Journal

Mengganti Template Blogspot

2011-02-15T07:03:00.006+07:00

Hal paling di takutkan seorang blogger ketika aktifitas blogging adalah mengganti tampilan dan mengubah sesuai dengan keinginan blogger. Blogger yang sekarang sudah banyak sekali mengalami perubahan, salah satunya adalah penggantian tampilan yang lebih mudah dan atraktif. Berikut ini saya akan membantu para blogger dalam mengubah tampilan sesuai dengan selera.

Login dahulu ke www.blogger.com sesuai dengan akun yang anda miliki.
setelah login, secara otomatis akan masuk ke halaman dashboard.
setelah masuk kehalaman dashboard, klik tombol "NEW POST".

4. Kita akan berpindah ke halaman yang berisi berbagai menu. Untuk mengganti template/desain, kita klik tombol "DESIGN".

5. Kemudian klik tombol "Template Designer". Secara otomatis akan berpindah ke halaman yang berisi berbagai settingan dan tampilan template desain.

6. Pada bagian ini, kita dapat mengganti template, background, layout, Adjust width, dan Advance. Template dapat kita ganti sesuai dengan nama dan bentuknya, background juga dapat melakukan hal yang sama.

Who'S Got The Monkey??

2009-12-05T13:39:00.002+07:00

MONKEY? WHAT MONKEY?
I DON’T HAVE A MONKEY. DO I?

by Kim Small & Riddick Smiley

“Hello! Let me introduce myself. I am your newest monkey – myname is Upper anagement Project C. You assigned me to a member of your team last week. You outlined your expectations, detailed the project guidelines, and sent the employee on their way with me in tow. Soon, the employee had a question aboute, which you answered and I remained in your subordinate’scare. The next question about me, however, required a more involved explanation and my assigned keeper did not quite get the picture you were trying to paint. “Let me think about it,” you said, and the employee left your office. I, however, stayed with you!Your employee just successfully transferred me, UpperManagement Project C, from their back onto yours. Now, it is your responsibility to feed and care for me. By the way, you seem to have a lot of monkeys in here; how are you going to care for us all?”

Too often would-be managers end up taking back responsibilityfor their subordinate’s projects. This “monkey model” of management is discussed in the classic Harvard Business Review article, “Who’s Got the Monkey?” by William Onkcen, Jr. andDonald L. Wass . In this model, delegated projects are symbolizedby monkeys that need to be cared for and fed (representing the development and management tasks associated with thedelegated projects). Like monkeys, the tasks are on the backs of some person who has the responsibility for managing it (providingcare and feeding to the monkey). As the scenario above depicts,these monkeys often wind up on the back of managers, rather than with the subordinates to whom they are assigned.

Essentially, the monkey problem is one of initiative, the state of being responsible for taking the next step forward. Both managersand subordinates allow the initiative to rest on the manager far too often. Indeed, the “monkey model” argues that initiative for adelegated project should never remain with the manager! The manager will need all her discretionary time to develop and manage her own ideas (and to maintain the initiative on projects delegated to her from above). The entire point of delegation, ofcourse, is to place the responsibility for tasks on other personnel– so that more can be accomplished than the manager canaccomplish alone. If delegation does not fully occur, this goal is not achieved. Whenever the initiative returns to the manager, “wheelspinning and bottlenecking are on their way.”

Some of the problems that arise from all the monkeys living in the manager’s office (when the next step on every project becomes the manager’s responsibility) are readily apparent. Clearly, a manager can rapidly reach overload and become only minimally productive. When this happens, no subordinate can act without input from the manager, but the manager has no time toprovide this minimal input because she is doing the work assigned to her by her own boss. For managers who are unable to handle the monkey problem, putative “subordinates” are in reality “supervisors” passing along work for the manager to handle. Less clear, but equally problematic, is the effect on the subordinates themselves – who are unable to make progress on their projects because they are rarely given the initiative. They are likely to find themselves frustrated in their work and unable to develop in theircareers. Fortunately, as Onkcen and Wass outline, it is possible for both managers and subordinates to take steps to ensure that collaboration occurs appropriately without the monkey leaving the care of its proper owner – the subordinate.

The first part of the solution is the behavior of the manager. Oncken & Wass divide a manager’s work time into three categories. The first is boss-imposed time - projects that we haveto accept and process in a timely manner or suffer directconsequences. The second is system-imposed time – the peer–to-peer projects what we acquire that also require timely processinga nd carry somewhat less direct but definite consequences. The last is self-imposed time – time in which the manager canexercise discretion to supervise, delegate, organize, and create. This discretionary time, for many managers, becomes subordinate-imposed time – a category that really should notexist at all. The key to minimizing this problem lies in insisting thatsubordinates retain the initiative on their projects – that they takecare of their own monkeys. A manager intent on this goal must first get the monkeys out of her office in order to reconvert hers ubordinate-imposed time into self-imposed time. The manager in Oncken and Wass’ example accomplished this by meeting with each subordinate and working with them to determine how thenext move might conceivably be the subordinate’s – even if that next move is merely to consider the question overnight andreturn with a substantive answer (monkeys, it appears, sleep justas well on the back of the subordinate as they do on the back ofthe manager). In any case, the monkey leaves the meeting with the subordinate – who now has been given the initiative to work on the issue.

Having returned all the monkeys to the care of their proper owners, the manager must now ensure that his subordinates understand that they are responsible for retaining the initiative(for keeping the monkey on their own backs). This involves training and developing the subordinates – but doing so as part of a deliberate process that the manager chooses to do with his new found self-imposed time. This might be hought of as teaching people the care of feeding of monkeys – but more on that in a moment.

Subordinates have an important role to play in maintaining their own initiative – one they can perform even without the active participation of their manager. That role, of course, is to keep theirmonkeys on their own backs by recognizing and avoiding situationsin which the initiative for an issue jumps to their manager. A common practice - although perhaps not common enough - is for a subordinate to present the manager with solutions and alternative sat the same time the problem is presented. This allows for adiscussion of the merits of the proposals and for the subordinate to leave with the responsibility of either implementing a solution ordeveloping additional alternatives. It also minimizes the chance that the manager will need to “get back” to the subordinate with further guidance – which passes the initiative to the manager.

