Category: Custom Applications

Earlier this year, the Massachusetts economy was named one of the most technology-heavy in the entire country. The workforce in Massachusetts relies on technology each and every day, which has improved productivity and the number of people who are proficient with different aspects of the IT world. But is the tech sector of the economy in Massachusetts growing fast enough?

Five years ago, industry group Mass Technology Leadership Council set a goal of there being 100,000 new technology jobs created in Massachusetts by the year 2020. Massachusetts is generally on track to meet this goal, though there are a few issues that experts have noted in recent months. The biggest one being that there are more available jobs than there are qualified people.

According to a report released by the group late last week, for every recent graduate that is qualified to hold a tech job, there are 17 open positions available. Between 2010 and 2013, Massachusetts technology companies created just under 18,000 new jobs, which fell short of the set goal of about 26,000 for that time period. By the end of 2013, the Bay State had 214,000 tech jobs, up from 197,000 when the goals were initially set.

According to the report, the best way to deal with this talent crunch is to create programs and initiatives that will develop, attract and retain talent. The tech industry is a major part of the Massachusetts economy, comprising of 20 percent of the overall workforce and contributing $93 billion in economic value to the state, $7 billion of which is through state and local taxes.

If you are starting your own tech company and are in need of custom web application development to help grow your business, be sure to work with KYO Logic today!

Transcript

Hey everybody and welcome back! This time, we’ll be talking about how FileMaker can allow you to extract old data you have saved on your computer.

One of the main questions that people have when using FileMaker is whether or not it has the ability to recover information from and old system or from another application, such as Google Docs or Excel.

The answer to that is absolutely! FileMaker has excellent built-in tools, as well as customized tools, for extracting information from the Microsoft apps that you use regularly on your computer. This will make it easier for you to use FileMaker in the future.

As always thanks for watching, and be sure to check back here again soon for more helpful FileMaker tips and information!

The past few months have made this an especially difficult winter, particularly for those who live in the New England area. Record-setting amounts of snow have fallen in just the last few weeks, making the morning and evening commute even more of a hassle than it is already. The winter has also taken a physical toll on roads themselves.

If you live in an area that has seen an uptick in potholes and other road issues, that is likely due to the winter wreaking havoc on the pavement. Nobody wants to deal with these issues, especially because they can end up physically damaging your car if you are not careful about how and where you drive each day.

But now there is a way for residents of Connecticut to report potholes that they see on the road while they are out driving. In West Hartford, citizens are going high-tech with the support and encouragement of local government and public works employees to get these problems resolved as quickly as possible.

The smartphone app, known as "Your Gov," allows residents to login and report potholes that they see and where they see them while out on the road. This new app can be used either by smartphone or laptop. It works by the person taking a picture of the pothole and sending it in through the app, which creates a service request within the Department of Public Works.

Department of Public Works Director John Phillips says the rollout is coming just as the town is starting to deal with a myriad of potholes and other road issues that have been caused by this brutally cold winter. The department can be notified immediately and a crew dispatched, which increases the efficiency in which the problems are resolved.

If you are looking to create your own custom database software, be sure to contact KYO Logic today.

Transcript

If you’re not familiar with the program FileMaker, you might be wondering what it can do to support your website. This time, we’ll take a look at just that.

Web Direct is an exciting new feature offered by FileMaker, which will allow you to easily transfer the program’s features to your web browser. It is recommended that this part of the program be used by up to 50 concurrent users.

Building a traditional website through FileMaker is something that is commonly done. FileMaker is excellent as a back end for websites, as it has very capable PHP libraries. While a plug-in is sometimes required, FileMaker can handle web services such as SOAP and WSDL with ease.

Thanks for watching, and be sure to check back here again soon for more FileMaker news and tips!

Beginning toward the end of April, the United States Supreme Court will hear oral arguments pertaining to the constitutionality of same-sex marriage bans that still exist throughout the country. With 37 states currently recognizing the legality of these unions, it is widely expected that SCOTUS will strike down the remaining bans, despite any controversies that continue to exist in some areas.

Early last week, nearly 400 major companies in a variety of fields across the United States signed on to urge SCOTUS to support gay marriage across the entire country. Some of these companies included Apple, Google, Goldman Sachs and Capital One. Each has said publicly that same-sex couples have the right to legally wed in every state.

Two Massachusetts technology companies have joined the fight for gay rights equality. Cambridge-based Akamai Technologies and and Woburn-based Skyworks Solutions were among the 379 companies from around the country that signed onto the SCOTUS document. They join other major New England icons Staples and the current Super Bowl champions Patriots football team.

The technology industry has often been particularly aggressive when it comes to civil rights for LGBT Americans, which was made especially clear when Apple CEO Tim Cook publicly came out as gay in October of last year. The Supreme Court is expected to hand down its ruling on same-sex marriage sometime this summer, likely toward the beginning of June.

If you are starting your own tech company and are in need of custom web application development to help grow your brand, be sure to work with KYO Logic today! Take a look at the rest of our website to learn more about the custom database software that we offer.

There is no office these days that is not filled with technology, from computers to tablets to the smart phones that sit on our desks. That means there is more opportunity than ever to be respectful of your colleagues' possessions, especially when it comes to something as sensitive as technology.

In a recent poll done by Robert Half Finance and Accounting, more than 75 percent of human resources professionals found that breaches of office technology etiquette can have a negative impact on the career prospects of an individual. You need to be careful when it comes to technology!

