Thursday, December 28, 2006
Entrepreneurial Proverbs
Good article at http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/03/entrepreneurial_proverbs.html
Friday, December 22, 2006
Steve Jobs @ Stanford
Stanford Report, June 14, 2005 'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says
This is the text of the Commencement address at stanford college by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me – I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
This is the text of the Commencement address at stanford college by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me – I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
Monday, December 18, 2006
SAP BW
SAP NetWeaver: Demos
http://www.sap.com/platform/netweaver/demos/index.epx
https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn
https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/bi-elearning
http://www.sap.com/platform/netweaver/demos/index.epx
https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn
https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/bi-elearning
Psycholinguistics
Scholars who study how words affect our minds and emotions are called psycholinguists, words often carry emotional meanings that extend beyond their dictionary definitions
"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words."
— Philip K. Dick
"There is only one way under high heaven to get anybody to do anything. And that is by making the other person want to do it."
— Dale Carnegie
"When you hear the word ‘save,’ it is usually the beginning of an advertisement designed to make you spend money."
— René Pierre-Gosset
"Sticks and stones can break your bones, but words can make your blood boil."
— Cullen Hightower
"Words, like eye glasses, blur everything that they do not make more clear."
— Joseph Joubert
The sixteen words that really sell
benefit
guarantee
money
results
easy
health
new
safe
free
how to
now
save
fun
love
proven
you/your
"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words."
— Philip K. Dick
"There is only one way under high heaven to get anybody to do anything. And that is by making the other person want to do it."
— Dale Carnegie
"When you hear the word ‘save,’ it is usually the beginning of an advertisement designed to make you spend money."
— René Pierre-Gosset
"Sticks and stones can break your bones, but words can make your blood boil."
— Cullen Hightower
"Words, like eye glasses, blur everything that they do not make more clear."
— Joseph Joubert
The sixteen words that really sell
benefit
guarantee
money
results
easy
health
new
safe
free
how to
now
save
fun
love
proven
you/your
Friday, December 15, 2006
Persuasion Pointers
Persuasion Pointers
Always make sure your body language matches your verbal communication. When your body language and words clash, your body language will have the greater impact.
You rarely get a second chance to make a favorable impression. It only takes four minutes to lock in a negative impression.
To create rapport using body language, face the other person, assume an open posture, lean forward, maintain eye contact, and shake hands.
Always present yourself in the most advantageous way possible. Dress to communicate authority, competence, and professionalism.
To deepen rapport, mirror the other person's posture, language, and rate of speech.
Control your tone of voice, speed of delivery, pitch, and volume to project confidence and authority. Use pauses for impact.
To detect deceit, look for contradictions and verbal mistakes. Watch for clashes between the verbal and nonverbal messages.
Always make sure your body language matches your verbal communication. When your body language and words clash, your body language will have the greater impact.
You rarely get a second chance to make a favorable impression. It only takes four minutes to lock in a negative impression.
To create rapport using body language, face the other person, assume an open posture, lean forward, maintain eye contact, and shake hands.
Always present yourself in the most advantageous way possible. Dress to communicate authority, competence, and professionalism.
To deepen rapport, mirror the other person's posture, language, and rate of speech.
Control your tone of voice, speed of delivery, pitch, and volume to project confidence and authority. Use pauses for impact.
To detect deceit, look for contradictions and verbal mistakes. Watch for clashes between the verbal and nonverbal messages.
Thought for the day
"When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudice and motivated by pride and vanity."
- DALE CARNEGIE
"The object of oratory is not truth but persuasion."
— Thomas Babington Macaulay
"Agreement is brought about by changing people's minds - other people's."
— S. I. Hayakawa
"Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please."
-MARK TWAIN
"To be persuasive, we must be believable. To be believable, we must be credible. To be credible, we must be truthful."
— Edward R. Murrow
"The truth isn't the truth until people believe you."
— Bill Bernbach
Trust + Expertise = Credibility
Winston Churchill once asked Cockran(his mentor): "Bourke, what is the secret of eloquence?" Bourke replied: "Believing in what you are talking about." Cockran summed it up: "Sincerity — never speak what you don't believe"
"One of the most effective ways to get into a prospect's mind is to first admit a negative and then twist it into a positive."
"The truth isn't the truth until people believe you, and they can't believe you if they don't know what you're saying, and they can't know what you're saying if they don't listen to you, and they won't listen to you if you're not interesting, and you won't be interesting unless you say things imaginatively, originally, freshly."
"The law of candor must be used with great skill. First your negative must be widely perceived as a negative. It has to trigger instant agreement with your prospect's mind. Next you have to shift quickly to the positive. The purpose of candor is not to apologize. The purpose of candor is to set up a benefit that will convince your prospect."
Never assume that people trust you. Take every opportunity to prove that your word is your bond
"You don't get a second chance to make a first impression"
Mirroring Language
One of the best ways to build rapport through mirroring is to use the specialist vocabulary or jargon of the person whom you are trying to influence. Most great sellers consciously use their client's vocabulary or jargon when presenting.
