Why choose custom software when there are off the shelf products available?

Can off the shelf products help you do some of what you want? Yes. Can they do ALL of what your business needs?

And more importantly, by choosing custom software designed to meet your particular business needs, would you gain a competitive advantage? There’s a reason that the most successful companies have created custom systems that support their business processes and give them a competitive edge.

Actually, there’s a whole list of reasons:

• Custom software creates a platform to build your business upon. A custom system can bring your ideas to reality.
• Custom software can provide your company a means of extending services that other companies are not providing or cannot provide.
• Several of our financial clients are demonstrating their custom software to potential investors and customers as proof of a better investment, of a better service. I have never heard of a company that demos its off the shelf product in a bid for funding or business.
• Off the shelf software usually includes lots of things you don’t need, and yet is missing things you do need. They say the average user of MSWord only takes advantage of about 10% of the available features — and still can’t create a custom document.
• Using ready-made software is always a compromise. Off the shelf is built for different types of users with different requirements. Some will match yours and some won’t.
• You have to change the way you work to fit how mass produced software was designed. At Clevertech, we believe that your software should be a tool, not a restriction.
• There is often a significant amount of learning time involved in adopting new software. Since off the shelf software hasn’t been designed for you, you’ll spend hours learning to use it  including all those features you don’t need –  and more hours adapting yourself to it.
• Your custom software solution has been specifically designed to your requirement and tailored to the way that you want to operate.
• Custom software can interface with other software (off the shelf or custom) and provide you with an integrated IT infrastructure across your whole organization.
• Custom software is more flexible, and additional functionality can be added as needed or desired. How often, when using ready-made software solutions, have you thought, “If only it would do —” some particular thing you want it to do. With custom software, it will.
• Clevertech custom software applications are designed to work the way you work. They’re more intuitive and easier to work with because they’re designed just for you.

Next time we’ll talk about how custom web based software also creates valuable IP that increases the value of your company when it is sold or valued.

Permalink  |  Published in Uncategorized

Clevertech develops custom software for businesses in the greater New York City area. Much of our work is obviously exciting: meeting with clients, discussing the challenges they face, distilling those concerns into a scenario, creating a solution to surprise and delight the client — this is creative and challenging work.

That’s not the end of our work, though. Often, our work consists of small changes in existing solutions. Add the precision required and the high standards we adhere to, and it might seem as though we have a recipe for boredom.

Having to recreate a similar report with slight variations should not be boring and redundant. It is an opportunity to do it better. To make this version, for this project or client, more efficient, faster and more handsome.

This week I was able to give one of our clients a new report with rollover notes, click-thru details, custom filters with both an export to Excel and a nice print to pdf feature, and on top of that the ability to see the worksheet behind the resulting data. The changes might have felt small compared to the development of a completely new solution, but for the client, they resulted in a friendlier work environment, a more intuitive interface and better communication. That spells satisfaction for us at Clevertech.

Our clients are always trying to excel and surpass past performances, so how can we do any less?

Permalink  |  Published in Uncategorized

If you read the news today, you’d expect to hear that business is slow. It’s not. This is because we’re working with smart clients.

The companies we’re working with have taken this opportunity to claim new territory and build. There are plenty of opportunities right now:

• streamline to cut overhead
• automate to reduce staffing needs and free up high performers for innovation
• build new capabilities to gain new revenue streams
• reinvent operating procedures to strengthen teams
• refocus efforts to increase profitability

Clevertech is assisting the nimble companies whose hard work during the economic winter will reap profits in the summer ahead.

Permalink  |  Published in Uncategorized

So you’ve got that new TV. You’ve imagined how cool it’s going to look in your home, picked out just the right spot for it, arranged the furniture to make the most of it, and all in time for the Super Bowl.

So what about the dorky looking cable box sitting on it? Was that part of your vision?

Technology to the rescue once again!  The Next Generation Remote Control Extender lets you put everything where it looks and works the best, and use your remote wherever you happen to be.