Here are a few tips to help you out:

• Keep laptop usage to a minimum in meetings: When you are meeting with other people in the company, it is best to stick to pens and paper to take notes. You will be more fully engaged in what is going on and not distracted by all your computer has to offer.
• Never unplug a charging device: If something is plugged into an outlet that does not belong to you, do not unplug it before talking to the owner first. You never know how much juice a person might need in their phone or computer for the day.
• Only wear headphones at your desk: You should never walk around the office with your headphones in. This will reduce your level of concentration and will not allow you to meaningfully interact with those around you when necessary.

If you are looking to improve the technology in your office, be sure to try custom database software from KYO Logic. Check out the rest of our website to learn more about business software solutions that we offer.

If you are thinking about starting up your own company, no matter what industry you intend to specialize in, you will need to make sure that you have the necessary tools to guide your business to success. The market can be tough on new companies, which is why you need to come out of the gate strong.

This is especially true in the tech world, where it can be all too easy to fall into the traps that have swallowed up countless companies in the past. As long as you focus on the work and the strength of your brand, there is nothing you can't accomplish.

Here are a few tips for running a successful tech startup:

• Focus your efforts: The main thing you should be concerned with is narrowing your efforts at the very beginning. It is much better to do only a few things well than to try and take on too much and do them all poorly. Once you are on a solid foundation, you can start branching out your business.
• Have a concrete plan: When you are starting out, you need to first be sure that you have a solid business plan and mode. If you attempt to wing is as you go along, chances are you will not find the success you want.
• Work with people you trust: Relationships are just as important in the business world than the product you are creating. That means you should staff your company with competent employees that you can trust will have the work done when you need it.

If you are setting up your own business, it will be crucial for you to have custom database software that will allow you to track each part of your company. Be sure to work with KYO Logic to ensure the long-term viability of your vision.

Last month, this blog reported on how the tech sector contributed to the improvement of Massachusetts employment numbers in 2014, and this week The Boston Globe has a closer look at the data and at which areas attract the most talent. Over the past year, IT employment grew by 8.5 percent, a very significant increase compared to 1.8 percent for the Bay State overall.

Programmers fluent in Java and Ruby on Rails are in very high demand, as are those familiar with mobile software development. Sean McLoughlin, who heads a recruitment firm in Cambridge, says that businesses today place a premium on the design of their websites. Companies in all industries see clean and intuitive websites as a way to stand out from the competition and attract customers.

McLoughlin told the Globe that more than one third of all hires he helps firms make are now design-related, compared to just one out of ten as recently as three years ago. The industries that are doing the most tech-related hiring are cyber security and health care, which have received over $8 billion in venture capital over the past five years.

The other area where expert skills are highly sought-after is data, including everything from obtaining and classifying it to analyzing it and ensuring its security. This includes not just pure IT knowledge, but also the ability to generate useful business insights from said information.

FileMaker is a very valuable tool for any business to manage its data. It works on desktop and mobile devices, and certified FileMaker developers can help companies create and customize databases, teaching them to expand and adapt them to meet their needs over time.

In this day and age, even companies in some of the oldest industries can benefit from state-of-the-art technology to improve their operations. In November, this blog reported on how a New Zealand firm that helps vintners find workers has boosted its efficiency by using FileMaker to track grape picking. Back in the U.S., another agricultural company has found similar success using the relational database software.

Chelan Fresh Marketing, a fruit seller based in Chelan, Washington, adopted FileMaker 16 months ago and began replacing a laborious and much less practical paper-based system. Chelan Fresh has furnished its sales reps with iPads so that they can easily access checklists, inspection logs and order information when they’re working in the field. By the end of this year, the company hopes to be 100 percent paperless.

They started with a test run during the 2013 cherry season, and it was so successful that they contacted a FileMaker developer to help them create customized apps for their various products. Beyond simply making all the data that used to be on paper available digitally, the iPad allows employees to do things they couldn’t before, such as take photos of the fruit and upload them directly to the database.

“You can add a lot more depth to your data because of the flexibility of the tool,” said CIO Sam Godwin to The Packer. “Let’s say I get an order rejected at a market far away, I could type in that order number and it would bring me all the information about that fruit and that order.”

Certified FileMaker consultants are available to help companies make the most of this software by creating customized apps that meet all their reporting needs.

Since May 2013, the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh has sought to prevent tragedies like the building collapse that left more than 1,100 fatalities at a garment factory last year. About one third of the country's textile factories are covered by the agreement, which was signed by labor unions, non-profits and the international retailers that outsource their manufacturing to Bangladesh.

One of the stipulations of the accord was the performance of comprehensive safety inspections to detect construction and fire hazards that may need to be addressed immediately. Baltimore-based Hughes Associates has carried out over 1,000 such audits over the past six months, and it has done so with the help of a FileMaker app developed by fellow Maryland company Anvil Dataworks.

Like Kyo Logic, Anvil is a member of the FileMaker Academy, serving the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., areas and with additional offices in Melbourne, Florida, and Seattle. Their experts created the app for use on iOS mobile devices. It allows inspectors to easily note the condition of the buildings, upload photos and generate reports to send them worldwide.

"We didn't have time to report using handwritten notes and disjointed photos," says Hughes' director for codes and standards, Brian Rhodes. "We needed much more efficiency and consistency to handle a task this large in such a short time frame. I don't believe that we could have completed this critical project on time and within budget without our FileMaker solution."

The seven members of the Academy assist businesses with FileMaker development and training, helping them streamline operations and improve data gathering. A customized relational database can save hours of work and simplify previously complex processes.