Here are examples of a stockbroker selling to an accountant and to an architect; notice how the stockbroker weaves the vocabulary of her client into the conversation:
Example one: Selling stocks to an accountant. "I've analyzed your portfolio and think you should consider selling some stocks. The figures show that some of your holdings are weak. When you add up my ideas I'm sure you'll agree."
Example two: Selling stocks to an architect. "I've analyzed your holdings and see some need to change the structure of your portfolio of stocks. I've a few ideas that will give you a better foundation and better support. As you review the blueprint, I'm sure you'll agree."[30]
- DALE CARNEGIE
"The object of oratory is not truth but persuasion."
— Thomas Babington Macaulay
"Agreement is brought about by changing people's minds - other people's."
— S. I. Hayakawa
"Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please."
-MARK TWAIN
"To be persuasive, we must be believable. To be believable, we must be credible. To be credible, we must be truthful."
— Edward R. Murrow
"The truth isn't the truth until people believe you."
— Bill Bernbach
Trust + Expertise = Credibility
Winston Churchill once asked Cockran(his mentor): "Bourke, what is the secret of eloquence?" Bourke replied: "Believing in what you are talking about." Cockran summed it up: "Sincerity — never speak what you don't believe"
"One of the most effective ways to get into a prospect's mind is to first admit a negative and then twist it into a positive."
"The truth isn't the truth until people believe you, and they can't believe you if they don't know what you're saying, and they can't know what you're saying if they don't listen to you, and they won't listen to you if you're not interesting, and you won't be interesting unless you say things imaginatively, originally, freshly."
"The law of candor must be used with great skill. First your negative must be widely perceived as a negative. It has to trigger instant agreement with your prospect's mind. Next you have to shift quickly to the positive. The purpose of candor is not to apologize. The purpose of candor is to set up a benefit that will convince your prospect."
Never assume that people trust you. Take every opportunity to prove that your word is your bond
"You don't get a second chance to make a first impression"
Mirroring Language
One of the best ways to build rapport through mirroring is to use the specialist vocabulary or jargon of the person whom you are trying to influence. Most great sellers consciously use their client's vocabulary or jargon when presenting.
Here are examples of a stockbroker selling to an accountant and to an architect; notice how the stockbroker weaves the vocabulary of her client into the conversation:
Example one: Selling stocks to an accountant. "I've analyzed your portfolio and think you should consider selling some stocks. The figures show that some of your holdings are weak. When you add up my ideas I'm sure you'll agree."
Example two: Selling stocks to an architect. "I've analyzed your holdings and see some need to change the structure of your portfolio of stocks. I've a few ideas that will give you a better foundation and better support. As you review the blueprint, I'm sure you'll agree."[30]
Dos and Don'ts for Entrepreneurs, from Those Who Have Actually Done It
Good article on entrepreneurship : funding your business and getting ideas for business
Friday, August 18, 2006
On SOA
What is SOA
Architectural Style
Business Alignment
Reduced assumptions (loose coupling)
Builds on ideas from component software, distributed objects, and MOM
Message based communication
A service is a program you interact with via message exchanges
-Services are built to last
-Encompass a business perspective
-Stability and robustness are critical
A system is a set of deployed services cooperating in a given task
-Systems are built to change
-Adapt to new services after deployment
Architectural Style
Business Alignment
Reduced assumptions (loose coupling)
Builds on ideas from component software, distributed objects, and MOM
Message based communication
A service is a program you interact with via message exchanges
-Services are built to last
-Encompass a business perspective
-Stability and robustness are critical
A system is a set of deployed services cooperating in a given task
-Systems are built to change
-Adapt to new services after deployment
On Architecture
What’s Architecture
“the fundamental organization of a system, embodied in its components, their relationships to each other and the environment, and the principles governing its design and evolution”. (IEEE 1471)
Architecture defines major components ,
Architecture defines component relationships (structures) and interactions,
Architecture defines the rationale behind the components and the structure
Architecture is not a single structure -- no single structure is the architecture
Architecture represents the set of earliest design decisions
-Hardest to change
-Most critical to get right
Architecture is the first design artifact where a system’s quality attributes are addressed
Architecture serves as the blueprint for the system but also the project:
-Team structure
-Documentation organization
-Work breakdown structure
-Scheduling, planning, budgeting
-Unit testing, integration
Architecture establishes the communication and coordination mechanisms among components
Architecture is important
-it should be analyzed
Architecture can be prescribed
-decisions should be analyzed
Architecture is central for communicating
-it should be documented
Architecture is expensive to change
-it is cheaper to analyze early
Architecture affects the entire project
-many stakeholders should be involved
Requirements can be understood early
-architecture should be designed to meet them
Different view points
End user view:
Performance
Availability
Usability
Security
Developer’s view:
Maintainability
Portability
Reusability
Testability
Business user view
Time To Market
Cost and Benefits
Projected life time
Targeted Market
Integration with Legacy System
Roll back Schedule
“the fundamental organization of a system, embodied in its components, their relationships to each other and the environment, and the principles governing its design and evolution”. (IEEE 1471)
Architecture defines major components ,
Architecture defines component relationships (structures) and interactions,
Architecture defines the rationale behind the components and the structure
Architecture is not a single structure -- no single structure is the architecture
Architecture represents the set of earliest design decisions
-Hardest to change
-Most critical to get right
Architecture is the first design artifact where a system’s quality attributes are addressed
Architecture serves as the blueprint for the system but also the project:
-Team structure
-Documentation organization
-Work breakdown structure
-Scheduling, planning, budgeting
-Unit testing, integration
Architecture establishes the communication and coordination mechanisms among components
Architecture is important
-it should be analyzed
Architecture can be prescribed
-decisions should be analyzed
Architecture is central for communicating
-it should be documented
Architecture is expensive to change
-it is cheaper to analyze early
Architecture affects the entire project
-many stakeholders should be involved
Requirements can be understood early
-architecture should be designed to meet them
Different view points
End user view:
Performance
Availability
Usability
Security
Developer’s view:
Maintainability
Portability
Reusability
Testability
Business user view
Time To Market
Cost and Benefits
Projected life time
Targeted Market
Integration with Legacy System
Roll back Schedule
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Saturday, August 05, 2006
The Eight Fallacies of Distributed Computing
The Eight Fallacies of
Distributed Computing
Peter Deutsch
Essentially everyone, when they first build a distributed application, makes the following eight assumptions. All prove to be false in the long run and all cause big trouble and painful learning experiences.
