Category Archives: Featured

Featured, Women In Tech

Stories from the WIT Trenches: Melissa Pickering

[This is the twelfth in a series of posts exploring the personal stories of real women in technology. Every woman in tech overcame, at the very least, statistical odds to be here; this blog series aims to find out why, and what they found along the way.  This week we met up with Melissa Pickering (ln), founder and CEO of iCreate to Educate. If reading her story inspires you to share yours, please email me.]

Melissa Pickering

Among edtech digest’s most fascinating edupreneurs, Melissa Pickering, is founder of iCreate to Educate, a local Boston startup aimed at empowering students to blend the arts and sciences with hands-on learning. An impressive background as a mechanical engineer at Disney Imagineering, Melissa harnessed her experiences to fan the flames of passion for STEM in the future innovators of America: K-12 kids. (View some of the stop-motion films students have created with tools iCreate to Educate provides.)

1. Can you tell us a little about yourself?

I am the founder/CEO of iCreate to Educate, a small learning company in Boston that engages kids with simple tools to blend hands-on exploration with digital creativity.  I’ve built up the company for three years to unleash the imaginations of kids in both homes and classrooms around the world.

2. Can you take us back to your “eureka!” moment—a particular instance or event that got you interested in technology?

I first became interested in technology through my half-credit intro to mechanical engineering course as a freshman in college.  We were exposed to and challenged to create various types of robots out of LEGO MINDSTORMS, programming them with the computer to achieve certain tasks such as walking or picking up objects.  From that point on I started becoming heavily involved in leading similar activities in local K12 classrooms, recognizing the skill-sets each student (elementary or university level) could gain from the integration of technology into the core curriculum.

3. Growing up, did you have any preconceived perceptions of the tech world and the kinds of people who lived in it?

Growing up I was generally exposed to the engineering and tech worlds because my dad was an engineer and my younger brother was always taking apart and rebuilding computers.  Continue reading Stories from the WIT Trenches: Melissa Pickering →

Events, Featured, OfficeWriter, Programming, Webinars

New! [Webinar] PivotTables in OfficeWriter 8.4

Because we had such a great response from the first webinar, we’re opening more seats and hosting this PivotTable webinar again.

Take a first look at the new PivotTable API within OfficeWriter 8.4 in this interactive webinar.

Our Senior Sales Engineer (and adept demo master), Chad Evans, will walk you through several ways PivotTables can help you wrangle and report on your data. Bring your questions or email them beforehand and we’ll be happy to include them.

When:

Friday, March 1, 2013 at 1 p.m. EST

What we’ll cover:

  • How to use PivotTables to better sort and filter your data
  • How to programmatically create Excel PivotTables in OfficeWriter
  • How to programmatically update existing Excel PivotTables in OfficeWriter
  • Your questions

Spots are limited. Save your seat and register today.


Can’t attend, but still want to learn more? Register anyway! We’ll send the slides and a recording of the webinar after the event.

ASP.NET, Excel, Featured, News Releases, OfficeWriter

PivotTables Now Available within OfficeWriter 8.4

OfficeWriter 8.4

WATERTOWN, MA (February 12, 2013) – SoftArtisans announced the addition of PivotTables to their OfficeWriter product today. OfficeWriter 8.4 is now available for download. Included in this new version, is the ability to create, modify, and remove PivotTables within users’ Excel workbooks. With the new PivotTable functionality customers have the ability to add Report Filters to better filter and sort their data, as well as change the data source of a PivotTable (including PivotTables already copied with CopySheet). This provides users with more fine-grained control over their data and reports.

Also included in this product release are new features to their WordTemplate model. Within WordTemplate DOCX files, users now have the option to programmatically set the document properties of their DOCX files and to remove bookmarked content when delivering reports.

OfficeWriter provides customers Continue reading PivotTables Now Available within OfficeWriter 8.4 →

ASP.NET, Excel, Featured, News Releases, OfficeWriter, Programming, SQL Server, SSRS

What’s new in OfficeWriter 8.4

PIVOT TABLES ARE HERE!

OfficeWriter 8.4 packs a powerful punch with exciting new features, most notable of which is ExcelApplication support for PivotTables in OOXML (XLSX, XLSM) files. ExcelWriter already supports the use of PivotTables in ExcelTemplate and SSRS reports,  but now you can programmatically create, manipulate, and remove PivotTables with ExcelApplication.

BlogPostPivot

The new PivotTable API gives you the freedom to:

  • Create PivotTables from scratch (see our tutorial on Creating a Basic PivotTable)
  • Add and manipulate PivotTable fields – data value fields, column labels, row labels, and report filter page fields
  • Access common settings like empty/error values, refresh data when opening a file, and the number of cached items to retain

With the API you also have the ability to change the data source of a PivotTable. Continue reading What’s new in OfficeWriter 8.4 →

Featured, Truth in Tech

Stuff Tech Blogs Do That Bother Me

1 Comment

[cross posted from Riparian Data]

Credit: Business InsiderSome people thought Gourmet’s demise was a nail in good journalism’s coffin. Others said no, it’s just another sign that the web is the future of journalism, good and bad. Today, the consensus seems to be that the latter group was right. And, happily, there is quite a bit of good journalism on the web. Short form, long form, data-based, image-based, crowd-sourced… all can be found, relished, and easily shared.

