Spring and summer have been so nice even with the hot weather this month, it has been hard not to take advantage of the Central Mass Rail Trails. I took this picture at the entrance to the West Boylston Rail Trail located off Route 140 just south of Sterling and the 190 Interchange. It is about a 4 miles walk along and across the Quinipoxet River. Along the way, visit the self-guided tour of the Springdale Mill Site. The mill was booming a century ago using the river as power and manufacturing woolen cloth.

In This Issue
July 2012

Sitting on Your Butt

Browser Wars

Data Integration

Welcome to News from trif.com! First time readers, I am glad you're here! Returning readers, welcome back!

Bob Jones Greetings. Welcome to our Newsletter! We wanted to share the many photo's we have taken of places, people and things throughout the country and beyond. Each month, our headline photo will be something new and different. The caption will present a small explanation. We hope you enjoy. We do not want to waste your time. Articles will contain generally less than 250 words. Please have a look and give us your feedback. By all means, forward to a friend using the link at the bottom of the Newsletter. Thanks. Questions? Send me an email by clicking my Picture!

Technology solutions are a part of doing business just like sales and marketing, It is an important component in servicing customers, managing costs and controlling operations. TRI has an uncanny ability to find affordable technology solutions for a wide variety of situations. Our capabilities bridge database design and development, Internet web-based programs, hosting and co-location services, network and computer sales and support, document imaging, bar code scanning, corporate communications, fax and email programs, mobile applications, cloud computing and help desk services. Interested in taking a step forward with technology? Looking to take advantage of the latest advances? Or just want to take advantage of your new computer?
Give us a call to discuss where you want to go - 877-253-2379 or email rmj@trif.com to discuss your opportunities. The first consultation is always without charge.

Sitting on Your Butt Reduces Life Span?

Could that be true?  I am in deep trouble!!  Are you?  It seems that the American Cancer Institute has studied more than 100,000 people and found that if you are a female and sit for more than 6 hours a day, you are 40% more likely (20% for men) to suffer from cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes and depression as compared to those who sit for 3 hours or less.  This does not change with the amount of exercise you do when not seated. So what can you do?  Here are some options (click on either to read more on Amazon):

The Treadmill Desk and the The Balance Ball Chair (Also good for improving posture). The best answer?  Move around. A lot! Easier said than done.  Good luck!

   




 

 

 

 

 

Curious about the Browser War?

Results vary. It depends whether you include mobile or not.  There are conflicting reports because the mobile market has impacted the results drastically.  If you include the mobile market with the influx of droid devices, Google Chrome will be on the top of the leader board.  If you omit mobile devices, the figures skew heavily towards Microsoft Internet Explorer with Firefox coming in second and Safari in 3rd place.

It depends on where you live. In the United States, UK, China and Australia Internet Explorer dominates, where as Russia and South America is Google Chrome territory.  Europe and Africa sends Firefox to the top.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter to the consumer.  All the major browsers provide an outstanding experience at a cost of nothing.  The issue comes in developing web sites and applications and have them behave the same on all browsers.  There are many ways to interpret HTML (Hyper-text Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and even more when you add scripting languages.  Writing code for the web is susceptible to a difference in interpretation and that causes unpredictable results.  It is only experience that can glide through these differences unscathed.  For more information, shoot us an email to info@trif.com.

 

Social

Data Integration - Import and Export

Something we do every day, often many times a day, is create applications that pull data from a source and push it to a destination. We call this data parsing which means that we parse or strip out the data we need from the source. We might use custom software to handle this on a regular basis or we might create the capability for a one-shot transfer for a very specific requirement.  It is good for you to know what the possibilities are so that you can consider how a program might improve productivity, efficiency and accuracy.

So here are some of the places we parse or strip data from and to; 

  • PDF files
  • Text files
  • Excel files
  • Doc Files
  • Access table
  • SQL table
  • email
  • email attachment
  • XML (eXtended Markup Language) files
  • EDI files (Electronic Data Interchange)
  • API (application programming interface)
  • Web pages - HTML
  • Web applications (Hubspot)
  • CRM Software (Act, Dynamics CRM, Sugar, SaleForce)
  • Payroll service (ADP)
  • Accounting systems (Peachtree, QuickBooks, MS Dynamics)
  • Communications systems (Qualcomm, Actsoft)
  • Mileage systems (PC Miler, Rand McNally)

Don’t hesitate to contact us if you are interested in integrating data into your application. 

 

If any of the information here is of interest to you, please drop us a note. If you would like to see specific information on technology issues that affect you and your business, please let us know.


 

Robert McKay Jones
TRI
50 Leominster Road
Suite #3
Sterling, Massachusetts 01564

877-253-2379
rmj@trif.com

©2012 TRI All Rights Reserved
Artists Sketches by Bruce Davidson

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