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Zend Studio for Eclipse Released

admin — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 06:26:25 +0000

On January 22, 2008 Zend Technologies, Inc. released Zend Studio for Eclipse 6, a new IDE for the PHP programming language. It is the successor to Zend Studio 5, and as the name implies, is built on top of the Eclipse IDE framework. Unless you have been programming in a cave somewhere, you already know that in the last few years Eclipse has grown to become the most popular and powerful programming environment on the planet. Eclipse has an open plug-in architecture, and Zend has created a set of PHP plug-ins that draw upon the power the Eclipse framework offers. (more…)

Business Intelligence Roadmap

Amazon — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 03:52:38 +0000

If you are looking for a book that describes the process of implementing a Business Intelligence project, authors Larissa Moss and Shaku Atre have done an excellent job. Their book Business Intelligence Roadmap: The Complete Project Lifecycle for Decision-Support Applications describes a ground plan for BI from a vendor neutral perspective. With the number of BI offerings that are available, each touting their own style, it’s refreshing to finally get an outlook that focuses on managing the project over selling specific features. This book certainly fills that void. (more…)

IBM Closes the Deal With Cognos

admin — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 03:22:47 +0000

January 31, 2008. The IBM purchase of Cognos is complete. Following the SAP purchase of Business Object, and the Oracle purchase of Hyperion and now BEA, finalizing the purchase of Cognos must be a relief to IBM. The deal had been in the works for months, and with the approval of Cognos shareholders has now come to pass. (more…)

Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software

Amazon — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 03:29:02 +0000

Originally published in 1995 by authors Eric Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides, Design Patterns is probably the most world-changing and important text on Object-Oriented Programming written to date. The book was inspired by the idea of reusable design patterns that originated with Christopher Alexander’s book on architectural design, called A Pattern Language. The Gang-of-Four (GoF) book established a new lexicon for OOP based on their broad and extensive software design experience. (more…)

FastCGI and PHP 5 on Windows

admin — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 04:40:34 +0000

The LAMP/WAMP (Linux/Windows Apache MySQL & PHP) web server stack has evolved into a viable lightweight network server platform. One of the problems of using WAMP servers is the way CGI processes are evoked. When PHP is used as a CGI process, it is reloaded each time a PHP script is called. A new instance of PHP runs each time a script executes. To get around this limitation, web servers running a FastCGI module can keep a service loaded so it doesn’t need to load anew each time it is evoked. (more…)

Business Process Management

admin — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 04:11:48 +0000

Business Process Management (BPM) is an activity focused on the continuous improvement of business operations and the technology that supports it. Business Process Management uses Process Modeling techniques to analyze, design, implement, monitor, and optimize, business functions. From an Information Technology (IT) perspective it is similar to the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). The IT aspect of Business Process Management is often called Business Process Modeling, and included as part of an Enterprise Architecture. (more…)

Enterprise Architecture

admin — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 04:30:46 +0000

Enterprise Architecture is the process of planning, designing, and implementing the structure of an organization’s knowledge assets, information processes, and workflow, to support and align with its business goals and strategy. The underlying purpose is to ensure that business processes, their organization, and performance, is directly addressed by current and future information technology, including hardware systems, application software, and data storage mechanisms. (more…)

Simple JavaScript OOP Programming

admin — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 04:11:52 +0000

JavaScript has a unique style for Object-Oriented Programming. The style is closer to the syntax of a functional language than a procedural language. The syntax is not difficult to learn, but it behaves completely unlike what you expect from a compiled language like Java or C++. Central to JavaScript OOP is the way that new functions may be attached to existing objects. Here are a few simple example of how a JavaScript object can be instantiated and manipulated. (more…)

Business Intelligence

admin — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 03:57:41 +0000

Business Intelligence encompasses a range of techniques to collect, integrate, analyze, and present information about business operations. Business Intelligence tools draw upon historical data contained in a relational database, Data Warehouse. or Data Mart. Current information is compared with historical data as well as predictions from models to generate reports that help decision makers evaluate performance. Data Visualization techniques combined with Data Mining tools may be applied to financial, production, and sales data to identify trends through the use of statistical analysis and machine learning techniques. (more…)

Digital Signage and Narrowcasting

admin — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 04:36:37 +0000

Digital Signage could soon be coming to a display screen near you. Imagine Google AdWords tied into a network of Internet-driven kiosk advertisements. Combined with RFID technology it might identify the items you are purchasing and offer coupons through a store display or in a checkout line. The Google patent Allocating Advertising Space In A Network of Displays describes the format in detail. Here is an excerpt… (more…)

Ten Keys to Successful Collaboration

admin — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 06:32:07 +0000

Why do some teams work well together and other do not? A great deal of research has been done over the years to determine why some collaborative efforts excel while others fail miserably. While the reasons vary, ten major factors are consistently present in teams that are successful. Here are the top ten, including the number one. Take a look! (more…)

