IT Readings Log   

Thursday, February 23, 2006

unserialize Yahoo! search results

Sounds interesting:

Yahoo! have opened up a PHP Development Center for their search APIs and, more
interestingly, have started exposing their search data as serialized PHP
strings.


http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2006/02/23/unserialize-yahoo-search-results/

New Google Product to be launched: "Google Page Creator"

News: New Google Product to be launched. Not available for now "due to massive requests"

http://pages.google.com/-/about.html

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

About Google again, this time funny styff

Do you know where the `center` of Google Map is? Here's the answer:

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/internet/0,70227-0.html?tw=rss.index

Painless JavaScript Using Prototype

Another JavaScript Library...

Prototype is a JavaScript framework that aims to ease development of dynamic web
applications. Featuring a unique, easy-to-use toolkit for class-driven
development and the nicest Ajax library around, Prototype is quickly becoming
the codebase of choice for web application developers everywhere.

Read more here:
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/painless-javascript-prototype

And here it is a very nice diagram of this library's methods and ... all that:
http://www.snook.ca/archives/000531.php

( http://www.snook.ca/archives/prototype1440.png )

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Boot camp tactics won't win the battle

I got this by mail. I have no idea how it reached me but it was a plain and simple email providing me this link.

Few interesting things here:
- I think I have a poor memory and actually this link was requested by me or I submitted my email somewhere or I forgot
- The link was suggested with the text: "You might be interested to know ..." and they are right: I am interested in this type of articles and I did enjoy it.
- If this was a spam, then they really sent it to the proper person, it was not interpreted as spam by gmail and it looked as a clean email.
- I don't open emails from addresses not in my address book, but I opened this one.

Hmm... after reading the above, I can actually bet I requested this information.

It is about Project & Company Management, it is about the rules you enforce / follow, it is about giving results and following real metrics when aiming for better productivity.

It is a long article, if you are not interested in Management, skip it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2006/02/16/ccboot16.xml

Free CRM Launches Synchronization Products

This is an outstanding free online product that I've been watching. Professional version is not that 'free' but it is waaay less expensive than any other similar product on the market.

Make time for looking into this product, you don't actually have to register, browse the tabs at the location and read the details on each page: you will get a clear view of their capabilities.

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/060221/20060221006052.html?.v=1

Check it, it is a must!

Datamation.com Announces Product of the Year Winners

... and the winner is...

Here it is a list with " Product of the Year Winners" issued by Datamation.com, one of the well-known IT news and reviews network, part of Jupitermedia Corporation.

Let's see what do they mean by great products:

http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/columns/article.php/3586381

Vertical Alignment vs. DOCTYPE

This is something that if you run into, you can dig and search for hours without a good solution. I thought I might need it later but I know for sure you will need this. Read it before you run into this problem.

It seems that by having DOCTYPE specified in your HTML code (and that is as per W3C standards !) your HTML will not be interpreted properly when you specify height=100%.

That will mess up your vertical middle alignment, if you used the old "table with height=100% and some TD having valign=middle" way of doing things.

Read full forum discussions here

Thanks Laur !

Monday, February 20, 2006

Here Comes a Google for Coders

I bet you will find this useful...

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70219-0.html?tw=rss.index

... but it will only launch in March. Until then you can check Beta Version.

How to Raise Funds for Your Own Startup

Good to know.

Don’t quit your day job! This phrase has been heard by countless would-be
entrepreneurs. If you are considering starting a company of your own to build
the next great software product or service, don’t let the naysayers dissuade
you.


http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/columns/smit/article.php/3585736

Stop trusting System Administrators

Yeah, right...

My opinion is that... if you do not trust your own people, you can't do anything about it, you are paranoic.
Setup responsibilities and constraints, grow that person in a way that you can trust him /her.

http://techrepublic.com.com/5247-6257-0.html?id=4302725

Microsoft Begins to Build Toward Live Launch With Office Beta

News on Microsoft, about their upcoming Office Live.
It is expected to make a real impact on users.

