CreativITy

Enterprise Mobility Gets LG’s and VMWare Attention

2012-01-11T09:22:00.002+02:00

It is evident that with the massive proliferation of smartphones and other portable smart devices that Enterprise Mobility in an inevitable extension to the enterprise IT systems.

Enterprises still approach Enterprise Mobility with some level of anxiety mainly relating to the fact that smartphone theft is on the rise and the general volatile nature of smartphone. Smartphones are considered somewhat vulnerable endpoints to host sensitive data and access to sensitive applications.

Yesterday at CES, LG unveiled its solution for Enterprise Mobility based on VMWare technology which turns every Android device to a dual device isolating the work-related environment from the personal one. This way the enterprise application and data are always kept at arm’s length from any personal connections made on the smartphone device and IT having full governance over the work-related partition.

Magic Software approach to Enterprise Mobility is of tightest security measures provided by the RIA architecture that serves as the backbone of its Mobile offering. Nevertheless, LG’s new solution gives Enterprise Mobility an extra padding to increase IT confidence in their initial steps towards this new challenging route.

LG Virtual Android OS running in parallel to the personal environment

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Magic - A Feature Full Technology (The Magic Supercut)

2011-12-21T14:01:00.011+02:00

Supercut is a term coined by Andy Baio which refers to a video montage depicting a certain idea, word or phrase.

As one who played around video editing and worked for Magic Software, what would be better than creating a supertcut video montage for “Magic”.

In all other videos we show features in Magic, this video shows Magic in Features :-).

For me this last video clip is my personal token of appreciation to a wonderful company and an amazing group of people with which I have the great privilege to work for so long.

The last scene in this clip sums it all up: "It's very rare to see real Magic!"

Soon I will publish a post listing the titles of each movie that appears in this supercut.
In the mean time you can try and name them yourselves. You can post your findings as a comment below or on YouTube.

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NUI - Natural User Interface - A Quantum Leap in UX

2011-12-15T15:04:00.003+02:00

Natural User Interface (NUI) relates to interfaces that are hidden or that eventually turn invisible as the user keeps using them, or that become an integral part with the environment one operates in.

NUI is based on the natural and common ways by which humans interact with each other and their surroundings. This is done primarily by verbal\audio communication, gestures, movement, expressions and touch.

The samrtphone, tablets and other multi touch screens such as Surface, full body gesture based interaction such as Kinect, and iPhone Siri service serve as great examples of good natural user interface. It is quite impressive to see how the multi-touch screen is the first technical gadget that is so easily used by users of ages raging from 1 to 101.

Yesterday at a very insightful UX event held by Netcraft, Tal Florentin gave an interesting short presentation about Help. Tal talked about how help is to be catered to the user in the optimal way. The conclusion was that it should be given in a way that is not too disruptive, that is able to “know” the goal one wants to reach, to light up the correct path to get there, and to offer its help only when needed.

The video below shows a great example of an interface that shows you the way to your destination in the exact moment you need it.

This neat UI reminded me of the TV series Quantum Leap where in one chapter titled “Pool Hall Blues” Al used his Handlink to help Sam clear the pool table. The Handlink projected the required course needed to place each ball in its pocket.
I did not manage to find the video segment of it, and all I found was this small screen capture images:

The next video is of a real visualization done over a pool table tracking and responding to the balls movement:

The last two videos are actually the main reason for this blog post as they shows how natural a touch screen is also to non-humans users:

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CIO Alert - HP’s webOS goes Open-Source

2011-12-11T17:20:00.002+02:00

The smartphone and tablet OS market is definitely the most dynamic and unpredictable IT market. The main reason for that is that it is the first time where consumer meets IT and the consumer is the one to cast the last vote.

The dynamic, unpredictable nature of this market is demonstrated once again, with HP’s latest announcement to put their webOS in the hands of the Open Source community.

Out of the other options – HP continuing to support webOS as its own proprietary platform, selling webOS to another mega-vendor, killing webOS – the Open Source approach seems to be the one with the greatest potential of putting webOS among the leading mobile and tables operating systems.
It is because of the open-source nature, that Android managed to take the market lead. The reason for that goes to convergence of consumers and IT.

As an open source project, webOS will enable greater involvement of the developers community which in turn will result in a richer and wider collection of webOS based applications. Together with the ability of smartphone hardware vendors such as HTC to incorporate webOS in their devices makes a promising path for webOS to be adopted more widely by smartphone developers and users.

In the ancient PC days, open source OS such as Linux did not have a major impact on the PC market. This was because the PC market trends were set mainly by enterprises and governments who did not rush to adopt open source OS.

Now, in the Post-PC era, the end-user set the trends and the enterprises must follow. If webOS will gain enough public interest, and good chances for it to do so, enterprises will need to add webOS to as yet another mobile operating system they need to support.

The need for a true multi-device application platform becomes even more relevant than before.

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HTML5 Web Apps Vs Native Apps – Which Way to go

2011-12-07T19:34:00.005+02:00

Companies spend too much time and too much money in developing their mobile based solutions for each relevant smartphone operating systems. Most companies focus on the current 3 major players: RIM’s Blackberry, Apple’s iOS, and Google’s Android. Moreover it is quite clear that soon enough the leading players map will change. Microsoft Windows Phone or HP’s WebOS may rise and join the leading operating systems. So the scenario of re-writing the application for the next leading smartphone OS is inevitable.

While companies invest so much in native application development, HTML5 gains more and more popularity and an increase in capabilities, especially in regards to the interaction with the smartphone local resources. HTML5 brings with it the missed virtue of Web applications – Ubiquity.

Being Ubiquitous, HTML5 enables us to develop an application once and have it deployed over multiple browsers, namely the various smartphone browsers.
HTML5 enables companies to have a single development team that develop a single application, based on a single source code to be deployed on any smartphone device. For many companies this implies cutting the development costs by two thirds – HALLELUIAH!!!

However most companies do not yet rush towards HTML5 based development and the reason is very much clear – It is too soon.

Though HTML5 has made a considerable progress it does not yet match the merits of native applications for the following reasons:

2014
On February 2011, the W3C announced that the work on the HTML5 standard will be concluded by 2014. This means that the support given to the many features of HTML5 will not necessarily be part of the eventual standard and developers may find themselves coding around proprietary features. So if the earth will still be spinning after 12.12.2012, there will still be quite some time until HTML5 standard will be finalized.

No Common Browser
The ills of dealing with different browsers and the different implementation of each browser is still a problem in desktop web applications and add much complexity and multiple coding challenges. With the multiplicity of smartphone vendors, and their never waning desire for captivated users, the dream of a common browser is much distant now than ever before.

Rob Cottingham's cartoon

Amazon Kindle Cloud reader is now HTML5 based yet it does not support all browsers. And this says it all: The multiplicity of browsers is a genuine problem and there is no real ability yet to write once and deploy everywhere.

Amazon disclaimer at the bottom says it all.

Missing Functionality
HTML5 is still missing the full scope of native application functionality. Local storage access is not yet available. Overlaying camera is not supported, proper handling of the menu button, and so on.

Performance
The performance of HTML5 client side logic is very much dependant on Javascript and that says it all. Especially when it comes to complex applications the performance of a sophisticated HTML5 based client will be much poorer than that of a native application.

Security
HTML5 is not the best approach when security issues are at hand for the exact same reasons why browser-free rich internet applications are far more superior security-wise than browser based RIA. The browser, being a common client, is much more prone for security breaches and the developers need to put much effort in obfuscating the communication between the client and the server.

So… What to do?
Developers look at HTML5 not because it is better than native applications. All developers and managers want is just to simplify and reduce the massive development effort imposed by the native application approach.

Why settle for less?
Why risk venturing into a technology that is yet to be proven as valid?
What if you could deploy a native mobile application on any smarphone OS from a single development effort? Wouldn’t that be great!?

It would be close to pure magic!

Actually it is Magic.

If you thought of HTML5 - Hold that thought, literally - Check out Magic Software mobile technology and see how you can develop application once and deploy on any smartphone device.

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An IT Blast from The Past - 1996

2011-11-01T22:17:00.004+02:00

A couple of weeks ago Jared Newman’s sister stumbled upon a paper from her high school years, dating back 15 years to 1996, explaining the pro’s and con’s of the Internet.

The list of advantages is still very much relevant and the basic prediction of “Much, much more, and it will only increase in time to come” proved to be very much correct and we can quite confidently say, 15 years later, that still there is much more to come.

The disadvantages this page lists are somewhat arguable.

First, in most places internet connection is quite reliable. The maturity and reliability of the internet is what enabled cloud computing and Software-as-a-Service to become more txhan just a hype.

The fact that “People can post whatever they want” made the social web to be the success it is now. The issues of too much free speech and the exposure to unsolicited problematic content are still dangerous, especially among kids and teenagers.

As far as Organization goes, well this paper was written one year before google.com was registered, a point from which the vast content on the web became much more ordered, searchable, and therefore more organized.

Speed is seldom a problem these days, where in most places an HD movie can be downloaded in a rate greater than its view time.

Security is indeed a sensitive matter and it is very much a factor that both individuals and corporations need to put their minds into before exposing their lives (e.g. facebook) or their valuable data (e.g. SaaS).

Changed Links is not a matter we trouble ourselves with too much as today we are having better content management tools and the more reliance of the search engines.

Addiction is still a problem. We definitely spend too much time in the virtual world.

And last but not least is the true pitfall of the internet and the age of IT we are in and that is the Changing Technology. The technologies we need to deal with today differ greatly from those we dealt with 5 years ago, let alone 15 years ago. Most likely the technologies we align ourselves with today will not be relevant 5 or even 2 years from today.

This is true except for one technology: The Magic Software technology. From its inception until today and for future to come, the Magic Software platform kept the development paradigm completely detached from the underlying technologies by maintaining the application design in the form of meta-data and not of explicit code. Only Magic Software platform based applications were able to leap over each technology generation while keeping the majority of the investment put in past designs and keep them relevant in the next technology generation.

Only within the impressive community of Magic Software customers you can find applications that were developed even before 1996, over DOS, to run today as .NET applications running on Windows 7 and as Mobile applications running today on Blackberry devices and soon on Andiod and iPhone.
These Magic Applications will surely manage to leap over any new technology challenge that the IT industry will be facing, without resorting to dramatic code rewrite.

