Add Electronic signature Presentation iOS

Check out FieldPulse. It essentially lets you run your entire business from one app with CRM, scheduling, payments, etc. and integrates with Square and Quickbooks.FieldPulse is available on Android, iOS, and the web and runs seamlessly across all three.Built with a mobile-first design, FieldPulse mobile apps are fully featured to let you run your business entirely from your phone.Managers can quickly and easily create customer profiles, schedule jobs, view team schedules, update job statuses, attach files/photos, create and send estimates/invoices, collect payments, and more all from their iOS or Android mobile app.Field workers can view their schedules of assigned work, update job statuses, attach files/photos, create and send estimates/invoices, collect payments, and more all from their iOS or Android mobile app.Mobile app schedule views include regular list views, gantt views, and map views with advanced availability based scheduling. View full update and activity feeds on customer and job records. Open and view attached files on customer records and job records. FieldPulse mobile apps are fully featured to let you manage the business on the go and empower field workers to perform their job.The FieldPulse browser based WebApp is designed based on the FieldPulse mobile experience to give the user familiarity as they transition from one to the other. Seamlessly move from the WebApp in your office to your mobile phone on the road without missing a beat. Consistent in design and experience, FieldPulse allows you to build a process around the software that helps you signNow repeatable success in serving your customer.Create and Send Invoices and EstimatesWhether out in the field or in the office, quickly create itemized estimates and invoices for customers. Add line items to the invoice in different quantities with different tax applications. Subtotals, tax, and totals are automatically calculated for you. Once generated via computer or smartphone, simply send or print an auto-generated PDF of the invoice for your customer. Easily update the invoice status to never lose track of a payment.An Invoice Item Repository allows you to quickly and easily insert common invoice line items into your invoices without repetitive manual entry. Store invoice item templates of labor rates, common supplies used, equipment installed, and more.Create estimates, quotes, bids, or proposals for customers on the spot with your smartphone. You can customize your PDFs and even include contracts. Once approved by the customer, immediately accept customer signatures on your PDF as an agreement to move forward on your proposal. To convert the accepted proposal to a customer invoice, simply change the status and regenerate the PDF as an invoice. No more recreating estimates to invoices.Never lose track of payment history with documented payment records. Mark partial or full payments to accurately reflect the status of the invoice to always stay on top of the balance due for your customer.Estimates and invoices can get complex quickly, but you want them to be easy-to-read and straightforward for customers. The FieldPulse Power Editor gives you flexible data entry options and full control over the customer presentation.Grouping allows you to keep track of all of the elements of a project, but limit how complex the estimate or invoice becomes. For example, combine labor and multiple materials into one section with one price. You have full visibility into the breakdown, but you’re able to offer the customer one price without having to look through all of the details.Data entry has never been easier. With spreadsheet-like editing capabilities, click an item and update it immediately. Drag and drop allow you to move items for better organization and presentation.The Power Editor makes estimate and invoice creation much easier and more streamlined. You’ll save time creating professional, well-designed estimates and invoices. And your customers will have an easy-to-read document that makes the work and pricing clear and simple.Keep notes under customer contactsCreate and manage customer profiles to better serve your customers. Store customer information, log comments, track updates, and easily find customer jobs and invoices.Customer profiles provide quick access to important information and contact methods. Track both individual customers as well company customers with multiple points of contact.View all jobs, estimates, and invoices created for the customer to never lose track of customer history and payments.All customer related files such as photos and invoice PDFs are conveniently stored in the customer profile for quick referencing.Log comments to their profile for chronological notes and updates.Attach files to job records and customer profiles on iOS, Android, or WebApp. Files can be imported from file repositories such as Google Drive or Box, uploaded from your camera roll, or taken directly for the application. Upon uploading the file, they can be renamed and a description can be added. Files attached to the job record automatically roll up to the customer profile so that all customer related files are easily found.Syncs with QuickbooksAutomated Syncing with QuickBooks. With QuickBooks integration, link your account with FieldPulse to automatically sync invoices, payments, and customers to your QuickBooks account.Other FeaturesDispatch managementService history trackingQuotes / estimatesElectronic signatureCustomer managementInvoice mangementMobile paymentsStatus updatesGeolocation taggingFile and photo attachmentsTask managementInvoice item repositoryPayment status trackingNotificationsUser roles and restrictionsiPhone and Android appsBrowser WebAppSend itemized proposalsAttach job notes and commentsMultiple schedule viewsGantt based scheduling toolsAssign jobs based on relative locationCreate estimates, quotes, or proposals for customersPDF generationPayment historySubtasksInvoice item templatesCreate and send estimatesMobile alertsCustomer profilesGPS map viewRemindersBuilt-in CRM

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Check these questions which would be needful to you in your next interview:Q-1. What Is Node.Js?Answer.Node.js is a JavaScript runtime or platform which is built on Google Chrome’s JavaScript v8 engine. This runtime allows executing the JavaScript code on any machine outside a browser (this means that it is the server that executes the Javascript and not the browser).Node.js is single-threaded, that employs a concurrency model based on an event loop. It doesn’t block the execution instead registers a callback which allows the application to continue. It means Node.js can handle concurrent operations without creating multiple threads of execution so can scale pretty well.It uses JavaScript along with C/C++ for things like interacting with the filesystem, starting up HTTP or TCP servers and so on. Due to it’s extensively fast growing community and NPM, Node.js has become a very popular, open source and cross-platform app. It allows developing very fast and scalable network app that can run on Microsoft Windows, Linux, or OS X.Following are the areas where it’s perfect to use Node.js.I/O bound ApplicationsData Streaming ApplicationsData Intensive Real-time Applications (DIRT)JSON APIs based ApplicationsSingle Page ApplicationsAt the same time, it’s not suitable for heavy applications involving more of CPU usage.Q-2. What Are The Key Features Of Node.Js?Answer.Let’s look at some of the key features of Node.js.Asynchronous event driven IO helps concurrent request handling – All APIs of Node.js are asynchronous. This feature means that if a Node receives a request for some Input/Output operation, it will execute that operation in the background and continue with the processing of other requests. Thus it will not wait for the response from the previous requests.Fast in Code execution – Node.js uses the V8 JavaScript Runtime engine, the one which is used by Google Chrome. Node has a wrapper over the JavaScript engine which makes the runtime engine much faster and hence processing of requests within Node.js also become faster.Single Threaded but Highly Scalable – Node.js uses a single thread model for event looping. The response from these events may or may not signNow the server immediately. However, this does not block other operations. Thus making Node.js highly scalable. Traditional servers create limited threads to handle requests while Node.js creates a single thread that provides service to much larger numbers of such requests.Node.js library uses JavaScript – This is another important aspect of Node.js from the developer’s point of view. The majority of developers are already well-versed in JavaScript. Hence, development in Node.js becomes easier for a developer who knows JavaScript.There is an Active and vibrant community for the Node.js framework – The active community always keeps the framework updated with the latest trends in the web development.No Buffering – Node.js applications never buffer any data. They simply output the data in chunks.Q-3. Explain How Do We Decide, When To Use Node.Js And When Not To Use It?Answer.When Should We Use Node.Js?It’s ideal to use Node.js for developing streaming or event-based real-time applications that require less CPU usage such as.Chat applications.Game servers.Node.js is good for fast and high-performance servers, that face the need to handle thousands of user requests simultaneously.Good For A Collaborative Environment.It is suitable for environments where multiple people work together. For example, they post their documents, modify them by doing check-out and check-in of these documents.Node.js supports such situations by creating an event loop for every change made to the document. The “Event loop” feature of Node.js enables it to handle multiple events simultaneously without getting blocked.Advertisement Servers.Here again, we have servers that handle thousands of request for downloading advertisements from a central host. And Node.js is an ideal solution to handle such tasks.Streaming Servers.Another ideal scenario to use Node.js is for multimedia streaming servers where clients fire request’s towards the server to download different multimedia contents from it.To summarize, it’s good to use Node.js, when you need high levels of concurrency but less amount of dedicated CPU time.Last but not the least, since Node.js uses JavaScript internally, so it fits best for building client-side applications that also use JavaScript.When To Not Use Node.Js?However, we can use Node.js for a variety of applications. But it is a single threaded framework, so we should not use it for cases where the application requires long processing time. If the server is doing some calculation, it won’t be able to process any other requests. Hence, Node.js is best when processing needs less dedicated CPU time.Q-4. What IDEs Can You Use For Node.Js Development?Answer.Here is the list of most commonly used IDEs for developing node.js applications.Cloud9.It is a free, cloud-based IDE that supports, application development, using popular programming languages like Node.js, PHP, C++, Meteor and more. It provides a powerful online code editor that enables a developer to write, run and debug the app code.JetBrains WebStorm.WebStorm is a lightweight yet powerful JavaScript IDE, perfectly equipped for doing client-side and server-side development using Node.js. The IDE provides features like intelligent code completion, navigation, automated and safe refactorings. Additionally, we can use the debugger, VCS, terminal and other tools present in the IDE.JetBrains InteliJ IDEA.It is a robust IDE that supports web application development using mainstream technologies like Node.js, Angular.js, JavaScript, HTML5 and more. To enable the IDE that can do Node.js development we have to install a Node.js plugin. It provides features, including syntax highlighting, code assistance, code completion and more. We can even run and debug Node.js apps and see the results right in the IDE. It’s JavaScript debugger offers conditional breakpoints, expression evaluation, and other features.Komodo IDE.It is a cross-platform IDE that supports development in main programming languages, like Node.js, Ruby, PHP, JavaScript and more. It offers a variety of features, including syntax highlighting, keyboard shortcuts, collapsible Pane, workspace, auto indenting, code folding and code preview using built-in browser.Eclipse.It is a popular cloud-based IDE for web development using Java, PHP, C++ and more. You can easily avail the features of Eclipse IDE using the Node.js plug-in, which is .Atom.It is an open source application built with the integration of HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and