All About Unidev

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Here at Unidev we pride ourselves on the diverse skills and years of experience our development teams bring to their projects. Whether it’s custom software design or mobile application development, our developers have what it takes to provide innovative and elegant solutions to our clients.

But what exactly makes a great developer? Are there certain traits, skills or habits a successful developer needs? Well, we asked the talented members of the Java, .Net, and mobile development teams at Unidev to find out.

Testing

Of course, a great developer tests her code thoroughly to ensure it performs just as the client expects. Christine of the Unidev West development team in Las Vegas submitted the mantra, “testing, testing, testing” to highlight its importance. This element is essential in delivering high-quality code with confidence.

But testing isn’t simply a phase at the end of a project; it’s a mentality integral to the entire development process. We couldn’t say it any better than one of Unidev’s talented developers, Teresa:

“Besides having some test cases before he starts coding, [a great developer] is also thinking of test cases as he goes, so he can try to break his code in the testing phase. Oh yeah, and he tests his stuff- thoroughly.”

Communication

This development skill may not seem as obvious as technical skills or problem solving abilities, but it is extremely important nonetheless. Great code cannot simply exist in a vacuum, it needs to comply with client needs and function properly with code from other developers.

Strong communication skills reduce errors and can catch minor problems and miscommunications before they become major headaches. Kevin from our development team in St. Louis puts it best:

“A good developer must be a good communicator. He must be able to understand a client’s needs and then be able to respond with useful solutions. He must also be able to explain his development strategy to co-workers.”

Teamwork

Another intangible skill a great developer must possess is teamwork. Successful development may rely heavily on individual abilities, but without positive interactions between other team members, things can fall apart quickly. Brian, another member of our development team in St. Louis, shares his thoughts:

“Although development is largely an individual activity, ultimately the efforts of all the individuals on the team are combined to make the final program, product, or website. If a developer cannot handle the teamwork aspect, he/she will likely be limited to projects where his or her efforts will not adversely affect the larger team.”

These are just a few aspects that the Unidev team thought distinguished a “competent developer” from a “great developer”. Do you agree or disagree? Tell us what you think makes a great developer in the comments below!

The 2011 holidays are almost at an end, and here at Unidev we have celebrated them well! As you may recall, this year we held an office decorating competition. Web designers, software developers, web marketers, account managers, HR staff, and accounting all got involved in making the Unidev offices very festive. For a quick look at our holiday decorations, check out this video tour of our offices:

Clearly, the competition was stiff this year. From the inflatable figure and Bieber-adorned display of the web design team, to the wrapped paper shredder and toy train of the Auctori team, to the frosted glass and paper snow flakes of the HR and Accounting teams, the Unidev offices looked like a winter wonderland. But of course, there could only be one winner of the grand prize: The Best Office Decorations award for Holiday 2011. Who took home the blue ribbon? Watch our holiday party video below to find out:

So, as you can see in the above video, The Web Design and Development Team from our web marketing division The Net Impact are 2011′s winners for best office decorations! Congratulations to all the teams who participated. We look forward to next years competition!

Everyone have a happy, safe, and prosperous New Year. We’ll see you in 2012!

Employees Credit Unidev with Best Company Culture in St. Louis Post Dispatch Contest

During the month of February, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and STLtoday.com invited employees of St. Louis area businesses to vote for their company to make the St. Louis Top Employer’s list. Readers were given the opportunity to vote their employer in one of the five categories: Best company culture, best commitment to diversity, best perks, best co-workers/team, and best benefits.

Out of 94,000 businesses in the St. Louis area, 72 companies were given the honor by its employees. Unidev was nominated for “Best Company Culture”, and was acknowledged in the Sunday February 28, issue of the St. Louis Post Dispatch on the front page of the ‘Jobs’ section. In addition, Unidev was in the top five vote getters in the contest.

Here is what some of the employees had to say about the company culture at Unidev:

“Unidev is truly a great place to work. The work environment promotes open communication, creativity and leadership among employees. Everyone is encouraged to contribute and new ideas are welcomed. Management and employees are treated the same, and everyone is part of the bigger picture.”

“The company culture at Unidev may be part of the reason a person joins the company, but it is a big part of the reason people stay with the company. The culture at Unidev is the perfect balance between a down-to-earth, family-oriented atmosphere and a strong, results-driven work environment. Due to Unidev’s commitment to corporate social responsibility and good, transparent governance, great customer service, a strong, long-term brand, and passionate employees and customers seems to naturally happen on its own. Especially in these tough times, it is amazing to be a part of a company who is constantly growing, adding new members from different expertise and really listens to and cares about the happiness and well-being of each individual employee and customer. I couldn’t imagine working anywhere else.”

“Unidev is a great place to work! It is a very laid back atmosphere to work in yet everyone has a very strong work ethic and works together to complete project and make the customers happy.”

　Thanks to all of the employees at Unidev and The Net Impact for making Unified Development Inc. a great company to work for!