If you are not a Magician (a Magic based developer) I am sure had you to face this disadvantage and great challenge of becoming familiar with many new technologies along the way.

The proud Magicians who developed their applications already 15 or 20 years ago are the only type of developers who can attest to be able to keep the skill-set they acquired back then to be relevant today. And without too much re-training they have transformed from DOS application developers to Mobile application developers.

It is absolutely remarkable to see how the Magic Software concept triumphed over so many changes and it is today much more relevant than ever before.

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UX Vs UI - Which Came First?

2011-09-18T19:03:00.002+03:00

While the argument of which came first, the chicken or the egg, continues, one may contemplate also as to which came first, User Experience (UX) of User Interface (UI).

Terminology-wise User Interface came first. We used to create UIs without caring, contemplating on, or considering the overall user experience. Actually some of us have designed UIs without even considering the User.

Conceptually and also methodologically, User Experience precedes the User Interface. In properly crafted applications, user experience design comes first and out of the UX design the UI is formed.

From the user point of you, the UI comes as the first touch point of the application and the UI together with many other factors which are just as important produce the overall UX.

The following simple, short and funny video by Kai Brunner shows exactly that. It also shows how using a user-feedback iterative design a new UI is formed to create a new, and hopefully improved UX. And so on.

It is important to remember that applications must provide great positive user experience and that great positive user experience requires much more than a well-designed user interface. It requires also good performance, the right amount of data (not too little but not too much), functionality and service that are not necessarily visible, sense of reliability which is achieved by application robustness, familiarity and more.

And most importantly do not mix and confuse “design” with “decoration”. It is worth to discuss the difference between the two, but that is for a different post.

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“Don’t Get Stuck in the IT Past” - Opt for Application Rejuvenation

2011-09-01T11:39:00.012+03:00

How metadata corresponds to IT anti-aging and rejuvenation.

Desktop applications that are installed and executed directly on every individual client machine are known to be very of cumbersome and costly maintenance and of limited reach. Enterprises realize that in order to reduce the application maintenance complexity and costs and to increase the application reach the applications must be installed, handled and accessed from a central server.

There are two main alternatives for achieving a server centered deployment: Virtual Desktop and RIA.

Virtual Desktop deployment enables the enterprise to keep its legacy desktop applications as they are and simply deploy them on high capacity servers equipped with the required virtualization software and enable any client machine to connect and have the desktop application run as if it was installed on the client machine without actually installing it there.

This approach, though costly, is the easiest path to choose. It is almost risk free because the application remains the same and no additional development is required.
Ay, there's the rub: The application can be kept in the technology generation it was last built in and the easy solution of Virtual Desktop, much like the green screen 5250 terminal emulator, lets the application fossilize and become stuck in the past.

Mocha TN5250 for Android provides TN5250 emulation for AS/400 terminal access - Practical but troubling...

I know, I know: “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it”. But these days it is quite odd to see information and task workers work on 5250 screens using a terminal emulator. The desktop applications that are today being trapped in a virtual desktop may look reasonable today, but they will look as odd as 5250 screens two and three years from now.

The spoof video below, allegedly created by Microsoft, bashes VMware on being stuck in the past. Their arguments are of a different angle but the gist of the matter is very applicable in regards to virtual desktop based solutions.

Magic Software with its RIA technology, based on the flexibly of its metadata based engine approach, enables its customers to make the better choice and to evolve their applications to the next technology generation with the minimal conversion effort and risk. Magic Software customers do not need to compromise on a costly deployment and fossilized applications and enjoy the benefits of a lean internet based deployment with a modern desktop user experience.

Virtual Desktop can be somewhat compared to conventional medicine approach to anti-aging for extending life through means of prolonging long age. With this approach one lives longer but in an aging old body. A different approach to anti-aging is of true rejuvenation. Much like the Turritopsis Nutricula, the immortal jellyfish that is able to transform itself from its mature state back into a polyp (immature jellyfish) and then back again into a mature jellyfish.

Turritopsis nutricula, the potentially immortal jellyfish

uniPaaS metadata approach literally stores the application in a metaphysical form, enabling the application true rejuvenation with every new technology generation.

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The Beauty of Sort Algorithms

2011-08-08T10:38:00.006+03:00

Algorithms much like Mathematical equations can be visualized to produce quite beautiful results.
The following artistic display of the various sort algorithms is simply remarkable if not genius.
Kudos to the Sapientia University in Transylvania, Romania for this beautiful production.
So if you are not yet familiar with the various sort algorithms, just follow closely each dance.

The beauty of sort algorithms starts with the fact that they take a simple action and repeat it recursively until the values are sorted.
They usually differ in the time it takes them to sort the values.

Quick Sort
This is the most amusing one.
A Hungarian style dance.
The Hungarian call that you hear in this video "Oszd meg és uralkodj" means "Divide and Conquer".
And indeed “divide and conquer” is the essence of this algorithm.
Quicksort is accomplished by the following algorithm:
1. Choose a cell in the list – the Pivot cell. In this case the first (it can be any other)

2. Compare the pivot cell to all other cells in the list and order the pivot accordingly.
So if a cell is smaller than the pivot it will be on the right side and if the cell is bigger than the pivot it will be on the left side. If their relative position does not correspond to their values then switch between them.
By comparing the selected cell (the Pivot) to each other cell you eventually divide the list into two smaller lists where the pivot cell is actually located in its final location.
The two remaining lists are of all the values that are lower than the pivot and all the values that are higher than the pivot.

3. Continue with the same process above to each of the divided lists, until your reach a list of a single cell.

Selection Sort
This is the next amusing and much colorful one.
A Gypsy style dance.

Selection Sort is accomplished by the following algorithm:
1. From the start of the list scan to find the minimal value in the list and place it at the first cell of the list.
This is done by comparing the first cell to the second cell and if that cell is smaller, switch between them and compare the new (smaller) first cell to the third cell and so on.

2. Repeat the procedure from the top where the new list starts from the next cell.

This algorithm is the slowest one this is why the video was speeded up.

Insert Sort
A Romanian style dance.

The insert algorithm simply creates a sorted list within the original one by inserting every next cell one by one in its correct location.
1. The first cell is already a sorted list.

2. We take the next cell and insert it to the sorted list to its left in the correct location (by comparing it to the existing cells)

3. We repeat step 2 until we reach the end of the list.

Merge Sort
Here the call of "Divide and Conquer" is in German: "Teile und herrsche"

The merge sort algorithm is quite clever.
The idea is simple:
1. Break the list into two equal halves (of course when there is an odd number of cells one will be a bit bigger).

2. Sort (by Merge sort) each half of the list.

3. Merge the two sorted lists into one list.
The rule of course is that when reaching a list of a single cell it is regarded as already sorted.

Bubble Sort
A Hungarian style dance.

Bubble sort is very simple. We simply scan the list by comparing every two adjacent cells and swap between them if their order does not match the expected order of the list.

The scan is repeated until no swaps are required, meaning the list is sorted.

Shell Sort
A Hungarian style dance.

Power (of Change) to the People

2011-05-11T14:52:00.004+03:00

Change is rapid. These days it is becoming even more rapid than ever.

A few years ago, the end-users did not have much impact on the technological and architectural choice of the company. It was the choice of the company’s CIO, CFO or CEO to either keep their current technologies or to embrace new ones. Once a decision was made, it meant aligning with the company’s operations and process to the technology of choice. The chosen technology was likely to remain relevant for the company for years ahead.

Magic Software Metadata driven approach enabled ISV and companies to easily switch from one back-end technology (namely server OS) to the other with minimal if no effort at all. However this advantage became relevant only in very long intervals.

Power to the People

Now, with the great symbiosis of smartphones and enterprise applications, the end-users are the ones that actually dictate the sort of technology the company needs to support. The choice for supporting smartphone OS is less in the hands of the traditional decision makers. The choice is now in the hands of the end-users. The people have the power of choice which is completely unaligned with the company’s technological roadmap. Companies need to align their architectures to the prevailing client technologies that are dictated by the end-users.

Magic Software Metadata driven approach shines once again and now becomes more relevant than ever before. Today not only is the technology rapidly changing but also the adoption of it. Whatever mobile vendor may be on the lead today, may not necessarily be the leader tomorrow, and may even become obsolete.

Magic Software announced today the added support of Blackberry for mobile deployments. Android and iOS support is right around the corner. Windows Mobile 7 may eventually soar (for now it still sores) and might therefore be supported as well, but then what? Who knows what will be relevant one year or two years from now?

No one really knows.

The best approach to reduce the potential risk in switching from one platform to the other, namely client platform, is to opt for a multi-device mobile application platform and to avoid locking oneself to specific platforms.

Whatever kids and early adopters are excited about today, may become a technology that companies must adopt.

Early Adopters Through History by collegehumor.com

The best response to the challenge of “No one really knows” is “We do not really care”. Whatever new platform will rise, proper support will be given to that platform without rewriting entire applications to fit the new platform.

See The BlackBerry release event added to the Magic Software Timeline.

Osama "Has Bin" Laden

2011-05-02T11:06:00.005+03:00

The world media is surging with articles and information about the killing of Al Qaeda (former) leader – Osama Bin Laden. Now with the new title: Osama "Has Bin" Laden.

Naturally it is time, once again, to play around with the Bin Laden brand.
However no corporation will officially make use of it.

For example, if you have been following Magic Software new line of images of Facebook,
all titled “If Only I could”, you are definitely not going to see the following image as part of the official images series:

BTW, I wonder if it was an iPhone or Android that was given to "Has Bin" Laden that tracked its actual location. Well now Apple and Google can turn the tracking feature off – Mission Accomplished.

I also cannot avoid the phonetics of "Has Bin" Laden latest hide out – Abbottabad -
and think of what could have been Osama’s song for the upcoming Eurovision contest:

Abanibi Obo Ebev,
Abanibi Obo Ebev Abbottabad...

Click to listen to the Original Aba-Ni-Bi.

This is a sure winner.