Node.js. It works on top of Electron framework to develop cross-platform apps using web technologies. Atom comes pre-installed with four UI and eight syntax themes in both dark and light colors. We can also install themes created by the Atom community or create our own if required.Q-5. Explain How Does Node.Js Work?Answer.A Node.js application creates a single thread on its invocation. Whenever Node.js receives a request, it first completes its processing before moving on to the next request.Node.js works asynchronously by using the event loop and callback functions, to handle multiple requests coming in parallel. An Event Loop is a functionality which handles and processes all your external events and just converts them to a callback function. It invokes all the event handlers at a proper time. Thus, lots of work is done on the back-end, while processing a single request, so that the new incoming request doesn’t have to wait if the processing is not complete.While processing a request, Node.js attaches a callback function to it and moves it to the back-end. Now, whenever its response is ready, an event is called which triggers the associated callback function to send this response.Let’s Take An Example Of A Grocery Delivery.Usually, the delivery boy goes to each and every house to deliver the packet. Node.js works in the same way and processes one request at a time. The problem arises when any one house is not open. The delivery boy can’t stop at one house and wait till it gets opened up. What he will do next, is to call the owner and ask him to call when the house is open. Meanwhile, he is going to other places for delivery. Node.js works in the same way. It doesn’t wait for the processing of the request to complete (house is open). Instead, it attaches a callback function (call from the owner of the house) to it. Whenever the processing of a request completes (the house is open), an event gets called, which triggers the associated callback function to send the response.To summarize, Node.js does not process the requests in parallel. Instead, all the back-end processes like, I/O operations, heavy computation tasks, that take a lot of time to execute, run in parallel with other requests.Q-6. Explain REPL In Node.Js?Answer.The REPL stands for “Read Eval Print Loop”. It is a simple program that accepts the commands, evaluates them, and finally prints the results. REPL provides an environment similar to that of Unix/Linux shell or a window console, in which we can enter the command and the system, in turn, responds with the output. REPL performs the following tasks.READIt Reads the input from the user, parses it into JavaScript data structure and then stores it in the memory.EVALIt Executes the data structure.PRINTIt Prints the result obtained after evaluating the command.LOOPIt Loops the above command until the user presses Ctrl+C two times.Q-7. Is Node.Js Entirely Based On A Single-Thread?Answer.Yes, it’s true that Node.js processes all requests on a single thread. But it’s just a part of the theory behind Node.js design. In fact, more than the single thread mechanism, it makes use of events and callbacks to handle a large no. of requests asynchronously.Moreover, Node.js has an optimized design which utilizes both JavaScript and C++ to guarantee maximum performance. JavaScript executes at the server-side by Google Chrome v8 engine. And the C++ lib UV library takes care of the non-sequential I/O via background workers.To explain it practically, let’s assume there are 100s of requests lined up in Node.js queue. As per design, the main thread of Node.js event loop will receive all of them and forwards to background workers for execution. Once the workers finish processing requests, the registered callbacks get notified on event loop thread to pass the result back to the user.Q-8. How To Get Post Data In Node.Js?Answer.Following is the code snippet to fetch Post Data using Node.js.app.use(express.bodyParser()); app.post('/', function(request, response){ console.log(request.body.user); }); Q-9. How To Make Post Request In Node.Js?Answer.Following code snippet can be used to make a Post Request in Node.js.var request = require('request'); request.post( 'http://www.example.com/action', { form: { key: 'value' } }, function (error, response, body) { if (!error && response.statusCode == 200) { console.log(body) } } ); Q-10. What Is Callback In Node.Js?Answer.We may call “callback” as an asynchronous equivalent for a function. Node.js makes heavy use of callbacks and triggers it at the completion of a given task. All the APIs of Node.js are written in such a way that they support callbacks.For example, suppose we have a function to read a file, as soon as it starts reading the file, Node.js return the control immediately to the execution environment so that the next instruction can be executed. Once file read operation is complete, it will call the callback function and pass the contents of the file as its arguments. Hence, there is no blocking or wait, due to File I/O. This functionality makes Node.js as highly scalable, using it processes a high number of requests without waiting for any function to return the expected result.Q-11. What Is Callback Hell?Answer.Initially, you may praise Callback after learning about it. Callback hell is heavily nested callbacks which make the code unreadable and difficult to maintain.Let’s see the following code example.downloadPhoto('http://coolcats.com/cat.gif', displayPhoto) function displayPhoto (error, photo) { if (error) console.error('Download error!', error) else console.log('Download finished', photo) } console.log('Download started') In this scenario, Node.js first declares the “displayPhoto” function. After that, it calls the “downloadPhoto” function and pass the “displayPhoto” function as its callback. Finally, the code prints ‘Download started’ on the console. The “displayPhoto” will be executed only after “downloadPhoto” completes the execution of all its tasks.Q-12. How To Avoid Callback Hell In Node.Js?Answer.Node.js internally uses a single-threaded event loop to process queued events. But this approach may lead to blocking the entire process if there is a task running longer than expected.Node.js addresses this problem by incorporating callbacks also known as higher-order functions. So whenever a long-running process finishes its execution, it triggers the callback associated. With this approach, it can allow the code execution to continue past the long-running task.However, the above solution looks extremely promising. But sometimes, it could lead to complex and unreadable code. More the no. of callbacks, longer the chain of returning callbacks would be. Just see the below example.With such an unprecedented complexity, it’s hard to debug the code and can cause you a whole lot of time. There are four solutions which can address the callback hell problem.1. Make Your Program Modular.It proposes to split the logic into smaller modules. And then join them together from the main module to achieve the desired result.2. Use Async Mechanism.It is a widely used Node.js module which provides a sequential flow of execution.The async module has API which passes data from one operation to other using the next callback.Another async API allows iterating over a list of items in parallel and calls back with another list of results.With the async approach, the caller’s callback gets called only once. The caller here is the main method using the async module.3. Use Promises Mechanism.Promises give an alternate way to write async code. They either return the result of execution or the error/exception. Implementing promises requires the use of <.then()> function which waits for the promise object to return. It takes two optional arguments, both functions. Depending on the state of the promise only one of them will get called. The first function call proceeds if the promise gets fulfilled. However, if the promise gets rejected, then the second function will get called.4. Use Generators.Generators are lightweight routines, they make a function wait and resume via the yield keyword. Generator functions uses a special syntax . They can also suspend and resume asynchronous operations using constructs such as promises or and turn a synchronous code into asynchronous.Q-13. Can You Create HTTP Server In Nodejs, Explain The Code Used For It?Answer.Yes, we can create HTTP Server in Node.js. We can use the command to do so.Following is the sample code.var http = require('http'); var requestListener = function (request, response) { response.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'text/plain'}); response.end('Welcome Viewers\n'); } var server = http.createServer(requestListener); server.listen(8080); // The port where you want to start with. Q-14. What Is The Difference Between Nodejs, AJAX, And JQuery?Answer.The one common trait between Node.js, AJAX, and jQuery is that all of them are the advanced implementation of JavaScript. However, they serve completely different purposes.Node.Js –It is a server-side platform for developing client-server applications. For example, if we’ve to build an online employee management system, then we won’t do it using client-side JS. But the Node.js can certainly do it as it runs on a server similar to Apache, Django not in a browser.AJAX (Aka Asynchronous Javascript And XML) –It is a client-side scripting technique, primarily designed for rendering the contents of a page without refreshing it. There are a no. of large companies utilizing AJAX such as Facebook and Stack Overflow to display dynamic content.JQuery –It is a famous JavaScript module which complements AJAX, DOM traversal, looping and so on. This library provides many useful functions to help in JavaScript development. However, it’s not mandatory to use it but as it also manages cross-browser compatibility, so can help you produce highly maintainable web applications.Q-15. What Are Globals In Node.Js?Answer.There are three keywords in Node.js which constitute as Globals. These are Global, Process, and Buffer.Global.The Global keyword represents the global namespace object. It acts as a container for all other objects. If we type , it’ll print out all of them.An important point to note about the global objects is that not all of them are in the global scope, some of them fall in the module scope. So, it’s wise to declare them without using the var keyword or add them to Global object.Variables declared using the var keyword become local to the module whereas those declared without it get subscribed to the global object.Process.It is also one of the global objects but includes additional functionality to turn a synchronous function into an async callback. There is no boundation to access it from anywhere in the code. It is the instance of the EventEmitter class. And each node application object is an instance of the Process object.It primarily gives back the information about the application or the environment. – to get the execution path of the Node app. – to get the Node version currently running. – to get the server platform.Some of the other useful Process methods are as follows. – To know the memory used by Node application. – To attach a callback function that will get called during the next loop. It can cause a delay in executing a function.Buffer.The Buffer is a class in Node.js to handle binary data. It is similar to a list of integers but stores as a raw memory outside the V8 heap.We can convert JavaScript string objects into Buffers. But it requires mentioning the encoding type explicitly. – Specifies 7-bit ASCII data. – Represents multibyte encoded Unicode char set. – Indicates 2 or 4 bytes, little endian encoded Unicode chars. – Used for Base64 string encoding. – Encodes each byte as two hexadecimal chars.Here is the syntax to use the Buffer class.> var buffer = new Buffer(string, [encoding]); The above command will allocate a new buffer holding the string with as the default encoding. However, if you like to write a to an existing buffer object, then use the following line of code.> buffer.write(string) This class also offers other methods like and that allows read/write from various types of data to the buffer.Q-16. How To Load HTML In Node.Js?Answer.To load HTML in Node.js we have to change the “Content-type” in the HTML code from text/plain to text/html.Let’s see an example where we have created a static file in web server.fs.readFile(filename, "binary", function(err, file) { if(err) { response.writeHead(500, {"Content-Type": "text/plain"}); response.write(err + "\n"); response.end(); return; } response.writeHead(200); response.write(file, "binary"); response.end(); }); Now we will modify this code to load an HTML page instead of plain text.fs.readFile(filename, "binary", function(err, file) { if(err) { response.writeHead(500, {"Content-Type": "text/html"}); response.write(err + "\n"); response.end(); return; } response.writeHead(200, {"Content-Type": "text/html"}); response.write(file); response.end(); }); Q-17. What Is EventEmitter In Node.Js?Answer.Events module in Node.js allows us to create and handle custom events. The Event module contains “EventEmitter” class which can be used to raise and handle custom events. It is accessible via the following code.