Archive for April, 2009
About us
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009
When we started in the web design business, back in 2002, we were one of the very first young Argentinian companies that realized that, due to the recent devaluation of our currency, the Peso, it was a good idea to sell our services to the rest of the world, specially to countries like USA and to Europe.
The business seemed easy, in that time one could live well with a monthly income of 2000 pesos (666 US dollars, in that time). I even remember a small meeting I had with someone who wanted to associate with me whose goal was to earn 1000 pesos per month! So, in 2002 you could sell your services very cheap to USA and earn a good amount of pesos.
But these young companies were not all very good. Most were very inexperienced and the quality of the service was usually bad. I used to work for one of these companies and it was basically a project hunter. They used to collect as much projects as possible, we, as programmers and designers, often found ourselves with 4 or 5 or more projects at once. And you can’t give a good service like that. Today that company is dead, and so are many more.
These is because the situation in our country changed and also changed the way other countries see us. The inflation in our country moved many of our costs up. When you could live with 2000 pesos in 2002, now you need 5000 to 6000 pesos in 2009. So it is not that good business as it was in the past for companies that decide to go offshore with Argentina. On the other hand, clients are now more experienced in looking for an offshore country. Back in the beginning of this century, an American company may have thought that an Argentinian companies had more or less a minimum of principles, sense of responsibility, service quality and respect for the clients as the rest of their vendors. Well, it is sad to say that, specially me being Argentinian, but it is not often like that. So clients now are more warned about this and they look up better for an offshore vendor.
You have to be careful of the project hunters. Those who spam and try to do as much websites as possible. It is impossible to get a good service like that. Today, you can find cheap web design shops that will do your website (maybe template-based) for 150 US dollars or less.
Then, how we are different?
We take every project seriously. Every project is unique and so should be the design and treatment. A style-sheet doesn’t fit for all, a CMS module does not work the same in every site, so we take the necessary time to analyze every detail of every project.
Your project is Unique
We believe that a website or application is only successful when users actually use it. If they don’t find it easy and exciting we believe it’s a failure. Users are usually the visitors of a website, the administrators of a CMS and the client’s employees using a sales application. We work very close with end users. We interview them, we profile them and we work for them. We could say that our work is user-centered.
UI Usability care
We also take the needed time to design user interfaces. We don’t work with User Interface (UI) frameworks, UI generators or templates because usability is totally absent there. We usually don’t do every web form of a web application the same style. We think about every page and we give it the best design it could work, based on what we know from the users and our own usability analysis and test. User Interface Usability is very important for us.
Fit to be used
Another feature we care a lot is to deliver our work as “fit to be used” as possible. This simply means that we want to make life as simple as possible for the people who will be using our work. They may be administrator deploying the website we did or users installing a software system. If they have to follow one thousand steps to configure something, install different drivers according to their operating system, install and configure a database engine or more, ALL before they install our stuff, then we are not happy. We try to simplify as much as possible the installation, configuration and early usage of our sites and applications. That’s what we call Fit to be used.
Maintenance slot
Finally, we know that no web or desktop project is perfect. There always will be changes and we are always prepared for that. One of the worst errors in project management of any area is to assume that there’s no more work when the project is finished and delivered to the client. Wrong! Almost every finished project will need maintenance. A building, a road, a website, a program. We consider a prudential maintenance slot for every project, so we are always ready to respond in case of need. Failure to respond rapidly when a client asks a change in a finished project is seen as a bad sign for our reputation. We don’t want to be seen as project hunters who simply disappear when we get paid.
But what about common websites?
It is true that some special kinds of sites, like shopping-carts, product catalogues, blogs and social network sites work more or less the same way. That means that they all could share the same base code while we just focus in the unique design, user centered, UI analysis of the frontend.
What we are working on at this time is in common framework that should work for common sites like the ones we mentioned above, that will probably help us offer our better services for less.
