Craig Dean's Blogs

Word HTML renderer – the road to hell…

craig.dean@webapplicationsuk.com — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 09:09:39 GMT

I won’t lie to you, we’re Microsoft fans here… OK, that should’ve got rid of the annoying fanbois! The Redmond guys do a lot of great work, most of which goes under the radar, unnoticed and unappreciated. It’s easy to pick on the pack leader, but it doesn’t mean it’s all true. That said, too often they make decisions that, to put nicely, are hard to defend. One that caused quite a storm was the decision to use the Word 2007 HTML renderer in Outlook 2007 to render HTML emails.

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I’ve seen the future and it’s not Flash Forward

craig.dean@webapplicationsuk.com — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 11:33:55 GMT

We’ve been swamped here at Web Apps, ever since our open day. Yes it was a great success, the Mayor turned up, as did a good chunk of the local press and local business leaders. We’ve been swamped because of what they all saw – the future.

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Windsor Works – Our new home

craig.dean@webapplicationsuk.com — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 12:58:45 GMT

Let me start by apologising for being somewhat remiss in my duties, when it comes to blogging about our move. For those following the transformation of Windsor Works, you will know we are now in our new home.

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Education, Education, and Education

craig.dean@webapplicationsuk.com — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:24:57 GMT

For a growing IT company education is so much more than a sound bite or a political manifesto; for us it really is about our own future. In the early 1980s the BBC revolutionised the role of computing in the UK with the BBC Computer Literacy Project. In 1981 they released a TV series “The Computer Programme”, for which they wanted their own hardware to demonstrate. They put together what was (at the time) a cutting edge specification and approached numerous UK computer builders, settling in the end on a bunch of students in Cambridge called Acorn Computers. Later that year the first BBC Micro was released onto an unsuspecting country.

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AcuWeb Security

craig.dean@webapplicationsuk.com — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 08:23:56 GMT

I’ve left this blog to last, not because it’s the last part of the jigsaw puzzle, but because it’s the most important piece. When it comes to security AcuWeb has some ground breaking features that are going to make it a dream for 3rd parties to integrate to, whilst maintaining the ease of use that is a core design feature.

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Windsor Works takes shape

craig.dean@webapplicationsuk.com — Fri, 29 May 2009 16:30:57 GMT

I like to think blogs are like London busses, you wait ages for one and then a whole host come at once. I’m sorry about that, it’s just about prioritisation, keeping everyone informed is right up there for me, but so is doing boring Chief Exec work, like kissing babies and shaking hands (to be honest it’s really only the latter, but hey I’m not complaining!)

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Option sets, look at your data in entirely new ways

craig.dean@webapplicationsuk.com — Fri, 29 May 2009 15:13:07 GMT

Sure, you want AcuWeb because it gives you a web booking engine out of the box for your shiny new installation of Acumen 9. But did you know it gives you as many web booking engines as you want? No? Well it does.

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Acumen 9 the driving force behind AcuWeb

craig.dean@webapplicationsuk.com — Fri, 29 May 2009 14:00:47 GMT

Obviously we’re talking a lot about AcuWeb at the moment as it races towards it’s beta release, but AcuWeb is only half the story. We made a commitment to Kelworth customers that we were serious about Accoman/Accowin and we meant it, which is why we’ve also been working hard on Acumen 9, the new version of the system that has the horsepower to drive AcuWeb.

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Putting AcuWeb in the frame

craig.dean@webapplicationsuk.com — Thu, 28 May 2009 15:56:26 GMT

There’s lots of new features under the hood of AcuWeb that are designed to make your life so much easier. The one we’re most proud of is the way you get pictures onto the website, and how you maximise the impact of your property pictures.

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Windsor Works gets underway

craig.dean@webapplicationsuk.com — Thu, 28 May 2009 11:40:54 GMT

We started the fit out work at the Windsor Works on Monday 18th May, and I thought it would be a great idea to share some photographs of the progress as we go. Seeing as I have to go onsite every couple of days, I take the opportunity to snap a few pictures. As most people are never going to see the site in it’s ‘raw’ form, they might appreciate being able to see the transformation in progress!