1. The network is reliable
2. Latency is zero
3. Bandwidth is infinite
4. The network is secure
5. Topology doesn't change
6. There is one administrator
7. Transport cost is zero
8. The network is homogeneous
Distributed Computing
Peter Deutsch
Essentially everyone, when they first build a distributed application, makes the following eight assumptions. All prove to be false in the long run and all cause big trouble and painful learning experiences.
1. The network is reliable
2. Latency is zero
3. Bandwidth is infinite
4. The network is secure
5. Topology doesn't change
6. There is one administrator
7. Transport cost is zero
8. The network is homogeneous
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Stats : MSN Spaces
The service sports 123 million unique users, with roughly 3 million users visiting MSN Spaces every second. Users upload six million photos to the service every day, requiring 1TB of additional storage every nine days. To put these numbers in perspective, it took MSN Messenger six years to reach 160 million users: MSN Spaces will reach 130 million users in only 18 months
Thursday, June 08, 2006
BizTalk Web Resources
BizTalk Web Resources
The product site: http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/default.mspx
The developer center: http://msdn.microsoft.com/biztalk/
The tech center: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/biztalk/default.mspx
BizTalk 2004 White Papers: http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/techinfo/whitepapers/2004/default.mspx
BizTalk 2006 White Papers: http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/2006/prodinfo/whitepapers.mspx
Application Integration and Web Services Patterns and Practices: http://msdn.microsoft.com/practices/apptype/appinteg/default.aspx
Integration Patterns: http://msdn.microsoft.com/practices/apptype/appinteg/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnpag/html/intpatt.asp
Architecture for BizTalk Server 2004: http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/techinfo/whitepapers/2004/architecture.mspx
SOA in the Enterprise: http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/techinfo/whitepapers/2004/infopath.mspx
Download for BizTalk 2004 trial software: http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/evaluation/trial/default.mspx
Download for BizTalk 2006 Beta 2: http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/evaluation/bts2006beta.mspx
What’s New in BizTalk 2006: http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/2006/prodinfo/whatsnew.mspx
The Blogger’s Guide to BizTalk (lot’s of articles from BizTalk blogs, good article on how to learn BizTalk): http://www.gotdotnet.com/workspaces/workspace.aspx?id=0dfb4f4e-d241-4bc8-8418-2c385d8e3eaa
Virtual Labs for BizTalk: http://msdn.microsoft.com/virtuallabs/biztalk/
GotDotNet: http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/wsserver
BizTalk 2004 Power Toys: http://blogs.msdn.com/luke/articles/365678.aspx
BizTalk Performance Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/biztalkperformance/
BizTalk Core Engine Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/Biztalk%5FCore%5FEngine/
BizTalk Customer Response Team Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/BPIDCustomerResponseTeam/
Scott Woodgate’s blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/scottwoo/
Kris Horrocks’ blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/krisho/
Jon Flanders’ blog: http://masteringbiztalk.com/blogs/jon/default.aspx
Luke Nyswonger’s blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/luke/default.aspx
Eldar Musayev’s blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/eldarm/
Owen Allen’s blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/oallen/
Marty Wasznicky’s blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/martywaz/
Kevin Smith’s blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/kevinsmi/
The product site: http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/default.mspx
The developer center: http://msdn.microsoft.com/biztalk/
The tech center: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/biztalk/default.mspx
BizTalk 2004 White Papers: http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/techinfo/whitepapers/2004/default.mspx
BizTalk 2006 White Papers: http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/2006/prodinfo/whitepapers.mspx
Application Integration and Web Services Patterns and Practices: http://msdn.microsoft.com/practices/apptype/appinteg/default.aspx
Integration Patterns: http://msdn.microsoft.com/practices/apptype/appinteg/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnpag/html/intpatt.asp
Architecture for BizTalk Server 2004: http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/techinfo/whitepapers/2004/architecture.mspx
SOA in the Enterprise: http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/techinfo/whitepapers/2004/infopath.mspx
Download for BizTalk 2004 trial software: http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/evaluation/trial/default.mspx
Download for BizTalk 2006 Beta 2: http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/evaluation/bts2006beta.mspx
What’s New in BizTalk 2006: http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/2006/prodinfo/whatsnew.mspx
The Blogger’s Guide to BizTalk (lot’s of articles from BizTalk blogs, good article on how to learn BizTalk): http://www.gotdotnet.com/workspaces/workspace.aspx?id=0dfb4f4e-d241-4bc8-8418-2c385d8e3eaa
Virtual Labs for BizTalk: http://msdn.microsoft.com/virtuallabs/biztalk/
GotDotNet: http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/wsserver
BizTalk 2004 Power Toys: http://blogs.msdn.com/luke/articles/365678.aspx
BizTalk Performance Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/biztalkperformance/
BizTalk Core Engine Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/Biztalk%5FCore%5FEngine/
BizTalk Customer Response Team Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/BPIDCustomerResponseTeam/
Scott Woodgate’s blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/scottwoo/
Kris Horrocks’ blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/krisho/
Jon Flanders’ blog: http://masteringbiztalk.com/blogs/jon/default.aspx
Luke Nyswonger’s blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/luke/default.aspx
Eldar Musayev’s blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/eldarm/
