necessary grammar of development.

I strongly disagree with this position.  Gang of Four design patterns are a style of development not the last word on the subject.  To barrow from my friends in English and Communications theory, the Gang of Four represents a dialect of coding rather than the grammar.  Just like the formal language of a court room is different than the informal tome construction workers use on the job site.  There is a time and place for both and slavish devotion to design patterns make about as much sense as using a hammer to drive a wood screw.

Software developers often that they are artists but in the real world they are often being used like animators helping create large and complicated pieces of work with an almost infinite number of moving parts.  The Gang of Four design patterns are helpful but are being misused by a minority in the development community to judge the ability of other developers who do not understand these processes.

I am much more open to the SOLID programming approach which creates general guidelines for flexible code.  These guidelines make design patterns possible but not necessary.  If you use SOLID are more likely to write cleaner and easier to use code.  Furthermore, this approach instills good habits in both self-taught and classically trained developers.

A developer is his own worse critic.  I know that I look at code I worked on three years ago and cringe at my lack of technique.  I think I am a better developer now than I was when I started fifteen years ago.  I may not use design patterns but I think that I can create satisfying customer solutions.  In the end, that was why I wanted to be a programmer in the first place.

Until next time.

The Quality Goes in Before the Software Ships Out.

I think we need to explain.

This has been an amazing week of transition for E₃ systems.  We have formally been in business for three years.  We are also on the cusp of a new software release. Today I want to talk about our new product Tony and why you will have to wait a little longer before it goes live.

Early in 2013, a potential client called us out of the blue and wanted to know if we could put together a simple contact management system for them.  We rushed a prototype out and demonstrated it to the client.  They seemed enthusiastic until we gave them a contract and said that they would have to pay for us to finish the project since it was done on spec.  We never heard from that client again.  I suppose this was a good development because if they were not going to return our calls or honor a contract I am sure that getting paid would have also been a serious problem.

The months of March and April were gloomy as we continued to sell our main product Sully 2.0 and assess the failure of our prototype project.  Some good did come out of the work because; we developed experience in MVC 4 and Entity Framework code first for rapid project turn around.  By May, we had come up with a new project and idea which we nick-named Tony after a famous Fiat mechanic.

Tony would be an easy to use system to track maintenance for vehicles in any sized fleet. Trucking companies, rental firms, and even car dealerships could use the system to keep track of when and where work was done.  It would become a living record and best of all it would obey the philosophy of all products at E₃ systems.  It would work on a smart phone, tablet, and personal computer.  We also leveraged the power of Microsoft Tag so someone in the field would scan a code on their phone and get instant information.

We had scheduled that Tony would launch in July of 2013.  It was a hectic schedule made even more dramatic by the server migration we did to upgrade our software and databases.  Something had to give and it was clear that the migration took precedence and that we would have to push back the release of Tony.  We also felt that we needed to do more work on the product before it was ready for release and sale.  I am deeply disappointed about this but as the president of the company I would rather ship quality software that release something and then expect my customers to find bugs and act as our quality assurance team.

So we are planning to release our Tony software in mid-September.  I felt that you our customers deserved and explanation.  We had been dropping hints about Tony for the last two months and felt you needed an honest explanation of why it is not here.  As a young start-up we are not in the business of vaporware so please forgive us for the delay.  If you have any questions or concerns please drop us a line and we will have an account executive contact you directly.

Until next time.

Our Direction.

Hard work and we are ready to help you rock your business

We are currently in the middle of an upgrade and finishing up a major release which we are going to unveil next week.  I am pretty proud of the direction we are heading.  This week’s blog post we talk about some of those changes.

I founded this company because I wanted to provide tools for small and medium sized businesses to help them run their businesses for effectively. This meant web based systems where you could track invoices, inventory, and manage bills of lading.  I worked my day job and at night and weekends began building my software empire.  It was really just a software developer and a dream.  That was nearly three years ago and I am just as dedicated to the cause now as I was then.  Our Sully 2.0 system is a fine cloud based platform to make it easy for you to have a state of the art shipping and receiving system for the price of cable television.  We have mercilessly tested it with professionals inside and outside the trucking industry.  If it can meet their approval then we are sure it will meet yours.

