The story will be published within the next couple weeks.  We will update you all with a link to the column once it is run. Stay tuned!

In 1947, Grace Murray Hopper was working on the Harvard UniversityMark II Aiken Relay Calculator (a primitive computer).
The 74-year-old captain, who is still on active duty, was a pioneer incomputer technology during World War II. At the C.W. Post Center of Long Island University, Hopper told a group of Long Island public school administrators that the first computer ”bug” was a real bug — a moth. At Harvard one August night in 1945 1947, Hopper and her associates were working on the “granddaddy” of modern computers, the Mark I Mark II. “Things were going badly; there was something wrong in one of the circuits of the long glass-enclosed computer,” she said. “Finally, someone located the trouble spot and, using ordinary tweezers, removed the problem, a two-inch moth. From then on, when anything went wrong with a computer, we said it had bugs in it.”

First Bug Report (literally a BUG)

Hopper said that when the veracity of her story was questioned recently, “I referred them to my 1945 1947 log book, now in the collection of Naval Surface Weapons Center, and they found the remains of that moth taped to the page in question.”

Having too many “bugs” in your software? Contact Us to discuss how we can help you take your software to the next level!

The challenge was taking the backend system that was used by Apple to run their Training Program and provide an interface with the frontend web-site training.apple.com using open source technologies so Apple could incur lower costs for regular maintenance and shorter turnaround times.

The Approach

The backend system that Apple uses to communicate with their Authorized Training Centers around the world required a number of enhancements since the first build that gave Apple a more firm grasp around the program as a whole. These mainly centered around user interface improvements as well as communication protocols. By utilizing an Open Source Rapid Application Development framework Override was able deliver outstanding results in a fast and effective manner. Some of the features that were added were:

• Classroom Photo Uploads
• A Mini Email Client where the client can deliver HTML emails
• Better Reporting
• Tighter Integration with Ancillary Systems
• Ability for Authorized Training Centers to Upload Photos of their facility as part of their application

As a further benefit for this application we ensured the application had proper code coverage with unit tests to ensure future additions to the codebase did not cause unexpected errors.

Integration

The challenge with integrating the backend system with the front-end web application was the Apple firewall. Due to security restrictions Apple limits the ports that are open on their firewall so we could not push data from the backend system to the front end system. The solution to this challenge was creating custom web services and pulling the information from the backend system to the apple.com domain.

Results

Through the use of Open Source Technologies Override was able to achieve outstanding results on time and on budget. The client has been empowered to manage both the backend and front-end aspects of their digital strategy.

The back-end system is private to Apple only but you can view the front-end system at http://training.apple.com. The system that pulls approved Apple Authorized Training Centers has a mapping location system which uses Geolocation as well located at http://training.apple.com/locations.

Contact Us to see how we can help you achieve outstanding results in your project.

Administrative System Demo:

The second demo will breeze through the backend functionality.

As I stated on our conference call the design here was done by a third party designer that the client hired so don’t put judgement there please. Here are the links to the videos. Let me know if you need more information. I can keep digging these up if you want but I thought this one would be pretty comprehensive.

Admin Side Features:

• Add and Edit Products in a SIMPLE manner. The process tags the product in a category and collection if applicable. Products that are added or updated have the image resized automatically to 3 sizes, small thumbnail, larger thumbnail that is used on click and full size image for use on the detail page. This makes life easy for the client.
• View and Review Products
• View and Edit All Users of the site (if someone is abusing the site this allows admins to block them), you can also drill down to what they purchased and when!
• View, Edit and Add Admin Users
• View Purchases (filter/search by 5 different Criteria)
• View Sales Tax Summaries (this is helpful for the client/site owner if they need to collect tax and report that to the IRS)
• View, Add, Edit Coupon / Specials
• View, Edit, Send Newsletters
• In this instance the client wanted the eNewsletter system integrated with their site so they don’t have to pay or fiddle with a third party system. The client can instantly to all site users.
• This client wanted to be able to list out Corporate Partners so there is an interface for that where they can:
  • Add, Edit, Delete Partner Categories
  • Add, Edit, Delete Partners Underneath those partner categories including their logos

View Video {you can watch in full-screen}

Front End System (User Demo):

The first demos the front end system functionality from registration, login, browsing by various methods, add to Lighbox/Wishlist, Add to Shopping Bag, Review Shopping Bag, all the way up to checkout (which I won’t do the final checkout because it will do a real charge).  I will also show viewing of the purchase history.

