Fixed Rate Software Development Projects

Fixed Rate Software Development Projects

Know your demon before you edit him

Often the first words from the client  "I can only afford this much" or "it should only take an expert like you ten minutes" which is rational thought gone wild.  The reality is software development is costly, takes hours of review before you can touch the code but worse a simple mistake will cascade out of control sending the consultant into an all night session fixing unread code.  Programming is memory, reading and writing, repeated 100 times per project times the quality of development launguage, the predecessor who's vanished which is why were there in the first place.  Point to be taken in considering touching existing code is often it's broken for a reasons unknown.

Every developer knows and should know that coding is never rushed, that more programmers don't necessarily produce more code, that a larger team doesn't generate more lines but again being extremely cautious by NOT making changes to a live site or project.  Every project requires steps, the development space, a parallel test box, a sandbox and depending on external users one or two stages of release before you subject your users to an upgrade.

The best  approach is to create a realistic budget with realistic objectives.  The smaller the company the more deliberation required as failure can destroy the company or consume the owners paycheck.  When that happens you go from hero to zero but with some business people you become the bain of their demise.  A contract is required that prevents you from becoming a litigation target.

Please see my Contract Samples for more information.

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Security: Java Exploits - Over 800 million machines vulnerable

Warning: Java Exploit Potentially Affecting More Than 850 Million Computers

Just when you patched your Windows System completely up along comes Java with its holes.   I think Larry Ellison Java Sail Boat run better than his Java Operating System.  

Article links as they develop will be found here but I'd say the IT Community would rather see Java patched then America's Cup as for most of us Java is used daily but most of us never have time to sail.  

Important Steps: 
Disabling Java (Oracle)


Mashable Article on Java Exploits

The thin line of safe vs. insecure at times is almost a daily blur where some organizations simply cave in under the daunting task of staying abreast of their core applications required to run operations smoothly.  It's not an easy task but often the boss blames to the tech or the worker in charge which in most cases of not all is completely wrong.  It's the leaderships responsibility to develop an IT infrastructure that functions smoothly while providing the financial resources to successfully support organizational objectives.  In a nut shell feed the budget enough to run smoothly as it's cheaper in the long run.

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Integrating the web with Office

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There are several core changes with MS Office Suite 2013 that shift focus from VBA to standard web centric languages e.g. HTML, CSS, JavaScript and Cloud based solutions that offer up an impressive selection of solutions that once required weeks of effort to complete.  There are nifty JavaScript API's to interact with Office content.  There are rich solutions that integrate data and web content using the same code base supporting the multiple devices.  

Office 2013 comes with Simplified management, increased security, central configuration, discoverability, remote execution are how Microsoft solved many issues facing deployment where the open-sourced movement at times crushed office applications.  

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Visual Studio Tools for Office

Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office System can help you take advantage of the productivity enhancements in the Microsoft .NET Framework version to extend applications in Microsoft Office.  

Below are links to all three versions VSTO 

Office 2013 and Office 2012 
You can extend Office 2013 and Office 2010 by using Office developer tools in Visual Studio. You can build two types of solutions: solutions that focus on web integration and solutions that target the .NET Framework and are more deeply integrated with the Office object model.

What's new for Office 2013 developers

Learn about the features and technologies of Office 2013 that are of interest to developers.

Applies to: apps for Office | apps for SharePoint | Office 2013 | Office 365 | SharePoint Foundation 2013 | SharePoint Server 2013  more

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Blogging For Page Views

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Blogging for Page Views

Walnut Creek CA: One of the main reasons I'm using Blogger or Blogspot is during my testing phase it was clear that Google was indexing pages nearly on the spot.  The traffic patterns was noticeably better with near instantaneous search updates as some pages appeared in minutes.  I also operate another blog that gets far more traffic but it not related to tech, they have broader audience but technical the articles required a great deal more effort to "get it right" which if you've ever written a tech page then you'll agree as one mistake can leave the reader super ticked at you the writer.

As time goes by this blog will have thousands of pages but eventually I'll drive it from an ASP.NET Blog Engine or my own personal version or perhaps I'll be in the after-life looking down and laughing at my mistakes but chances are during the pearly gates inauguration period the code will be quite useless as the next release is always.

There are a number of factors why a database engine is needed as Blogger is not a database at the end user level but it does run on a database.  There are numerous weak spots such as auto-indexing, custom sorting, page layouts that could be better but search limitations have their moments but dammit it works.  Soon I'll be using SQL driven pages to create these pages and related indexes but I'll posting the code, forms, reports as sort of an incubating project.

Blogger is fast way to find an audience but this long time web developer never considered blogging to be viable as I went what a bunch of bull ---- but alas I'm here.

By morning this new page will be indexed on Google Search.  Hurry, the mean Google Search Machine is seeking the ROBOTS.TXT file - no file? no problem they gonna take every page.

Careful for what you wish for and careful what you post.

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MS Access Controls

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MS ACCESS CONTROLS

From Left To Right

Pointer: 

Text Box:

Label:

Button: 

Tab Control:

Hyperlink:

Browser

Navigation 

Option Group:

Insert Page Break: 

Combo Box: 

Chart:

Line:

Toggle Button:

List Box: 

Rectangle:

Check Box

OLE Unbound Frame

Attachment 

Radio Button:

Sub Form:

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