The authors also list 5 rules for managers to adhere to in the care and feeding of monkeys:
1. All monkeys are either fed or shot. Do not push issues into the “deal with later” pile because they will eat up enormous amounts of your discretionary time.
2. Only spend 15 minutes at any one feeding. Whatever the issue is it can usually be dealt with quickly. That doesn’t meanthere won’t be follow up required but tackle the monkey insmall pieces.
3. Feed the monkeys by appointment only. You set the schedule,not your monkey!
4. Insist on face to face or phone discussion when feeding themonkey. If you try to feed your monkey via email, it will fallback on your lap almost immediately because you will haveto respond to the email.
5. Schedule the next feeding and list out the degree ofexpectation (recommend for approval, act and advise, routinely report, etc.) at that feeding.

If a manager can get control of these five steps to monkey management, she will have successfully restored the initiative fordelegated projects to the appropriate personnel. Going forward, it will take much less time to check in on the health of each monkey in her subordinates’ care than it would to feed and nurture them
herself. She can then use the extra time to exercise the vision and talents that earned her the management position in the first place.

Contoh Lamaran Kerja (English & Indonesia)

2009-11-24T11:13:00.000+07:00

Saya akan berbagi bagaimana cara membuat surat lamaran kerja. Dalam posting kali ini saya membuat dalam 2 versi, yang pertama dalam bahasa Inggris dan yang kedua dalam bahasa Indonesia. Dalam mendapatkan pekerjaan, hal terpenting yang pertama kali adalah cara penulisannya, agar lolos ke tes selanjutnya. Tidak mungkin asal menulis lalu lolos. Bagaimana format penulisannya?? berikut ini adalah contoh formatnya.

Ini adalah English Version-nya,

pertama

Jakarta, August 29, 2007
Attention To:
Mr. Imantoro
Human Resources Department
PT. Persada Bumida Terpadu
Jl. Raya Sukamaju No. 11
Tangerang

Dear Sir,

On this good opportunity, I would like to apply as a Instrumentation and Control System Engineer in your company. My name is Dias Farhan, 22 years old, male, single, energetic and healthy. I am a Control System Engineer and graduated from Suryadarma University (UNSURYA) on May 2007 with GPA 3.78. I would like to have career to expand my experience.

My personality as a hard worker and fast learner type of person would bring benefit to your company. I will be very appreciated if you could give in opportunity to work in your company.

Herewith I enclose my curriculum vitae, which will give details of my qualification.

I hope my qualifications and experience merit your consideration and look forward to your reply.

Sincerely yours,

Dias Farhan
Phone : 021 - 5758243
Jl. Melati No.23
Tangerang - 15712
(diambil dari Unwama.net)

Yang kedua

Bogor, August 29, 2007

Attention To:
Human Resources Department
Yayasan KPT
Jl. Raya Bumi Sentoda No. 5
Cibinong

Dear Sir/Madam,

Having known about a vacancy advertised on Kompas, August 27, 2007, I am interested in the position of Account Executive (AE).
I am a 26 year old male, graduated from a reputable university, having skill in English, both written and oral and also operating computer. I am a hard worker, able to work in individual and in team.

I would gladly welcome an opportunity to have an interview with you at your convenience. I hope my skills can be one of your company’s assest. I am looking forward to hearing from you in the near future. Thank you for your consideration and attention.

Sincerely yours,

Asep Catur Putra

Enclosures :

- Copy of ID Card
- Copy of Final Certificate
- Photo
- Curriculum Vitae
(diambil dari Unwama.net)

Ini adalah Bahasa Indonesia,

yang pertama,

Jakarta, 29 Agustus 2007
Hal : Lamaran Pekerjaan

Kepada Yth.,
Manajer Sumber Daya Manusia
PT. Hand’s Parmantindo
Jl. Raya Bumi Sentoda No. 5
Cibinong

Dengan hormat,

Bpk. Bambang Satrio, seorang asisten editor di PT. Hand’s Parmantindo, menginformasikan kepada saya tentang rencana pengembangan Departemen Finansial PT. Hand’s Parmantindo. Sehubungan dengan hal tersebut, perkenankan saya mengajukan diri (melamar kerja) untuk bergabung dalam rencana pengembangan PT. Hand’s Parmantindo.

Mengenai diri saya, dapat saya jelaskan sebagai berikut :

Nama : Florentina Putri
Tempat & tgl. lahir : Probolinggo, 5 Agustus 1979
Pendidikan Akhir : Sarjana Akuntansi Universitas Pancasila - Jakarta
Alamat : Perum Bojong Depok Baru 1, Blok ZT No.3, Cibinong 16913
Telepon, HP, e-mail : 021 - 87903802, HP = 0817 9854 203, e-mail = putri.flo@gmail.com
Status Perkawinan : Menikah.

Saat ini saya bekerja di PT. Flamboyan Bumi Singo, sebagai staf akuntasi dan perpajakan, dengan fokus utama pekerjaan di bidang finance dan perpajakan.

Sebagai bahan pertimbangan, saya lampirkan :
Daftar Riwayat Hidup.
Foto copy ijazah S-1.
Foto copy sertifikat kursus/pelatihan.
Pas foto terbaru.

Besar harapan saya untuk diberi kesempatan wawancara, dan dapat menjelaskan lebih mendalam mengenai diri saya. Seperti yang tersirat di resume (riwayat hidup), saya mempunyai latar belakang pendidikan, pengalaman potensi dan seorang pekerja keras.

Demikian saya sampaikan. Terima kasih atas perhatian Bapak.

Hormat saya,

Florentina Putri

yang kedua,

Hal : Lamaran Pekerjaan

Kepada Yth.,
Manajer Sumber Daya Manusia
PT. Gilland Ganesha
Jl. Raya Kebon Durian No. 11
Jakarta Timur

Dengan hormat,

Sesuai dengan penawaran lowongan pekerjaan dari PT. Gilland Ganesha, seperti yang termuat di harian Kompas tanggal 27 Agustus 2007. Saya mengajukan diri untuk bergabung ke dalam Tim Marketing di PT. Gilland Ganesha.