A Simple JavaScript AJAX Example

admin — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 04:01:09 +0000

AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) uses a combination of JavaScript, XHTML/XML, and DHTML techniques to create dynamic web pages that can update without reloading. The technique is based on the use of the JavaScript XMLHttpRequest() function to perform GET and POST operations with a server script, with additional client side DHTML code to modify the requested page elements. (more…)

XHTML Is Easier Than You May Think

admin — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 22:03:24 +0000

If you have been creating HTML 4.1 and CSS web pages for some time you’ve probably noticed that an increasing number of web pages now use XHTML formatting. There are several reasons why XHTML is a better choice for web pages. If you have put off learning to use XHTML, here is a straightforward introduction that may help change your mind. (more…)

Sun Buys MySQL

admin — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 20:23:09 +0000

On January 16, 2008, Sun Microsystems announced that it will purchase MySQL AB for a cool $1 billion. MySQL AB is known for the widely popular MySQL database. Sun Microsystems is the creator of the Java programming language and the Solaris Unix-based operating system, as well as Java support technologies such as NetBeans. (more…)

Oracle Buys BEA

admin — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 20:21:16 +0000

On January 16, 2008, Oracle Corporation announced that it will purchase BEA Systems for $8.5 billion. The announcement comes three months after BEA rejected an initial offer of $17 a share. The new offer of $19.38 a share is 14% higher than the original, and 24% higher than the closing price of $15.58 on the day the deal was made. (more…)

TCP/IP and UDP/IP

admin — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 18:22:19 +0000

The Internet protocol (IP) suite centers on the two most common communication standards called TCP and UDP. TCP/IP and UDP/IP evolved in the 1970s as a means for connecting Local Area Networks. The TCP/IP communication model is viewed as having 4 or 5 layers, and is the predecessor to The OSI Model. This article describes the fundamental concepts of the TCP/IP and UDP/IP model. (more…)

The OSI Model

admin — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:58:20 +0000

The OSI (Open System Interconnection) Reference Model is a 7 layer communication model for computer networks. Originally created in the early 1980s by the ISO (International Standards Organization), it defines a layered protocol for host to client communications. This article briefly describes the layers of the OSI model. (more…)

Perl OOP Programming - Part 1

admin — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 04:22:56 +0000

Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) in Perl is a like riding on the back of a strange imaginary beast. You eventually arrive at the destination, but explaining to someone how you got there takes some creative doing. In Part 1 of this article we look at how Perl can be used to create code that mimics Object-Oriented Programming. If we squint hard, we might even fool ourselves into thinking we’re really doing OOP, as long as we don’t look closely. So grab onto your saddle…here we go! (more…)

Best FireFox Add-ons

admin — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 04:56:43 +0000

If you are not already using Mozilla FireFox, you should try it. It’s the most flexible web browser yet, and the first major competition that Microsoft Internet Explorer has had since NetScape. One of pleasures of FireFox is the large collection of free add-ons that are available. Many of the add-ons are high quality, and tremendously enhance FireFox’s functionality.

Since installing a lot of add-ons that run all the time can slow down FireFox, we have focused on a few choice FireFox add-ons that have a minimal impact on the total system performance. Some are useful to everyone, and others will be more useful to programmers and developers. (more…)

Using NetBeans 6 with GNU C++

admin — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 04:49:14 +0000

The Sun NetBeans 6 IDE is a free development environment for Java, but is available for cross platform C/C++ development as well. The NetBeans 6 download is about 12MB and unpacks to about 55MB. Sun recommends using Cygwin C/C++, GMake, and GDB debugger. With some additional effort MinGW can be used as an alternative compiler on Windows machines. Users that choose MinGW will need MSYS support. This document gives a brief overview of the installation process. For a detailed explanation visit the NetBeans and Cygwin web sites. (more…)

Best C++ Programming Books

admin — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 04:28:17 +0000

Learning to program C++ is not what I would call a simple task. Finding books that present the information at your level of comprehension is important. Beginners need a simple step-by-step presentation that an experienced programmer is likely to find boring. The collection of book listed below is oriented towards individuals with some existing experience and programming knowledge. The texts are considered to be among the best available, and will move you through the intermediate stages and into the advanced. (more…)

Data Warehouse

admin — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 04:25:15 +0000

A Data Warehouse is a repository for historical business data. A data warehouse is used to consolidate large amounts transaction and operational data into a form that can be queried for analysis. Typically the data in a data warehouse has been cleansed and normalized in a process known as ETL (extract, transform, and load). The data is them organized by specific dimensions and stored in a Data Cube. Dimensions include time (day, month, year), geographic locale (country, region, state, city), and product type. (more…)

Data Mining

admin — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 04:24:30 +0000

Data Mining is part of the Business Intelligence process. Data Mining is centered on the extraction and analysis of useful information from large data sets. Data mining uses an extensive collection of techniques and algorithms, including statistics and artificial intelligence approaches, and also pattern recognition and machine learning. (more…)