Island Web Works

As Charles alluded to in his last post, MIGTurbo 2.0 is coming on apace, with no lack of focus on maintaining its high levels of usability. We’ve been thrashing a number of ideas around in various forms to try and come up with a system for Securing data with the flexibility required by regulatory and legislative requirements but without losing usability and comprehension. We hope to post more on how this is going in the next few days, including some of the first screenshots from our new product.

The “other” big product announcement you may have heard about is the RTM (Release to Manufacturing) of Windows 7 by Microsoft. Windows 7 is what many see as what Vista should have been and has been widely accepted and praised as being an outstanding improvement not only on Windows XP, but also Windows Vista. Microsoft really seem to have pulled it out of the bag this time, with one user claiming to have installed it on a 266MHz Pentium II with 96Mb of RAM. If you’re already using Windows 7 in its Release Candidate or if you’re lucky enough to have a copy of the RTM, try these Keyboard Shortcuts which really open up usability when working with windows on your desktop. Some of them will also work in Vista. Try them out, you’ll be surprised what you didn’t know. Our favourite? Windows+Shift+Left/Right to move windows between monitors.

Staying with Microsoft, there’s been a widely publicised outpouring of grief resentment over the continued use of their old Internet Explorer 6 browser. Twitter and various other sources have mounted a number of campaigns to try and encourage users to ditch the IE6 browser in favour of more modern versions such as IE 7 or 8. IE 6 has been the bane of web developer’s lives, with its quirky rendering mechanism and requirements for bad practices in order to force web pages to work as the designer intended. We’d all like to see it pass on, but reality will see that there are many reasons why the browser will hang around for a few more years yet, not least of which is Microsoft’s commitment to support the operating system it shipped with till 2014. Persuading users who are visiting YouTube, Orkut or other sites which are now actively eschewing the IE6 browser is one thing, but persuading corporate IT departments to move away from IE6 is quite another. Coupled with the requirements of IE7 being Windows XP or later, existing Windows 2000 users don’t even have the choice. As such, IE6 continues to represent a sizeable chunk of browser traffic.

In the office, the debate continues about the benefits or otherwise of Office 2007’s new ribbon interface, an interface that has been extended to the rest of the Office suite of products in the 2010 Technical Preview. The detractors have a very valid point in that it significantly reduces usability for users who just want to “get the job done” as they have been trained. My own discussions on Twitter this week highlighted the other side of the argument, which is that maintaining legacy user-interfaces is detrimental to innovation.

Twitter conversation with @alexdegroot

It would be nice to achieve a happy medium, much like the Lotus 1-2-3 emulation mode previously in Excel to try and entice old-school Lotus 1-2-3 users over to the product. I guess when it comes to migrating users who have already “bought in” to your product it becomes a less viable feature proposition. Two of the guys on the Office development team at Microsoft have built a site dedicated to soliciting user feedback, cunningly titled “Make Office Better“. As most users in businesses spend most of their time in Microsoft Office, it’s perhaps an opportunity to drive the future of the product from the “grass-roots”. (It’s also got a great logo.)

Nathan Friday Feeling Internet Explorer 6, MIGTurbo 2.0, Office 2007, Office 2010, Windows 7

Whilst I should not be surprised, I am! Who drives ‘innovation’ in today’s software products! To me, the latest version of Microsoft Office is unrecogniseable compared to 2003, everything I want from the menu system has moved or worse, simply does not exist any more. How does a company become so arrogant or out of touch with its users! Functions that I have used everyday for years no longer exist.  My latest realisation is that I cannot save documents to my C:\ drive, apparently it is a security threat. I can copy the file to my desktop and then to my c:\ drive but not to my c:\ drive directly. It’s a bit like saying you cannot buy cigarettes because you are too young, however we will sell you tobacco and cigarette paper separately.

I must be getting old, I used to revel in technology, eagerly awaiting each new release and often feeling let down because the raft of new functions were superficial and of no real significance. Now I feel let down because each function is wrapped in so much ‘cotton wool’ by the time I have managed to get to the function, I have forgotten what I wanted to do in the first place.

Charles Uncategorized Office 2007, Office 2010

It’s Wimbledon and my favourite time of the year where my two favourite world of tennis and technology collide. IBM, the technology partners of all the Grand Slams including Wimbledon, always do a fantastic job of managing the vast amounts of statistics generated by the tournaments. This Wimbledon is no exception with integration into Social Media using Facebook and Twitter and the introduction of an iPhone application. Also interesting are the smaller innovations which occur on the outside of the core technology, such as meta-data attached to landmarks which are used to full effect by the new Google Android phone. Imagine the possibilities of local-based meta-data in CRM, giving you an extra level of detail on client and support sites. BBC Digital Planet showcase this feature as well as provide a sneak look inside the tech hub of the Wimbledon broadcast centre.

The power of social media has just bitten Microsoft in the backside with regards their next version of Microsoft Outlook 2010. The fixoutlook.org campaign has created a very simple page that creates a viral campaign over Twitter. What’s their beef? The continued lack of web standards in Microsoft Outlook. Although there are no official web standards defined by the W3C (or anyone else) on presenting emails effectively in email clients using XHTML, there is best practice. Without best practice, end-users may not find their email as well formatted as the designer, which can detract from a marketing message. Unfortunately, any degree of movement towards best practice is hampered by Microsoft’s response. This time, it seems, they are not interested in defining the standard themselves. Maybe they were stung by the standards they created alongside Internet Explorer 4 through 6?

Document Management comes in many forms and MIGTurbo provides its own document functionality alongside additional integration into third-party document management systems, such as LaserFiche. Our clients’ use of document management is wide and varied, ranging from a simple archival or audit trail for compliance requirements to paperless offices where forms are scanned and sorted electronically for later access. Before jumping in to investing in a document management solution, it’s well worth stepping back and considering how you will use such a system to its fullest extent within the resources of your business. We found a great article giving 8 things to ask yourself before jumping in to Document Management. Well worth reading, if it looks of interest both ourselves and our technology partners would be happy to help answer any questions you may have.

That’s it for this week, hope you have a good weekend.

Nathan Friday Feeling CRM, Document Management, DocuMentor, IBM, LaserFiche, MIGTurbo, Office 2010, Wimbledon

While we’re already busy testing our Outlook toolbar for MIGTurbo CRM out on the new Windows 7 operating system, the bods at Microsoft are also busy … building pretentious marketing videos for Office 2010.

Have a look at their work so far at http://www.office2010themovie.com/.

While I’m sure you’re just as concerned as me about the “No Return, No Undo” captions, one question remains: Will they backtrack on their ribbon user-interface? They now have two sections of their users that prefer the “classic” menus and toolbars and those that prefer the new ribbon interface (which includes me).

Nathan Response Graphical User Interface (GUI), MIGTurbo Outlook Toolbar, Office 2007, Office 2010, Windows 7