The popularity of Microsoft's gaming console XBOX 360 has been increasing by the day. Now Microsoft has decided to go a step further and integrate popular social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. So the users of Xbox 360 will not only enjoy the standard games for the console but can also log on to their favourite social networking sites and enjoy the games in it.
As of now Facebook has not been completely integrated and users will not be able to play any games on it. But the basic features of Facebook have been incorporated and users can view pictures, update their status etc on their 42" LCD at home. Additional features have also been added, like you can see all your facebook friends who are on Xbox Live and all your Xbox live friends who are on facebook.
For more details on this refer the following link
http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/11/17/facebook-and-twitter-go-live-on-xbox-360/
Monday, November 30, 2009
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Criminals, Programmers, or Criminal Programmers
One of the latest developments in the ongoing investigation of the Ponzi scheme perpetrated by Bernie Madoff is the filing of charges against two programmers. It is alleged that their work included the creation of phony documents to cover up the fraud of Mr. Madoff. At the end of this posting is a link to the Wall Street Journal article that provides more details on this story. I encourage you to also look at the comments readers have posted in response to the article.
Going a bit further into programmer behavior in general, programmers face decisions as to what professional decisions they make on an almost daily basis. I have been faced with minor decisions such as did I do a thorough job in coding and testing. Am I truly done in completing all of my programming tasks? I have actually been told by other programmers that their work was incomplete but it was easier to just not tell management the work was flawed.
In short, programmers and other professionals are faced with ethical decisions. Some professions have adopted professional standards and certifications to encourage better "behavior" (such as the CPA certification and AICPA organization for accountants).
I will end this post stating the human element & the need to do good deeds is a vital component for professionals in the IT world. You can have the best tools and expertise but we should have a personal ethic to do beneficial work for the company and ultimately the consumer. Not easily worded but I hope you can take a different perspective on the daily jobs we do & will do in the future. Good luck all! Bill Stephens
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703683804574533483600301134.html
Going a bit further into programmer behavior in general, programmers face decisions as to what professional decisions they make on an almost daily basis. I have been faced with minor decisions such as did I do a thorough job in coding and testing. Am I truly done in completing all of my programming tasks? I have actually been told by other programmers that their work was incomplete but it was easier to just not tell management the work was flawed.
In short, programmers and other professionals are faced with ethical decisions. Some professions have adopted professional standards and certifications to encourage better "behavior" (such as the CPA certification and AICPA organization for accountants).
I will end this post stating the human element & the need to do good deeds is a vital component for professionals in the IT world. You can have the best tools and expertise but we should have a personal ethic to do beneficial work for the company and ultimately the consumer. Not easily worded but I hope you can take a different perspective on the daily jobs we do & will do in the future. Good luck all! Bill Stephens
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703683804574533483600301134.html
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Microsoft Azure live in January, for pay in February
Cloud computing was one of several topics that seemed to capture the class's attention this semester. Below is a link to an Internet article that just came out that goes into detail about Microsoft's rollout of its version of cloud computing - Azure.
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/11/microsoft-azure-to-go-live-january-for-pay-february.ars
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/11/microsoft-azure-to-go-live-january-for-pay-february.ars
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Introduction to Semantic web and usage of Semantic web and SOA to solve Integration issues
What is semantics?
Semantics is related to syntax. Syntax is how you say something and Semantics is what it means.
For example:
I hate grapes
or
I dislike grapes
In the above cases the syntax is different, but the semantics is the same. When we are talking about syntax and semantics we are talking about communication. People use their voice to communicate. So in the same manner the internet has created standards for us to communicate with each other. It gave computers the voice to communicate and share information. For example, Parrot can mimic human sound without understanding the meaning of the words.In the same way computers mimic human information to communicate with each other. So while the internet enables computers to talk to each other it was not designed to teach them what it means. The web can be seen as a document storage and retrieval system. The web created quick and easy way to retrieve and view information.So when you type the website address on the browser it sends the request to the website,the request basically states that you would like to download the document located at that address. The requested website retrieves the document and sends it to the web browser.This document is read in a language called HTML.The HTML language defines a syntax that computers understand. It tells the computer how to display the document for you. The internet lets computer talk to each other,the web allows us to store,retrieve and share documents and search engine lets us search information on any website. What is missing here is that today the computers just blindly retrieve and show us information because computers dont understand the meaning of the web pages they are displaying to us. Now if we can get a computer to recognize what is there in a web page they can learn what the user is interested in. This is what semantic web is all about. It helps computers understand the meaning behind the web page. The web of today is about documents whereas semantic web is all about things. Things could mean anything such as people, organizations, places, music. So the semantic web is not only about pointing these things to the computer but also letting the computers know how they are related to each other. There are several technologies that are in use today that can embed semantic and html documents. Two popular formats are 1) Microformat and 2) RDFA. Once the computer can understand people, places and event it can help you interact with these things. For example, music blogs usually list songs and album reviews on their front page. If the blog marked up the songs and artist using semantic technology, you could tell your browser to search all songs on the page or search the internet for other albums with the same artist. Search engines would also become more accurate than they are today. When you are searching you can say you are searching for a person, place or a particular song. Search engines would direct you to websites with far more accuracy because they would not depend on key words but the semantics of the web page. So semantic web holds a great deal of promise in making our life easier by helping computer help us to get what we want.
