Omnitech Inc. :: Taking You To Your Vision

Controlling the Chaos

Tue, 27 May 2008 13:14:26 GMT

With the wide variety of off-the-shelf applications already on the market, by definition, a custom solution means that your business needs are either complex, or unique; maybe both. The process of turning those complexities into a reliable, valuable business tool may seem elusive. The Omnitech credo, “Taking you to your vision” is more than a catchy tagline. In addition to our talented pool of developers, we have also created a cutting-edge process for helping you to understand and define your business needs.

The complexity of traditional software development has crippled even large, well-funded companies. This occurs when the project is constrained by an early, often inaccurate, design and the resulting software is developed in isolation from the end users. To address these weaknesses, we use an Agile software development process with Scrum.

First, we break down complex processes into meaningful chunks of related functionality. Next, each of these chunks is prioritized by business need and developed to the point where it can be completely tested. Finally, after a chunk is fully tested and reviewed by the project team, important feedback (in the form of modifications, improvements and course corrections) is incorporated into the next chunk of functionality. The project team uses this iterative process as it works through the backlog of prioritized features.

Each time the project team participates in a review of newly-developed functionality, we (and you) learn more about your business objectives. With this knowledge, we make technology recommendations that are finely tuned to your needs. Our focus on your business objectives helps the project team to streamline a wish-list that exceeds your budget, or to refine a set of features that require significant testing and feedback.

Key to the success of this process is that you directly drive the design, and remain tightly connected to the software product as it evolves through the development process. We help you divide your project into manageable portions and you help us build it your way. In the end, we provide you with a robust implementation of your vision firmly grounded in what makes your business tick.

Flash Forward

Tue, 06 May 2008 16:47:06 GMT

So you think your site could use a little movement. It's just a little too static. "Computers," you think, "are interactive, my site should be too!” After all, this isn't a still life painting. Viewers are encouraged to reach out and touch anything they can click their mouse on. Maybe they'll find something they didn't expect. Maybe that unexpected, or perhaps expected, change will thrill and excite them. It may not, but it will certainly draw their attention. So, how might you present this immersive experience to a visitor of your site? Why, Adobe Flash of course!

Omnitech utilizes Flash to create anything from a simple photo slideshow to fully interactive sites. We have the expertise needed to provide flash implementation that is both engaging and intuitive. Want to put a movie on your site? Flash is the tool to use. "Why not use Windows Media Player or Quicktime?," you might ask. Sure, those players present excellent quality video over the web but they often require a first-time user to download a plugin to view the video. On the other hand, the appropriate Flash plugin comes prepackaged with all current browsers; so you won't have to worry about downloading an application, just the occasional update. You don't want to keep your often impatient visitors waiting (or going somewhere else) because the plugin they need is still downloading.

Adobe Flash keeps things interesting with animation and interactivity. Can too much movement overwhelm the viewer and distract from informational content being provided? It can, and that is why Omnitech ensures that Flash components we implement will enhance the users’ experience and guides their attention to the information you want to communicate.

Due to the enthusiastic responses Flash receives, it was only a matter of time until other companies started throwing their hats in the ring. Microsoft recently announced the launch of their own cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in known as Silverlight. Microsoft Silverlight brings .NET-based interactive applications to the next generation of web viewers in much the same way Flash does. Please feel free to visit again as we will be getting more in depth regarding Microsoft Silverlight, its capabilities, and how Omnitech can make the right technology work for you.

We'll Come to You

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 15:35:09 GMT

Just about every company, big or small, is presented at some point with the dilemma of whether or not to hire a new employee to fill what is most probably a short-term need. Does one go through the employee selection process only to let them go when the work is done, or is there another solution?

At Omnitech, we understand that adding an employee for a short-term software development or business analysis task is often not worth the hassle. That is why we have developed our staff augmentation program. We provide our pre-qualified, knowledgeable personnel to assist you with internal analysis or developmental needs for as long as you need them. These personnel spend their time at your location(s), working directly with and for you.

Staff augmentation works well in situations where a more structured project approach might not. Do you have some ideas that you’d like to explore (perhaps a series of reports that need to be written) but you do not want the overhead of an entire project team? A single Omnitech person who is dedicated to the tasks you assign and reports directly to you might be just the ticket. In addition, if you decide you would like another person to get the job done more quickly, or you identify additional work, it is simple for us to add another person to the contract.

Our clients who have used this approach find that it meets specific, short-term needs quite well. Using staff augmentation can create a closer relationship between Omnitech and our clients and allows our personnel to become directly involved with essential business processes because they are 100% dedicated to client needs for the duration of the augmentation assignment.

Might staff augmentation be just what you need? Give us a call and we can talk about it.