Owen Allen’s blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/oallen/
Marty Wasznicky’s blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/martywaz/
Kevin Smith’s blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/kevinsmi/
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Linus 1st mail announcing Linux
The article quotes the famous newsgroup posting in which Linus Torvalds first announced his operating system project to the world, he sure did underestimate the potential of his OS
From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: What would you like to see most in minix?
Summary: small poll for my new operating system
Message-ID: <1991Aug25.205708.9541@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
Date: 25 Aug 91 20:57:08 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki
Hello everybody out there using minix -
I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and
professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing
since april, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on
things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat
(same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons)
among other things). I've currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40),and
things seem to work.This implies that I'll get something practical within a
few months, andI'd like to know what features most people would want. Any
suggestions are welcome, but I won't promise I'll implement them :-)
Linus (torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi)
PS. Yes - it's free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs.
It is NOT protable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never
will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that's
all I have :-(.
From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: What would you like to see most in minix?
Summary: small poll for my new operating system
Message-ID: <1991Aug25.205708.9541@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
Date: 25 Aug 91 20:57:08 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki
Hello everybody out there using minix -
I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and
professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing
since april, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on
things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat
(same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons)
among other things). I've currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40),and
things seem to work.This implies that I'll get something practical within a
few months, andI'd like to know what features most people would want. Any
suggestions are welcome, but I won't promise I'll implement them :-)
Linus (torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi)
PS. Yes - it's free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs.
It is NOT protable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never
will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that's
all I have :-(.
Sunday, April 23, 2006
MSDN Multimedia WebCasts
Multimedia Quick training materials are available for various .net topics. Its gives a quick insight and a jump start to the development, especially if it is a new technology.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/learning/learn/newtodevelopment/#Multimedia
http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/learning/learn/newtodevelopment/#Multimedia
SOA Trends and Market
By 2006-end, more than 60 % of the $527 billion market for IT professional services will be based on Web services standards and technology. Frost & Sullivan
Nearly two-thirds of the 612 IT professionals surveyed in the Computerworld / CIO Magazine are training existing staff to meet the new requirements for implementing and close to half will bring in consultants. 41% say they already have trained staff in place. 19% will outsource key segments. When asked about their primary strategy for meeting staffing requirements for SOA, 40 % of the IT executives reiterated that they would train their current staff. CIO.com
Reports Reveal SOA is Top of Business and Software Trends of the Year
Sand Hill Group, in collaboration with McKinsey & Company, released the findings from their first CIO Insight Survey and the Software 2006 Industry Report. The CIO Insight survey revealed that the two leading software trends are software-as-a-service and SOA. Business Wire
SOA May Be an Early Hit in the Midmarket
A lot of service-oriented architecture (SOA) talk today is about which industries are embracing it first—namely financial services and telecommunications—and how it will affect large enterprises. Often overlooked is the opportunity for SOA in the midmarket, where companies often lag large enterprises when it comes to technology. But SOA might level the playing field, making it quicker and less expensive for small and midsize businesses (SMBs) to assemble and maintain innovative software that provides competitive advantage.
Nearly two-thirds of the 612 IT professionals surveyed in the Computerworld / CIO Magazine are training existing staff to meet the new requirements for implementing and close to half will bring in consultants. 41% say they already have trained staff in place. 19% will outsource key segments. When asked about their primary strategy for meeting staffing requirements for SOA, 40 % of the IT executives reiterated that they would train their current staff. CIO.com
Reports Reveal SOA is Top of Business and Software Trends of the Year
Sand Hill Group, in collaboration with McKinsey & Company, released the findings from their first CIO Insight Survey and the Software 2006 Industry Report. The CIO Insight survey revealed that the two leading software trends are software-as-a-service and SOA. Business Wire
SOA May Be an Early Hit in the Midmarket
A lot of service-oriented architecture (SOA) talk today is about which industries are embracing it first—namely financial services and telecommunications—and how it will affect large enterprises. Often overlooked is the opportunity for SOA in the midmarket, where companies often lag large enterprises when it comes to technology. But SOA might level the playing field, making it quicker and less expensive for small and midsize businesses (SMBs) to assemble and maintain innovative software that provides competitive advantage.
