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Education

Application modernization comparison chart

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EducationHere’s a million dollar question: What’s the best application modernization method for your company?

Here’s the answer: It depends.

If your company needs to modernize existing legacy applications, choosing the best method varies largely on your needs, goals, and resources. You’ll need to answer a few questions before you begin, such as:

  • Why are you modernizing in the first place?
  • What’s your budget?
  • When do you need the job completed?
  • What do you hope to accomplish?

If you need help choosing the best modernization solution for your company, here are a couple of things that could help: First, here’s a free whitepaper entitled “Crash course in modernization,” that takes an in-depth look at the modernization basics. We’ve also created a handy little comparison chart, which compares 5 different modernization methods.

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7 reasons why mobile web apps are better for business than native apps

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EducationIf your business is planning to build native mobile apps, ask yourself this question: Are you building native mobile apps because you need to, or because you think you have to? While native apps are popular with consumers, they’re quite impractical for most businesses.

To understand why, let’s first look at why native apps are popular with consumers. Native apps do a couple of things very well: They deliver highly graphical interfaces and they’re easy to find and download. While these are important factors for consumers, are they really important to your business?

For most businesses, the answer is a resounding “No”. Unless your business needs highly graphical applications, mobile web apps simply make more business sense. How so? Here are 7 reasons why mobile web apps make more sense from a business standpoint: …

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Hybrid vs. Native vs. Mobile web comparison chart

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EducationNative, mobile web, or hybrid? For companies considering mobile apps, that is the million dollar question. Which direction do you take?

The answer: It depends. There’s no single correct answer that applies to every situation. Each option (mobile web apps, hybrid apps, and native apps) has its own advantages. The right path for your company depends on a variety of factors, such as: What are you trying to accomplish with your app? When do you need it? Which skills do you have in-house?

Here are a couple of options to help you figure out which path is best: First, you can check out this white paper that takes an in-depth look at the topic. Secondly, we’ve put together the following comparison chart for each mobile development method. It compares the main differences, advantages, and disadvantages of each. …

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7 things to look for in a web application development tool or IDE

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EducationThe difference between good and bad development tools/IDEs is like night and day. A good development tool will reduce development time and turn anyone into a web developer. A bad development tool will cause headaches, restrict your options, and even harm the company.

With so many options, how can you distinguish the good from the bad before you buy?

The key to success is finding the development tool or IDE that provides the most options and the fewest limitations. While that decision is largely based on your company’s needs, here are 7 essential elements that you should look for in any development tool or IDE: …

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5 big problems caused by bad application architecture

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EducationApplication architecture is one of the single most important, yet boring topics you’ll ever run across. You’re not going to make too many friends at a party talking about technology stacks, open frameworks, or any other architecture-related themes. In fact, you’ll probably get a lot of blank stares wherever you talk about those things.

Yet, the difference between good and bad application architecture is mind-blowing. Good architecture is nearly invisible. Everything just works, it’s easy to maintain, and all of your applications operate in perfect harmony.

On the other hand, bad architecture is only invisible at the beginning, but becomes increasingly obvious over time. When you buy a new development tool or begin using pre-built software, the applications may initially work fine. But, if they’re built on bad architecture, problems will quickly arise. What exactly can you expect? Here are 5 costly problems caused by bad application architecture: …

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Tutorial: Create a pure CSS navigation menu for your web apps

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EducationYou’ve heard the saying, “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover.” It’s good advice, but largely ignored. Whether consciously or subconsciously, we pass judgements based on appearance on a daily basis.

This fact is especially important in business. Studies have shown that people judge a web page/app in less than one second. What does that mean? If you’re building apps for customers or prospects, appearance can affect revenue. If you’re building for internal users, it can affect usability.

Don’t get me wrong–I’m not telling you to focus solely on appearance. I’m telling you not to ignore appearance, because like it or not, an app is judged by it’s appearance first, and usefulness second.

How can you improve your application’s appearance? There are a few ways, but one of the best and easiest way is the navigation menu. A well-designed navigation menu will improve the overall look and feel as well as the usability of the web app. If you’d like to learn a simple way to create a good-looking navigation menu using CSS, we’ve written up a tutorial, which you can find here.

For more tips on usability, this article gives a few more ideas.

What’s a QR code? Should you even care?

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You’ve probably seen those strange-looking black and white boxes (like the one on the left) popping up all over the place. You may have seen them on bus stations, websites, business cards, and more. What are they, and should my business pay attention to them?

They’re called “QR Codes” (short for “Quick Response Codes”) and are used to encode nearly any type of data. QR codes have become popular recently because they are perfect for transferring data to a smartphone or tablet. When a user scans a QR code with their device, any data stored in that code instantly appears on the smartphone/tablet.

Example

Want to try it for yourself? If you have a smartphone/tablet, just download a free QR code reader app and use it to scan the QR Code on this page. It will pull up this blog post on your phone/tablet. Pretty cool, isn’t it? Now, let’s take a look at what type of data can be stored in a QR Code. …

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Do you believe these 3 development tool myths?

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Education*This post is from Brian Crowley, mrc’s Director of Development*

While at a recent tech conference, I had an interesting conversation with a long-time programmer. The programmer had apparently had some bad experiences with development tools, based on his views on the subject.

Frankly, nothing he said surprised me. I’d heard it all before. Most “anti-development tool” programmers usually cite the same reasons, and to be honest, I understand where they’re coming from. They’ve run into enough bad development tools in the past to form a pretty negative opinion of the whole lot. Their criticisms aren’t always accurate, and certainly don’t apply to ALL development tools, but I get why they feel that way. …

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6 must-have features of good reporting software

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EducationI believe we’re seeing a shift in IT responsibilities. As more and more computer-savvy employees enter the workforce, many of the traditional IT-specific tasks are being handled by the end user. For example, simple tasks like plugging in a monitor or keyboard are easily handled by most end users.

The same is true for business software. Certain task, which used to require highly technical software, can now be handled directly by the users (with the right software). For example, reporting used to be an IT task. The only reporting option for end users went through the IT department. Now, many of the enterprise reporting options are simple enough for end users. If an end user needs a report, they can either build their own, or access a pre-built web-based report that pulls data from the database in real-time. …

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