Data singkat saya, seperti berikut ini.
Nama : Benny Kasmanto
Tempat & tgl. lahir : Bukit Tinggi, 19 Februari 1976
Pendidikan Akhir : Sarjana Manajemen Universitas Islam As-Syafi’iyah (UIA) - Jakarta(Konsentrasi Manajemen Pemasaran)

Alamat : Perum Bumi Sentosa Blok A.5 Bekasi
Telepon, HP, e-mail : 021 - 87914990, 0815 965 5695, benny_kas07@yahoo.co.id
Status Perkawinan : Menikah

Saya memiliki kondisi kesehatan yang sangat baik, dan dapat berbahasa Inggris dengan baik secara lisan maupun tulisan. Latar belakang pendidikan saya sangat memuaskan serta memiliki kemampuan manajemen dan marketing yang baik. Saya telah terbiasa bekerja dengan menggunakan komputer. Terutama mengoperasikan aplikasi paket MS Office, seperti Excel, Word, Acces, PowerPoint, OutLook, juga internet, maupun surat-menyurat dalam Bahasa Inggris.

Saat ini saya bekerja sebagai staff Marketing di PT. Hilmy Finance. Saya senang untuk belajar, dan dapat bekerja secara mandiri maupun dalam tim dengan baik.

Sebagai bahan pertimbangan, saya lampirkan :
Daftar Riwayat Hidup.
Foto copy ijazah S-1 dan transkrip nilai.
Foto copy sertifikat kursus/pelatihan.
Pas foto terbaru.

Saya berharap Bapak/Ibu bersedia meluangkan waktu untuk memberikan kesempatan wawancara, sehingga saya dapat menjelaskan secara lebih terperinci tentang potensi diri saya.

Demikian surat lamaran ini, dan terima kasih atas perhatian Bapak/Ibu.

Hormat saya,

Benny Kasmanto

Why Appeal to the Most Influential Sense in Your Ads?

2009-11-19T22:23:00.000+07:00

For any of us to communicate with another person, we must get our message across through one of their five senses. Advertisers, of course, know this. At times the sense of smell is used. You walk by a bakery and decide to stop in and find out what smells so good. The taste test is used for soda drinks or pizza ads. Pictures of food appeal to previous memories of its good taste. Touch is the main seller when people are buying a mattress. Consumers want to lie on it to find out if lying on it would be restful for eight straight hours.

The most influential of all our senses is that of sight. In fact, 80% of all we learn comes in through our eyes. Most of the other 20% is learned through hearing. A radio ad then must capture the consumer's attention through words alone.

With 80% of what we learn entering our eyes, advertisers are wise to center their ads around the visual. If they can add sound, this is even better. Printed ads can be read over and over by many people. They can last longer and for this reason potentially influence more consumers than sound ads alone.

Visual advertisement comes in two forms, words and pictures. Words are abstract for they represent a reality. The word 'house' stands for a dwelling of brick and wood. Words can also stand for products. Slogans have caught on and identify products. One of the most famous was, "Where's the beef?" from the Wendy's ad. Though mainly verbal, that one phrase sold more hamburgers than anyone will ever know.

Rarely will the quantity of words sell an item. Usually it will not be the quantity but the quality that is important. People are busy and always in a hurry. The message of the ad must be succinct and catchy. It must give the message and yet not bore the audience. This is a hard balance.

Humor, when appropriate, is an excellent way to capture the attention of the public. For example, Alaska airlines portrayed their company's strength through exaggerating the competition's weaknesses. It was humorous and kept people watching, and flying with them for several years.

Sometimes the ad is whittled down to just a motto, a logo, or a symbol. These along may associate a particular product to people's needs. The colors of Pepsi without words will sell the product. In other words, the wordless picture is the whole ad.

In summary, good ads use visual and audio, use precise words, and may add a touch of humor. This combination will most likely get the attention of the public. It requires creativity but is achievable. Once this is done, then the company must choose where the ad will appear. Some creative people have put their brief message on a banner and paid to have it flown over a large group of people. This is a banner ad. It effectively gets the concise message to many people at minimal cost. With the added audio of the plane's engine to attract attention, both sight and sound are giving the one-two punch to drive the message home to the consumers.

Open Source Runs London Marathon Site

2009-11-19T21:44:00.001+07:00

London Marathon 2010 sponsor Virgin has built its fundraising website on open source technology, writes Cliff Saran

Virgin, the sponsor for the London Marathon 2010, has created a charity fund-raising site, based on open source technology.

Virgin has used open source components, including the MySQL database, JBoss application server. Apache web server, Jaspersoft Business Intelligence Suite and Talend extract, translate and load database tools, to build a service-oriented architecture to take donations on behalf of UK charities.

Jeremy Walters, head of systems development at Virgin Money, who spearheaded the project, has taken the open source route, over commercial products, in a bid to save costs and increase flexibility. It is a not-for-profit site, so keeping operating

costs low is paramount, particularly as Virgin Money hopes to undercut rival donation sites by offering lower commissions on donations taken through Virgin Money Giving.

"When Virgin became the sponsor of the London Marathon until 2015, we were given the option to become the preferred online fundraising site. While there are a number of donation sites on the internet, we wanted to create something that provided a market-leading service at considerably less cost to charities," he says.Open source savings

The company took advice from analyst firm Gartner on the feasibility of using MySQL and chose open source companies that offer professional services to support their products.

"Open source is not necessarily an easy way to save money up front. We chose credible companies and bought professional support," Walters says. Since open source code is licence-free, the money saved on licensing has instead been used to pay for external expertise and support.

The site, which was built by a development team of 20 from Virgin Money, integrates the open source components with the company's existing Oracle Financials back-end accounting package and the card payment service supplied by The Logic Group. Virgin Money Giving used Opsera, a provider of open source products and services, to help it build the platform. Opsera worked in partnership with Virgin Money to analyse and design the website and application, and led the initial development and delivery using offshore software development house, Arrk.
Hardware savings

Walters says Virgin Money Giving has not had to buy lots of additional hardware to support the site. Instead, the servers for Virgin Money Giving are run on VMware, to create logically separated servers on the same hardware infrastructure as Virgin

Money's existing core business applications.

He says the logical separation of applications on physical servers provided by VMware allows Virgin Money Giving to run the service within its existing Cable & Wireless managed datacentre. which provides full disaster recovery.

Storage is also shared on an EMC storage area network, but with full data separation at the application layer. "We have fully segregated the Virgin Money Giving application from Virgin Money systems, while benefiting from the economies of scale of the existing Virgin Money infrastructure "he says.
Valuable experience

Using open source software has not hindered FSA and HMRC compliance at Virgin Money Giving, In fact, Walters says open source has helped Virgin Money Giving customise the site.