On January 1, 1990, Unidev was founded. Of course it was a lot different then. Initially we (the two of us) did custom development mostly in Clipper. About 6 months after we started, things started to pick up and we added another programmer. This was all on premises programming mostly for smaller companies. We saw steady growth for the next year. In 1991, we got a pretty good sized project for a Fortune 1000 company. We were just in the right place at the right time on this one. There just were not that many shops specializing in PC development at that time. Through the 90s, the field consulting business grew nicely. Around 2001 with the end of Y2K, the .com bust and 9/11, business really slowed down. We shifted to doing more in house projects and have picked up a number of very strong customers with long term contracts. That business continues to show solid growth for us today. We’ll continue to adapt to the needs of our customers and I hope to be here another 20 years.

        Looking to Microsoft Partner Network to Expand Opportunities in New Markets

Unidevannounces its search for Microsoft Partners in North America, Asia and Europe to implement their global web content management (CMS) system, Auctori™. As a 16 year Certified Microsoft Partner, we are looking to leverage the Microsoft Partner Channel Builder to deepen our services and solutions to more complex business opportunities, to provide a broader range of client services and to create business relationships with other partners whose skills complement our own.

“The Microsoft Partner Channel Builder is one of the key sales enablement benefits of our Microsoft relationship, and is an excellent way to combine our expertise and resources. We are looking forward to connecting with industry partners to form new alliances and deliver the end-to-end solutions that address customers’ business needs,” said Greg Alexander, CEO, Unidev. “This tool, with its two-way model, is making Microsoft Partner communications much easier.”

Auctori, a .Net SaaS CMS Platform, was developed by Unidev for multi-national companies, and currently supports a number of European, North American and Asian sites. This system supports multi-lingual site management and site deployment. Auctori was built from the ground up in conjunction with a team of search engine optimization (SEO) specialist to implement best SEO practices. The next release of Auctori is scheduled for the first quarter of 2010, and will feature European and Asian hosting in addition to its current North American hosting, with all sites and platforms managed from a single console.

For further information on Unidev or Auctori, contact Steve Thomas at 636-532-4424 or steve.thomas@unidev.com.

Read the full press release

Unidev has a number of websites that you may find useful.

Blog.unidev.com - This blog which contains company information as well as Java and C++ technical help

www.unidev.com - The main unidev web site. It describes the various services, has job posts and technical help

www.thenetimpact.com - The main site for The Net Impact. This describes our web design and web marketing offereings. This is our oldest site and is due to be replaced by a much improved version in the next 2 months.

www.auctori.com – The main site for the Auctori content management system. It describes the features and benefits of that product

www.auctorilaw.com – The Law firm specific version of Auctori that was built with specific functions and capabilites for law firms.

www.unidevtech.com – A technical blog about .NET web development.

blog.thenetimpact.com – The main company blog for The Net Impact. It covers an array of web design and web marketing topics as well as company announcements.

www.bestnetcms.com – This is our Auctori blog and covers various CMS related topics.

www.searchengineoptimizationstlouis.com – A blog covering search engine optimization and web marketing topics

Plus an array of Facebook pages, linkedin accounts, Youtube channels, flickr channels and Twitter accounts.

2009 was a good year for Unified Development, Inc. (unidev) and The Net Impact and it looks like 2010 could be a great year. This is a big improvement over the previous couple of years where we saw a very real slow down in overall IT spending especially on the new development side. Our development revenues were up this year. We’ve been very fortunate that most of our customers continued to invest in IT during those years even as their revenues were down. We also saw strong growth in our marketing and web group which has grown from only a few people in 2006 to over 20 today.
The big news for 2009 was the public launch of our Auctori line of enterprise content management systems. This uniquely architected SaaS solution was designed to integrate SEO best practices across the board as well as to be a true global web platform. It is already deployed in several law firms, cities, and global industrial products and medical supply companies. There are sites in over a dozen languages with more being added monthly.
The other big news for 2009 was our headquarters move to the Dierbergs building in Chesterfield. The new larger office was designed by us to suit the very open, communicative and friendly environment we wanted. Dierbergs and their contractors did an amazing job on the buildout of the space. It far exceeded my expectations.
2010 will bring a number of challenges and changes to our organization as I hope the economy begins its recovery. We made significant investments in training, software and management to continually improve the quality and speed of delivery of our services, products and processes. We feel we are well positioned to capture new business and really look forward to a great year.

Greg Alexander

Auctori:law Provides Turn-Key Web Solution for the Legal Industry

Unidev® is proud to announce Auctori:law™, a Microsoft Certified Web Content Management System (WCMS), designed specifically for law firms, will launch on October 15, 2009. Unidev designed the WCMS in association with several law firms to give attorneys and legal professionals an easy to use, but powerful system to update and maintain their professionally designed website.
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Web-based Auctori:law gives attorneys the power to dynamically update their site from anywhere in the world, at anytime.  With Auctori:law, it is simple to build and edit website content without the help of a professional or having had previous experience or knowledge in HTML. By simply logging into a site through a secure, password-protected portal, site administrators can update content, change images, add keywords and make other instantaneous changes to their websites.

