We've noticed this term banded about for some time, initially it seemed to be a status symbol reserved for the uber good developer wizards with flair. More recently the term Creative Technologist has had some bad press, chiefly because everyone is calling themselves it.

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Tagged with : creative, digital, scopes

Byng Systems are looking for a talented developer to join our exciting and growing team in Shoreditch, London. We build advanced web applications and create our own products that are used by both the private and public sectors, securing new licensing deals regularly. We build PHP5 and Node.js applications for clients such as intranets, portals and other information management systems. These systems are business critical and have a direct impact on the clients work flows and overall business. We also work with some of the big brand advertising agencies, building systems for their clients.

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Tagged with : javascript, recruitment, javascript, javascript

We are looking for a passionate coder with 1+ years of Zend or Symfony supported with 3+ years PHP (with good OOP and ORM) skills. The candidate should be a logical thinker and a good problem solver, able to see the shortest and best route to achieving the desired objectives. They will need to fit into a talented team of the highest calibre people who work and play well together. We are a team in London but are opening a new office in Liverpool Leeds area !

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Tagged with : recruitment, developers

Byng Systems are proud to offer a rare opportunity to mix sport, business and technology with our flag ship products in the sports sector; CoachWeb (www.coachweb.co.uk) and VolunteerWeb (www.volunteerweb.co.uk). The position will involve working with our team in London with customers such as Sport England, Skills Active, Coachwise, the British Olympic Association and the County Sport Partnership Network.

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Tagged with : skillsweb, product, cloud

We are looking for a talented new developer to join our exciting and growing team. We build advanced web applications and create our own products that are used by both the private and public sectors, securing new licensing deals regularly. We build PHP applications for clients such as intranets, portals and other information management systems. These systems are business critical and have a direct impact on the clients work flows and overall business.

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Tagged with : recruitment, developer, developer

Shoreditch based specialist in cloud software, Byng Systems, announces a whitelabel technology product SkillsWeb which provides the engine behind successful products CoachWeb, VolunteerWeb and the recently established CareWeb.

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Tagged with : skillsweb, product, cloud

We are a web technology company that builds web applications and cloud computing software. We are looking for a junior to middle weight project manager to overlook, plan and coordinate our project work. The outline of the role is to manage the full life-cycle of the project, delivering to agreed budget and with appropriate methodologies, to successful completion.

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Tagged with : recruitment, project management, full-time

We are looking for a free-lancer system administrator to take on several monthly retainers for customer in central London. These will require ad-hoc support and server administration for approximately 5 to 15 staff at each of the companies

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Tagged with : recruitment, sysadmin

Facebook has had good run with its valuation but how accurate is it? The company is valued somewhere between $50-$80bn...and all of this within 7 years. Looking at it another way, that’s $2.7m for every day of the 2500 days it’s been in existence. In mid January, the Goldman Sachs investment of $500m allegedly valued the company at $50bn. A tactical move as it locks the bank in for earning fees in any future IPO (where a significant portion of their revenues derive) but quite importantly it pre fixes a high starting value for an initial public offering (IPO) or floatation (having been an analysts at Goldmans, everything they do is meticulously planned and calculated). The less equity that is exchanged for a specific investment amount, the greater the company is valued at, i.e. if you split 1% of a company share by 100,000 (0.00001 shares) but sold that for £500, in theory that would value the company at £50m. Are the banks meddling again?

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Tagged with : facebook, myspace, myspace

Companies are considering their mobile strategy and the question raised is what the advantages of a mobile optimised browser are, over a dedicated mobile app?

As with most mobile websites, a browser is automatically detected so functionality and screen size can be optimised for the user for their phone. For some it will be development costs and the prohibitive nature of focusing resources on a product for one or more types of handset, rather than a general mobile web version which is cheaper to build. Indeed, some businesses will opt for both as they require a dedicated app for existing customers but also want a mobile optimised website to capture interest from new visitors to their site.

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Tagged with : mobile app, optimised site

We're all asked about how our latest eBay fiend friend to build them a lovely e-commerce website. If you're a very generous person then spend a few weeks hammering out a Magento installation but then the support...hosting... upgrades. No thanks, it's enough hassle if you're going to get paid for this.

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Tagged with : development, e-commerce

Byng Systems is looking for a Senior PHP developer to take a lead programming role on business and web application products. We are an up and coming London (Shoreditch) based web technology company. Candidates must be proficient in object-oriented and ORM PHP or Java development with experience in LAMP technology. Our business is fast paced and energetic, which is reflected in the office atmosphere. Ideal candidates must relish working in a team environment with a good social component, whilst also having a target and goal orientated work ethic. Any Android or iPhone exposure is a bonus only.

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Tagged with : recruitment, developers

As a software company you might think that we tend to write all our own internal business applications to manage finances, customers and projects. However, just like finding time to update the website, we find ourselves immersed in our core products and business software solutions. As a result we go shopping from time to time...

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Tagged with : web applications, web applications

All the Y2K issues were after all quite a let down yielding almost no exciting failures or blue screens of death.