Walters says the Virgin Money Giving project has given the team experience of integrating open source terns, working with offshore development outsourcing and even building a Facebook application, experience which could be applied on the core Virgin

Money site.

The project began 18 months ago and has an absolute deadline of October 2009, when runners will be notified if they have got a place in the London Marathon 2010.

By Cliff Saran

oracle's sun deal: oracle may nedd to lossen its grip

2009-11-19T21:18:00.002+07:00

While the Oracle-Sun merger is likely to be O.K.'d, the European Union will probably ask Oracle to give up some control over MySQL, Sun's open-source software

When Oracle announced its $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems in April, the software behemoth was acting on a grand vision. The deal was part of Oracle's aim to become a soup-to-nuts supplier of everything companies need to run their computer systems, from chips and operating systems to databases and business programs. The grand plan may need some revision.

In order to alleviate pressure from European Union regulators worried about Oracle's growing power, Oracle may be forced to give up some control of a key aspect of the deal: the open-source MySQL database software owned by Sun.

The EU wants to make sure Oracle (ORCL) doesn't stifle competition in the $19-billion-a-year database market as it tries to complete its acquisition of Sun (JAVA), which makes computer systems and software including the Java programming language and MySQL database, a kind of electronic filing system.
"Taking a Tough Stance"

MySQL, available free of charge, runs the Web sites of some of the Internet's biggest brands. Among them: Twitter, Facebook, Google (GOOG), and Yahoo (YHOO). "They're taking a tough stance because 10 years down the road this could be a pretty big competitor to Oracle," says a securities analyst who asked not to be named because he was expressing personal views on the deal.

After saying in September that it's looking into aspects of the deal, Europe is preparing to issue a more formal objection to Oracle's acquisition of Sun, perhaps in the next several days, according to reports. Regulators may ask Oracle to release a new version of MySQL that it doesn't control to preserve competition. Sun bought MySQL for $1 billion in 2008. Oracle declined to comment for this article.

Because MySQL is distributed under an open-source licensing agreement, which lets users freely modify its code, companies including Google, Amazon.com (AMZN), and a software development project called Drizzle that's staffed partly with Sun employees, have already modified the database or incorporated it into commercial products without

buying an officially supported version from Sun. For example, Amazon.com on Oct. 27 announced that customers can rent the MySQL database from Amazon over the Internet, paying by how much data they store and transfer. Google maintains its own version of MySQL, too.
The EU Is Positioning Itself

The presence of these versions in the wild suggests that forcing Oracle to spin out yet another version of the software may be redundant. "The remedy's already there," says one industry executive familiar with the EU's thinking, who says a regulated new version of the software would have little impact on the way companies license and use MySQL, which is prized for its speed and adaptability to running large Web sites. "The vast majority of the installed base isn't controlled by the vendor I'm at a loss why any other remedies would be needed," this person says. "There's something illogical in

the whole thing."

Whatever the proposed concessions, even Oracle's competitors believe the Sun deal will get done. "They're doing what the EU always does — making provocative statements," says an executive at an Oracle competitor. Analysts say the EU wants to position itself as an advocate for technologies that are more open rather than proprietary — closely guarded by license owners.

Oracle has a commanding lead in the market for database software, which stores the information that underlies business applications and Web sites. Oracle held 49% of the $18.8 billion worldwide database market in 2008, according to market researcher Gartner (IT), compared with 22% for IBM (IBM) and 16.6% for Microsoft (MSFT). MySQL

accounted for 0.5% of database sales, Gartner says. MySQL also accounts for a small portion of Sun's revenues. For its 2009 fiscal year ended June 30, MySQL and Sun's middleware generated $313 million in sales, of a total $11.44 billion.
A Vehicle to Sell to Web Companies

Immediate revenue isn't the primary importance of MySQL to Oracle. The database gives Oracle a vehicle to sell to Web companies that don't use its powerful and more expensive 11g database. Sun estimates there are more than 12 million copies of MySQL in use. "There's not a huge amount of financial value tied up in MySQL for a company

of Oracle's size," says Bill Whyman, head of technology research at investment company ISI Group. "The advantage is more strategic."

European regulators are concerned because if Oracle buys Sun, the largest supplier of database software would be acquiring the leading open-source database.

The European Union first raised concern about the Sun deal Sept. 3, saying it wanted to make sure Oracle was committed to developing MySQL. European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes met with Oracle President Safra Catz in October.
Java Is Key to Fusion

Industry executives say the EU has also been asking for commentary on the effect of Oracle's potential ownership of the Java programming language, though the EU hasn't specifically cited the technology in public statements. Java is a key part of a new line of Oracle business applications called Fusion, the first of which are expected

next year.

European opposition to the deal is the main stumbling block for Oracle, which has spent $30 billion to acquire nearly 60 companies in the past five years. The U.S. Justice Dept. has already approved the deal.

Oracle could wait and see what Europe's specific objections are, then tailor a response. The European Commission has until Jan. 19 to make a final decision whether to allow the deal or block it.
IBM, HP Swiping Customers

The delay, however, is sapping Sun's value. Sales for Sun's fiscal first quarter ended Sept. 27 fell 25% to $2.24 billion, according to a report released Nov. 6. Sun shares the same day closed down 13%, or 1.6%, at 8.10, vs. the $9.50 per share Oracle offered for the company in April. Sun is losing $100 million a month amid the delay, Oracle

Chief Executive Larry Ellison said in September. IBM and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) are also swiping its customers. On Oct. 20, Sun said it plans to lay off 3,000 workers in the next year, about 10% of its workforce, citing the delay in closing the acquisition, which was supposed to happen in the summer. "The longer this takes, the more money Sun is going to lose," Ellison said at the time, insisting he wouldn't spin off MySQL.

This isn't the first time the EU has tried to block a merger of U.S. companies. In 2001, it scuttled General Electric's (GE) proposed $42 billion acquisition of Honeywell (HON), ruling that the companies' combination would hinder competition in the aircraft industry.

Ellison has prevailed over trustbusters before, and is tenacious when he wants to close a deal. In 2005, Oracle bought business software maker PeopleSoft after a protracted fight with the Justice Dept. In 2008, it snared BEA Systems after BEA shareholders pushed for a higher price. "Oracle's a pretty tough competitor and they

beat the DOJ in PeopleSoft," says ISI Group's Whyman. "The difference is Sun's losing

a lot of money. Time usually plays to the regulators' advantage."