Tagging VS Semantic Web
Tagging is strongly associated with web 2.0.So why do we need semantic web?. Tagging is very good, useful and popular with social networking web sites.It is light version of semantic web. People think of semantic web as a logical layer on top of current web.They think everything needs to be explicit and clear.But there should be some ambiguity because else everything would require a forceful explanation. Tagging allows ambiguity and does not force everything to express or mean something. But to make things a little more clear it requires more than just tagging. For example, if somebody tags a picture on Facebook as a bird, and some else does not find the picture as been a bird but a reptile there is no way of removing tag or having a tag of tag. Semantic web gives you the language to express something and can be used in same way as tagging to express something without having any room for ambiguity.
Applying semantics to SOA
Business integration problems have represented a challenge for last two or three decades but complete solutions have not yet been found. But the latest developments in the area of semantic web and semantic web services as well as the emerging efforts towards Service Oriented Architecture(SOA) bring new opportunities and promise better, more dynamic and more suitable solutions for today's business environments.
By adopting SOA businesses split their overall functionality in discrete (yet meaningful) pieces, loosely coupled, accessible through well defined interfaces, and well suited for peer-to-peer interactions. Each piece of such functionality is offered and consumed as a Web Service. Further more, augmenting SOA approach with semantics guarantees unambiguous Web Service descriptions and explicit meaning associated with the interchanged data. As a consequence, complex collaboration scenarios can be easily built in a dynamic fashion, sustained by concrete solutions to solve heterogeneity issues at the data, process and protocol levels.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olDpQwR8Fhk&feature=related
http://74.125.113.132/search?q=cache:-F_lrSeSa2IJ:www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/16593/proposal.doc+semantic+web+integration+problems&cd=14&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Semantics is related to syntax. Syntax is how you say something and Semantics is what it means.
For example:
I hate grapes
or
I dislike grapes
In the above cases the syntax is different, but the semantics is the same. When we are talking about syntax and semantics we are talking about communication. People use their voice to communicate. So in the same manner the internet has created standards for us to communicate with each other. It gave computers the voice to communicate and share information. For example, Parrot can mimic human sound without understanding the meaning of the words.In the same way computers mimic human information to communicate with each other. So while the internet enables computers to talk to each other it was not designed to teach them what it means. The web can be seen as a document storage and retrieval system. The web created quick and easy way to retrieve and view information.So when you type the website address on the browser it sends the request to the website,the request basically states that you would like to download the document located at that address. The requested website retrieves the document and sends it to the web browser.This document is read in a language called HTML.The HTML language defines a syntax that computers understand. It tells the computer how to display the document for you. The internet lets computer talk to each other,the web allows us to store,retrieve and share documents and search engine lets us search information on any website. What is missing here is that today the computers just blindly retrieve and show us information because computers dont understand the meaning of the web pages they are displaying to us. Now if we can get a computer to recognize what is there in a web page they can learn what the user is interested in. This is what semantic web is all about. It helps computers understand the meaning behind the web page. The web of today is about documents whereas semantic web is all about things. Things could mean anything such as people, organizations, places, music. So the semantic web is not only about pointing these things to the computer but also letting the computers know how they are related to each other. There are several technologies that are in use today that can embed semantic and html documents. Two popular formats are 1) Microformat and 2) RDFA. Once the computer can understand people, places and event it can help you interact with these things. For example, music blogs usually list songs and album reviews on their front page. If the blog marked up the songs and artist using semantic technology, you could tell your browser to search all songs on the page or search the internet for other albums with the same artist. Search engines would also become more accurate than they are today. When you are searching you can say you are searching for a person, place or a particular song. Search engines would direct you to websites with far more accuracy because they would not depend on key words but the semantics of the web page. So semantic web holds a great deal of promise in making our life easier by helping computer help us to get what we want.
