Lino Tadros, CEO of Falafel Software, recently participated in an SD Times interview, see the full text here. The interview focuses on the ever increasing pace of software and component evolution, and how component vendors like Telerik and software consultants like Falafel can harness that to bring value to their customers.

Ok, it looks good, hey it is black :) fancy touches and demos well in Steve Jobs’ hands.  But do I want one of these?

The answer is NO, for so many reasons.  I have to say I am disappointed.  I expected Apple to continue being on a roll and bring something that will change the Tablet market forever after the failure of Microsoft and others before it in the pursuit of consumer happiness :)

• No camera? What were you thinking?  I was expecting TWO of them in the front and the back.
• No multitasking? Really? this is not a phone, so that is not ok.
• Is this the Kindle killer, NO WAY, it is much better and easier on the eye to read on the Kindle.  Remember, FANCY and COLORS does not mean better.
• AT&T, really??? AGAIN???  you never learned from the IPhone deal that AT&T was your weakest link.
• “Excellent for surfing the web” Really? with no Flash or Silverlight support?  Which web are you surfing?
• No USB?  Really??? COMMMMEEEE ONNNN
• No HDMI or any other video output?  COMMEEEE ONNNN
• No 16:9 aspect ratio for watching movies?

This device is the “most important device of Steve Jobs’ career” as he said on stage two days ago in San Francisco while announcing the device.  No Steve, it is not, you have done very well, don’t sell yourself cheap with a statement like that.

The impressive part about the IPAD really is that Monotouch within 24 hours released an update to their product that will allow you to target the IPAD while continuing to build applications in C#.  I guess the good thing is that the binary format for apps is the same as IPhone while including some new namespaces for the new UI dimensions and layouts.  Kudos to the Monotouch team!

Is it just me or you agree with my opinion? Let me know here by posting a comment

We are proud to announce that Anneke Leigh has joined Falafel Software as our new Senior Project Manager. Anneke brings many years of successful project management to the table, and will be managing Falafel's rapidly growing Consulting Express business.

So the show is on the road again. Falafel has a booth (come visit us), as do all the usual suspects, we met our friends at Telerik, Developer Express etc. The FU T-shirts and Sumo wrestlers are going like hot cake, thanks Matt for making us look good!

The Keynote this morning was a big aha moment from me. Its all about the cloud, which for Microsoft is Windows Azure. Very exciting, they have been busy and come along way since last year. The new SQL Azure service behave just like SQL Server, and you can even use SQL Server Management Studio to work with it using your familiar Transact SQL commands. Also, the development tools, management and monitoring tools, deployment etc are shaping up nicely.

The PDC drop of RIA Services for VS 2010 and .NET Fwk 4/ Entity Fwk 4 is looking very capable, will find out more about that on Thursday.

Now attending a talk on ADO.Net Data Services and .NET Entity Framework. They have done tons of work here since version 2.0. There is model first development (generate the DB from the model), support for POCO classes and change tracking, much better SQL generation and support for executing customized SQL and stored procedures.

Day 2: Wow! Microsoft just released Silverlight 4.0, and it has ALL the features that were missing! I don’t even know where to start! Here is a quick list: supports rich printing, access to external devices, access to webcam and microphone, can run in trusted mode and access file system and cross domain network access, does HTML in OOB mode, full OOB window management support (custom windows chrome), drag and drop files into the SL app, play flash inside the SL app, expanded WCF support (net tcp), right click, improved theming, improved data binding, runs full .net fwk assemblies, twice as fast…. what do you think? Seems like a go? It is beta now and RTM first half of 2010.

Oh – and today Microsoft scored big points by giving all the paying attendees a laptop! That drew some standing ovations at the keynote.

Day 3: Attended “Building Amazing Business Applications with Silverlight 4 and RIA Services” with Brad Abrams, Program Unit Manager. Very slick tooling and designer support! Nice implementation of server and client side filtering, and composing client side operations (filtering, sorting, paging) with server side execution.

I will update this blog as I find out more.

Capitola, CA – October 21st 2009 – Falafel Software, today,  launched its worldwide web presence at www.falafel.com and design.falafel.com using the state of the art content management system developed by its platinum partner Telerik Corporation called “SiteFinity”.