Databases, data tombs and dust in the wind

2009-11-05T21:23:00.003+07:00

Jonathan D. Wren1, and Alex Bateman2
1Arthritis and Immunology Research Program, Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, 825 N.E. 13th Street,
Oklahoma City, OK 73104-5005, USA and 2Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus

Hinxton, Cambridge, CB10 1SA, UK

As biomedical data accumulates, the need to store, share and organize it grows. Consequently, the number of Internetaccessible databases has been rapidly growing on an annual basis.
Bioinformatics regularly publishes descriptions of biomedically relevant databases, Nucleic Acids Research has published an annual database issue since 1996 and now a new open-access
journal, Database: The Journal of Biological Databases and Curation, will soon be launched by Oxford University Press in 2009 . Since databases can be made publicly available on the Internet without publication, it is worth considering what factors prioritize
publication of database descriptions in a peer-reviewed journal. In general, publication of a database description in a journal advertises it as a valuable resource for scientific research. Implicitly, it is assumed that this resource is publicly available (most likely for free)
and will be maintained. However, therein lies the problem: Database papers are simply not of the same nature as regular research articles.
Over time, some databases simply become inaccessible, some are created but not maintained or updated, and some databases are never used (Galperin, 2006). Thus, for database creators, reviewers and journal editors, there are several additional considerations to judge,
prior to publication, how potentially valuable these new databasesmay be.

1. DATABASE PERMANENCE AND CHANGE

Many Internet-based resources have become inaccessible since their publication. Of all URLs published within any given year, ∼6% of that total will disappear each year thereafter. Approximately 20% of URLs published in MEDLINE abstracts are now inaccessible, about 20% of which are links to databases (Wren, 2008). In some cases, though, the database has simply been relocated and many of the more popular databases are quite stable (Galperin, 2006). Some of this probably reflects an obsolescence factor, one that serves the community by removing outdated or unused databases. But most, even if infrequently accessed, are probably a loss to the scientific community. The continued existence or even probable shelf life of a database is difficult to predict up front. But like other scientific resources, such as cell lines, they can be backed up by keeping copies offsite and/or permitting the data to be downloaded. Preservation efforts and downloadable data add to a database’s value.

On a related note, some databases are never updated and some are poorly maintained (e.g. bugs not fixed). Static data, even if organized into a queryable format, is more or less equivalent to supplementary to whom correspondence should be addressed. Information, and detracts from a database’s potential value. Updates and maintenance, unfortunately, can be no more guaranteed than permanence. Like the database itself, they are dependent upon the database creators. Fortunately, both these issues have been recognized and at least one website is taking steps to address them. Pathguide provides data on popularity as well as uptime for some database resources (Bader et al., 2006). Hopefully, a centralized user satisfaction website will evolve from this or another effort that records each published database, permits users to comment on their utility (and disappearance) and permits authors to post updates regarding relocations or ongoing difficulties. This would help quantify database utility (e.g. to justify requests for funding support), track updates and also permit reviewers to use it as a factor that might suggest how likely a new database is to be maintained and updated, on the basis of existing databases from the same authors.

2. DATA TOMBS

Among existing online databases, some are so rarely accessed that they would better be characterized as ‘data tombs’. Although these are somewhat analogous to uncited papers, the difference is that it should be theoretically easier to identify a potential user base for a database resource than to predict who might build upon or cite a body of research. It is difficult to objectively estimate, a priori, how frequently a new database might be accessed.Anarrow scope might mean few users, but it could be of great value to those few. A broadscope might suggest a wide user base, but the data within might be useless. But there are some factors that might help identify potential data tombs.

First, if a database has been cited (whether by its URL or name) by a group other than its creators, that is suggestive evidence of its potential utility. In cases where the need for a new database is in doubt, it might not be unreasonable to set this as a prerequisite for moving forward with the peer-review process. Such a reference could, of course, be fabricated, but doing so is non-trivial. In the absence of citations, signed letters of support from users could similarly be used during the review process to persuade reviewers of its utility. Data tombs, in large part, seem to have resulted from a ‘build it and they will come’ philosophy, which is OK as a means of justifying database creation, but not publication.

Second, it is worth requesting a mix of reviewers who have expertise in biological database design, and those anticipated to be among the users of the database. It is also essential that the reviewers be asked to report on the usage and testing of the database as well as reviewing the manuscript.

Third, it would be useful to have a subsection in every database paper whereby authors explicitly describe and make convincing arguments for their anticipated user base, if none exists already. Not merely with generic proclamations (e.g. ‘this database can be of value to researchers who access genomic data’), but with specific examples (e.g. ‘so-and-so et al. were limited to the analysis of 431 genes of category X in their recent paper, but if they had been able
to access our database, they could have more than quadrupled that number’).

3. DATABASE UTILITY

Putting aside issues of permanence and anticipated access frequency, it is also important to weigh potential utility. Bear in mind that the first to publish a Database of Purpose X raises the requirements for anyone who wants to publish a similar database in the future. Merely creating a better quality database will probably not be enough to justify publication if the content is largely the same, yet it seems a shame that an inferior version would be part of the publication record rather than a superior one. However, such events cannot be reasonably anticipated and so requesting low-cost and/or high-benefit improvements is best done prior to publication, when authors are most motivated to make such changes. Specifics vary by database, and design considerations for good databases have been outlined (Bateman, 2007). Here are some of the more important strategic considerations.

First, more can be less. Busy web pages can confuse and distract. Developers often equate the power of their software with the number of options, but users usually equate the number of options with the number of barriers between them and their results. Default parameters should already be set and labeled as such. It is good practice to have a link or help feature explaining why one would want to choose one option over another if it is not already selfexplanatory. If a database is hard to navigate, query or use, users will prefer an alternative that is less sophisticated but easier to use.

Second, the more a database can be integrated into other programs, the more its potential value is. The ability to access database entries by URL parameters (e.g. as one can do to link to PubMed articles by their PubMed ID) or by a programmatic interface (e.g. APIs, SOAP)also adds to its value and utility, since it can become a resource not just to people, but to programs.

Third, all databases should be evaluated in terms of the value provided to their intended user base. For example, agglomerating data from different sources into a ‘metabase’ can be potentially useful, but if the users of the database would mostly be the programmers that could just as easily combine the different data sources themselves, then there is not much value.

