04Jul 2015 by richard@baronsoftware.com

Software Development planning or how not to have a project from Hell!

Software development Concepts
Recently I was given an assignment to develop an Android application and the agreement to the price was based on the client's budget which sometimes you get what you agreed to. What I would like to do with this posting is give young software developers guidelines on how to forge a better project and attitude towards completion for the client and the developer. This is based on recent past experience where the client either kept adding on, told that the development was not what they expected, graphics not cut correctly by the client and finally target dates missed. The following insights provide any developer with a check list making sure the project is ready to be designed, developed and finally released. Payment Payment, to judge the amount of time needed…
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16Jun 2015 by richard@baronsoftware.com

Avatar Gaming PC looks to have disappeared. So what about the warranty?

Hardware Reviews
Avatar Gaming PC company looks like they have gone under after a few years of selling some low budget machines for gaming folks. The product line were not the most solid but they gave the user a Windows 8 machine using AMD and NVIDIA components.   Some of the issues they always had were the CPU fan failing after a few months (cheap cool master) and the case was very thin. The tech support guys were quick to answer and I would assume once the warranty is over (1 year) you are on your own. I would suggest to ask any vendor who still has the supply line to question whether the company is around or what type of warranty is there for a machine that the parent is gone. The…
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25Mar 2015 by richard@baronsoftware.com

Google Glass is staying or going ?

Hardware Reviews, Software Events
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Google chairman Eric Schmidt said that the company is still hard at work perfecting its wearable, calling it a “big and fundamental platform for Google.” So at this point while most normal people think it is a pretty cool idea, the cost and the support are next to non-existing.  Google earlier this year ended its Explorer program and stopped selling the original Glass. The project was moved out of Google’s research labs and transferred to a new unit that was under the watchful eye of Tony Fadell, who runs Google’s Nest connected home division.   “We ended the Explorer program and the press conflated this into us canceling the whole project, which isn’t true,” Schmidt told the Journal. “Google is about taking risks, and…
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13Mar 2015 by richard@baronsoftware.com

Google to close Google Code open source project hosting

Software Events
Google Code will officially stop existing. The open source project hosting service will no longer be accepting new project submissions as of today nor will no longer be accepting updates to existing projects from August 24, and will be closed entirely on January 25, 2016.   The company has moved their libphonenumber project which parses phone numbers from Google Code to GitHub.    If you do have projects on GC you can export them to GitHub, SourceForge or Bitbucket. The biggest problem are the projects that are no longer being worked on or abandon by the original developers which is a common scenario for all open source project platforms—SourceForge, GitHub, Bitbucket, Microsoft's CodePlex, Google Code, and every other, is that developers get bored, busy, or feel that a piece of…
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13Mar 2015 by richard@baronsoftware.com

Embarcadero, GoDaddy SSL and trust issues

Rad Studio Delphi Development, Software Events
It has been noted that the discovery for the Embarcadero client web sites such as the quality portal and the EDN have older SSL certificates that for some reason were not automatically updated by the vendor GoDaddy. Now a SSL certificate is sold to a company that provides any private information encrypted so that outside folks cannot monitor the web site and gain vital information. That being said Embarcadero should have realized the issue prior to clients viewing it and posting it on blogs (such as this). A major software vendor does not get caught with their pants down but Embarcadero has. They are a unique company that provides high class software development tools for all aspects but something simple as this which can be done by anyone at corporate…
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