BI and the Sick Rose - or - Microstrategy as the Modern Rose Bush of the IT Vineyards

2011-03-31T11:01:00.004+02:00

The Sick Rose by William Blake

O Rose thou art sick.

The invisible worm,

That flies in the night
In the howling storm:

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

Hand-coloured print, issued c.1826

If you have visited some vineyards you probably noticed that in some of them rose bushes are planted at the end of grapevine rows.

There are a few speculations as to the reason for this viticulture tradition. Except for the mere aesthetics contribution of the beautiful roses blossoming amidst the vines, especially at early spring time when the bare vines are just beginning to grow new leaves, the most acceptable reasons for planting roses near grape vines is the fact that both roses and grape vines are susceptible to the same diseases. However roses will be hit by those diseases a bit earlier than the grape vine. This way vine growers are able to take immediate preemptive measures and prevent the vines from becoming infected.

A natural dashboard (source: wineontheblog)

BI tools can be described in the same way. Indeed some BI tools and especially Microstrategy 9 offer very aesthetic front-end design and highly captivating user experience. However this is far from being the reason many companies choose to utilize Microstrategy.

The highly visual means of Microstrategy, that reflect the company’s performance at real-time, enable managers to be aware of problems that hinder company’s performance as they occur. Without such early warnings managers could respond much later and risk significant loses. With proper BI implementation managers are able to respond to such problems immediately and prevent greater losses.

There are many “diseases” that can hinder and decrease company’s performance. Managers must have the right means to detect possible inflictions as they happen or even as they are about to occur using proper BI implementation.

Today satellite controlled agriculture enable vine growers to monitor the color and shape of a leave from their home or office. In most vineyards roses are planted truly for decoration purposes and for keeping a very aesthetic viticulture tradition.

But the principle remains: Constant and full insight of the vine\company health is a must to avoid potential loses and to assure productivity.

If the means to this end also add further embellishment to the user experience than that is just an extra gain.

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Code Free T-Shirts and More

2011-02-22T17:19:00.016+02:00

I thought I'd play around with And So You Code a bit further.

So I found this cool website for creating your own customized T-shirts, hats, mugs, etc. and designed some Code Free products.

You can actually click on one and order it, though I have no idea how it comes out as I just placed the images on it and haven't ordered one myself.

If you do order one it's at your own risk.
If you do order one, tell me how it turned out :-)

Code Free T-Shirt

Code Free Mug

Code Free Mousepad

Code Free Hats

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And So You Code - Clip Remake - Done

2011-02-17T16:17:00.031+02:00

I am proud to present you with the new remake of And So You Code featuring a wide collection of original pictures hat were kindly contributed by developers, office workers and talented photographers from around the world.

This has turned out to be an exciting multi national project.

I wish to thank all contributors for making this clip remake possible.

The list of all contributors with relevant links is below the embedded clip.

Enjoy :-)

You can also view and share this video at Vimeo.com.

	Picture by Ali Ayoub
	Picture by slworking slworking also on Youtube. Schaumburg, Illinois, USA
	Picture by Jonas Möllbrink Stockholm, Sweden
	Picture by Alex Gisby. http://solution10.com London, UK
	Picture by slworking slworking also on Youtube. Schaumburg, Illinois, USA
	Picture by Jagmeet Singh Hanspal. Bangalore, India.
	Picture by Pengrin San Bruno, CA, USA
	Picture by Blake Patterson Alexandria, VA, USA.
	Picture by Daniel Szwalkiewicz Seattle, WA, USA.
	Picture by Nathalie Colina. Caracas,Venezuela.
	Picture by slworking slworking also on Youtube. Schaumburg, Illinois, USA
	Picture by slworking slworking also on Youtube. Schaumburg, Illinois, USA
	Picture by Carl Holscher Location: Alexandria, VA, USA
	Easy button of Tamar Hartal
	Picture by Craig Shimala Chicago, IL, USA
	Picture by Nicolas Chateau
	Picture by Leonard John Matthews. Redcliffe, Australia
	Picture by David Gano Jacksonville, FL, USA
	Picture by Daniel Szwalkiewicz Seattle, WA, USA.
	Picture by TheBeev
	Picture by Bart Everson. New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
	Picture by David Brown. Glasgow, United Kingdom.
	Picture by Tieran Green. Calgary, Alberta, Canada
	Picture by Candice Lee. New York City, New York, USA
	Picture by Jason Rogers. St Albans, UK
	Picture by Victor Gregorio. San Francisco, California, USA/
	Picture by Ed Sweeney. Los Gatos, California, USA
	Picture by Or Hiltch.
	Picture by Malcolm R Bell. Ipswich, England
	Picture by Jennifer Livick. Canada
	Picture by Julien. Hannover, Germany.
	Picture by Frankie. Slovakia
	Picture by KarmenRose. San Francisco Bay area, USA
	Picture by Tue Jepsen. Frederiksberg, Denmark.
	Picture by Serendipity Photography. Sheffield, UK
	Picture by Tim Stubbs. Rugby, UK
	Picture by Reina.
	Picture by Kevin O’Connor. Brookfield, Illinois, USA.
	Picture by slworking slworking also on Youtube. Schaumburg, Illinois, USA

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And So You Code Scrapbook Page 4 - Crossing 500,000 Views

2011-02-14T18:30:00.001+02:00

Especially for valentine's day, And So You Code views cross the 500,000 count :-)

The clip remake is coming up. Stay tuned.

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Magic Software Timeline

2011-02-08T10:47:00.005+02:00

Every now and then people wonder when was a specific version of uniPaaS released, or when Guy Bernstein assumed the position of CEO, or just another meaningful event in the life of Magic Software.

So I thought it would be nice to put all Magical events in a nice timeline.

At first I used Allofme.com but unfortunately they see to be going off the air this month.
So I switched to another timeline service - TimeToast.com.

Feel free to suggest other meaninigful Magical events - preferably with the exact date (and maybe also a link and a picture.
If you have such an event in mind, post its details in the comments section below.

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From Cubicles to Long Weekend Vacations

2011-02-06T16:02:00.007+02:00

Just got to play around abit with youtube.com/searchstories

A really cute and easy to use clip generator for telling a 30 seconds story using google's various search engines.

The immediate topic that came to my mind is quite obvious:

BTW, if you do want to download uniPaaS Jet, just click this image below:

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Microstrategy 9 – HTML Perfection

2011-01-20T12:41:00.008+02:00

As you probably read in the latest press release, Magic Software has signed a global alliance agreement with Microstrategy and now bundles the Microstrategy leading BI platform with its application platform (uniPaaS) and integration platform (iBOLT), enabling Magic Software customers to add smart BI capabilities to their Magic Software based solutions.

I do not intend to write about how essential BI is to organization for obtaining a clearer view of the organization activities and for reaching more tuned business decisions. This is well described in the Magic Software’s web site and the Microstrategy related material.

I am just still amazed by the level of perfection Microstrategy designers and developers have reached in their utilization of the DHTML technology and its complementary technologies.
One of Microstrategy distinct advantages over its competitors is having the entire toolset of the product (administration, report design, reports and dashboard display, distribution, etc) available over the internet using a browser. Any Browser for that matter.

Microstrategy 9 Web Report Designer showing a context menu

Having their very sophisticated user interface based on HTML, makes it available and fully supported by any common browser, be it Microsoft Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, or Mozilla FireFox. The result UI is consistent and truly ubiquitous (I just had to use this term once again…).

Microstrategy 9 Web Report Designer showing a dialog box

Not only that, the UX (user experience) is highly interactive and very much desktop-like. The UX includes true context menus, proper dialog boxes, drag & drop capabilities, and so on.
The smooth desktop–like UX of Microstrategy made the embedding of Microstrategy reports in uniPaaS live RIA Demo application a very elegant amalgamation of two products that truly complement each other.

Much kudos goes to the great group of designers and developers (and product managers, and QA people) who are responsible for this magnificent display of HTML-based design perfection.

From a technology\developer’s point of view, this is sheer poetry.

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Do not forget to watch, rate, comment and share "The Code Shack Redemption Trailer" and "And So You Code" hit song.

The Code Shack Redemption - Trailer

2010-12-21T22:06:00.014+02:00

I always wanted to create a trailer.

With uniPaaS always in mind and remembering one of the greatest films of all times - The Shawshank Redemption, I had to create a trailer based on both creations.

This video is a tribute to both masterpieces, each in its own realm.

If you haven’t seen "The Shawshank Redemption" yet, you must buy it or rent it ASAP. You can do that at Amazon.
One of the best things in doing this trailer was having the chance to see this movie once again.

This is truly how I and my fellow developers who use uniPaaS on a daily basis feel.
That uniPaaS can and does free you from the nasty shackles of coding. Developing complex applications in uniPaaS is a breeze, compared to other development tools.
So, if you haven't tried uniPaaS yet, you must check it out as well at Magic Software web site.

The music score used in this clip is taken from the movie's soundtrack - The Shawshank prison [Stoic Theme] and from one of the sample trailers of iMovie.

One of the greatest inspiration for this clip was the comedian
Pablo Francisco and his Previewman segment. He does it much better than I do.

And both of us do not get even close to the real thing, The voiceover king, Don LaFontaine.

All the newly added voice over, images, editing and titles I made myself.

I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed making it.

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“And So You Code” Scrapbook - Page 3 - A Short Remake

2010-12-19T14:19:00.001+02:00

I have invited all coders out there to send me their own pictures in scenes similar to the original "And so you code" clip so to create a whole new clip with real-life pictures.

So far I did not get enough pictures for a whole clip, but it seems that someone has beat me to it, and posted a new clip with new images. - Is he intercepting my inbox!? ;-). I guess reality is that he does a better work in collecting pictures.

Too bad it is just 30 sec long.

Here it is:

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Reaching IT Nirvana without Losing Touch with Reality

2010-12-08T13:14:00.004+02:00

The idea of completely detaching from solid grounds to hover in a new, virtual and somewhat amorphous state is inherently a deterring idea for any human being. Evidently there is something quite morbid about this idea.

Though the state of Nirvana is consciously or unconsciously aspired by many, very few dare to actually reach such a state. Essentially, the promise of Nirvana is to reach the state of being detached and free from the shackles of human suffering. Essentially, the promise of Cloud Computing is to reach a state of being detached and free from the shackles of IT infrastructures – i.e. IT suffering.

