A Bootstrap World

Bootstrap makes us better.

You might have noticed some changes to the web site.  This week I pushed some changes into production and it reflects some of the newer technologies on the web.  We are now using MVC5 and Bootstrap web to provide a consistent experience for people using the website on a mobile device or web browser.  This week on the blog I want to talk about Bootstrap and how it fits in to our mission to provide web applications which work any time and any place.

I believe that I am a late adopter of Bootstrap.  The first open source version was released in 2011 and it became the most popular download in the GitHub development project in 2012.  I stumbled upon it in 2013 when I was about to change the careers.  Another developer had exposed me to it was some kind of revelation.  Now there was a way to build web sites which looked good on small browsers and that functioned well on full screens.  It was a revelation but it did not seem like something that would work with the Microsoft technologies I was working with.

This changed with the release of Visual Studio 2013 who used Bootstrap 3.0 as its default tool to manage the look and feel of web pages.  When I saw how easy it was to work with, I quickly became a convert.  Instead of noodling around with web pages and cascading style sheets, I had a built in tool to help build web applications which scaled from the mobile phone to the big screen.  It was also great that Microsoft included tools like LESS to create my own styles and to add tweaks to my layouts.

For you the consumer this is a big deal.  Now, you can rest assured that there is an industry standard way to make sure that your web site looks good on a small browser or on a giant screen.  In addition, your web applications will now work anywhere you have a connection to the web.  This gives you significant power managing your business processes because you can look up inventory on the phone, tablet or laptop with no major interruption of service.  This is the cloud based connectivity that we boast about.

All of us at E₃ systems are excited about this technology.  It is nice that the collective wisdom of the world wide web has embraced this approach and that just means that you the consumer now have an industry standard to measure progress against.  Contact us today and find out how we use Bootstrap to help you.

New technology is fun and using a new technology to solve a business problem is even more fun.  Bootstrap is one of those technologies which does both and you are going to see more of it as time passes. It is a bootstrap world and we are living in it.

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.

We upgrade so you do not have to

Pay attention! We are upgrading.

This week we are preparing for the launch of our new software product nicknamed “Tony.”  We are also upgrading our servers from Windows 2008 to Windows 2012.  This made me think about why you the small business person should care about all these behind the scenes moves.  Today’s blog post will cover the reason we upgrade at E₃ systems.

One of the important powers of the web and cloud computing is that as a consumer of cloud services you do not have to worry about software, server space, or even operating systems.  All you have to do is open your web browser use the software.  It is up to the loud service provider to make sure that its systems are up and running rather than placing that burden on the consumer.  This is why we are upgrading.  We upgrade so you the consumer do not have to go through the experience.

It is up to us E₃ systems to make sure everything works in a safe and secure fashion.  It is up to us E₃ systems to bring you the latest technology including responsive websites which look good on tablets, mobile phones and regular PC’s.  It is up to E₃ systems to fine tune those systems for maximum performance.  For our customers, they can worry about their business and leave the upgrades to us.

This is not the most glamorous thing about being a cloud based company but I think it is the most important. We do upgrades so you don’t have to.  Manage your business we will worry about the upgrades.

Until next time.