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/48905.html

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/48915.html

Thursday, February 16, 2006

JavaScript Libraries and Patterns: Yahoo! Does AJAX

Downloadable AJAX libraries used by yahoo and not only. Look over the article or jump directly to the downloads links within the article.

http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2006/02/16/javascript-libraries-and-patterns-yahoo-does-ajax/

More links on this:

http://developer.yahoo.net/ypatterns/index.php

http://devhawk.net/2006/02/14/Yet+Another+AJAX+Toolkit.aspx

Tips & Tricks

HINT: Find the Total Number of Tables in an MS Access Database (I badly needed this a long time ago and finally implemented it different than here. Seems easy when you have the solution)
http://www.devx.com/tips/Tip/30532?trk=DXRSS_DB

Print datagrid of multiple columns on seperate pages (did not tried this solution but had the problem)
http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/Print_Grid.asp

Encrypting Configuration Information in ASP.NET 2.0 Applications (good to know)
http://aspnet.4guysfromrolla.com/articles/021506-1.aspx

Data Shaping

This is one of the greatest tech articles I read in the past two months. I will always enjoy learning something that makes such a big difference with small and clear implementation.

I also enjoy tips on database design or data handling.

The following article presents a way of grouping data, but it is not about the GROUP BY or ORER BY that we all know and it produces the result that we actually expect on the interface (that requires a little bit of coding besides the GROUP BY / ORDER BY, if we decide to go with the “GROUP BY” or "ORDER BY" or JOINs option).

Read it. It is a must.

http://www.4guysfromrolla.com/webtech/092599-1.shtml

Thanks, Borex.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Two kinds of AJAX: HTML++ vs Client / SOA

Before all this AJAX thing to boom all over IT websites, there were several concepts similar to it. I saw quite a few websites that were avoiding page refresh and were handling the interface and usability in such a smart way that it was finally producing the same effect AJAX has these days.

At the beginning there were hidden frames that were doing the job of going back and forth to the server to get pieces of data or submit information and the main frame was not refreshing. After a while they started to use IFrames and built JavaScript Classes to generate IFrames and handle the communication to the server.

What was it that made AJAX so popular when we already had similar techniques?
- It was a good time for giving a NAME to these techniques and improve them
- It made things simple and easy to use
- Products using this technique made a difference on the net

http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2006/02/15/two-kinds-of-ajax-html-vs-client-soa/

Why Your Customers Hate Your Web Site

The following article talks about marketing. It talks about being popular among your targeted customers.

It says your website has to supply them the critical information they are looking for "In Less Than Three Seconds".

I know that. I learned it from my own experience when tried to show to one of my friends for the first time a website I built and I was asked... after about 1 minute of looking at the first web page: "what is this website about?". I thought that guy was stupid, then I tried it on others (to convince myself I was right). I tried then with other websites of mine because I kept on getting the same result. I tried then with other ... some of them known websites... Same thing.

If you do not make it obvious what is it about.. they won't go further.

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/48866.html

Got chips?

ID chips not just for pets any more


http://edition.cnn.com/2006/TECH/02/13/security.chips.ap/index.html?section=edition_technology

Google, BearingPoint Announce Search Consulting Effort

No day without Google news:

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/48843.htmls/

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Database Design Using Key-Value Tables

Interesting article with examples on database design specific case study. I was never a fan of Key-Value Tables, even more, I find this design "old", I never had a good opportunity to use it.

http://www.devshed.com/c/a/MySQL/Database-Design-Using-KeyValue-Tables/

Microsoft's 'Live': Another .Net Disaster in the Making?

I thought this is about technology or at least the product itself, but I found out that it is about branding and marketing campaign. It is about the abuse of ".NET" in everything MS is doing and about the fact that they started to do it with "Live" word, too.

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,2180,1926006,00.asp

Monday, February 13, 2006

Let's Face It, We're All Screwed

Not me!
Honestly, I did read this article only because of the title. Here's a quote to get you excited about it:
I recently received the book `My Job Went to India (And All I Got Was This Lousy
Book)`
in the mail.
http://dotnet.sys-con.com/read/180898.htm

Internet Explorer & CSS issues

Quoting from the article:

Many of the problems however lie with Internet Explorer implementing CSS
commands differently to other, more standards compliant browsers.

http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/css-internet-explorer.asp

Yet another anti-Microsoft guy. He might be right, though...

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Google software allows remote access to PCs

Oh yes, Google again.

Have you been missing it?

Google is looking into allowing remote PC access and search. There it is some controversy, though.

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/TECH/internet/02/09/google.desktop.ap/index.html?section=edition_technology

Rising Costs Threaten India's Hold on Offshore IT

Looks like India grows as economy and this is also growing the IT costs for the offshore companies in there. Same in Romania as far as I know.

It will always be a place to offshore. What I am wondering is... what about India (and Romania in our case)? Will these IT markets face the increased price per developer? Will the IT industry in here remain active and valuable?

