CLOUD for ALL

Posted on February 16, 2012 by bill_patch

Cloud computing is getting all  the attention these days in technology journals and publications.   Major corporations are shifting from in-house data center operations to cloud computing models for two reasons:  better computing for less cost.   To understand cloud computing,and why it is suddenly the hottest trend out there, we need to review the context of the evolution of professional computing during the last two decades or so.   In the mid-1980s, in the middle of the PC revolution that was shaking the foundation of mainframe computing, Sun Microsystems was growing rapidly, selling expensive servers running Open Source operating system software.  Today, when we take for granted the huge network called the Internet, it’s difficult to imagine a time when computers were not networked together, except in limited “Local AreaNetwoks” (LANs)
.During that time,Scott McNealy,then-president of Sun, said, “The network is the computer,” with prescient insight that was typical of him.

Then and Now

Then, every organization had to be self-sufficient for computing—everyone needed their own processor and storage, and connecting computing equipment was complex and expensive.  Now,  thanks to the Internet, computers can be connected easily and inexpensively. This means that one computer, running on the Internet (the”cloud”), can serve many different organizations.  Now software programs, which used to be needed for each organization who licensed it, could be provided for multiple organizations.    One set of programming being used by multiple customers, running on one server.  The benefits of cloud computing are apparent.  More computing capacity for less expense.  Now, large organizations are taking advantage of the cloud model;and at Blazing Systems we have designed our delivery model to do the same.  The result is that our customers–individual professionals, small-medium businesses, and non-profit organizations, can all gain the same advantages from cloud computing as the large corporations are.We are Open Source, and we endorse the delivery of software as a service(SaaS), not a proprietary product

 

 

 

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NO SOPA

Posted on January 18, 2012 by bill_patch

It seems that Congress is becoming an inreasingly ineffective body.   IN attempting to stop foreign piracy of copyrighted U.S. material, their best idea is to create draconian laws that would expose many
American Internet providers to shutdowns at the whim of large media providers.  ‘To solve a problem for one group. let’s create one for another,’seems to be the congressional mode.   This, coming on the heels of inept work on health care and the debt ceiling, budget , the deficit, or ANY fiscal matter, shows a congress more concerned with partisan bickering than solving problems.  We as citizens need to do a better job sending people to Washington.

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Websites are for People

Posted on January 13, 2012 by bill_patch

Websites are a great medium for organizations to communicate and conduct transactions.  Websites are “open for business ” 24/7/365, assuming they are well-built and hosted in a secure environment. Unfortunately, too often, people build websites for themselves, and not for their constituents who will be using the site.  These websites, sometimes called “brochureware,” tend to talk a lot about themselves, informing the visitor to the site of everything they ever wanted to know–and more–about the organization.  These sites are difficult to navigate, and the visitor often finds themselves in a dead end spot that is hard to leave, or loses track of where they were, and they end up hitting the “back button” repeatedly to escape.  The pages themselves on these sites are crammed with lots of verbiage, narrative prose content, and not much white space or images.  It’s usually diffi-    cult to determine how the visitor can communicate with the organization–because they really aren’t that interested in hearing from you.  These sites are called ‘brochureware because most of them are just the organization’s marketing brochure copied and pasted on  to a website.

 

Effective Websites are designed and built for the people who will be using them.

It takes more effort to design and build a site that anticipates the needs of the people who will be using the site.   You can’t just copy your print media and slam it up there.  You have to think of how the users will perceive the page, and what the will want to do, how they will want to navigate.   When you get on a site that has been well-designed, you can feel

it right away.  We call this “intuitive”—
Is it easy to understand, easy to move around?  Are things where you expect them to be?  If so, it’s because somebody paid attention to those factors when they designed the site and loaded the content. One new site that manages to present a huge amount of information and functionality in a very attractive, appealing, intuitive,  user-friendly site is www.boyertownpa.org, the website for the Building a Better Boyertown organization.Building a Better Boyertown (BBB) is a non-profit organization formed in 2002.  BBB staff and volunteers develop and accomplish tasks that maintain Boyertown’s historical heritage, promote downtown Boyertown,  and attract people to the community.Many people, from BBB Board members to downtown merchants and visitors rely on the site for timely information about news, events, and meetings.