// Import events module var events = require('events'); // Create an eventEmitter object var eventEmitter = new events.EventEmitter(); When an EventEmitter instance encounters an error, it emits an “error” event. When a new listener gets added, it fires a “newListener” event and when a listener gets removed, it fires a “removeListener” event.EventEmitter provides multiple properties like “on” and “emit”. The “on” property is used to bind a function to the event and “emit” is used to fire an event.Q-18. How Many Types Of Streams Are Present In Node.Js?Answer.Stream in Node.js are objects that allow reading data from a source or writing data to a specific destination in a continuous fashion. In Node.js, there are four types of streams. – This is the Stream to be used for reading operation. – It facilitates the write operation. – This Stream can be used for both the read and write operations. – It is a form of a duplex Stream, which performs the computations based on the available input.All the Streams, discussed above are an instance of an “EventEmitter” class. The event thrown by the Stream varies with time. Some of the commonly used events are as follows. – This event gets fired when there is data available for reading. – The Stream fires this event when there is no more data to read. – This event gets fired when there is any error in reading or writing data. – It fires this event after it has flushed all the data to the underlying system.Q-19. List And Explain The Important REPL Commands?Answer.Following is the list of some of the most commonly used REPL commands.<.help> – It displays help for all the commands. – It displays the list of all the available commands. – Its use is to determine what command was executed in REPL previously.<.save filename> – Save the current REPL session to a file.<.load filename> – To Load the specified file in the current REPL session. – used to Terminate the current command. – To Exit from the REPL. – This command perfoms Exit from the REPL.<.break> – It leads Exitting from multiline expression.<.clear> – Exit from multiline expression.Q-20. What Is NPM In Node.Js?Answer.NPM stands for Node Package Manager. It provides following two main functionalities.It works as an Online repository for node.js packages/modules which are present at .It works as Command line utility to install packages, do version management and dependency management of Node.js packages.NPM comes bundled along with Node.js installable. We can verify its version using the following command-$ npm --version NPM helps to install any Node.js module using the following command.$ npm install For example, following is the command to install a famous Node.js web framework module called express-$ npm install express Q-21. What Is The Global Installation Of Dependencies?Answer.Globally installed packages/dependencies are stored in /npm directory. Such dependencies can be used in CLI (Command Line Interface) function of any node.js, but cannot be imported using require() in the Node application directly.To install a Node project globally use -g flag as.C:\Nodejs_WorkSpace>npm install express -g Q-22. What Is The Local Installation Of Dependencies?Answer.By default, NPM installs any dependency in the local mode. It means that the package gets installed in “node_modules” directory which is present in the same folder, where Node application is placed. Locally deployed packages are accessible via require(). Following is the syntax to install a Node project locally.C:\Nodejs_WorkSpace>npm install express Q-23. What Is Package.Json? Who Uses It?Answer.What Is ?It is a plain JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) text file which contains all metadata information about Node.js Project or application.This file should be present in the root directory of every Node.js Package or Module to describe its metadata in JSON format.The file is named as “package” because Node.js platform treats every feature as a separate component. Node.js calls these as Package or Module.Who Use It?NPM (Node Package Manager) uses file. It includes details of the Node.js application or package. This file contains a no. of different directives or elements. These directives guide NPM, about how to handle a module or package.Q-24. Does Node.Js Support Multi-Core Platforms? And Is It Capable Of Utilizing All The Cores?Answer.Yes, Node.js would run on a multi-core system without any issue. But it is by default a single-threaded application, so it can’t completely utilize the multi-core system.However, Node.js can facilitate deployment on multi-core systems where it does use the additional hardware. It packages with a Cluster module which is capable of starting multiple Node.js worker processes that will share the same port.Q-25. Which Is The First Argument Usually Passed To A Node.Js Callback Handler?Answer.Node.js core modules follow a standard signature for its callback handlers and usually the first argument is an optional error object. And if there is no error, then the argument defaults to null or undefined.Here is a sample signature for the Node.js callback handler.function callback(error, results) { // Check for errors before handling results. if ( error ) { // Handle error and return. } // No error, continue with callback handling. } Q-26. What Is Chaining Process In Node.Js?Answer.It’s an approach to connect the output of one stream to the input of another stream, thus creating a chain of multiple stream operations.Q-27. How To Create A Custom Directive In AngularJS?Answer.To create a custom directive, we have to first register it with the application object by calling the function. While invoking the method of , we need to give the name of the function implementing the logic for that directive.For example, in the below code, we have created a copyright directive which returns a copyright text.app.directive('myCopyRight', function () { return { template: '@CopyRight MyDomain.com ' }; }); Note – A custom directive should follow the camel case format as shown above.Q-28. What Is A Child_process Module In Node.Js?Answer.Node.js supports the creation of child processes to help in parallel processing along with the event-driven model.The Child processes always have three streams , child.stdout, and child.stderr. The stream of the parent process shares the streams of the child process.Node.js provides a module which supports following three methods to create a child process.exec – method runs a command in a shell/console and buffers the output.spawn – launches a new process with a given command.fork – is a special case of the spawn() method to create child processes.Q-29. What Are The Different Custom Directive Types In AngularJS?Answer.AngularJS supports a no. of different directives which also depend on the level we want to restrict them.So in all, there are four different kinds of custom directives.Element Directives (E)Attribute Directives (A)CSS Class Directives (C)Comment Directives (M)Q-30. What Is A Control Flow Function? What Are The Steps Does It Execute?Answer.It is a generic piece of code which runs in between several asynchronous function calls is known as control flow function.It executes the following steps.Control the order of execution.Collect data.Limit concurrency.Call the next step in the program.

I am competent and efficient at “figuring out how to play popular songs by ear”. For many songs, one listen will do. For the rest, two or three is probably all I need to be able to sit in and play with a group, even taking the lead on iconic instrumental riffs specific to a song. Interested in hearing my approach? Good, let’s begin..Definitions for the purpose of my writing:“Popular Music” = Stuff that normal people *actually* listen to. Rock, Pop, Country etc.“Music Theory” = The information that allows you generalize the structure of a song as well as the chord progressions that inhabit it. Also allows you to play any type of chord on any of the 12 possible tonic notes, and understand how to use the major and minor scales as well as the blues/major/minor pentatonic scales and modes. ***Has NOTHING to do with sheet music. Stay away from it if you’re trying to become a competent musician of “popular music” (see above for definition).CHALLENGE: Listen to “this song” once. After that, you have 10 minutes before you will step onto a stage with a group and perform it in front of a live audience. You may not use tools or electronics or instruments or writing utensils to aid you in your preparation. GO!As I listen, this is the “map of the song” that I consciously develop in my mind:Tempo: Semi-upbeat, somewhere around the ~120 bpm range. 4/4 timeINTRO - [8 Bars / 6 4 1 5 ] + Lead LineVERSE 1 - [8 Bars / 4 1 6 5]VERSE 2CHORUS - [8 Bars / 6 4 1 5]BREAK - [4 Bars] + Lead LineVERSE 3CHORUSBRIDGE - [4 Bars / 4 6 5 (5)]x3CHORUSCHORUS - Lead LineNow I have to consciously ingrain the following details into my memory for recall:[[[ (i)V - V - Ch(b) - V - Ch - Bx3 - Chx2(+lead@end) | 6415 / 4165 / 465]]]^Understood as: Intro, 2 Verses, Ch(w/break after), Verse, Chorus, Bridge 3 times, 2 Choruses and the last one has a lead. Progressions: 6–4–1–5/4–1–6–5/4–6–5^^Understood as: Typical “pop song structure”— list of exceptions: intro (gotta play the lead line over that), two initial verses, and a break after the first chorus where I have to play a lead line again. Bridge is played 3 times. Lead line on last chorus. Choruses and Intro/Break have a 6415 progression, Verses have 4165, Bridge has 465.As soon as the song ends, my 10 minutes begins and I’ll spend most of it memorizing the details contained within the ” [[[ ]]] “ up there^. These are basically all I will need to perform the song flawlessly. The other thing I’ll need to ingrain in my mind is the “pattern” for the lead line so I don’t fumble with any notes when I go to play it at the very beginning of the song. I will do by this listening to the line in my head, probably humming it a few times to confirm my grasp of specific notes and converting my understanding of those sounds into scale degrees, which I will then finger in the key of C with my right hand on an “air piano” to make sure I will be good to fluently play it in a couple mins.After running over the [[[]]] details and confirming my grasp of the lead line in C, my 10 minutes will end and I’ll walk on the stage, look at a fellow musician and ask, “Hey, what key are we in? And what instrument am I playing?”.What a wonderful story! The musician (me) certainly turns around to his instrument and performs with minimal hiccups and nobody in the crowd even really noticed him or any of the other instrumentalists because they were consuming the “experience” of the show (largely focused on the lead singer) and he simply didn’t distract them from that experience. That means the musician successfully conquered this challenge and performed adequately enough that nobody could really notice he was unprepared..You’ve just had the pleasure of listening to a thought process which you may be able to follow but likely don’t understand fully. That is because there are several developed skills being used together to make all of this happen. I have learned a great deal about music and distilled many concepts into easily understandable and intuitive concepts which I can actually USE (you just witnessed it), and even better (lucky for you), TEACH. Thus, I can best serve you by explaining what all of that nonsense is above so you can learn how to do it too.Neither of us has the time to do this teaching/learning stuff inside of this Quora post so let me NOT waste our time by showing you what you need to learn and how you need to learn it so you can search the Internet for resources to accomplish these goals on your own time.Here goes:IMPORTANT SKILLSLearning How To Identify FormYou need to be able to listen to a song and understand how to identify these parts of a song: intro, verse, chorus, bridge, break, tag(refrain). Find some YouTube videos and articles or something to study how to identify “Form of Popular Music” or something like that. PS - Don’t learn any of this stuff by studying “Classical Music Theory”, you’re wasting your time if you’re here to become a Popular Music musician. If you’re trying to learn these concepts that I’m listing and you’re seeing explanations that use sheet music, you may need to find a different resource. *[You can now listen to any popular song and write out its “Form (Structure)” as I have done above above (writing INTRO, VERSE1, CHORUS etc. and actually being correct/accurate in your identification).]Additional skills related to Form: You need to be able to count how many “bars” or “measures” there are in each section of the music (remember how I structured out that song above?). This is a concept learned from studying “Rhythm”. You also need to be able to identify if a song is in the 4/4 or 6/8 time signatures (every once in a gigantically great while you may see a song in 3/4, but don’t worry about it for now). 