Alpha Software

Alpha Five Workspaces

noreply@blogger.com (Martin Heller) — Thu, 24 May 2012 13:30:05 PDT

Historically, Alpha Five master projects were called "databases," because historically, Alpha Five was oriented around Dbase-compatible DBF databases. It has been a long time coming, but we've finally changed the terminology, mostly to help new users feel more at home in the IDE.

Alpha Five now has Workspaces, giving it terminology that is consistent with many modern development environments. It's a small change, but you'll see it throughout the product.

If you are really attached to the old terminology, you can change it back in your copy.

We'll try and update the documentation to reflect this change as soon as possible.

Of Moose and Llamas

noreply@blogger.com (Martin Heller) — Tue, 22 May 2012 13:53:06 PDT

In the next week or so, look for an enhanced schedule of Alpha Software blog posts, featuring tutorials and tips that will help you use our products, case studies and videos about successful Alpha developers, and some less serious stuff. If you have suggestions for blog postings that you'd like to see, email them to me or Richard (pattern: firstname + "@alphasoftware.com").

Meanwhile, some less serious stuff:

Alpha Five developers are taking on the world and winning!

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Rabins) — Sat, 19 May 2012 15:22:55 PDT

Over the last few days we have spoken to a large number of customers who have built or are building some really cool applications in Alpha Five version 11.

What all of these conversations have in common is one thing - Alpha Five v11 customers are building applications in their industries and markets that are poised to take on the entrenched players and win!

For the team at Alpha, the greatest payback of being in this business is when we empower our customers to fulfill their mission or dreams. As a result, these conversations have been incredibly exciting and gratifying for us.

Rather than keeping these conversations private we thought it would be a great idea to share these stories with the world and help our customers get their story out there.

So, if you have built, or are building an exciting application with Alpha Five and would like to be featured in a video like the one below, please contact me at richard@alphasoftware.com and we will arrange for a professional videographer to come to your place of business so we can help you tell your story.

Click here to Play the video

A Note from India

noreply@blogger.com (Martin Heller) — Fri, 18 May 2012 12:32:45 PDT

Recently, my daughter Moriah and son-in-law David did a month's medical rotation at the Christian Medical College and Hospital, in Vellore, India. One weekend, to Richard's delight, they took in an India Premier League cricket game, and Dave wrote about it on the blog they've been maintaining throughout their trip. (They are back in New York now.)

I'll let Dave take it from here. -- Martin Heller

Yanks in cricket heaven, Chennai Super Kings vs the Rajasthan Royals

Even though Moriah and I are in India, baseball rudely started the season at the beginning of April. Luckily we have been able to make due with baseballs older and distantly related cousin, cricket.

As we detailed in an earlier post, I played a bit with some of the locals, and it is pretty much always on tv. Today we joined a British fellow medical student, Steve, on a trip to see the Chennai Super Kings, which if you ask me is just about the most awesome name in all of sports (aside from the Yankees of course. Wait, are there Super Yankees?). To make it even better, they were playing the Rajasthan Royals, luckily not the Super Royals.

Cricket shares some things in common with baseball, but there are some important differences:

Field=pitch
Pitcher=bowler
Catcher= wicket keeper(also the only guy who gets gloves, though oddly enough they use baseball gloves during warm ups to protect their hands)
Batter=batter (likewise for bat)
Ball=ball
Out=wicket
Run=run
Outrageous drunken fans=outrageous sober fans (no alcohol allowed in the stadium, and no bars near it.)

And the fans really were outrageous. They cheered constantly, even counted down the seconds till the end of a time out. The men in the crowd were especially fond of the cheerleaders, who we learned were from Russia, flown in to provide cheering related services. And of course, "We Will Rock You" was blasted at full volume before the Super Kings came to bat.

A quick version of the rules

The bowler takes a running start, and throws the ball overhand towards the batter, and generally has the ball bounce a few feet in front of the batter in an attempt to hit the stump (three sticks behind the batter) to knock over the wicket (two small sticks placed on top of the stump). The batter tries to hit the ball, and unlike baseball, can hit it in any direction, even directly behind him. Also unlike baseball, he is under no obligation to run after he hits it, he can do so only if he thinks he can make it to the other wicket before the other team can knock it over with the ball.

You score runs by running between the wickets. If you hit the ball to the boundary on at least one bounce, you get 4 runs. If you hit it over the boundary on the fly (like a home run) you get 6.