Finally, it is worth noting that the most valuable databases are either central repositories of data or add value by curation of biological information. Databases that merely parse a larger database(e.g. PDB) into a smaller, focused subset are rarely of any practical value. When judging a database, an important question to be asked is whether the sum of biological knowledge has been increased by the database. If the answer is no then what purpose does it fulfill?

4. SUMMARY

Publishing database descriptions in peer-reviewed journals implies that they have value to the scientific community, value at least equal to the regular research papers published in the same journal. This may vary by journal, but no journal would want to publish databases if they knew they were destined to become data tombs or dust in the wind. Estimating the potential value of a new database needs to focus on the nature of the resource being described and take into account that, unlike regular research articles, a database’s continued existence, utility and maintenance can only be estimated probabilistically. Thus, factors that increase this probability increase its potential value.

Conflict of Interest: none declared.

REFERENCES
Bader,G.D. et al. (2006) Pathguide: a pathway resource list. Nucleic Acids Res., 34,
D504–D506.
Bateman,A. (2007) Editorial. Nucleic Acids Res., 35, D1–D2.
Galperin,M. (2006) The molecular biology database collection: 2006 update. Nucleic
Acids Res., 34(Database issue), D3–D5.
Wren,J.D. (2008) URL decay in MEDLINE—a 4-year follow-up study. Bioinformatics,
24, 1381–1385.
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Database system helps keep everyone informed in rural Vermont school district.(Applications)

2009-11-05T21:18:00.002+07:00

T H E Journal (Technological Horizons In Education) 32.1 (August 2004): p.45(3). (998 words)

Author(s): Bob Owens.
Document Type: Magazine/Journal

Tracking the progress of individual students and finding ways to improve their educational experience are constant challenges for all schools. But in rural Vermont, the distance between schools can compound the problem of quick and effective communications. At Addison Northwest Supervisory Union, an educational management system built on FileMaker Pro database software helps keep everyone informed. By using the database, teachers stay close to the performance of students, while administrators keep an eye on progress toward school, district and statewide achievement goals.

Analyzing Data

In the past, teachers used a paper-based system that worked well for individual teachers, but posed a problem when it came time to analyze the data on a districtwide basis. When we built the database, FileMaker Pro let us design the user interface so it mirrored the paper-based system that was familiar to our teachers. This greatly smoothed teacher adoption and allowed us to quickly begin tracking results. With all data now housed in a central location, we are able to deliver different strata of data based on the unique needs of each group. For example:

* Administrators prefer to analyze data from district to district within the state or from school to school within a district.

* Principals prefer to analyze data from classroom to classroom within a grade.

* Teachers prefer to analyze data from student to student within a class.

* Parents prefer to analyze data from child to other children (within one school or across the district).

The system is designed to work first at the classroom level--to keep the focus on getting information in the hands of the teacher--where it will have the most impact on educating children. Teachers can print reports from the database at any time, which helps them identify groups of children who may need similar kinds of attention. This ability to print reports also lets teachers tailor their lessons in order to have the most efficiency in the classroom and the most impact on each child.

Providing Online Access

The entire system is housed on a Citrix server, so despite the distance, teachers and administrators can access the data remotely over the Internet. This is important in a region where most of the outlining area is rural farmland. Within this district, we have three elementary schools, one high school and one administration building serving a population of 1,300 students spread across five towns: Addison, Ferrisburg, Panton, Vergennes and Waltham. Again, our database was designed to reflect the use model already in place with the teachers. In this case, teachers were accustomed to taking paperwork home; however, we made it so they can now access the same forms over the Internet. In the future, we will add Internet access for parents as well. So even if they live in remote, rural settings, parents still will be able to view the progress of their child at any time throughout the year.

We also will he correlating information in the database with actual report cards. When report cards are tied into the database, parents will be able to not only see how their child is performing at any time, but they will also be able to compare their child's performance to other students in the same class or district. Naturally, we will modify the language on the report cards to be more parent-friendly since some of the terms in the profiles are designed for professional educators, and may be nonintuitive to many parents.

Educating on a Local Level

The Addison school district has established its own profiles for local achievement by grade and subject. We believe that if we stay on track with the local profiles, we will also stay on track with many of the standardized tests at the state and national levels. As the system exists now, it has tremendous utility to analyze and chart education progress on many levels. Since all the data exists in a central database, we can quickly export from FileMaker Pro directly to Excel spreadsheets. We can then chart and graph the progress from one year to the next or compare the achievement on standardized tests to local educational profile objectives. In the event that we find discrepancies among the comparisons of local and standardized test results, we can adjust our educational emphasis accordingly.

The database is designed to accommodate fields for as many as 90 separate objectives for each area of the curriculum. For instance, in the area of reading, we can compare results for reading strategy, reading comprehension, writing dimensions, writing conventions, language receptivity and expression, as well as knowledge and engagement. In its entirety, the system consists of nine relational databases with more than 64,000 records.

Teaching the Teachers

Since the look and feel of the database maps intuitively to the paper-based system that teachers have already used, training affords us the opportunity to educate not so much on how to use the database, but on how to evaluate students' expertise. This is particularly helpful in areas like literacy, which can be less objective than testing students' mathematical abilities. Along with evaluation criteria, we have produced a handbook to augment the system.

Spreading the Word

As our system became more successful with parents, teachers and administrations in the district, word quickly spread to other districts in the area. Several of these local school districts are now starting to roll out their own student management systems based on our database. Addison charges for the software and for a small portion of my time consulting to the other districts in order to recoup some of the costs from my efforts developing the system.

Four years ago, this system began as a way to track educational progress for the Addison school district. Now, it is helping teachers, parents and administrators find new ways to collaborate in order to improve the education of students not only in this district, but also throughout our region of Vermont.

Contact Information

www.filemaker.com/k12

Bob Owens, Ed Tech Coordinator, Addison Northwest Supervisory Union
Source Citation:Owens, Bob. "Database system helps keep everyone informed in rural Vermont school district." T H E Journal (Technological Horizons In Education) 32.1 (August 2004): 45(3). InfoTrac Humanities & Education Collection. Gale. STIMIK Pro Visi. 8 Oct. 2009

.