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Akamai Sets Records for Total Web Content Delivered and Simultaneous Video Streams Served
Read more here
HP, IBM and Akamai Bring Web Services to Grid Computing
http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_14/b3675036.htm
http://www.akamai.com/en/html/about/facts_figures.html
http://xent.com/aug00/0958.html
HP, IBM and Akamai Bring Web Services to Grid Computing
http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_14/b3675036.htm
http://www.akamai.com/en/html/about/facts_figures.html
http://xent.com/aug00/0958.html
Google and Akamai: Distributed Computing Platforms
Technology Review article discusses the commonalities in the distributed computing platform both Google and Akamai have built, and at the same time contrasts their different culture: Google's "cult of secrecy" and Akamai's "kingdom of openness."
Google buys the cheapest computers that it can find and crams them in racks and racks in its six (or more) data centers. ?PCs are reasonably reliable, but if you have a thousand of them, one is going to fail every day,? said Google's vice president of engineering Urs Hoelzle . ?So if you can just buy 10 percent extra, it?s still cheaper than buying a more reliable machine.? Working at Google, an engineer told me recently, is the nearest you can get to having an unlimited amount of computing power at your disposal.
There is another company that has perfected the art of running massive numbers of computers with a comparatively tiny staff. That company is Akamai.
Akamai?s network operates on the same complexity scale as Google?s. Although Akamai has only 14,000 machines, those servers are located in 2,500 different locations scattered around the globe. The servers are used by companies like CNN and Microsoft to deliver Web pages. Just as Google?s servers are used by practically everyone on the Internet today, so are Akamai?s.
Because of their scale, both Akamai and Google have had to develop tools and techniques for managing these machines, debugging performance problems, and handling errors. This isn?t software that a company can buy off the shelf?they require laborious in-house development. It is, in fact, software that is one of Akamai's key competitive advantages.
To be fair, there are important differences between Google and Akamai?differences that assure that Google won?t be breaking into Akamai?s business anytime soon, nor Akamai moving into Google?s. Both companies have developed infrastructure for running massively parallel systems, but the applications that they are running on top of those systems are different. Google?s primary application is a search engine. Akamai, by contrast, has developed a system for delivering Web pages, streaming media, and a variety of other standard Internet protocols.
Looking forward, a few business opportunities have obvious appeal to both Google and Akamai. For example, both companies could take their experience in building large-scale distributed clusters to create a massive backup system for small businesses and home PC users. Or they could take over management of home PCs, turning them into smart terminals running applications on remote servers. This would let PC users escape the drudgery of administering their own machines, installing new applications, and keeping anti-virus programs up to date.
Ted Schadler, a vice president at the market research firm Forrester, says that it?s possible to envision the two companies competing because they are both going after the same opportunity in massive, distributed computing. ?In that sense, they have the same vision. They have to build out a lot of the same technology because it doesn?t exist. They are having to learn lots of the same lessons and develop lots of the same technologies and business models.?
Schadler says Akamai and Google are both examples of what he calls ?programmable Internet business channels.? These channels are companies that offer large infrastructure that can offer high quality services on the Internet to hundreds of millions of users at the flick of a switch. Google and Akamai are such companies, but so are Amazon.com, eBay and even Yahoo!. ?They are all services that enable business activity?foundation services that [can be] scaled securely,? Schadler says.
?If I were a betting man,? Schadler adds, ?I would say that Google is much more interested in serving the customer and Akamai is more interested in provide the infrastructure?it?s retail versus wholesale. There will be lots and lots of these retail-oriented services.?
Google buys the cheapest computers that it can find and crams them in racks and racks in its six (or more) data centers. ?PCs are reasonably reliable, but if you have a thousand of them, one is going to fail every day,? said Google's vice president of engineering Urs Hoelzle . ?So if you can just buy 10 percent extra, it?s still cheaper than buying a more reliable machine.? Working at Google, an engineer told me recently, is the nearest you can get to having an unlimited amount of computing power at your disposal.
There is another company that has perfected the art of running massive numbers of computers with a comparatively tiny staff. That company is Akamai.
Akamai?s network operates on the same complexity scale as Google?s. Although Akamai has only 14,000 machines, those servers are located in 2,500 different locations scattered around the globe. The servers are used by companies like CNN and Microsoft to deliver Web pages. Just as Google?s servers are used by practically everyone on the Internet today, so are Akamai?s.
Because of their scale, both Akamai and Google have had to develop tools and techniques for managing these machines, debugging performance problems, and handling errors. This isn?t software that a company can buy off the shelf?they require laborious in-house development. It is, in fact, software that is one of Akamai's key competitive advantages.