In any version of cricket, the batter continues to bat until the opposing team makes a wicket, which can be done four ways: the bowler hits the stump and knocks over the wicket, the batted ball is caught in the air, or the batter is thrown out while running (the fielder has to knock the wicket over with the ball before any part of the batter crosses the line). You can also be called out if a ball that will hit the stumps hits your shin guards before hitting the bat.

There are three varieties of cricket played professionally, and differ by how long they last. The original version lasts up to five days! (played all day) and is probably thusly named because it is both a test of the players' stamina as well as the fans ability to pay attention to a game for 8 straight hours for five straight days. Each team gets two innings to bat, but in a sharp deviation from baseball, an inning isn't determined by how many wickets, rather all 11 players bat around. And as I said, they each get to keep batting until they make a wicket, in which case they have to go back to the bench and sit down, probably take a nap or do their laundry until it is time to start the next inning, which may be house or days away. So there is really no incentive to try to take the cover off the ball, because if you miss, its a long wait till your next chance. So you get a lot, and I mean a lot of defensive swings at the ball, occasionally they decide to run back and forth to score runs, and rarely they will hit it hard enough to reach a boundary. Unless the game is drawing to a close and they are behind. Then they get more aggressive and smack the ball around a bit.

In an attempt to bring the sport to those who are unable to watch/play a game for five full days, 50/50 cricket was invented, this lasting a mere 8 hours. In this version, each team gets to keep batting for only 50 "overs" or six balls (300 balls), or until all 11 men are out.

In another refinement, they invented 20/20, where each team gets only 120 balls. The game starts with a coin toss to determine which team bats first. One team bats through all their overs, then the other team tries to top the score to win. Teams will usually only go through 4-5 batters, and because of the limited overs, this version is much more aggressive, favoring teams that swing for the boundaries early.

Not having 5 days to do nothing but watch cricket, we saw a 20/20 match. The Royals won the toss, and elected to bat first, forcing the Kings, excuse me, SUPER Kings, to play the field first. Steve thought this was deliberate to make them spend their time in the field during the hottest part of the day, topping 102 F with near 100% humidity.

They Royals started out quickly, hitting lots of 4s and 6s, but after 10 overs they slowed, going through a couple of overs without scoring at all. Only three batters lost their wicket, but they put up a relatively disappointing score of 146 runs after their 20 overs. The SUPER Kings took the pitch in excellent shape.

But unlike the Royals, they were not aggressive early, and seemed to lack intensity both batting and running. They had hit only a few boundaries through 15 overs, and were settling for one run when two appeared possible. With only 5 overs left they were several runs off the pace, and it appeared their chances of winning were dim.

Then, as if a switch were flipped, they shed their defensive batting and running, and began to score. Still not many boundaries, but they squeezed two points out of one 4 balls in a row, and scored at least one on every ball.

They still looked like a long shot heading into the last over, down by 10 runs, needing almost 2 runs per ball. And instead of swinging for the fences, they patiently hit solidly, and stretched to get two. With one ball left, they were down by only one run, needing two to win, having clawed their way back from a deep hole.

I still don't really know what "deep backwood square leg" means, but apparently that is where the batter hit the final ball, with just enough juice to again squeeze two runs out for the win. The stadium erupted, and our first cricket match was a tension packed resounding success.

Cricket, at least 20/20, wins my approval. I won't be giving it up for baseball anytime soon, but it was a very exciting day and well worth the trip to chennai.

Dave

A postscript from Dave, posted the following Wednesday:

All week many people have mentioned that they saw me on television during the cricket match. Moriah found the clip on YouTube, where the entire match can be found. If you go to 3:35:40, youll see me talking to my friend Steve about the match. I probably said something incredibly insightful about cricket, and definitely didn't ask "what's the pitcher called again" for the fourth time.

Powerful Charting in Alpha Five v11

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Rabins) — Sat, 12 May 2012 14:59:21 PDT

Preview of upcoming feature pack for Alpha Five v11 - Chart Control in the Dialog component.

This feature pack will be free to subscribers of Alpha Five.

Alpha Five v11 apps will soon be able to include powerful dashboards with extremely flexible charting. To see some examples, please watch video 1 video 2

A very broad range of charts is supported. See below for a complete list of types of charts.

A chart can include data from as many data series as you want. Each data series on the chart can have it own chart style. So, for example, the chart you show in your images could have two of the data series formatted as line charts and the 3rd as a bar chart.

Alpha Five v11 uses a CSS style set of attributes to control the appearance of the chart which is both very powerful and also very 'readable'.

CHART TYPES.