One way of reaching IT Nirvana

It is obvious why many fear a transition of such magnitude.

Many enterprises whether still contemplating on moving to the cloud, or even those who already began their journey to the cloud are very much concerned with the many risks and challenges that cloud computing entails:

Privacy\Security – Is there any true privacy in the cloud?
Availability – Can I trust a cloud infrastructure to be operational all day, every day?
Reliability - When disaster occurs, is the cloud vendor resourceful and skilled enough to recuperate?
Vendor Lock - Will it be possible to easily switch from one cloud infrastructure to another?

All these risk and challenges that everybody talks about these days have one attribute in common. They are all external risks. They are out of the direct control of the organization or the software vendor. It is a very natural and expected behavior to focus on external risks, especially for managers and leaders who usually exhibit strong internal locus of control. The more one tends to be in control of things, the more hesitant one becomes when things are taken out of one’s control.

CIOs and CTOs fear losing control over their IT infrastructure

When so much external challenges at hand, many overlook one internal challenge, which is regarded as trivial, and that is the transition of the existing application from client\server application to an internet application.
It is quite clear for many how the external risks may lead to project failure and unplanned costs, but as the cloud infrastructure maturity grows, the risks of moving to the cloud lie mostly in the successful transition of the application at hand.

Cloud means Internet and for many Internet means Browser and a whole new UI opportunity for their revamped applications, forgetting the fact that the application users have not changed.

Usability
One of the overlooked high risks when moving to the cloud is the risk of hindering the application usability and by that loosing the buy-in of the most important stakeholders - the application end-users.
Usability is achieved not just by adhering to general heuristics and UI design guidelines. Optimal usability is achieved (and most importantly maintained) by Familiarity and Consistency.

In a new application, UI familiarity and consistency is achieved by adhering to the same patterns, mental models, and terminology throughout the application.
In revamped applications, where the motivation for the application revamp is not its user experience, but its architecture) UI familiarity and consistency is achieved by maintaining a similar user experience (UX), so end-users do not get lost in a whole new user interface and do not need to spend days in learning the whereabouts of the new imposed UI.

For most organizations and projects, the cloud infrastructures maturity is strong enough to mitigate the risks of being an external infrastructure. The true risk nowadays lie in the capability of revamped applications to continue serve existing customer base without losing an ounce of end-users productivity.

When venturing into the cloud, do not lose sight of those who will eventually adopt or reject the new cloud-based application, thus deeming the project a success or a failure – your end-users. Your end-users did not choose to go to the cloud, it is the choice of the company. The end-users do not need nor want to sacrifice anything of their productivity for the sake of new infrastructure efficiency.

CIOs and CTOs should fear this much more than they fear cloud-infrastructures

Detaching business applications from solid grounds (on-premise) and losing touch with reality (end-users) will result not in IT Nirvana but in applications miserable demise.

CIOs and CTOs are at a crossroad, needing not only to choose the right cloud-based infrastructure but also the right RIA technology. The major criteria for that RIA technology is the ability to keep the end-users productive at least as before the transition by providing them a true desktop experience over the internet.

Microsoft, described it beautifully in their recent Cloud-Power video: “I can change how everyone works, without changing how everyone works!”. This sums it all up.

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BI Reports Integrated in uniPaaS Live RIA Demo System

2010-12-01T17:03:00.004+02:00

The uniPaaS RIA live demo was enhanced today with embedded BI reports and dashboards.

Once the application is running you will notice a new menu option titled “BI Report”.
Click this option to open the BI Reports and Dashboards window.

The new BI Reports menu option

In the newly opened window you will see a list of reports on the left-hand side of the screen.
Scroll through to select the report or dashboard you desire and click the large push button in the center of the screen, or press the F5 key.

The Display Report button appears whenever you switch from one report to another

The selected report is displayed in the center of the screen.
Once the report is displayed you can press the “Open as PDF” button at the bottom to display the same report in a PDF format.

An example of an embedded BI dashboard

Run these reports as part of a whole rich internet application, anytime, anywhere.

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“Application Development Teams Must Find A Better Way To Develop Apps”

2010-11-24T11:10:00.002+02:00

In his recent blog post, “Java Is A Dead-End For Enterprise App Development”, Mike Gualtieri, a Forrester Analyst, describes the reasons for which Java, though still firmly planted in enterprise IT shops for custom-developed applications, has served its purpose, and that now it is time for Java based development teams to move forward and that “Application development teams must find a better way to develop apps”.

Java’s success can be contributed essentially to two of its basic characteristics: Cross Platform and Open Source.

Though open source proved to be successful for commercial companies selling commodities such as Linux, MySQL, and JBoss, as Peter Yared writes in his guest blog post “The Failure of Commercial Open Source Software”, it failed to provide companies any significant advantage over proprietary software. “Commercial open source companies have the same cost structure as the enterprise software companies that preceded them” says Yared, and he further explains that “many open source companies exhibit at tradeshows, have salespeople, systems engineers, customer services departments, and on top of that employ the vast majority of developers that are working on their open source project.” and he adds “ the headache of maintaining a community and integrating random code patches is just as expensive as fixing reported bugs with your own people.”

However, with all its merits, Java was and still is a 3GL coding platform, which haven’t really resolved the coding complexities that many organizations wish to avoid. “Java development is too complex for business application development” says Gultieri. And he is absolutely right. Big, complex enterprise business applications become a coding nightmare when based on Java (or any other 3GL for that matter).

Gualtieri concludes his blog post by stating that “Development platforms are not the only items to consider. Cloud computing and mobile, to name a few, are other trends that must factor into your new strategy”. Indeed! Many companies are now at a significant cross-road, where turning their applications into cloud-enabled application becomes imperative and new, apt technologies and platforms are required. Companies realize that they need much more than a development platform, they need a cloud-enabled, mobile-enabled application platform that will enable them to make this dramatic shift with minimal risk, shortest time to market and with a significant, rapid and positive ROI.

Ttrend trains are moving faster than ever

uniPaaS is exactly what companies should be looking at right now. These are critical times, where trend trains are moving faster than ever, and companies need to get their act together and move fast. Decisions need to be taken now. Decisions should not be based on past glory, or fondness of past platforms. Brave decisions should be made for the near and far future. The chosen platform should be such that covers all angles: Cloud-ready, Mobile-ready, Super Productive, Super Flexible, an Completely Open to enable companies to rapidly ascend to the clouds in the shortest time possible without throwing away past investment in legacy applications, and while preserving the option to move between on-premise to off-premise deployment at any given time.

Cloud and Mobile are very disruptive trends, luckily uniPaaS is able to sooth such disruptions and overcome them with great success. As Gualtieri sums it up “You must transform to a Lean, Mean Change Machine”.

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RIA Security – From Blazing Livestock to Solid Platform

2010-11-15T18:32:00.028+02:00

The web is still buzzing over Firesheep and the easiness of hacking that it demonstrates.

Firesheep serves as a good wake-up call for many end-users and application developers, reminding us, again, the great vulnerability of web applications.

In a short and concise explanation in his recent blog post, Jeff Atwood shows that except for properly packaged UI, intended for the novice hacker, Firesheep brings no actual technology news, and in fact it just surfaces part of the web vulnerability which hasn’t changed much in the past years.

A web session hijacked by FireSheep

Firesheep is one more example of how browser-based web applications can be easily hacked and intruded by malicious third-parties.
Firesheep is based mainly on packet sniffing done over unsecured wireless connections. But the same principles can be employed also on LANs.

Many organizations that choose to developer their in-house applications as RIA, sometimes overlook the fact that even though the application is not exposed to the outside world, malicious interventions are still a threat.

Organizations who are about to develop their new internet applications must consider the following:

To be (Browser based) or not to be (Browser based) – The browser open and standard nature suggests that web application developers who chose to go “browser based” (which is still the default choice for many) must go into many security considerations and preemptive design to circumvent the browser default vulnerabilities. Though for many “browser” is very much a synonym for “Internet”, more and more developers and IT Managers realize that an internet application does not necessarily need to be confined to a browser. Considering the security vulnerabilities of the browser and many other factors (Desktop UX, Client Side Interaction, etc) an independent RIA client would be a much more secured and suitable solution.

Sir Laurence Olivier as Hamlet

To Code or not to Code – Coding your own infrastructure means that one takes upon oneself a very big load of responsibility and work to cover all security issues. If you want your RIA fully secured, and enable your end-users to log-in your internet application, even over unsecured lines at the airport, you must cover all issues yourself.
On the other hand, a comprehensive RIA platform, dedicated for business applications, which covers all security issues for you and protects your applications from phising, impersonation, script injections, session hijacking and more, allows you to peacefully concentrate on the business requirement of your application, and spend little, if no time at all, in resolving all the security issues yourself.

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The Corporate On-Premises Power Plant

2010-11-01T11:57:00.009+02:00

Every second person that attempts to explain to a newbie what Cloud Computing is all about uses the analogy of Electricity as a utility we all consume as a service. This analogy emphasizes the economical benefits of utilizing electricity that is generated at a huge power plant: The costs are much cheaper by leveraging the economy of scale, usage fluctuations are easily addressed, you pay for what you use, etc.

Like many other analogies, also this one is limited. I very much agree with James Urquhart who
wrote in his blog post “In cloud computing, data is not electricity” that while I do not care which electrons are being served to my refrigerator by the power plant, I do care very much which data bits are served to my PC from the remote data center that I am using.

Some use other utility services as an analogy to Cloud computing. For example, office services, car leasing, or water supply.

Nevertheless, Electricity is still the best analogy, especially when it comes to businesses.

Software and Electricity are two services without them most enterprises cannot work. Being out of toilet paper, or without water for a few hours would not make much difference for most enterprises (putting aside the time wasted in complaints of frustrated employees) but business continuity is not affected. Once software or electricity goes down, business continuity is gone, and money is lost.

For this reason many organizations that cannot afford to have their business continuity disrupted invest in their own, small-size, on premise power plant - aka an Electric Generator.

