Conduce Group Blog

The new AircraftIT Columnist

Paul Saunders — Wed, 16 May 2012 09:23:00 GMT

The latest issue of the AircraftIT Ops eJournal is out today and I'm the new columnist. Ed and John from AircraftIT approached me a few weeks ago and asked if I'd like to provide a regular feed of my "pithy comments" for the publication. I'd already had a couple of articles published which are quite a lot of work to do along with the day job, so the idea of providing content on a little and often basis was a lot more attractive. The copy deadline for this issue was the same week as the Aircraft Commerce Airline & Aerospace MRO & Operations IT Conference in Miami, so it was pretty simple to pick a topic and rattle off one of my stream of thoughts on a topical subject.

I'm quite satisfied with the results and the guys have done a good job of complying with my own personal style. You can download the eJournal from the AircraftIT website or read the latest issue via the AircraftIT iPad app which is due for an update in the next few days. If you have any thoughts or ideas for future columns then please get in touch.

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Author: Paul Saunders

Is Pinterest the Right Tool for Business?

Paul Saunders — Fri, 11 May 2012 10:02:40 GMT

Previously I've made no secret of my confusion about certain social media networks. I think its probably a sign of getting old and cantankerous, but I really don't understand the appeal of some of the recent darlings of the social network world. Instagram and Pinterest are the two which confuse me the most. I was interested to see a workflow that had been tweeted by one of my favourite writers Dan Pink which I was hoping would clear up some of my misgivings about Pinterest.

Clicky for bigger

Although beautifully designed and highly informative I thought the workflow was a little one sided so I became inspired to produce a counter. Here it is:

Clicky for bigger

OK, I admit it. My workflow is very tongue in cheek, but my message is this: Just because Pinterest is the World's third largest social network it doesn't mean you have to get it or embrace it. Pinterest's success should be applauded, they have clearly identified a requirement in the "market" and have successfully exploited it. It speaks volumes that Pinterest's scrap book style user interface is probably the most copied UI trend in recent months. If something has no apparent value to you, there's no point wasting time and effort trying to understand it and embracing it. There are more important things to do. This was certainly the case with Foursquare. Our business rarely gets visitors, so Foursquare has little appeal to us, but for businesses in the retail or hospitality sector geo-location based social networks are fantastic.

The original (and better flowchart) was posted by jewellery designer Megan Auman on her blog along with a well reasoned argument where her central statement is:
"Just because you don't get something, doesn't mean it isn't it isn't valuable"

I think Megan and I are both right. Just because I don't get something, it doesn't mean it isn't valuable to some people. Equally there's no point in embracing something for the sake of it where its value isn't understood or lacks relevance.

Thanks for the interesting lesson Megan.

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Author: Paul Saunders

YBoard v2 Hackathon [Live Blog]

Paul & Marcin — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 19:16:38 GMT

19:14 We are working late to get version 2 of our sticky notes app YBoard for iPad completed and submitted to the iTunes app store. This is a live blog of events as they occur. Hit refresh (F5) for regular updates....

19:21 The irony of the fact that we are not using YBoard to plan the final stages of development of YBoard is not lost on us. We only have two iPads to hand and we need both of those - one for testing and one for development. We've had to revert to the whiteboard to track the final tasks for completion.

19:24 The final versions of the help layers have been completed. We've opted for a black background instead of the green we used in v1. Classy!

19:26 Marcin has found a small bug activating the help layer in a new board. Another task added to the list.

19.29 We created a more simple version of the On-Boarding Board that is loaded for new installs of YBoard version 2. The newer version is labelled as "tap here...."

19:33 Catering for the new iPad's retina display requires a bit more time and patience, but is ultimately rewarding for the improved look of graphic rich apps like YBoard. YBoard v2 is totally "retina display ready!!"

19:39 This bug is proving very tricky to recreate. Whilst Marcin tries to fix it I am preparing some version release notes for iTunes.

19:53 The bug is fixed and the version release notes are written. Marcin's preparing the screenshot that is required for the OnBoarding Board but needed needed my help for cropping the image with a fixed aspect ratio using GIMP. Only one more coding task remains! Starting to get hungry now though....

20:07 Some minor problems getting the OnBoarding Board to work as required in Retina Display mode.... D'oh. Just this and implementing the new help layers and we're all done bar the final testing.

20:18 In beta versions of this release we had two different gestures to return to the Room screen from the Board screen: pinch out and swipe left. After using the app for the past few weeks we have both decided that the swipe left is more natural feeling and convenient than the pinch out. So we're disabling the least preferred gesture. The help layer has been updated accordingly.

20:25 Code review to the sounds of Manchester City versus Manchester Utd on the radio. Still 0-0

20:27 The new help layers look loads better in black!!

20:28 We need to do a test of the feature we made which imports all notes from v1 to v2. The only way we can think how to do it is to uninstall v2 and buy YBoard v1 from the App Store.

20:33 Ouch! We need to do some App Search Optimisation with the new version. A search for "Sticky Notes" on the app store doesn't return YBoard....

20:40 The test for upgrading from v1 to v2 worked well. Nearly there now!

20:44 Time to grab some fresh screenshots to use on the App Store. I'm sorry to keep on about it, but I'm really pleased with how the new help layers look.

20:45 Goal to Man City!!

20:47 The work to upload the new version to iTunes has begun.

20:54 Oh no, there's a new Contract to be approved in iTunes Connect before we can submit the app. It requires new tax and banking information to be submitted. Fingers crossed that this doesn't halt us from submitting the new version!!

21:21 Success! Preparing the new version on iTunes Connect now.

