SEP Tips Articles

We’re curious people by nature. And we love to teach others what we’ve learned. So explore our blog to gain fresh insights from our expertise in areas ranging from culture to AI.

SEP Selected as a Nominee for TechPoint’s Innovation Mira Award

TechPoint has announced the nominees for its 25th annual Mira Awards, highlighting the most innovative companies, universities, and organizations in Indiana’s tech sector. The awards celebrate achievements across various categories, including the Innovation Partner of the Year. Nominees in this…
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Mind the Empathy Gap: 3 ways to stay empathetic as you level up

The title of this post references the iconic phrase from the London Underground, “Mind the gap.” It’s used to warn passengers about the gap between the train and the station platform.  Although hazardous, the gap for these travelers is a natural part of the journey. This post is about another travel hazard, one that I […]
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Get Out of My Gmail – Using Google Docs for Work

​So you want to use Google Docs, huh?  Seems it’s what all the cool kids are doing these days. But if you’re like me there’s greatness to work/home balance but not so much wonderfulness to the commingling of the information. And if you’re also like me you get invites to collaborate on Google Docs.  Which is […]
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Repeat after Me: Experimenting with Transcription

Transcription services have traditionally been pricey and slow, but automated technology has allowed new cheaper and quicker services to be introduced to the market. Automated transcription services are certainly easier on the wallet (in some cases almost by seven fold), but there are still advantages to using traditional human-operated services. One thing to keep in […]
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close up laptop keyboard and screen with code

WSL, git, and Beyond Compare

Back Story As I was drafting some new blog posts, I was exploring some stuff on the technical side. Part of that was using WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) to set up git. Since the Windows 10 Creators Update just dropped, it came with a WSL of Ubuntu 16.04. Not too shabby. Since I’m a […]
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A Review of Three Checksum Verifier Tools

What is a CheckSum? A checksum is a unique string that identifies a file. You can think of it as a file’s fingerprint. Why do I need a Checksum Verifier? I have been writing scripts that automatically download programs and install them on computers. It is not secure to just download the file and blindly […]
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GraphViz – A Tool You Aren’t Using, but Should

Recently, we had a book club where we read the Mikado Method, a process of handling large scale rearchitecting via refactors on the Master Branch without adversely impacting new features. One of the techniques that make up the method is visualizing the refactoring plan as a digraph of dependent steps. But as much as I […]
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How IoT is Making Your Home Safer and Smarter

The Internet of Things (IoT) shows no sign of slowing down. As an industry-leading provider of home security solutions, Allegion™ is focused on identifying ways to employ the IoT concept – that many of today’s common objects will have Internet-related capabilities – in its upcoming products. The Schlage Sense™ system, unveiled at the 2015 International […]
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8 Lessons Learned Importing Legacy Data into a New System

Apparently, it’s not uncommon for business to create some tables in an Access database, pass it around to anyone who needs it, and basically treat it like a big Excel spreadsheet. Not uncommon, I think, because in the last year I’ve been tasked with importing 4 different Access databases from 2 different clients into a […]
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Plain language

“Every word that is unnecessary only pours over the side of a brimming mind.” – Cicero This is the basis of Plain Language.  The goal is to write documents (emails, web pages, manuals, proposals, etc) in an everyday language, without waffle, jargon, or ambiguity, so that the reader can easily find and understand the information […]
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