What load is handled by a Telehandler?

One of my companies (JointSystems) is specialised in on-board scale solutions for commercial and agriculture vehicles, but also for wheel loaders and telehandlers. While others in this company know everything about the nuts and bolts of those vehicles I am specialised in the bits and bytes of the micro processors we use. With proper sensors you can measure pressure and calculate a weight. With intelligent software you can turn weight into business information.

Now for the part of the software, low level input of sensors is required, collected data is processed and communicated between processors and stored in non-volatile memory. A dedicated PC program can download the data from the micro processor into a database, enabling reports based on period, vehicle, customer and load type. You see, this goes far beyond just a scale and weight.

The nice thing of such a versatile product is that it can be used by so many different types of businesses and visiting such companies enriches my world. This week we did an installation of a JointSystems LoadController on a telescopic handler, or telehandler. Looking at the pictures you get the idea. The company is involved in fertiliser, transport, distribution and all kinds of agriculture related contracting. Agriculture is a bit differing from my (computer) world so I was amazed by the different types and size of some of the agricultural vehicles. For instance, in the Netherlands it is not allowed anymore to just spread fertiliser over the soil, but it must be injected into the soil. Other vehicles are used for the flipping and collecting of hay, or the collection and processing of grain. For some more pictures of these vehicles look here.

Anyway, we did a great job with the supply of a new on-board weighing system in a telehandler. All their trucks are already accommodated with a JointSystems solution, but now we can welcome a happy driver in a telehandler as well.

See the video where the telehandler vehicle is calibrated and the driver is trying out the new installation:

DTAP, a route to Application Lifecycle Management

Modern software should be viewed as a living asset, with a lifecycle that spans the activities that represent the entire lifetime of the product, from identification of business requirements through development, testing, deployment, support, and maintenance, right up to the eventual retirement of the application.

When we want to structure Application Lifecycle Management we need not only thinking in procedures but as well, or may be even more important, we need investing in the complete environment that can support us in this process, including all hard and software tools.
To support the process of Application Lifecycle Management, in this document we will look at implementation possibilities of the so called DTAP environment, i.e. (software) Development, Testing, Acceptance and Production.

Let's have a look at the functional requirements for a DTAP environment.

Development Environment
In this environment, the components (program modules) are programmed and the component tests and component integration tests are carried out. Part of the software development process is as well specifying what to develop. Functional, Detailed, Technical and Release Documentation are all part of this process. All (version-ed) information, including the source code, must be well organised, easily searchable and accessible. Developers need a modern Integrated Development Environment (IDE). “Integrated” should include (but not be limited to):

• Writing and debugging software
• Unit testing
• Source Control
• Build Server
• Version-ed documentation
• Collaboration with other stakeholders
• All related information easily searchable and accessible.

Test Environment

Testers are key members of the development team and test activities should be completely integrated into the software development process. Ideally the same IDE is used by testers, just using other views and tools.

The testers IDE should include (but not be limited to):

• Create test plans and perform tests.
• Create “test labs” in order to test applications in multiple environments. Each lab contains its own databases (automatically) filled with all relevant configuration and functional data. A lab may also include relevant hardware. Configuration or even firmware may be different for each lab.
• Create virtual test environments quickly, deploy the application, and then complete automatic tests.
• Reporting bugs.
• Recording of steps that cause unexpected behavior.
• Generate test cases based on the steps that caused the bugs to appear.

For system integration testing, the test environment is linked with all interacting test environments of systems involved. This includes all hardware and software.

Acceptance Environment

Ideally, the acceptance test environment should be a copy of the production environment. All systems that operate in the production environment are installed and, if necessary, active. The databases contain actual data, anonymously transferred from the production environment (if possible).

In the Acceptance environment, Support & Operations personnel may validate all information in order to establish whether the system can be put into use. Customers may even play a role in this.

For the Support & Operations department the Acceptance Environment is the first step towards the Production Environment, towards going live.

Within the Acceptance Environment Support & Operations must be able (but not be limited) to:

• Create and document release procedures
• Setup an Acceptance Environment resembling a particular Production Environment
• Different Acceptance Environments can be used to test one release based on different Production Environments.
• Test the installation and release of software before installation on a production side.

Production Environment

This is the environment in which all programs are eventually installed. No tests are performed in this environment. Normally, customers take care of the Production environment.

This said, it is of the utmost importance to be accurately informed about erroneous situations in a live system. Support & Operations is the first contact for customers with operational problems. To help Support & Operations with their tasks the Production Environment should support (but not be limited to):

• Exception reports
• Performance reports
• Recording and capturing the sequence of events that caused a bug and to store trace information, together with the appropriate environmental data.

Furthermore, Support & Operations must be able to:

• Have access to all relevant documentation
• Report bugs, including all relevant information gathered
• Report other observations to the development team for analysis and triage.

