From Blue To Cool: We’ve given the MIDAS UI a makeover

April 17, 2024

For v4.36 of our booking software, we’ve made a whole host of updates and improvements to the user interface (UI) and the included visual themes.

For many years now, MIDAS has come bundled with a number of visual theme packs.

A range of visual themes for the MIDAS interface are included

Administrators can select one of these themes to change the appearance of their MIDAS system. Additionally, administrators may optionally allow users to select their preferred theme upon login.

One of the included themes is the imaginatively titled “Default” theme. Unsurprisingly, it’s the visual theme that each MIDAS system uses initially by default.

As the “Default” theme is exactly that, many system administrators simply leave their MIDAS software set to use this theme.

In fact, from a random sample of our cloud-hosted customers, 72% of MIDAS systems are currently set to use the “Default” theme.

It’s black and white!

Interestingly though, the next most popular theme in our random sample of customer’s MIDAS systems is the “HiContrast” theme. Nearly 13% of our customers currently have this set as their default theme.

Now the primary goal when we designed the “HiContrast” theme was accessibility. In other words, we wanted to better cater to users who may have visual impairments.

The “HiContrast” theme is less colorful than our other themes. It primarily utilizes a simple “black on white” concept throughout, ensuring maximum contrast on screen.

Whilst a surprising number of our customers choose this theme, we don’t believe the vast majority opt for this particular theme primarily because of accessibility needs.

It’s all too Blue-tiful(!)

Rather, we believe that many who opt for the “HiContrast” theme do so because they feel that the “Default” theme is a bit “too blue” for their liking.

We get it! That’s one of the reasons why over the years, we’ve introduced additional visual themes where blue isn’t the main color.

We also allow self-hosted customers to create their own custom bespoke themes for our software too!

But going forward, we wanted to see if we develop a new default theme that was “less blue” than the existing default theme, while also at the same time being less “bland” than the basic black and white “HiContrast” theme.

Introducing the new default theme…

The most significant UI update for MIDAS v4.36 comes with a brand new “Default” visual theme:

The Booking Grid under the new default visual theme for MIDAS — The Booking Grid under the new default visual theme

If you prefer the previous default theme, don’t worry – it’s still available, but is now called “MIDAS (Blue)”.

We’ve also made a number of other improvements to the user interface, as well as minor tweaks to other included themes. Some text and headings are now larger than before, dialogs are clearer, there’s increased spacing between certain elements, and some interactive buttons are now larger and more prominent.

You can try the brand new “Default” theme, or any other included theme, right now by heading over to our online demo.

Tags: gui, theme, UI, user interface, v4.36

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What’s in a (Meeting Room) name?

Filed Under: Uncategorized

March 13, 2024

What do you call your meeting rooms? Do they have names? …or are they simply numbered “Meeting Room 1″, “Meeting Room 2“, and so forth?

Whatever naming (or numbering) convention you use, there will probably be some sensible logic behind it.

Our MIDAS booking software is used by organizations around the globe to manage countless meeting and conference rooms. It’s really easy within the software to change the names of your bookable rooms at any time.

So if you’re getting a little bored with mundane names for your rooms – if “Conference Room A” just isn’t cutting it any more, maybe it’s time for a refresh? …perhaps with a fun or humorous new name which will make users smile?

To give you some ideas, here are some funny, humorous, real examples that organizations have used to name their meeting rooms:

Google

Google is known for its quirky workplace culture, and they have various offices worldwide with creative meeting room names. For example, at Google’s Mountain View headquarters, you might find meeting rooms named after different desserts like “Cupcake“, “Donut“, and “Eclair“, as a nod to their Android operating system releases.

Facebook

Similar to Google, Facebook is also famous for its playful office environment. At Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, you’ll find meeting rooms named after popular board games like “Monopoly“, “Scrabble“, and “Risk“.

