You Don’t Know Jack

Dear Apple, Can’t I Just Turn This Feature Off?!?!

If you're a programmer or designer, we know you love new features. The problem is that not everyone loves new features as much as you do. It's important to give the end user control over such features, so they can use them at their own discretion.

Take, for example, my 2-year old iPod Nano:

Not actually my iPod Nano

The Nano has a built-in feature that pauses audio playback if the headphones are unexpectedly ripped out of the headphone jack. All fine and dandy, except for some reason my iPod likes to think the adapter in my car pulls out the plug several times per minute. As such, I'll be driving along and the iPod will suddenly pause. I'll press play, and a few second later it will pause again. Repeat until the limit approaches insanity.

Now, the situation wouldn't be so bad if I could simply turn off this feature. But I can't. There is no way whatsoever to turn off the auto pause. The fact that I have no control over this feature is more rage inducing than the disfunctionality of the feature itself. Even though this only happens when I drive, one simple On/Off option in the settings menu would alleviate all of this trouble.

So take a lesson from Apple's failure. Give your users control over your devices and applications by making new features optional.

Windward Reports – Java and .NET Reporting Engines Developers Like

Here at Windward, we like to think we know software developers. The company was founded by a software developer, the company is development driven, and we owe our success as a company to the success of our software. That's why, when it came to design the Windward .NET Reporting Engine and Java Reporting Engine more than 7 years ago, David Thielen took an entirely new approach.

Used to fighting overly complicated APIs, Dave decided it was time for something new. An experienced Java and .NET programmer, he realized just how much easier it is to import libraries for calling outside code than it is to wrestle obtrusive APIs. It was then Dave built his own code to function as libraries programmers can import into their code to directly call the powerful Windward Engines.

Windward Reports – Saving Monitors Since 2004

And you know what? Programmers love it. Most can encompass the entire Engine functionality into their own projects with as little as three lines of code. This opens the door to an entirely new programming paradigm – no longer must developers building highly complex applications fight to fit an API into their own application. With the Windward alternative approach, end projects are no longer limited by the capabilities of reporting add-ons.

On top of that, the Windward Engines are some of the fastest in the game, thanks largely to their simplicity. On their own or in customer applications, these engines can crank out thousands or even millions of reports every single day if need be. Plug a Windward Engine into your own app for reporting, document generation, or mail merge, and you'll be slacking off at your desk in no time.

So remember folks, no matter what you're working on the age-old adage of KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) can always help you out. The best and most thoroughly designed product in the world is useless if no one can figure out how to use it in the first place.

Why Data Management Matters From The Start

It never fails, a business process as sure as the sunrise. As we're a reporting software company, the number one reason people come to us is to get a reporting product so they can sort through their massive amounts of data and turn it into reports, charts, graphs, and dashboards for reporting, document generation, mail merge, and everything in between. And this is where the fun begins.

One thing no one thinks about when starting their company is how to store their data. Sure, most make a few Excel documents or setup some SQL Servers, but it's amazing how fast data piles up and how fast spreadsheets get packed on top of one another and how fast Servers are filled, added to, copied over, and rewritten all without a sense of what you might have to go through one day to get that data out. Add on top of that a lack of naming conventions and even consistent data entry and you'll find yourself with a database nigh unusable.

The fun really begins when someone tries to create reports, charts, or dashboards out of a data set like that. Nothing makes sense. This is why reporting is often considered a technical task, because it requires a very thorough understanding of how the data is stored and structured. Couple this with query languages and select statements, and you've got yourself something no casual user would ever want to tackle.

I can't stress enough the importance of properly storing data from the beginning. It may be the last thing on your mind, but you'll be kicking yourself months or years down the road when you have to go back and do what you should have done in the beginning. Do yourself a favor and setup some data management standards from the start.