21:28 Ready for upload of binaries.

21:29 Uploading....

21:32 Message from Apple... "Upload received. Pending review"

21:34 Final post of the evening. The version status is now "Waiting for Review". Time to relax and wait for approval! Good night all.

Presenting on the iPad

Paul Saunders — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 11:03:16 GMT

I’ve been asked several times in the past about how I do presentations on my iPad. What hardware and software I use and so on. To save me some time the next time I’m asked I thought I’d jot down the details here:

Since the launch of iOS4 it has been possible on the iPad2 to duplicate what you are seeing on the iPad’s screen to a secondary screen by using a video adapter. Up until that point, only certain apps like the iPad’s video player and Keynote were compatible.

Connecting to a Projector

Apple has both a VGA and an HDMI video adapter for the iPad.

The HDMI adapter is my preferred option as HDMI cables tend to be lighter, have a much more reliable connection and also carry audio. The HDMI adapter also has a secondary input socket to power the iPad whilst you are connected. However very few projectors in circulation are equipped with an HDMI input so I tend to be stuck with using the VGA adapter instead. This isn’t too bad, but I have found when presenting abroad that the screw holes on my adapter don’t quite line up with the screws on VGA cables. They tend to be a fraction of a millimetre out which often means I need to use a bit of tape to ensure a good connection from my adapter to the projector’s cable. If I am planning to move around a bit I tend to hold the iPad in my left arm with my hand curled around the back and the bottom of the device using my fingers to ensure the cable is held in place.

It is possible to present wirelessly by using an AppleTV. Using a wifi network you can connect the iPad to an AppleTV and then mirror the iPad’s screen to a projector. The only problem here is that the AppleTV only has an HDMI outlet, so you need to ensure the projector that is used is HDMI ready. If you are presenting at a conference or large event then you might want to consider using your own private wifi network to ensure you have the best possible quality connection from your iPad to the AppleTV.

Preparing my Presentation

I use a PC so am still using good old PowerPoint 2010. I think PowerPoint gets a bit of a bad wrap, but it’s a tool at the end of the day which in the right hands can do a pretty decent job. No software can turn a badly designed presentation into a good one. I’ve found that PowerPoint does most of what I need for my presenting style. I’ve had a dabble with SlideRocket and Prezi which are both pretty good web based tools but I tend to do quite a lot of preparation whilst offline, so PowerPoint suits me better. I’ve also tried using Keynote for iPad as a means to prepare a presentation, but I’m not a fan of creating large amounts of content on the iPad and the iPad version of Keynote is a little bit lightweight and fiddly for my needs.

Software for Presenting

There are a number of tools for presenting PowerPoint files on the iPad, but I’m not a big fan. I’ve found that the format tends to get monkeyed about with so I much prefer to convert my slides to PDF format first and then present using a PDF viewer. I’ve tried a few different PDF viewers but have settled with GoodReader as my preferred app. I like how I can easily synch files with my Dropbox account which means I can ensure I can make last minute updates from my PC and easily synchronise with my iPad. GoodReader has some useful settings to help optimise the presentation. You can change the slide buffering and transition settings which help to optimise the presentation and ensure that slides are cached in advance. There’s nothing worse than having to wait for a slide to load when you flick between slides. I prefer to swipe left and right between slides, but some apps allow alternative gestures and slide transitions to be used. GoodReader runs presentations in full screen mode and you can turn off page numbering which helps to keep the audience’s focus on my content. Some other viewers like Adobe Reader for iPad up until recent versions retained the iPad’s header bar on the screen and flashes up the page number on every screen which is a bit distracting I find.

GoodReader has one major drawback though. It is not very good at handling fonts. I have a load of OTF and TTF fonts that I like to use in my slides, but very few apps are capable of rendering them. I used Lobster Two and Bebas Neue fonts in the presentation I did at a Flight Ops Conference last year, but I struggled to find an app that would properly render my slides.

This is how one of my slides should have looked as seen on Adobe Reader for iPad

Here is the same slide as it appeared on GoodReader and other PDF viewers

None of the PowerPoint viewing apps would render my slides and only Adobe Reader of the PDF viewers would render the fonts properly. However due to the drawbacks that I described with Adobe Reader I had to come up with an alternative plan. I ended up exporting my original slides as image files and then importing the images to Keynote for iPad. This worked really well and allowed me to use some of the nicer features of Keynote. However if I had needed to do any last minute amendments to my presentation this would have been a real pain.

Keynote for iPad I have found is the best tool for actually presenting slides. When you are connected to a projector there are a couple of really useful presentation tools. If you tap and hold your finger on the iPad’s screen a virtual laser pointer appears just above your finger which is handy for pointing out details on your slides. You also have a timer that appears on your screen, but not on the projection which is really handy to keep a track of time. Also it is possible to use a companion app on your iPhone which you can connect to the iPad via wifi or Bluetooth which allows you to use your iPhone as a wireless remote.

There have been a number of updates to iPad PowerPoint tools like Slideshark and PPT Show which have borrowed features from Keynote. Microsoft keep threatening to launch PowerPoint for iPad, so it is probably worth me reviewing the available apps before conference season starts again.

Please visit our presentations page to view the content from some of my recent talks, or contact us if you would like to enquire about me presenting at your event.

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Author: Paul Saunders

The Absurdity of Cabin Defects Procedures

Paul Saunders — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 09:44:08 GMT

In preparation for a presentation that I'm giving later this year I made a short film to illustrate the absurdity of the current cabin defects procedures employed by some airlines.