X / Twitter

Before Twitter became “X”, their headquarters in San Francisco has meeting rooms with names related to birds, reflecting the company’s then logo and theme. Examples include “Ostrich” “Hummingbird” and “Penguin“.

Airbnb

The vacation rental company Airbnb is known for its themed meeting rooms at its San Francisco headquarters. They have rooms named after different travel destinations, such as “Tokyo“, “Paris“, and “Rio“, adding to the company’s travel-inspired culture.

BuzzFeed

BuzzFeed, a digital media company, has meeting rooms with amusing names related to internet culture and memes. Examples include “Fail Whale“, “Cat Video“, and “Viral“.

Slack

Slack, the popular workplace communication platform, has fun and quirky meeting room names at its offices. Examples include “Llama Drama“, “Nerd Cave“, and “Corgi Corner“.

LinkedIn, the professional networking platform, also has creatively named meeting rooms at its offices. Examples include “Career Catapult“, “Networking Nook“, and “Connection Corner“.

Groupon

The online deals company, Groupon, gets creative with names like “The Fountain from Friends” (referencing the show’s iconic hangout spot), “Disappointment Beach” (perhaps for giving feedback sessions a lighter touch), and “Tiny House for Big Ideas“.

Etsy

The Etsy online marketplace for crafts and handmade goods uses playful food-music combos for their meeting rooms, like “Fleetwood Mac ‘n Cheese” and “Wu Tang Clams“

These are just a few examples of organizations that have embraced humor and creativity in naming their meeting rooms, adding a touch of personality to their workplace environments.

If you’re feeling inspired to now do the same with your meeting rooms, it’s easy to change your room names in MIDAS.

Simply login (as an administrator) and go to MIDAS Admin Options → Manage Venues. On the Manage Venues screen, select the room you wish to rename, enter a new name for it and click “Save Changes”. Voila! Now your bookable space has an exciting and fun new name.

Now all there is to do is to get new name plates and signs made up for the actual doors themselves!

…or you could also consider our “Digital Signage” addon. This addon allows you to display upcoming bookings on display devices outside each of your rooms. If you update the name of a room within MIDAS, it will automatically be reflected on your digital signage screens!

Tags: venues

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Proposal to drop TLS 1.2 support in early 2025

Filed Under: Tech Insight

February 5, 2024

Proposal to deprecate Transport Layer Security TLS 1.2

Transport Layer Security – or “TLS”- is a cryptographic mechanism to facilitate secure connections and communications across the internet. For example, the https network connection between your device and secure websites or applications, like MIDAS.

Several incarnations of the Transport Layer Security protocol have been developed over the years, the most recent being 1.3:

Protocol	Released	Current Status
TLS 1.0	1999	Deprecated
TLS 1.1	2006	Deprecated
TLS 1.2	2008	In use since 2008
TLS 1.3	2018	In use since 2018

TLS Protocol History

TLS 1.0 and 1.1 are now considered “legacy protocols” and “weak” by today’s cryptographic standards. That’s because they’re susceptible to several vulnerabilities. Modern web browsers automatically default to preferring more secure TLS 1.2 and 1.3 connections. In fact, they may even display a warning when connecting to a website that only supports the now obsolete TLS 1.0/1.1 protocols.

As security and cryptographic standards have evolved over the years, we have too! We’ve previously dropped support for TLS 1.0 connections to our network in 2017. We then subsequently dropped support for TLS 1.1 connections in 2020.

As part of our ongoing commitment to security, we’re now proposing to also deprecate support for TLS 1.2 connections to our client servers in early 2025. Going forward, we propose to only support TLS 1.3 (the latest Transport Layer Security protocol version) connections.

But wait.. isn’t TLS 1.2 still considered secure?

In the past few years, researchers have discovered cryptographic weakness in the ciphers and algorithms that TLS 1.2 uses.

While TLS 1.2 can still be used, it is no longer considered the most secure option. TLS 1.2 is only considered “safe” when weak ciphers and algorithms are removed.