Next week we are unveiling the release of Tony.  This software helps you track the vehicles in your fleet and the maintenance they have undergone.  No longer will you have to rifle through piles of paperwork or try to sift through receipts to know how many times you changed oil or had to repair breaks.  Now you have a simple means to view the information with your smart phone, tablet computer, or PC.  We have also folded Microsoft Tag technology into the system so you can place a simple bar code on the dash of the vehicle and scan it to receive up to the minute information.  We think that something like this is going to make life much easier for your safety and compliance departments.

E₃ also offers other services.  We will be happy to provide agile project management training for your organization.  We also offer web site design and construction to make your company web sites respond to the mobile web and drive more business to your organization.  Finally, we can consult on how to use social media like Facebook and Twitter to spread your message.

We offer all of these services and as we head into our third year we are looking forward to a break out year with customers, new challenges, and lots of stories along the way.  Contact us today and find out how you can join us.

Until next time.

If it ain't broke, then what?

It is not old school to be using junk to
manage your business.

One of my colleagues as a joke posted this article on his Google+ feed.  It seems that a manufacturing plant has been using the same IBM 402 system to manage its payroll since 1948.  Let me put it this way, they have been using the same computer for 65 years to manage accounting.

At first I was dismissive of this article saying they should get a more modern system.  Then it dawned on me this is what my company is up against when I am attempting to sell my company to other businesses.  Sparkler Filters of Conroe, Texas would rather manage its accounting with punch cards and form feed paper than upgrade to a more modern system like J.D. Edwards or SAP.

The Computer History Museum in Mountain View California sent a group to ask Sparkler Filter to donate the old system for the museum.  The company politely said no claiming that everyone at the firm understood punch cards and the last sixty year of reports were formatted for the IBM 402 system. To this company, the system was not broke so they decided never to replace it with something more modern and efficient.  A PC with the standard version of Quickbooks could run circles around a device like this but because they are comfortable with punch cards they are going to keep it.

I run into this situation all the time when I am attempting to deal with companies which have thirty year old AS/400 systems.  It happened that fear and inertia are making it hard for people to upgrade their corporate systems.  This is going to get scarier as many of the people in the Transportation and Logistics industry retire and are replaced by this generation’s current supply of employee.  These are individual’s accustomed to smart phones, cloud based computing and social media so when confronted with green screens and systems they cannot access via their phone are going to enter other lines of work.

This, “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” mind set is holding back economic growth and technical innovation.

A trucking company today would not dare use vintage 1970’s trucks to transport products today just because today’s trucks have better gas mileage and provide direct savings to the company.  The same holds true for software and services.  Today, thanks to cloud computing a company can have the computing power of a Fortune 500 company at a fraction of the cost.  With contemporary systems you can reduce administrative costs and enhance customer service without having to hire more people.  This gives you the gift of time because you are spending it in the office tracking down paper work; instead, you are selling customers and spending time with you family.

This is why I founded E₃ systems.  We want to give you the means to make more money and save time by having technical systems which will make you swifter than your competition.

Until next time.

Entrepreneur Exhaustion

I am spent and it is starting to show.

One of the biggest challenges of being an entrepreneur is finding time.  You are under time pressure for new releases.  You are under time pressure for you day job.  If you work in the world of technology you are under time pressure to be the next big thing.  I am running into the challenge and it is starting to drain me.

This is going to be a short blog this week because I am dealing with exhaustion.  I took a three day weekend attempt to enjoy myself and it is clear that my body and spirit are broken in some fashion.   I have had trouble focusing on my day job and I have not been able to code with any dedication in over a month.   It is frustrating but I know recognize that the main culprit is exhaustion.  I spent the month of January rushing a prototype out to production to have it rejected by the client when I asked them to start paying me for the work. 