I kid you not. If there is a problem with non-safety critical parts on some commercial aircraft this is the actual chain of events that occurs. I know I'm not the only person who believes this to be insane. Recently I have spoken with pilots, cabin crew and engineers who are all as equally frustrated by this scenario. Considering the amount of investment by airlines on improving passenger experience this just amplifies the level of disbelief.

Consider the impact on a long haul operator with a single seat in business class without in-flight entertainment. Many airlines I know would not book a passenger on that seat. How much lost revenue does that represent per flight? Now scale that up to several seats per aircraft across a fleet. The cost must rack into the millions per year. Now consider the impact to the airline's business if they do bite the bullet and place a passenger in that defective seat. I think you are starting to get the picture.

So why the lack of investment on improving systems and procedures to improve this process? Search me - it makes little sense! The cabin defects procedure is one example of a 20th Century procedure on board aircraft and in the MRO sector that has not been revisited for years.

"It's how we've always done it" is the response you get when challenging these outdated practises. This attitude is no longer acceptable in the modern climate. Organisations who are unable to adapt and embrace modern ways of working need to understand that they are at a strategic and financial disadvantage over a competitor that operates differently.

It just so happens that we built a proof of concept that allows the simple capture and transmittal of cabin defects via an iPad application that can be easily integrated with MRO, ERP, CRM and ETL systems. If you would like to know more about our simple cabin defects solution, Defexx then please get in touch.

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Author: Paul Saunders

The Pros & Cons of the Retina Display

Marcin Wojciechowski — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 08:48:06 GMT

Last month’s Apple event saw the unveiling of the new iPad. The main new feature that is going to affect everyone is a new retina display. It's 2048x1536 pixels to be precise - exactly double the resolution of the old iPad. That might sound a lot and it is however I'm very happy because of it. As you might expect there are advantages and disadvantages of such high resolution.

First it makes displayed content much better. There are more details on your photos and apps you use every day. You might say that your current display of a laptop or mobile phone is enough and you don't need anything above that. I don't believe that it's true. I believe that people just get used to poor image quality. A few years ago 640x480 was considered Hi Res. If you take a look at the world around, it's much crisper than on your screen ;-). Of course such density of pixels produces more challenges not only for the hardware (complicated manufacturing, more memory and powerful processors required) but also for the software. As a software developer I’m more interested in the second one.

Fig.1 magnified screenshot of Defexx for iPad on iPad2 (left) and new iPad (right)
For those iPad applications that use standard controls like tables and buttons - mainly business oriented apps - there’s not much to change. All images of controls come with a new iOS version - so they are in HI-Res already. All you need to do is to update icons and rarely some logos.

There are the problems with more graphic-intensive apps like YBoard. In YBoard basically everything you see is a custom image - so everything needs to be changed. In some cases, when you don’t have high quality source images - graphics need to be prepared again in double the resolution. Things are even worse when it comes to websites. You can replace all images with retina-enabled ones, using -webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2 attribute, but hey! Websites are not intended for iOS devices only, are they? What about other devices? The problem is that the web is pixel based rather than points based. So the look of a website will vary between different devices and screen resolutions. Despite having some pixel-independent graphic formats like SVG we still lack a widely-spread standard to help us solve the problem.

Fig.2 magnified screenshot of YBoard on iPad 2 (left) and new iPad (right)
To summarize, the new iPad offers a very good quality image but burdened with more work for both developers and designers. Now you can imagine that in say 3 years Apple will introduce new “micro retina” displays, because pixels are still distinguishable when straining eyes from a short distance. Steve Jobs once said: "It turns out that there’s a magic number right around 300 pixels per inch..." and the new iPad has got only 264 ppi :D.

Click here to take a closer look at some of our iPad and iPhone development capability or contact us to find out how we can help you make use of the iPads new retina display with your software or business apps.

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Top 10 Tablets in Science Fiction

Paul Saunders — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 10:25:59 GMT

Science Fiction over the years has provided us with a fascinating vision of the future. Some visions have even directly inspired technological research. One type of technology that has been cropping up in science fiction since the 1960s has been the tablet device. Since the tablet has become a reality these visions of the future have become more and more dazzling and ambitious. Here are my Top 10 favourite tablet devices from science fiction writing, films and television.

10. Avatar

James Cameron is becoming a technological pioneer in his own right developing ground breaking technology to help construct his visions and with his deep sea exploits. Some of the technological visions in the movie Avatar were stunning and we caught a glimpse of the ruggedised tablet of the future with this see-through invention. I'm not a fan of transparent tech. What is the value of seeing the reverse of what the user is doing?

9. Quantum Leap

Dean Stockwell's character Al, was equipped in the future with a cigar and a bizarre 80s design lego PDA type device. I'm assuming this mini-tablet wasn't widely available as a consumer device as it seemed to be a single use business intelligence device that was tightly integrated with the character's central information systems

8. Real Steel

There's a fair bit of shameless product placement in the Hugh Jackman film Real Steel. Nokia and HP both showcase their future visions in this film which is probably very good PR for both companies whose recent fortunes have not been so good. This HP curved device looks like some kind of laptop/tablet type hybrid.

7. Iron Man

Another transparent offering from the man of steel here. Interesting credit card form factor though.

6. Minority Report

The vision of future user interfaces in Minority Report has directly inspired a whole slew technological devices with windows panes and whole table tops being exploited as display and input devices. Minus points for another transparent device though.

5. Star Trek - The Next Generation

Gene Roddenberry's vision of the future has directly influenced technologists, astro physicists and astronauts in countless ways. The Next Generation Series along with the spin-off films and TV shows has moved that vision forward, but something has gone wrong with the latest generation of Captain Picard's PADD device (which is believed to have directly inspred the iPad). Instead of having one device per crew member that all interact with the ship's central systems there are dozens of devices floating around and being handed about amongst the crew in the same way as bits of paper would. Perhaps memory space is scarce in the Star Trek future?

4. Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The eponymous book from the radio show, books, TV series and film is in my view a stunningly accurate vision of the internet in tablet form. I just love the distinctive UI of the book that was designed for the 1970s TV show.

3. Caprica

The short-lived Battlestar Galactica spin-off series featured a personal favourite device of mine. This ePaper device could be folded away just like a piece of paper. In this particular future vision tablets become ultra-thin and ultra-portable.

2. Star Trek - The Original Series

The Daddy of sci-fi tablet devices, Captain Kirk's PADD featured a handy stylus for signing off what I have always assumed were invoice approvals for the ship's finance department.

1. 2001 - A Space Odyssey

Stanley Kubrick's 1968 vision of what is now the past fleetingly gave us a glimpse of the tablets we should have been using 11 years ago. These media tablets look remarkably like the Apple iPad. So much so that Samsung actually used this image as a legal argument in court that Apple did not invent the tablet.

So there you have it. My Top 10 list of Science Fictions best tablet devices. Have I missed your favourite and which device is the most accurate future vision? Let me know what you think or contact us if you want to know how we think tablets could be used in the very near future in your own organisation.

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Social Media Alternatives for Aviation MRO

Paul Saunders — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 09:53:13 GMT

With the MRO Americas conference in Dallas this week I thought I would finally post something that has been kicking around in my Documents folder for almost 12 months now. I started a guest blog post about using alternative Social networks in the Aviation MRO world, but I never used it in the end. Anyway – waste not, want not. This blog post is all about alternative types of social media that MROs should be using instead of Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
[EDIT: To be clear I am offering a number of quick and easy entry solutions into Social Media and Social Networking for Aviation MRO companies. I have a strong opinion on more advanced techniques which I will tackle in a later blog post - Paul]

Before I start I need to make something completely clear. I am NOT a social media expert. According to Gary Vaynerchuk "99.5% of social media experts are clowns". I tend to agree with him and would argue that this number has been rounded down slightly. In fact I would add that unless you are talking to Lady Gaga about your Social Media campaign then proceed with extreme caution. Social Media is no rocket science. Like most things it’s just a matter of knowing what you want to achieve, practising a bit and applying a bit of trial and error. So who am I to advice on social media? Let’s just say that I’m an interested amateur.

Whilst the rest of aviation is having a busy time with Social Media, the MRO world has been left behind a bit. I guess this is down to squeezed marketing budgets and confusion as to how to engage on a business to business level via the normal social media channels. It’s fairly clear cut for the OEMs and Airlines as they have both the budgets and a clearly defined audience. Out of the main MRO companies around the world only Delta TechOps MRO is tweeting away with any level of gusto. But are we perhaps barking up the wrong tree by focussing purely on the main social media platforms? By these I mean Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn. If you’ve got this far I’ll make the assumption that you know all about social media and are conversant with the ways in which these "traditional" channels are already utilised by aerospace.

Expanding the Blogosphere

It is widely accepted that the most important "social object" (i.e. the reason why two people are talking to each other in the social media universe) is the blog post. Blogging is hard work and the mainstay blogging platforms don’t help with fiddly interfaces and spam bot infested environments. Newer entrants to the blogging platform market are seeing rapid growth in user numbers and traffic by differentiating through simplicity within the gap between micro-blogging sites like Twitter and full blown blogging platforms like WordPress. Tumblr and Posterous are probably the highest profile of these newer, rapidly growing channels with bolt down, clean interfaces that allows posts to be easily and quickly created via email and polished mobile apps. If MROs are put off from blogging because of the perceived complexity and time investment, perhaps they should explore these more lightweight alternatives. I had a little bit of a dabble with Posterous recently and was delighted to find that it was possible to get a very good looking website up and running in relatively little time. It was no surprise to me that Posterous was recently acquired by Twitter which I think will see it flourish.

Geo-Location

In 2010, the poster boys of both the Social Networking and Gamification communities were location based social network platforms: namely Foursquare and Gowalla. Twelve months later the hype had cooled slightly with high user churn rates and some business users somewhat puzzled as to how to effectively use those channels. A further twelve months later and the wave of enthusiasm has soured a little. Gowalla was acquired by Facebook and has since folded. Presumably this was either a talent acquisition or a clear-out of the competition. Clearly there is little value in MROs geo-tagging their hangars to entice customers to bring their aircraft to their facilities, but there is a great deal of value in generating leads and engaging with potential buyers by using such services to entice and reward visitors to events, conferences and trade shows. A really savvy exhibitor could potentially use geo-location based social networks as a powerful lead generator during a trade show with much better metadata than the traditional fish bowl full of business cards.

Picture courtesy of Michael Denis
Twitter Feed Screens like this one at MRO Americas in Dallas this week are becoming quite a common sight, but how about seeing geo-location data on a feed at conferences?

Presenting

MROs put great effort into presenting their capabilities, showcasing their USPs and demonstrating their expertise in presentations directly to prospects and to a wider audience at conferences. There is significant money spent on corporate graphic design, infographics, PowerPoint templates and slick presentations. Occasionally we’ll see these presentations videoed and streamed by conference organisers, posted on YouTube or the slides uploaded somewhere for download. Slideshare.net is a seriously under-utilised platform by MRO. It is more than just a PowerPoint hosting site. It is a vibrant social media community in its own rights with tight integration to LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Uploaded slide decks can be easily shared, tagged and embedded spreading your message to a much wider audience. Cloud based presentation applications like Sliderocket and Prezi have their own built in sharing and community features which help your message to be spread much easier and should be seriously considered as alternatives to good old MS PowerPoint and Apple’s Keynote.

