Adam Clarke

CodeMash Blog 2 of 10

January 27, 2012 by Adam Clarke

Recently, CQL sent seven of its developers to a large software development conference called Codemash. CodeMash is a unique event that educates software developers on current practices, methodologies, and technology trends in a variety of platforms and development languages such as Java, .Net, Ruby, Python and PHP. Different than most conferences, this three-day event ‘mashes’ together ideologies and individual developer experiences to discuss, learn and even attack certain problems. Following is our Codemash Installment #2 of 10:

Migrating Apps to Azure

This 4 hour session was split into two smaller sections. The first was an intro to Microsoft’s cloud platform, Azure. The biggest difference between something like Amazon and Azure is that Amazon takes control of the hardware for you, but leaves the rest alone; you still need to manage IIS and .NET, etc. With Azure, you have an entire Application stack; you don’t need to worry about IIS and service packs and all that ‘stuff.’ The benefit is less management, but with the potential drawback of less flexibility.

We also talked about reasons to go to the cloud, and a long list of things to remember when moving to the cloud (e.g., sessions and logging, etc.). In the second half of the session we took an app from Codeplex and converted it to run in Azure.

Why Our Customers Should Care: For purposes of growth in the Cloud industry, expanded use of Cloud services by companies already using the Cloud, security concerns, and hosting costs and server workloads, many clients are examining the impact of utilizing the Cloud for support of their business applications. Some recent trends identified by Cloudspectator indicate some interesting direction of Cloud computing. (1) $150 Billion: the size of the Cloud Computing Market by 2013; (2) 70% of companies currently using cloud services will move additional applications to the cloud; (3) 54% – amount of respondents citing Security as their top concern for transitioning to the cloud; (4) 60% – server workloads that will be virtualized by 2014 – up from 12% in 2008

Responsive Web Design

This was actually more of a design talk, but I enjoyed it, anyway. “Responsive” web design means designing your site so that you have 1 site (not a separate tablet version, and a separate mobile version, etc.) that scales well to different sized screens. Flexibility is the new “hotness” when it comes to sites. Responsive web design is a different approach than traditional web designing, and speaks more to the ability to render a site across different devices (tablet, smartphone, laptop, etc.) without having to design the same site to fit the specific device. There are some definite “gotchas” that a developer must be aware of, but overall, customers demand flexibility in the presentation of their software applications.

Why Our Customers Should Care: Businesses understand that their customers interact with their systems from a variety of devices. All businesses should push their software development partner or internal development team to recommend tools or processes that make it easier (and more cost effective) for sites and applications to be served up to customers.

Database Migrations for Web Applications

This was another deployment talk, but this time talking about Database deployments. The speaker talked about versioning and migrating changes. He specifically showed a particular tool (fluent migrations), but mentioned several others that are similar. This talk further supported the importance of Automated Deployment Management. The importance of Automated Deployment Management, in software development, seeks to identify efficiencies in deployment of applications.

Why Our Customers Should Care: Making deployments more efficient should have a direct cost benefit for client software development.

Check back for Codemash Installment #3 of 10.

CodeMash Blog 1 of 10

January 25, 2012 by Adam Clarke

As a custom software development firm, CQL must constantly put our developers in a position to be exposed to the latest technology trends, not only within in the .Net development framework, but across multiple development platforms. Recently, CQL sent seven of its software developers to a large software development conference called Codemash. CodeMash is a unique event that educates software developers on current practices, methodologies, and technology trends in a variety of platforms and software development languages such as Java, .Net, Ruby, Python and PHP. Different than most conferences, this three-day event ‘mashes’ together ideologies and individual developer experiences to discuss, learn and even attack certain problems.

Having our developers attend this type of conference provides tremendous benefit to our customers. Even though CQL has the largest collection of .Net Developers in Grand Rapids, Michigan, we understand our approach with clients must be technology agnostic, and be willing to recommend the best platform and development language to meet the needs of our customers. Codemash offers excellent opportunities to tie together those areas of most interest to our clients, including Ecommerce, Business Intelligence, Content Management and custom web development.

