HL Arledge

Where do Obama and McCain stand on Environmental Health?

I don't like to get into politics in a company blog, but this one is a safe bet.

On the subject of Environmental Health, both candidates are in total agreement.

According to the group Science Debate 2008, both candidates support:

• Offshore drilling
• Refining clean coal
• Using nuclear power
• Adopting alternative fuels
• Exploring renewable energy, such as wind and solar

Both candidates tout plans to use emission trading to roll back the greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) to below 1990 levels before the year 2050. These plans differ only in the degrees set as goals. Barack Obama is targeting a 80% reduction, whereas John McCain is shooting for a 60% rollback.

I don't really see this as any difference at all. With any goals, we may come close, or we may overshoot the mark. With these two goals, either effort should get us in the same ballpark.

Either measure may require Environmental Health regulators to track GHG levels, making the next four years a period of growth for EnvisionConnect.

BIG things will be happening in September!

Did you ever have a secret that you were dyeing to tell, but no one would let you?

What if you had dozens of those secrets just aching to get out?

That is the way I feel about the 2008 User Training and Conference sessions.

EnvisionConnect is more powerful than ever before, and we have wonders to show our customers.

Additionally, the conference itself—September 29th and 30th, here in Fresno at the Radisson Hotel and Conference Center—is undergoing changes, changes that guarantee to make it our most polished to date.

Watch this space for more details!

Decade Software inspects restaurants in Canada

This morning, I am meeting with our sister company in Canada. The team there is taking first steps to migrate HES customers to EnvisionConnect.

As Developer Mike Vea and I prepared for the meeting, it considered that some of you may not yet heard of Decade Canada.

Here's the scoop as recounted on their web-site...

"In November 2003, Decade Software Company, LLC incorporated a Canadian subsidiary company called Decade Software Canada Ltd.

The Environmental Health software assets known as the Hedgehog Environmental Systems (HES) software were purchased from Procura along with the rights to the existing contracts.

The Hedgehog Environmental Systems software was originally developed in 1993 by Neil Grinwis of Hedgehog Systems. Neil was recruited to run the Canadian company and to continue servicing the Canadian Environmental Health customers."

Today, we are comparing business rules between the two products to ensure that HES customers have all they need before the move to EnvisionConnect.

Growth is always exciting for us. I'll keep posted on our progress.

How do you please all software users all of the time?

Today, EnvisionConnect has no known defect for more than 30 business days.

This is a rule, and it supersedes all other rules.

Why?

Back when we had defects that lived beyond 30 business days, customers would beat us up over it. We'd address the most critical issues, but the rest would hang out in our tracking systems for years.

And we didn't know what to do about them.

Each customer had their own little pet bug that drove them crazy. This prompted them to drive the folks in support crazy. And that prompted the folks in support to drive Development crazy.

But there was little Development could do.

Since each individual customer had their own pet defect, there was no reasonable way to prioritize the list and make everyone happy.

This, however, was only the tip of the ice-berg.

Anytime we added new features or tried to modernize the look and feel of the application, customers would ask: Why is that more important than my pet defect?

Eventually, our very livelihood was effected by this.

We were afraid to modernize the look and feel of our application, because our customers would complain, but when competition came on the scene with spiffy, cutting-edge looking applications, our customers complained that our application wasn't as cute as the competition.

We were in a no win situation.

We had to revamp the way we do business. We had to find a means to deliver cutting-edge applications with a modern, spiffy look and feel—and still deliver a bug-free application.

It wasn't easy finding that happy medium, but we did it.

And now no one drives anyone crazy any longer.

Well, almost no one.

Environmental Health regulators, software demand increases

Decade Software Company's flagship products, EnvisionConnect, makes the life of the Environmental Health regulator extremely easy. As Environmental Health concerns worsen throughout the country—and the world—the regulator's job becomes more important.

As earthquakes, tornadoes, and flooding reach all-time highs, Environmental Health is becoming a topic the folks in Washington cannot ignore.

"The Environmental Protection Agency has repeatedly chosen to stray from the clear and science-based recommendations of expert advisory panels, public health organizations and advocates, and in some cases even its own career staff scientists, in order to make policies and decisions that fall short of adequately protecting children as well as the general public.”

That concluded testimony this week from a member of the EPA Children's Health Protection Advisory Committee before the Senate Public Sector Solutions to Global Warming, Oversight, and Children’s Health Protection Subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Is Windows Vista another Windows ME or Microsoft Bob?