Bar Vertical Grouped
Bar Vertical Stacked
Bar Vertical Overlaid
Bar Horizontal Grouped
Bar Horizontal Stacked
Line
Area
Spline
SplineArea
StackedArea
Radar
Pie
Doughnut
Funnel
Pyramid
Stock
Candlestick
Bubble
BoxPlot
Scatter

We would be very interested in your feedback. Please pass all comments onto marketing@alphasoftware.com

Advanced new Documentation and Help system helps unleash the power of Alpha Five v11

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Rabins) — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:52:11 PDT

Alpha Five v11 has evolved into a powerhouse for the rapid development
of data driven web applications for developers and a large and growing number of companies

As power has been added, we set ourselfves the task of building an advanced
new Help and Documentation system for Alpha Five v11 so that its built in power and productivity
can be unleashed in the most efficient and effective way by developers of all skill levels.

We are proud to preview the new system in the videos below and we would love to get
feeedback from you at marketing@alphasoftware.com .

The new Alpha Five v11 Help and Documentation System will be available very soon!

Video 1 Video 2 Video 3 Video 4 Video 5 Video 6

Another PHP developer switches to Alpha Five v11 because of productivity

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Rabins) — Wed, 09 May 2012 11:50:44 PDT

We have been talking a lot about MS Access developers moving to Alpha Five, but we wanted to share with you a verbatim exchange on our message board from a PHP developer.

pettechservices Chris Sutton

A reason I'm happy I purchased Alpha Five

I recently switched to using Alpha Five from a PHP Code Generator. I am happy that I made the switch. Not only is the software and its capability wonderful, but I submitted a bug yesterday to tech support, and they were able to verify it, and fix it, with a response today.

Understanding no software is perfect, nor is any company, but when I've submitted bugs to Alpha Software, so far I have gotten a response and resolution the next day. I do realize that may not always be the case, depending on the nature of the bug, but you know what? I'm happy. And its great that the owner (or one of them?), who I have not actually dealt with personally, but have seen in the forums numerous times, responding to people with resolutions.

In this case, it seems that tech support is actually faster at responding to issues than the sales department. Not too often you get to say that.

Anyway, I'm happy. :)

-- Chris

bobalston Bob Alston

Re: A reason I'm happy I purchased Alpha Five

Just curious, which PHP CODE Generator and what are the advantages you are finding with alpha Five?

bob

Bob Alston

pettechservices Chris Sutton

Re: A reason I'm happy I purchased Alpha Five

I had used ScriptCase ... although it is a nice product, support is horrible (difficult to communicate with), and latest release was full of bugs. Deployment was really bad, and not very flexible with templates and layouts... although it looks like it is from a distance. Only plus to PHP is it is more portable than a Windows based software.

A5 is soooooooo much more flexible, between functions, and layouts, and so much built-in functionality. I was able to achieve so much in a few days with A5, and it generates full applications, not just shells. I was able to pick up the XBASIC stuff quickly, between my past knowledge of Visual Basic (and even basic from DOS days), and all the video help files and wiki information available.

And the very active message forums are awesome.

There are a few things I'm not excited about with A5, again dealing with WAS, but those are supposedly being addressed. I'm not a subscription subscriber, because of getting married next month and I cannot afford it right now, but eventually I hope to become a subscription member. So, those fixes/changes I'll have to purchase unless I can get a subscription. But aside from that, I love the abilities of Alpha Five.

Chris

Building Secure HIPAA Applications with Alpha Five V11

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Rabins) — Sun, 06 May 2012 06:49:33 PDT

As Alpha Five v11 is getting deployed more and more widely by

businesses and organizations of all sizes, we have been getting a lot

of questions about building HIPAA compliant health care applications.

So we asked Jerry Brightbill from Alpha Software who has

built large HIPAA compliant applications in hospital settings

using Alpha Five Version 11 to share his thoughts.

The HIPAA regulations have many requirements. My suggestion is to
contact a security expert who is familiar with the HIPAA regulations
to get a profession interpretation of the requirements. Some of the
requirements are fairly clear cut, while others are open to judgment.
There are a couple gray areas that different analysts may give
different suggestions. An expert in that field can also assist in
developing a strategy for documentation and rules on using the final
product.

The biggest impact of the regulations will be in the design of the
systems, data structures, and layouts. The need to limit access and
track the access will drive the basic system and database design,
regardless of the programming tool used to actually construct the
project. For example, you may not want to show any PHI (personal
health information) in any lists, but only show such data in a single
record view, such as a grid detail view or a single record page. A
single record view is easier to restrict for access and makes saving
log information for capturing who viewed the data and who edited the
data much easier. In most cases, list views are used just for viewing
and selecting purposes, not for editing. The requirements make
searching for records challenging as well, as often PHI data is used
for searches. The developer and end user must decide what search
criteria is required and how it can be limited if needed. If you
examine existing solutions, you will find many incorprate similar
structures and design elements as many developers have reached simliar
conclusions about how to organize the data.