On-Premises Power Plant

It is clear for many that in order to insure business continuity; enterprises must have an on-premise backup option to cope with unexpected power-failures.

In this respect the Electricity analogy still stands. When it comes to cloud computing and Software-as-a-Service, enterprises realizes that an on-premise option of their software and local replication of its data is a must-have requirement.

Cloud computing is far from being at the maturity stage of nation-wide electric grids. This is why a hybrid deployment capability (off-premise and on-premise) is imperative.

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"And So You Code" - Join the Clip Remake

2010-10-19T10:11:00.006+02:00

This is an invitation to all "And So You Code" fans out there.

I am creating a new clip with the same song using real-life images of real programmers.

If you wish to take part in the new clip, just take a picture of yourself or friends depicting one of the images in the current clip (e.g. frustrated in front of the computer, juggling your mouse and keyboard, looking very boss-like, crying, passing out, etc) or another image that could fit the clip.

You can use a self portrait arm or just ask your friend to take a picture of you

Send the pictures to the following email: andsoyoucode@gmail.com

By sending your pictures you state that 1) The pictures are yours, 2) you and the people that appear in the picture agree to have the picture used in the remake of "And So You Code" (using the same music and lyrics and some of the original images)

Credit will be given to every picture owner (unless that person request to stay anonymous).

With your pictures we can create a very authentic programmers clip.

I cannot guarantee that every submitted picture will be included in the clip.

Here is the clip once again:

CAPTCHA A La uniPaaS – Technology and Usability Guidelines

2010-10-14T10:07:00.003+02:00

You may not know what CAPTCHA truly means or what the acronym stands for but most probably you have been using it more than once in various web forms.

CAPTCHA stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart, which in simple words is it a sort of a challenge test that is intended to make sure the party that responds to the challenge is human and not a machine.

The common use for CAPTCHA in submit forms is an image showing a sequence of randomly distorted and etched over characters which most computers are not able to identify the distorted characters. In most cases only humans can decipher the characters in the image. So the test is very simple, if the typed in characters sequence match the sequence used to generate the CAPTCHA image, then most likely the entity that typed in the sequence is human and not a machine.

CAPTCHA is used to avoid spamming web servers by automating the submission process. The requirement for a mandatory parameter which is dynamically changing and cannot be resolved by a machine makes such automation impossible.

If you are creating a browser-based application which utilizes regular HTTP posts for server interactions, and there is a risk of users to abuse the option of data submission, it is advisable to add a CAPTCHA image recognition module in your submit forms.

When creating or choosing a CAPTCHA module, you should take into consideration the following principles and guidelines.

Technology Guidelines

The first, somewhat trivial guideline, is to make sure the submit process cannot be completed without fulfilling the CAPTCHA challenge. There are cases in which CAPTCHA module is placed as part of the submit form, and the page scripts prevents completing the submit process, but the data can still be submitted by generating the HTTP Post URL eternally.
Keep the string comparison logic on the server side. Do not pass the expected string to the client to make the comparison resolution on the client side. This can be easily tracked down and utilized for automating the submission.
Avoid generating the Image on the server and stream it directly to the client. Keeping a physical copy of the image is redundant.
Make the image generation truly random. Some take the easy path of producing a large collection of pre-generated images. Pre-generated images can be traced and logged b ya malicious end-user to later on be used for automatic submission.

Usability Guidelines

From the end-user point of view CAPTCHA is just a hassle. And when the end-user fails to complete the challenge successfully due to various difficulties, the experience becomes very negative.

There are many libraries and modules that produce distorted and noise covered characters. Some produce too much distortion that even most humans cannot decipher. Make sure the text can still be discerned.
Do not use mixed characters cases. Do not have both lower case and uppercase appear in your CAPTCHA images, many times it is quite difficult to discern lower lowercase c or upper case C. Either choose one character case and stick to it or make the text validation to be case insensitive. In any case, let your users know how characters case is handled.
Do not use all letters and numbers. Some characters are very similar, for example the digit zero and the letter O. Filter out characters that may be confused with others.
Allow the end-user to change the image to a different one in cases the end-user is unable to figure out the displayed text.
For greater accessibility, especially for those with impaired vision, add audio option to the image that recites the displayed characters.
Do not annoy the end-user with too many CAPTCHA challenges in case subsequent submissions are expected that also require human identification. Simply keep the first CAPTCHA positive result persistent on the server side for the entire user context\session.
Inform end-users about the mechanism, add a link\button to open up a text box explaining the mechanism and the need for it.

CAPTCHA A La uniPaaS Example

Click on the image below to run a uniPaaS example for integrating CAPTCHA and handling it.

In the next posts I will describe in details how this CAPTCHA example was achieved in uniPaaS.

“And So You Code” Scrapbook - Page 2

2010-10-06T09:27:00.007+02:00

Checkout how "and so you code" made it to the this youtube Nerdy News flash:

The clip is mentioned at 1:05 minutes.

“And So You Code” Scrapbook - Page 1

2010-10-04T09:36:00.003+02:00

I am quite amazed to see how far “And So You Code” has reached.

Not only in terms of viewcount in a relative short period (250,000 views in one month) but also in the way it is embraced by so many programmers and developers around the world.

As long as the clip is up I decided to use my blog and to create a sort of scrapbook to keep record of the interesting ripples made by “And So You Code”.

The first page goes to another programmers’ viral clip of “Lady Java”.

I was amazed to see a couple of weeks ago a short comment placed on Lady Java simply stating “And so you code”.
Now this comment is ranked as the 2nd most favorite comment for this clip (total of 36 Thumbs up).

Moreover, it seems that at least 5,400 views of “Lady Java” are direct referrals from “And so you code”.

I’ll keep an eye on “Lady Java” and other related virals.

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And So You Code...

2010-09-02T11:37:00.011+03:00

Alors on Danse - I just can't get this great tune out of my head.
Plus being so very bored last night resulted in this video.

It was of course created for the fun of it.

Though this is a result of merely 4 hours work, I still hope you enjoy it.

The music score is of the great hit of the extremely Belgian composer and singer: Stromae and the name of his hit song is "Alors on Danse".

You can also view the original track of Alors on Danse with the French lyrics and English subtitles.

Check out the scrapbook pages of this clip: Page 1,
Page 2

Follow this blog for more scrapbook pages to see where this clip has reached.

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Assuring Strong HL7 V.3 Message Adaptation

2010-08-17T16:44:00.001+03:00

July 2010, Gartner Inc, a leading information technology research company, reached the gloomy prediction for HL7 v.3 messages that suggests a market penetration of "Less than 1 percent of target audience". In its "Hype Cycle for Healthcare Provider Technologies and Standards, 2009", Gartner places HL7 V.3 messages just before the Trough of Disillusionment with the sad indication of "Obsolete before plateau" which means most chances HL7 V.3 messages is most likely to find itself abandoned for the sake of its future successor or it predecessor, HL7 V2.x messages.

Gartner's Hype Cycle for Healthcare Provider Technologies and Standards, 2010

How come, that HL7 V.3 message, which introduced a much better and clearer message structure, looses the adaptation battle to the relatively ill-structured predecessor, HL7 V2.x?

The reasons for that are many. The main reason goes under the rule of "If it works, don’t fix it". HL7 V.3 messages experienced a very slow adoption rate primarily due to the very successful adaptation of its predecessor. Many healthcare systems have already established inter-system communication using HL7 V2.x messages, and the return of re-aligning those systems to comply with the new messages standard does not seem to conquer the required investment.

Moreover, the HL7 V.3 introduced not only XML structured messages, which for many organizations was a tough structure to swallow; it also introduced much more rigid syntactical rules.

Adopting healthcare systems to the HL7 V.3 standard is indeed a challenge, and Gartner 2010 prediction seems to be based on solid evidence. However seeing how large organization and governmental institutes in some countries have made the transition to HL7 V.3, healthcare system vendors are slowly starting to follow suit.

Another reason for making HL7 V.3 successfully pass Gartner's Trough of Disillusionment and reach the Plateau of Productivity is the fact that application and data integration tools such as Magic Software iBOLT Integration platform reduce the complexity of turning HL7 V2.x messages to HL7 V.3 messages and vice versa.

iBOLT for HL7, provides a special HL7 adaptor which automatically transforms HL7 FV2.x messages to common XML structure which can then be easily transformed into the required HL7 V.3 messages. The transformation of XML documents is done using iBOLT's visual data mapper.

Using iBOLT for HL7, organizations having legacy healthcare systems at their hands can reduce their vendor lock by taking control over the integration required between their new and legacy systems and transform HL7 messages by themselves, orchestrate and fully manage every integration processes.

The high risk and costs that were initially foreseen with the introduction of HL7 V.3 message standard are no longer valid and are no longer relevant. Conforming to the HL7 V.3 standard is achievable with much lower risk and much lower costs using iBOLT for HL7.

As more and more healthcare systems users and vendors choose iBOLT to successfully cross the chasm of HL7 standard generations the more likely we are to see in Gartner's next Hype Cycle report the HL7 V.3 proudly placed on the Plateau of Productivity and with a much more established market penetration.

A Cloud for a Cloud

2010-05-17T11:43:00.003+03:00

Once again people find themselves stranded, away from their home, family and work, due to the cloud of volcanic ash that keeps on hovering over the UK and Western Europe.

(Image link from Telegraph.co.uk)

Many companies who have sent their employees overseas for a business trip face more than just greater travel expenses due to the unplanned visit extension (in some cases even paying high volcanic premium). They also face lost work days of those employees. For most employees those lost workdays costs the company much more than the extra nights at the hotel and the employees Per Diem.

"Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire;
Threaten the threatener and outface the brow
Of bragging horror"
(The Life and Death of King John, William Shakespeare)

Like fighting fire with fire, we find ourselves fighting cloud with cloud.

Cloud computing enables employees remain active both socially and professionally at anytime, anywhere, as long as there is electricity and internet connection.

The already mundane cloud computing software and technologies, such as email, IM, VoiP, and social networks enable people to maintain, to some extent, their online routine even when stranded away from home.

Companies that consume their business applications in the form of SaaS, are able to get their employees working and contributing even when they are far away from the office.