We think that’s the next way of doing things. It doesn’t have any sense to charge for analysis, design and implementation of a complete e-commerce or blog site when they are all the same and they all share the same code.
In a next article we’ll be describing better this new project. Keep reading us!
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Centraldev to Start Three New Challenging Projects
Saturday, April 4th, 2009
Yesterday, we have been notified that we have earned three challenging new projects that should keep us bussy for the next months. We are really excited for this projects because they represent important oportunities to grow and to learn.
One of the projects is a Windows application that will require to use Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF). It will also require extremely easy administration and configuration, since it is going to be used by non technical personnel. That’s a challenge and we like it.
We have another project to do on a Windows Mobile PDA, using the .NET Compact Framework. This application should sync data with another desktop application. We had already done a prototype of this app back in November, and now it was approved. Also very interesting.
Finally, we are doing another project with smart cards, which will use the Key Diversification System we have finished in January. This may be the biggest project of the year.
Tags: projects
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Portfolio also updated
Wednesday, April 1st, 2009
One of the most important updates we published today, and maybe the reason why we went online so early with the new version is our portfolio section. Our previous site didn’t give the portfolio the importance it needed. As a web design and programming services company, our portfolio should always had to be our most important section because it is expected that there it is where prospects will go when they want to learn what our capabilities are.
Sincerely, we have never done the job of looking back through the projects we have done in the past and that was the only way we realized that we had a lot to show! What you will now see in portfolio is only the most important projects, but we have lots more.
Most of them are websites, because they are easier to show. But we have also done lots of desktop applications, like RFID, Smart Card and FingerVein applications. Some of the most important ones that come to my mind now, that we left outside are:
- The Raffle application: this was an application that was used by Hitachi in a trade show in Las Vegas. It was used to make a raffle and it had a colorful spining wheel done in Flash.
- The EPC reader controller: this was a configuration tool also done for Hitachi to control one of their RFID readers remotely.
- The RFID demo application: we did this application to demo the functionalities of the Hitachi RFID readers.
- The Finger Vein GINA: this was one challenging project. It was a complete Windows Logon screen replacement (GINA) that used Hitachi’s FingerVein reader. With this application you could log on to Windows with your finger vein pattern.
- The Card Management System (CMS): this was a web and desktop application we did for smart card issuing and management.
- The Smart Bio Authentication System (SBAS): this was a three-factor authentication system for medial applications that used finger print, smart card and PIN. The system was composed of a server application for authentication, an issuing application and a client application. Transactions were done with webservices and it had a challenge/response security mechanism that used a SafeNet Hardware Security Modules (HSM) for cryptograpy and random number generation.
- The ProPay HSM functionality module: we did a functionality module for a SafeNet HSM that it is currently used in ProPay payment transactions. It implemented the DUKPT algo.
I’m sure I’m still forgeting something but, so far, that’s the most important that it is NOT in the portfolio with a picture.
So, don’t forget to visit our portfolio!
Tags: centraldev, news, projects, site, update
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Site update
Wednesday, April 1st, 2009
Today we have updated our site. You will notice a new fresher design. Simpler, more white, more space for content and more flexible for us. We’ll continue working on it during April, so it’s not finished work, but it works better than the previous, at least, for the kind of content we want to publish.
Why did we change the design so soon? As a web design shop, I think we owe you an explanation.
We ordered the previous design to Dario, one of our designers. Unfortunately, over the months, we were still not convinced. Too much HTML and CSS hacks, too much styles. We wanted something simpler. We thought that it didn’t really transmitted the style that Centraldev always put in their clients sites!
The new design is a lot simpler. Just a white rounded box where you can put anything you want inside. We don’t have to follow a fixed template for every page. Each page can now have its own personality, since this is more neutral, as we see it.
Remember, it is still work in progress. We still have to create the WordPress template for this blog, what should happen next week. We also have to describe more about our services, specially web design and programming.
Now, you can let us know what you think about the new design. We promise we’ll listen to you!
Tags: centraldev, news, site, update
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