Welcome to Smuggle Me

About 6 months ago I took a couple classes in Crystal Reports. If you haven’t used it then you are missing out. It does some pretty amazing things in reporting data from a database.

Well, today I came across Izenda Ad Hoc (www.izenda.com). Let’s just say that it puts crystal reports to shame. Izenda is an impressive web based AJAX report designer. I tried out a demo of the product and I’m still floored that this can all be done in a nice little web application.

The interface is really easy to use. I could see how some of the screens wouldn’t make sense to a non technical person on first site, but they have simplified access to the data to an interface that anyone could quickly learn how to use it to run all sorts of reports.

The best part of this application is that you are able to do it all on the web. There’s no need to install a client to be able to get at the reports on that data. If you have a web browser then you have access to all your reports.

If you are a database administrator you’ll see what I’m talking about. I know you could do it all in SQL on a webpage, but your users can’t. I think anyone that has a database full of information that would like reports on that information should try out this demo. It’s one of the best use of web applications that I’ve seen. I wonder if they have a hosted model?

Rahul Sood, the CTO of VoodooPC, has one of the most transparent posts I’ve seen by a large company. I honestly am not that interested in gaming systems. I guess I watch through the corner of my eye. However, I was interested when Dell acquired Alienware. Why? Because I buy a lot of Dell products. So, anything Dell does makes me interested.

The best part of Rahul Sood’s post is him describing his interaction with Michael Dell. It’s a great read for anyone starting a business. I loved that both of them are up late at night working on their company. While I don’t have a company(at least not of any significance) I know what it is like to be up late into the night because your head is full of ideas and your body can’t sleep because it’s too excited.

In fact, technology pretty much has the same effect on me. Yes, I’ve had a lot of late nights.