In February, I mentioned our concerns about running EnvisionConnect on Windows Vista. It seems that the makers of most enterprise-level applications are expressing the similar concerns, causing Microsoft to second-guess themselves.

Microsoft announced yesterday that they will reconsider their decision to stop selling Windows XP on June 30. At an event in Belgium, execs told reporters, "If customer feedback varies, we can always wake up smarter," according to an Associated Press report.

In January, InfoWorld Magazine launched a campaign to convince Microsoft to keep Windows XP available to customers beyond June 30. Their Save XP petition today has nearly 200,000 signatures.

Windows Vista's new user interface, coupled with its new approach to security and the need for most users to get new hardware has caused many to avoid Vista in favor of Windows XP or other operating systems.

Previously, Microsoft decided to keep Windows XP available for cheap PCs and for PCs in developing nations, as Vista's hardware requirements were too high for such inexpensive PCs.

Environmental Health Clinic Opens for Business

Our flagship product, EnvisionConnect, is the most complete set of tools available for regulating Environmental Health.

As such, I like to make it a point to keep readers abreast of the latest Environmental Health news, and New York University has recently setup an Environmental Health Clinic. That is news worth passing on.

The university describes it this way...

"The Environmental Health Clinic at NYU is a clinic and lab, modeled on other health clinics at universities. However the project approaches health from an understanding of its dependence on external local environments; rather than on the internal biology and genetic predispositions of an individual."

The clinic works like this. You make an appointment—as you would at a traditional public health clinic—to talk about your particular environmental health concerns.

...so when folks see your agency inspections posted online and are concerned about offenders, they have someone else to call other than their local Environmental Health regulator.

Are EnvisionConnect users moving to Windows Vista?

Ordinarily, I am the first to push folks to upgrade to the latest and greatest, and—as a Microsoft partner—Decade Software cannot recommend not upgrading to Microsoft's latest operating system.

However, I want to at least caution those who are considering it.

Initial tests running EnvisionConnect and Windows Vista are positive. We know of no known issues, but like many software vendors, we are concerned with the sluggishness of Windows Vista.

Some have even started a campaign to force Microsoft to reinstate Windows XP as it's flagship product.

As such, I recommend weighing the Pros and Cons yourself before jumping in.

J. Peter Burzzese at this to say at InfoWorld magazine...

"Some say Vista isn't ready for the enterprise, although my last post describes how Vista was put into use at Continental Airlines immediately - and planes didn't fall out of the sky. So, obviously it is satisfying some, albeit not all. As for the 'Save XP' campaign... it seems like a moot point. Come 2009, if you're not ready to move to Windows Vista, its successor will probably show up long before the extended support for Windows XP ends in 2014."

...and you thought the Apple/Linux debate was all there was to worry about.

Who's afraid of Orange County?

Orange County Environmental Health is one of Decade Software's largest customers—if you weigh large as the number of users. They have been Envision users for many years. In fact, their insights helped shape Envision 3.4 into the solid product that it is today.

Lately, OC has been contemplating a move to EnvisionConnect, and this week, they invited Client Services Manager John Jensen and I down south for a pow-wow.

In the days preceding our trip, the mumbling among Decade staff echoed down the halls.

"I pity JJ and HL. Those Orange folk are tough to deal with."

"Yea, they're really pushy. If there's a feature they want, they won't stop complaining until they get it."

"...and they're tough on defects, too. If Nick Reyes finds something wrong, you'd think the world was coming to an end."

I laugh anytime I hear such chatter.

I've worked with Nick Reyes, Karen Newe, Jeff Warren, Pearl Boelter, Ron Margheim and the rest of the OC crew since they came onboard, and I appreciate the fact that Orange is one of the many clients that helped make our products as solid as they are today.

Do Product Owners evolve and adapt like fire ants?

Mike Cohn posted something I found interesting this week...

"...product owners evolve in adaptation to their environment, just as the fire ants had evolved in adaptation to theirs. His unfortunate situation won’t change until some other environmental factor comes along that changes the motivation and incentives of the product owners."

When I look at the Product Owner for the EnvisionConnect project, Darryl Booth, I think I see where Mike is coming from. Darryl's focus has changed quite a bit in the year or so that he has been in the role, but until reading Mike's thoughts I hadn't attempted to determine just how much.

I think I'll make that one of my next projects and let you know what I find.