4/4 is the most common for popular music, don’t actually worry about 6/8 for a while. *[You can now listen to any popular song and correctly identify its structure and also identify how many bars/measures are in each section. Example: INTRO - 8 Bars / VERSE 1 - 8 Bars / CHORUS - 16 bars]Learning How To Identify Scale DegreesI’m playing some pop song. I stop and play a single note. Can you tell me what scale degree it is? If not, keep practicing. Google “Functional Ear Trainer”. It’s a small piece of computer software and it is INCREDIBLE. Practice identifying “diatonic” (notes in 1 specific key) scale degrees until you can hum random notes in a major scale and identify the correct scale degree *always*. Then start listening to the bass guitar in simple songs and practicing your ability to identify the scale degree they’re playing. 95% percent of the time, it *hands you* the chord progression for each section of the song. (Unless there’s an iOS/Android version of THIS SPECIFIC APP (mentioned above), stay away from phone ear training apps. They all suck. Haven’t found a good one yet.) When you listen to a song and try to identify the chord progressions based on what the bass guitar plays, write it down as you listen and look up the song on UltimateGuitarTabs.com to see if you are correct (just make sure you transpose the song to the correct key)*[You can now listen to any popular song and correctly identify its structure, how many bars there are in each section, and what chords happen inside of each bar by identifying the scale degrees that the bass guitar plays (usually each bar has only 1 or 2 chords). Most popular songs will have only 1 chord per bar and much of the time they are the 1 4 5 6 chords in different orders. “Chord Progressions” are groupings of chords that repeat, usually over a cycle of 4 bars. Ex: This song as a chorus 16 bars long. The (chord) progression is 1 5 6 4 four times. You also can now identify the key of the song once you identify the “scale degree #1” or “tonic note”. Once you find the letter name of that tonic note by referencing an instrument, you have the name of the “key” that the song is in.]Learning How To Play All Chords/ScalesSCALES - Learn how to play ALL OF YOUR SCALES by following Gary Burton’s methodology. http://www.jazzpiano.co.nz/wp-co... - Lesson 2 explains the approach you want to practice when it comes to learning scales. The rest may very well be irrelevant. The point is to learn your scales by shape while fiddling around pressing different notes all over your instrument to ingrain the “shape” of the key in your mind. You rarely hit “wrong” notes if you *actually* know your scales (by practicing this methodology, not mindlessly practicing scales like Classical people) because you have trained yourself to see which notes belong to the key that you’re playing in. Video of him explaining some things here:Don’t worry about all of the details in this video where he talks about “a new scale every chord”. Popular music will pretty much always have only one scale per *entire song*. But the way he talks about “fiddling around with the shape and groups of notes for the key” is key to learning your scales. Scales are not an athletic, mechanical exercise. They can be, but their purpose is to show you which notes fit in the key. Last thought: Learn about the concepts of “Relative Major/Relative Minor”. It’s easier to assume that there aren’t really minor scales. There are only major scales, and if you start on the 6th scale degree and move through that scale 1 octave, you have now played the minor scale “relative” to that major key (the only key identity that matters because everything else orients around the “major key” and it’s easier that way).CHORDS - Study the concepts of “Chord Tones” for this one. If I tell you to play me a Gb9#11+13, you don’t have to be comfortable playing chords this complex but you should be able to sit down at a piano and show me what it looks like in root position. You should be able to play me any minor and major chord in any inversion on a piano/keyboard. I’ll give special notice to the maj7 and min7 chords as well as maj9 and min9 chords, because they can be super pretty and add a layer of depth of complexity to your expression, but fluent command over basic major and minor chords are all you need to adequately play pretty much any popular music you’ll hear on the radio. Last thought on chord tones: learn about the difference between a chord tone which is identified as “2” and one which is identified as “9”. Chord tones 2, 4 and 6 are identified as 9, 11 and 13 in certain cases where a 7th scale degree is present in the chord.Alright, I’m definitely missing some things and there are several loose ends I’m sure but it’s way too late for me to finish this post tonight. I’ll come back tomorrow and finish up.Until then~Alrighty, I’m back! Here’s my conclusion:We’ve talked about identifying form, the two main time signatures (4/4 & 6/8), counting bars, identifying scale degrees, learning all the major scales “the way they *should* be learned”, and learning how to construct any chord type with any of the 12 possible chord tones. You may be wondering, “Does knowing all these things *really* enable me to listen to a song once and be able to play it?”. Technically— no. But let’s talk about that.That last, and perhaps the easiest, element in this whole ability to “quickly interpret” an song into a usable mental structure from which an individual can then play the song convincingly happens to be this: Familiarity with the genre. Basically what I mean by this is that many pop songs are very similar in structure and thus can be quite predictable. This makes it much easier to “grab” certain, key elements out of just a couple listens and then reproduce an impressively convincing accompaniment of the song with a certain level of prerequisite skill. In other words, the information that these skills fail to provide you with is captured by your ability to relate to what you just heard. If you listen to a lot of pop music, the rest of the details are generalized like this: “Oh yeah, this part sounds like that one Adele song.. cool. I can do that” - “Oh I know this sound, it’s like that Coldplay song” - “Hey, I recognize this rhythm pattern, it sounds like that song I heard just the other day”. So all this music theory and ear training stuff gives you a skeleton from which you can play an “convincing” arrangement with enough skill, but your prior familiarity with the genre is what allows you to embody the sound with much more idiomatic nuance and it will start sounding a lot more “authentic”.Music is an incredible adventure and there is much to learn in the beginning! But I promise you, if you learn (what I call) “Practical Music Theory”, you won’t be disappointed! That is, if your goal is to learn how music really works and how to sit down at an instrument and be appreciably creative. Learning music in this way is the most efficient path to being both an informed and creative “Musical Artist”. At its core, you learn about the elements of rhythm, melody and harmony, and then you CREATE. This is how it was always meant to be…

What A Realtor Does For YouThe Critical Role Of The Realtor In The Real Estate TransactionMany home buyers and sellers are not aware of the true value that a Realtor provides during the course of a real estate transaction. Many people, in fact, are not cognizant of the expertise, professional knowledge, and just plain hard work that go into bringing about a successful real estate transaction.A multitude of important services and steps required in a real estate transaction are carried out by the Realtor or the brokerage staff. Most of these steps have traditionally been viewed simply as part of a Realtor's professional responsibilities to the client. But, without them, the transaction could be placed in jeopardy.Listed below are nearly 200 typical actions, research steps, processes, and review stages necessary for a successful residential real estate transaction that are normally provided by a full service real estate brokerage in exchange for their sales commission. Depending on the transaction, some of these steps may take minutes, hours, or even days to complete, while some may not be needed.ComprehensivenessThe list is by no means an attempt to set forth a complete list of services, as these can vary within each brokerage and each market. Many Realtors routinely provide a wide variety of additional services that are as varied as the nature of each transaction.By the same token, some transactions may not require every step listed. However, given the unexpected complications that can arise, it's far better to know about a step and make an intelligent, informed decision to skip it, than to not know the possibility even exists.The Realtor CommitmentThe professional commitment of a Realtor is to ensure that a seller and a buyer are brought together in an agreement that provides each with a transaction that is fair and equitable. The motivation is easy to understand. For most full-service brokerages, they receive no compensation whatsoever unless and until the sale closes.By contrast, there are firms that offer limited services in exchange for an up-front flat fee, or offer a menu of pay-as-you-go or a la' carte options. Other real estate firms may offer a sliding scale ranging from limited to full service. In these cases, the compensation of the Realtor is based on the reduced services provided, with the seller bearing full responsibility for all of the other steps and procedures (which are normally conducted by a full service real estate firm) in the selling process.Variety Of ChoicesThe variety of brokerage business models in today's real estate industry - full service, limited service, fee for service or other -- affords consumers with a greater range of options than ever before. No matter which option they choose, homeowners should understand exactly what services will, or will not, be provided by their choice of Realtor/brokerage firm before signing a Listing Agreement or otherwise engaging the services of a Realtor and agreeing to compensation.Why Use A RealtorNot every real estate agent or broker is a Realtor. That term and the familiar block "R" logo are trademarked by the National Association of Realtors can legally be used only by those that are Realtor members through their local association of Realtors.While all Realtors are also state-issued licensees as agents or brokers, a major difference between a real estate licensee and a Realtor is that Realtors have taken an oath to subscribe to a stringent, enforceable Code of Ethics with Standards of Practice that promote the fair, ethical and honest treatment of all parties in a transaction. Real estate licensees (those that have a state-issued license but are not members of a Realtor association) are not bound to the ethical practices and principles set forth in the Realtor Code.In addition, Realtor associations offer a wealth of training courses to their member Realtors, to help assure that Realtors serve their customers with the level of skill, knowledge and attention to detail required in today's real estate transaction. The continual training provided to Realtors underscores the importance of having help and guidance from someone who fully understands the process - a Realtor.For peace of mind, ensure that the individual seeking to represent you in a real estate transaction is not just a real estate licensee, but also a Realtor.Pre-Listing Activities1. Make appointment with seller for listing presentation.2. Send seller a written or e-mail confirmation of listing appointment and call to confirm.3. Review pre-appointment questions.4. Research all comparable currently listed properties.5. Research sales activity for past 18 months through the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and/or public records databases.6. Research "Average Days on Market" for this property of this type, price range and location.7. Download and review property tax roll information.8. Prepare "Comparable Market Analysis" (CMA) to establish fair market value.9. Obtain copy of subdivision