I am continually amazed at the sparse usage of Lanyrd.com, not just by MRO businesses, but by the aviation community in general. The search terms “mro”, "aviation" or "aerospace" only generate a handful of conferences and presentations. Although, as I note that @AvWeekEvents have been using it, this may soon change for the better. Lanyrd (pronounced Lanyard) is self-described as a social conference directory. It’s a thriving community and a great means to publicise and engage with delegates regarding forthcoming conferences and events. It’s also the best means I know to share and consume conference coverage, be it video, images, audio or slide decks. Well worth checking out.

I’ve just scratched the surface at some alternative social media platforms that aviation MRO ought to be exploring to promote their expertise and to engage with their customers. I’ve not touched the untapped potential of discussion boards and expertise forums such as Quora and Stack Exchange. Nor have I looked at some of the more curious recent additions to the Social Media universe like Pinterest and Jotly

The possibilities for aviation MRO remains relatively untapped. But unlike most new technology, despite what the experts might tell you, social media needs comparatively little expenditure or expertise to begin to take full advantage. If you are interested in Aviation MRO it is well worth checking out the #MROAM hashtag on Twitter for this week's MRO Americas Conference.

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[AUDIO] Miami Panel Discussion

Paul Saunders — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 09:43:00 GMT

Last week at the Aircraft Commerce Airline & Aerospace MRO & Operations IT Conference in Miami I chaired a panel discussion on the use of iPads in the Flight Deck. I took the opportunity to record the audio on my iPhone. Here is a copy of the unedited audio.

The panel included the following delegates:
Captain Mike Davis - US Airways
Captain John Pass - UPS
Captain Mike Freeman - Alaska Airlines
Brian Hint - FAA
Brad Miller - FAA

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[VIDEO] Tablet Strategy Bootcamp

Paul Saunders — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 17:52:58 GMT

Here's the video mashup of audio and slides from my presentation at the Airline & Aerospace MRO & Operations IT Conference in Miami on the 13th of March 2012.

I recorded the audio on my iPhone so is a long way from professional grade but serves to add some depth to the slides. If you are not a fan of Vimeo I also uploaded the video to my Slideshare account here.

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YBoard 2.0 Preview

Paul Saunders — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 18:39:41 GMT

We've been working on the next version of our sticky notes app YBoard for iPad and now have a working beta which I used in anger at the recent Airline & Aerospace MRO & Operations IT Conference in Miami. One of the features that was lacking in the first version of YBoard is the ability to save boards and use multiple boards. This is the major feature that is going to be released in the new version which will be ready for release very soon. One of the design challenges was to allow the user to organise multiple boards in a way that didn't detract from the minimal gesture-based UI. Having a list of saved boards displayed in a popover simply wasn't going to cut it. We've opted for a concept that we call "the Room screen".

A snapshot image of the each saved board is used and displayed in a Polaroid style frame which can be moved and layered on the Room screen just like notes can on boards. You can even zoom and pan around the Room screen just like you can with boards. We're really pleased with the results and we think existing YBoard users will love it.

Here you can see a screenshot my Room screen.

...and here are my notes I used whilst chairing a panel discussion at the conference.

There are no major functional changes to the actual notes screen although we had to do a lot of work under the hood. We've added a gesture control to allow users to get to the Room screen which at the moment is a swipe left, but we haven't quite settled on that decision just yet. We've also added an alternative gesture to allow users to tap and hold on a note to make it active and add or edit text. We've also made the necessary amendments in preparation for the new iPad's retina display screen and have a conversion routine to ensure that existing users don't lose any of their current notes when they upgrade.

Please get in touch if you would like to join our beta testing team ahead of the official release of YBoard for iPad version 2.0

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[SLIDES] Miami Presentation

Paul Saunders — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 01:20:11 GMT

Here's the UPDATED Tablet Strategy Bootcamp presentation that I gave at the Airline & Aerospace MRO & Operations IT Conference in Miami on 13th of March 2012.

UPDATED: Tablet Strategy Bootcamp

View more presentations from Paul Saunders

The presentation went down really well and I'm looking forward to chairing tomorrow's panel discussion on the subject of iPads on the flight deck. I recorded audio of the presentation on my iPhone. I'm going to attempt to mash together the audio file with the slides as a video and will post here as soon as I can.

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Why I don't use Prezi

Paul Saunders — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 17:48:14 GMT

Did I mention that I'm presenting at the Aircraft Commerce Airline & Aerospace MRO & Operations IT Conference in Miami this week? It is a bit of a mouthful so I'll be tweeting using the #AeroIT hashtag whilst I'm here. Last night I caught up with a couple of fellow delegates and we got talking about the agenda of presentations. I'm presenting an updated version of my Tablet Strategy Bootcamp workshop that I first delivered at the Far East leg of the same conference in Singapore last October. I was asked whether I had used Prezi or if I had considered converting any of me existing slide decks to Prezi. In short, I have seriously considered using Prezi several times in the past, but I've decided against using it as a permanent fixture in my presentation toolbox. Here's why.

It runs on Flash
It certainly isn't a dealbreaker on its own that Prezi relies on Abobe Flash to render its silky smooth animations, but it certainly is a heavy factor. Although there is an app which allows for Prezi presentations to run on iPads, the fact that an embedded Prezi cannot be viewed on an iPad or iPhone is a big problem for me. Talking of which the Prezi viewer app is a really nice presenter's tool now that they have hidden the forwards and back arrows that blighted the early versions. However the graphic rendering speed and lack of in-app pointer is a bit of a let down.