In the next ten blog entries, we will provide some insights from our technologists who attended this conference on software development concepts that should be important to our customers (even if they don’t understand the underlying technology topic). Following is Codemash Installment 1 of 10:

Heroku (http://www.heroku.com/)

This was informative in a “here’s how an awesome deployment system could work” kind of way, perhaps made a bit sweeter because the presenter is a Heroku employee. Heroku is a cloud environment that has lately been adding more languages/platforms that they can host. Deployment is done using a git push, which then forces the system to recompile, test, and deploy the application. Very interesting system, and I just read a blog post about someone getting a .Net app onto Heroku using Mono and a bunch of duct tape, but it wouldn’t surprise me if .Net were added in the near future. Something to watch.

Why Our Customers Should Care: Recently named the 2012 Technology of the Year, by InfoWorld, Heroku provides a platform as a service (PAAS) for building, deploying, and running cloud apps using Ruby. The platform includes tools for deployment and management, a runtime for scalability, fault tolerance, and an add-on system for extending the capabilities of our platform. In essence, it allows your software developer to more quickly develop and expand your software solution.

PhoneGap (http://phonegap.com/)

This was a pretty cool session. PhoneGap lets you build an HTML + JS application that can then be packaged up and put on the various mobile app stores. A few alternatives were mentioned (but not discussed in depth) – rhomobile, MoSync, SenchaTouch, Appcelerator. The presenter also pointed out JQTouch as a way to make the app look and feel a bit more like a native application. Also mentioned (very briefly) was Mulberry, which is apparently kind of like Rails for PhoneGap development. Something to check out for sure.

Why Our Customers Should Care: PhoneGap is an open source solution for building cross-platform mobile apps with standards-based Web technologies like HTML, JavaScript, and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Based on HTML5, PhoneGap leverages web technologies developers already know best… HTML and JavaScript, and provides access to native APIs. PhoneGap uses standards-based web technologies to bridge web applications and mobile devices. Something all of our clients should be considering.

CI++

This session was a bit disappointing for a few reasons totally unrelated to the content. The presenter started out by discussing various bits of automation and testing going from standard practice up through “this-doesn’t-really-exist-but-who-knows (for example: Unit Tests for your Unit Tests and a Semantic code analysis tool that can find bugs to an impossible degree).” He lost a few audience members while talking about some of the non-existent tools, probably still 5 minutes before he said “oh, and by the way I made up a bunch of those things.” He discussed automating DB artifact deployment (by writing the scripts exactly like we do at CQL), and a few other parts of deployment, but then ran out of time before he could get into the stuff that I was looking forward to (although I have a feeling that his presentation was largely meant to lead into a sales pitch). Overall, it is an important topic, but the presentation simply missed the mark.

Why Our Customers Should Care: In software development, continuous integration (CI) implements continuous processes of applying quality control — small pieces of effort, applied frequently. Continuous integration aims to improve the quality of software, and to reduce the time taken to deliver it, by replacing the traditional practice of applying quality control after completing all development. Obviously, at CQL we take this topic very seriously, as we want our customers to experience the best results with the custom software applications we develop.

Check back for Codemash Installment 2 of 10.

Mobile Monday Grand Rapids January Recap

January 20, 2012 by Adam Clarke

Last summer, I joined the Mobile Monday of Grand Rapids (MoMoGR) organizing committee because more of our clients want to learn about Mobile development and how it can help their business. “MoMo” stands for Mobile Monday, and the Grand Rapids location is just one of many chapters that exist, globally. The MoMo organization brings together software developers and designers who practice their skills across many different development platforms. CQL is very engaged in developing custom software solutions across various mobile platforms (e.g., Apple, Android, Windows Mobile, etc.). As devices continue to become smaller and provide greater computing power, our clients find that critical (and non-critical) software applications need to be delivered through these mobile devices.