I have two of these at my place, and my TVs look gorgeous without any wires or IR repeaters in view.

The Remote Control Extender takes your infrared remote and converts it to radio frequency instead. It works through cabinet doors and walls, so you can stow all the gear invisibly, and use the remote from wherever you happen to be.

Set up and use are easy. Slide one of the rechargeable batteries into the transceiver and use it to replace one of the batteries in your remote. Position the UFO-shaped base unit (I keep it in a closet). Now just use your remote when and where you please.

Two rechargeable batteries come with the unit. One goes in your remote, as described. The other stays in the base, charging. Do yourself a favor and program Outlook to remind you to swap the batteries once a month. Otherwise you’ll pick the remote up one day and find that it doesn’t work. Then you’ll be cursing at your TV until you remember.

Don’t ask me how I know this.

If you don’t use a universal remote, pick up some extra batteries and transceivers for the extras. They’ll all work.

Check out this video (kicky techno soundtrack and all) to get a mental image of how elegant it is.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx9RDZ4ZcMo&eurl=http://video.google.com/videosearch?sourceid=navclient&rlz=1T4ADBS_enUS286US287&q=next%20generation%20remoteiurl=http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/qx9RDZ4ZcMo/hqdefault.jpg&feature=player_embedded]

Permalink  |  Published in Fun Technology

We’ve completed another piece of a hypothetical trading system, Overcollaterization Ratios, for the Clevertech Portfolio Management System.

In today’s market, we need to give  our clients the ability to make safer and stronger decisions in their businesses. The add-on tools we’re working on right now are allowing our clients to gather the kinds of data they need to simplify the decision-making process while making it stronger and more certain.

As developers, we find it exciting to see a system start in its infancy and grow into the trusted foundation of a business.

It begins with listening to the client’s needs. With our business training and problem-solving skills, we can see into the heart of the challenge our client is facing, and reframe that challenge in a way that allows us to meet the need in the most cost-effective and efficient way, saving the client time and money. Let us do this for you. Contact us today to begin the discussion.

Permalink  |  Published in Business Strategy, Technology Tactics

You’re making a decision. An important decision. You gather up your data, stare at it for a while, scratch out some notes.

Let’s add an audience to the scene. Your minions, watching and admiring you. You breathe, they breathe. You frown, they frown. In silence. You consider all the parameters, account for all the variables, make calculations with lightning speed. Your team can practically hear you thinking, it’s so intense.

At last, you sigh. A whoosh of air. Your minions can hear it. They lean in. You’ve made the important decision. You announce it. They shake their heads in wonder. Another highly important decision, and exactly the right one. “It’s an art,” you say modestly.

Maybe it’s not really like that. Maybe you actually doodle and curse alone at your desk and go with your gut, and usually it turns out to be right.

Either way, there’s a complex process going on in your brain. Complex processes in the brain are actually conducted with electricity and chemicals, but let’s imagine that the processes of the brain talk. We imagined admiring minions for you, so we can imagine talking brain parts.

“I need to hire a designer,” you think. Deep in the control room of your brain, a voice comes: “IF we need a designer, THEN look among our current vendors.”

You look through the portfolios of your current designers. The voice comes again: “IF the design is symmetrical, THEN…” “IF the design uses the Golden Ratio…” “IF the designer’s fee is equal to or less than …” “IF the designer’s availability is equal to…”  The voice runs through the statements so quickly that they overlap. A new voice cuts through: “Define profile…” The first voice hasn’t stopped, and criteria are growing more diverse.  ”IF current vendors do not fit profile as established, THEN…” There are hundreds of IF…THEN statements running through your brain so fast that you’re not even conscious of them.

You might not even know the term “Golden Ratio.” Fortunately, your brain recognizes it as a mathematical feature of design that’s universally pleasing to the eye. If the portfolio you’re examining doesn’t use it, that control room in your brain will probably reject that designer, whether you can do the math or not.