Gale Document Number:A121805469

SQL DATABASE

2009-11-05T21:03:00.000+07:00

Databases are designed, built, and populated with data for a specific purpose and for an intended group of users. Databases help people keep track of things. For example, one's school probably has a database with information about its students—name, identification number, address, year in school, grade point average, and so on. These data are used by the school administration to keep track of how many students are enrolled in the school and to plan how many and what kinds of classes are needed for these students. Databases like this one (called SCHOOL here) are designed, built, maintained, and queried using a set of tools called a database management system (DBMS). The most common language used with DBMS is called SQL.

SQL (Structured Query Language) is the set of instructions used to define and manipulate data in many relational databases . Some people pronounce SQL as "sequel," while others pronounce each letter separately. In the 1980s, SQL become the industry standard adopted by many database vendors including Oracle, Ingres, Informix, RDB, and Sybase.

SQL is used with a particular type of database called relational. Relational databases are easy to understand since they store data in one or more tables. Each table represents a different person, place, object, or event (entity) in a database. For example, in our SCHOOL database there are two tables: STUDENT, with data about our students, and TEACHERS, with data about teachers. Each table has one or more columns representing specific attributes (facts or fields) for each student or teacher. In the STUDENT table, we store student names, addresses, grade point averages (GPAs), class in school, and other related items. Each row in the STUDENT table represents a different student (called a record or tuple). If our school has 1,000 students, the STUDENT table will have 1,000 records. Figure 1 demonstrates an abbreviated set of attributes for one record in the STUDENT table.

SQL statements fall into two major categories: DDL (Data Definition Language) and DML (Data Manipulation Language). The DDL statements allow one to create, modify, or delete objects such as tables in a database, and they allow you to restrict access to the database by granting privileges. That is, the administration of a high school could allow students to see their class schedule while preventing them from changing their grades. DDL statements include create, insert, alter, drop, and grant. The SQL command that follows creates the STUDENT table with eight attributes (FNAME, LNAME, IDNO, BDATE, ADDRESS, GENDER, GPA, and CLASSNO). Attribute names are sometimes cryptic abbreviations of what they represent in the real world. For example, FNAME is a student's first name and LNAME is his or her last name.

CREATE TABLE STUDENT (FNAME VARCHAR(15) NOT NULL, LNAME VARCHAR(15) NOT NULL, IDNO CHAR(9) NOT NULL, BDATE DATE, ADDRESS VARCHAR(30), GENDER CHAR, GPA DECIMAL(6,2), CLASSNO INT NOT NULL, PRIMARY KEY (IDNO) FOREIGN KEY (CLASSNO) REFERENCES CLASS (CLASSNUMBER));

This SQL command creates a table in the SCHOOL database called STUDENT. Each attribute is given a name, a data type, and a size. This tells the database what to expect when we insert actual records into the database, for example, whether the data element is numeric or alphabetic and how much space should be reserved for it. Some of the attributes are labeled with "NOT NULL." This qualifier indicates the attribute must have a value when entered into the STUDENT table. For example, the database will not accept a student's record if the identification number (IDNO) is blank.

Right now the table would be empty; no data about students have been entered. The table can be populated by the SQL command insert as shown in the two statements that follow.

INSERT INTO STUDENT VALUES ('Eric', 'Mace', 123456789, 1991-8-23, '332 Cunningham Lane', 'M', 3.7, 3); INSERT INTO STUDENT VALUES ('Lyndsey', 'Vogler', 987654321, 1989-3-5, '104 Golf Club Drive', 'F', 3.8, 4);

Now our SCHOOL database has two records in the STUDENT table— one for Eric Mace and one for Lyndsey Vogler. The insert command is one of the DML commands that allow you to manipulate the data in the database. The most common SQL statements are insert, update, delete, and select. The following three statements show how to see the data stored in our database using the select command. We can ask for all attributes or just specific ones. In these examples, only the student's name (last name and first name) is requested.

SELECT LNAME, FNAME FROM STUDENT; SELECT

LNAME, FNAME FROM STUDENT ORDER BY LNAME; SELECT LNAME, FNAME FROM STUDENT WHERE LNAME

"Mace";

The first statement would list all students in the order they were inserted into the STUDENT table. The second statement sorts the students alphabetically by last name. The final statement retrieves only those records that match a last name of 'Mace'. Since we have just one record with that last name, only Eric Mace is retrieved. However, if we insert a record for Eric's brother, Daniel Mace, and resubmit the third SQL statement, two records will be retrieved.

Another useful SQL command is update. This command allows you to change data for a particular record. Suppose another student's GPA has changed. We must indicate the exact record to change (Jon Roberts), the attribute to change (GPA), and its new value (3.9).

UPDATE STUDENT SET GPA 3.9 WHERE LNAME 'Roberts' AND FNAME 'Jon';

Using these SQL commands, we can create a database with multiple tables, populate the database with records, modify the database, and most importantly, query the database to find the information stored in it. The classical database applications track items such as students, orders, customers, jobs, employees, or other items of interest to a business person. Many individuals who like organization create a database to track their CD or book collections, for example. In the 1990s, databases became more readily available and database technology was applied to multimedia (video and sound), geographic information systems (maps, satellite, and weather data), data warehouses (very large repositories of data from a wide range of sources), and Internet-based databases.

Google Adsense

2009-11-05T20:35:00.001+07:00

Google AdSense is the program that can give you advertising revenue from each page on your website—with a minimal investment in time and no additional resources.

AdSense delivers relevant text and image ads that are precisely targeted to your site and your site content. And when you add a Google search box to your site, AdSense delivers relevant text ads that are targeted to the Google search results pages generated by your visitors’ search request.

You can maximize your revenue potential by displaying Google ads on your website. Google puts relevant CPC (cost-per-click) and CPM (cost per thousand impressions) ads through the same auction, and lets them compete against one another. The auction takes place instantaneously, and, when it’s over, AdSense automatically displays the text or image ad(s) that will generate the maximum revenue for a page -- and the maximum revenue for you. Sources of this articel Google Adsense

Google Affiliate Program

2009-11-05T02:23:00.002+07:00

Google may be sticking its toes into Affiliate Programs. They apparently are calling these CPA (Cost Per Action) ads, but what that means is that publishers get paid not for clicks but for some specific action at an advertiser's site: buying something, providing information, whatever. That's an Affiliate Program, Google is just naming it something else.

Interestingly, this comes at the same time that eBay is murmuring about its own affiliate style thingy. What they intend to do is let sites like this run ads pointing at appropriate auctions. For example, we might run ads for auctions related to computer hardware, and would get paid if someone reading here clicked through and won the auction (or purchased a Buy It Now item).