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Acuweb – Flexibility means having different approaches for different people.

craig.dean@webapplicationsuk.com — Fri, 22 May 2009 14:02:41 GMT

One of the biggest challenges facing small companies is maintaining their website. The ability to manipulate HTML directly is not a common skill set, nor should it be. For that reason, most companies engage a web development company to produce and publish their website. In many cases, that’s where the relationship ends, and that flashy new website quickly starts to age and the Google ranking quickly deteriorates as the content becomes increasingly less relevant.

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Windows 7 – Where did the world of pain go?

craig.dean@webapplicationsuk.com — Sun, 10 May 2009 11:37:00 GMT

Whether or not you class yourself as an I.T. professional, really depends on how many progress bars you sit and watch. At least it certainly seems like it having seen a fair few of them in my years. On the plus side it beats the old shrill whine of a tape deck rewinding to the start.

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Using ISAPI_Rewrite to fine tune URL re-writing

craig.dean@webapplicationsuk.com — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 02:35:31 GMT

I finally feel like I can go to bed with the website ready to face the world. The last big hurdle is the multiple hostnames we own that we would like associating with the main website www.webapplicationsuk.com. Most notably, www.webappuk.com and www.webapplicationsuk.co.uk, both of which we own currently. Although I could just add them as portal aliases they would then be indexed separately by search engines (e.g. Google), to the detriment of the site ranking. Instead it’s necessary to issue a 301 redirect (permanent redirect) when navigating to a page on a ‘holding URL’.

This is especially important as our hostname has always historically been www.webappuk.com. Last year I made the decision to use the longer, but more ‘guessable’ www.webapplicationsuk.com, which we’ve since marketed heavily. Unfortunately, all our rankings are based on the old URL, 301 redirects can sort that out.

A second issue I had was with our heavily publicised http://www.webapplicationsuk.comhttp://www2.webapplicationsuk.com/rss.xml RSS Feed. Obviously, it would be a disaster to lose this feed, however, to use URL Master et al then XML would have to be registered on the ASP handlers to allow the .NET Framework to process all incoming .xml requests, something of an overkill when we only want this one instance handling.

This is where ISAPI_Rewrite comes into play.

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DNN 5 Google Sitemaps Broken

craig.dean@webapplicationsuk.com — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 00:35:40 GMT

One of the things that attracted me to DNN was the numerous modules that purported to improve SEO. Unfortunately, there’s no such thing as free SEO, it’s just a painful slog of trying to follow best practices everywhere you can, but every now and then something throws a spanner in the works.

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Agenda for Acumen Division User Group Seminar 2009 on 30 March 2009

craig.dean@webapplicationsuk.com — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 09:15:37 GMT

Well our first ever Acumen Division User Group Seminar is approaching fast, and with over 100 confirmed guests, it looks like being a real event. There’s serious issues to be addressed following the takeover of Kelworth, but hopefully Monday will mark the start of a new, more reliable future, for our Acumen division customers.

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Agenda for Travel Division User Group Seminar 2009 on 31 March 2009

craig.dean@webapplicationsuk.com — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 09:07:58 GMT

Tuesday sees our second User Group Seminar for the Travel Division, it’s been a really busy year and lots had happened at Web Applications, so I’m looking forward to sharing some of the news with our customers, and getting a chance to meet up.

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Site upgraded to DNN 5.0.1

craig.dean@webapplicationsuk.com — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 17:33:17 GMT

I’ve been doing a lot of research on DNN 5, and although it’s very unstable (we uninstalled it in February after a number of aborted starts), it had a few features that really attracted me. Plus, I couldn’t escape the feeling that I really didn’t want to do a 4.9.2 –> 5.1.0 upgrade when the site is live in May. For that reason I thought I’d give the upgrade root another go.

