The most hyped event of the year is over and the result was disappointing for the Patriots fans. However, it was a good game with a couple of unfortunate calls by the referee and a lot of dropped passes. Well, we had a great time at our home watching the game with a lot of friends. I just realized that I have not written for a couple of weeks because I have been extremely busy with a few software projects that I am working on. I am on Acela express right now, heading to NY City to participate in a Google Apps user group meeting at Google NY. Hope to not run into the ticker tape parade for the Giants and get delayed going to the meeting.

We have been marching along in terms of software development with a slight twist – web applications for the portal which rely on authoritative data stored in Banner and other systems (such as 25Live) that look and act with a level of consistency that the users expect in software. As I have written many times over, I favor this approach to “Let us wait for Banner to deliver these services” because we will be waiting for a loooong time! Also, because this framework is under our control, the interface can be manipulated in ways that are otherwise not possible. Also, if the users are happy with the navigational approach and display of data we provide, we can leave that alone for however long the users desire. This is obviously not the case with software vendors. They seem to know what is good for us when! We all know that they rarely do a good job and choose the most inopportune moments to make changes.

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