User Side:

• Obviously the basic site, Home, About, Contact, etc
• User (Shopper) Registration
• Once a user is registered not only can they shop but they can create “Lightboxes” (basically Wishlists so they can come back and purchase them later)
• Users can view their Purchase History
• Browse Products By Category
• Browse Products By Collection
• Search for Products by Name, Description, etc etc
• Featured Products (called “Core Collection” here)
• Online Store which gives a grid view with photos with a lightbox zoom (basically click the photo to view a larger version of the photo before clicking through to the detail page to save so much back and forth clicking)
• Detail Page where you can see the details of the product, Add it to a Lightbox/Wishlist, or add it to your shopping bag
• Ability to pull up your Wishlist/Lightbox later and seamlessly move the products in the wishlist from the wishlist to the shopping cart
• View Your Shopping Cart
• Secure Checkout
• Dynamic Specials / Coupon Codes (the web-site administrators can create coupon codes for use at special promotional events, set expiration dates etc)
• Users can review their purchase history at any time in the future

View Video

Ways that Override is currently assisting our client base in reaching out to their customers include SMS (Text Messaging), iPhone / iPad Apps, Droid Apps, Windows Mobile Apps, and finally mobile versions of their web-application.

You may say “But won’t my web-site / web-application render on a mobile device as is?” The answer is yes and no. While a mobile browser will render your site if your site is not optimized for that mobile device users will have a difficult time using the functionality of your web-site and most of the time will leave with the intention of pulling it up on their computer when they get home which almost never happens.

Recently we posted an article on helping our customers leverage their existing .NET codebase and port that over to an iPhone app through the use of Monotouch (iPhone Development with Monotouch). Using the Web Application Toolkit from Microsoft we can similarly leverage your codebase and create a Mobile Version of your web-site which is optimized for individual mobile devices through browser detection.

Contact Us Today and let us assist you with a project plan to leverage your existing codebase and reach out to the Mobileverse.

The programming went on to include programmatic capture of these images on command and transformation as well as storing guest information and transporting the finalized photos to the Kodak Gallery for purchase through an API and notification of guests via email.

The project was a blast and you can stop by and check it out in the Kodak Pavillion of Disney’s EPCOT center on your next visit. The video here that was created by EXP gives you a good idea of how fun the attraction is.

Great work to Brian and the rest of the team for making this piece an overwhelming success for both OverridePro and ISTE!

During the course of the project we have developed the FIRST iPhone app for a Statewide Florida candidate which was covered in the Lakeland Ledger in this article. This is version 1 of this app and the next version has some awesome campaign specific features around the corner. You can download the app by clicking here or learn more about it at www.adamputnam.com.

Additionally we developed text-messaging capabilities for the campaign so non-iPhone users can stay up to date on their mobile devices. This was a custom developed interface that makes signup and distribution a snap. You can signup for text-messaging updates HERE. We look forward to seeing Adam be elected to this office which is so important for the Florida economy and taking it places where it has never been before but has needed to go for a long time. GO ADAM and stay tuned for iPutnam 2.0!

Override had the privilege of upgrading their ISTEVision product to bring a higher set of functionality including Live streaming with live Questions and Answers and an advanced Session system that allowed all different type of sessions to utilize ISTEVision as a delivery network.

Override also created a Mac based Kiosk program written in Objective-C that allowed conference participants to record and share their story in a ISTE Storybooth.  You can check out an example of this by clicking here.. This Mac based system was slick and worked great for the conference. As you can see in the video people had fun with it and it was completely automated!

On the multimedia end OverridePro provided ISTE2010 with an Impact Piece which will blow your mind and we will be posting later so stay tuned.  We also provided onsite personnel for the duration of the conference to develop media for the keynote presentations and run them as well as an on-site programmer who handled all last minute requests.

We look forward to working with ISTE in the future on other projects and look forward to ISTE2011 in Philadelphia.

Checkout the Newly Posted ISTE2010 Impact Piece

OverridePro provided this Impact Piece that was used during all Keynote presentations at this city-wide conference in the Wells-Fargo Auditorium for 10,000+ viewers!