Some of the requirements are fairly clear cut, such as a need to
encrypt data and restrict physical access to the data servers. Most
solutions use some type of SQL database engine such as MS SQL Server
as they include many inherent security features. The Alpha Five
native dbf table construction also provides encryption methods, but is
an older data format and doesn't provide security as granular as a SQL
based system. Alpha Five includes very robust methods to connect to a
SQL based data structure and we have done extensive project work with
such structures.

Alpha Five provides a number of tools to assist a developer in meeting
the requirements such as a sophisticated web security system that is
built into the server technology. The web security system can limit
access to various elements by user role, which is a very critical
element in the regulations. The web security can limit access to
whole pages, individual fields on a grid or form, and the ability to
insert, update, or delete records. The security is applied in the
server for every file request and therefore is very secure. For
example, by default all pages and files are not allowed unless
specifically set as always allowed or requiring login. If they
require login, only members of assigned security groups will get the
file back from a request. The security is even applied to every
image, css, and JavaScript file. Alpha Five Version 10 introduced
security at the component level and now every Ajax call to the server
is checked against the security settings as well.

When the security system restricts access to a field in a grid, the
field is not simply hidden, it is completely removed from the server
response and therefore the data never reaches the client computer.
This allows using a single construction for multiple user roles as
needed and access can be limited by role. The system includes a built
in method to identify the current logged in user, as well as various
processes to get additional information about the user. This can be
used to filter data based on the current user with relatively simple
coding.

The Alpha Five grid construction includes a number of server side
events that make tracking changes to data relatively easy to track.
For example, when a record is updated, a system server side event
includes which fields were updated, as well as the data before and
after update. This data can then be saved into some log file to
record the action. Some developers using SQL server and similar SQL
backends will use code in the actual database to record editing
actions instead of using the Alpha Five features.

The Alpha Five events also make it possible to capture which data is
being presented to the user for viewing. Most experts will conclude
you must track who views PHI data and what data they have viewed.
Code can be added to the events to meet this requirement.

Alpha Software has also done considerable work with a third-party
company that specializes in very secure data storage. They provide a
lock box type system where sensitive data isn't even stored in your
databases. Instead, they are stored in their very secure servers with
only cryptic security keys to identify the data. Your local database
only stores a special key value in the secured fields, no actual data.
When an operation requires the secured data for some need, the key
(and other information) can be used to recover the data stored in
their servers as required. The lock box system is very secure and
transparent to the end user.

The success of such a project hinges on good basic design and the
right tool to implement the solution. I think you will find that Alpha
Five is a very effective tool to built to the design requirements of a
secure system.

Jerry Brightbill
jerry@alphasoftware.com

A business owner with dreams gets her wish with Alpha Five Version 11

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Rabins) — Sun, 06 May 2012 02:26:01 PDT

Wendy Welton a professional architect had a dream and she decided she wanted to take advantage of the web to market her home plans.

She tried some alternatives first but found the solution in Alpha Five Version 11 because of the combination of usability, power and productivity.

We saw her comment on the Linked in group for Alpha Five and thought it captured the essence of Alpha Five in a uniquely clear way and decided we wanted to share it with you here on our blog

"and I'm not a professional developer - just an business owner with
dreams."

Here are some links from Wendy's new data-driven site built in Alpha Five v11

This site uses the Alpha Five v11 "Power Search for Grids in Dialog Components Feature Pack"
(The feature pack allows you to create a Power Search module to find
and filter records in a grid that has been embedded into your Version
11 dialog components.) http://afhp.alpha5host.com/Search.a5w

And - here's another link
http://afhp.alpha5host.com/HomeownersGuide.a5w. If you click on any of
the options on the left, it will send you to the Search page and
prefill the appropriate check mark.

And she also used the new Image Gallery feature
http://afhp.alpha5host.com/Galleries.a5w.

Another abandoned Access developer shares his story

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Rabins) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 14:29:15 PDT

We tend to take notice when an Access developer comes out of the closet and reveals how frustrated he is.

