My name is Cal Zant and I currently manage the IT team for Betenbough Homes, a production home builder in West Texas. I have a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the Texas Tech College of Engineering, and have been working as a .NET developer since the original 1.0 release. It seems the construction industry usually stays pretty far behind the technology curve, and there aren't a lot of cutting-edge solutions out there for home builders. Because of this, there is a huge potential in this industry for leveraging technology, and by staying on the cutting edge (while trying to avoid the bleeding edge) we can provide a significant competitive advantage.

Our company holds a fundamental strategy of constantly evaluating our processes and evolving to meet constantly changing market demands and become more efficient, which has led us to become a world-class home builder (including being recognized by Builder magazine as one of the Top 100 home builders in the nation, and being recognized for consistently delivering an exceptional customer experience through several Guild Master Awards). Although we always try to buy existing software solutions when we can (e.g. Dynamics GP for accounting/purchasing/HR, Exchange for office communications), some of our processes are quite unique to our company. So we have created a few enterprise applications that not only integrate our different software suites together, but also contain our own custom functionality and workflows for those areas that are unique to us.

We now have a few different applications, all of which use ASP.NET and C# with a SQL Server backend, and they also leverage several other technologies like WCF, AJAX, jQuery, and SQL Analysis & Reporting Services. We use Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), which allows us to have a formal layer of separation between our business logic and presentation layer and partition functionality to reduce complexity, and also enables reuse common functionality from any of our applications. We use a Test Driven Development (TDD) approach, along with a continuous integration with an automated build and testing process to ensure our software is of the highest quality. Here are a few of the applications we have created:

• MobileB – This is a web application specifically designed to target mobile devices, which our inspectors use out in the field on their iPhones. It allows them to do a number of things, including completing customized checklist for every home under construction and approving payment for labor and materials which completely integrates with our back-end accounting system. We were featured for this application in an article in Builder Magazine that highlighted some of the biggest innovations in the home building industry.
• Betenbough Partner Site – This is a web application that our trade partners and suppliers use to access information related to purchase orders we have assigned to them, construction drawings, home configurations, and scheduling, as well as a comprehensive view of their accounting and payment information. We were recently received the Innovator’s Award from the Lubbock Chamber of Commerce for this application, because of how it represents innovation in technology and superior business practices.
• Back Office Web App – This web application is really the core of all of our systems and is what powers a lot of the functionality in the other applications. It does a number of things from create sales agreements, to track customer info and interactions, to defining our construction workflow and automatically generating the necessary purchase orders for a home based on the floor plan and location, as well as the specific options and colors it is configured to have. This application is used by virtually every employee in our company, and is the heart of many of our business processes and workflows. There are a number of unique and innovative aspects of this application, but unfortunately I have resigned to the fact that they simply can’t be explained in elevator speech. To fully understand and appreciate the various functions this application includes, it would take more words than you would probably be willing to read or at least more than I am willing to write.

One thing I love about my job is being able to continually learn by keeping up with the latest technology. It always keeps it fresh and exciting. Plus I don’t know anything more fulfilling than digging into a complex, real-world problem and solving it with a clean, elegant software solution. At Betenbough Homes, the majority of my time is spent architecting software solutions, researching and making decisions related to company technology, leading the IT team in implementing our technology strategies, and I still find myself coding in Visual Studio a considerable amount, and designing database structures or stored procedures in SQL Server.

I graduated from the Texas Tech College of Engineering with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science in 2005. From 2003-2006, I worked for Smooth Fusion, a Microsoft gold partner, as a software developer working on database-driven web applications. By the end of that term I was working as lead developer on some some pretty high-profile Microsoft sites like CodeZone.com. In 2006, I had a major role in revising a popular Computer Science textbook used in college and high school classrooms entitled Visual Basic 2005 BASICS (although I have to admit, I prefer C#).

It seems I have a lot of hobbies, including hunting, guitar, gardening, photography, and researching family history. My best friend is my amazing wife, who somehow puts up with all of it, and tries to keep me from taking myself too seriously. We now have two beautiful girls that I love more than life. Although I can get pretty excited and passionate about technology … nothing puts a bigger smile on my face than my little girls.

Is it just me, or do you feel like every time you try to find a good reference or example for a particular subject all you can find is stuff that is incomplete, incorrect, buggy, or only works in theory or when the winds are just right?  Also, like most people I have also had painful experiences with a few products or services that left me with the desire to climb on top of the tallest roof I could find and tell the world about it so that: 1) others wouldn’t have to go through the same frustration experience 2) to send a message to companies who continually provide poor service or subpar products that we are smart consumers and we will rebel against such tyranny.  I have also run across an equal number of companies that exceeded my expectations and gave me a “wow” experience, and in turn I have become evangelistic on their behalf.  Really I want this to be a place to share my experiences in terms of what did and didn’t work for me for: software, code, books, training, and some other random topics that temporarily captured my attention.

