igNew

The Tellennium Group becomes a new Client

Dan Murphy — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:28:00 -0500

Like we didn't have enough going on already, igNew has just recently started working with a new client, The Tellennium Group. The Tellennium Group is a 10 year old company that uses technology to proactively help their clients with the continuous management of their telecom processes and expenses. Much like igNew, they are a small company on the verge of significant growth. We will be assisting them with some new development efforts and both parties are looking forward to a long and working relationship. Welcome aboard The Tellennium Group.

Flash Professional CS5 will build native iPhone and iPod Touch apps

Joey Bratton — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:59:00 -0500

If you're used to writing apps in a Windows/Linux world then you probably don't have a ton of experience with objective-c. Apple's main language of choice can be frustrating for a lot of developers, and it can be hard to justify purchasing a Mac solely for developing iPhone apps. Luckily several different projects are starting to come out that allow iPhone development on Windows platforms and in languages other than objective-c.

Flash may not be coming to the iPhone browser any time soon, but Adobe has been putting a lot of effort into proving support for building native iPhone apps using the Adobe Flash Platform. Apple's iPhone developer license forbids using runtimes or JIT compilers alongside apps to run things not written in objective-c, but Adobe has gotten around this by using LLVM to do Ahead-of-Time (AOT) compilation. This should allow apps written in ActionScript 3 to run at/near the speed of a similar app written in objective-c.

CS5 will support iPhone development on all supported platforms (both Windows and Mac).

Adobe Labs - Adobe Flash Professional CS5: Applications for iPhone

Developing for the Apple iPhone using Flash

September Coding Challenge Winner!

Dan Murphy — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:57:00 -0500

We have received all of our entries and a winner has been determined.

Sam S. from Indianapolis, IN is our winner. Congratulations Sam! Your gift certificate is on its way. All participants will receive an email with the winning solution. If anyone else would like to see it let me know. Thanks again for everyone's participation and stay tuned for our October challenge which will be posted next week.

Thanks!

Funny Perspective on Client Vendor Relationships in the Software Development World

Dan Murphy — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 13:32:00 -0500

I found this video that portrays the client vendor relationship from an interesting perspective and it's pretty funny. igNew is fortunate in that we haven't had to deal with very many of these situations because all our cost and potential cost is discussed up front before we start on a project. Take a look!

Client Vendor Relationships in the Software Development World.

Facebook a success? Says who?

Dan Murphy — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 17:04:00 -0500

Usually towards the end of a long day, when Justice League igNew is experiencing scope creep, one of us will poke Dave (our Flash) with the idea that Facebook is a great business model. It's pointed out that Facebook is able to capture the attention of 200 million viewers worldwide and that is just a phenomenal thing. And as expected, Flash will begin to point out that Facebook may be able to generate a large amount of revenue each year but they are still not making money. Flash won't be sold on Facebook's model until the company starts to make money. His thought, "Who cares how many people show up to your lemonade stand, if you don't charge them anything?" We all agree with Flash on this but it is fun to watch get fired up. However, our mostly friendly banter brings up a good topic of discussion, how does one measure the level of success of a social media site like Facebook and how could that impact other web based businesses in measuring their success?

Here is a great article that discusses that very thing and how those measures of success may be impacting other business models. It doesn't use Facebook for their example but you should get the point.

http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1890-the-bar-for-success-in-our-industry-is-too-low

igNew client looking to move their headquarters

Dan Murphy — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:18:00 -0500

I thought it was cool that a company igNew is already doing work for is contemplating moving their headquarters to Louisville. It could turnout to be a big deal because they will bring some nice high-paying jobs to the area and we are looking to build a strong working realtionship with them as they grow. Here are the figures on the new job generation.

"If it follows through with its plans, RecoverCare could create jobs for 90 Kentuckians within seven years, according to plans filed with the state. The company would consolidate its corporate offices, administration, customer-service operations, call center and order-processing functions in Louisville.

