onScene Xplorer 4.0

What’s in a Name? Code Signing Certs

Iron

Our development of OnScene Xplorer 4.0 is going very well. So it is time to get a code signing cert (certificate) so users would not have to deal with that annoying popup in Windows asking if you trust to run the app.

Getting a cert is pretty straight forward: fill out a form, pay some money, provide some documentation to prove you are who you say you are, and they give you the cert. Simple, right?

We provided some docs from the Commonwealth of PA which shows our name and address. For the record, our registered name is “Iron Compass Map Company.” The cert authorities also want some additional documentation, for example, a utility bill. So we provided them with a bill from our internet service provider. The reply? We’re sorry, but this doesn’t have the full company name. You see, our ISP seems to only have 18 characters in the billing name, so our bill has “IRON COMPASS MAP C.”

We sent them a vehicle registration from the state, which has our full name, but that didn’t count. OK, so legal documents or records from our state government do not count. I guess they don’t trust the government. Then we got another reply:

Dear Customer,

Thank you for writing us.   Could you please confirm us shall we use the company name as ironcompass.com which is listing in zoominfo.com or do you wish to have Iron Compass Map Company.

Awaiting for your response !!

The lesson? Besides their English being a little suspect, they trust ZoomInfo.com more than the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

OK, so we start looking at the bills from our vendors and guess what? All of our vendors either use some variation of our name (Iron Compass Map Co., Iron Compass Map, etc), or they use our mailing PO Box. Oh yes, cert company needs to have the registered address on the bill. The PO Box doesn’t count. Yes, as you would assume, we have our mail send to our PO Box. See, that is why we have a PO Box. Crazy, right? So, they wait.

Please provide us the comcast bill document document with the full company name Iron Compass Map Company, so that we will proceed further 

Wait a minute! We have a virtual phone system that bills annually…maybe they have our full name. Hey, they do. But it has our PO Box and not the registered address. But, in the last few emails, it seems like they are looking at the name separate from the address. Perhaps that will do? OK, Log in…bill history (Feb 2019), print, and email..

I think we have worn them down because they accepted the name with the PO Box address and are moving to the final item. Just thinking, if we were a fake company, wouldn’t we just fake some utility bills too? Only a legitimate company would do this whole back and forth to get a cert. Right?

After all this back and forth, they only need to verify our phone number by giving us a call and provide a code, which we then type into a web form.

Voila! Congratulation IRON COMPASS MAP C…… Iron Compass Map Co…..Iron Compass Map Company, you now have a code signing certificate. Yay!

OSX 4.0, Under Construction

Iron

When you are building anything new, the product can look a little messy while you’re in the middle of the construction zone. Think about when a new home being built. Some people go into the construction site and it’s just chaos. But, other people can go into the home under construction and visualize what it will look like when it is finished. They can “see” the cherry cabinets in the kitchen with the granite counter tops. They can “see” the family room with the built-in bookshelves on either side of the fireplace….while none of it has been built.

Software development is really no different. There is the vision for the app before work beings. The app has to be designed how people work, not the easiest route to getting it done. It need to be simple to use while making difficult tasks easy. And much like a home, some of the “simpler” elements are much harder than you think to build, while some of the fancy items may actually be easy to include. But the real fun is having the vision and then seeing it through to completion, and then having the customers’ “see”the beauty of the product.

So how does the construction start for OnScene Xplorer 4.0? The design for the all new OSX 4.0 started with the release of the first version of On-Scene Xplorer 1.0 back in 2004. Yup, On-Scene Xplorer just had it’s 15th anniversary on April 14th. Of course things were different back then, but we have learned a lot over the years and the new version of OnScene Xplorer 4.0 will be the fruit of the knowledge gained.

Although a lot of the design of the new app is under the hood, much like an HVAC system of a new home, at some point you want to see the architectural drawings. Same for 4.0. We started with paper and pen and a bunch of sketches. Here is a snippet of the main interface:

OnScene Xplorer 4.0 User Interface on paper

With a road map in place for the under the hood stuff and a layout for the user interface, the software developers are now at work. The back-end work often is filled with trial and error as new methods to handle data and moving data around are investigated, worked with, refined, and implemented. Just like how HVAC techs fully appreciate a new system in a home under construction much more then the home buyer, it’s like that for software. Developers can look at code and make comments like, “it’s very elegant in its implementation.” For the rest of us? We want to see the granite counters.

OnScene Xplorer 4.0 is still early in development, but progress is being made. Here are a couple of screen shots of the “home” being built. Of course, there is more to come…

Plans for the new OnScene Xplorer 4.0 using fluent design
Address searching is getting an overhaul in OnScene Xplorer 4.0; many changes will be made and feedback from users gotten before it’s finalized.

Oh, and you may have noticed something above that changed when OnScene Xplorer 3.0 was released in 2011, it’s the “-“. Yes, it was a subtle change in the name of the product from “On-Scene Xplorer” to “OnScene Xplorer.” Our baby is growing up.