As you will see when you visit the site, Each page contains lots of information, displayed in an easy -to-see and understand format .  Special care was taken in the design of the interactive calendar, because so many different constituents use it.  The site is also designed to make it easy for  local businesses and organizations to add and update their information on the site.

Care was also taken to make the donation function clear and easy to use.  This site was designed for the people who need to use it.  As a result,  information will be updated in a timely fashion, and people will enjoy accessing the site for information they need.  Because lots of thought and hard work went into the design, using the site will require less work and generate satisfaction, rather than frustration.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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“Mongo is but a pawn in Game of Life” , or Why ‘Blazing Systems?’

Posted on January 10, 2012 by bill_patch

 Shortly after we launched Blazing Systems, one of my friends–a colleague in the
IT industry –asked me how we came to choose the name of our new company.   He chuckled when he asked me, which is part of the answer to his question.
In this age of taking yourself too seriously, as in “Web Technology Solutions’,  we wanted to show our sense of humor, our human side, and show that we don’t take ourselves too seriously.  We wanted to present a friendly image for customers. Many customers we encounter have been taken advantage of by technology companies who act like they are smart and the customer is not, like technology is some sort of mysterious stuff that only they can understand.   (This is a posture which positions the company to over-charge and under-deliver.)
Technology, as practiced by those companies, can be impersonal and even threatening; so we wanted to project the opposite.

Technology doesn’t have to be painful, like the dentist–It can be fun and human -scale, like the movie.  The name Blazing Systems starts things out on a friendly note. “What about people who don’t get it?”  my friend asked.  “What if they don’t appreciate the humor, and they decide not to do business with you?  What if they do get it, but have no sense of humor, and don’t think it’s funny, or if they think it’s stupid?  My answer  was , “Fine.We probably wouldn’t want to work with them , anyway.”

 

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Poor Service

Posted on January 1, 2012 by bill_patch

We continue to hear of instances and policies of shoddy customer service from technology companies, even though the industry has just completed a two-decade- long era of service development. Last week we heard of one non-profit organization whose donation processing application went down —and THEY COULDN’T EVEN GET THEIR WEBSITE PROVIDER TO RETURN THEIR CALLS!    For non-profits, the last weeks of the calendar year are critical for donation revenue. Losing your donation processing capability at the end of the year is like Wal-Mart losing the point-of-sale device and shutting down a check-out line on Black Friday.   Ignoring a service need by the non-profit customer this time of the year was especially poor service performance by the website company.

 

Service Used to be Low Priority

 

In the early years of the computer technology industry customer service was regarded as nothing more than a necessary evil within many product manufacturers.Those companies were reluctant to commit funding or investment for service.  Product development and manufacturing got all the attention and dollars.  This was because most of those companies viewed themselves strategically and operationally as product-driven.  They made big margins on the sale of the products, not services.   This product-driven model started to change in the mid-80s, as independent service companies brought competition to the post-sale service and support market. In 1987 IBM declared “The
Year of the Customer,”and launched aggressive marketing campaigns into the customer base for services.  Today, software and hardware provider Oracle is even trying to control product sales in enduser accounts by using service as leverage.

 

Readiness to Serve

So, while most technology companies have been developing their service delivery and improving the level of service provided to customers, some companies–like the one cited above —are a going in the opposite direction, stilll treating service as a low priority.     examples of this are “Call Avoidance” stratregies and  “Resource Optimization ” programs    If you have given up, and hung up the phone after being bounced around by a call-router (“dial 3 if you want pay your bill, dial 4 if you are reporting a technical problem”), and then listening to 35 minutes of elevator music—if you have given up,  and hung up, then you have just participated in a successful “call avoidance” incident with the service organization—-and, yes, they measure “abandonment rate”–how many people give up.   You have saved them some money, because they didn’t have to have somebody on duty available to talk with you about your problem.   And they don’t care—they already got your  money when you bought the product—it’s the old product view again.