By Dino Esposito
352 Pages
http://www.amazon.com/Introducing-Microsoft-ASP-NET-AJAX-Pro/dp/0735624135

Publisher's Description: Get an expert introduction to the new JavaScript enhancements (code-named "Atlas") for Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0. More than a basic AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript And XML) script library, the Microsoft implementation brings object orientation to JavaScript, together with enhanced client-side and server-side controls that greatly simplify coding while delivering enhanced Web experiences with any browser. Scheduled for release with the next version of Microsoft Visual Studio®, code named "Orcas," AJAX extensions and tools can be used by developers today. This book offers expert insights direct from the Microsoft product team and noted ASP authority Dino Esposito, as well as hands-on instruction and examples of Web development with AJAX. This ideal reference will be updated online, keeping readers up to date with the evolving tool. The book includes code samples in ASP.NET 2.0 created using C# and JavaScript.

My Thoughts: This is the hot, new technology in the industry and like a lot of its predecessors there are a million people claiming it is the biggest thing since the GUI.  Here is the breakdown of those on the bandwagon:

• 50% don’t have a clue what ASP.NET AJAX means, but they heard someone say it was cool so they want it
• 35% think they know what it is, but are really confusing things like AJAX, ASP.NET AJAX Extensions, the ASP.NETAJAX Control Toolkit, web services, and “Web 2.0” (which I am sick of hearing about).  This is the most dangerous group.
• 15% actually know what the heck is going on, and are reasonably excited

The Good: I admit … I have bought a few different books related to AJAX stuff: Professional Ajax (Wrox), Ajax Hacks (O’Reilly), and Programming Atlas (O’Reilly).  But this is by far the most useful book of them all.  Dino adequately covers the fundamental concepts that developers should know without going into too much detail.  He jams this book with a ton of practical information that a developer would actually use without the fluff.

He starts off by covering the basics of AJAX and the existing tools out there in 34 pages.  Then he dives into the heart of it with chapters on the Microsoft Client Library for AJAX, and the ScriptManager control.  There is even a chapter that covers the AJAX Control Toolkit, which is an open-source, community project containing a ton of components that you would usually expect to pay for.  Some of the other topics he includes are: partial page rendering, accessing application services on the client, and remote method calls.

The Bad: The only con was that the last chapter seemed like it was just thrown together.  When I was 2/3 of the way through it, I was thinking this book was almost flawless … but it took a steep nose dive at the end.  I figured the publisher probably put some pressure on Dino to wrap it up, because they wanted to be the first with a book after the release of ASP.NET AJAX Extensions 1.0.  This might have been smart business thinking, but the text reflected it with a few inaccurate or confusing statements.

Conclusion: Still an awesome book, and well worth the money.  One of the most useful books I have read this year.  Anyone who spends much time in ASP.NET, and would like to become more valuable should pick up this book and read it.

By Bill Holtsnider & Brian D. Jaffe
632 Pages
http://www.amazon.com/Managers-Handbook-Second-Getting-your/dp/012370488X/

Publisher’s Description: The IT Managers Handbook, 2nd edition provides essential information needed to manage the new responsibilities thrust on you (or the ones you would like to have): vital tasks such as creating budgets, evaluating technologies, administering compliance, and managing staff.

A completely updated and expanded second edition that provides practical, easily accessible management advice written specifically for new IT managers:

• Brings you up to speed on those business practices most critical to effective IT operations: recruiting, budgeting, resource planning, managing personnel, and working with vendors.
• Includes expanded coverage on such critical IT management topics as security, disaster recovery, storage, government/regulatory compliance, and project management.
• Organizes information modularly so you can delve directly into only the topics that you need.
• Provides a unique management perspective on those specific technical issues with the most significant business ramifications.
• Includes new material on key technology topics such as open source, wireless, handhelds, outsourcing, offshoring, and operations, as well as updated coverage of e-commerce, remote access, intranets, and LAN/WAN management.

My Thoughts: This wasn’t one of the most fun books I have ever read.  I typically prefer books with lots of code samples, and this was about all the other less technical aspects of my job … but all stuff I really needed to know.  There is some essential, mission critical information contained in those 632 pages that I just flat out needed to read, and if you are reading this you probably need to also.  It covers a gambit of information that is really useful in my day-to-day world, from the laws IT professionals need to be aware of regarding compliance to examples of effective email notifications for scheduling downtime and a ton of other stuff.  I probably reference it a few times a month, but am glad I did make time to read it cover to cover.