Companies that were wise enough to have also their internal systems available as rich internet applications (RIA) on a private cloud are able to get their employees fully engaged in the company's daily routine while sitting in their hotel room or in a coffee shop.

Business continuity is very much dependant not only on the servers being operational 24X7 but also on one's flight back home. Extending the reach of the companies' IT system through cloud based computing mitigates the risks of cloud dependent commuting.

The Magic Software Israel Annual Conference 2010

2010-05-05T14:15:00.005+03:00

Last week, I had the true pleasure of attending the annual conference of Magic Software Israel.

To say the least, it was a very successful event. It was perfectly executed, and with great content.

I was very pleased to see many new and young faces that have joined the Magic community and attended the event.

A few of the conference attendees

Eyal Pfeifel, Magic Software's new CTO, had two presentations in this event and he did a great job in presenting uniPaaS RIA and seeded much excitement with the new horizon of both uniPaaS and iBOLT in his products roadmap presentation.

Eyal Pfeifel, Magic Software CTO, delivering one of his presentations

Two customers stories where presented in the event. One was of Menarva, a young software house that had successfully developed and delivered Software-as-a-Service applications using uniPaaS RIA. Ido and Doron, the co-founders of Menarva, shared their experience in becoming a SaaS vendor which goes from the competitive advantage uniPaaS RIA gave them by enabling them to come out with a genuine SaaS offering in the shortest time possible, to the do's and dont's of establishing a SaaS offering.

The other customer story was of VISA Credit Cards. Doron Bonim and his team were able to improve existing workflows of their sales people by replacing spreadsheets and offline updates with a highly tuned RIA to automate and optimize their assignments, to fully synchronize the sales people work and to provide management proper view and control.
Against management skepticism, who did not believe they could finish the project in six months, they eventually finished the project in two calendar months, with the workforce of 4 developers who were already engaged with other projects during those two months - quite amazing.
This is a true evidence of the unmatched productivity of uniPaaS.

Much credit must go to Aric Mifano, VP Marketing of Magic Software Israel, and Tamar Hartal of Magic Software Global marketing for outstanding event production.

I, myself, had the pleasure of contributing to this event just a few hours of my time in making a short invitation clip. I had the great pleasure of doing this clip together with Lior Manor, one of the best and world renowned (and nicest) magicians.

Lior Manor, captivating the audience

Lior Manor was the anchor of the entire event and he did a marvelous job. Not only did he deliver the company's messages very elegantly, he also managed to link his mind reading acts to each presentation very professionally. His was highly entertaining.

The clip was done in Hebrew, so I have subtitled it in English for your convenience.

Downloading and Installing uniPaaS Discovery

2010-03-11T12:56:00.006+02:00

A fresh new video clip is now up showing all newcomers how to download uniPaaS Discovery and how to install it.

If the clip did not clarify it completely, I wanted to emphasize the fact that the uniPaaS Discovery installation comes with complimentary Discovery licenses for development and deployment.

So if you want to start developing using uniPaaS Discovery just download and install it and you are ready to go.

Remote Control Usability - Where is the key?

2010-03-01T17:44:00.007+02:00

I have this DVD recorder that has puzzled me time and time again. Why is it that whenever I am instructed to press the Return key in the Remote Control, it takes me a while to locate it.

Here is the part of the remote control where the Return key is located.

Instinctively I find myself pressing the top-right key, even though that key is also marked to be used for "Previous Chapter".
After realizing that the screen does not respond to pressing this key I then remember, by examining the bottom of this panel, that the key title is written above the corresponding key and not below. This can easily be figured out by looking at the bottom of this panel, where the lowest keys have their titles marked above them.

However the top line keys have no title above them, their title is on each key. This is why the titles of the second line of keys (the first line of text) look as if they correspond to the first line of keys.

The mix of icons on the keys and titles above the keys is required when a key carries 2 actions (each relevant in different contexts of use). This is why the icons on the top keys are regarded as a secondary action of the keys and the titles below them are automatically regarded as belonging to the same keys. However this is not the case, all keys are used for a single action.

The following modified image would produce a much clearer panel. In this case the right key of the second line would be instinctively (and correctly) identified as the Return key.

This is an example of how the lack of consistency effects the ability of the user to remember how the interface should be operated.

In this case pressing the "Previous Chapter" key instead of the Return key results in no effect (because the "Previous Chapter" is not relevant in cases the Return key is relevant"). It would have been much more annoying if the "Previous Chapter" key would have effected the flow of operations.

It is highly important to keep the user interface consistent and to adhere to whatever layout model you choose to implement. Failing to keep interface consistency will result in increased users frustrations, loss of valuable time, and more mistakes.

Google's Browser-Size demonstrates uniPaaS RIA Advantage

2010-01-05T16:46:00.005+02:00

Google Labs latest aired experiment is Google's Browser Size.

This is a very straightforward service that enables one to examine how a web page would be seen by its various visitors depending on their screen resolution.

This service is based on the accumulated information gathered by Google on the screen resolutions used by user all over the world.

With this service you can estimate the portion of users that need to scroll down to reach specific parts of your web pages, suggesting that important elements may be hidden in first glance to some of the users.

This service is relevant for browser based pages only and it cannot be used for non-browser Internet applications such as uniPaaS RIA.

But do not be discouraged because in browser-free RIA implementation such as of uniPaaS size does not matter much as it does in browser based applications.
uniPaaS placement feature enables one to easily design the pages to fit the various screen sizes of all users. With the placement feature, one makes sure that with any screen size, the most important screen elements will be placed correctly following the interface design guidelines.

With uniPaaS RIA you can make sure that your users will never miss an important checkbox or input field that in a browser based user interface might become hidden due to a small screen resolution.

This is another example for one of the many benefits one gets by having a Rich Internet Application deployed using a fully controlled dedicated client. In this respect, uniPaaS RIA, not only reduces the chances of user mistakes, it also reduces the interface design efforts.

Integrating Speech in RIA in less than 4 minutes

2009-12-08T21:38:00.015+02:00

For those of you who are interested in seeing how the .NET text-to-speech (TTS) service can be integrated in a uniPaaS RIA, I have prepared this short demo clip.

In this clip you can see how utilizing TTS is achieved in less than 4 minutes.

Click play and enjoy.

(The movie is displayed using windows media player active-x. Make sure you confirm its execution if prompted by the browser)

The source of the RIA demo including the TTS sample is available for download from the RIA demo help menu.

Upgrading the RIA Demo to uniPaaS V1.8 SP1

2009-11-16T16:04:00.006+02:00

The Live RIA Demo application has been upgraded and it now use uniPaaS V1.8 Service Pack 1 for deployment.

When you run it again your client will get updated automatically and then continue to run the demo.

The source and resources files of the demo in its latest version are also available for download in the same place as before. That is under the Help pulldown menu.

The download screen keeps the link to the V1.8 version of the source files in case you wish to continue and use the previous release of uniPaaS V1.8.

Enjoy :-)

Smart Cats Know What is Best for Them

2009-10-21T00:02:00.005+02:00

I know the "Downfall" bit I posted a few months ago was too sensitive for some people, so I hope this one will not stir too many negative emotions (or allergies…).

Lotus and Salesforce.com Synchronization Clip is Ready

2009-10-11T14:18:00.006+02:00

I am happy to inform you all that the clip demonstrating how easily one can synchronize Lotus Notes address book for any change made in the Salesforce.com contacts is finally ready and it is now available for all to watch.

You can view it on YouTube (Full screen view is recommended):

Or you can open the flash version of it on our web site.

Moving on to the next clip...

More Got Excited about iBOLT

2009-10-01T10:04:00.008+02:00

Three weeks ago I got very excited in experiencing the great ease of integrating an off-premise application such as Salesforce.com and on-premise applications like Lotus Notes and Domino Server using iBOLT.

It seems that it was not just me who got excited about iBOLT, and the way it enables organizations to easily integrate cloud applications with their on-premise applications. Nefos GmbH, a leading premier consulting partner of Salesforce.com located in Zurich, Switzerland, chose iBOLT for the very reason I got all excited about.

As a leading partner of Salesforce.com, and like any other integrator of SaaS applications, Nefos GmbH face the challenge of integrating the SaaS application with the exiting on premises applications that the organization already uses and wishes to continue and use. iBOLT truly gives them a great advantage in enabling such integrations with a high level of productivity, with great ease of use and with the confidence of robust delivery.

When you have iBOLT with which you can easily tame complex cloud applications, even the sky is no longer the limit.

PS. The clip I prepared showing how easily you can synchronize your Lotus Notes address book with Salesforce.com contacts is ready and will soon be available.

Re-excited about iBOLT while synchronizing Lotus Domino and Salesforce.com

2009-09-08T10:42:00.007+03:00

I am working now on recording a live demo showing how easily Salesforce.com CRM application can be synchronized with Lotus Notes.

For the demo I chose to show how I synchronize my Lotus Domino Address book with the contacts created and updated in Salesforce.com.

For every new contact in Salesforce.com, iBOLT adds a new contact in my Lotus Domino Address book and whenever a contact is updated or deleted on Salesforce.com, iBOLT updates that contact or removes it from Lotus Domino.

Every time I get the opportunity to demo something in iBOLT I am struck with amazement. As a Magician developing with eDeveloper and uniPaaS, I am very much accustomed to high productivity. And still iBOLT amazes me by doing complex processes so simple.

Keeping my Lotus address book fully synchronized by any modification done to the Salesforce.com contacts is achieved by this one short and simple flow:

Stay tuned to see the final video.

Which is Rich in RIBA?

2009-07-15T08:40:00.013+03:00

Enterprises already realize that the design of a rich business application deployed over the Internet (RIBA), must avoid the unsuitable user experience achieved by common browser-based designs.

Business application designers understand that their end-users are still accustomed to the fully managed, flowing, and familiar user experience that is provided by desktop applications.

Keeping a desktop-like user experience does not only reduces end-user frustration and increases the adaptation of a new application, but it also maintains and even increases the end-users' productivity and overall satisfaction.