So–Why do some technology companies provide poor customer service ?    Same old, same old—MONEY.

 

It costs money to sustain readiness to serve–to have the right person with the right skillset  available at the right time  (when you need them); and companies who are locked in the old ‘we make the money when we sell the product’ mentality tend not to spend the money to have sufficient resources available —readiness to serve.   These same companies willingly hire extra developers to help complete the initial work needed for a new customer, but they tend not to commit any cost to being ready to support the product they’ve built and installed.

 

The Service Mentality

 

Technology companies who have sustained growth an d achieved high levels of customer sati sfaction have adopted a service-, rather than product-driven model.  They  build infrastructure to provide ongoing service delivery to the customers–every day, not just the day they sell the first application.   They commit themselves to operating at a state of readiness to serve their customers’ needs; and –oh, yes, they answer the phone when the customer calls.

 

 

 

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Spirit of the Season

Posted on December 7, 2011 by bill_patch

This year, with so many American families in dire need, is it just my imagination–or perhaps wishful thinking –that the crass commercialism seems to be down a notch?

The endless TV ads are there—-give a give a give a garmin—-ruining traditional holiday songs by turning them into sales jingles, and  garish red and gold decorations bedeck even the humblest of retail establishments, but there is data pointing to a different approach this year:

 

Reuters reports:

“Several recent surveys indicate that charities and nonprofits can expect giving to be more bountiful at the end of 2011, particularly compared to the last two years. Moreover, donors seem to be taking into account current economic challenges and government cutbacks when deciding where to give: A recent poll by the website Charity Navigator (see link.reuters.com/nyk45s), for instance, found human-service groups, such as food banks and homeless shelters, top the list of where respondents plan to g(http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/06/us-usa-charity-donatinos).

At Blazing Systems, we’re doing our part.  One of our long-time clients,RE/MAX Achievers of Collegeville-Pottstown-Boyertown(see http://www.achieverspa.com)is conducting a Food Drive for the 9th year,accepting donations at three office locations.We donated cases of canned goods to this worthy cause, where they seek to  “Make a difference….One household at a time.”

We are also dog lovers, and we’re donating dog food to our local SPCA.This bad economy has taken its toll on our furry friends as well, as people have abandoned pets at an alarming rate.

 

So…maybe it’s not just wishful thinking…Maybe there IS a renewed spirit of giving out there this year, and maybe we ARE acting more like the Americans in a Frank Capra movie—-in the true spirit of the season.  I hope so!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Word Press Works

Posted on December 5, 2011 by bill_patch

At Blazing Systems we recommend and deploy Word Press software for websites.  WordPress can be used for an entire site, or parts of a site.  We use Word Press for the blog feature on our own site, and we have deployed it for these client sites: http://www.nakedphilly.co//www.achieverspa.com, http://www.chestercounty1.com, andhttp://www.devonjohn.com/wp.Word Press is a dependable website  framework partly because it’s built on stable, proven, pervasive technologies, including MYSQL andPHP.  We deploy it as a LAMP(  Linux, Apache, MYSqL., and PHP)As  you will see when you visit any of the sites listed, the framework produces appealing and effective sites that are easy to understand and navigate, and they are also highly functional with robust applications.  Word Press is Open Souce, and over 17,000applications have been developed for it.  We have recently developed and deployed applications specifically for realtors.     We enjoy working with Word Press technology, and our clients are also pleased with the results.  Please call us to discuss how an affordable upgrade to a Word Press site would create an advantage for your web marketing program.

 

 

 

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Penn State Pervert

Posted on November 12, 2011 by bill_patch

Glad to see the Penn State undergrads were able to get enough control over their grief for their grandfather figure/football coach, “Joe Pa,” to organize an observation in honor of the victims.  Restores my faith in the undergrads,but the whole sordid affair reinforces the perception of academia as being populated by ineffective CYA-ing administrators who live in the world inside their own heads.This guy Sandusky was allowed –wink/wink—to “horse around “(their words) (see the grand jury report at wwww.abclocal.go.com/wpvi/feature?section=news&id=8421115)with young boys in the shower in spite of suspicious behavior observed by many and horrific behavior observed and reported by a few.