DELETED: Microsoft has a history of
abandoning its developers

Well, that just happened on the ArtfulOpinions blog, penned by our friend and fellow developer, Arthur. In his post, "The Access Developer's Dilemma," Arthur outlines a history of Microsoft Access, from the release of the first version in 1992 up until the problem Access developers are faced with today. "There seems to be no future in continued Access development," Arthur writes.

But I can't do this post justice -- you'll have to read it for yourself. Head over to Arthur's blog, and don't be afraid to leave your opinion in the comment section, which has already sparked conversation.

Are you an Access developer frustrated with the limitations Arthur details in his post? Take a look at our newest white paper to find out how to move desktop Access apps to the web and mobile.

Alpha Five takes Access developers to the web

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Rabins) — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 14:21:34 PDT

It's no secret that Microsoft Access isn't the best tool to use when developing for the web and mobile. But the way we see it, that shouldn't mean that developers still working on the desktop should be abandoned.

With Alpha Five, Microsoft Access developers can take their soon-to-be-obsolete desktop apps and move them to the web and mobile. And Martin Heller, our Vice President of Education and Technology, is making sure Access developers know how to do just that with his latest publication, "Alpha Five Web Applications for Access Developers."

For more details, take a look at the press release we distributed earlier today:


ALPHA AND ACCESS: Only one can get your desktop apps to the web

To download "Alpha Five Web Applications for Access Developers," visit our free download page.

Another Microsoft Access shop adopts Alpha Five

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Rabins) — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 11:50:31 PDT

When we last checked in with Alpha developer Robin Bennett, his U.K.-based IT software development and consulting business, Start Software, had just finished an Alpha app modeled after Microsoft's metro UI. You can take a look at our previous post to see just how much Robin's app looked like a Windows 8 app.

But Robin didn't stop there. Shortly after he completed that app, he announced Start Software's adoption of Alpha Five for web and mobile applications. Head over to our press release that has the details on Start Software's switch:

ADOPTING ALPHA: Start Software has seen an increase in proficiency and a decrease
in cost since choosing Alpha Five

Thanks to Robin and everyone at Start Software for letting us share their story!

Are you an Access developer looking to tackle web and mobile? Tell us in a comment, and the next story could be yours!

Alpha Five helps keep libraries current

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Rabins) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 09:50:49 PDT

When we released Alpha Five Version 11, one of our first orders of business was to use it to strengthen our relationship with Tech Soup.

Tech Soup is a global nonprofit organization that uses donated software to promote social change, and we've been donating our software for years. Now, Alpha Five Version 11 will be found in libraries throughout North America, giving libraries the technical support they need to stay current in a digital era.

Our latest donation of Version 11 topped out at a retail value of $365,000, and we issued a press release with all the details:

SUPER SOFTWARE: Alpha Five has helped 7,000 libraries

At Alpha Software, we're very aware of our social responsibility, and we love how Tech Soup gives us the ability to reach communities throughout the world.

Know of a library in your area that could use a boost? Leave it in a comment to have your community considered to be a recipient of Tech Soup's program.

Update on Alpha Five Version 11 scalability

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Rabins) — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 07:05:32 PDT

Two years ago, we found ourselves constantly being asked if Alpha Five could scale in high volume situations. While we were getting great feedback on Alpha Five, there's always a legitimate concern about scalability.

Now, we have a new version with a lot more capabilities in environments such as mobile that require even more scalability. Because of that, we wanted to update you on why Alpha Five is able to scale so well. There's no better way for me to do that than by talking about how we work with our partner, ZebraHost, one of the premier hosting platforms for Alpha Five applications.

ZEBRAHOST UPDATE: Who says a zebra can't change his stripes?

Over the past few years, ZebraHost has expanded to hosting in 13 data centers, all of which have passed SSAE 16 inspection.

And while ZebraHost has always offered hosting options for organizations of any size, it recently started hosting to both public clouds and private clouds running Alpha Five. Today, those developing in Version 11 can deploy multiple instances of their applications in any of the 13 global data centers, and load balance them within a particular data center or across several.

For developers working with applications that store sensitive data, ZebraHost can now offer a hosted private cloud accessed by a secure VPN. With ZebraHost, no other customers share the resources of your private cloud, so your data will be securely located in a data center that's checked out with third-party security specialists.

In addition to these expansions, ZebraHost has also implemented a number of new features:

Fully automated platform. All facets of the platform, such as cloud, networking, security, storage, and software services have been automated to accelerate provisioning, reduce human error, and provide Alpha Five customers with the best end-user experience possible.

Network architecture. ZebraHost is now offering three networks all integrated into one public, private, and out-of-band management network for access and data transfer over dedicated carriers segregated from the public network.

