We just posted a position to our website today for a writing position at Thunder Data. We are seeking an intern to write articles and blog posts for ThunderTix, a ticketing software to help manage events for small venues to sell tickets. We are looking for a talented writer to…
Magnets in a Digital World: Credit Card Swipe Processing
In a traditional store, paying by credit card involves swiping the card through a swipe machine, which reads the data stored on a credit card’s magnetic stripe. The data includes a few key bits of information, namely: The account number and expiration date of the card The account holder’s name…
Marketing in Down Times
I’m always pleasantly surprised when I stumble upon the result of a company’s marketing efforts and realize how perfectly they succeeded in directing their message. My favorite, a television ad campaign for Prego, used music to drive home the old-world style of their spaghetti sauce and succeeded beautifully. In yesterday’s…
Rails vs PHP
Though you hear it all the time, comparing Ruby on Rails to PHP really is not fair – they are different animals entirely, only sharing the goal of creating websites that do stuff. Rails, being a framework, could be more aptly compared to PHP frameworks, such as CakePHP, or Zend…
Leadership: Actions vs. Words
Somehow, I ended up on this mailing list about leadership. The articles–put together by a local company–focused on teaching leadership and team building, and I always looked forward to reading them. Last September, I took a few minutes to write the author and company owner. I told him that I…
Regarding Usability
In software, usability refers to the design of the interface that reflects an intuitive relationship between what a user wants to do, and how to do it. We are in the midst of the exciting redesign of one of our core services, ThunderTix, our online box office management system. In…
Agile, RoR, and the New Guy
Over the last six months, I began looking into Agile programming practices leading me to the Agile Austin users group. In April, Stacy and I attended our first meeting where we were fortunate to meet Nicholas Cancelliere–an active Agile Austin member, Certified Scrum Master, and agile instructor.  Nicholas joined our team on…
Where Profits Hide, Part I
“What items are we most profitable in?” Scott asked me that question a few weeks ago which set off a discussion about our primary project categories and the income derived from each: hosting related work (13%), ticketing software and customizations (13%), software development (43%) and website design (25%).  Then we looked at development…
Cool Flash Background
I recently told Ross about a desire I’ve long held to try a Flash background for our website.  I hadn’t seen it elsewhere, and I wasn’t even sure it was possible. Ross committed himself to the task, and sent me an email entitled, “I got it!” later that day. Take a peek at the…
It’s about me!
Recently, I was invited to share some thoughts about myself and this business with the local community newspaper. I thought this blog might be a good storage place for this miscellaneous data–just in case it never makes it to print. :) Name: Dawn Green Place and date of birth: Quincy, Massachusetts Family members and…