On the other hand, TLS 1.3 supports the latest modern encryption with stronger encryption algorithms and more robust authentication mechanisms. TLS 1.3 is currently the most secure TLS version. At time of writing, TLS 1.3 currently has no known vulnerabilities, and also offers performance improvements over TLS 1.2.

When will TLS 1.2 be deprecated?

At time of writing, there has been no date announced as to when TLS 1.2 will be officially deprecated.

However, one day TLS 1.2 will become obsolete, just as its predecessors TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.0 have become.

TLS 1.3 is currently the most secure TLS version. We’re keen to aid its adoption and to ensure the most secure connections to our network and servers. This is why we’re proposing to stop supporting older TLS 1.2 connections in 2025.

What impact would disabling TLS 1.2 support have?

Most modern browsers and operating systems support TLS 1.3.

Therefore, the vast majority of users will be unaffected by our proposal to switch off support for TLS 1.2 in early 2025. However, if you’re using an older device or operating system, you may need to take action.

Here’s a list of browsers and devices that will be affected when TLS 1.2 connections are blocked:

Internet Explorer: All versions of Internet Explorer do not support TLS 1.3. This should not impact any of our users, as our MIDAS software has not been supported in IE since 2019.
Edge Legacy: Versions of Edge Legacy prior to April 2018 do not support TLS 1.3. Users would need to update to a newer version of Edge or a different browser.
Safari on macOS 10.12 Sierra or earlier: These older macOS versions do not support TLS 1.3 in Safari. Users would need to upgrade their macOS or use a different browser.
Very old versions of other browsers: Browsers that haven’t been updated in several years might not support TLS 1.3.
Older Android devices: Devices running Android 9 (and earlier versions) do not support TLS 1.3.
Older iOS devices: Devices running iOS 12 (and earlier versions) do not support TLS 1.3.

Web browsers and devices that do support TLS 1.3:

Microsoft Edge (current versions): Supported since April 2018 (Edge 79+)
Google Chrome: Supported since April 2018 (Chrome 70+)
Mozilla Firefox: Supported since October 2017 (Firefox 63+)
Apple Safari (on macOS 10.13 High Sierra or later): Supported since September 2018 (Safari 14+)
Opera: Supported since April 2018 (Opera 57+)
Android: Android 10 (or later)
iOS: iOS 13 (or later)

Important Information For Hosted API users:

If you’re a cloud-hosted MIDAS customer utilizing the optional MIDAS API you may need to take action before TLS 1.2 connections to our network are disabled in early 2025.

You’ll need to ensure that your applications and the underlying programming language you develop in can support (and are correctly configured for) TLS 1.2 connections.

For instance Java 7 (1.7) (and lower) and .NET 4.7 (and lower) languages don’t support TLS 1.1/1.2.

If your applications/programming languages do not support TLS 1.3 encryption, your MIDAS API calls will begin to fail in early 2025 once we disable TLS 1.2 support across our network.

Please refer to the vendor of your programming language if you’re unsure whether it supports TLS 1.3, or for assistance enabling such support in your development environment.

Remind me again.. when is this all happening?

Currently, we are proposing to drop support for TLS 1.2 connections to our network in early 2025.

We have not fixed a specific date in 2025 for this as yet (as we want to hear from you – see below).

However, anything can change over the course of a year. Should new vulnerabilities be discovered in TLS 1.2 during 2024, this may prompt us to bring our plans to deprecate 1.2 support forward.

We Want To Hear From You!

We are currently only proposing to deprecate TLS 1.2 connections to our network in early 2025.

However, we’re open to feedback from you our users in the meantime.

If you feel you have a particular usage case that would require continued reliance on TLS 1.2 support, please reach out to us to discuss.

Tags: browser, security, TLS 1.0, TLS 1.1, TLS 1.2

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Optimizing Source Code with AI

Filed Under: Development, Tech Insight

January 10, 2024

Often in the release notes for our MIDAS room scheduling software, you may see the entry “Code Optimization”.