In the first two years, RecoverCare would bring 45 new jobs to Kentucky with an annual payroll of nearly $4.4 million, its filing said. The new jobs would have an average hourly wage of $37.98."

Take a look at the article from the Business First and lets keep our fingers crossed!

August Code Challenge Winner

Dan Murphy — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 09:12:00 -0500

It's offical, another winner!

Just to recap, here is our latest challenge:

Using ASP.NET, C#, and LINQ to Objects create a web page with a form that accepts a comma delimited list of integers and outputs them into their word representation followed by a line break, with an option to sort by word, integer, or original order. Also, there needs to be an option to output 10, 20, 30, or All values.

We received a lot of good solutions but one man has seperated himself from the pack. That guys name is Nate S. from Greenville, IN. Nate's solution hits all the high points of the requirement and outputs a very clean reponse to the user. Great job Nate! Your gift certificate should be in your inbox within the hour.

We truly appreciate all of our participants for taking part and stay tuned for our September challenge!

Nate's winning solution!

C#-Code: Solution

<!--Start of Default.aspx-->
<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="Default.aspx.cs" Inherits="Aug2009CodeChallenge._Default" %>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" >
<head runat="server">
<title>Aug2009CodeChallenge</title>
<style type="text/css">
body { font-size: 12px; font-family:Arial; padding:0px; margin:10px; border:0px;}
p { padding:0px; margin:0px; padding-bottom:5px; }
div { padding:0px; margin:0px; }
</style>
</head>
<body>
<form id="form1" runat="server">
<div>
<p>Insert a list of comma delimited numbers anywhere between -79228162514264337593543950335 and 79228162514264337593543950335</p>
<p><asp:TextBox ID="txtInts" runat="server" Width="770" /> </p>
<p>Select the number of results to return:
<asp:DropDownList ID="ddlNumberOfOutputs" runat="server">
<asp:ListItem Selected="True" Value="All" />
<asp:ListItem Value="10" />
<asp:ListItem Value="20" />
<asp:ListItem Value="30" />
</asp:DropDownList></p>
<p>Select the order in which to return:
<asp:DropDownList ID="ddlOrderToReturn" runat="server">
<asp:ListItem Selected="True" Value="Original Order" />
<asp:ListItem Value="Word" />
<asp:ListItem Value="Integer" />
</asp:DropDownList></p>
<asp:Button ID="btnSubmit" runat="server" OnClick="btnSubmit_OnClick" Text="Submit" />
<div>
<asp:DataGrid ID="dgResults" runat="server" >
<Columns>
<asp:BoundColumn HeaderText="" />
</Columns>
</asp:DataGrid>
</div>
</div>
</form>
</body>
</html>
<!--Start of Default.aspx.cs-->
using System;
using System.Linq;
using System.Collections.Generic;
namespace Aug2009CodeChallenge
{
public partial class _Default : System.Web.UI.Page
{
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
}
protected void btnSubmit_OnClick(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
//TODO: Add some input validation
string[] numArray = txtInts.Text.Split(',');
int takeNum = (ddlNumberOfOutputs.SelectedItem.ToString().Equals("All")) ? numArray.Count() : int.Parse(ddlNumberOfOutputs.SelectedItem.ToString());
List<Number> numList = (from num in numArray select new Number(num)).Take(takeNum).ToList();
dgResults.DataSource = from num in numList orderby this.GetOrderBy(ddlOrderToReturn.SelectedValue, num) select num.word;
dgResults.DataBind();
}
private object GetOrderBy(string orderToReturn, Number num)
{
if(orderToReturn.Equals("Word"))
return num.word;
if(orderToReturn.Equals("Integer"))
return num.digit;
return null;
}
}
}
<!--Start of Number.cs-->
using System;
namespace Aug2009CodeChallenge
{
public partial class Number
{
public decimal digit { get; set; }
public string word { get; set; }
public Number(string d)
{
digit = decimal.Parse(d);
word = this.wordify((Decimal)digit);
}
private string wordify(decimal v)
{
if (v == 0) return "zero";
var units = "|one|two|three|four|five|six|seven|eight|nine".Split('|');
var teens = "|eleven|twelve|thir#|four#|fif#|six#|seven#|eigh#|nine#".Replace("#", "teen").Split('|');
var tens = "|ten|twenty|thirty|forty|fifty|sixty|seventy|eighty|ninety".Split('|');
var thou = "|thousand|m#|b#|tr#|quadr#|quint#|sex#|sept#|oct#".Replace("#", "illion").Split('|');
var g = (v < 0) ? "minus " : "";
var w = "";
var p = 0;
v = Math.Abs(v);
while (v > 0)
{
int b = (int)(v % 1000);
if (b > 0)
{
var h = (b / 100);
var t = (b - h * 100) / 10;
var u = (b - h * 100 - t * 10);
var s = ((h > 0) ? units[h] + " hundred" + ((t > 0 | u > 0) ? " and " : "") : "")
+ ((t > 0) ? (t == 1 && u > 0) ? teens[u] : tens[t] + ((u > 0) ? "-" : "") : "")
+ ((t != 1) ? units[u] : "");
s = (((v > 1000) && (h == 0) && (p == 0)) ? " and " : (v > 1000) ? ", " : "") + s;
w = s + " " + thou[p] + w;
}
v = v / 1000;
p++;
}
return g + w;
}
}
}