I started by binning the XMod & XMod IDE modules, although we’ve paid for them, they’re just not ready for 5 yet, at least not really until XMod 5.5 is out, and frankly we’re not using them yet. After that I backed up, can’t beat backing up when doing something stupid.

Applying a DNN upgrade should be as simple as copying the new files over the existing website and hitting the homepage. But I’ve been learning a lot in the last month or so, so I took an altogether more cautious approach, besides I wanted to treat the update as if I was working with a live site.

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Website nears completion

craig.dean@webapplicationsuk.com — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 13:51:22 GMT

I’m not going to pretend it’s been at all easy, but the new website is approaching completion. I think the homepage looks gorgeous on a widescreen monitor (as shown), and very modern and ‘active’. The focus has shifted from being a sales tool to a community website, which I think is an important move. Of course, it’ll still have to do it’s bit for sales as well.

The new forums and news sections are easily my favourite, not least as posting news items was a real chore on the old site. That said, I can see the blog becoming a real asset, especially with it’s Windows Live Writer integration, which is amazing at getting stuff online quickly; also the Twitter feed on the front page is a great way to get quick messages out to the community.

In the end it’s really going to be down to our user base. I’m really hoping they get behind it, and see it for what it was intended – a genuine attempt to interact with our customers in a helpful and practical way.

As we approach a go live, I’m going to open up the site to the employees first and get them actively involved in testing and using the site.

Installing blogs and linking to WLW

craig.dean@webapplicationsuk.com — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 18:55:14 GMT

I’ve installed the default DNN blog module and finally managed to install Windows Live Writer which can be downloaded from http://download.live.com/writer. There was no end of problems installing the thing, it kept rolling back, but a reboot and clean install seemed to do the trick.

When I ran WLW I had the misfortune of being unable to download the theme for editing the blog in the site theme, this is a shame, but according to this blog it’s a known problem.

Anyway, I’m posting this directly from WLW and hopefully it will appear on the site!

Second letter to Acumen customers

craig.dean@webapplicationsuk.com — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 17:00:00 GMT

The following letter was sent to Acumen customers on 3 March 2009. I’ve copied it here for reference.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION
PLEASE READ

Dear Sir/Madam,

RE: Kelworth Acquisition Progress Report.

Two weeks ago, I wrote to you to announce the acquisition of the good will and assets of Kelworth Limited, which occurred on 9 February 2009. We took over Kelworth incredibly quickly, in a desperate effort to minimise disruption to the existing client base, rather than leave the numerous small clients without any support during these already challenging economic times. Kelworth itself was liquidated on 30 January 2009, with considerable debts, and the liabilities are now with the liquidator.

Since my last letter I have been inundated with calls from concerned clients, and I have endeavoured to get through them, but the volume has been such that it has been quite a challenge, and I apologise if I’ve not met your expectations so far. I’m sure you will agree that the priority for myself and my company should be (and has been) the stabilising of the new Acumen division (the owner of the Kelworth assets).

Instead we are working hard to achieve a number of key goals as quickly as possible.

New Website Launch

We remain committed to releasing a new version of our website (www.webapplicationsuk.com) in the immediate future and it is currently under testing and contains a new sign-in area with the following features:

1) Community Forums – allowing Acumen customers to interact with each other and with the company, by suggesting enhancements and new features, as well as seeking help, and providing help, with any issues.

2) Wiki – Allowing us to build up (over time) a knowledge base of how to use the Acumen products, that will allow you to research information easily.

3) News Articles – Regular news updates from Web Applications UK, allowing you to keep up to date with the latest developments, without the need for us to send out paper letters.

4) Ticket System – Allowing you to raise and track support issues online.

We are also investigating the possibility of adding live chat to the site in the near future.

There are a lot of changes coming to Acumen Division in the coming weeks and it’s essential that we find a cost-effective (and environmentally friendly!) way of staying in communication with such a large customer base, that has less impact on the Amazonian rain forest!