It takes too long to make a Prezi
The first time I used Prezi I was quite taken back about how much effort was needed to build your presentation path. You had to throw all the presentation elements onto your canvas and then string together a path of your transitions. Unfortunately once you had your path in place you could easily edit or tweak it, so last minute additions required a major overhaul. This has been improved of late with editable paths and a draggable preview thumbnail of each "slide" more akin traditional presentation software. However the task of making additions to you presentation is a bit of an ordeal. In PowerPoint or Keynote you can simply drop in or paste in new content whereas adding content to an existing canvas can result in a major reshuffle of your prezi assets. You can make copies of existing prezis but I haven't figured out how to merge prezi together in the same way that you can copy slides or whole chunks of decks from one presentation file to another in traditional tools.

Presentation Style
I've never quite got my head round the presentation style that most prezis end up looking like. I'm kind of turned off by the idea of conforming to the design pattern that is used. Although there is quite a broad set of themes and seemingly endless canvas you do seem to "be on rails" a little bit when it comes to styling your presentation. I think this is fine if you have no ounce of design capability of your own, but when you know what you're doing with PowerPoint and Keynote its a bit of a challenge to adopt Prezi. As you would expect, using Prezi will not make a boring presentation any less boring. In fact it is possible that you might only succeed in adding nausea to the equation.

Not compatible with Slideshare
I love Slideshare! Any presentation effort that does not result in a couple of thousand views on Slideshare leaves me disappointed and thinking about the wasted opportunity. There's no way I'm going through the effort of building a following on an alternative presentation community whilst Slideshare lives and breathes.

Having said all that I think Prezi is a really smart application and in the right hands results in some wonderful presentations. Its just not for me right now. Here's a copy of a Prezi that I made last year looking at the subject of Social Media for Aviation MRO. I've never delivered it as a presentation, it was something of an experiment.

Social Media for Aviation MRO on Prezi

It will be interesting to see if any Prezis get aired at this year's #AeroIT conferences.

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Author: Paul Saunders

YBoard Reviews

Paul Saunders — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 16:11:10 GMT

The other day I was poking around the stats and information on our iTunes Connect account. iTunes Connect is the Apple developer's portal which also provides analytics of app downloads.

I stumbled across some reviews of our app YBoard for iPad. You can't see any reviews of YBoard on the app store just yet because there aren't enough of them, but the reviews we've had are quite enlightening. Here they are in full:

Simple and brilliant - ★★★★

by FotoFan7 - Version 1 - Jan 15, 2012 (USA)

Great way to mind-map or develop ideas. I plan global projects with real stickies but now I can take it with me! Would love to have text box available to place headings on the white board and ability to save screens as pages allowing me to work on multiple projects. Can't wait to see new developments. You guys are on to something here...

Super idée, mais... - ★★

by Jean1976 - Version 1 - Jan 27, 2012 (France)

Petit soft très sympa, avec une UI intuitive qui respecte la métaphore. Idéal pour mettre en ordre des idées, un plan, une présentation. En revanche un manque impardonnable, quand on veut l'utiliser sérieusement: impossible de sauvegarder un tableau de post-it pour le retravailler ! Autre suggestion : permettre la modification de la couleur du post-it après sa création. À bientôt pour la version 2?

...and here's my rough translation
Super idea, but...
Quite nice software with an intuitive UI. Ideal for organising ideas, planning or for presentations. However there is an inexcusable problem that has a serious impact on usability: it is impossible to save boards. One other suggestion: allow the user to change the colour of notes after they have been created. Perhaps for version 2?

I think these are both really positive and constructive reviews. Thanks very much FotoFan7 and Jean1976 for taking the time to let us know what you think. By our own admission we are desperately lacking the ability to save and utilise multiple boards in YBoard, but I promise that feature is not very far away now! You can download v1 of YBoard from the iTunes app store and preview it here. If you are already a user of YBoard we've love to hear from you and let us know what you think and how we can make it better in future versions. Please write a review of your own on iTunes or in the comments below. Keep an eye out for the first update of YBoard for iPad coming soon.

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Author: Paul Saunders

Slideshare Front Page Double Whammy

Paul Saunders — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 09:03:12 GMT

I've recently signed up to a Slideshare PRO account. I use Slideshare quite a lot for hosting my presentations and for keeping up with latest presentation design trends, so when I was offered a free 30 day trial I took the leap and signed up. For £19 a month I get an ad free experience, full analytics of my content, video hosting and a few other nice add-ons. If you are a Slideshare power user like I am then its a pretty good deal. I plan on doing a full review of the Slideshare PRO upgrade very soon.

I finally got round to testing the video hosting yesterday. I normally use Vimeo for hosting video, but the terms of Vimeo hosting does say that commercial hosting is not allowed, so I had been thinking about another solution, so thought I'd give Slideshare a go. I uploaded a demo video I made a few weeks ago for our new iPad app YBoard. Its a pretty amateur production which I filmed (poorly) on my iPhone and edited with iMovie on the iPad. It was never meaant as a viral video more of a means to demonstrate the features of YBoard and practising my limited video editing skills. However within a few minutes of uploading to Slideshare my video had several hundred hits. It got bumped up to being featured on the Slideshare home page under the "Top PRO Content" section. Nice one - here it is:YBoard Demo

View more videos from Paul Saunders

I was impressed by how quickly the video was converted compared to how long it takes on Vimeo, Facebook and YouTube. It was ready for viewing only moments after uploading. The video runs on Flash which means it won't work on iPad or iPhone which is a shame as I know Slideshare have done a lot of work converting the presentations from being rendered in Flash to HTML5. Videos have obviously not had the same conversion yet.

