Das

Blog

In business, be a gentleman

I'm the father of three children, two of whom are boys. Our kids are still young, but as they continue to grow, my role in their life changes. When they were really little, I was simply, for all intents and purposes, a provider and protector. Nowadays, especially for our soon-to-be six year old son, I'm also their example of what it means to be a man.

May 16, 2012 by Geof Harries in Business

ibbit does that: Metro style web apps for your business software, today

Today we're excited to announce a product we've been secretly working on for a while. ibbit is a server and application framework, built on Microsoft technologies, that makes it easy to get amazing business software for a fraction of the price and in the shortest time possible.

April 27, 2012 by Geof Harries in Announcements

Cash flow lessons learned in five years of running a small agency

Cash flow is at the heart of an agency like ours. If cash flow is positive, the ride is smoother; we can take care of bills, pay employees, buy stuff and put money away. If cash flow is on a down-swing, the business struggles. In five years of running Subvert, we've learned some vital lessons about the proper management of cash flow.

April 9, 2012 by Geof Harries in Business

Design for "me"

The term "user-centred design" (UCD) get tossed around a lot these days in the world of modern software development. And for good reason. It's very important that the needs, wants and limitations of users are front of mind when designing applications.

March 30, 2012 by Geof Harries in Design

Using brand experience attributes to design digital products

Organizations with well-manicured brands know that their customer touch-points need to not only make a good impression, but also be visually identifiable as theirs and support the brand's description of itself. Unfortunately, while most brand-oriented companies are careful to emphasize these qualities in their printed materials and corporate websites, few pay enough attention to how their other digital products perform for people.

March 12, 2012 by Geof Harries in Design

Windows 8 Consumer Preview from a desktop user's perspective

Although the majority of yesterday's news about Windows 8 Consumer Preview centered on the Metro/tablet interface, I'd instead like to briefly discuss the new operating system from a desktop user's perspective.

March 1, 2012 by Geof Harries in Design 2 comments

How to label a Clear form button

In most circumstances, I try to altogether avoid using a dedicated "Clear" button in a software application interface. The action of clearing form fields is a destructive action and while sometimes that destruction is what you want (you actually do want to start over again) there are times that it’s absolutely the last thing you want to do.

February 20, 2012 by Geof Harries in Design

Designing Windows software: Seeking Windows 8 desktop application guidelines

Looking at Windows 8 from a builder's perspective, almost all of the marketing and communications towards developers and designers from Microsoft about Windows 8 has been focused on Metro style apps: what they are, how to make them and in which ways they'll be delivered; that is, through the Windows Store. And of that information, most of it has been directed towards developers. So, what about designing Windows 8 desktop applications?

February 4, 2012 by Geof Harries in Design

Cash Hound is available in the Windows Phone Marketplace

This past weekend, our Windows Phone app, Cash Hound, was made available for download in the Marketplace. We're really happy with how the app has turned out and what it does.

January 31, 2012 by Geof Harries in Announcements 2 comments

Designing Windows software: Moving our Windows Phone app, Cash Hound, from design to prototype

After we learned that we won the Fast Track to the Mobile App contest, we looked at our schedule for this month and next, both of which were already packed, and were perplexed as to how we'd shoe-horn the actual development and design of our app into that time period.

January 19, 2012 by Geof Harries in Design 2 comments

Older Entries >