Tagging VS Semantic Web
Tagging is strongly associated with web 2.0.So why do we need semantic web?. Tagging is very good, useful and popular with social networking web sites.It is light version of semantic web. People think of semantic web as a logical layer on top of current web.They think everything needs to be explicit and clear.But there should be some ambiguity because else everything would require a forceful explanation. Tagging allows ambiguity and does not force everything to express or mean something. But to make things a little more clear it requires more than just tagging. For example, if somebody tags a picture on Facebook as a bird, and some else does not find the picture as been a bird but a reptile there is no way of removing tag or having a tag of tag. Semantic web gives you the language to express something and can be used in same way as tagging to express something without having any room for ambiguity.
Applying semantics to SOA
Business integration problems have represented a challenge for last two or three decades but complete solutions have not yet been found. But the latest developments in the area of semantic web and semantic web services as well as the emerging efforts towards Service Oriented Architecture(SOA) bring new opportunities and promise better, more dynamic and more suitable solutions for today's business environments.
By adopting SOA businesses split their overall functionality in discrete (yet meaningful) pieces, loosely coupled, accessible through well defined interfaces, and well suited for peer-to-peer interactions. Each piece of such functionality is offered and consumed as a Web Service. Further more, augmenting SOA approach with semantics guarantees unambiguous Web Service descriptions and explicit meaning associated with the interchanged data. As a consequence, complex collaboration scenarios can be easily built in a dynamic fashion, sustained by concrete solutions to solve heterogeneity issues at the data, process and protocol levels.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olDpQwR8Fhk&feature=related
http://74.125.113.132/search?q=cache:-F_lrSeSa2IJ:www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/16593/proposal.doc+semantic+web+integration+problems&cd=14&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Monday, November 2, 2009
BCD Travel - Quick Peek under the Hood
My intention is to share some information you might find relevant for the Tuesday subject of BCD Travel. A very quick take is that BCD Travel is a major provider for booking of plane reservations. But you have to be careful and not think of BCD Travel as simply as a reservations systems provider. From www.bcdtravelinmotion.com web site, you can find where BCD Travel was named the “most admired travel management company” for 2009. Input for this award came from “travel executives from corporations, TMCs, airlines, hotels, global distribution systems, technology providers, car rental firms, payment systems, consultants, financial analysts and media”. Take note that the technology providers were a part of the mix!
One of the links provided by the class schedule included a link to a Wikipedia web page for “computer reservation system” and includes “global distribution systems”. A point made by this web page is that our business world has moved past the day of a computer reservation system run by a single airline to where business consolidations have resulted in multiple GDS’s (such as provided by BCD Travel). BCD Travel systems allow reservations to be booked for travel and lodging for multiple entities (including airlines) from a single site.
Going back to the first paragraph, the players in the travel industry are numerous and not just the airlines. At the end of this posting, you will find a link to a PDF from BCD Travel whose subject is consolidation of travel industry for potential BCD Travel clients. BCD Travel has the expertise and technology to assist clients with consolidation. Potential questions for Tuesday night could deal with topics such as outsourcing, application integration, mergers & acquisitions, technology trends…
From www.btnonline.com (Business Travel News): “BCD's European operations are in the process of standardizing technology platforms and processes. "One part is to look where you can invest in or acquire additional businesses, but another key part of the investment is just building up more infrastructure, whether it’s call centers or technology or sales forces. You can't do one without the other," Buckman said. "Rather than having to build some big call center to handle a multitude of clients, we should be able to network our people together so that we can flow transactions and calls from one location to another."
An aside: Travelport is a large competitor for BCD Travel and was a good case study for my CIS Outsourcing class. Those students who will be taking the Outsourcing class have additional reasons to listen up. I will add that I am not the GDS or BCD Travel expert. My primary reason for this blog posting was to share some initial insight and provoke you to “dig deeper” for your own enlightenment.
BCD Travel White Paper: “One size fits all?”
BCD Travel White Papers
One of the links provided by the class schedule included a link to a Wikipedia web page for “computer reservation system” and includes “global distribution systems”. A point made by this web page is that our business world has moved past the day of a computer reservation system run by a single airline to where business consolidations have resulted in multiple GDS’s (such as provided by BCD Travel). BCD Travel systems allow reservations to be booked for travel and lodging for multiple entities (including airlines) from a single site.