UI Vs. UX
It is important to distinguish between rich User Interface (UI) and rich User Experience (UX), especially when it comes to business applications that are more of a B2B nature.
Rich UI caters more to the way the application looks like, while rich UX relates more to the way the application is used. Rich UI may offer a highly esthetic design utilizing the latest graphical design patterns and capabilities, including elaborated animations, newly shaped controls, embedded media, and so on.
However highly graphically designed UI may not yield the optimal UX and many cases it would only hinder the expected UX.

Focus on Rich UX
Rich UX caters first and foremost to the usability factors that will enable the end-user to complete each task in the most efficient and productive manner.

Rich UX is designed to be highly intuitive, by following common models of UI manipulation.

Rich UX top criteria suggest a highly workable application, with minimal effort in understanding the interface and its underlying functionality, optimal performance and end-user productivity, and eventually such that creates great end-user satisfaction.

This does not mean that the UX should be over esthetic or should necessarily employ complex rich UI elements. It means that when it comes to RIBA rich UI is just means to an end, but not the end itself.

uniPaaS V1.8 RIA Demo - Project Source

2009-07-09T09:17:00.004+03:00

I am happy to inform everyone that the project source files of the latest uniPaaS RIA demo version are now available for download.
You can find the project source files at Magic Software's knowledge base.
I recommend going over the document that accompanies the project source before you run it.

The RIA demo project source available at Magic Software's knowledge base

The project source includes all the new .NET integration sample programs that are demonstrated in the RIA demo new ".NET Integration" pulldown menu.
The project source also includes all the mobile demo programs.
Feel free to do anything you like with the project source. You can copy any part of it, combine it in your own RIA projects; you can freely distribute it, you can freely present it anywhere, you can share it with your friends, your spouse, your parents, your grandparents, your children, your children's children, your neighbors, and your mailman. You can share it with anyone.

The RIA Demo showing embedded .NET progress bars

Enjoy it.

New .NET Floating Clock in the RIA Demo

2009-06-22T18:23:00.007+03:00

Last week the Magic Software's .NET RIA Demo was upgraded to uniPaaS V1.8 and already was enhanced with a few .NET integration examples, showing mostly .NET controls.

The RIA Demo now has another .NET integration example showing the integration of a .NET assembly that displays a .NET form.

The example is a simple one displaying a floating clock. From the uniPaaS form you can control the visibility of the clock'c form and its opacity.

The following images demonstrate two levels of opacity controlled from the uniPaaS demo window (the clock floats above the window's title):

You can also drag the clock display by pressing the mouse button on any of the digits and moving the mouse pointer anywhere on your desktop.

UniPaaSão Mobilizão

2009-06-17T17:53:00.006+03:00

I know no Portuguese, but I love the way this language sounds and how many words have this cool long ending of "ão", like coração (Heart).

I very much liked the new post on YouTube featuring uniPaaS mobile RIA demo the way it was demonstrated to a large Brazilian audience by my esteemed colleague Helio Diamant.
I hardly understood anything Helio said but indeed a picture is worth a thousand words and more so a movie clip.

It was very encouraging to see how well the application performed considering the lame machine the server process runs on at Magic Software HQ building, on the other side of the globe.

Well done Helio :-)

Understanding the Richness of RIA

2009-06-10T12:55:00.017+03:00

A Cool Presenter
I just finished viewing a presentation of Jamie Cool, a Program Manager at Microsoft Corporation, that took place in the Professional Developers Conference of October 2008 (PDF2008).

The title of the presentation is "Microsoft Silverlight: Building Business Focused Applications" so it was very interesting for me to examine how SIlverlight deals with the requirements of developing business applications.

I must say that I was quite surprised by the introduction of Jamie Cool to the nature of RIA when it comes to business application. That was of course after his introduction of himself talking about how cool is last name is which is indeed "Cool".

When I say 'Rich Experience'...
The interpretation of Richness part of RIA differs in different contexts of use. Many think that elaborated graphical elements & design capabilities, animation, and video & audio streaming constitute the required Richness of RIA.
This is true when it comes to commercial, social, or gaming related applications. But this is not the case when it comes to business applications.
Also Jamie Cool himself, a SIlverlight evangelist, could make the required distinction between the contexts of use, and here is his definition of Rich Internet Applications:

"If we're gonna be talking about business application, let's talk about what do they need. And what do they need that can make Silverlight a good platform for them. Well, you know, the first thing they need are 'Rich Experiences'. When I say 'Rich Experience' I don't mean, you know, buttons shaped like fishes, or things spinning around or the, you know, ultimate animation. What I really mean is "interactive UI". Odds are you're applications has a bunch of data in it. You need users to be able to manipulate that quickly without having to constant refreshes. Without having to do multiple clicks to accomplish a task. You need a very interactive compelling UI for that type of scenario." (Time mark 00:03:10)

You can hear this part yourself (excerpt taken from the above link

In this respect Jamie is right on the money in describing the Richness business applications require. However judging by the cumbersome development paradigm Silverlight offers compared to uniPaaS, I am not sure that Silverlight is a good platform for business applications, as Jamie suggests.

RIA Slide taken from Cool's presentation

That's 3GL for Ya
When you will get to Time mark 00:10:30 in the presentation, you can check out the complexity Silverlight presents to accomplish data display. As it was always the case, there is a kind of pride in 3GLs, such as ASP.NET and Silverlight, of the myriad options a programmer has and needs to pick from. The liberty of technological choices stands at the heart of all 3GL's complexity.
uniPaaS productivity approach suggests that you do not need to pick any technology to accomplish your data transmission. Just define the data you want to use, and it will be transmitted automatically for you. The most appropriate technology was already selected.

Dealing at the level of sockets, WCF Duplex, Direct HTTP requests, REST, XML structures is great technological fun, but organizations need their projects to be delivered on time and on budget. Deliver your project before schedule and then have a lot of fun time exploring technologies.

The great Distance between Just Displaying Data to Actually Doing Something
The code required to just display data on the browser is not trivial, also in Silverlight. The worst part of it is that the gap between the data display to data input, validation, server update, business rules employment, and elaborated data entry UI, is substantial. Take your time to go over this presentation to get a sense of how much script and code are required to produce the basic functions of a business application (Scrolling, Paging, Filtering) that are so trivial to accomplish in uniPaaS.

It is even more amazing to see that business application development principles that are integral part of uniPaaS ever since its predecessors, such as field validation settings, are presented on October 2008 as the future plans for Silverlight.

Client code and Server code – Unite !!!
Silverlight is indeed making progress in enabling the client code to hook and access the application server code. But still the paradigm suggests separated development of the two entities, which are on the one hand tightly coupled, not leaving room for future replacement of one of the tiers, and on the other still keeping the cumbersome development of the two separated code entities.
uniPaaS offering the required business application richness and a unitary development paradigm is definitely the right tool for the job.

Dressing up for the Occasion
Now, don't get me wrong, Silverlight is extra cool. With it you can produce really breathtaking UI. But as Jamie said, your business applications require a different kind of UI. Using Silverlight or Flash for your business applications is like wearing your best tuxedo or evening gown to the office – every day of the week. If you are going to work, just put on a normal suit, or in some parts of the world (like the one I am coming from) just put on your jeans and T-shirt and spend more time working than dressing up.

Now that we understand what sort of UI we need, then why invest valuable time in coding client module and server modules as Silvelight does. Why not do the same with less. Do the same with uniPaaS.

P.S. - Time for RIBA
I do believe that it is high time for a new IT acronym to be introduced – RIBA – Rich Internet Business Application.

uniPaaS RIA Vs. Adobe Flex – Doing The Same with Less

2009-06-02T17:33:00.011+03:00

I know no Portuguese, but I love the way this language sounds and how many words have this cool long ending of "ão", like coração (Heart).
Browsing through competitors web sites and blogs in order to get better understanding of their offering I came upon a sample for flash based RIA and I was quite amazed with the amount of code and hassle one needs to go through to produce a very simple task in Flash compared to straight-forward manner of achieving the same functionality in uniPaaS RIA.

This introduction level example of Adobe perfectly illustrates the complexity imposed by the use of diverse technologies for implementing RIA, where the development is based on separated client and server side technologies. The Adobe flex example shows how even for the simplest task one needs to break the task requirement into 3 parts:

1. Client Side Logic
2. Server Side Logic
3. Client\Server Communication

Implementing the same example in uniPaaS RIA shows how the implementation is greatly simplified having a unitary technology and development paradigm.

Compared to the more than 50 lines of code required in Adobe Flex, uniPaaS RIA achieves the same with 6 lines of operations and 6 expression rules. And this is for the simplest task.

View the following online presentation to see all screens and code of both Adobe Flex and uniPaaS (It is recommended to view it in Full Screen mode).

You can also view the presentaion at Zoho

Why waste valuable time and effort where you can achieve the same result with much less work.

Lunch Time Usability

2009-05-20T14:06:00.007+03:00

In the office we get to order our lunch over an online ordering system. The system's web site generally works well and has its faults like many other web sites.
However there is one very annoying matter that I go through every time I log into the web site to order my lunch. It is just one simple checkbox that implements, not 1, not 2, but 3 usability mistakes.

The checkbox appears on the log-in page and it is intended to allow the user to set if the log in details should be kept for future access or not.
It starts well. On the log-in page the checkbox suggests to "Save Login Details".
If you choose to keep your login details you simply check it. Clear enough.
The next time you access the system the problems start.

Inconsistent Functionality
On a consecutive access you get to the same page and the checkbox changes its description and functionality to "Disable auto login". Imagine how many users, just like me, clicked the checkbox again, thinking their previous update did not stick and actually undoing their previous setting.

A better way to handle this matter is to simply keep the previous description and keep the checkbox checked. If one wishes not to keep one's details anymore one should simply uncheck the checkbox. This suits the basic mental model of undoing a previous setting – "I turn a switch on and later I can turn it off". In the current design "I turn a switch on and then I need to turn another switch on in order to turn the previous one off"…. Oh lord….

Redundant Walkthrough Page
The erroneous checkbox suggests "Auto Login" though no automatic log-in is done in this case. If I choose to keep my log-in details then why do I need to go through the login page every time I access the web site? Why not get logged-in automatically and be directed to the secured section already logged-in?
Implementing automatic log-in sequence would also eliminate this ridiculous "disable" checkbox.