I have another project in the works along with the usual bug fixes and other pieces work necessary for the business.  There just isn't time to stop and take a breather.  This is affecting the quality of the work and how much I can get done.  Thus, beginning March 9th, I am going to slow down a bit.  I will start concentrating on product already constructed and move on from there. 

If I don't take this rest I am going to be an emotional and physical wreck who is not going to be able to help anyone; including myself.

Until next time.

Fighting Code Bloat

Software Bloat is not pretty so why do we have it?

I have been working as a software developer for over fourteen years.  What surprises me the most is how complicated we make software for the public.  I blame two major constituencies for this trend.  First, software developers need to stop being too clever for their own good.  We need to concentrate on doing the same features better and faster rather than cramming more features into a software program.  This desire to have software do more is affectionately known as feature bloat.  More features are crammed into the same piece of software until it gets more confusing to use. 

The other guilty party is the business people who commission these bloated software projects.  Talk to any developer and you will hear stories of reports written for only one user of a system.  You will also hear stories of features added to systems to deal with one client or situation.  Additionally, features will be added to satisfy the political needs of an organization while not making software any easier to use.  Needless to say, these situations tend to drive software developers and customers batty because these additional features represent nothing but wasted time and money from the developer.  It also represents frustration for the customer as they attempt to use the software which has grown more complicated.

This is why when we founded E₃ systems we have made a point of trying to make the software as easy to use as possible.  Life is too short to spend time in training manuals and struggling to figure out how something works.  Many businesses do not have time to train their people so it is important that software is intuitive and easy to operate.  Most people just want to write out a packing slip or print an invoice.  You shouldn’t need a degree in computer science to make that happen. 

Our Sully 2.0 system makes it easy to do Bills of Lading, Packing Slips, Invoices and purchase orders.  Drop us a line and we will be happy to show you.

Until then I suppose you are going to have to suffer with bloated software.

Until next time.

Our New Website

Dude Nice looking website.

Rebuilding a web site is a big deal.  It is not undertaken lightly and usually includes a committee of people attempting to be creative.  I hate redesigning web sites because everyone seems to know how a web site should look but many people do not understand how to make it happen.  This leaves me confronted with power point slides and Photoshop graphics with marketing people telling me that it should look exactly like the file they sent me.  Thoughts about cross browser compatibility and how the site should look on a mobile phone seem like secondary considerations.  It was a website redesign which finally pushed me over the edge and convinced me that I should be an entrepreneur.

It has been almost a year since I formally founded E₃ systems.  When I did I had a clean and easy to understand website which leveraged the latest web technologies and looked good on all the major browsers.  I decided to ignore IE6 because Google and Yahoo decided to. I was pretty proud of it but I knew as we were reaching our one year anniversary we needed a refresh. 

I took inspiration from Microsoft's MSDN website.  The good folks at Redmond are getting ready for the fall release of Windows 8 and are slowly changing over their web sites to have a more metro look and feel.  I decided that I should do the same.  This biggest challenge was finding an easy way to create the tiles and icons used in a Metro layout.  Searching around Microsoft's blog network, I was pointed toward a company called Syncfusion and they had a tool which manufactured Metro style tiles.  Armed with this tool I began the site redesign. 

To avoid making the swap too jarring, I decided that I would only change the front page of the web site and keep the remaining pages in the same format with Metro style flourishes.  I also wanted to make sure that users of the web site had access to all of our social media venues including our YouTube channel.  I also wanted to see if I could leverage the grid 960 css frameworks.  It was like putting together a complicated puzzle which would better appeal to our customers. 

The results speak for themselves.  The landing page contains all the information which old landing page did.  The social media icons are not as distracting.  Users do not have to scroll through the page to digest all the content.  It also looks good on tablet computers and PC's. 

Look over our web site and let us know what you think.

Until next time.