Integrated geographical diversity. ZebraHost now offers servers in 13 data centers in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Servers are connected through private, 10G point-to-point connections and integrated through automated tools.

On-demand dedicated servers and cloud computing instances (CCIs). ZebraHost can now deploy dedicated servers in two hours and CCIs in 15 minutes. They also offer additional services including hardware, firewalls, and load balancers as part of your initial order -- or whenever they're needed.

How have these updates to ZebraHost changed the way you develop web applications? Let us know in a comment!

11 feature packs for the 11th version of Alpha Five

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Rabins) — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 09:11:11 PDT

You'll notice I'm posting this at 11:11 a.m. What can I say? I like a good theme!

Today we announced the release of our 11th feature pack, "Power Search for Embedded Reports" for Alpha Five Version 11.

No developer wants to buy bloatware that is loaded with features they will never need or use. That's why the core Alpha Five Version 11 platform focuses on the tools and technologies that are crucial to build web and mobile database-driven applications.

However, we get mail. Lots of it. It's from developers asking us about specific features. We weigh these requests, and when we see a number of developers needing a particular feature, we bake that into a feature pack.

This way, those developers that need specific features can get them while we're not overloading the core platform with features that are unnecessary for the bulk of our developers.

So far, we've produced 11 of these feature packs, and more are on the way as we continue to respond to the demands of our developers. And yes, if a certain feature pack takes off, it's entirely conceivable that that feature will find its way into the core platform at some point.

There's more about our newest feature pack in the press release issues today:

11 IS THE MAGIC NUMBER: The 11th feature pack
is 'Power Search for Embedded Reports'

What would you like to see in Alpha Five Version 11's twelfth feature pack?

What's better than a birthday bone?

noreply@blogger.com (Clifton Rabins) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 15:01:16 PDT

Two birthday bones and some pupcakes! That's what we served this weekend at the birthday party for my uncles, Teige and Caspian. They mean a lot to me, and in fact, they're the reason I'm here today.

Capsian and Teige have lived next door to our family since before I become a Rabins. They came to visit so often, everyone eventually they fell in love with Irish Setters. The rest is history!

Here's a great video of the birthday boys chowing down on their homemade pupcakes:

We thought about going with one big cake, but because we needed a candle for each dog year, that posed some serious fire hazards.

Other activities of the day included pin the tail on the cat; smashing a bone-shaped pinata filled with, well, bones; and bobbing for bacon.

Happy birthday Teige and Caspian!

Canine customer service at its best

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Rabins) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 11:45:11 PDT

When I found out that the term BYOD was referring to bringing personal technology to the workplace, and not bringing dogs to the workplace, I was disappointed.

We've employed Clifton, my dog, as the Director of Sniff Testing for over a year now, and I was hoping that the trend would help Clifton meet other canine professionals. But then I saw Buddy, the furry secretary, working hard for a veterinarian's office:

Pretty impressive! Buddy, Clifton would like to know if you're interested in getting together for a bone some night after a long day of work!

Groupama Insurance wins award for administrative app built with Alpha Five

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Rabins) — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 10:53:55 PDT

Sometimes good news takes a little while to reach us. I recently heard that Groupama Insurance won an award for an app they built with Alpha Five V11 late last year. I reached out to Dave Wyatt, IT Systems Development Manager for the healthcare division of Groupama Insurance, asking him to share his story, and he did.

By way of background, Groupama describes itself on its website as a "mutual insurance, banking and financial services group; Groupama has 39,000 employees serving 16 million members and customers."

Dave Wyatt had been working in Alpha Five on his own time when he brought Alpha Five to Groupama to see if it could solve the problem that his division had been struggling with.

The company was using Java to develop its applications in the cloud. But Dave's division found that Java was taking too long, required too much maintenance, and needed highly skilled (and more costly) Java developers.

Dave decided to attempt to rewrite Groupama Insurance's administrative system for the healthcare division in Alpha Five.

In about four months, the system Dave's division needed was up and running. When you factor in testing and deployment, the entire process took about six months.

Today, the company relies on its effective and easy-to-understand administrative system, EasyAdmin, which is entirely powered by Alpha Five.

Just how good is the app? Well, Groupama was awarded the 2011 Best Online Intermediary Award for EasyAdmin. The award, presented by Health Insurance Awards, is given once a year to brokers or intermediaries in the healthcare industry.

And, by the way, if the system was built in Java, Dave would still be in the process of configuring what is needed to build the app.

Thanks to Dave for sharing his story about Alpha Five v11 and its productivity for building data driven web applications!