Ideally the software tools for Support & Operations are integrated with all other tools for software development, testing and acceptance.

The DTAP Environment Implemented

For all but the most trivial of solutions, application development is a multidisciplinary exercise that encompasses a wide variety of tasks and participants. The principal aim of any software development effort is to deliver a quality application that meets the customers’ requirements in a timely and cost-effective manner. However, there are many obstacles that can get in the way of any development team. Many of the problems are caused by a lack of clear and effective communication among developers, project managers, and customers. Other problems may result from a lack of discipline that occurs when developers and project managers misuse or misunderstand the development process. Consequently, adaptable and easy-to-use tooling is critical to help overcome the issues that can arise when producing a potentially complex system.

Visual Studio 2012 and Team Foundation Server help to address these concerns by supplying a collection of tightly integrated tools to support and manage the entire Application Lifecycle.

The primary aims of Visual Studio 2012 and Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2012 are to:

• Prioritize collaboration among everyone involved in developing an application, incorporating customers as equal members of the development team. 
• Deliver timely and actionable feedback to reduce wasted effort and its associated costs.
• Provide natural and appropriate tools for the tasks involved in designing, developing, testing, delivering, and maintaining quality software.
• Support best practices for application development, while remaining independent of any specific methodology.

For more information look at

• Visual Studio 2012 Product Guide

Don't like like on Facebook

I don't like like on Facebook, because sometimes I do not like the like. Or should I say, it is inappropriate to like a story that can only be disliked. Everybody knows the situations where you would like to show that you have read it, to show sympathy, but a like is telling the contrary.

I even more do not like like on Facebook because they sometimes are invented. Or be more precise, sometimes Facebook speaks for me while I have not spoken. I do get unwanted advertisements within my news feeds. I do not click on them. My "friends" see a message "from me" saying I like this or that company or product. Facebook is making up things.

I do not like the advertisements at all. And now, I even dislike them. Oh yes, that's the problem.  I cannot dislike and I certainly cannot dislike likes from Facebook itself.
May be, if I was living in the States, I could sue Facebook and get millions from them. But I live in the Netherlands and I don't know how to sue Facebook and get millions from them. That's why I am still a programmer, a freelance videomaker and writing this blog. Nevertheless, somebody gets payed because I do not like. Strange world.

There seems to be more going on. Look for Like, Share & Win terror, Facebook is not playing fair play. I am just a simple user of Facebook. I "like" Facebook because so many real friends of mine are on Facebook. But it might be only a matter of time. In the Netherlands Hyves was very popular, but almost vaporized. Facebook had it's unbelievable IPO for over $104 billion! For that money they still have not been able to write a decent Android program and they try to earn money with like's nobody every liked. In my opinion, they are and will be disappointing for shareholders. Not so important for me. They are disappointing users and the huge user base might just vaporize. Nothing is forever.

You can dislike this blog if you dislike like on Facebook. Oh no, this is getting confusing...
Tell me if you disagree, or like this if you do not like like on Facebook.

Document Management with Samsung Galaxy S4 and Google Drive

Did you ever dream about easy archiving of paper documents and invoices?

If you happen to have a Google account then using Google Drive (formerly known as Google Docs) is only a small step. With Google Drive you can create you own directory structure and you can drag your own files into the cloud. Google even has its own (simple) Office Apps to create Word, Excel and PowerPoint equivalents.
Now, if Google is strong in one particular way it is in searching. Google has become big with fast and efficient searching. This is no different if you are searching your own Google email (Gmail) or Google Drive. Search your email on any key word(s). If you have uploaded .pdf files, find them back. All blistering fast.
OK. And now for the goody. Google uses OCR (Optical Character Recognition) on images you upload to Google Drive. So, this is what I did.

Using my brand new Samsung Galaxy S4 mobile phone camera I took some pictures of invoices I received on paper (how old fashioned). Within the Camera App I chose for sharing to Google Drive, selected the appropriate directory and pressed OK. The minute it showed up on my PC screen I was able to select the image on some text I knew was present in this photo. Google immediately found the picture for me. Clicking on the file name opened the image and showed the contents on the screen. Amazing.
There are restrictions. Images have to be smaller than 2 MB. For this reason I had to change the size of the photo. From 13 MB (4128x3096) to 8 MB (3264x2448). The resulting image size was something like 1.7 MB. Enough for the Google OCR to translate all text contained in the picture.
I used a flash from the phone and it might be necessary to enhance the picture. The S4 camera App has some nice features to improve the brightness and contrast. Experiment with some of these settings before sending the image to Google Drive. Also, my first photo was too large. Google did some OCR, but not for the whole picture. So watch out.

Take your chance and enjoy archiving, or should I say: Happy Searching.