PHP and Open Source

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 08:37:55 GMT

PHP is one of the programming languages we use here at Omnitech. PHP stands for Hypertext Preprocessor and is a scripting language suited for web development. This language is maintained and driven by the Open Source community. Since its inception in the 1990s, PHP usage had reached more than 20 million web domains as of April 2007(see usage stats) and continues to grow. We are always striving to meet our clients’ needs and PHP is one of the many pieces of technology that helps us to do exactly that.

PHP can be run on virtually any web server (Apache, IIS, etc.) and offers a powerful level of interaction with the MYSQL open source database. The main advantage of PHP is that anyone can download it, install it on a server and host websites which use it without incurring any licensing costs for the PHP. Our sister company Dataware hosts PHP websites and web applications on both Apache and IIS servers, depending on clients’ needs.

Most of us have heard of the Linux operating system and even more of us have probably used the Firefox web browser by Mozilla. Omnitech ensures that the websites and web applications it develops are compatible with Firefox, unless a particular client does not need it. Both Linux and Firefox are examples of open source alternatives to Microsoft or Apple products.

In the same way that Firefox may be used instead of Internet Explorer or Safari, PHP provides us with one alternative to using the VB or C# programming languages. Multiple frameworks, similar in many regards to the Microsoft .NET framework, are available to assist in PHP development. Zend is one example of a company that supports the open source community with a PHP framework and applications for use by PHP developers. In general, however, support for PHP frameworks depends on the community working on it, rather than a specific corporation.

In the open source environment, programmers around the world contribute, review code, fix bugs and improve security. We use customized open source solutions when they are advantageous to our clients. Over the years we have worked with PHP to build a number of websites for marketing, ecommerce, and course registrations among others. In addition, we have used it to develop private web applications which are critical to our clients' business. Although C# and VB are our primary programming languages, we are able and willing to work with PHP when it is the best fit.

.NET Simplified

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 14:43:12 GMT

We are inundated with acronyms today. From government agencies to the latest format for high-definition video discs, everyone seems to be speaking and writing in the new shorthand.

.NET (called simply “dot net”) is one of these new, relatively speaking, acronyms. It is a platform or framework conceived and built by Microsoft. It runs on the more recent versions of Microsoft’s operating systems (such as Microsoft XP or Windows Server 2003).

To understand .NET, it may be helpful to think of a .NET application in terms of layers, starting at the bottom:

An operating system such as Windows XP or Windows Server 2003.
The .NET framework, which runs on/with the operating system.
The actual application (such as MS Outlook).

Using a framework such as .NET allows us to have much more flexibility in the way that users access and combine information from a variety of sources, since the framework has built-in functionality to support connections to different databases and web services. In addition, working with .NET allows us to simplify both the initial code development as well as the long-term maintenance.

.NET applications may be developed using many different languages, though a large percentage of the development is done using C# and VB. Here at Omnitech, we use these two languages for all of our .NET development projects.

The current .NET framework is version 3.5, which includes the latest ASP.NET AJAX functionality. However, we are currently maintaining or doing development in all the main versions of the platform (1.1, 2.0, 3.0 and 3.5).

In the last few months, we have used .NET for a number of different websites (such as e-commerce and memberships websites) as well as for applications which are used to manage sales contacts, inventory or to set up and manage training classes for a variety of our clients.

Not All Growth is Good

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 14:06:21 GMT

Within the world of business, we generally look at growth as a good thing. This thinking goes back much further than the recent past, as evidenced by the business acumen of Alexander III (often called Alexander the Great). Not being content to conduct the business of his day (which amounted to a series of hostile takeovers) within the area near Greece, Alexander continued down into Africa as well as traveling as far east as India. However the growth of his business empire was not sustainable in the long term and the corporation began to break apart shortly after his death.

More recently, during the dotcom years of the late 1990s, companies expanded at remarkable rates. As an example, we have the creation of 650,000 new jobs in the US within the internet economy in 1999. Then, midway through 2000 everything changed. December 2000 alone saw more than 10,000 layoffs in this sector of the economy. Many of these layoffs were entire companies collapsing under the weight of unrealistic expectations.

At the same time many internet companies were racing down the highway to incredible growth; Omnitech was born. Initially, we had 7 people participating in the business either as owners or employees.

Our approach to growth has been decidedly old-school: we only add people to the payroll when we generate the revenue to pay them. Of course, this meant that while companies like Commerce One had staffed up to thousands of employees they couldn’t keep busy, Omnitech was slowly adding employees who stayed busy from the first day they came in the door.

Developing the company in this way has allowed us to be selective in our employment process, hiring those individuals who are highly qualified to provide the solutions which our clients need. In addition, we ensure that we add those employees to the Omnitech team who strongly desire to work here.

