When I heard that Steve Jobs had passed away earlier this month, it was as if a family member had died.  To a lot of people in our industry, it really hurt. His death was personal. But what was it about Steve that touched so many of us?

Today I want to talk about why software projects fail. But first, let's define failure. For a project to be considered a failure at least one of the following three conditions must exist: The budget is exceeded by more than 10 percent. The schedule is exceeded by more than 15 percent. The application fails to meet the goals and objectives of the client.Notice that I haven't mentioned the skill or experience of the developer?

Today most companies provide some online access during the software development life cycle. In many cases, the client is provided with a login to preview the latest build of their project, and in a few cases they are even given access to a bug logging system, such as Bugzilla.  In my mind, it really comes down to transparency. Instead of just being able to preview the latest build, what if the client could actually look behind the curtain, and see how the software is being developed?

I've been reading a lot about search engine optimization (SEO) these days, so what I'd like to do with this post is discuss how we approach SEO, and explain how you can use our strategies to improve the ROI of your site. Just keep in mind that we do not offer SEO as a service, and we are far from experts on the subject. One more comment before we begin. Today's discussion really goes beyond SEO, so when you start your SEO project the information you learn today should help you keep focused on the big picture.

Estimating the current percentage of completion can be tricky business, but over the years there seems to be a pattern that has emerged in this industry. I call it the 90 Percent Complete Problem. It occurs when the project hits 90% complete, yet the project is nowhere near that close to being finished. Let's see why this happens.  In a typical software development project, the client is provided with a status report (usually every couple of weeks) which shows the client how far the project has progressed.

When I first started developing software in the mid 1980's, mainframe computers were still the dominant platform for much of corporate America. Just about every cubicle had a "dumb terminal" in it, which usually included a yellow or green colored screen. The user interface was pretty simple. There were function keys along the top (or bottom) of the screen, so everything you needed to do was available without fuss.

For today's blog entry, I thought I would relate an interesting experience we had in Europe to the business of creating software. In 2004 my wife Yoly, our daughter Brittany, and I all spent 6 months in Europe. You might remember that in 2004, security was very high due to the attacks on 9/11. Keep that in mind as you read this story. On June 5th, 2004 we were staying on a family farm in the Black Forest, in Western Germany. We were pretty close to the border of France.

It's hard to believe another year is almost over!  Time flies when you are having fun, I guess.  Well, as we close out another year I would like to wish you and your family a joyous holiday season, and a rewarding and prosperous New Year.  Happy Holidays!  

Seeing as this is my first blog entry, introductions are in order. My name is Rob Carr, and I am president of MyProgrammer, Inc. I'd like to tell you a bit about myself, and then tell you my plans for this blog moving forward.I have been building complex database applications for Fortune 2000 companies for 20 years. While still in college in the 1980's I wrote database applications for small businesses using dBase 3+.