plat/complex lay-out.10. Research property's ownership and deed type.11. Research property's public record information for lot size and dimensions.12. Research and verify legal description.13. Research property's land use coding and deed restrictions.14. Research property's current use and zoning.15. Verify legal names of owner(s) in county's public property records.16. Prepare listing presentation package with above materials.17. Perform exterior Curb Appeal Assessment of subject property.18. Compile and assemble formal file on property.19. Confirm current public schools and explain impact of schools on market value.20. Review listing appointment checklist to ensure all steps and actions have been completed.Listing Appointment Presentation21. Give seller an overview of current market conditions and projections.22. Review agent's and company's credentials and accomplishments in the market.23. Present company's profile and position or niche in the marketplace.24. Present CMA Results To Seller, including Comparables, Solds, Current Listings and Expireds.25. Offer pricing strategy based on professional judgment and interpretation of current market conditions.26. Discuss goals with seller to market effectively.27. Explain market power and benefits of Multiple Listing Service.28. Explain market power of web marketing, Internet Data Display and Find Real Estate, Homes for Sale, Apartments & Houses for Rent.29. Explain the work the brokerage and agent do behind the scenes and agent's availability onweekends.30. Explain agent's role in taking calls to screen for qualified buyers and protect seller from curiosity seekers.31. Present and discuss strategic master marketing plan.32. Explain different agency relationships and determine seller's preference.33. Review and explain all clauses in Listing Contract and Addendum and obtain seller's signature.Once Property Is Under Listing Agreement34. Review current title information.35. Measure overall and heated/air conditioned square footage.36. Measure interior room sizes.37. Confirm lot size via owner's copy of certified survey, if available.38. Note any and all unrecorded property lines, agreements, easements.39. Obtain house plans, if applicable and available.40. Review house plans and make copy.41. Order plat map for retention in property's listing file.42. Prepare showing instructions for buyers' agents and agree on showing time window with seller.43. Obtain current mortgage loan(s) information: companies and loan account numbers.44. Verify current loan information with lender(s).45. Check assumability of loan(s) and any special requirements.46. Discuss possible buyer financing alternatives and options with seller.47. Review current appraisal if available.48. Identify Home Owner Association manager if applicable.49. Verify Home Owner Association Fees with manager - mandatory or optional and current annual fee.50. Order copy of Homeowner Association bylaws, if applicable.51. Research electricity availability and supplier's name and telephone number.52. Calculate average utility usage from last 12 months of bills.53. Research and verify city sewer/septic tank system.54. Water System: Calculate average water fees or rates from last 12 months of bills.55. Well water: Confirm well status, depth and output from Well Report.56. Natural gas: Research/verify availability and supplier's name and telephone number.57. Verify security system, current term of service and whether owned or leased.58. Verify if seller has transferable Termite Bond.59. Ascertain need for lead-based paint disclosure.60. Prepare detailed list of property amenities and assess market impact.61. Prepare detailed list of property's "Inclusions & Conveyances with Sale."62. Compile list of completed repairs and maintenance items.63. Send "Vacancy Checklist" to seller if property is vacant.64. Explain benefits of Home Owner Warranty to seller.65. Assist sellers with completion and submission of Home Owner Warranty Application.66. When received, place Home Owner Warranty in property file for conveyance at time of sale.67. Have extra key made for lockbox.68. Verify if property has rental units involved. If so:69. - Make copies of all leases for retention in listing file.70. - Verify all rents and deposits.71. - Inform tenants of listing and discuss how showings will be handled.72. Arrange for installation of yard sign(s).73. Assist seller with completion of Seller's Disclosure form.74. Complete "New Listing Checklist."75. Review results of Curb Appeal Assessment with seller and provide suggestions to improve salability.76. Review results of Interior Décor Assessment and suggest changes to shorten time on market.77. Load listing into transaction management software program.Entering Property in Multiple Listing Service Database78. Prepare MLS Profile Sheet - Realtor is responsible for quality control and accuracy of listing data.79. Enter property data from Profile Sheet into MLS Listing Database.80. Proofread MLS database listing for accuracy - including proper placement in mapping function.81. Add property to company's Active Listings list.82. Provide seller with signed copies of Listing Agreement and MLS Profile Sheet Data Form within 48 hours.83. Take additional photos for upload into MLS and use in flyers. Discuss efficacy of panoramic/virtual tour photography.Marketing The Listing84. Create print and Internet ads with seller's input.85. Coordinate showings with owners, tenants, and other Realtors. Return all calls - weekends included.86. Install electronic lockbox if authorized by owner. Program lockbox with agreed-upon showing time windows.87. Prepare mailing and contact list.88. Generate mail-merge letters to contact list.89. Order "Just Listed" labels and reports.90. Prepare flyers and feedback faxes.91. Review comparable MLS listings regularly to ensure property remains competitive in price, terms, conditions and availability.92. Prepare property marketing brochure for seller's review.93. Arrange for printing or copying of supply of marketing brochures or flyers.94. Place marketing brochures in all company agent mail boxes.95. Upload listing to company and agent Internet site, if applicable.96. Mail Out “Just Listed” notice to all neighborhood residents.97. Advise Network Referral Program of listing.98. Provide marketing data to buyers coming through international relocation networks.99. Provide marketing data to buyers coming from referral network.100. Provide “Special Feature” cards for marketing, if applicable.101. Submit ads to company’s participating Internet real estate sites.102. Price changes conveyed promptly to all Internet groups.103. Reprint/supply brochures promptly as needed.104. Loan information reviewed and updated in MLS as required.105. Feedback e-mails/faxes sent to buyers’ agents after showings.106. Review weekly Market Study.107. Review lockbox reports to study home showing traffic.108. Discuss lockbox showing reports and feedback from showing agents with seller to determine if changes will accelerate the sale.109. Place regular weekly update calls to seller to discuss marketing and pricing.110. Promptly enter price changes in MLS listing database.The Offer And Contract111. Receive and review all Offer to Purchase contracts submitted by buyers or buyers’ agents.112. Evaluate offer(s) and prepare a “net sheet” on each for the owner for comparison purposes.113. Counsel seller on offers. Explain merits and weakness of each component of each offer.114. Contact buyers’ agents to review buyer’s qualifications and discuss offer.115 Fax/deliver Seller’s Disclosure to buyer’s agent or buyer upon request and prior to offer if possible.116. Confirm buyer is pre-qualified by calling loan officer.117. Obtain pre-qualification letter on buyer from loan officer.118. Negotiate all offers on seller’s behalf, setting time limit for loan approval and closing date.119. Prepare and convey any counter offers, acceptance or amendments to buyer’s agent.120. Fax copies of contract and all addendums to closing attorney or title company.121. When Offer to Purchase Contract is accepted and signed by seller, deliver to buyer’s agent.122. Record and promptly deposit buyer’s earnest money in escrow account.123. Disseminate “Under-Contract Showing Restrictions” as seller requests.124. Deliver copies of fully signed Offer to Purchase contract to seller.125. Fax/deliver copies of Offer to Purchase contract to Selling Agent.126. Fax copies of Offer to Purchase contract to lender.127. Provide copies of signed Offer to Purchase contract for office file.128. Advise seller in handling additional offers to purchase submitted between contract and closing.129. Change status in MLS to “Sale Pending.”130. Update MLS and transaction management program to show “Sale Pending.”131. Review buyer’s credit report results -- advise seller of worst and best case scenarios.132. Provide credit report information to seller if property will be seller-financed.133. Assist buyer with obtaining financing, if applicable and follow-up as necessary.134. Coordinate with lender on discount points being locked in with dates.135. Deliver unrecorded property information to buyer.136. Order septic system inspection, if applicable.137. Receive and review septic system report and assess any possible impact on sale.138. Deliver copy of septic system inspection report lender and buyer.139. Deliver Well Flow Test Report copies to lender and buyer and property listing file.140. Verify termite inspection ordered.141. Verify mold inspection ordered, if required.Tracking The Loan Process142. Confirm verifications of deposit and buyer’s employment have been returned.143. Follow loan processing through to the underwriter.144. Add lender and other vendors to transaction management program so agents, buyer and seller can track progress of sale.145. Contact lender weekly to ensure processing is on track.146. Relay final approval of buyer’s loan application to seller.Home Inspection147. Coordinate buyer’s professional home inspection with seller.148. Review home inspector’s report.149. Enter completion into transaction management tracking software program.150. Explain seller’s responsibilities with respect to loan limits and interpret any clauses in the contract.151. Ensure seller’s compliance with Home Inspection Clause requirements.152. Recommend or assist seller with identifying and negotiating with trustworthy contractors to perform any required repairs.153. Negotiate payment and oversee completion of all required repairs on seller’s behalf, if needed.The Appraisal154. Schedule appraisal.155. Provide comparable sales used in market pricing to appraiser.156. Follow-Up on appraisal.157. Enter completion into transaction management program.158. Assist seller in questioning appraisal report, if questions arise.Closing Preparations And Duties159. Contract is signed by all parties.160. Coordinate closing process with buyer’s agent and lender.161. Update closing forms and files.162. Ensure all parties have all forms and information needed to close the sale.163. Select location where closing will be held.164. Confirm closing date and time and notify all parties.165. Assist in solving any title problems (boundary disputes, easements, etc) or in obtaining Death Certificates.166. Work with buyer’s agent in scheduling and conducting buyer’s final walk-through prior to closing.167. Research all tax, Home Owner Association, utility and other applicable prorations.168. Request final closing figures from closing agent (attorney or title company).169. Receive and carefully review closing figures to ensure accuracy of preparation.170. Forward verified closing figures to buyer’s agent.171. Request copy of closing documents from closing agent.172. Confirm buyer and buyer’s agent have received title insurance commitment.173. Provide Home Owners Warranty for availability at closing.174. Review all closing documents carefully for errors.175. Forward closing documents to absentee seller as requested.176. Review documents with closing agent (attorney).177. Provide earnest money deposit check from escrow account to closing agent.178. Coordinate this closing with seller’s next purchase and resolve any timing problems.179. Have a “no surprises” closing so that seller receives a net proceeds check at closing.180. Refer sellers to a Realtor at their destination, if applicable.181. Change MLS status to Sold. Enter sale date, price, selling broker and agent’s ID numbers, etc.182. Close out listing in transaction management program.Follow Up After Closing183. Answer questions about filing claims with Home Owner Warranty company, if requested.184. Attempt to clarify and resolve any conflicts about repairs if buyer is not satisfied.185. Respond to any follow-on calls and provide any additional information required from office files.Are You looking for Property?Check Your Property Rates on Oyeok AppAndroid: OYEOK-Real Estate Prices-Rates - Android Apps on Google PlayiOS: OYEOK-Real Estate Prices-Rates - Android Apps on Google Play