The difference will be speed and quality of developed applications.

http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/career/article.php/3583621

Developing and Implementing Applications

Important article. Read it if you have something to do with Databases (especially Oracle) and Applications. I am fighting to enforce several practices out of the ones described here. See?! I am not the only one and I am not crazy :-)

Brief ideas:
- Keep it simple
- Strive to Avoid Trips to the Database
- For Reporting Systems, Store the Data the Way the Users Will Query It
- Use the Right Indexes
- Divide and Conquer Your Data
- Test with Large Volumes of Data

http://www.devshed.com/c/a/Oracle/Developing-and-Implementing-Applications/

Sun Urged to Surrender OpenOffice Control

I had no idea IBM got the sources from OpenOffice, enhanced them and distributed them, so that it all leaded to the situation where, right now we have available "on the market" two OpenOffice versions. Now I know.

Interesting story:
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/48741.html

Free VMWare Server

I understood VMWare issued a FREE version of their Player that is letting you run an existing virtual environment. Pretty cool.

But I was surprised they actually give away for free the server. The one that lets you create and run and remotely access the VMWare environment. Hmmm... second surprise this week after Borland's giving up on JBuilder and rest of their development tools.

http://www.vmware.com/products/server/

JBuilder Seeks Good Home

This is surprising news for me.

We are using JBuilder for a long time already. Years and years. Surprisingly, but Borland is "giving up" on developing it further, it is actually looking for another company to continue this effort.

Borland sells all of it's development tools, including developers. Read more...

http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2006/02/09/jbuilder-seeks-good-home/

Don’t forget about providing value

As if you don't know it, providing a value to your product will make it sell good and will make it last. Make sure you know your target customer and you satisfy its needs with your product, don't build the product to satisfy your needs. Make it so it is valuable for the targeted customers.

Credits go to:
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2006/02/10/dont-forget-about-providing-value/

Generating XML Schema Dynamically Using VB.NET 2005: Essentials

Article on how to generate XML out of .NET, not just writing the text to a file and be careful with its format, but actually using .NET objects and embedded tools.

http://www.aspfree.com/c/a/XML/Generating-XML-Schema-Dynamically-Using-VBNET-2005-Essentials/

Friday, February 10, 2006

Figure Out the Default Value of Stored Procedure Parameters

Code sample, something not very complex, I find it usefull, at least to know that it is possible to do it :-)

In this article you will see how you can derive all parameters from a Stored
Procedure using some T-SQL and C# code so that you can call your stored
procedures and automatically have the default parameters assigned with their
default value.


http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/FindDefaultValueSPParams.asp

Understanding Access Modifiers in VB 2005

Simple and short article on some of the basic OOP concepts.

http://www.codeguru.com/columns/vb/article.php/c11369

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Wanna see something really cool? Check out this online editor for programmers.

http://demo.aboutedit.com/

Saturday, February 04, 2006

AJAX and .NET

Another article on AJAX and .NET

http://www.devsource.com/article2/0,1759,1916669,00.asp?kc=DSRSS04029TX1K0000651

Great design: being number one

"Joel On Software" talking about what is it that makes you / your product, number 1...

So this is what I'm talking about when I say "Great Design." It's that ineffable
quality that certain incredibly successful products have that makes people fall
in love with them despite their flaws.


http://www.joelonsoftware.com/design/1stDraft/02.html

IT Employees Recapturing Power of 1990s

These are some news predicting a growth on IT jobs requests in the next period and describing what is this conclusion based on.

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/48555.html

Friday, February 03, 2006

More Database Server becoming affordable: DB2

At the begining it was MySQL...

Then Microsoft released their MSDE distributable version of SQL Server, then Oracle did it, now it is IBM's time to do it.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1916097,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03129TX1K0000608

Oracle buying JBoss

Oracle seems to look into JBoss technologies.

This is not just another buyout, this is a major change, an evolution.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1918413,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03129TX1K0000608

Volkswagen and Google

Wonder what is Google up to these days?
Joining forces with Volkswagen on using Google Maps on an integrated navigation system.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060203/wr_nm/google_vw_dc

Internet Explorer 7 Beta released

You might say this is old news already.

I know.

All this time I've been thinking if to post this as interesting news or not.

I will quote the friend that first sent the news to me: "I bet there will be 10 big bugs/issues reported in the first month".

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie7/default.mspx