“The speed and flexibility offered to us by managing our sites using Sitefinity is unparalleled” said Lino Tadros, Chairman & CEO at Falafel Software, “The capabilities, power, ease of use, fast deployment and shared responsibility with team members to maintain our sites reduced the amount of time and effort to a minimum”.

Falafel has built dozens of worldwide sites for its customers using Sitefinity with great success and flexibility and it was time to build our own major sites using this great technology.

Falafel offers consulting and training on Sitefinity worldwide and builds custom modules for the platform to integrate seamlessly into the Sitefinity framework.

We are proud to announce that Falafel is a platinum sponsor of this year’s Silicon Valley Code Camp, along with Microsoft, LinkedIn, Oracle and Foothill College, and has several speakers registered for the event.

Lino Tadros will cover the following topics:

• Dependency Properties in WPF & Silverlight
• Silverlight 3 ins & outs
• IPhone Development in C# with MonoTouch

John Waters will talk about:

• Partially Connected Silverlight Applications
• Parallel Programming with .NET

Steve Trefethen is speaking on:

• Extending CruiseControl.NET
• Tour of AutomatedQA's TestComplete 7

And Stephen Dempsey has a talk on:

• Befriending Lambda Expressions

There is a long list of other renowned speakers, come see us and get up to speed on the latest trends and technology! Also, we are hiring, to stop by us after our talks if you are interested in a Senior ASP.NET or Silverlight Engineer position.

Cheers

The Falafel Team

Falafel Software is proud to announce the launch of tv.falafel.com a website dedicated entirely to online video training.

As a training and consulting company we frequently work with clients eager to learn new technologies and make better use of the tools they already have. To that end, we’re adding new videos over the coming weeks, months and years covering a wide range and variety of technologies.

So check out the new site and leave a comment if you have technology topics you would like to see covered or just let us know what you think!

Capitola, CA - July 1st 2009, Microsoft awarded Lino Tadros, Falafel Software’s Chairman & CEO, the prestigious MVP award in the C# language category for the 6th year in a row.  This award is mainly awarded to few individuals worldwide for their contributions in the C# community and helping Microsoft with the short term and long term strategies of the language.

Lino Tadros has been presenting numerous sessions on the language in the USA, Europe and Australia since the year 2000 in many of the industries’ top conferences.

Today, Falafel Software released the latest edition of its successful courseware material of TestComplete for the new 7.0 version.  The courseware contains several new editions in many chapters and new chapters for Keyword Testing, one of the most exciting new features of TestComplete 7, and Web Testing as well.  The book can be purchased on Lulu and it comes in spiral binding format for ease of use during labs and script exercises.  The book is used as the main material for all TestComplete trainings (online, onsite & Summit) in the USA, Europe and Australia.

For more information about TestComplete training please contact AutomatedQA at sales@automatedqa.com or Falafel Software at training@falafel.com

Our dear friend at Falafel Software Gary Campbell, this week, achieved MCP Certification status (Microsoft Certified Professional) on ASP.NET.  Congratulations Gary! 

Gary has been a solid member of the team working on the latest and greatest of technologies for our customers with great success.

Our dear colleague at Falafel Software Brad Divine, this week, achieved MCSD status (Microsoft Certified Solution Developer).  Congratulations Brad! 

Brad just passed the final exam of Software Architecture after passing the ASP.NET, WinForms, XML Web Services and SQL Server exams before then.

Wow!  Two members of the team at Falafel achieved MCSD status in one week, Congratulations to Brad and also to Falafel Software!.

Our dear friend and Master Consultant Adam Anderson achieved MCSD status (Microsoft Certified Solution Developer).  Congratulations Adam! or Mr. SQL as we call him here at Falafel during the last 5+ years.  Adam has been an incredible asset for Falafel from the start and a go to guy for many technologies.  He is always there for everybody to lend a hand and help grow the company and achieve great things.  Adam passed his last exam yesterday on Software Architecture after passing the ASP.NET, Winforms, XML Web Services and SQL Server exams before then.

Congratulations again Adam! and we will celebrate with you in Capitola on Thursday!  You can Super Size! :)

The course features real-world based training on AJAX, RADControls components, data binding, design-time configuration, server-side coding, client-side scripting and tips and tricks. The course materials also include a bonus reference application “ActiveSkill” that demonstrates combining controls and techniques.