With that in mind this is the last letter that will be sent via post; in future all communications (with the exception of invoices and formal communications) from Web Applications UK, and myself, will be by email. For that reason we would like you to send a list of Names, Positions and Email addresses which we will use to contact you with in future, and to create login accounts on the new website, which you can use to access the new interactive features.

Please send a list of contacts to info@webapplicationsuk.com as soon as possible. If for any reason you are not able to do so (i.e. you don’t have web/email access) please feel free to phone us on the above number and we will arrange an alternative.

Once we have received your email you will be contacted with your login information for the new website, as soon as it is launched.

Acumen Division - User Group Seminar 2009

On Monday 30 March 2009, we will be holding a national User Group Seminar for Acumen Division customers, where we will be introducing ourselves and discussing the many challenges that lie ahead. It will also be a real opportunity for our customers to have their voice heard.

Thank you to everyone who has already been in touch to book their places, the response has been great. Please note that unless you have sent an email to info@webapplicationsuk.com and booked your places, then we don’t know you are coming and haven’t booked you a place or arranged food (this particularly applies if you’ve only told someone you’re coming). Please make sure you email us by Friday 20 March 2009 at the latest, so that we can prepare for your arrival.

I have spoken to a number of you in the last couple of weeks and a few questions are quite common:

1) Why are we holding the User Group Seminar in Manchester?
The cost of putting on a User Group Seminar is very expensive. Every year we do a User Group Seminar for our existing Travel Division customers, this year it is also in Manchester on the 31 March. Holding the Acumen Division seminar the day before is allowing us to control the cost, which in turn allows us to invest more money in improving the software. Moreover, we took the time to plot the Kelworth customer base onto a map, and Manchester was the most central and convenient location.

2) Why are we not holding multiple regional User Group Seminars?
As I mentioned, the cost of putting on a User Group Seminar is very high. By having a single seminar it allows us to invite companies such as Microsoft to come and participate and demonstrate some of the new technologies that are available to our customers. If we were to split into regional seminars the size and scale would have to be much smaller and would make it hard to justify the cost. Furthermore, it would take a considerable amount of time to organize the logistics of multiple seminars. It is something we may consider in the future if we could make the economics work, and there was enough interest.

3) Why are we not visiting clients individually?
Well the mileage cost alone of visiting a client in Cornwall or Inverness is hundreds of pounds; the costs escalate if we have to put someone up in a hotel, or if we send more than one person. In the majority of cases the cost of a visit would outweigh any potential margin or profit we make from the customer we’re visiting. In the end costs reflect on prices, and I’m sure you’d like us to focus on keeping them as low as possible! We are not averse to visiting clients, but it is essential that we keep costs to a minimum if we are to have the finance available to fund the future of the Division, for the benefit of all our customers.

We appreciate that not everyone will be able to make the User Group Seminar, but we can’t emphasize enough the importance it plays in ensuring your voice is heard, and contributes to the shape of any future endeavors.

COMPLETION OF INVESTIGATIONS INTO KELWORTH STATE

We have been working seven days a week to assess the state of the Kelworth Company and the issues facing its customers. We have just about got a handle on the accounts, which had not been reconciled recently, and the invoice position, as well as outstanding debts, and overdue supplier payments. We’ve also been taking a good look at the code base.

One of the first actions I have taken is to meet with the M.D. of TalkInternet who hosts the majority of the customer websites. I have secured a deal with TalkInternet to prevent the websites being taken offline (they had not been paid recently), and our services department has taken over ownership of the servers to ensure continuity of service. These servers do cost several hundreds of pounds each month and we will be chasing payment of anyone who wishes to continue service.

We also looked at the source code for the connection between the Websites and Accowin (now rebranded Acumen). It was immediately obvious that it had been very badly designed and implemented. There were a number of amateur mistakes that were immediately obvious and account for the numerous issues surrounding memory leaks, etc. When we took over Kelworth, we were assured there was only one version of this ‘connection’ (we call it a Web Service), unfortunately, when our technicians looked more closely, we found 80 significantly different versions! One of the main areas of difference was in the way pricing is calculated.

