When I made the decision a few weeks ago to purchase a tablet I started to do some preliminary research.  To that point in time, I really hadn’t investigated what was available. Sure, I’d heard about the e-reading manufacturers branching out in to the mobile browsing market, but I wasn’t quite sure to what extent.

What I found I really surprised me. There were no fewer than 12 seemingly good options from a hardware standpoint that were available.  This got me to thinking about how we, as the web and software development industry, will deal with the explosion of available devices that should be accounted for from both a technical and strategic standpoint.

Do we test against Amazon’s Kindle Fire Browser? If so, how do we account for the upgrade that will be released mid-way through a project? I would think that they’ll be enough browser versions, hardware types, and screen sizes to make all of our heads spin.

I’m not sure that the businesses we serve have fully adapted to the explosion in HTML browser compatible smart phones yet. Now they need to be budgeting for design and testing considerations for screens ranging in size from 3 to over 10 inches in size as well? What a challenge awaits our industry, along with the marketing industry, as we go through these changes!

For the time being, I suppose that we’ll all do our best to identify key systems and audiences like we always have, we’ll just have to broaden our view of what the possible answers could be. It probably won’t be so simple as to account for iPhone, Blackberry, and Android devices any longer. You’d have to expect that budgets will be raised to account for these key users and their respective platforms. 2012 is going to be an interesting year for our industry and I am excited to see how these changes affect the way in which we approach our work.

And…for the record, I did end up going with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. I’ve had good luck with the Android platform to date, although the app selection does seem to be a little less well-developed than the iPad offerings, but I’ll save that for another post on another day.

Merry Christmas Everyone and happy Tablet-ing!

Every web application project we approach always starts with a discovery phase.  During discovery, we assess the business problem, the solution needed, the budget, the timeline, the requirements, and the technology environment.  Our most common approach is to develop in a .NET environment, but there have been times we have had to develop in PHP or Ruby on Rails.  Fortunately, our web applications development team is diverse and very experienced in these languages.  Therefore, during discovery we are able to determine the best application development approach based on various requirements.  There have been times we have consulted and determined Ruby on Rails is the best approach to take.  Here are a few reasons:

1. Technology Environment – If we are presented with a Linux environment and it’s a brand new application our lead architect may architect a Ruby on Rails solution.  It runs best within a Linux environment and many object-oriented methodologies can still be used.
2. Timeline -  If the timeline is very tight then a Ruby on Rails solution may be developed.  Our application development team will have to balance this vs. the technology environment and the long term vision of the company and future applications.
3. Budget – If the budget is limited and the business requirements are limited then our application development team will architect a Ruby on Rails solution.  Ruby on Rails works nicely on a tight budget.
4. Fun – We typically develop in .NET but there are times where our developers just want to get their hands into something new.

Below is a case study of Galvin Creative Technologies‘ most recent Ruby on Rails development project.

Online Placement Test for University of Indianapolis – The Modern Languages Department at the University of Indianapolis allowed incoming students to take a placement test for German, French, and Spanish language classes.  In the past, this was done on paper, had a manual grading process and was then approved by the registrar.  This was a time-consuming process and the incoming students would not be notified until weeks after they took the placement test.  Galvin Creative Technologies developed an online placement test system that allowed incoming students to take the test online, receive an immediate score and immediately be placed in the appropriate class.  Now, instead of waiting weeks to be notified, an incoming student knew the results the moment they hit submit after taking the placement test.  The other major benefit of this application is how it communicated with the registrar office.  The test scores and placements were immediately sent to the registrars office for verification and final approval.  A few other features of the online placement test system included:

• An administration section to review student scores, monitor tests, manage test content and answers.
• A streaming audio section built with business rules that only allowed the audio to be listened to twice before answering a question.
• Language translation for French, German and Spanish.
• A built-in onscreen keyboard for special German, French, and Spanish characters.
• Custom calculations for a complex grading system.
• Direct communication with the registrar.

Although .NET is our most common approach we are thrilled to be developing in Ruby on Rails.