igNew Hired by Another Headliner

Dan Murphy — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:15:00 -0500

Back in July, Business First announced the planned merger of two health-care companies that specialize in wound-care products, RecoverCare and MedaStat USA (article here). That merger has taken place and according to the release (article here), "The combined company is a leading distributor of wound care and bariatric equipment and solutions to the acute and long-term healthcare markets...". igNew has been hired to assist in growing MedaStat's custom built software solution that will act as the foundation for the future business solution that will become the backbone of RecoverCare, LLC.

Better ways to approach marketing

Dan Murphy — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 14:22:00 -0500

I just watched a great video filmed at the Business of Software Conference in 2008. The keynote speaker is Seth Godin. I don't know a lot about him but this presentation was great. If you are a young software developer looking to start your own business, the VP of IT at your company or a business leader you need to watch this video. He tackles the idea of marketing in this day and age and how a software company can do it better with a smaller marketing budget (I would imagine the same could be said for a lot of different companies). Enjoy!!

http://blog.businessofsoftware.org/2009/07/seth-godins-talk-from-business-of-software-2008.html

July SQL Code Challenge - Winner

Dan Murphy — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 14:18:00 -0500

Drumroll please! The winner of the July SQL Code Challenge is...Greg B.! Greg's solution might not be the most elegant way to handle the remainder but it is effective. His code is below.

