AppRefactory Website Down Temporarily

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he AppRefactory Inc. website is down temporarily, while some of the hosting arrangements and Microsoft Azure cloud account changes related to our recent updated service agreement (as a Microsoft Solutions Provider) are being processed.  This will likely take another week or so, but another update message will appear here when the site is back up.  And, at that time, we will also be able to act as a Microsoft Cloud Services Provider (CSP) which will be of value to existing and future customers.

Please bear with us during this outage period.

Project “ARTeRMis” Site Published

Link to “Edgewater” Tenant Site Prototype

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roperty Management Application(currently code-named Project “ARTeRMis”) moved a step closer to delivery of a much larger property management tool based on Microsoft SharePoint today with publication of one of the trial components: “Edgewater“. This component is simply an amalgamation of a number of different elements native to SharePoint, but hosted in the Office 365 environment and is setup to product test the suitability of them for inclusion in the TRM (Tenant Relationship Manager) application delivery going forward.

Artermis will ultimately be heavily dependent on Office 365, SharePoint and ASP.NET MVC when it ships; currently forecast for initial delivery sometime in 2017.

Fresh New Look for The AppRefactory Inc.

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fter 3+ years hosted at Weebly.com, it was time to finally take The AppRefactory Inc. company website into a modern hosting environment with features and integration potential that would allow us to demonstrate, albeit in brief, what ASP.NET MVC could offer.  Dynamic product listings with breadcrumb sub-navigation, upload sections for partner contracts and résumés; and database-driven contact forms that make it easier than ever (and convenient) to stay in touch are all just the beginning.  In the days ahead we still expect to add:

The AppRefactory Inc. website redeployment announcement graphic: http://apprefactory.ca

• Links to customer features site (requiring login) via Office365, Visual Studio (online ed.) and SharePoint,
• Highlights and links to ongoing software development currently being undertaken by the company,
• Book time online with a consultant to review your software service needs or setup an in-depth remote service session online through HackHands.com,
• Subscription for partner companies and contacts looking for email updates consultant availability and/or major site & service offering revisions, and
• Links to WindowsStore.com and related sites for specific product integrations (Windows desktop, server and phone all to be included).

So stay tuned!  There’s much more yet to come….and you won’t want to miss any of it.

(Additional graphics related to the new website can be found on our Yelp.ca listing.)

BLOG RELOCATION ANNOUNCEMENT

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ust a quick advisory to everyone concerning this blog — WE’VE MOVED!!! That’s right; as of today (October 2, 2014), The Ross Report is relocating to its new home at a new hosting provider. So don’t think for a second I’m disappearing anywhere…on the contrary. The new address is a migration off of the old wordpress.com site address because a new environment that is more in-line with the growing in-house architecture of The AppRefactory Inc. (the business I’m running) has become available. The new server also offers all the advantages that go with running one’s own WordPress.org application (PHP) server….which is to say absent all the limitations imposed on users of WordPress.com‘s space. More detailed analytics and the option to tie-into a whole bunch more apps and plug-ins are also now available and will facilitate some forthcoming development exercises in the weeks and (more accurately) months ahead.

So update your bookmarks now! The new permanent address is:

http://ross613.wp.apprefactory.ca

Look forward to seeing you there!

Why cloud computing is still a hard sell, but doesn’t have to be (Re-Blogged)

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ery candid exchange between two enterprise-tech pundits on the current state of affairs in the cloud space. Can the cloud save you money? As is so often the case, success is typically found in the execution as much as being duly responsive to customers. Commentators from Ericsson and Apcera offer perspectives on their own experience which might well be mirrored elsewhere…

Gigaom

The definitions of cloud computing have shifted a lot in the past several years, but a few things never change. Whether it’s located in an Amazon data center or a company’s own, whether it’s virtual servers or an entire platform for deploying applications, the cloud is supposed to serve many users, it’s supposed to improve flexibility and it’s supposed to save money. It all sounds great, but these guiding lights don’t always jibe with existing attitudes toward security and compliances and the systems put in place to enforce them.

On this week’s Structure Show podcast, we interviewed Derek Collision (above, left) — founder of a company called Apcera that’s all about making it easy to enforce policies while gaining the benefits of cloud computing — and Jason Hoffman (above, right) — the head of cloud computing at Ericsson (and former founder and CTO of Joyent), which just invested millions of…

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AR CamFeeder 1.0.1 (beta) Released to UI Testing

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amFeeder, reflecting my latest work, has been deployed to the AppRefactory website.  It’s not in an ideal state just yet, but does offer the main UI to serve as the platform for future refinements of a tool that effectively replaces a much older utility that once existed for Yahoo’s application platform (which I forget the name of).  It features a simple XML file that contains data about web query strings and URLs needed to display and, eventually, capture imagery from traffic cameras anywhere in the world!  Because I live in the city of Ottawa (Canada), I’ve added a selection of cameras from this city’s own traffic monitoring service – but any camera with a web-based feed should be compatible.

AR CamFeeder screenshot (taken September 16, 2014); illustrating the auto-tiling camera feed feature.

Indeed, it would be particularly helpful to receive feedback from persons editing the XML file (called camopts.xml) in the application’s folder in other cities.  Currently AR CamFeeder is available only for Windows; but I expect to have a different version readied for Android smartphones in early 2015.

This was also an opportunity for a trial run using InstallShield as a package and deployment technology in concert with Microsoft Visual Studio 2013.  The Limited Edition package isn’t bad at all; offering a time-unlimited means to archive an entire windows application within a setup.exe and tailor all of the settings one used to need the Windows SDK and Orca to tweak properly (at least some of the time).  It is this setup.exe made available for download from The AppRefactory Inc. website you’ll be using to do the installation if you’d like to review the package or play around with adding your own cameras.

If you’d like to add your name to a usability testers list, get in touch with me via info@apprefactory.ca and I’ll add your name to the group list; with thanks for your assistance in advance.

To the rest: enjoy AR CamFeeder during this trial phase at no cost.  (Fear not: more features will be in the full release which, it is still hoped, will be a free download.)

AR HelpOuts Launched!

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he AppRefactory Inc. launches its first service offering today with the debut of a partnership with Google Inc. through Google Helpouts.  This further enhances the company’s service offerings in the application maintenance and support space; but also extends its services to more generalized support of the tools and technologies it uses throughout its service delivery process.  Support is being offered through Google Helpouts for technologies and platforms like:

• Microsoft Visual Studio (all ediitions, 2005-2013)
• Programming Language Support / Tutorials:
  • Visual C#
  • Visual Basic / VB.NET
  • Java
  • JavaScript
  • HTML
  • XML
  • SQL
  • VBScript
• Microsoft SQL Server
• Microsoft Team Foundation Server
• Microsoft Windows / Microsoft Windows Server
• Microsoft Office / MS Office VBA
• Linux (Ubuntu)
• Apache WebServer
• Microsoft Internet Information Server
• Microsoft Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)
• Microsoft Windows Workflow (WF)
• Microsoft .NET Framework
• Web Services

…and much, much more!

Google Helpouts also offers payment features that allows either the business or individual user to use services on a demand basis easily.  And with this launch, the service is being offered, for a limited time, with a free support instance — giving potential customers an opportunity to “try-and-buy” for a fixed 20-minute session, without charges or fees applied.  (See Google Helpouts terms & conditions for more info.)