With Alpha Five, creating a captcha is easier than reading one

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Rabins) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 09:35:47 PST

Everyone's familiar with captchas. Even if you don't recognize the word, you've encountered them.

The captcha is that distorted image of letters and numbers that you have to type in correctly before you can enter some websites.

The captcha, invented in 2000, makes sure that only humans (as opposed to automated software) are entering a site. Most IT guys know why captchas are there.

But what does the word stand for? I found out when UberFacts decoded the acronym in a recent tweet:

I shared this with my colleagues, and found out that none of them knew exactly what it stood for. But one thing everyone agrees on is that some captchas are pretty darn hard to decode and enter correctly. In fact, if you type "captcha" in Google, you'll find that the suggested search is "how to avoid captchas." That got me thinking. Could you create a captcha with Alpha Five? And if you can, is it just as hard for developers to create as it is for users to decipher?

It turns out that not only is it possible, but it's easier than I thought. The option to generate captchas is already built into the dialog component. You've probably even seen it before. You simply check the box that is appropriately labeled, and a captcha will be enabled for that field.

So, if you're using Alpha Five, it's easier to create the captcha than it is to read it! Did you know what captcha stood for before this post? Let us know in a comment!

What would happen if you sent an idea to Microsoft, Oracle, or Zend?

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Rabins) — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 07:56:05 PST

Probably not the same thing that happened when Derryn Balogh, one of our customers, sent his idea to us.

Derryn has been an Alphaholic for years, and recently tried his hand at developing apps with the new Alpha Five Version 11. After we released the feature pack on how to create slider bars in the dialog component, Derryn reached out to let me know how much he has appreciated Selwyn's videos. In addition to his feedback, he also provided a suggestion on how to enhance Version 11. Here's the unedited email he sent me:

Hi Richard,

The approach Alpha Five has taken in presenting videos with an introduction, followed by separate 'step-by-step' videos is fantastic. It gives people an understanding of what can be done, and the confidence in how to do it. WELL DONE, guys.

The slider bar feature pack will be appreciated by many. It's a fantastic input tool that will be VERY useful. Something that would make this feature pack even more valuable would be the ability to display an image dynamically, based on the input chosen by the user on the slider bar. Perhaps this could be packaged as another feature pack called the 'rating' component? Or, combined with the slider component for even more value.

One of the most common visual icons on the web these days would have to be the star image, frequently used on popular review websites and when booking accommodations, etc.

It would be awesome if the user could slide the bar to the number 2 and two stars would instantly appear. And even be able to have the option to select two criteria (as you currently have this option in the slider feature pack). For example, you could select between 1.5 stars and 4 stars. If this could be done with no coding, (much like you did with the markers on maps) it would REALLY show Alpha Five's true power, and run rings around FileMaker, Access, and the others.

Whenever I see a message like this, I automatically forward it to Selwyn. I was pleasantly surprised when, just a few days later, Selwyn sent me a two part series showing how this can be done.


Part One

Part Two

When's the last time that happened when you sent an idea over to a company like Microsoft, or Oracle, or Zend, or [insert big honkin' company name here]? Never!

What are your ideas for Alpha Five Version 11? Leave them here in a comment. You never know -- the next video we show might be your idea!

Clifton responds to sniff test request

noreply@blogger.com (Clifton Rabins) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 14:20:06 PST

Ever since I became the Director of Sniff Testing at Alpha Software, I've received emails asking me to come out and train top dogs at other companies. This is to help them learn to execute the sniff test to ensure software quality.

But the other day, I received mail the old fashioned way. I kid you not! Here's a photo of the letter:

The letter asked for more information about my sniff test training. But since holding a pen is challenging for me (after all, I have paws), I decided to post a reply here on the blog. By the way, it's amazing what you can do with Dragon Speech! You humans might not understand me, but Dragon Speech totally understands Canine.

For sniff test training, I plan to charge two pieces of bacon and leftover pizza crust per session. Here's a look at the curriculum:

Wagging tail and licking product if it's ready to ship. If it's not, pushing it away with nose.
Cleaning up after meetings by making sure no pizza is left over.
Greeting customers by opening doors via jumping up and pushing with paws. Note: accessible door handles required.
Providing employees with lunchtime walks in the park.
Keeping meetings on track by barking at anything that takes you off task.

Interested in hiring me? Leave your information in a comment below, and I'll get back to you as soon as my schedule opens up.