This week, MoMoGR held their quarterly event at Grand Valley’s Loosemore Auditorium. This event was focused on Gamification, which according to our keynote speaker, Venu Vasudevan, means the use of game design techniques and mechanics to solve problems and engage audiences.

Venu is the Senior Director at Motorola Mobility and definitely had a lot of insight on where this mobile movement will take us. He started his presentation covering the past and informing us on why TV, which has had very few changes in the last 10 years, has only been a one-sided media experience.

Example: Visual of a couch potato sitting hours with only the occasional bathroom break, or beer break. Definitely a one sided exchange because the only entity that is engaging is the TV.

But what if you could engage your TV and were encouraged with Games? It would revolutionize the way we currently watch TV. Venu gave his opinion on what works and what doesn’t, explaining that gaming only works when you take it a step further than badges and leader boards. When gaming truly works, a ‘rewards’ structure must consist of Intrinsic Motivation.

His Examples are:

Stack Overflow

USA Network

Seeking Alpha

Before the keynote, there were three short 4-5 minute talks from local people that have started to use games in either an application or a development practice. The most unique was a Grand Valley State University grad student presenting what he calls “Pocket PT”; a suite of accessorized theuraputic iOS games being designed to help patients recover from traumatic brain injuries. The goal of this application was to use gaming as an incentive for repetitive exercises. It is fully customizable and the clinics receive valuable feedback. Check out the video below.

It’s amazing how such a simple concept can change the way we’re engaging patients with traumatic injuries.

The event was great and I’m definitely looking forward to the next one (check out the MeetUp or our blog for updates). What I realized is that gaming, whether on a Mobile application or not, is going to have a huge impact on how CQL builds applications. In the future I see users more actively interacting with live televisions shows, advertisers, and much much more. Really the possibilities are endless.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from CQL!

December 23, 2011 by Adam Clarke

For the second year in a row, Michigan based software development company, CQL, was a drop off location for LinkedUp Grand Rapid’s Christmas Project. This year the non-profit they chose to support was the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans. A large list of items was collected including new batteries, clothes, socks, and new and used books. We were very happy that so many of our clients, coworkers, and other LinkedUp Grand Rapids members dropped off items for support.

For year two, we doubled the gifts that were received. It was exciting to see other non-profits get in this giving opportunity. One local church near CQL received extra supplies, and dropped off two boxes full of magazines, deodorant, lotion, and chap-stick at our giving location.

At this this time of year, most of us are able to enjoy fellowship with friends and family. We are blessed to be able to help others who are less fortunate. So, as we wrap up another year, CQL would like to thank all of our clients, vendors, partners, and team for an excellent year.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from CQL!

CQL Debuts New Networking Application

November 8, 2011 by Adam Clarke

A new application developed and designed by local software firm CQL will make its debut at a local networking event on Nov.11 at the DeVos Place from 6-9 p.m.

According to Adam Clarke, the “chief alchemist” at CQL, the application was developed at the suggestion of Michael Yoder, organizer of the online networking site LinkedUp Grand Rapids.

Yoder was interested in leveraging technology to help facilitate “face-to-face” networking at large events. The application that was developed will be synced with LinkedIn, a popular online professional networking site.

As attendees check into the event and register, information from their LinkedIn profile such as such as their name, picture, industry, employer and number of connections will be displayed on several screens.

For individuals relying on LinkedIn for business connections, Clarke indicates the information will facilitate networking by helping to make introductions easier and creating a sense of a “who’s who” in specific industries and companies.

Clarke states that future uses of the application are being explored, but he is very optimistic about its potential, especially for conventions or other large networking events where people might know each other via an online network, but are connecting in-person for the first time.

Clarke says the requirements for this application are simple, requiring only internet access, a laptop, projector and screen to use the software.

Other businesses collaborating on this event include local branding companies Deksia and Kmotion Design.

For more information about LinkedIn Grand Rapids or this event, you can visit their group site on LinkedIn. For details on the application, contact Adam Clarke at CQL.

Source: Adam Clarke, CQL
Writer: John Rumery Innovation and Jobs Editor