When:
May 8-10, 2009

Where:
Hilton Checkers in Downtown Los Angeles, CA

Requirements:
Attendees will be required to bring their own laptops with Telerik  RadControls for ASP.NET Ajax installed.

Contact us:
For more information, including the dates for the next Summit , please email training@falafel.com.

For the last couple of years, Falafel Software has enjoyed a tremendous growth and success due to the hard work of its team worldwide.  On top of that list of hard workers is the company's Chief Technology Officer, John Waters. He has been a tremendous asset to the company and an incredible loyal friend.  With my medical story for the last 2 months, John has stepped up and ran the whole company in all aspects with tremendous success.

With me focusing in 2009 on my health and continue as Chief Executive Officer, while doing training and consulting, I have the pleasure of announcing the promotion of John Waters as the President & CTO of Falafel Software.  The team is thrilled about the well deserved promotion and we are looking at an another very successful year in 2009 under John's leadership.

John, congratulations and good luck.  Have fun and enjoy an incredible team of individuals that work extremely well together.

- Lino "The janitor" Tadros

Hi Fellow .NET geeks worldwide! Are you going to be at PDC 2008 in Los Angeles ?  If Yes, then look for our CTO, John Waters in this flashy shirt seen below around the Telerik booth # 401

We are looking for a few GOOD .NET developers and trainers, John will be conducting interviews right at the PDC, who knows you might go home with an offer letter in hand to start working for a fun and successful company.

Best of luck to all and have a great conference!

Lino Tadros (CEO) and John Waters (CTO) had the pleasure of presenting the new release of ActiveFocus 2008 Q3 this week in Denver Colorado at the PMI Conference.  The product received rave reviews for its elegance, ease of use and speed.  Stay tuned for the release of the product to the public in the next week.

I am very proud to announce that our CTO, John Waters was nominated for the Kerzner International Project Manager of the year Award.

The purpose of the Kerzner International Project Manager of the Year™ Award is to recognize a project manager who has exemplified superior performance and outstanding project management methods, skills, and techniques, and their important contributions in business, industry, government community or not-for-profit environments. The award, established in 2006 by IIL, is named in honor of Dr. Harold Kerzner, Professor of Systems Management at Baldwin-Wallace College. He is a globally recognized expert on project management, total quality management, and strategic planning and the author of the best-selling books about project management.

John has been an incredible asset to Falafel during the last 5 years and his leadership and Project Management ability have pushed the company to new heights and still growing.

Congratulations! John for the nomination and best of luck.  I don't know anyone more deserving of this award!

  Looking for a good time? Join Falafel Software, Inc. at Microsoft Tech•Ed North America 2008 during the IT Professionals Conference June 10–13, booth #308.
We will showcase ActiveFocus, a web-based project management and team collaboration tool enabling teams to quickly share information, track progress, and deliver projects on time. Group and one-on-one demos will be available.
We'll be giving away three Zune® media players and a complete Xbox 360™ gaming system including Rock Band™. Rock Band will be set up at the booth and available for your enjoyment!
Microsoft Tech•Ed North America 2008 IT Professionals is the Microsoft premier technical education conference for IT professionals.
Falafel Software is proud to be a Bronze Sponsor of this prestigious event.

Falafel Software today released its new TestCompleteTV.com web site, a subscription based video library to train on the award winning Automated QA tool, TESTCOMPLETE.  We are all very excited about the site and the possibilities it brings to our loyal customers worldwide.

Subscriptions vary from $39 for 3 months, to $99 for the whole year or $299 for lifetime membership.
Falafel intends to produce between 200 to 250 videos by the end of 2008.
We encourage all members in the community to send us their feedback and their wish list on what videos we should produce first.

TelerikTV.com was released this week as a show site for case studies involving Telerik technologies.  Falafel Software is very pleased to have its flag ship product, ActiveFocus, be the first product showcased on the site.  I was interviewed by my friend Cark Franklin, co founder of the very successful .NET Rocks! Internet audio talk show for .NET Developers, for an hour, we discussed the elegance and power of the Telerik radControls and dived into source code to demonstrate the architecture and implementation of these amazing components.