You use so many criteria, in such complex interactions, that it may seem like an art to make that decision. In a way, it is. Your expertise, built up over time, is what makes the decisions possible. Often, you can’t articulate the criteria well enough to allow someone else to make the decision. That’s why you’re the expert.

When computers use a program that whips through multiple decision-making steps on the basis of rules that you’ve defined, it’s called a rules-based system. A rules-based system examines data you give it, in light of rules defined ahead of time, and makes decisions on the basis of that data.

Rules-based systems allow your computer to function like a human expert, running through multiple variables — fast — to make decisions with intelligence. In some ways, the computer is better. Assuming that your computer has a custom database and is therefore a central repository of data, it never has to stop and try to remember where that piece of paper was, or try to reconstruct a half-recalled conversation. Having a rules-based system custom designed for your business is  like bringing  in another expert, on your schedule and under your control. This type of program is not easy to build, but it’s so powerful that it brings your computer to a whole new level of usefulness.

Look around you. Where are rules-based systems already being used in your business? Clevertech would be glad to work with you to create your own personalized rules-based system to automate those processes. We recently built a system for a client which can evaluate over 50 rules for each of 9 portfolios for each trade he makes. In under 2 seconds. Think of all the areas in your business where rules-based systems are currently being used by humans. Now imagine having your computer making the right decisions in those areas every time, in seconds.

Rules-based systems are not easy to build but they allow you great control over your business. That’s why they are so valuable. Mass-produced spreadsheet programs just look at them admiringly.

Permalink  |  Published in Uncategorized

Many sites are vulnerable to attack, and we’ve seen the logs that prove it. Sites with an authorized user’s browser hijacked during a session, leaving all the data open to the intruder. Sites leaking sensitive information without realizing it. Sites whose entire database is sucked right out through the front door of the website.

Safe coding practices, maintaining all operating systems, and data security software applications are important — but not enough. We provide an extra layer of security using dotDefender. dotDefender basically listens in on all IIS traffic. If any of its pattern matches trigger an alarm, the user is denied. dotDefender keeps us up to date on the latest hack attempts and ensures our clients are safe from malicious intent.

dotDefender gives us an extra layer of security and keeps us up to date, but the keyword there is “extra”.

The most important part of keeping your computer secure is proper coding practices like validating data and its type prior to selecting, inserting or updating data in your database. At Clevertech, we make sure that all our custom software is designed to provide users with an interface that makes it easy to maintain safe practices when inputting or working with data.

We know that you don’t want to spend your time thinking about data security. You certainly don’t want to waste your energy worrying about data security. Contact us and let us defend you.

Permalink  |  Published in Uncategorized

Sometimes it feels that way: you, the puny human, trying to get your machinery to do what you want it to do. The mighty machine ignoring you and doing what it feels like.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

In complex systems, we at Clevertech employ a scenario building strategy to combine the business need with the testing methodology.

This may sound complex, but basically we just tell a story in the framework of the web pages we are building. Each story helps in understanding the expectations of the various users and that ensures that our testing is effective.

Effective testing, from the point of view of varied users, means that your machines do what you — the mighty human — want them to do. It’s the end of your battle with technology.

Permalink  |  Published in Uncategorized

Sometimes you need a little design job done. A friend wanted custom labels for wine produced at his share of a Sonoma Valley winery. We needed a new landing page for a website. Sometimes you need a logo or a stationery design.

If you don’t have a designer on the staff, you have to ask around and find a designer, negotiate the fee, work with him or her to develop a concept, go through multiple iterations to get to exactly what you want — and if you’re paying by the hour, it can add up.

There’s an easier way. Go to Crowdspring, post your project, including your budget and deadline and all the details, and relax.

Or work, if you don’t feel like relaxing. When you go back, there’ll be multiple design concepts from all sorts of designers.

You can still give feedback and ask for tweaks, but you’re starting off with a wide range to choose from. You can ask several designers for adjustments, and still choose the one that works out best — no commitment till you’re satisfied.

Crowdspring makes the process easy, even providing a free contract.

Permalink  |  Published in Uncategorized