Northwestern University: Learn from the success of this Big Ten School

Northwestern University's Department of Athletics and Recreation always had a lot of balls in the air when it came to scheduling their facilities...and a lot of paper forms to track.

So, they decided to take it to the next level and develop a centralized Web scheduling system where users maintain their own accounts, individual facility managers are notified automatically with any changes to scheduling, and the system administrator assigns authorization so users only view the functions, menus, and facilities they have permission to.
See how cool it is for yourself». (Roll over menu items for more information.)

If you'd like to build one yourself, fill out this form»

Outsourcing: Executives value it, but watch out for shortcomings

There is no denying that sometimes using a third party to get things done quickly and efficiently simply makes the most sense in IT projects. But, there are also areas where CIOs need to be careful to pay attention to common pitfalls.

For example, this recent article on outsourcing reports that while 70% said they were either satisfied or very satisfied with their outsourced projects, more than a third felt they should have spent more time evaluating providers before signing on.

If you would like insights or questions into outsourcing application development, like knowing what questions to ask or where to start, let us know what you have on your plate. You may be unaware of some of the choices available to you.

Bring SQL's power to your application in a snap

SQL is a powerful language that many people use in their m-Power-generated Java applications...but many more can take advantage of it...and don't.

That may be because there's not a clear enough understanding of how easily m-Power's external object feature works with SQL. This quick article in the m-Power forum brings those capabilities home.

New web site content/feel

We recently added a new "products" section to our Web site that works a lot like the "hover" feature we've added to our web 2.0 servlets.

To check it out, first, go to http://www.mrc-productivity.com/products/

There's a new navigation in a menu bar directly below the main menu that now reads: Overview, Benefits, Demos, Testimonials, Specs, Pricing, Trial, and Contact.

If you want to find out more about what's on the screen, roll your mouse over the small gray icons.

Easy as pie.

If you'd like to incorporate this cool "hover" feature into your own applications, it's easy with m-Power. Just fill out this form for more information.

5 Innovations the CIO shouldn't miss

Here's a short list of five innovations that the CIO shouldn't overlook.

Note the fifth: AAA (Anytime, Anywhere, Anybody)and its expectation of pervasive mobility.

Really Simple Syndication - made simpler

If you use Yahoo, Google, or even a proprietary portal to subscribe to information on your favorite sports team, news, stock lists and financial information, or whatever interests you, that information is probably being put out there with an RSS feed.

Have you thought about how you can use RSS feeds to improve your business? Posting information about sales promotions, new products, technical support, and the like in a way where your customers, vendors, or employees can subscribe to it, can really help you get the word out quickly.

And now that is even easier. This document will show you how you can publish RSS information with your m-Power servlets.

If you would like to subscribe to our RSS feeds (which were built as described in the above document), click here to see how.

Three separate solutions in one.

One of our customers that had attended an ERP solution's user group event with the intention of finding one basic solution...found not one, but THREE different solutions to three very different business needs.

• They found a reporting solution that fit all of the criteria they were looking for over and above all of the usual players. Here's what they were looking for...Do you have the same reporting needs?
  
  
• They then created a series of wireless applications to allow their floor workers to quickly gain access to the information they needed from their blackberries.
  
  
• And, the icing on the cake was the shopping cart application they built with m-Power, like this one, that was custom to their wants and needs, that was less expensive (and took less time to implement) than the "canned" software package they were considering.

Fill out this form if you're interested in solving any of these problems in your business.

IT's top 5 training mistakes

While IT's relationship with end-user training has always been ambivalent, the pressure to get users more comfortable and productive on new tech systems is an ever-present challenge--particularly when facing corporate emphasis on information security, compliance and return on investment.

A good training program can count as a competitive advantage, but management isn't always sold on the business benefits of effective tech training.

Here are five reasons why they should be»

Using CSS to manipulate the look of your Web applications

CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets, free up a lot of design issues, and encourage a uniform look to Web sites, giving developers an easy way to maintain their sites.

And, as such, CSS has many capabilities. Recently I came across this interesting article on using CSS to manipulate your background image.

The article also gives you greater exposure to the syntax of CSS, and how its used. If you're an mrc customer and you'd like more information on using style sheets, here's another stylesheets article in our documentation and this CSS post in mrc's forum as well.

Is IT recession-proof?

According to this article in CIO Magazine, it is. Average IT spending growth is down and pressure to rein in costs is rising, but money is still available to fund IT projects and critical technologies.

There are five areas of high growth that fit this bill of recession-proof IT: Virtualization (servers and storage), Customer self-service applications, Open Source applications and systems, Collaboration software, and storage equipment.

m-Power fits three of those five areas: Customer self-service applications, open-source applications and collaboration software.

Considering DB2 Webquery? Here's a quick quiz.

This brief questionnaire may help you determine if DB2 WebQuery's free price tag is actually free...for you.

Testing your Web applications for the color blind.

1 in 20 people have some form of color vision deficiency, and if you're not one of them, it's probably difficult to picture how much color plays a part in day-to-day life, and in business. Pie charts? Graphs? Inventory dashboards with red or green indicators? When developing Web applications, it's important to keep these things in mind.

This article also links to a cool Web link that shows you what your site looks like to someone who is color blind.