How to build advanced search into a web site in under 30 minutes with Alpha Five Version 11

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Rabins) — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 06:59:01 PST

What takes 30 minutes? Your favorite TV show? Pizza delivery? How about building advanced search into your web site or application? With the newest Alpha Five Version 11 feature pack, Power Search for Grids, you can cut the production time for building sophisticated search functionality into your app down from weeks or even months to several minutes. Check this out for more details.

Take a look Kayak.com, Hotels.com, or OpenTable.com. Through their search capabilities, they make it easy for visitors to their sites to find what they are looking for easily. These websites all have one thing in common: sophisticated search functionality powered by search boxes, sliders, pick lists, and a results grid that presents the results. They've also got something else in common: They would take a lot longer than 30 minutes to create using PHP, Visual Studio, .Net, Ruby, or other web development tools. This kind of functionality can now be achieved very easily with the new Power Search for Grids Feature Pack.

Want to know more? We thought you might, so we sent Selwyn in to create a series of videos that show how this is done. Please note, the features shown here will only be available to you if you have the feature pack installed.

So, think you can skip one episode of your favorite sitcom, or get creative while you're waiting for that pizza?

Usability expert Jakob Nielsen sees major strategy shift coming for web developers

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Rabins) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 13:32:25 PST

I hate to say I told you so. And I didn't enjoy writing this post one bit.

Alright, I enjoyed it just a bit.

OK, actually, I really loved writing it.

But you would too, if an industry icon just advocated something you've been advocating for years.

That icon would be Jakob Nielsen, author, researcher, and usability consultant who is also a partner to another industry icon, Donald Norman. He specializes in user interfaces, particularly user-centered methodology such as web usability and design strategy.

But as far as I'm concerned, I have some other names for him: the king of usability, the guru of web page usability, the usability Pope, the god of usability, the usability czar, the Grand Poobah of usability, and the chief of usability.

Alright, enough buildup for how awesome Jakob Nielsen is. The point is, his most recent article is in support of my advocacy, which is for HTML5 being the answer to a lot of the problems we're seeing in web development today. In Nielsen's recent article, "Mobile Sites vs. Apps: The Coming Strategy Shift," he tells us to dump the mobile apps and make the shift to open standards.

Finally! After talking about it for years, I'm in good company. (Can you tell I have a weak ego?)

He goes on to predict a major shift in strategy for developers, so it's important that all the Alphaholics read this article. It really validates our strategy here at Alpha Five, which has always had you, the developer, in mind!

Talking tablets with TabTimes

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Rabins) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 07:23:32 PST

BYOD is one of the most disappointing acronyms I have ever encountered. It turns out that it stands for "bring your own device" to work, and is a catchphrase for the consumerization era. The reason it disappointed me was because I thought it meant "bring your own dog" to work, and as you all know, I'm a huge advocate of that trend.

But of course, that's not the case. And once I got past my initial disappointment, I was able to focus on the enormity of the trend. I've been tracking it for years, and recently, Tab Times asked me to share my thoughts on what most industry experts can agree on: BYOD is on the verge of mass adoption by corporations, and the device of choice is proving to be the tablet.

But BYOD poses significant problems to the enterprise. Problems that I believe Alpha Five Version 11 can help solve. Take in the article, and you'll see what I mean.

And P.S. no comments asking whether or not that's a dog in the photo!

Alpha Five's furry valentine

noreply@blogger.com (Richard Rabins) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 06:08:26 PST

According to Webster's dictionary, one of the definitions of a valentine is someone who "expresses uncritical praise or affection." Who in your life fits that description? I know exactly who it is in mine!

My valentine brings me the paper every morning, without tearing his favorite sections out first. He makes a fool out of himself just to see me laugh, eats whatever I give him for dinner, and never steals the remote from me. He doesn't complain that I snore at night, and is happy to move to the floor when I complain that he's snoring.

My valentine never criticizes my appearance, job, or handiwork around the house -- he's just happy to have me around. In fact, he's content to stay by my side whether I'm sick or healthy, happy or sad. Have a guess who it is?

My valentine this year is Clifton, my dog!

And I'm not the only one who thinks a dog is the best sweetheart -- according to Recession Wire's recent study featuring 400 Americans, the majority stated that their pets’ emotional support and happy-go-lucky attitude were the key to helping them get through tough times.

Yes, we have our husbands, wives, children, and friends, but no love is quite as special as the non-judgmental, unconditional love that our dogs have for us. So this Valentine's Day, pick up a heart-shaped bone and make a date with your biggest fan. I guarantee he won't even argue about what movie to see!

And whatever you do, please don't show this to my wife!