To be fair, there are important differences between Google and Akamai?differences that assure that Google won?t be breaking into Akamai?s business anytime soon, nor Akamai moving into Google?s. Both companies have developed infrastructure for running massively parallel systems, but the applications that they are running on top of those systems are different. Google?s primary application is a search engine. Akamai, by contrast, has developed a system for delivering Web pages, streaming media, and a variety of other standard Internet protocols.
Looking forward, a few business opportunities have obvious appeal to both Google and Akamai. For example, both companies could take their experience in building large-scale distributed clusters to create a massive backup system for small businesses and home PC users. Or they could take over management of home PCs, turning them into smart terminals running applications on remote servers. This would let PC users escape the drudgery of administering their own machines, installing new applications, and keeping anti-virus programs up to date.
Ted Schadler, a vice president at the market research firm Forrester, says that it?s possible to envision the two companies competing because they are both going after the same opportunity in massive, distributed computing. ?In that sense, they have the same vision. They have to build out a lot of the same technology because it doesn?t exist. They are having to learn lots of the same lessons and develop lots of the same technologies and business models.?
Schadler says Akamai and Google are both examples of what he calls ?programmable Internet business channels.? These channels are companies that offer large infrastructure that can offer high quality services on the Internet to hundreds of millions of users at the flick of a switch. Google and Akamai are such companies, but so are Amazon.com, eBay and even Yahoo!. ?They are all services that enable business activity?foundation services that [can be] scaled securely,? Schadler says.
?If I were a betting man,? Schadler adds, ?I would say that Google is much more interested in serving the customer and Akamai is more interested in provide the infrastructure?it?s retail versus wholesale. There will be lots and lots of these retail-oriented services.?
Sunday, March 19, 2006
Types of architect roles
Ruby On Rails
The buzztalk on the web these days ..ROR, read more at http://www.rubyonrails.com/
Heres what other industry pundits have to say about ruby on rails:
“Rails is the most well thought-out web development framework I’ve ever used.
And that’s in a decade of doing web applications for a living. I’ve built my
own frameworks, helped develop the Servlet API, and have created more than
a few web servers from scratch. Nobody has done it like this before.”
-James Duncan Davidson, Creator of Tomcat and Ant
“Ruby on Rails is a breakthrough in lowering the barriers of entry to programming.
Powerful web applications that formerly might have taken weeks or months
to develop can be produced in a matter of days.”
-Tim O'Reilly, Founder of O'Reilly Media
“It is impossible not to notice Ruby on Rails. It has had a huge effect both in
and outside the Ruby community... Rails has become a standard to which even
well-established tools are comparing themselves to.”
-Martin Fowler, Author of Refactoring, PoEAA, XP Explained
“What sets this framework apart from all of the others is the preference for
convention over configuration making applications easier
to develop and understand.”
-Sam Ruby, ASF board of directors
“Before Ruby on Rails, web programming required a lot of verbiage, steps and time.
Now, web designers and software engineers can develop a website
much faster and more simply, enabling them to be more productive
and effective in their work.”
-Bruce Perens, Open Source Luminary
“After researching the market, Ruby on Rails stood out as the best choice.
We have been very happy with that decision. We will continue
building on Rails and consider it a key business advantage.”
-Evan Williams, Creator of Blogger and ODEO
“Ruby on Rails is astounding. Using it is like watching a kung-fu movie,
where a dozen bad-ass frameworks prepare to beat up the little newcomer
only to be handed their asses in a variety of imaginative ways.”
-Nathan Torkington, O'Reilly Program Chair for OSCON
“Rails is the killer app for Ruby.”
Yukihiro Matsumoto, Creator of Ruby
Heres what other industry pundits have to say about ruby on rails:
“Rails is the most well thought-out web development framework I’ve ever used.
And that’s in a decade of doing web applications for a living. I’ve built my
own frameworks, helped develop the Servlet API, and have created more than
a few web servers from scratch. Nobody has done it like this before.”
-James Duncan Davidson, Creator of Tomcat and Ant
“Ruby on Rails is a breakthrough in lowering the barriers of entry to programming.
Powerful web applications that formerly might have taken weeks or months
to develop can be produced in a matter of days.”
-Tim O'Reilly, Founder of O'Reilly Media
“It is impossible not to notice Ruby on Rails. It has had a huge effect both in
and outside the Ruby community... Rails has become a standard to which even
well-established tools are comparing themselves to.”
-Martin Fowler, Author of Refactoring, PoEAA, XP Explained
“What sets this framework apart from all of the others is the preference for
convention over configuration making applications easier
to develop and understand.”
-Sam Ruby, ASF board of directors
“Before Ruby on Rails, web programming required a lot of verbiage, steps and time.
Now, web designers and software engineers can develop a website
much faster and more simply, enabling them to be more productive
and effective in their work.”
-Bruce Perens, Open Source Luminary
“After researching the market, Ruby on Rails stood out as the best choice.
We have been very happy with that decision. We will continue
building on Rails and consider it a key business advantage.”
-Evan Williams, Creator of Blogger and ODEO
“Ruby on Rails is astounding. Using it is like watching a kung-fu movie,
where a dozen bad-ass frameworks prepare to beat up the little newcomer
only to be handed their asses in a variety of imaginative ways.”