A couple of hours later I got an email from Slideshare:

The slides that I uploaded back in December on how to make it to the front page of Slideshare had been featured on the front page. So now I had two pieces of content on the front page at the same time. That's a first for me.

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A Call for iPad Questions to the FAA

Paul Saunders — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 14:05:41 GMT

Later this month I'm attending the Aircraft Commerce Airline & Aerospace MRO & Operations IT Conference in Miami and I've been asked to chair a panel dicussion on the use of iPads in the Flight Deck. Amongst the panellists will be delegates from Alaska Airlines, UPS, US Airways and the FAA.

Click here for conference agenda:
Panelists for the discussion are confirmed as:
Brian Hint, FAA
Capt Jim Freeman, Alaska Airlines
John Pass, UPS
Capt Mike Davies, US Airways

I've got a whole pile of questions I'm planning on posing to these guys but I need some crowd sourced input to help me curate what to fit into the hour we have. Here's where you come in: If you have something you want me to pose as a question in this panel discussion, please get in touch or drop me comment below.

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Marcin Appears on Polish TV

Paul Saunders — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 08:34:22 GMT

A couple of weeks ago a Polish TV crew interviewed our very own Marcin Wojcieshowski and he made an appearance on the TVN show "Uwaga: Zawodocy".
You can view the programme by following this link.

Marcin makes his appearance 6:44 from the end of the clip. Of course everything is in Polish, but luckily the words "Skype", "Email" and "Steve Jobs" are the same in Polish as they are in English. Bonus points for Marcin for the shameless plugs of a couple of our software products and for displaying the Union flag in his home office.

The TV show Uwaga: Zawodowcy translates as "Warning: Professionals" is a magazine show which focusses on sensational news stories. I think this episode was about technologists working in Poland and the impact of proposed anti-piracy legislation. Marcin was contacted by a University friend who knows someone who works on the show. The show originaly aired on the 10th of February but is still available online.

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Hackday Follow-up

Paul Saunders — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 10:36:31 GMT

A couple of week's back we had our very first Hackday at Conduce Software where we attempted to build a software product in a single day. We built an app called "Defexx" which is designed to capture aircraft cabin defects on an iPad and synchronise with a central web server with a view to integrating with an airline's ETL, MRO or ERP systems. We did a running commentary of the day on our blog and this created a bit of a buzz on the aviation MRO community. Since then we've been really busy polishing the app and showing it to various interested parties.

The story of our hackday was picked up by Aviation Week magazine and they ran an article on their weekly Turnround Time blog.

You can view the article here.

We were also contacted by a number of airlines, pilots and even software vendors requesting a beta copy of the app. Last week a number of invites went out to join the beta testing team. We've taken a number of enquiries about the app from a couple of airlines and have also demoed it a couple of times too. One software vendor has spoken to us about running a hackday for them to help them build a proof of concept application.

The Defexx app has moved on slightly as well. We've added the feature to attach images to a defect. This is done via the device camera for iPad2s and via the photo library for the original iPads which do not have a built in camera.

There's a bit more polishing needed over the next couple of weeks before we launch on the app store, but we have a fully working app which we can demonstrate right now. Please contact us if you would like to find out more about our cabin defects app "Defexx" or if you would like an invite to trial the beta version.

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HACKDAY

The Conduce Software Team — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 08:18:49 GMT

We're having a HACKDAY at Conduce Software today. We're attempting to build a software product from scratch in a single day. You can follow our progress throughout the day here.

UPDATE 08:22
So we've decided we're going to do an aviation iPad app. We had discussed over the last week or so about building an app to capture Mandatory Occurence Reports (MORs) and send them to the CAA. This was pretty straight forward and useful as all airlines and operators in theory use the same format document as prescribed by their Nation Aviation Authority. However over the past couple of days we've had other thoughts as the MOR has lots of fields. We've been thinking about doing a Cabin Defects app instead as everyone needs one of those, cabin crew are starting to get iPads deployed to them and the data requirements are pretty light weight. I had some design ideas this morning whilst shaving and have already commited those to the white board. The guys are working on setting up a development server, so whilst they do that I'm cracking on with the wireframes. (Paul)

UPDATE 08:29
I've posted an update on Twitter using the #ConduceHackDay hashtag. Follow our progress throughout the day with the #ConduceHackDay hashtag. (Paul)

UPDATE 08:42
So we've discussed our ideas and have definitely concluded that we are going to a defects app. Please post any ideas, suggestions or requirements in the comments below. (Paul)

UPDATE 09:03
We're using Backpack to organise ourselves today. I've created a Backpack page and have added a couple of lists and have started to upload any reference documents we have. (Paul)

UPDATE 09:15
I've just made our Backpack page publically visible. You can see read-only live updates to it here:
https://conducedotnet.backpackit.com/pub/2732804-hackday-defects-app

UPDATE 09:18
The read-only view of the Backpack page is pretty lame (sorry)

UPDATE 09:26
The project name and therefore the likely product name is "DEFEXX"

UPDATE 09:29
The virtual development server is set-up, has had SQL installed and is ready to go on Amazon EC2 (Marcin)

UPDATE 10:06
Datebase Design - Everyone agrees that we are only going to use 2 digit ATA chapter numbers but need to allow scope to expand to more digits at some point in the future. So the field is created as an nvarchar(11) to allow for 8 charcaters and 3 dashes. However nobody is comfortable with 11 digits in a field so it gets expanded to 16. The database name is "Defexx" and currently has 3 tables: CabinDefect, Account & User. (Paul)

UPDATE 10:26
Coffee Time

UPDATE 10:35
Coffee break finished. Its suddenly all very quiet as everyone is now working on the tasks we set ourselves. Marcin is building the app, Mark is working on the web app and I'm putting together the various design assets. Wayne is doing a couple of support tasks but is chipping in with advice and suggestions and will be getting his hands dirty a bit later. I've just created a photo album on our Facebook page here: HackDay Album

UPDATE 11:06
Ola has joined the team and is going to build the web services we need to connect the iPad app with the database and therefore the web app.