Trusted Institutions

 

In  our society, some institutions are trusted with our well-being.  This includes places where we work, and most particularly places where our children are educated.   Mr. Sandusky abused the trust given him as a member of the hallowed PSU football coaching staff, covering that position with the do-gooder cloak of a charitable group helping  boys, in order to sodomize the very same boys.  When it comes to such abhorrent behavior, the people in charge need to do more than the  minimum and to attempt to “protect the brand.”  They have to act to protect the next victim.

 

Protecting the Next Victim

Several years ago, an employee came to me with a complaint of sexual harrassment..  The employee was an attractive female, and a male employee had Xeroxed his genitals and written a note on the page next to the picture, promising to do things with the pictured member. She was frightened.

He had slipped the note into the lap drawer in her desk.(Today, he would probably send her a picture taken with his smart phone, but in those days, the Xerox machine was the pervert’s media of choice.)  I contemplated various courses of action to deal with the complaint, and eventually decided to report the incident to the local police..  My rationale was based on  the threatening nature of the  promise of action in his note.  I was worried that he  would act out on his desires, either with the employee to whom he had written, or another female.  Several days later, he was identified by matching the hand writing in the note with the handwriting on his employment application, with the expert help of the police.  He was not arrested, nor did the complaint go on hisp recordwith the police….I had a counseling session with him, as did a couple members of the vice squad, and there were no further incidents from him.  Several weeks later,
I terminatred his employment.  As managers and executives responsible for the well-being of people in our organizations, I hope we are always able to place a higher value on protecting the next victim, and never on “protecting the brand.”

 

 

 

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Marketing in Tough Times

Posted on November 1, 2011 by bill_patch

“I could chop down more trees in a day, if my ax was sharper, “said the logger, “But I can’t take the time to sharpen my ax because I’m so far behind  my daily quota for trees.” Many small businesses are falling for this twisted logic when it comes to making investments in marketing in today’s tough environment.The result is easily-predictable—-Less marketing leads to fewer sales and less revenue, which just makes matters worse, and things continue to  spiral down.

In the real estate industry, for example, where buyers are increasingly  using the Internet to shop for homes,realtors who have learned how to tap into that stream of potential clients are benefiting.  They are creating interesting, attractive websites that give potential buyers the information they seek and need.  This translates to leads and revenue.  A great example of an attractive, interesting realtor site is www.nakedphilly.com, which features a great blog and the Blazing Systems IDX search of available properties,presented in a user-friendly map format showing the neighborhoods of Philadelphia.

Check it out–Even if you’re not in the market for Philly property, you’ll find it interesting, and you’ll probably learn  something along the way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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OPEN is Best for Clients

Posted on October 31, 2011 by bill_patch

Blazing Systems is an Open Source development  company. We use tools such as PHP, Python,SQL, and Javascript, to build applications  and websites for our customers.

 

Closed& Proprietary benefits only the software provider

 

In the early stages of the industry, and continuing still today, some software providers were closed, and proprietary. This was –and is–primarily a method to exert and maintain account control, by making customers dependent upon the software company .If you have an Open Source website, you can make changes to it yourself with a web editor program.

Closed is More Expensive

Today, there are some website providers who still control accounts by forcing customers to come to them to perform any changes or updates to the site.  They use proprietary Content Management Systems(CMS) to control access to the site .  This way, they get to charge fees to clients who need to make any changes.Given the fast pace of business these days, most organizations need to relatively frequently update their sites.  If they have a closed site, making changes becomes very expensive and time-consuming.

Organizations that are being victimized by closed, proprietary websites can save money and increase the effectiveness of their web sites by switching to Open Source technology.  While it may seem difficult to walk away from a site into which money has been invested, the future savings available and the advantage of controlling your own destiny make the change worthwhile–the sooner, the better, in fact.  You deserve to work with a technology partner that values your interest, rather than seeks to trap and control you.

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