Shortly after the release of the first iPhone, Verizon asked BlackBerry to create a touchscreen “iPhone killer.” But the result was a flop, so Verizon turned to Motorola and Google instead.In 2012, one-time co-CEO Jim Balsillie quit the board and cut all ties to BlackBerry in protest after his plan to shift focus to instant-messaging software, which had been opposed by founder Mike Lazaridis, was killed by current CEO Thorsten Heins.Mr. Lazaridis opposed the launch plan for the BlackBerry 10 phones and argued strongly in favour of emphasizing keyboard devices. But Mr. Heins and his executives did not take the advice and launched the touchscreen Z10, with disastrous resultsLate last year, Research In Motion Ltd. chief executive officer Thorsten Heins sat down with the board of directors at the company’s Waterloo, Ont., headquarters to review plans for the launch of a new phone designed to turn around the company’s fortunes.His weapon was the BlackBerry Z10, a slim device with the kind of glass touchscreen that had made Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. the dominant names in the global smartphone market.But one of RIM’s directors was frustrated by what he saw, and spoke out, according to one person who was in the room. There is a cultural problem at RIM, he told the group, and the Z10 was a glaring manifestation of it.The speaker was none other than Michael Lazaridis, the genius behind the BlackBerry, the company’s co-founder and its former co-CEO. Minutes earlier, he said, he had spoken with Mr. Heins’s newest executive recruits, chief marketing officer Frank Boulben and chief operating officer Kristian Tear.Mr. Boulben and Mr. Tear had dismissively told Mr. Lazaridis that the market for keyboard-equipped mobile phones – RIM’s signature offering – was dead.In the board meeting, Mr. Lazaridis pointed to a BlackBerry with a keyboard. “I get this,” he said. “It’s clearly differentiated.” Then he pointed to a touchscreen phone. “I don’t get this.”To turn away from a product that had always done well with corporate customers, and focus on selling yet another all-touch smartphone in a market crowded with them, was a huge mistake, Mr. Lazaridis warned his fellow directors. Some of them agreed.The boardroom confrontation was a telling moment in the downfall of Research In Motion.Once the giant of the smartphone business, RIM, which was renamed BlackBerry Ltd. in the summer, is now on its knees. The company reported a $965-million (U.S.) fiscal second-quarter loss Friday, primarily because of a massive writedown of Z10 phones that sit, unsold and unwanted, about eight months after they first hit the market. The company is cutting 4,500 jobs, 40 per cent of its work force, in a desperate bid to bring costs in line with plummeting revenue.Investors, who have lived through the destruction of more than $75-billion of the company’s market value over the past five years, are still wondering how BlackBerry managed to blow its runaway lead and became a bit player in the smartphone market it invented.An investigation by The Globe and Mail, which included interviews with two dozen past and present company insiders, exposes a series of deep rifts at the executive and boardroom levels.Those divisions hurt the company’s ability to develop products just as it faced its greatest challenge from more nimble and creative rivals – and contributed to the downfall of Canada’s biggest technology company.Once a fast-moving innovator that kept two steps ahead of the competition, RIM grew into a stumbling corporation, blinded by its own success and unable to replicate it. Several years ago, it owned the smartphone world: Even U.S. President Barack Obama was a BlackBerry addict. But after new rivals redefined the market, RIM responded with a string of devices that were late to market, missed the mark with consumers, and opened dangerous fault lines across the organization.Months before their boardroom showdown, Mr. Heins and Mr. Lazaridis found themselves in another strategic standoff in which they were pitted against Jim Balsillie, Mr. Lazaridis’s long-time business partner and co-CEO.Inside RIM, the brash Mr. Balsillie had championed a bold strategy to re-establish the company’s place at the forefront of mobile communications. The plan was to push wireless carriers to adopt RIM’s popular BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) instant messaging service as a replacement for their short text messaging system (SMS) applications – no matter what kind of phone their customers used.It was a novel plan. If RIM could get BBM onto hundreds of millions of non-BlackBerry phones, and charge fees for it, the company would have an enormous new source of profit, Mr. Balsillie believed. “It was a really big idea,” said an employee who was involved in the project.But the plan ran into stiff opposition at senior levels. Not long after Mr. Heins took over as RIM’s CEO in January, 2012, he killed it, with Mr. Lazaridis’s support.That was it for Mr. Balsillie. Weeks later, he resigned from the board and cut his ties to the company.“My reason for leaving the RIM board in March, 2012, was due to the company’s decision to cancel the BBM cross-platform strategy,” Mr. Balsillie said in a brief statement to The Globe and Mail, his first public comments on his departure. He declined a request for an interview.Mr. Lazaridis, who declined to speak about board matters, resigned as a director this past March after delaying his retirement by a year at the board's request.Now, BlackBerry’s future is in doubt. This week, Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd., a Toronto-based investment company, announced a plan to lead a $4.7-billion takeover of the company. The offer is conditional, and requires a group of so-far uncommitted institutional investors to back Fairfax and provide financing.The company’s near-collapse is a painful situation for Mr. Lazaridis, a gifted engineer who co-founded RIM in a tiny Waterloo office above a bagel shop in 1984.“It’s really hurting me,” he said in an interview. “I can’t imagine what the employees must be thinking. Everyone is talking about the most likely scenario being that it will be broken up and sold off for parts. What will happen to the Waterloo region, or Canada? What company will take its place?”Competition risingMike Lazaridis was at home on his treadmill and watching television when he first saw the Apple iPhone in early 2007. There were a few things he didn’t understand about the product. So, that summer, he pried one open to look inside and was shocked. It was like Apple had stuffed a Mac computer into a cellphone, he thought.To Mr. Lazaridis, a life-long tinkerer who had built an oscilloscope and computer while in high school, the iPhone was a device that broke all the rules. The operating system alone took up 700 megabytes of memory, and the device used two processors. The entire BlackBerry ran on one processor and used 32 MB. Unlike the BlackBerry, the iPhone had a fully Internet-capable browser. That meant it would strain the networks of wireless companies like AT&T Inc., something those carriers hadn’t previously allowed. RIM by contrast used a rudimentary browser that limited data usage.“I said, ‘How did they get AT&T to allow [that]?’ Mr. Lazaridis recalled in the interview at his Waterloo office. “ ‘It’s going to collapse the network.’ And in fact, some time later it did.”Publicly, Mr. Lazaridis and Mr. Balsillie belittled the iPhone and its shortcomings, including its short battery life, weaker security and initial lack of e-mail. That earned them a reputation for being cocky and, eventually, out of touch. “That’s marketing,” Mr. Lazaridis explained. “You position your strengths against their weaknesses.”Internally, he had a very different message. “If that thing catches on, we’re competing with a Mac, not a Nokia,” he recalled telling his staff.RIM soon earned a chance to show up its new rival. RIM’s early smartphones had been a hit for Verizon Wireless, one of the biggest U.S. wireless players. Frozen out of the iPhone – Apple had signed an exclusive deal with AT&T – Verizon executives approached RIM in June, 2007, and asked if it could develop “an iPhone killer.” The product would need to have a touchscreen with no physical keyboard. Verizon would back the U.S. launch with a massive marketing campaign.RIM executives jumped at the chance. At one management meeting, Mr. Balsillie called it RIM’s most important strategic opportunity since the launch of its two-way e-mail pager.The product was the BlackBerry Storm. It was the most complex and ambitious project the company had ever done, but “the technology was cobbled together quickly and wasn’t quite ready,” said one former senior company insider who was involved in the project.The product was months late, hitting the market just before U.S. Thanksgiving in 2008. Many customers hated it. The touchscreen, RIM’s first, was awkward to manipulate. The product ran on a single processor and was slow and buggy. Mr. Balsillie put on a brave face, declaring the launch to be “an overwhelming success,” but sales lagged the iPhone and customer returns were high.The Storm campaign didn’t seem so disastrous at the time: RIM was in the midst of a torrid global expansion. In August, 2009, Fortune crowned it the world’s fastest-growing company. A year after the Storm launch, market research firm comScore reported that four of the top five smartphones U.S. customers intended to buy in the next three months were BlackBerrys.But the Storm had failed to give Verizon Wireless the Apple-killer it coveted, and RIM soon abandoned the product. So the carrier turned to Google Inc. and its new operating system, Android, and built a massive marketing campaign around Motorola’s Droid phone in 2009 – at the expense of marketing dollars to support BlackBerry products. Verizon’s “iDon’t” campaign highlighted all the shortcomings of the iPhone that Android addressed with its consumer-friendly user interface.Rather than hurt Apple, the Droid and other Android-powered phones began to steal share first from Palm and Microsoft, and then RIM. By December, 2010, Android’s market share in the U.S. had grown to 23.5 per cent from 5.2 per cent a year earlier, as RIM’s dropped by 10 points, to 31.6 per cent, according to comScore. By late 2011, Android commanded 47.3 per cent of the U.S. market, while RIM had just 16 per cent.A shift by smartphone usersThis post-iPhone period was an era of strategic confusion for RIM. The overall state of the industry “was a bit schizophrenic,” said Patrick Spence, RIM’s former executive vice-president of global sales, who left in 2012. “There was a time when the [wireless] carriers tried to keep data usage predictable. Then it shifted to a period of trying to drive much more usage in different packages, when the iPhone became compelling.”If there were new rules of the game, RIM would require new tools. The summer after the Storm launched, Mr. Lazaridis bought Torch Mobile, a software development firm that created Internet browsers for mobile phones.But the process of moving, or “porting,” the Torch browser onto RIM’s highly-customized system proved complex and time-consuming. RIM’s technology was based on Java computer code and an operating system built in the 1990s, while the Apple and Android systems used newer software platforms and standards that made it easier to build friendlier user interfaces. “This really meant we were not positioned for the future,” Mr. Lazaridis said. In order to survive, RIM would have to change its DNA.RIM executives figured they had time to reinvent the company. For years they had successfully fended off a host of challengers. Apple’s aggressive negotiating tactics had alienated many carriers, and the iPhone didn’t seem like a threat to RIM’s most loyal base of customers – businesses and governments. They would sustain RIM while it fixed its technology issues.But smartphone users were rapidly shifting their focus to software applications, rather than choosing devices based solely on hardware. RIM found it difficult to make the transition, said Neeraj Monga, director of research with Veritas Investment Research Corp. The company’s engineering culture had served it well when it delivered efficient, low-power devices to enterprise customers. But features that suited corporate chief information officers weren’t what appealed to the general public.“The problem wasn’t that we stopped listening to customers,” said one former RIM insider. “We believed we knew better what customers needed long term than they did. Consumers would say, ‘I want a faster browser.’ We might say, ‘You might think you want a faster browser, but you don’t want to pay overage on your bill.’ ‘Well, I want a super big very responsive touchscreen.’ ‘Well, you might think you want that, but you don’t want your phone to die at 2 p.m.’ “We would say, ‘We know better, and they’ll eventually figure it out.’ ”Trying to satisfy its two sets of customers – consumers and corporate users – could leave the company satisfying neither. When RIM executives showed off plans to add camera, game and music applications to its products to several hundred Fortune 500 chief information officers at a company event in Orlando in 2010, they weren’t prepared for the backlash that followed. Large corporate customers didn’t want personal applications on corporate phones, said a former RIM executive who attended the session.Meanwhile, it turned out consumers didn’t care so much about battery life or security features. They wanted apps. Apple’s iOs and Google’s Android systems were relatively easy for outside software developers to use, compared to BlackBerry’s technically complicated Java-based system.Blackberry’s apps looked “uglier” than those programmed in more modern languages, and the simulator used to test the apps often didn’t recreate the actual experience, said Trevor Nimegeers, a Calgary-based entrepreneur whose software company, Wmode, has developed apps for BlackBerry. Further, RIM exerted tight control over developers before it would sign off on their apps for use on BlackBerrys, stifling creativity. “Developers wanted to be embraced, not controlled,” Mr. Nimegeers said. As a result, hot apps such as Instagram and Tumblr bypassed BlackBerry.A split companyOne key to RIM’s early success was its corporate structure. It is unusual for a company to have two CEOs – Mr. Lazaridis focused on engineering, product management and supply chain, while Mr. Balsillie looked after sales, finance and other corporate functions – but for a long time, it worked. Mr. Lazaridis’s side of the shop made the phones, and Mr. Balsillie’s sold them. The two men were collegial and collaborative.Below the top executives, however, the two sides of the company didn’t always get along. And as the company grew into a leviathan with $20-billion in annual sales, the structure sometimes made it difficult to get definitive decisions or establish clear accountability. That contributed to a chronic problem for RIM: speed. “They were always slow to market, and there were always delays in launching,” said James Moorman, an analyst with S&P Capital IQ Equity Research. “It was compounded by miscalculating the speed at which the consumer market changed.”Sometimes, feedback from customers that might inspire changes would die at middle management, because senior executives didn’t want to bring it to Mr. Lazaridis, a former insider said.The split company also lost a major unifying force when chief operating officer Larry Conlee retired in 2009. Mr. Conlee was a whip-cracker who held executives to account for decisions and deadlines, establishing a project management office. Many insiders agreed that after he left, a slack attitude toward hitting targets began to permeate the company. “There was a gap” after Mr. Conlee’s departure, Adam Belsher, a former RIM vice-president, told The Globe last year. “There was no real operational executive on the product side that would really get teams to hit deadlines.”After relying on its own technology for so long, Mr. Lazaridis decided the company’s next advance would come from outside. In April, 2010, RIM announced a deal to acquire Ottawa-based QNX Software, a cutting-edge software maker that would provide the building blocks for the BlackBerry 10 operating system – the new platform Mr. Lazaridis knew the company needed.QNX was a specialist in industrial controls that used up-to-date software tools to run applications ranging from 911 call centres to wireless broadband services in vehicles. Its technology was the perfect core for smartphones and tablets, RIM’s leaders felt.Mr. Lazaridis decided to take a page from the business strategy book The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen. The book outlines how established organizations that succeeded against challengers often did so by allowing small, cloistered teams to develop their own disruptive products, free from the influence of the rest of the organization.Mr. Lazaridis decided he would isolate the QNX team and get them to focus solely on the new operating system, while leaving existing programmers to work on products for its existing platform, BlackBerry 7. Eventually he hoped QNX, led by its CEO Dan Dodge, would retrain his entire organization.But first, RIM had to answer a key question: If it wanted to remake the BlackBerry on the QNX system, what was the best way to do that? Should it move over some of its old Java-based applications, or rewrite them all from scratch? If the company abandoned Java altogether, what would it mean for third-party developers who used it?These were not easy decisions. Discussions among the senior leaders in Mr. Lazaridis’ organization dragged on for a year – far too long, according to several insiders.Eventually, the decision was made: BlackBerry 10 would be built from scratch. The problem with that approach was that a new team was being entrusted to recreate the BlackBerry. Those who had created the original system were still working on devices for the BlackBerry 7 platform. Once again, the company was split.“We had bought a powerful operating system and needed to move to it. But the BB7 was late,” Mr. Lazaridis said. “Every week, I was getting requests for more hires, more resources. The conundrum was, how do I pull resources off the BB7 to rewrite all the apps on top of QNX?”PlayBook painThe QNX team’s first assignment was to work on an operating system for the PlayBook, RIM’s answer to Apple’s successful iPad tablet. Mr. Lazaridis saw the work as a precursor to the BlackBerry 10 line of smartphones and was impressed by what the team brought to the product. “It helped our developers experience the power and elegance of QNX,” he said.But the QNX team was overwhelmed and needed to draw heavily on the company’s other resources to complete the PlayBook. Similar issues arose later on the BlackBerry 10. The tablet, originally slated to come out in the fall of 2010, didn’t appear until April, 2011, and it failed to sell. It was an awkward accessory to RIM’s smartphones, and lacked e-mail, contacts and apps. Once again, RIM had missed the mark: Tablets that sold well worked as standalone devices, which the PlayBook wasn’t.Some questioned the wisdom of launching the PlayBook in the first place, feeling it was a needless and costly distraction. And the decision to isolate QNX also created tensions and morale problems: Those who weren’t on the team worried about their future.“To me, the most logical thing would have been to integrate the operating system organizations into one,” said one senior executive who was caught up in the fray. “Then you’d have a whole team, not 150 people sitting around saying, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do next,’ and another 150 people saying ‘I’m over my head.’ ”Meanwhile, RIM’s lack of an advanced smartphone meant that it continued to bleed market share to Apple and Android, especially in the United States. In December, 2010, Verizon Wireless announced it would invest in fourth generation (4G) LTE technology to accommodate the growing demands of customers who wanted to surf the Internet on their phones. It signalled to device makers that it would look to feature 4G smartphones in its marketing.RIM’s 4G phone effort was the BlackBerry 10, but it was far from ready. RIM executives tried to make an engineering argument to carriers that 4G technology was no more efficient than 3G, and that its Bold phones were just fine. Mr. Lazaridis, Mr. Heins and chief technology officer David Yach “were trying to reshape the argument because they knew our products couldn’t go there,” a former executive said. “It was a fight to stay in [promotional] programs with carriers. We lost channel support and feature ads.”The PlayBook debacle and mounting delays of the BlackBerry 10 harmed the organization in other ways.For years, Mr. Yach and Mr. Lazaridis had enjoyed a close working relationship. But as the well-regarded Mr. Yach began to question the company’s ability to hit deadlines on products, his views were dismissed and he was made to feel he wasn’t a team player, damaging their relationship, observers said. He left the company in early 2012.The PlayBook flop merely added to the sense of a company in decline; 2011 became a signNow turning point for RIM. As it became clear the brand was getting trounced in the market, and the BlackBerry 10 project was hit by signNow delays, the stock plunged, falling from $69 (Canadian) in February to less than $15 by the year’s end.The pressure mounted on Mr. Balsillie, Mr. Lazaridis and the board. In January, 2012, they stepped aside as co-CEOs and handed it over to Thorsten Heins, a German executive who had run the company’s handset division.Almost immediately, there was division about how to roll out the BlackBerry 10. The original strategy had called for the company to launch an all-touchscreen version first, because sales were still going well for the company’s BlackBerry 7 keyboard phone.But by 2012, sales of BlackBerry 7 phones had lost steam, and Mr. Lazaridis, now deputy chairman, felt the company should switch its priority to getting a keyboard version out, to meet the demand from BlackBerry die-hards.“This is our bread and butter, our iconic device,” he told an executive at the company. “The keyboard is one of the reasons they buy BlackBerrys.”Mr. Heins’s new management team held firm, sources close to the board said. “They believed everything was going to full touch” and that the QNX-designed system was clearly superior to what was available on other mobile operating systems.To Mr. Lazaridis, abandoning the company’s competitive advantage in the hopes consumers would embrace yet another touchscreen was too risky a strategy, setting up the showdown at the board last year. In the end, management agreed to continue developing the Q10 keyboard phone. But the all-touchscreen Z10 would be launched first.By the time the first BlackBerry 10 smartphones were unveiled in January of this year, market observers generally agreed that the products were two years too late – a view widely shared among many senior RIM insiders.“Buying QNX was the right play ultimately,” said Mr. Spence. “But we didn’t make the turn fast enough. Everyone underestimated the complexity” involved in building the new system.A BBM planFor 20 years, Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis operated in tandem, building an increasingly successful partnership that allowed each other’s strengths to flourish.They shared an office in their early years, even possessing each other’s voice mail passwords.As RIM grew, they worked in separate buildings but spoke several times a day. “They had a relationship I wish I had with my wife,” one mid-level executive said.But they had different personalities and their lives seldom intersected outside the office. They have barely spoken since leaving the company.For Mr. Lazaridis, science was both a job and a pastime. Mr. Balsillie was brash, competitive and athletic, and wore his reputation for being aggressive, even bullying in meetings, as a badge of honour. If anything, he viewed that outward toughness as a job requirement, not unlike tech CEOs such as Steve Ballmer at Microsoft Corp. or Apple’s Steve Jobs. “Show me how else you build a $20-billion company,” he once confided to a colleague. “If I was Mr. Easy-going, they would kill BlackBerry.”The two rarely disagreed on key strategic moves – until their last year together. Mr. Lazaridis believed BlackBerry 10 would herald RIM’s renaissance. Mr. Balsillie wasn’t so sure.Mr. Balsillie was concerned that Google had commoditized the smartphone market by making its Android operating system available for free to any handset maker. By 2011, wireless carriers were warning him that they would be ordering fewer BlackBerry products unless he dropped his prices to match rival manufacturers.So Mr. Balsillie pushed an alternative plan.The idea started with Aaron Brown, the executive who oversaw the services division at RIM. By 2010, this division was earning $800-million per quarter in revenue from the monthly service access fee it charged mobile carriers for every BlackBerry subscriber. More than 90 per cent of that was profit. Carriers tried to chip away at those fees – Google and Apple didn’t charge them – but RIM always pushed back. Mr. Balsillie was particularly insistent on