In short, since we have never focused on reaching a certain size or even expanding as quickly as perhaps we could, we have been able to put our effort into ensuring that we meet our clients’ ever-changing needs. Growth within Omnitech, when it does occur, is a byproduct of diligent endeavor and excellent client support.

People Who Need People

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 21:47:39 GMT

It is sometimes difficult to remember that every organization, whether a newspaper, a state government, or a a school, exists only because of people: people who work for the organization and people who are served by the organization.

This principle is true for Omnitech as well. We are who we are today because of people: our employees and our clients.

When Omnitech was incorporated back in November of 1998, the world of online technology was approaching an apex. People with good (and sometimes not so good) ideas were being chased by venture capitalists with briefcases full of cash. New technology companies seemed to sprout from cracks in the concrete at business parks everywhere.

We began without whiz-bang ideas, venture capital or even a cool sock puppet to help out. Instead, Omnitech began with a handful of people who were good at what we did and who had determined that combining efforts as members of a single team would allow for every one of us to be more effective, efficient and, ultimately, more successful. We started with people who knew how to meet our clients’ business needs.

In the beginning, our employees (most of whom had been independent software developers) brought their clients with them. Once again, we didn’t have many clients, but those we had trusted us to take care of them – and we did.

Since those days, we have grown to about 40 employees. Our client base has expanded several times over the last 9 years. Though much of our business is based in the regional market, we now have clients around the nation and in several countries overseas. Regardless of where on the map our clients may be, we continue to bring them the best technology solutions for their needs.

When you have a medical need, you visit the doctor. When you have a business need which would benefit from a custom software solution, we’d like you to visit us. We are in the technology business: the business of using technology to meet the needs of people like you.

AJAX Was Here

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 15:39:09 GMT

So what is AJAX and why do you want it? The word AJAX is nothing more than an acronym for Asynchronous Javascript and XML. If you are from Brazil, AJAX could stand for the Associação de Jogadores Amadores de Xadrez. However, we are not speaking of the Brazilian Chess Fans Players Association. When we talk about AJAX, we are discussing a technique used for creating highly interactive web applications. No one owns it and neither is it a technology, as such. Rather it is a new and growing approach for architecting web sites and web applications using several classic technologies:

Standard Presentation (X)HTML and CSS
The Document Object Model (DOM)
Server Data Exchange via the XMLHttpRequest Object
Javascript (which binds it all together)

AJAX is rapidly changing the way the web is being used; it is becoming the standard for enhancing the user interaction with forms. It curbs the traditional stop-go-stop-go that you normally encounter with web pages. AJAX allows the user’s interaction to happen asynchronously with the application, forgoing the common alternative of continual page reloads and the browser hour-glass.

Great examples of AJAX in use which most people are familiar with are Microsoft’s Web Outlook Access and Google’s online applications. Even this Omnitech site you’re browsing is driven by AJAX. Data is constantly being fed into this blog engine behind the scenes.

While AJAX sets the stage for a lot of razzle-dazzle, the main reason businesses are turning to AJAX is for usability. If your application involves e-commerce, then usability for you translates into sales. If your application is internal, then usability equates to employee productivity. It has been said that spending 10% of a web development project budget specifically on usability returns more than double the benefit of spending the same percentage on quality.

The trend in web application development is towards open standards and vendor neutrality. Internet connections are getting faster and AJAX is here to close the user richness/responsiveness gap which has traditionally existed between desktop applications and web applications.

IT? We Get It…

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 09:20:42 GMT

If you are unfamiliar with the world of IT (Information Technology) and find some of the terms confusing, the following site is quite helpful. Webopedia is “the only online dictionary and search engine you need for computer and Internet technology definitions”. Some terms we recommend reading up on include: .NET, AJAX, ASP.NET, PHP, JavaScript, Flash, WPF/Silverlight, Intranet, Extranet, Wikiblog, and Web 2.0. Omnitech uses the aforementioned technologies on a daily basis. A better understanding of the technologies used at Omnitech will provide you, the client, with the opportunity to make informed decisions and help us make your business as effective as possible.

In the upcoming months, we will be digging deeper into each of these technologies and explaining how we implement them in our work and how they affect your business environment.

How the Web has Changed Applications

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 14:56:29 GMT

Before 1995, very few people knew what web applications were. Of course, there was an excellent reason for that: very few web applications had been developed up to that point. Websites were becoming popular, but had not developed into the huge market which they comprise today. For discussion purposes, the primary difference between a web site (collection of files in support of a common theme, idea or product) and a web application (web-based data collection and processing tool) is one of complexity. Some popular websites (Amazon and eBay for example) can be seen as a combination of a traditional website and multiple web applications.

