I’m tired. It’s Friday and I’m ready for the weekend. I click on a link from an email that contains an article I might be interested in. I read the first paragraph and walk around the office for a couple of minutes thinking I’m obviously not in a good place at the moment to appreciate the nuances of the article. I read it again.

So “Big Data”, what’s it all about?

Is it a PR thing to try to sell services around Hadoop?

Is it to try to get people switched onto social media and make you paranoid about what people may be tweeting or face booking about you, your company or brand.

As the creators of CXAIR, a really simple to use business intelligence tool that is built on search technology, we often get asked how we compare to other similar products on the market.

The thing is that all of the concepts and designs are geared around usability, simplicity and speed, not by trying to copy or mimic all of the legacy BI tools that do the “same old thing” in the “same old way” as everything else.

When I was a humble developer moving my way through the ranks into management, directorship and then ownership of a business my views of building and buying software have changed considerably.

Throughout my career I can remember the many times I have shrugged my shoulders or shook my head in astonishment as a more “experienced” member of the team struggles to come to terms with finding the next and previous buttons on Powerpoint, double clicks frantically when something is slow or seems incapable of getting the

Since the turn of the year it’s been head down planning and hitting the roads to get the New Year off to a flying start. During that time, I have not had the inclination or perhaps more surprisingly the inspiration to write my first blog of 2012 until now.

I have seen something with my own eyes that has made me question some of the decisions I have made recently with regard to purchasing hardware upgrades and deploying new kit.

So what is it that’s made me sit down and put this discovery into words?

With the end of year rapidly approaching, I have decided to look back at a blog I did back in January where I was highlighting what things I’d be trying to do differently with a thought to what will be different again in 2012.

So here it is point by point…

I’m going to give up using Microsoft products. It’s time I gave some of the other software providers a go — I’m a bit tired of constant re-boots, security holes and crashes.

At the start of this year I was really excited about what the Cloud can offer and how the current economic downturn was the ideal draw for companies to start taking it seriously.

How tempting is it to be able to off-load some of your back office systems and more mission critical systems and services onto the Cloud and save yourself a load of time, effort and money?

At the start of the year, I blogged enthusiastically about the Cloud.

It’s out there, it works and our own Business Intelligence software, CXAIR is a perfect fit for this kind of environment.

It’s a sad state of affairs when I order a new set of Jeans and I get delivered these low-slung skinny affairs, which I wear for a week before the top button pops off.

Why? Poor design (obviously) and the fact that my waist is not quite what it used to be. Like it or not, I’m gradually expanding…

I read an interesting article today that was titled “Getting Rid of Data — Why is it so hard” and for some reason found some parallel in what’s happened with my jeans…

As a developer and UI designer, I have always been fairly conservative when it comes to colour and how much information to put on a screen, however I am starting to wonder if a bit of bling on a new set of reports we are posting on the web would be “just the job!”.

Corporate branding and the economical use of fancy controls and charts has been the norm for me in the past, however ultimately, it’s down to your target market and not everyone wants Corporate.