Going back to the first paragraph, the players in the travel industry are numerous and not just the airlines. At the end of this posting, you will find a link to a PDF from BCD Travel whose subject is consolidation of travel industry for potential BCD Travel clients. BCD Travel has the expertise and technology to assist clients with consolidation. Potential questions for Tuesday night could deal with topics such as outsourcing, application integration, mergers & acquisitions, technology trends…
From www.btnonline.com (Business Travel News): “BCD's European operations are in the process of standardizing technology platforms and processes. "One part is to look where you can invest in or acquire additional businesses, but another key part of the investment is just building up more infrastructure, whether it’s call centers or technology or sales forces. You can't do one without the other," Buckman said. "Rather than having to build some big call center to handle a multitude of clients, we should be able to network our people together so that we can flow transactions and calls from one location to another."
An aside: Travelport is a large competitor for BCD Travel and was a good case study for my CIS Outsourcing class. Those students who will be taking the Outsourcing class have additional reasons to listen up. I will add that I am not the GDS or BCD Travel expert. My primary reason for this blog posting was to share some initial insight and provoke you to “dig deeper” for your own enlightenment.
BCD Travel White Paper: “One size fits all?”
BCD Travel White Papers
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Assignment No 2 JB Google Visualization API
Boston consulting firm BostonConsulting.com has forecasted U.S. job growth by industry and by geographic region. The graphic shows actual job growth through second-quarter 2009 and BostonConsulting.com forecasted job growth for third-quarter 2009 through second-quarter 2010. It covers every state in USA, the District of Columbia and 384 metro areas, broken down by fourteen industry sectors. The map can be used by graduating student and people who wish to seek employment in the United States. As US has been hit by recession, it has become very important for people to target specific states and industries offering job opportunities. The map is visually appealing and can be very informative for people to know the percentage increase in the number of jobs that would be available in the different states in USA.
The map is displayed using Google Visualization Geomap API. A geomap is a map of a country, continent, or region map, with colors and values assigned to specific regions. Values are displayed as a color scale, and you can specify optional hovertext for regions. The data in the map is also provided in tabular form for better understanding using the Google table API. A table that can be sorted and paged. Table cells can be formatted using format strings, or by directly inserting HTML as cell values. Numeric values are right-aligned; boolean values are displayed as check marks. Users can select single rows either with the keyboard or the mouse. Users can sort rows by clicking on column headers. The header row remains fixed as the user scrolls. The table fires a number of events corresponding to user interaction.
References:
http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2009-02-06-new-jobs-growth-graphic_N.htm
The map is displayed using Google Visualization Geomap API. A geomap is a map of a country, continent, or region map, with colors and values assigned to specific regions. Values are displayed as a color scale, and you can specify optional hovertext for regions. The data in the map is also provided in tabular form for better understanding using the Google table API. A table that can be sorted and paged. Table cells can be formatted using format strings, or by directly inserting HTML as cell values. Numeric values are right-aligned; boolean values are displayed as check marks. Users can select single rows either with the keyboard or the mouse. Users can sort rows by clicking on column headers. The header row remains fixed as the user scrolls. The table fires a number of events corresponding to user interaction.
References:
http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2009-02-06-new-jobs-growth-graphic_N.htm
CIS 8020 Assignment 2 WS - Google Static Maps
A local real estate firm wants to reward its sales agents for the outstanding commercial estate sales effort for the latest 2009 quarterly sales. These agents are the backbone of the company; if they do poorly then the entire company will suffer. Each quarter, there is a different reward for these professionals. This time the CEO has decided that this coming Friday, October 30th, will be a day at Chateau Élan. The announcement will be posted on the company web pages since the agents do most of their work remotely.
Google Static Maps API is a good candidate solution for this situation. It easily generates maps which can be enhanced with colored markers while at the proper level of zoom to show all items of interests along with local road names. Street addresses and/or latitude & longitude will be part of the input. If required, maps can be made that are usable by mobile devices. Maps can be other than roadmaps; types include satellite and terrain maps. Marker W is for the Chateau Élan winery, I is for the inn, and G is for the golf course.
Google Static Maps API is a good candidate solution for this situation. It easily generates maps which can be enhanced with colored markers while at the proper level of zoom to show all items of interests along with local road names. Street addresses and/or latitude & longitude will be part of the input. If required, maps can be made that are usable by mobile devices. Maps can be other than roadmaps; types include satellite and terrain maps. Marker W is for the Chateau Élan winery, I is for the inn, and G is for the golf course.
The primary providers of Internet maps are Google and Yahoo. To not use Google or Yahoo Maps would be inefficient and not the best use of resources. Maps provided by these Internet enterprises are easily created, modified and shared. Once again, our created object lives in the Clouds.
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