Unhappily, there is also quite a bit of drecky journalism on the web. I can’t tell you if technology really does take up a lion’s share of drecky journalism in general, or just a lion’s share of the drecky journalism I read. Regardless, there’s an awful lot of it, fueled by both the traffic-winner-takes-all maxim and tech companies’ willingness to stroke the egos of tech reporters in exchange for headlines. The following 12 tics are the icing on my insufferable cake. If you have any of your own, or just want to tell me to shove it and stop reading these sites if I despise them so much, feel free to let me know in the comments!

1. Slideshows. Especially slideshows that are one image/page. If gddamn Buzzfeed doesn’t use them, you don’t have to.

2. Attributions listed below the post. This is shady and shoddy journalism, for it at best de-emphasizes and worse obfuscates the source. (1)

3. Headlines that are two sentences of keywords, strung together with a minimum of prepositions.

4. Headlines that follow this formula: [adjective] data startup [startup name] lands/gets $[number] Million in Series A/B/C to disrupt [noble cause like social network for cats] market.

5. Headlines that follow this formula: “I’m quitting/Why I quit [currently cusping or widely-used technology]”

Continue reading Stuff Tech Blogs Do That Bother Me →

Featured

Office 365 Launches Today

Microsoft launched the newest version of Office today (January, 29, 2013). Designed in the Cloud and with people on-the-go in mind, Office 365 Home Premium was aimed at helping businesses and families organize their increasingly busy schedules. See what all the buzz is about with these pictures, tweets, and videos from the launch.

http://storify.com/softartisans/office365-launches-today

ASP.NET, Big Data, Featured, OfficeWriter, Programming, SharePoint, SSRS

OfficeWriter and the Microsoft Application Platform

Curious to know more about how OfficeWriter fits in with the Microsoft Application Platform? We’ve partnered with Andrew Brust from Blue Badge Insights to bring you an overview of the additive value OfficeWriter provides to the Microsoft stack.

In this powerpoint:

  • You’ll learn about OfficeWriter’s object and template models
  • Scenerios in which to use OfficeWriter
  • How OfficeWriter plays into Microsoft Dynamics, SharePoint, and Azure









Featured, Office Life, Staff Picks

Apps We’re Thankful For

[cross-posted from the Riparian Data blog]

All in the Family

[All in the Family by Jeremy Miller]

Tomorrow, just before you nosedive into Great Aunt Muriel’s famously belt-busting pecan pie, take a moment to think some warm and fuzzy thoughts about those special, non-needy, non-inquisitive, non-forever asking you when you’re going to settle down and get married apps in your life.

Just kidding! That’s what today is for. Below, the apps that make Riparian Data’s team of Gander handlers and the SoftArtisans team of Office doc wranglers happy. Feel free to add yours in the comments!

David Wihl, CEO of Riparian Data: 

  • Evernote
  • iOS Maps. Gwen, a random chimpanzee in Botswana, and I are the only two living creatures who actually prefer Apple’s iOS maps to Google Maps. [True–Ed]
  • The Trello app has grown up and is now better than using Trello via a browser.
  • The SephardiJews app, because it was written by a friend’s son who is only 13 years old.
  • The Loro Piana app so I can both drool and scoff at $18,000 men’s coats, in an app that often crashes.

Dan Medeiros, CEO of SoftArtisans

  • Open Table

Paula Marciante, Senior Talent Acquisition Manager: 

  • Evernote

Nicholas Martin, Software Engineer: 

  • Evernote
  • Mog
  • (I don’t really use many apps.)

Scott Dugas, Software Engineer:

  • Mog

Michael Fargnoli, QA Engineer:

  • Definitely Spotify. It’s made me a complete human being.

Jim Stallings, Egg Chef:

Agile, Featured

3 ways to have a very agile Thanksgiving

As we head rapidly into the holiday season, taking vacation to celebrate with family and friends is bound to occur. For most, it is a time to relax and reflect on what to be thankful for, accompanied by turkey (or tofurkey for the meat-conscious) and cranberry sauce. For others, it can be a hectic time of delegating responsibility and tying up loose ends. Not so for this product owner! The following are 3 golden rules I follow before vacationing to keep the holidays happy and the hectic at bay.

#1 – Give someone the executive power!

Since the product owner makes the decisions, it is important to appoint someone else to make all of these choices. I usually pick someone who has a similar mindset when it comes to the product and prioritizing customer issues. That way, even if I don’t make the decisions, the outcomes are usually the way I would have wanted them.

#2 – Plan ahead, but don’t plan too much.

One of the luxuries of being a Scrum product owner, is that Scrum is a system that adapts well to change. If the unexpected happens (as it frequently does), having well-defined stories, a prioritized backlog, and someone with the decision-making power, goes a long way. Rather than plan for every possibility (because we all know that polar bear is going to destroy the server room), Continue reading 3 ways to have a very agile Thanksgiving →