Until the advent of the internet, most applications were written to run on local computers and required that the applications be installed for each computer separately (for example, Adobe Photoshop). Or, in those cases where the application was hosted (run from) another computer, often called a server, one still had to install the client application (for example, Microsoft Outlook) on the local computer that would access and run the server-installed application (for example, Microsoft Exchange Server). For this reason, we often hear this traditional type of application referred to as a client-server application (or sometimes simply a desktop application).

Today's web applications take the client-server concept and re-purpose it. We still use clients, but now the client is the browser (usually Internet Explorer or Firefox). We no longer need to install every application on the local machine. Instead, once the browser is installed, we may use it to browse files on our own computer, millions of publicly-available websites and as many web applications as we have access to.

This is not to say that all of the old client-server applications have gone away. Indeed, we've not so much lost the desktop applications as we have built on the foundations which they have provided. One example of this is Microsoft's Outlook Web Access (usually called OWA). This web application allows a user to view his/her email via any standard browser. This means that the user does not need to be logged into his/her computer with Outlook open to work with email. OWA has been around several years, but it has matured to the point where it is almost as full-featured as the standard Microsoft Outlook client.

In other words, web applications are becoming increasingly able to support the types of tasks that we once thought were the realm of the desktop application. If we consider the usefulness of tools such as Google Apps and even ThinkFree, these changes cannot be ignored.

What about the Browser?

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 14:37:35 GMT

Ever since March 1991,when the inventor of the World Wide Web shared his browser application with a group of colleagues, software developers have been trying to make web browsers do just about everything.

One of the regular challenges for Omnitech comes from making sure our code works properly on different browsers, since each browser may interpret code differently. These differences can become critical when we are working with a website or web application which will be used by members of the general public, because we don’t know exactly which browser someone might be using to view the website or web application.

To help us determine where we need to spend some of our development effort, we can get a pretty good idea of what percentage of users are using a given browser. As of the latest numbers from one source that keeps track of this, the top three browsers (all versions) had the following November 2007 market shares:

Internet Explorer 77.35%
Firefox 16.01%
Safari 5.14%

If you add up the percentages, you’ll see that these three browsers account for 98.5% of the browsers in current use. For our purposes, then, other browsers need not factor into our development and testing processes.

However, the percentages we just looked at don’t tell the whole story. Each of the listed browsers has multiple versions, each of which has different characteristics. To put it another way, one version of a browser may display a web page (or menu, image, etc) in a different manner than another version of the same browser.

Going back to our percentages for a moment, you’ll notice that Internet Explorer has roughly three-fourths of the market. Breaking this down by versions, we get the following:

Internet Explorer 4 0.01%
Internet Explorer 5.0 0.14%
Internet Explorer 5.5 0.13%
Internet Explorer 6 40.24%
Internet Explorer 7 36.84%

You’ll notice that the last two versions in the list account for most of the use.
What does this mean for our clients? To put it simply, we keep track of trends such as these and make sure when we are working with clients that we develop the websites and web applications to fit the client’s needs, including knowing and coding for different browsers.

A Word From Our Designer

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 09:03:44 GMT

Well, the new site has been up for a week now and so far the feedback has been positive. We here at Omnitech are as excited to present our work as we are to hear what you think about it. That being said, thank you for your opinions; please continue to voice them. The new site has been in progress for awhile. There was a conscious attempt to maintain a similar functionality to the old site while presenting a visual evolution. Although we were proud of our previous site, it felt like it was time to move away from the web 2.0 aqua look. As a fan of darker designs, I began playing with the idea of subtle shadow and lighting effects in Photoshop. The light bulbs that can be seen on the site originally were utilized as advertisements in the Sioux Falls Business Journal and they seemed to fit the aforementioned approach. Knowing that not everyone is as big of a fan of dark layouts, I also created a light version of the site to present to management. Since a big part of Omnitech's business approach is presenting our clients with different 'flavors' to choose from, both the dark and light designs were selected.

The further progress that was made with the look of the site, the more technologies I was excited to plug in. You may have noticed the fun content transitions when clicking through the menu. These animations were made possible by moo.fx, a lightweight open-source javascript effects library. We also took advantage of another open-source effects tool known as Lytebox. Lytebox is a trimmed-down version of the popular Lightbox.js created by Lokesh Dhakar. Using Lytebox not only allowed us to present images in a dynamic visual manner, it also presented us with full html content support that can be seen on our work examples and career opportunities. In the end I would say we are extremely pleased with the results. It was a blast working on the site and it both looks and functions exactly as we intended. Thanks for stopping by!