Go view the video today and let us know what you think! :)

Falafel software is proud to announce the successful launch of version 2.0 of its custom built ERP system Velocity. Velocity handles billions of dollars of business for America’s leading organic produce company. Version 2.0 provided a rewrite of key parts of the user interface, using Web 2.0 technology like AJAX and Web Services to provide the data entry performance of a desktop application combined with the ease of deployment and central manageability of a web application. The system handles hundreds of users, hundreds of thousands of sales orders and invoices, and provides 24/7 availability and high performance using a scale-out Microsoft architecture.

San Jose, CA June 2nd 2007 - While the software industry has benefited greatly from project productivity management solutions, very few industries have seen a truly all-inclusive easy-to-use tool for managing projects throughout their entire lifecycle. Falafel Software has recognized this industry gap and has developed ActiveFocus, a Web 2.0 application that allows multiple types of organizations to take advantage of modern project management technologies. ActiveFocus represents the first truly multipurpose project productivity solution on the market today and Falafel Software is proudly launching it at Microsoft TechEd in Orlando, Florida, June 4th to 8th 2007.

"Calling ActiveFocus a multipurpose project productivity solution really doesn't even scratch the surface of what our product can do," remarked Lino Tadros, President and CEO of Falafel Software

"What's really remarkable is all of the amazing features that will help any business get through any project. We're really excited about ActiveFocus and our current partners and customers are eagerly waiting to see what ActiveFocus can do for them."

“It is exciting to see how customers such as Falafel Software have used the power and productivity of ASP.NET 2.0, AJAX and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 to deliver a project productivity management solution to their customers,” said Keith Smith, group product manager of the Developer Tools Team at Microsoft Corp. “The combination of ASP.NET 2.0, AJAX and SQL Server 2005 gives ActiveFocus a solid platform for developing its applications.”

Campbell, CA - November 3rd 2006 - Falafel Software is proud to announce that as of November 1, 2006, every member of the Falafel team has achieved MCP status by having passed one or more Microsoft Certification Exams.

"This is a monumental achievement for the Falafel team as I know of no other company with 100% of its team having this level of certification." says Lino Tadros, President of Falafel. "It reflects our commitment to the development community and to the high standards of professionalism and talent we give to our clients."
Go Falafel!

Campbell, CA - October 30th 2006 - Falafel Software today earned the prestigious Microsoft Gold Partner Certification level.

"It is very exciting to all of us at Falafel to achieve this milestone", said Lino Tadros, President & CEO of Falafel Software "We intend to use the new Gold level to create an even stronger relationship with Microsoft for Training and Consulting in the .NET 3.0 based technologies."
Falafel Software is a Gold Certified Partner with ISV Solution Provider and Mobility competencies.

Falafel Software launched their fast and easy to use web site that promotes their software development, consulting, and training services. In addition to promoting Falafel’s products and services, the site also features informative blogs by Falafel employees, an active community forum, and a store where Falafel and AutomatedQA products can be purchased.

The site also marks the debut of Falafel’s new creative director, Eric Titolo. On the Falafel web site, Eric spent many hours researching the previous Falafel sites trying to figure the best way of presenting the products and services Falafel has to offer.

“One the of the first things a web designer should do before even attempting a look and feel is to really sit down and contemplate the existing content,” remarked Mr. Titolo. “You really need to determine whether the site is organized in a way that your customers will understand and is easy to use. If it isn’t, you’re ultimately wasting your time and money.”

After the Falafel team agreed on the site’s organization, they moved into the marketing and design. “It really started out as a joke,” chuckled Eric. “I made this design flat with a graphic of a delicious looking falafel sandwich. Then I started thinking: why not make reference to food in the company’s slogan? There’s plenty of sayings in food services that can cross over into software. So I came up with the slogan ‘Made to Order’.”

Regardless of starting as a joke, the “made to order” slogan captures the philosophy of Falafel Software. Falafel provides top quality software, consulting, and training that meets the individual needs of every one of their clients. In other words, Falafel Software specializes in making sure your project is made to order.

“I absolutely loved the new slogan,” exclaimed Ramesh Theivendran, Principal Architect. “It makes me hungry just thinking about it!”

“I am extremely happy with the new web site. I think it really reflects who we are and where we are going,” remarked president, Lino Tadros. “Falafel prides itself on providing top quality products and services that are truly ‘made to order.’ Our new web site allows us to promote our objectives confidently and tastefully.”