Sometimes you just want a simple way to let your users edit the pages on their site without having to yell for a developer all the time. There are many many CMS offerings out there, with varying degrees of complexity. Most of them require quite a bit of wrangling. Wouldn’t it be lovely if you [...]
When I discuss workflow and get told ‘and then we type it into this spreadsheet’, I worry. Spreadsheets do have their uses, and when used appropriately are a fantastic way to display or manipulate data. What they are not, is a database.
Unfortunately, a spreadsheet is a quick and dirty way of routing round system limitations, [...]
Listening to Radio 4 this morning (I love Farming Today!), I was listening to the news reporting that Jack Straw has executed a u-turn on the plan to build large prisons. To my amazement, people were mocking him for having changed his mind.
Much as I generally dislike Jack Straw, my opinion of him improved somewhat [...]
Whilst I don’t want to appear to dismiss the pain of those who have been unfortunate enough to lose jobs or income as a result of the economic downturn, it appears that it’s a really exciting time for those of us who enjoy making things better.
Most companies have some form of IT infrastructure: you almost [...]
Leaving aside those odd occasions when the database has exploded, most of the reports from users telling me ‘my report is broken’ are for one of three main reasons:
User has forgotten how the report works
Incorrect data does not meet criteria
Developer error in implementing the report
The anatomy of a report
Reports can be broken down [...]
For the last three years, I have been working on a project to bring together all the disparate systems we employ here, to simplify the task of the user and to try and ensure that when someone is off, another person can pick up the threads. Oh, the system was supposed to do much much [...]
An Access developer’s approach to dealing with the use of Access in the workplace. Encourage, mentor, assist but never support the application!
I once worked on a system that fulfilled the primary objective of the business and technically let the users get the job done; but to use it, you had to have a fair degree of knowledge and skills and remember how to fill in all the boxes and which boxes were meant for each operation. [...]
I joined a non-local archaeology group last year, mainly because they had a website, and the local groups didn’t have anything I could find. Shallow, I know, but a web presence is so important to me – I like to be able to get access to information at any time of day, or when I’m [...]
I love the Internet, I do, I really do, but it wears me out.
I have more RSS feeds in my feedreader than I have time to read, and I come across more every day that interest me. The Internet is absolutely fatal to anyone with wide-ranging interests: it’s so easy to overdo the information influx [...]