Worse still, the source code for the different versions no longer exists, or has been lost. Although, this is not technically a problem, as we have the ability and technology to reverse engineer the code (all our engineers are Microsoft certified, and we have a number of experts), it significantly adds to the complexity and time. The reality is that it is not cost effective to reverse engineer and fix 80 different versions of the Web Service.

As such, we are not able, in good conscience, to accept the liability for supporting and maintaining the existing website/web service implementations. That is, we cannot guarantee that we can fix your website if it breaks.

That said, if your website is working the way you want, or you can ‘live with it’, we can ensure that it continues to work effectively. For example, in many cases, if the website breaks we can find a way to bring it back online quickly. Although we are not legally responsible for doing so, we will use our best endeavors to find a solution for you in such cases. If we do need to do some significant work we will quote you the cost of doing that work and commit to not make a profit on such fixes. It is regrettable, but we cannot afford to take on the liability in this case, as the existing code was so badly implemented.

As for the Acumen system (previously AccoWin/AccoMan), we are in the process of training up our own support engineers to take over first line of support in the coming weeks. We have also retained the services of the existing Foxpro experts, responsible for the original development. As such we will be endeavoring to support the core system in the future, and genuinely believe you will start to see an improvement in service from the support teams in the coming months.

To enable us to make headway into the many problems, we are suspending work on all new developments or feature requests, and focusing instead on stabilizing the current release until the bugs are ironed out, only then will we begin to take on new work again.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

There are a number of avenues we are working on immediately to allow our customers the widest range of options going forward.

New Web Service

Many of our customers have a long term commitment to the Acumen product and have no plans to migrate from it in the near future. We respect that, and are committed to servicing those clients to the best of our abilities.

The problem remains, however, that the existing solution for connecting Acumen to websites is unsupportable and very badly implemented. As such, we are committed to finding a new solution that will get them connected to the web as quickly as possible. There are a number of deep technical issues, particularly for customers with poor connectivity, which we have not yet found a solution to. That said – this is our bread and butter, and something we work very hard at, so are confident of finding a solution quickly.

We hope to roll out a new web service to allow customers to connect up their websites. Customers on the old system will be allowed to upgrade to the new system for free, but will face the problem of needing to make changes to their existing website. This is something that we will be able to do for them at a cost, or they can engage their existing web developer to do it for them. Customers on the old system that are happy with the current solution will be free to continue to use it (unsupported) until they next upgrade their web solution.

TR@VELLER LITE

As many of you may know, we already provide a high-end reservations system called Tr@veller to a number of large clients in the travel industry. We are investigating the possibility of providing a cut-down version of this software (which is far larger and more complex than Acumen) at lower costs, as an alternative for larger Acumen customers to consider. Tr@veller offers an easy route to website integration already.

Tr@Veller

A number of the largest Acumen customers may consider moving to Tr@veller proper. It is a much larger and considerably more expensive solution than Acumen, but is a valid option for companies that have more than 20 users or turnovers over ~£3m.

MANAGEYOURAVAILABILITY.COm

Web Applications UK has been working hard on a new product for the last year that would have been a direct competitor to Accowin. It is next-generation technology, and we are excited to start talking about it now (it’s been secret up to now). We have ramped up production and hope to go to beta in this calendar year. This will present a low-cost solution for the smaller Acumen customers and real flexibility for everyone currently on the Acumen product.

I think it’s important to note, that we recognize many of our customers will prefer to stay on Acumen for years to come, and we respect that. The options above are not going to be forced onto anyone, they are just some of the routes we are planning to give viable alternatives to those looking for something different, and no doubt they will form part of the conversation on the new community website and during the User Group Seminar.

I recognize that some of this will not be welcome news, particularly to customers on the existing web solution. When a systems company goes to the wall it tends to have damaging repercussions. I hope you can see that we are working hard to minimize that damage, and provide realistic routes forward for all our customers.

We remain committed to our customers and hope to speak to you more as you participate with the website community and user group.

