Build-A-Web-App Workshop

Creating powerful enterprise-level Web applications doesn't have to be complicated.

Here, you can create a custom, live, lightning-fast, portable and flexible database-driven Web application in just a few minutes with your current skill set.

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Creating apps for mobile browsers

Many times, web applications created with m-Power need to be accessible via a mobile browser. For instance, maybe your salespeople want to check current stock levels or receive daily sales reports while on the road.

Because mobile browsers differ so greatly from regular browsers, you should really create separate presentation layers for use on a mobile browser. While these are easy to create with m-Power, it helps to understand a few important rules when designing applications for mobile browsers.

We have written an article in our forum entitled, “Creating apps for mobile browsers”. It lists a few pointers and some best practices you should follow when creating mobile apps.

7 tech innovations that changed the world

I just read a CIO.com article entitled, “7 Tech Innovations That Changed the World”, and it got me thinking: What separates a great product from an innovative product?

To me, an innovative product is one that changes the way you do things. It is something that you think about and wonder, “How did I ever function before this?” Although the term “innovative” is used so frequently, I believe that there are very few truly innovative tech products.

What do you think? What current tech products are truly innovative?

Save time with a web-based scheduling system

For Northwestern University’s athletics department, scheduling their facilities for changing game and practice times wasn’t easy, thanks to their outdated paper-based system. So, they ditched the old system and fixed their problems with a centralized web-based scheduling system where:

• Users maintain their own accounts.
• Facility managers are notified via email with any changes for their individual facility.
• System administrator assigns authorization to determine which menus and facilities are shown to individual users, so users only access the functions they have clearance to use.

You can even check it out for yourself. (Roll over menu items for more information).

If you’d like to build something like this for yourself, fill out this short form.

Easily find HTML colors

Web applications created with m-Power often must be customized with your corporate look and colors. While this is an easy process with m-Power, it’s not always easy to track down the exact hexadecimal corporate colors.

Here are a couple free tools that I’ve used to quickly look up hex colors when creating web apps with m-Power:

• Hex Color Finder
• Just Color Picker

Both tools make finding colors extremely simple. Just place your mouse over any area on your screen, and they will display the hex color of that area. While they both do the same thing, I really like the zoom and target window used in Just Color Picker. You can download either of these on download.com for free.

5 IT trends to watch in 2009

According to this eWeek article, we can expect to see 5 cost-saving trends in IT this year. While I expect some belt-tightening in 2009, I want to give one warning: It is not the time to curl up in a ball and wait for the economic problems to go away.

Successful companies actively find ways to improve, especially in the bad times. They realize that it often takes money to make money, and seek out solutions with a provable ROI. As a result, these companies will find themselves in better shape when the current problems subside.

If you've got some ideas, but you need help clarifying, cost justifying, or just thinking them through to fruition, give us a call. We specialize in ROI.

Stalking And Capturing A Business Process

This article on Forbes.com asks a great question: Why are business processes seen as being handed down from on high? We hear so much about the process and not enough about how the process was created.

What is the process for creating a process? First, you have to figure out what works the best. Before building the full system, you should create the smallest possible system, test it, and learn from it. Take advantage of "The triumph of incrementalism".

This process can easily be applied to web applications. If you need web applications of any kind, we will build a free working prototype for you with m-Power. You can test it, figure out what you like or dislike about it, and then build a full scale system.

It’s easy to get started. Just fill out this short form and let us know what you want.

Making your SQL life more Productive

One of our product consultants recently wrote a review of a free, third party product that can make you more productive.

If you find yourself using SQL for any reason when working with m-Power, you'll want to read it here.

6 Ways to boost company sales

These days, everyone is looking for new ways to boost sales and save money. I just read an article in PCWorld.com that lists 6 ways to help your company boost sales, but I can personally think of quite a few more ways that they didn't mention.

For example, one of our customers just used m-Power to create a new B2B site so their customers can buy their products at any time. They went from only selling during business hours, to selling 24 by 7. Better yet, the new site was created in under 2 weeks.

We have a presentation that lists a few more ways that companies can boost sales and save money. You can check it out here.>>

Movex User Association (MUA) welcomes mrc

mrc is now a 3rd party members of the Movex User Association (MUA). The MUA is an independent non-profit organization established to benefit users of the Movex ERP software.

The MUA has very stringent acceptance criteria for 3rd party members, and required that a number of Movex users both use and recommend m-Power. We are very happy to be 3rd party members, and are very grateful to the m-Power users who lobbied on our behalf.

Click here to learn how one company used m-Power to improve Movex, without any modifications to Movex.

Review: 3 free online image editors for web design

When creating web applications with m-Power, I know that you sometimes may need to find and/or edit images for the presentation layer. If you don’t have a good image editor, this may prove to be a difficult task, especially if you try to use MS Paint.

There are many online image editors, but most of them are geared only towards photo editing. However, within the last year or so, a few free online image editors have emerged which perform very well when used to edit images for the web.

We found 3 such online image editors, tried each one, and reviewed them in our forum. Feel free to stop by and check it out.

13 highest paid IT skills during the recession

How is the economy affecting the IT industry? Here’s an example of something that’s happening right now: In difficult times, companies often place higher value on certain IT skills and less value on others.

It helps to know which skills are declining and which are rising. Foote Partners recently released a list of IT skills and certifications that have changed in value during the final quarter of 2008. You can find the research results on CIO.com.