Double Negative
My first blog entry related to the problematic double negative checkboxes. This "Disable Auto Login" checkbox is another example where the user needs to uncheck (a negative action) a negative action (disable).

What Should be done
Simply do what all other secured web sites do. Have a checkbox of "Remember me" and once checked the user is always directed into the secured part without going through the login page.

It is simple as that.

Until it this annoying checkbox is fixed, it would be better for me to avoid this checkbox by simply walking a few yards and get lunch myself – This would be a win-win situation. Maybe it would be better if the checkbox will kept as it is so I will get more time outside the office.

The unbelievable lightness of Mobile Development

2009-05-12T18:34:00.006+03:00

With the privilege of experiencing future releases of uniPaaS, I got the early opportunity to start and extend the Live uniPaaS RIA Demo for mobile devices.

The uniPaaS RIA technology managed to amaze me twice. Once, seeing how I can produce world-wide available application while developing in the same way I am used to in developing Client\Server applications. Twice , when I saw that with the same ease of development I can now produce very complex mobile applications.

Actually, in producing my first Mobile application, I did not do much development. I simply restructured the UI of the regular RIA demo and with not much additional effort I transformed the RIA demo into a Mobile RIA demo.

The small screens of the mobile device suggest a different approach for the application UI design. In my case, turning the big Order Entry screen to fit the mobile device ended up by just breaking the screen into parts and placing each part in a tab control.
All the logic I defined before was kept as is and it is now executed fully when running the program from the mobile device.

This video clip illustrates the Order Entry screens and Today's Orders screen on the mobile device.

The image below shows the order entered by the mobile device as it appears on the regular, stationary live RIA demo.

I expected our Mobile support to be such that will provide easy and rapid development, but I really did not expect it to be that easy and rapid. What a treat…

Why RIA? Because it is too Risky Otherwise

2009-02-10T12:57:00.002+02:00

Rich Internet Application is a new possibility many organizations and software vendors which have not yet made the transition to RIA are now considering.

Most of them are considering RIA namely for the trivial reason of enabling a wider distribution of their application with minimal costs. For needs for wider availability of the application by keeping the application management centralized and lean, RIA is definitely the obvious path to choose.

On the other hand, organizations that do not foresee any need for wide availability of their application, as all end-users are accessing the application from one location, tend to dismiss the RIA opportunity. Unfortunately such organization are missing one major value that RIA offers the, and that is SECURITY.

In early 2008 a research conducted by the US Computer Emergency Response Team (Cert) estimated that almost 40 percent of IT security breaches are perpetrated by people inside the company ("The top 5 Internal Security Threats" at ZDNet.co.uk).

This is quite alarming piece of information. Organizations need to realize that any information system they deploy can be used maliciously by the system's end-users. But what that has to do with RIA?

When deploying an application in a form of a locally running full client, the client machine is setup in a way that enables the local application to have direct access to various resources including the Database, users files, and templates. Accessing the sensitive information contained in such resources is expected to be controlled by the application security means, and usually, properly designed application provide very good means to allow only authorized users to view and manipulate restricted information.

Unfortunately, the direct access to the application resources is made available not only to the application itself. It is there for any malware to directly access the sensitive resources and bypass the security measures that are incorporated in the application.

RIA suggests not only an easily distributed desktop application but also offers an intrinsically multi-tiered architecture by which all application resources are placed far away from the end-users' direct reach. In RIA, the end-user accesses the application platform server only. The server already behind a firewall accesses the application resources. Not only that the end-user cannot directly access the database of the application, the end-user cannot even tell what sort of database is being used by the application.The increased security is often a trivial matter in a RIA architecture, therefore many overlook it, but the fact is that RIA is much more than just an Internet based application.

RIA is a highly secured Internet based application.

Check out uniPaaS RIA solution and see how easy it is for you to continue and develop dekstop applications to be deployed as highly secured Rich Internet Applications.

Downfall of Code - REMOVED

2009-01-20T00:32:00.005+02:00

Due to the fact that the video clip I posted here yesterday might be considered offensive by some people, I decided to remove it.

The intention in creating that clip was for humoristic purposes only.

I sincerely apologize before those who viewed this clip and were offended by it.
This was not my intention.

I would also like to clarify, that just like any other past and future posts made in this blog, the creation and posting of this clip is of my own personal doing and in no way directed nor sponsored by Magic Software Enterprises.

Browser Free RIA – The Best Approach for Enterprise Applications

2009-01-05T12:08:00.009+02:00

For many people, the term Rich Internet Application (RIA) is automatically associated with a browser. It is quite understandable how the browser, being the most ubiquitous internet application ever, has become a synonym to the Internet itself, and as such has become the default gateway to any internet based initiative.

Unfortunately, when it comes to real business application, and also complex core business applications, the browser as a front-end facilitator is far from being adequate. The browser, as the name suggests, is intended primarily for browsing and for light data entry that is required for more accurate and pin-pointed browsing. When medium or heavy intricate date entry is required, the boundaries of the browser are becoming more noticeable.

Ajax is great but…

Ajax is an example genuine browser-based UI. Ajax user interface (UI) is on the one hand free of any third-party software other than a browser but on the other hand it is completely dependent on the browser capabilities and usually is designed to meet the lowest common denominator of the various browsers currently available. A recent study done by Forrester Research Inc, titled "Ajax Disappoints Power Users Looking For Web 2.0-Style Business Apps" suggests that though Ajax based UI may serve and satisfy very-infrequent users or occasional users it fails to deliver the expected user experience (UX) for power-users who used the application very frequently.

The Forrester research focuses on the fact that Ajax is mainly script based pattern of development and is very much dependant on server side services. These two facts put together in a UI abundant with data entry and data display controls result in poor performance and consequently poor UX.

Though Ajax developers are able to produce quite nifty UI, it is, in most cases, an attempt to mimic the UX of desktop applications and together with the efforts required to clean-off irrelevant or unsuitable browser functionality (e.g. Backward, History) and replacing existing functionality with an appropriate one (e.g. context menus, pull-down menus) suggests a very complex and tedious application development and later on application maintenance.

Waiting for Outlook to turn RIA

Google's Gmail UI makes a very good example for Ajax based UI and offers a nice UI. However as far as UX goes, I still prefer using Microsoft Outlook. Try opening in Gmail two different emails (conversations) in two different windows. An ability so natural and trivial in a true desktop application is in most cases missing in browser based UI. When the day comes and Gmail will support opening multiple conversations concurrently in independent frames the industry will celebrate it as another giant UI leap achieved over a browser.

Proper windows management in desktop applications

Now don’t get me wrong, I also use Google's Gmail and not just Microsoft Outlook. However I would prefer to use a true desktop UI much like Outlook which, like Gmail, is available from any new machine I might work from without needing to explicitly install and while keeping email folders on the server.

If, as an organization, I need my core business application to work over the Internet and to keep my end-users satisfied and productive with a rich and highly interactive UX I need mainly two things: A dedicated server and a dedicated UI. I do not necessarily need a browser.

Browser Disillusionment

When we started working on uniPaaS and its RIA technology, we noticed that many CIOs and CEO's were still very much fixated on the fact that RIA must be browser-based. Slowly but surely, as we have advanced our RIA technology, we saw how more and more decision makers become disillusioned and understand that a Browser cannot really be Jack-of-all-trade and that there are many challenges that simply do not suit a browser based implementation. Some have reached this disillusionment from a bad browser-based experience and some simply by objectively and sensibly analyzing the merits and faults of each alternative.

To address this growing need Magic Software developed its new RIA technology supported by Magic Software's latest application platform – uniPaaS.

If it looks like a desktop application, and feels like one…

uniPaaS RIA offers organizations and software vendors the ability to provide easy to use and easy to adopt UI that is implicitly installed over the internet and is fully served by a centralized internet server for the means of live data provisioning, data entry and live application updates. The benefits of uniPaaS approach to RIA are many. On the one hand the developers get to produce UI in a form very much similar to the way UI is produced for common Client\Server applications. On the other hand, the end-users get a UX they are familiar with and accustomed to. Together with the rapid application development uniPaaS offers and with the unitary approach for developing partitioned applications such as RIA (where much is to say about this matter separately), producing core business RIA is becoming a trivial task for any Magician.

A sample screen from Magic Software live RIA Demo

I invite you to try Magic Software live RIA demo to get the feel of the UX it has to offer. Most likely you will feel quite at home with a very intuitive and familiar UI –

This is the exact intention.

Double Negative in Checkboxes

2009-01-01T14:41:00.026+02:00

If you do not want to not read this post please proceed reading it…
Recently, I keep stumbling on annoying cases in which checkbox controls are designed to activate a negative operation. This is well illustrated in the example below:

Such cases are double negative and are very confusing, especially when the option to be marked is complex by itself.

[BTW, if the recipients I send my email to are working in the same building as I am, and they are running out of office, I guess I should be running out of office too, may be a cubical just caught fire… but I digress.]

Wouldn't it be simpler to have these checkboxes like this:

The problem with negative checkboxes goes beyond mere confusion, but also suggests a negative impression end-users get. Too many "don't do that" give the end-user the impression that the application they are using tends to do too many things which one better turn off.

It seems that such checkboxes where created with the notion that the feature of notifying the sender on "Out-of-Office" recipients is often regarded as a nuisance. Indeed, this way, this checkbox impart that feeling exactly: that this is probably an annoying and a redundant feature.

Here is another example:

It is very important to understand the mental-model of a checkbox: By turning on the checkbox option the end-user turns on ( "Activates") a particular capability. By turning off the checkbox, the end-user turns off and "deactivates" that capability.
"Do not ...." suggests a passive state. There is less sense in activating a passive state.

I must confess that there are a few cases which I am not yet sure if they should be treated as exceptions to the rule, or to be replaced by proper rephrasin of the option text. Two, very common, cases are "Ignore" and "Disable". On the one hand they are kind of a common instructions power-users are already accustomed to, though they suffer from the same problems as regular negative phrases. The Ignore options in this example:

Could have been easily phrased as:

So next time you define checkboxes in your application – THINK PUSITIVE.
(Yeah, I know I have spelling mistake. My "Ignore words in UPPERCASE" option was turned on…).