SQL-Code: Solution

CREATE PROCEDURE prCreatePaymentSchedule(@TotalSaleAmount Decimal(12,2), @TaxRate Decimal(12,2), @NumPaymentsToSpan int)
AS
BEGIN
SET NOCOUNT ON
Declare @Start int --Used for while loop
Declare @SumValue Decimal(12,2)
Create Table #TempPayment (ID int Identity(1,1), PreTaxPayment decimal(12,2), TaxAmount decimal(12,2), TotalPayment Decimal(12,2))
Set @Start = 1
While @Start <= @NumPaymentsToSpan
BEGIN
--In cases when the amount is small and num payments is WAAAYYY out there this will 
--prevent negatives from happening, but the last payment may be bigger than the others
IF (Select SUM(totalPayment) + (@TotalSaleAmount / @NumPaymentsToSpan) From #TempPayment) > @TotalSaleAmount 
BEGIN
Insert into #TempPayment (TotalPayment)
Select @TotalSaleAmount - Sum(totalPayment) FROM #TempPayment
Set @Start = @NumPaymentsToSpan  --Set @Start to the num of payments so it doesn't look again
END
ELSE If @Start = @NumPaymentsToSpan --If we are on the last payment then take do the math on what is in the table to get the last payment.
BEGIN
Insert into #TempPayment (TotalPayment)
Select @TotalSaleAmount - Sum(totalPayment) FROM #TempPayment
END
ELSE
BEGIN
--Case to do the "even" thing
--If whole number leave it alone
--If even leave it alone
--If odd then add .01 to make it even.
Insert into #TempPayment (TotalPayment)
Select Case
When ceiling((@TotalSaleAmount / @NumPaymentsToSpan)) = (@TotalSaleAmount /@NumPaymentsToSpan) Then (@TotalSaleAmount/@NumPaymentsToSpan) --Whole Number, leave alone
When (Cast((@TotalSaleAmount / @NumPaymentsToSpan) % 2 as int)) = 0 Then (@TotalSaleAmount/@NumPaymentsToSpan) --Even leave calc alone
When (Cast((@TotalSaleAmount / @NumPaymentsToSpan) % 2 as int)) = 1 Then (@TotalSaleAmount/@NumPaymentsToSpan) + .01 --Odd add .01
END
END
Set @Start = @Start + 1 --Increase Start
END
--Update #TempPayment for TaxAmount Based on Total Payment and Passed in TaxRate
--Update #TempPayment for PreTaxpayment Based on TaxAmount and total Payment.
Update #TempPayment
Set TaxAmount = (TotalPayment - (TotalPayment / (1+@TaxRate))),
PreTaxPayment = TotalPayment - (TotalPayment - (TotalPayment / (1+@TaxRate)))
--Return the recordset
Select ID, PreTaxPayment, TaxAmount, TotalPayment From #TempPayment Order by ID ASC
SET NOCOUNT OFF
END

I do have to mention that Chad H. had the most elegant solution by using the ROW_NUMBER and OVER clause. His code is below.