-Nathan Torkington, O'Reilly Program Chair for OSCON
“Rails is the killer app for Ruby.”
Yukihiro Matsumoto, Creator of Ruby
Cracking the Code: Breaking Down the Software Development Roles
Good article explaining the various roles in any IT development environment, find the article here
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Architecture Humor
* Beware, the difference between vision and hallucination is a credible migration plan followed by superb execution!
What can architects learn from history? Think big, start small, be deliberate, with hustle, move early, stay lean, innovate often, reward stake holders, shun bureaucracy, have fun!
What can architecture learn from Charles Darwin?
It's not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change!
Mutation and natural selection of the past and the present are the path to the future!
What can architects learn from history? Think big, start small, be deliberate, with hustle, move early, stay lean, innovate often, reward stake holders, shun bureaucracy, have fun!
What can architecture learn from Charles Darwin?
It's not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change!
Mutation and natural selection of the past and the present are the path to the future!
Principles of Service Design: Service Patterns and Anti-Patterns
Good article explaining the basic tenets of SOA and about the patterns and anti patterns involved in SOA approach. Find the article here
Developing Distributed Services
Good article covering the various distributed computing features in .NET( WebService, WSE, Enterprise Service/COM+, Remoting) and other servers like SQL Server and BizTalk Server, also covers how the Indigo framework is going to incorporate with existing technologies, find the article here
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Biztalk Sites/Blogs
http://biztalkblogs.com/
list of Biztalk webcast from microsoft here
Biztalk Server Virtual labs here
Biztalk Whitepapers @ Microsoft.com
list of Biztalk webcast from microsoft here
Biztalk Server Virtual labs here
Biztalk Whitepapers @ Microsoft.com
Shift to Service Orientation
Traditional Systems Vs Service Orientation
-----------------------------------------------
Connection = cost Vs Connection = value
Function Oriendted Vs Process Oriented
Build to last Vs Build for change
Prolonged development Vs Incrementally deployed
Application silos Vs Orchestrated solutions
Tightly coupled Vs Loosely coupled
Object Oriented Vs Message oriented
-----------------------------------------------
Connection = cost Vs Connection = value
Function Oriendted Vs Process Oriented
Build to last Vs Build for change
Prolonged development Vs Incrementally deployed
Application silos Vs Orchestrated solutions
Tightly coupled Vs Loosely coupled
Object Oriented Vs Message oriented
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Rules engine using SQL Server
Interesting article on building a rules engine using SQL server, lot of practical purposes. Many a time the actual values are determined from the Business Layer and passed through the DAL and eventually to the sprocs , these business layers may make several database calls to identify the right query/sproc/parameters to be called, alternatively the entire processing would be done in the stored procs by using dynamic query building .... get enlightned here
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Good link ..old is gold.
A document that describes several of the architectural approaches that one could follow when developing N tiered applications in .net
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dndotnet/html/designnetapp.asp
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dndotnet/html/designnetapp.asp
Monday, February 27, 2006
Great ASP.NET 2.0 Tutorial Videos Online
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2006/02/26/439088.aspx
Last week we published a series of great ASP.NET 2.0 “How do I?” videos on MSDN. These videos are code-focused videos (no slides or marketing at all – pure code) that walkthrough using some of the new features in ASP.NET 2.0 and Visual Web Developer (which is free).
The “How do I?” videos are each about 10-15 minutes long, and are a great way to quickly come up to speed with some of the new features. I highly recommend setting some time aside to watch them. Here is the current listing of them:
Data Access – Create a new database from scratch, define a table, populate it with data, create a strongly typed DAL TableAdapter to work against it, and then build a filtered master/detail set of ASP.NET pages with data sorting, paging and editing support against it.
Master Pages and Site Navigation – Create a consistent master page layout for a site using the new ASP.NET Master Pages Feature. Then create a site navigation menu using site navigation and the new TreeView control.
Membership and Roles – Add an authentication and authorization system to a site from scratch, and implement login, create user, change password, password reset, and role based security in a secure way.
Profiles and Themes – Enable per-user profile personalization on a site. Then use this together with the new Themes/Skins feature to allow a visiting user to customize and personalize the look and feel of a site.
Web Parts and Personalization – Enable customizable drag/drop portal UI within web-pages, and allow visiting users to customize the information experience they see.
Output Caching and SQL Cache Invalidation – Learn how to use the output caching feature in ASP.NET, as well as the new SQL Cache Invalidation support to build super efficient output cached pages that stay in sync with the data within your database.
Partial Page Caching – Learn how to use the Partial Page output caching with ASP.NET to enable regions of a page to be cached, while also allowing other portions of the page to stay dynamic.
Localization – Learn how to build culture-aware and locale specific applications using ASP.NET 2.0.
Wizard and Validation Controls – Build a canonical form data registration page using the new ASP.NET 2.0 Wizard control and validation control features.
Tips and Tricks – This video highlights a number of cool new features in ASP.NET 2.0, including: cross-page postback support, file uploading, the MultiView control, encrypting web.config settings, and more.