Yours

Craig Dean
Chief Executive
Web Applications UK

First letter to Acumen customers

craig.dean@webapplicationsuk.com — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:00:00 GMT

The following letter was sent to Acumen customers on 13 February 2009 following the acquisition of Kelworth Ltd. I’ve copied it here for reference.

13^th February 2009

On Monday, 9 February 2009, Web Applications UK (www.webapplicationsuk.com) completed the acquisition of the good will and assets of Kelworth Ltd, including the Accoman and Accowin products, and the existing customer base and staff. Gavin Norman, previously Managing Director of Kelworth Ltd, joined Web Applications as Sales Manager, and the remaining employees formed the Acumen Division of Web Applications UK Ltd. All aged debts are now payable to Web Application UK Ltd, as are all licenses and maintenance contracts.

Dear Customer,

Many of you will have been aware that Kelworth has been struggling, in the current economic climate, to attain the resources necessary to fulfil its commitments and push the Accowin product forward. I first met Gavin, and Kelworth, several years ago and we discussed the possibility of working together for the benefit of both our companies. Web Applications UK is a systems supplier to some of the UKs largest travel companies, including companies such as Holidaybreak, Parkdean and Hoseasons.

Many of our clients act as agents for a good number of Kelworth’s customers, and the opportunity to reduce the cost of sale for both sets of clients (by providing efficient, interoperable solutions) has been something we’ve long considered. One of the biggest strengths of our current systems are their ability to interact effectively with the latest web technologies, such solutions have been a key driver in changing the business models of our clients. Richard Carrick, Chief Executive of Hoseasons recently said, “That’s why we’re glad we partnered with Web Applications UK Ltd back in 2005. A technology partner is more than just a systems provider they’re a critical part of the way you shape your strategy. Choosing the wrong partner limits your ability to flex to meet the changing market conditions. Web Applications UK deliver the systems that allow us to achieve sustainable growth and the flexibility to meet challenges head on.”

“Their solutions have cut costs in our call centres and operations, by being easy to use and train, but most importantly they have opened up our low cost web channels, which have driven booking volume through the roof. With margins constantly under pressure, it’s nice to work with a partner that is driving cost savings.”

Web Applications UK started in 2000 providing systems for small travel companies, often with one or two users. Over time we’ve grown into the company we are now, but we still have those small clients (some of whom aren’t so small anymore) who are more than satisfied with the quality and service they are getting. We treat all clients the same, no matter what size they are, after all, we all start somewhere and one of you may well be the next Travel giant!

We know there are some serious problems to resolve, but we’re no strangers to hard work, and we’re already planning a bright future for your systems. With that in mind, we are desperate to hear from you personally and to give everyone an opportunity to help us shape the future of the Accowin system. To facilitate that, and to usher in a new era of communication, we will be launching a new website at www.webapplicationsuk.com in the next month which will allow you to interact with us, and each other directly. Most importantly though, we really want you to come and be a part of our User Group Seminar on Monday 30^th March at the Midland Hotel in Manchester. Bring as many of your staff as you want, or send somebody to represent you, but please do come and be a part of building the future of the Acumen Division. To register your attendance, please send names, positions, and contact details to info@webapplicationsuk.com, there is no cost in attending and we can help you arrange your travel itinerary and accommodation (if necessary).

Richard continues, “One of the reasons we choose Web Applications UK is their unique commitment to communication. We always attend their User Group Seminars, which not only provide an excellent insight into the latest advances and technologies; they prove an invaluable networking opportunity. The fact they are willing to engage so directly with their customer base underlines their commitment to service, which continues throughout the year. The acquisition of Kelworth ushers in an exciting time for its customers, who can finally look forward to seeing the kind of forward momentum they have long clamoured for. Web Applications have the experience to provide the kind of systems that can allow customers to meet the rising demand for domestic tourism in 2009.”

Welcome to the Web Applications UK family, you’re now part of a vibrant and growing community and we look forward to meeting you at the end of March.

Yours,

Craig Dean

Chief Executive

Web Applications UK Ltd