Hello!
Some of you may not have heard from me for some time. I hope I find you well.
With the world seemingly engrossed in the new phenomenon called Twitter it seems that people can’t get enough information! So I thought I’d try to write the odd newsletter. I intend to keep them fairly short, publish them only when I have something to say that I think may be of interest and of course, if I have time!
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It’s affected us all I’m some way. I know some of you are
having to lose staff, reorganise and cut back on expenditure. We’ve had fewer
enquiries for new work too. So we are giving a 20% reduction on our fees to
hopefully help you out. You know we don’t charge for initial discussions, so
call 01604 879505 or email
enquiries@blackmanassociates.co.uk if you have any ideas on anything we may
be able to help you with. Some of the items below may give you some ideas or you
may not be aware of some of the things we do.
(For those of you that don’t know, you pronounce it dot net)! You may have heard of it, but what is it? This isn’t the whole story, but this may help: A lot of you have had custom applications built for you by us using Microsoft Access. In order to run your custom application you need to have bought and installed Microsoft Access. (Well there is also Access Runtime but let’s leave that for another time). We build all the logic such as what data you want to store, what items you want in a drop down box, how you want to group and summarise your reports, Access provides the ability to store the data in tables but also the ability to create forms, reports, queries etc. It provides a data storage engine as well as a development environment. If we use .net to create your custom application we don’t use Microsoft Access as the framework. You have to install the .net framework (which you may already have, it’s free) and if we’re storing data, some sort of database engine. We can still use Access, the .net framework can talk to it, but Microsoft Access doesn’t need to be installed on the PC for your application to run. We could use another database engine; our recommendation would be SQL Server. Once again, you may already have it, there are various versions, and some are free.
So why would you want a .net application as opposed to an Access based solution? Well as in most things in life, it depends...
One thing that Access has never been that good at is running with lots of concurrent users. What’s lots? That depends – but the rule of thumb I use to start with is: Are there likely to be over 10 users using the system at the same time.
Versioning – if you upgrade Access will your custom solution still work? Most of the time yes, but Access 2007 introduced some security features that I have seen interrupt the workflow of applications built on previous versions. I’ll talk about Access 2007 in a future newsletter. If you have a lot of users there can be some strange conflicts on your PC’s that need solving to get your Access application to run.
Scaling – if you wanted a web site that also connects to the same data as your application, depending on the number of concurrent web users, Access may not be suitable.
Functionality – Access may not be able to do everything you want.
This is far from an extensive list but it starts to give you a flavour of what the considerations are. We wouldn’t expect a client to make these choices, but you need to understand our recommendations. We create applications using .net but do not consider that using Microsoft Access is unnecessary, old fashioned or just wrong – it all depends! One of the best things that Access does is allow us to build applications a lot faster than in .net. Reporting is also superb. So if your application is for fewer than 10 concurrent users and you’re unlikely to have tables with more than half a million rows, I’d still be recommending using Access.
I mentioned web sites earlier. Whilst we can create your beautiful corporate presence, our area of expertise is data. This is the other main use of .net. It’s called asp.net (Active Server Pages). This time the .net framework is not required on the end user’s PC (client). The end user uses their web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox or maybe Google Chrome!) to interact with the data. The .net framework has to be installed on the web server.
Most of the web applications we create are reporting type applications. You may have users entering data via the Access front end and a wider internal audience running reports against that data via the web application. I’ll expand on this further in future newsletters.
I’m sure you’re already aware that our primary market in training is not the standard Excel or Word introduction days. We tend to train individuals or small groups in the topics they specifically want. An awful lot of people already have rudimentary Windows and Office skills and either need to brush up or improve. It seems that a lot of companies have made cuts to their training budgets. Perhaps you should think about making your staff work smarter, not harder!
I sometimes need to do graphics work – create an icon, change the background
colour of a logo to transparent, create an abstract background. Adobe Photoshop
would be most people’s first choice of tool for this. You may have Paint Shop
Pro. If you don’t have these or can’t justify spending money on them you could
try Paint.net. It’s free. One of the
great things about it is there are lots of
plug-ins
available (most free) which extend its functionality. I recently installed one
for
creating glossy looking buttons. It’s so good I have found myself wasting
hours playing with it!
We all have lots of user name and passwords nowadays and remembering them is a nightmare. Please don’t create a Word document to put them in, there are loads of spyware, trojans and viruses that can infect your machine and look for this sort of document. Use something more secure, like a piece of paper with handwriting that you lock away, or if you want a software solution, try Password Safe. It’s free! There are lots of other tools like this but this is the one I use.
That’s it for this newsletter. I have lots of topics that I intend to write about in future newsletters. I hope you found this one interesting. Remember our 20% discount offer. Please don’t hesitate to call if you think we may be able to help out. Lots of people have been surprised at what we can do. An IT solution, whether it’s an application or training, may be the way to help you through the current economic downturn.
If you do not want to receive future newsletters please reply and I’ll remove you from the list.
Call 01604 879505 to discuss your requirements
enquiries@blackmanassociates.co.uk
Based in Northampton in the UK and working with companies worldwide.