I did however come across a minor bug in Zimbra and Spam Assassin today which was slightly confusing and an example of some pretty bad programming. Spam Assassin has a number of rules which determine whether an email is valid or not; one such rule is whether an email is dates "grossly in the future".

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Tagged with : mta, sysadmin

Many hardened web developers get upset after they have spent years honing their software development skills making slicker, sicker and faster web applications only to find themselves confused being a graphic designer. To a programmer this feels like a painter confused with an architect and when vice versa a seamstress confused with a fashion designer!

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Tagged with : web applications, ria

Probably the most important part of that post is that link to a decent MooTools date picker (or calendar) as this has been so lacking. Enter (weird name) MonkeyPhysics who has developed a slick object orientated component.

Until the MooTools Forge materialises there are a handful of plugin sites around to find your widget: http://www.esteak.net, http://www.clientcide.com or http://www.mooforum.net

At Byng Systems we have our very own MooTools repository but I'm afraid until the day arises that is not under GPL and remains under lock and key (hint: or on our public web applications!).

Back to the Aptana workbench for some more web application development on our new product, Contractiva...

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Tagged with : javascript, mootools, jquery, javascript

We hear about the network effect around web technologies and especially related to social media as the value of the network is correlated with the number of users registered. In the case of pure social networking websites (Facebook, Bebo, Hi5, LinkedIn) there is a race for numbers -- there success is inextricably linked to the number of users on their network so it's no wonder that the bubble in starting new "Facebooks" burst some time ago (along with the rest of new media investment)

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Tagged with : network effect, social networking, coachweb

Due, we're sure, to some alignment of the planets, combined with our great clients and superb software, we're growing, and quickly.

To service these clients in the manner to which they will become accustomed, and to keep our PHP and JavaScript development in its current industry-leading position, we need to take on staff in the following roles:

• Project Manager
• Javascript Developer
• PHP Developer

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Tagged with : javascript, recruitment, php, javascript, developer, js, projct, manager

A question I often get asked is whether Byng uses the jQuery JavaScript library and another popular follow up question is why not. Source of much self reflection and questioning I often found myself wondering why I don't feel at home with jQuery as much as Mootools. That is until I read an excellent blog post on Clientcide explaining some of the theory behind Mootools.

Without summarising the article (which makes some generic points applicable to many JS frameworks) several key points really stuck out and apply aptly to Byng's company philosophy on software development.

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Tagged with : javascript, mootools, jquery

Cost Effective Web Development

"Want not, waste not" is a fitting maxim for the latest breed of Web2.0 application developers being called to meet fantastical expectations with slashed budgets. From vendor of dishwashers wanting a "quick forum community" to "party hard" accountants launching a photo gallery; all and sundry would love to have the latest must have module on their website whether they have a need for it or not.

Fortunately for software developers, many of these "must have add-ons" are ripe for cherry picking from the multitude of SaaS (Software as a Service) providers that exist online today. For instance our ByngGallery component running through our ByngControl content management framework can now tap into a free Flickr account saving our clients on development, training and storage. Another example might be shipping off customers to hosted forum software using our Single Sign-on connector in the BaseCode. All these tricks help us meet our goal of satisfying our clients' needs and budgets whilst maintaining a high service level.

 

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Tagged with : APIs, SaaS, SOA, BaseCode, standards

LinkedIn Applications

After a torrent of investments, LinkedIn have sharpened up their features set with a new application development platform designed to bring services from the outside into the LinkedIn network.

Shielding their corporate membership from an influx of useless applications and social networking widgets that have troubled Facebook, LinkedIn have sensibly launched with a handful of carefully selected and established applications from SaaS providers London to Tokyo.

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Tagged with : linkedin, opensocial, platforms

At Byng Systems we're all about collaboration and communication for enterprise web applications but our technology is just as adept at representing a brand or identity. Take the example of generating a tag cloud for our website...

• Tag cloud for Byng Systems

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Tagged with : tagging, brand, visual

The web grows at a speed and with it volumes of blogs, articles and user generated content compound forming an intricate and chaotic web of pages, images and more recently video. Google changed everything by not only offering the tool to search through all this content but crucially a way to rank its importance through PageRank™.

So, ten years on is PageRank serving us well? For example a search for "Yoga London" in Google brings up no less than 440, 000 results the first 3 results being Camden Council, View London and Yoga Holidays. The first thing this alludes to is that Google knows of places that "know" rather than the answer to my question rather than point directly to studios and gyms which offer yoga in London.

What does this mean for Google and PageRank? The answer is simple and has been bandied around for a while now - semantics...

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Tagged with : collaboration, web2.0, semantic web, tagging, syndication, google

Taking a break from industrious information systems, we decided to use our tools for good, trying our hand at building a blog platform, to see just how tricky it actually was.

The verdict: tricky being an understatement. The simple type-post-view architecture is simple, that much was a given. The unknown quantities were tagging, viewing, archiving and the ever-present feed issue.

Still, some deft database querying, a bundle of expletives and a few hundred lines of code later, we have our baby, a blogging system with search-engine-friendly URLs, full RSS support and automatic archiving.

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Tagged with : blog, byng, systems, opening