keeping the service fees. But the executives knew the company’s weakening position in devices would increase pressure on services revenues as well.Even after its terrible year in 2011, RIM still had several advantages, including close relationships with the world’s major carriers. It also had BlackBerry Messenger.RIM developers created the BBM app in 2005 to enable users to communicate not by e-mail but by using their devices’ “personal identification numbers” or PINs. It was the first instant messaging service built for wireless devices, and it caught on quickly. It was reliable, free, always on and users could send as many messages as they wanted at no extra cost, unlike basic text messages. PINs were random codes, not phone numbers or e-mail addresses, enhancing privacy. That made BBM extremely popular in countries where citizens didn’t enjoy as many freedoms as Western democracies, and helped drive handset sales there.BBM’s developers added a few clever elements that also made it addictive. For example, users would know when a message had been delivered and when it had been read, marked D and R. Today there are 60 million monthly active users.But BBM only worked on BlackBerrys. As Apple and Android took off, BBM knock-offs appeared that could function on those devices, including Kik Interactive Inc., founded by Ted Livingston, a former RIM co-op student. Today Kik, boasts 85 million users, more than BlackBerry (which sued Mr. Livingston for allegedly copying its program). Others, such as WhatsApp, are even larger. Instant messaging “is the killer app of the mobile era,” Mr. Livingston said. “We think there will be a Google or Facebook-sized company that comes out of this category.”RIM’s Mr. Brown believed he could tap into this unfolding trend. While working with Mr. Balsillie on other projects, around late 2010 and early 2011, he began to talk up the concept of offering BBM on other mobile platforms.Mr. Balsillie loved it. At the time, some carriers were pushing for rebates on their monthly service fees. Mr. Brown was willing to comply if the carriers would agree to open new parts of their business to RIM. He and Mr. Balsillie struck upon an idea: Why not give carriers the opportunity to offer BBM to all their customers – no matter what devices they used?Most wireless executives were not fans of instant messaging services and other “over-the-top” apps such as Skype because they eroded the carriers’ revenue from text messaging.To counter that threat, carriers banded together to develop a standardized “rich communication service” (RCS) platform that would enable their customers to exchange text messages, videos, games and other digital information. But the initiative has gained little traction; one commentator recently labelled RCS a “zombie technology.”SMS 2.0Mr. Balsillie began floating the idea that carriers could instead offer BBM as their own enhanced version of text messaging, generating revenue for carriers while providing a cut for RIM. He called it “SMS 2.0.” (SMS stands for “short message service.”) RIM would agree to reduce the fees it charged for services, in exchange for gaining access to hundreds of millions of non-BlackBerry users.He and Mr. Brown discussed several options. For example, carriers could offer BBM as part of a standard “talk and text” plan for entry-level smartphone users. Because of its extra functions, BBM would save customers from having to buy a data plan.Or, carriers could offer an expensive plan that included BBM and other offerings from BlackBerry, including one gigabyte of cloud storage on which they could keep photos or songs. The carriers could then sell extra services such as radio through BBM. It would also make the wireless companies’ customers “stickier” – less likely to defect – since they couldn’t move stored data to rival mobile carriers as easily.The SMS 2.0 plan was a throwback to RIM’s move a decade earlier to form partnerships with mobile providers and share revenues. It was a chance to make BBM the dominant chat messaging service, and would have created a new storyfor the BlackBerry brand.A few carriers responded positively to Mr. Balsillie’s initial entreaties and by mid-2011, he was calling SMS 2.0 the company’s top strategic priority.To round out the strategy, and build a suite of cross-platform services, RIM made a few acquisitions, such as instant messaging firm LiveProfile. The service had about 15 million users and worked on Apple and Android devices, giving BBM the entrée it needed to those platforms.But the plan deeply divided the company. BBM was still an important driver of BlackBerry sales. Making it widely available to competitors represented an added threat to RIM’s faltering handset business, led by Mr. Heins at the time. Many inside the company felt a cross-platform BBM made sense, but only when BlackBerry 10 was out. Mr. Balsillie and proponents of his plan felt that would be too late.“It’s fair to say [the risk to handset sales] was a shared concern of everybody I spoke to,” said former RIM executive Mr. Spence. “But it was hard to deny the fact [carriers’ text messaging] revenue was declining. These carriers were looking for a solution and this was a potential solution.”One former executive felt Mr. Balsillie was overestimating the revenue potential of his software-driven strategy. As Mr. Balsillie talked up SMS 2.0, Mr. Heins and his team increasingly cast doubt on it internally. “He was absolutely canvassing behind the scenes working to kill it,” said one company insider.As for Mr. Lazaridis, he was supportive of launching BBM for rival operating systems, but was concerned about the costs and risks involved in building out the SMS 2.0 strategy, said a source close to the board. “We weren’t in a position to be investing in free services that required massive capital expenditure [and could provide] zero payback for maybe a few years if we’re successful,” the source said. Like others, Mr. Lazaridis worried about handset sales.But Mr. Balsillie was increasingly convinced that SMS 2.0 was the way to go. After pitching the plan to CEOs of 12 of the largest wireless carriers in the world in late 2011, he believed he could sign up at least one major U.S. carrier – insiders say AT&T was interested – as well as Telefonica and one or two other European carriers. That’s all it would take, he felt, to convince others to adopt BBM en masse.But other RIM executives who were part of the growing SMS 2.0 team also encountered resistance.Mr. Balsillie was pushing to formally launch SMS 2.0 at an industry conference at the end of February, 2013. But with the company under mounting pressure to overhaul its top leadership, he and Mr. Lazaridis handed the reins to Mr. Heins in late January.A few weeks later, Mr. Heins killed the SMS 2.0 strategy, backed by Mr. Lazaridis.“We had to get the BlackBerry 10 out, and we couldn’t be distracted,” said a source close to the board. “Everything else was shelved. And if that meant getting rid of strategies that didn’t fit, or weren’t complete, or required resources, I think [Mr. Heins] did the right thing.”The Globe and Mail requested interviews with Mr. Heins and with Barbara Stymiest, the chair of the board. The company declined, but agreed to agreed to provide answers to written questions.Asked why he shelved SMS 2.0, Mr. Heins said in an e-mailed response: “There are so many [instant messaging] alternatives in the marketplace that we wanted to be careful to launch only when we felt we could clearly differentiate our offering.”Mr. Balsillie, no longer an executive but still a board member, urged directors to reconsider, but they backed the new CEO. Mr. Balsillie couldn’t abide by the decision. He resigned from the board in late March, then sold all his stock. Few people knew the reason for his departure, including his long-time co-CEO, Mr. Lazaridis.BlackBerry did launch a version of its BBM application last weekend for iPhones and Android devices, but simply as a stand-alone app. Andrew Bocking, the executive who oversees BBM, said that with built-in capabilities to have group chats, share photos, calendar items and other features, “it really takes BBM to a whole other level … I believe there is an opportunity for a dominant player in instant messaging and there will be one winner-take-all.”To those who championed the SMS 2.0 strategy, most of them now gone, RIM should have been well on its way there already.A fizzled launchFinally, close to six years after Apple unveiled the iPhone, the long-awaited BlackBerry 10 made its debut at a glitzy launch event in January, featuring singer Alicia Keys as the company’s “global creative director.” It was a minor detail in a much larger story, but the made-up title and meaningless job irked some who wondered why the company was distracting itself with celebrity endorsements while in the fight of its life.The Z10 device itself won a number of positive reviews. The New York Times’ David Pogue, who previously had predicted that the BlackBerry was doomed, began his review: “I’m sorry. I was wrong.” But eight months later, it’s hard to see the launch as anything other than a total business failure, given the sheer volume of unsold smartphones now written off.The marketing campaign was confusing and vague: An ad that ran during the Super Bowl failed to explain what made the product distinct. A source close to the board said directors weren’t shown the ad before it ran, and some didn’t understand the content or the slogan, “Keep Moving.” There were no lineups, and no buzz for the product – nothing like the frenzy of publicity that seems to surround the launch of each new version of the iPhone.Once again, the market had shifted, and there was little demand for the Z10 in an era where sophisticated operating systems were commonplace and phones were getting cheaper. The one advantage the BlackBerry may have had over its rivals – a physical keyboard – wasn’t present in the first model to hit the market.“The only people still clamouring for a new smartphone from BlackBerry were in it for the keyboard,” said S&P’s Mr. Moorman. “Then they come out with a touchscreen. Anyone who wanted a touchscreen was already gone.”As it turns out, both Mr. Balsillie and Mr. Lazaridis were proven right. It was hard enough to compete in a commoditizing smartphone market. Leading with the wrong product on top of that only made BlackBerry’s task more hopeless. Mr. Heins’s strategic errors only compounded the challenging situation he had inherited.The product was difficult to sell for other reasons. One company insider said it could take close to an hour for young sales staff to demonstrate the product in dealer stores.And many long-time BlackBerry users found that the new system was too different from the classic BlackBerry experience for their liking. Many of the little “moments of delight,” as they are called in the company, were forgotten or overlooked by the QNX developers who lacked ties to the company’s past. For example, users can’t hit “u” and look at the last unread message in their inbox, nor can they easily shift to the next or previous e-mail, as they could on older BlackBerrys. Pocket-dialling is a constant hazard.Meanwhile, the company was slow to provide service to business users – such as helping them to transfer applications they had written for the old BlackBerry system. Software developers were left with dead-end investments after learning they would have to rewrite their apps for the new system if they wanted to remain part of the BlackBerry world. Many simply didn’t bother.“The decisions we made over the last two years were made within the context of a volatile, competitive and ever-changing marketplace – and always with the goal of delivering the vital technology that our customers need,” Mr. Heins said in a written response to questions about the success of the BlackBerry 10 launch. While he called the launch “a signNow accomplishment and one that involved the reinvention of our company,” he acknowledged it “did not meet our expectations.”As for Mr. Lazaridis, he has not given up on the enterprise he founded 29 years ago.He is still a minority shareholder in BlackBerry, and continues to be the subject of rumours he may join a group to buy out his former company.Mr. Lazaridis declined to discuss any such plans, but it is clear he believes the BlackBerry story is not over.“Many companies go through cycles. Intel experienced it, IBM experienced it, Apple experienced it. Our job was to reinvent ourselves, which we all believed BB10 would do,” he said.“The fact that a Canadian company was able to compete in that space with two of the largest tech companies in the world is a big deal. People counted IBM, Apple and other companies out only to be proven wrong. I am rooting that they are wrong on BlackBerry as well.”