What is “Code Optimization”?

Code optimization is the process of refining our software’s source code to make it execute more efficiently, consume fewer resources, or improve its overall performance. It involves strategically modifying source code whilst at the same time ensuring the new code still produces the correct results.

Key goals of source code optimization:

Enhanced speed: Executing tasks more quickly
Reduced resource consumption: Using less memory, CPU cycles, or power
Improved scalability: Handling larger workloads effectively
Maintainability: Making code easier to understand and modify

Some common source code optimization techniques involve:

Algorithm optimization: Choosing more efficient algorithms
Loop optimization: Reducing loop iterations or overhead
Memory optimization: Minimizing memory usage and allocations
Input/output optimization: Streamlining data reading and writing
Caching: Storing frequently used data for faster access
Compiler optimization: Leveraging compiler features for automatic optimization
Profiling: Identifying performance bottlenecks to focus optimization efforts

Code Optimization in MIDAS

Over the years we’ve been developing MIDAS, all our code optimization work has been done manually.

This work has involved attempting to simplify and rewrite parts of the source code to be more efficient.

Code Optimizing with AI

In our latest release, MIDAS v4.35, for the very first time, a small section of source code has been optimized with the assistance of AI (or Artificial Intelligence).

We performed this AI code optimization as an experiment to see whether AI could potentially be used to aid our development processes in the future.

We chose a small “subroutine” from our software and asked an AI if it could optimize it for us.

A “subroutine” is essentially a small block of code which can be re-used and “called” repeatedly during a program’s execution.

The subroutine within the MIDAS software code that we asked an AI if it could optimize for us was basically a function which converts dates to “epoch” time.

Epoch time is the number of seconds that have elapsed since January 1, 1970 (midnight UTC/GMT).

How did the AI do?

Our original subroutine was 15 lines of code long. Using AI to optimize code, reduced this subroutine down to just 9 lines of code.

However, the initial source code that the AI generated for us did not just work “out of the box”. In fact, it didn’t work at all!

But using this AI generated code as a “template”, our team was able to modify the generated code so that it worked and produced the correct results.

Our team then extensively tested the new subroutine to ensure that it consistently produced the same expected output as the original subroutine.

Once we had a working subroutine that we were confident in, the next step was to “benchmark” the new routine against the old one. After all, there would be no point in using the new routine if there were no performance gains to be had, or indeed if the new code performed worse than the original.

To test this, we ran each subroutine 10,000,000 (10 million times), and analyzed the results:

Our Original Subroutine:
30 wallclock secs (30.28 usr + 0.00 sys = 30.28 CPU) @ 330229.18/s (n=10000000)

AI Optimized Subroutine:
27 wallclock secs (27.09 usr + 0.00 sys = 27.09 CPU) @ 369085.41/s (n=10000000)

To explain the above results, over 10 million iterations of each subroutine, the new AI optimized subroutine was more efficient. It ran (executed) quicker, and consumed less processing (CPU) power to achieve the same results as the original subroutine.

On our test server, the optimized subroutine was able to run 369,085 times in the space of one second, compared with 330,229 times in the space of a second for the original subroutine.

Ok, so the original subroutine was pretty quick and efficient to begin with – but with the assistance of AI, we were able to improve its efficiency by almost 12%.

Where do we go from here?

Firstly, don’t worry, Artificial Intelligence is not about to take over the development of our MIDAS software!

MIDAS has been – and will remain – coded, developed, and maintained by human programmers.

But our experiment – on a very small part of our code – has demonstrated that AI tools may be able to assist our human developers to write ever more efficient source code.

The result of such carefully applied optimizations is that our software can potentially run faster, use resources more efficiently, and provide a better overall user experience.

Tags: AI, artificial intelligence, Bard, ChatGPT, code optimization, Gemini, google, microsoft

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