Growing a company organically, as is the case with Atlas, left little room for mod-cons and nice-to-haves.  We started in a shed with Argos furniture (classy).  Our PCs and servers were hacked together from the remains of salvaged hardware, and an old 100MBit hub formed the backbone of our network.  From here we grew and moved into a real office but working on a shoestring budget we never had the cash to provide our team with a developer friendly working environment a la Joel on Software’s immortal words.

In others words we made do, this was a terrible idea and definitely stunted our growth and here’s why:

1) Developers frequently perform processor intensive tasks usually when building their projects.  While they’re waiting for their project to build they’re literally unable to do anything else and their minds will wander.  By the time the build is complete they have lost their train of thought.  Let’s say at a modest estimate they build 10 times a day and each build takes 3 minutes on crap hardware – that’s 130 hours lost each year.  Four weeks =  one month’s salary!  You don’t need to be an expert to work out that’s expensive on a developer’s average salary.

The fix: Pretty obvious really – buy new top of the range computers.  Currently this involves computers with 8Gb of Memory, core i7 processors, SSD hard drives (not just any old solid state drives I’ll have you know), dual widescreen monitors and gigabit ethernet throughout the building.

2)  Computer downtime is equally expensive.  Computers hacked together out of milk cartons and various left overs are not only slow but they often break.  When they do break you’re screwed.  Finding spare parts can take a day or two, then you’ve got to stop what you’re doing to fix the employee’s machine if they can’t do it.  All the time they’ve stopped writing code.

The fix: All of our computers are purchased with an extended warranty from our supplier.  The warranty covers accidental damage in addition to the usual wear and tear.  Crucially the warranty is next working day so the maximum amount of developer time we’ll lose is just one working day.  The warranty covers each new machine for two years, which ties in with the lifespan of each computer as we upgrade every two years.

In addition to all of the above we have also purchased a backup development machine which also stands in as a test machine when not in use.

3) In the last office the servers were in the development room.  Servers are noisy and hot and a constant distraction.  Furthermore to get to the toilets it was necessary to walk through both the developer and meeting room.  Meetings are often noisy and sometimes lengthy affairs as the guys and gals here are passionate about their ideas.  We couldn’t have customers attend our offices without interrupting the team for as long as the customers were there, it wasn’t ideal.

The fix: We built a custom board room completely separate from the rest of the office.  A meeting can take place in the new board room all day without impacting any other rooms.

4) Heat produced by computer equipment is a fact of life in IT.  However we hadn’t taken this into consideration when cramming the developers and equipment into one room.  The developer room was quite warm in the winter but come summer it was unbearable.

5) The overall quality of the environment in the previous office, both indoors and out, was poor to say the least.  I once described it to a friend as like working in your Nan’s front room.  The walls were clad in 1970′s woodchip wallpaper which had been painted over numerous times. The carpet was naff, the fixtures and fittings were dull and overall the place had what someone more spiritual than me would call a bad energy.  Being there sucked the energy out of me and the team. 

The fix: Decor makes all the difference and our new offices are light and spacious. We took the opportunity to specify absolutely everything about the environment we spend the majority of our waking time in and the results have been fantastic.  It also doesn’t hurt that the offices are located with parkland opposite and quiet neighbours  Our customised offices are a joy to work in and while it’s difficult to measure overall productivity and make a bold claim that it has increased, the vibe here at Atlas is much happier.  Happy developers = productive developers.

And now, for the photos…

Microsoft’s general manager for IE, Amy Bazdukas, let the world know that the folks over at Microsoft do feel our pain. “Friends don’t let friends use IE6″ she said.

She stated that they were doing all they could to push IE6 back and get more people using the latest version of IE. “It’s certainly part of our approach to consumers to get them to upgrade to IE8″

Don’t get your hopes up though, Microsoft won’t be ditching IE6 any time soon, they plan to stop all support for it in 2014, at the same time it cuts all ties with the XP operating system. When asked why she thought there are still so many people using IE6 (40% of IE users are using 6, more than both versions 7 and she mentioned piracy in countries such as India and China. “There’s a reluctance [among people using counterfeit Windows] to use Automatic Updates. Rather than download updates, often the solution to problems is to re-image the machine using the pirated, pre-XP SP2 counterfeit. That also helps to drive the persistence of IE6″ she added.

So while Microsoft are aware of our pain and as much as they would like to help us out the situation will remain the same for another 5 years! You can join the fight so stop supporting IE6 at http://idroppedie6.com/

1. Web Workers

Web Workers allow multiple background threads to run at once, useful for script heavy web applications. Having multiple threads running at once will increase processing time without decreasing the performance of the web page.

So far Firefox 3.5 has the best support for this feature while Opera 9 and Safari 4 also have some minor support.

You can see an example of Web Workers here.

2. Video

The new video element in HTML5 allows you to place videos within your web page the same way you would place an image. As well as embedding the video you can add custom controls and extra functionality at your own will.

