Small City Software – A case study
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A friend of mine came to me a few months ago regarding an idea. He was serving on his city’s Board of Alderman and was noticing the fact that the IT infrastructure the city was using was a patchwork of different pieces of software – some home-grown, others off the shelf. He noticed that each department set their own IT standards and used whatever software they liked. Even the email servers were different. He also noticed that their workload could be much simpler if they had a piece of software that could easily manage their tasks.
He noticed that the Code Enforcement team was using software based on Microsoft Access. Even though it was a decent program, there was no way that users could use the system at the same time. Since it was Access, there was only one copy and no way to perform backups on the software. He also noticed that the Police Department was using a Records Management System that didn’t exactly suit their needs but was expensive to use and maintain. This is where his idea started.
Small City Software started as a web-based application that would allow Code Enforcement officials to manage their violations and track the status of those violations. It has grown to managing Law Enforcement Records, and managing the inventory of city assets. He has worked and collaborated with different departments and has come up with a solution that should help small cities (population 50,000 or less) manage Code Enforcement, Business Licenses, Liquor Licenses, Conditional Use Permits, and other Ordinances for a reasonable fee.
The problem with creating and selling software is that someone has to create it. And that someone is going to charge for their services. Therefore he has started a crowd funding campaign on Indiegogo. Please visit the campaign and if you are interested feel free to donate to this worthy cause!
Visit Small City Software campaign today!
Pros and Cons of becoming a Consultant
TweetA discussion topic on LinkedIn made me think about why I wanted to become a consultant. I had to ask myself the question “Why did I become a consultant? Was it the pay? The prestige?” I started to write a comment on this topic but quickly realized that I would have to write this down first to collect my thoughts and then copy it into the comments section. The problem was, I was 1000 characters over my limit when I posted my “comment”! Therefore, I decided to blog about this topic instead. Read More
Top 10 Client-Side Performance Problems in Web 2.0
TweetTo coincide with my previous post, I’ve also included a link to a post that Andreas Grabner from DynaTrace Software wrote regarding Web 2.0 performance issues. These are especially helpful and can relieve headaches down the road when you are trying to debug performance issues with a Web 2.0 client.
http://blog.dynatrace.com/2010/08/25/top-10-client-side-performance-problems-in-web-2-0/
Top 10 Performance Problems taken from Zappos, Monster, Thomson and Co
TweetAndreas Grabner from DynaTrace Software recently published an article highlighting the Top 10 performance issues that they have experienced when working with their clients. The article is well written and very informative. I have found myself working on similar issues regarding performance and know that these issues are present.
Evidence Based Scheduling
TweetJoel Spolsky writes a great article on developing an accurate and concise development schedule for your software project based on historical data from work on other similar projects.
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/10/26.html
Who’s Hiring – Top Employers for the week of Aug 16th, 2010
TweetInteresting article by Phil Rosenberg detailing the companies that are currently hiring in the job market:
http://recareered.blogspot.com/2010/08/whos-hiring-top-employers-week-of-8-16.html
Enhancement of Display Tag
TweetIn one of my earlier posts I referenced an article on DevX using DisplayTag and a little Javascript to create highly functional tables for your web application. Even though Display Tag is a great plugin for Java (I have used it for numerous applications), there are some things about it that irritate me… one is the fact that it doesn’t remember the sort order when you refresh the page. This link describes some of the enhancements Sebastien did to Display Tag to make the plugin more user-friendly.
http://weblogs.java.net/blog/2009/05/04/enhance-displaytag
Writing Your Own GPS Applications
TweetWhat is it that GPS applications need to be good enough to handle in-car navigation? Also, how does the process of interpreting GPS data actually work? In this two-part series, Jon Person covers both topics and give you the skills you need to write a commercial-grade GPS application that works with a majority of GPS devices in the industry today.
Part I: http://www.codeguru.com/vb/mobile/pocketpc/article.php/c8079/
Part II: http://www.codeguru.com/vb/mobile/mobileinternettoolkit/article.php/c8875
Using Java DB in Desktop Applications
TweetArticle from Oracle about how to develop Desktop applications using the Apache Derby database:
http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/J2SE/Desktop/javadb
Web Client Database Synchronization
TweetGreat article on building apps that store data locally. I’ve been involved with a couple of instances where this type of application was relevant:
http://today.java.net/pub/a/today/2007/01/16/synchronizing-web-client-database.html