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Software development is a daunting business, even with the legendary ease of use of the Mac, and that is one reason that most computer owners don't do it. Few people want to grapple with the intricacies of Java or C++ and even fewer want to learn how to design complex software systems.
So would you be interested in being able to write applications by doing not much more than drawing the user interface for your software and without writing one single line of code? Of course you would. Read on.
I had an email message from my bank today. "Dear valued Citizens Bank member", it began, "Your account information needs to be updated to protect your account and reduce the risk of fraud. Failure to confirm your records", it went on, "may result in your account suspension." Hmm, that's a bit worrying, I thought. Still, easy enough to click their button, put in my name and password and all would be well. My mouse pointer hovered over the link when I stopped: I don't even have a Citizens Bank account.
In the early days of the web, browsing pages was relatively simple. Links were obvious because they were underlined. Links you had already visited were displayed in red (a pretty poor pun on "read"). Graphic buttons, rollover buttons, Flash-generated drop-down menus and dynamic HTML were but twinkles in their designer's eye. Even then, though, the usability rules of the web were not that straightforward. In this article we will be discussing some of the design decisions that the architects of the web made and the impact those decisions have had on the usability of the modern world-wide web.
Lateral thinking is all about interrupting conventional and traditional patterns of thought, shifting the mind onto new, more creative tracks. Conventional "Western" problem solving relies on building on the experiences you have had in the past and extrapolating the approaches that have worked in the past into the present. This has the unfortunate effect of constraining you to think along the same lines every time, something that may simply not work every time.
In many organisations knowledge management has had a bad name. The image is one of buzzwords and the unmistakeable aura of expensive consultancy exercises: the playground of only the most wealthy companies. And perhaps there is also the feeling that this only matters for big companies with big information problems. In a small company everyone knows everyone, it's easy to find and share knowledge, right, so why devote effort to this minor part of the business?
The Diffie-Hellmann algorithm was ground-breaking. Its appearance provided the first answer to the problem of key exchange: that is, how do two people share a secret without exchanging a secret? Sounds counter-intuitive at best, but some brilliant lateral thinking and hard work delivered the answer. It also led more or less directly to the development of asymmetric encryption systems, the best known of which is RSA.
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Tellura is not a conventional company. When we work with you, we won't just look at your watch and tell you the time. We will take a friendly, common-sense, real-world approach to finding out how you do what you do, how you want to change and where you want to go. We will be clear about where we think our skills and experience can help. We will be clear about our costs. And if we don't think we can help, we will say so, up front.
Get in touch with us. If we can help you we will be delighted to do so.