Firefox 3.5 is the only browser that supports this example so far.

3. Canvas

Canvas is my personal favourite of the new HTML 5 features. It allows real time graphics rendering in your browser. A great example of what Canvas is capable of can be seen in a new Mozilla product called Bespin. A simplified example of Canvas being used can be found here.

4. Application Caches

This feature has been available for some time now in the form of Google Gears. Saving web application data such as email to a local copy will allow you to access them whilst not connected to the internet. For an online demo you can use the Sticky Note example.

5. Geo Location

The Geo Location element will allow you to place a Map onto your web page that will show the user roughly where they are situated. The user will have to give permission to this feature however, preventing unauthorised access to a certain users location. Look at the example to see how this element works. A word of warning, it’s still a bit flaky so don’t expect pin point precision.

These five features are just the very tip of the iceberg, we expect more features to be rolled out soon. The full release, expected around 2011, will contain a wealth on new features which we can’t wait to get our teeth into!

Fortunately with the new free Microsoft Office Outlook Connector you can view and manage your Hotmail in Outlook. Manage your Hotmail contacts in Outlook or vice versa — the Connector will keep them synched up when you make changes.

You’ll also be able to use Outlook 2007 features like Instant Search and access your information offline.

The Connector also enables you to link your Windows Live Calendar and Outlook calendar — making it easier for you to keep on schedule.

Download it now for Microsoft Outlook 2007 or Outlook 2003.

Let’s cover the major features you would expect of any browser here and see how IE8 shapes up against the competition.

Security

Is IE8 more secure than FireFox and Chrome?  Unfortunately not.  Within a few days of release it was hacked and regardless of the brash claims Steve Ballmer makes about IE8 having security that “no other browser can match” unfortunately no browser is 100% safe.  Alas IE8 is no exception however it is more secure than IE7.

Features

On the surface of it IE8 does have some powerful new features.  The only problem is that the majority of these are already available in other younger browsers such as FireFox and Google Chrome.  For example IE8 provides InPrivate browsing — which allows you to browse without leaving any trace of your searches or pages viewed.  Chrome offered this functionality from the moment it hit the shelves in Beta!

Add-ins called Accelerators help you to find associated info for the page you’re looking at without opening another tab; while tabbed groups open colour-coded related tabs so you can see at a glance all the pages you’ve got open on a particular topic.  Unfortunately for Microsoft this functionality and much more is easily replicated using the multitude of free plug ins available for FireFox via https://addons.mozilla.org/

In terms of features IE8 does not bring anything new to the table.  Microsoft have simply caught up with the competition.

Cross browser compatibility

I could write pages on the daily struggle we have here at Atlas ensuring that websites work cross browser.  It sucks us of our time and energy leaving less time for actual feature development when we’re creating web applications.  The sooner the big browser players bash their heads together and come up with a way forward for compliance across all browsers we’re stuck with this problem, but how does IE8 shape up against its predecessors in this regard?

It’s easy to tell that at the very least Microsoft have given cross browser compatibility some thought in this version of IE.  IE8 provides an IE7 compatibility mode that you can quickly enable if the page you’re viewing doesn’t render as you would expect.  Developers also have the ability to specify the rendering engine that IE8 should use by inserting a very simple meta tag in their pages.  This makes ensuring your pages appear as you wish them too a little easier – more information can be found here - http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/01/21/compatibility-and-ie8.aspx

To summarise

You’ll be pleased to hear that IE8 is better than IE7. However it is very unlikely in our opinion that IE8 is going to see a slow down in the marketplace share that Microsoft are losing in the browser wars.

For Atlas the release of IE8 is yet another reason for people to move away from IE6.  We’ve seen a consistant decline in the use of IE6 over the last few years, and as an organisation we have decided that when IE6 use is under 12% we will advise our customers not to cater for IE6 on any new web development projects with very few exceptions.

Why not download a copy of IE8 and make your own opinion?  We’d love to hear your thoughts.

1) The file upload limit is 50 megabytes, so don’t go thinking about uploading your latest home movie
2) Adverts are scattered around the site, irritating but manageable

http://skydrive.live.com/

Live SkyDrive

http://twitter.com/simonswords

It’s a live feed from Twitter dressed up with a pretty interface.  You select an option on the side and it filters the Twitters you get to see.

For example, select hate and you’ll see all Twitter postings containing the word hate.  A neat insight in to the world of Twitter

Personally I like the wish filter.  Makes us all look a bit spoilt.

Want to show your love and support for Atlas??

Great!  Become a Fan of Atlas Computer Systems using our dedicated Facebook page…

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Southend-on-Sea/Atlas-Computer-Systems/7106982651

We run regular competitions giving away things like iPods, marketing books for our Fans so sign up today

Check them out at…

http://install4free.wordpress.net/