Auctori:law is a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution providing all of the benefits of cloud computing. Unidev’s solution provides firms with the opportunity to strengthen their Internet presence and their overall brand reputation by giving lawyers a professionally designed site and the power to maintain their content in real time. In addition to standard content management features, Auctori:law is equipped with an attorney biographies module, news and articles module, and an images module. Auctori:law adheres to all Search Engine Optimization best practices in order to maximize website traffic and usability.

“While I have worked in database driven content management programs in the past, I continue to be impressed by the level of sophistication and ease of use of the WCMS as built by Unidev for our law firm. Through Unidev’s WCMS I am not only able to freely edit content throughout our site, I am now in charge of navigation items and graphics, previously outside the realm of my editing parameters,” said Kelly Annis, Client Relations Manager for The Stolar Partnership, LLP.
 

A Few Unique features of Auctori:Law  include:
• Attorney and professional biography builder with profile photos, dynamic V-card generation, customizable fields, and professional PDF printing functionality
• Flexible content pages and navigation structure for creating practice areas and industry sections
• News and articles module to create and archive publications, resources and events.
• Multi-lingual
• Print-ready PDF documents
• Secured document libraries

-To see two excellent examples of Auctori:law in action, please visit The Stolar Partnership, LLP at http://www.stolarlaw.com and Paul J. Passanante, PC & Associates at http://www.passanantelaw.com.

“We are very excited about the launch of Auctori:law,” said Greg Alexander, CEO of Unidev. “Our team is very experienced in developing customized legal websites.  We developed this WCMS designed specifically for the legal industry based upon this experience.  Auctori:law presented itself as an excellent opportunity for our clients to really take control of their websites with an application that truly answers the needs of a legal firm.  I am confident that Auctori:law is a complete solution for any law firm’s online needs.”

Put the Power into Your Hands Today …

Contact Auctori:Law  for further information and for a free Auctori:Law™ demonstration!  Call us at: 888.629.4672 or email us at: demo@Auctori.com.

Kiosk applications and other self-service systems are rapidly growing business area.  Internet connectivity, a greater variety of interface equipment and prices that continue to drop are enabling the cost-effective deployment of an ever widening array of applications. Hardware is available for a wide spectrum of requirements. Vendors such as NCR and 5point can meet most any need

Kiosk Software application development is relatively straightforward. Many kiosk applications now use an ordinary PC attached to various more specialized interface equipment such as touchscreens, card readers, special keyboards, and trackballs. Equipment and kiosks can be purchased for either indoor or outdoor usage, outdoor equipment is noticably more expensive.  Outdoor kiosks have special needs due to weather, water and sunlight.  

Usually either .NET or Java is used as an application language. The operating system is either Linux or Windows XP. Kiosk applications can be a specialized web site program or more traditional client application.  There are special security programs for controlling access and monitoring the kiosks (such as Kioware). These programs prevent access to the computer or any application other than those specifically permitted.

Touchscreen applications are much like any other except the interface elements typically have to be much larger. This can be especially challenging when working with spreadsheet like programs or interfaces. Most interface hardware available today has a well defined software API and can usually interact seamlessly with the programming.

Unidev recently completed two separate kiosk applications. One was an application which allowed visitors to search a large database of products and images to obtain detailed information about the products and pricing. By automatically providing this information on a round the clock basis, the vendor is able to interact with all potential customers even when salespeople are not available.

 The other application provides an automated method for filling out and validating data entry forms by customers. This application saves a considerable amount of labor as well as ensures the data is correctly filled out and validated while the customer is on site saving considerable rework.

Both of these applications communicate with a central server for obtaining updates of both code and data, sending report information to the server and monitoring. The server applications provide a central data collection point for management reports.

Self-service kiosks have proven themselves to be a cost effective tool for both labor savings and improving service levels to customers.

Keeping a medium sized contract programming company up to speed on the latest technologies is a daily challenge. With a wide variety of technologies and skillsets in use at any given time and with the future technology needs of the company being very customer driven, it can be very difficult to put together individualized training plans. Our solution was to develop a more ‘university’ environment where we constantly have optional classes on a wide variety of new and current technologies. In this way, employees are able to choose which directions they feel works best for them and they are able to investigate a variety of choices without having to commit to a particular path. In our experience, this has worked quite well with a number of surprises about which directions people choose. With an array of topics such as J2EE, C# .NET, Web Marketing methods, HTML, Project Management, RAD and Network Architecture, employees can explore many possibilities. Unidev has a number of types of work including software developers who work on customer projects at the development center, technology consultants who work both at the customer site and in-house, Web marketing consultants and IT staffing personnel who augment customer development teams. This variety of work along with the various technologies employed makes for a very interesting learning environment.