Last week we published a series of great ASP.NET 2.0 “How do I?” videos on MSDN. These videos are code-focused videos (no slides or marketing at all – pure code) that walkthrough using some of the new features in ASP.NET 2.0 and Visual Web Developer (which is free).
The “How do I?” videos are each about 10-15 minutes long, and are a great way to quickly come up to speed with some of the new features. I highly recommend setting some time aside to watch them. Here is the current listing of them:
Data Access – Create a new database from scratch, define a table, populate it with data, create a strongly typed DAL TableAdapter to work against it, and then build a filtered master/detail set of ASP.NET pages with data sorting, paging and editing support against it.
Master Pages and Site Navigation – Create a consistent master page layout for a site using the new ASP.NET Master Pages Feature. Then create a site navigation menu using site navigation and the new TreeView control.
Membership and Roles – Add an authentication and authorization system to a site from scratch, and implement login, create user, change password, password reset, and role based security in a secure way.
Profiles and Themes – Enable per-user profile personalization on a site. Then use this together with the new Themes/Skins feature to allow a visiting user to customize and personalize the look and feel of a site.
Web Parts and Personalization – Enable customizable drag/drop portal UI within web-pages, and allow visiting users to customize the information experience they see.
Output Caching and SQL Cache Invalidation – Learn how to use the output caching feature in ASP.NET, as well as the new SQL Cache Invalidation support to build super efficient output cached pages that stay in sync with the data within your database.
Partial Page Caching – Learn how to use the Partial Page output caching with ASP.NET to enable regions of a page to be cached, while also allowing other portions of the page to stay dynamic.
Localization – Learn how to build culture-aware and locale specific applications using ASP.NET 2.0.
Wizard and Validation Controls – Build a canonical form data registration page using the new ASP.NET 2.0 Wizard control and validation control features.
Tips and Tricks – This video highlights a number of cool new features in ASP.NET 2.0, including: cross-page postback support, file uploading, the MultiView control, encrypting web.config settings, and more.
Windows Surpasses UNIX in Server Market
Windows Server sales surpassed those of UNIX-based servers for the first time ever in 2005, according to IDC. The company reports that vendors sold $17.7 billion worth of Windows Server-based servers last year, compared with
$17.5 billion worth of UNIX servers and $5.3 billion worth of Linux servers. The overall server market grew 4.4 percent during this time period, IDC says. If these figures are true, I have to assume that the slow climb of Windows in the server market can be pinned at least partially on Linux, which gave UNIX users a UNIX-like system that runs on industry-standard PC server hardware. Otherwise, I suspect we would have seen Windows Server squash UNIX like a bug a long time ago.
$17.5 billion worth of UNIX servers and $5.3 billion worth of Linux servers. The overall server market grew 4.4 percent during this time period, IDC says. If these figures are true, I have to assume that the slow climb of Windows in the server market can be pinned at least partially on Linux, which gave UNIX users a UNIX-like system that runs on industry-standard PC server hardware. Otherwise, I suspect we would have seen Windows Server squash UNIX like a bug a long time ago.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
.NET 2.0 vs. IBM WebSphere 6.0
http://www.theserverside.net/articles/showarticle.tss?id=NET2BMNovember
The goal of this paper is to present a comparison of Web application servers: the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 running on Windows Server 2003, and the latest release of IBM WebSphere Application Server, version 6.0.2.3. According to a recent IDC study from October of 2005, roughly 78% of mission critical application projects under development worldwide use an application server. In this study, IDC also found that the combination of .NET and Windows Server 2003 is now the most commonly used application server for mission critical applications, exceeding IBM WebSphere usage with 37% usage for .NET/Windows Server vs. 12% usage for IBM WebSphere
This paper presents the results of a new benchmark that compares the performance of those two application servers. The benchmark is based on the PlantsByWebSphere sample application, the primary sample application included with WebSphere 6. For this benchmark, we implemented a functionally equivalent .NET application (DotNetGardens), and also made several performance optimizations to the IBM application code base to ensure a fair comparison of performance for data-driven Web applications.
The goal of this paper is to present a comparison of Web application servers: the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 running on Windows Server 2003, and the latest release of IBM WebSphere Application Server, version 6.0.2.3. According to a recent IDC study from October of 2005, roughly 78% of mission critical application projects under development worldwide use an application server. In this study, IDC also found that the combination of .NET and Windows Server 2003 is now the most commonly used application server for mission critical applications, exceeding IBM WebSphere usage with 37% usage for .NET/Windows Server vs. 12% usage for IBM WebSphere
This paper presents the results of a new benchmark that compares the performance of those two application servers. The benchmark is based on the PlantsByWebSphere sample application, the primary sample application included with WebSphere 6. For this benchmark, we implemented a functionally equivalent .NET application (DotNetGardens), and also made several performance optimizations to the IBM application code base to ensure a fair comparison of performance for data-driven Web applications.
Monday, February 20, 2006
Model Driven Architecture(MDA)
http://www.methodsandtools.com/archive/archive.php?id=5
http://www.pacificspirit.com/blog/2004/03/03/model_driven_architecture_thoughts_its_hard
http://www.pacificspirit.com/blog/2004/03/03/model_driven_architecture_thoughts_its_hard
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