SQL-Code: Solution

-- Assumes the following table exists 
CREATE TABLE dbo.tmp_Payments
(	ID					INT  
,PreTaxPayment		DECIMAL(32,2)			
,TaxAmount			DECIMAL(32,5)
,TotalPayment		DECIMAL(32,2)
)
GO 
if OBJECTPROPERTY(object_id('dbo.usp_Payments_INS'), 'IsProcedure') = 1
Drop Procedure usp_Payments_INS
GO 
/*
dbo.usp_GenPayments
Calcualtes payment and tax information for a total value. 
Explanation of Approach
As a DBA, I generally create a physical "integer Dim table" that contains numbers 1 - 73048
(AKA 01/01/1900 - 12/31/2099) that I use for just an occasion, but since this not mentioned
in the challenge I will generate it in the stored procedure (NOT a best practice) 
CREATE TABLE Int_Dim
(	Val		INT )
Val
---
1
2
3
4
.
.
. 
Modifications
07/01/2009 Chad H. - Created
*/
CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.usp_Payments_INS
(	@Total		DECIMAL(32,2)		-- Total amount charged
,@Tax		Decimal(3,3)		-- Tax amount (assumes decimal version) 
,@Payments	INT					-- Number of Payments
)
AS 
BEGIN 
SET NOCOUNT ON
-- Start of Integer Dimision table 
--	Create a table of "string digits" to assemble integers with 
DECLARE @Chars Table ( val	Char(1) )
INSERT @Chars Values ('1')
INSERT @Chars Values ('2')
INSERT @Chars Values ('3') 
INSERT @Chars Values ('4') 
INSERT @Chars Values ('5') 
INSERT @Chars Values ('6') 
INSERT @Chars Values ('7') 
INSERT @Chars Values ('8') 
INSERT @Chars Values ('9') 
INSERT @Chars Values ('0')
-- Generate Integer Dimision table
DECLARE @IntDim Table ( val INT )
INSERT @IntDim 
SELECT c1.Val + c2.Val + c3.Val + c4.Val + c5.Val
FROM @Chars c1	
CROSS JOIN @Chars c2  
CROSS JOIN @Chars c3  
CROSS JOIN @Chars c4 
CROSS JOIN @Chars c5   
WHERE  CONVERT(INT, c1.Val + c2.Val + c3.Val + c4.Val + c5.Val) between 1 AND @Payments -- Limit table to number of payments
-- End of Integer Dim table (Real sp code starts here) 
DECLARE @TotalCnts			INT  
,@GrandTotalCnts	INT 
,@TotalTaxCnts		INT
-- Change to integer since mudulo expects and returns integer		
SET @TotalCnts = @Total * 100
SET @GrandTotalCnts = ((@Total * @Tax) + @Total) * 100
SET @TotalTaxCnts = (@Total * @Tax) * 100
-- Insert records in single insert statement
INSERT dbo.tmp_Payments (ID, PreTaxPayment, TaxAmount, TotalPayment)
SELECT
ROW_NUMBER() OVER(order by @Payments) as ID 
,CASE i.val	
WHEN @Payments THEN ((@TotalCnts / @Payments) + (@TotalCnts % @Payments)) / 100.00	
ELSE (@TotalCnts / @Payments) / 100.00  
END as Payment
,CASE i.val WHEN @Payments THEN ((@TotalTaxCnts / @Payments) + (@TotalTaxCnts % @Payments)) / 100.00 
ELSE (@TotalTaxCnts / @Payments) / 100.00 
END as Tax
,CASE i.Val 
WHEN @Payments THEN ((@GrandTotalCnts / @Payments) + (@GrandTotalCnts % @Payments)) / 100.00 
ELSE (@GrandTotalCnts / @Payments) / 100.00 
END as TotalPayment
FROM @IntDim i
END 
GO 
-- USAGE: 
BEGIN TRAN
DECLARE 
@Total DECIMAL(32,2)
,@Tax DECIMAL(3,3)
,@Payments INT
SET @Total = 106
SET @Tax = .06
SET @Payments = 3 
EXEC usp_Payments_INS
@Total	= @Total
,@Tax = @Tax
,@Payments = @Payments
SELECT 
SUM(T1.PreTaxPayment) 
,SUM(T1.TaxAmount)
,@Total * @Tax
,SUM(T1.TotalPayment)
,(@Total * @Tax) + @Total
FROM tmp_Payments T1
ROLLBACK TRAN	
GO 
-- USAGE: 
BEGIN TRAN
DECLARE 
@Total DECIMAL(32,2)
,@Tax DECIMAL(3,3)
,@Payments INT
SET @Total = 1
SET @Tax = .12
SET @Payments = 20 
EXEC usp_Payments_INS
@Total	= @Total
,@Tax = @Tax
,@Payments = @Payments
SELECT 
SUM(T1.PreTaxPayment) 
,SUM(T1.TaxAmount)
,@Total * @Tax
,SUM(T1.TotalPayment)
,(@Total * @Tax) + @Total
FROM tmp_Payments T1
ROLLBACK TRAN	
GO 
-- USAGE -- Ver large number: 
BEGIN TRAN
DECLARE 
@Total DECIMAL(32,2)
,@Tax DECIMAL(3,3)
,@Payments INT
SET @Total = 1897279.65
SET @Tax = .25
SET @Payments = 234 
EXEC usp_Payments_INS
@Total	= @Total
,@Tax = @Tax
,@Payments = @Payments
SELECT 
SUM(T1.PreTaxPayment) 
,SUM(T1.TaxAmount)
,@Total * @Tax
,SUM(T1.TotalPayment)
,(@Total * @Tax) + @Total
FROM tmp_Payments T1
ROLLBACK TRAN	
GO

Chad, like most of our participants, missed the last requirement which states, "any remainder should be evenly split among all payment amounts, with the final payment amount reduced accordingly." Sorry guys, meeting requirements is priority number 1. Regardless of who won, it is great to see all of you taking an interest in our challenges and we look forward to receiving your submittals for our August Code Challenge. Which, by the way, should be posted in the next day or two.

If you have any comments or need clarification on something, let me know. Greg B. your prize is on its way!!