UPDATE 11:12
We need some license free images to use in the app. We need three photos for the iPad homepage, one of a cabin interior, one to represent a queue of completed defects to be sent and one for settings (a spanner or something similar). We have some holding images for now, but if you have some suitable photos that you'd like to be used in our app then please let me know. (Paul)

UPDATE 11:57
I'm off to Sainsbury's for vital sustenance for the team. Requests for doughnuts as it is Fat Thursday in Poland.

UPDATE 12:38
We've got a working build of the iPad app. Very basic, but it renders the data structure in the form. In other news lunch has arrived (Marcin)

UPDATE 13:09
During lunch I've selected the icons we're going to use in the web app. I'm using the lovely Default Icons from http://www.defaulticon.com/
Here's an enlarged version of the "My User Settings" button. (Paul)

UPDATE 13:57
The app is coming along nicely now with the cabin defects form UI, functional design, microcopy and rendering completed. Marcin is working on the code to allow some of the context associated with defect rectification and deferral to work as required. Ola has completed the database access webservice. Next is the XML to send form the iPad to the server. Mark is asking for more icons but otherwise is very quiet which usually is a good sign things are happening as planned.

UPDATE 14:09
XML is now being successfully passed from the iPad to the server. Minor problems with incorrect time format but easily fixed (Marcin)

UPDATE 14:36
Now working on the iPad app homepage. The tile images are all prepared and scaled to the correct size & format. Mark is still very quiet! (Paul)

UPDATE 15:20
We have the beginnings of a logo (Paul)

UPDATE 16:12
iPad icons in all sizes and formats done (Paul)

UPDATE 16:16
The web app is coming along nicely. I'm not sure how this has happened but we have made something very monochrome looking with black, white and grey being the dominant colours in the web app, the logos and the iPad app. I like it! Its very utilitarian and modern looking but Wayne urges caution that it doesn't have a detrimental affect on colour blind users and people with impaired vision. Some screenshots coming up shortly. (Paul)

UPDATE 16:26
Here's the completed wireframe done exactly to scale with the final images and icons in place. The only change in the final app will the font used on the tile labels.

UPDATE 16:39
Success! We are successfully transmitting Defect data from the iPad app to the server and are able to view from the web app. Video evidence is available and will be online soonish. We are all feeling rather smug about it. Time for a celebratory can of Coke. (other Cola drinks are available)

UPDATE 16:48
I've uploaded the video to my Vimeo account. You will be able to see it in about half an hour here. I'm also about to upload it to our Facebook page. We're going to open up the web app to anyone who wants to take a look. We're creating a test user with read-only access now. Also we are happy to let volunteers trial the iPad app which will be available shortly. Please let me know if you want a beta invite.
The web app login is here: http://cgl.cabindefects.com/
Stand by for login credentials.

UPDATE 17:00
OK so the web app is ready for visitors. You can access here:
http://cgl.cabindefects.com/
Login credentials are user name: "test" password: "test"
This is a read-only account so don't worry about breaking anything.
Let us know what you think! (Paul)

UPDATE 17:17
UTC conversion testing is difficult when you are in the UTC timezone (Marcin)

UPDATE 17:19
Vimeo have finished converting the video. Here it is:

UPDATE 17:30
There are a couple of people logging in to the web app using the test account we set up. Please let us know what you think. I just had Kristin Majcher from Aviation Week magazine retweet me and I think she's going to feature us on their blog. Lots of tidying up to do now and get the iPad app looking nice.

UPDATE 18:29
OK that's it for tonight. I think that was a fantastic success. We have a working set of apps that all talk to each other. With a bit of polishing we have a fully demonstrable solution for cabin defects. Thanks for all the hard work from the team and thanks for following. I'll post additional details and fallout from the day tomorrow. (Paul)

FINAL UPDATE 19:14
Marcin has finished off the app for tonight. There's a bit of a polish and tidy up required before we can submit to the app store, but it is 95% done for version 1.
Here are a couple of screenshots of the home screen and the defect form. Good night all and thanks again for following. Please contact us if you would like more information about our new Cabin Defects app "Defexx" or if you wish to know more about how iPads can be used in your organisation.

Here's the completed iPad app home screen above and the defect form below.

Paperless Maintenance

Paul Saunders — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 15:57:28 GMT

Last month I was asked by our friends at Aircraft Commerce for my opinions on paperless aircraft maintenance and why I thought more airlines and MROs weren't doing it. The technology is simple enough, but there are few approved cases of electronic signatures signing off maintenance and releasing an aircraft to service.
The article was published in the latest copy of Aircraft Commerce magazine issue number 79. Here's a scanned copy: Aircraft Commerce Issue 79 - Technology for SFDC & paperless maintenance

Click the link or the image above to download a scanned copy of the article.
Some of our friends from InfoTrust, Rusada and Aerosoft were also mentioned. A veritable who's who of aviation MRO software experts. My mention is on page 50.

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Author: Paul Saunders