Well, heck, I though that might be interesting, so I moseyed over and tried to sign up. Turns out eBay intends to use Commission Junction as their processing arm for this. That caused me to scowl a bit: CJ has a bit of a negative connotation in my mind because of earlier experiences. I had a CJ account once but let it lapse because, well, because the programs offered were too slimy and hucksterish for my taste.

Long story short, the folks at CJ, master marketers that they are, won't let me sign up because I canned the program I originally signed up for. This is what they said, honest:

As stated in the Publisher Service Agreement, if any of our Publishers do not generate revenue for more than 6 months, we automatically deactivate them. This policy ensures that our network is efficient and beneficial to our Advertisers and Publishers. Since your account is no longer active in our network, your page will register as "expired" among the advertisers with whom you were previously affiliated. Unfortunately, deactivated accounts are not eligible for reactivation.

Isn't that brilliant? They go on to say that I can "sign up for another account using an alternate e-mail address". Oh, I see: I'm rotten meat as publisher because YOUR program wasn't any good, but I should feel free to use another email address to get back in good graces. That's like telling the guy who mugged you last night that he can do it again if he will just wear a different mask. Except I didn't mug them; they mugged me. Yeah, I know: bad analogy.

Anyway, I bet that just the use of CJ alone will turn off more than a few publishers who might otherwise have been interested. What's up with that, E-Bay? Surely you could handle your own affiliate program - why did you bring these guys into it? Especially since Google is the 800 pound gorilla likely to turn CJ into a a quivering pile of mush. What was eBay thinking?

I'm thinking the heck with eBay, and I'm looking forward to Google's CPA ads, that's what I'm thinking.

CPM and CPC advertising has been paying less and less, no doubt because of the tremendous amount of click fraud: it just makes sense for advertisers to lower their bids to compensate. But CPA is an entirely different story. For example, I run ads advertising Kerio products. I pay Google 75 cents or less per click, but I'd pay a heck of a lot more for anything that actually turned into a sale - or even a legitimate prospect. I'd love to be able to do CPA ads with Google on that. And on the other side, I'd like to run appropriate and relevant CPA ads here, too.

Well, the program isn't public yet, so we'll have to wait for details. And who knows, maybe eBay will wake up and realize CJ is a lousy partner for their venture into advertising affiliate programs.

Object-oriented programming

2009-11-05T01:20:00.000+07:00

By: Huff, Sid L., Business Quarterly, 00076996, Winter93, Vol. 58, Issue 2

A new method of building and maintaining computer software emerging. It promises substantial savings in time and money

Most everyone, from three-year-olds to Senior Executives, has at one time or another played with lego sets. Truly amazing structures can be assembled out of collections of simple, standardized pieces. Building complex structures out of simple pieces also characterizes many other, commercially useful activities such as the design of electronic circuits. Why can we not build software the same way -- by assembling collections of simple, reusable "pieces" of code? The concept of software reuse is not new, but it has met with almost no success until quite recently. Constantly reinventing the wheel has characterized most software development until now. A somewhat radical new method, different enough from the traditional approaches to programming to be termed a new paradigm, is emerging out of specialized software labs and into the pragmatic mainstream. It is called the "object-oriented" approach to software development. Reflecting its newness and somewhat controversial nature, object-oriented programming goes by the descriptive acronym OOP. It opens a door, which, over the long term, promises to lead adopting organizations out of today's low-productivity, maintenance-dominated, software crisis.

SOFTWARE BECOMING STANDARDIZED

At a conference sponsored by NATO in 1969, the term "software engineering" was coined. Prior to that time, the designing and writing of computer programs had been treated as an art. No two programmers wrote even a small, simple program the same way. Great emphasis was placed on elegance; very efficient code was prized more highly than was easy-to-understand code. Such attitudes and practices made software difficult and expensive to create, and even more difficult and expensive to maintain, a legacy that is still with us today.

The central concept underlying software engineering has been that software development and maintenance should be made more like traditional engineering work. Emphasis should be placed on standardized approaches, and more care taken at the early design stages, since the cost of fixing design errors escalates rapidly as the development process unfolds. Furthermore, software should be reused wherever possible.

Considerable progress in converting computer programming into an engineering discipline has occurred during the past 20 years. Nearly all organizations have adopted software development methodologies, which encompass sets of rules and guidelines for creating programs in a standardized fashion. Development tools such as Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) toolsets have moved programmers and analysts further away from the low-level details of specific computers, allowing them to work more productively at higher levels of abstraction. The huge improvements in the price/performance ratio of computing equipment (greatly increased computing power per dollar) that have occurred in the past two decades, have made possible a shift in the emphasis of software developers from efficiency to productivity. Today, it rarely makes economic sense for software professionals to spend time to make their code more efficient.

Thus, many of the original tenets of the software engineering philosophy have become standard operating procedure in most companies today. one key goal of software engineering has not materialized significantly to date, however -- finding a viable and cost-effective way to allow software components to be reused. The reusability problem has become so serious that today it is widely viewed as the holy grail of the software development world. object orientation offers the long-term promise of a high degree of software reusability, and the possibility of improving the productivity of software development as much as the improved methods of the previous 20 years have changed its process.
WHY IS SOFTWARE HARD TO REUSE?

Think about a company. What does a company consist of? There are people (employees), pieces of equipment (trucks, say), buildings, documents (cheques, customer statements), other companies (customers, suppliers) and so forth. Now look at the company's computer software. There you will find programs to do things such as issue an order, pay an employee, create a budget, register a payment and keep track of inventory. Application software is fundamentally process-centred. Its purpose is to allow a company to record, organize and manage information about changes to things.

This process orientation is so deeply embedded in the thinking of nearly all computer professionals that it is very difficult to "step out of the box," and see it for what it is: simply an artifact of history. The first computer software was conceived as the expression of an algorithm, that is, a set of mathematical steps for performing a calculation. The fixation of early computer engineers with algorithms -- in the late 1940s and early 1950s -- is still the basis of the world's understanding of software.

A process-centred approach to software amounts to focusing on the problem's solution (the how) rather than the problem itself (the what). When software is designed this way, the various pieces all tend to be shaped towards the solution in the designer's mind. Thus, even when the software itself is built in a modular fashion, the various modules represent pieces of the solution, that is, components of the process being represented. Such pieces cannot easily be plucked out of one application and reused in another that has a different solution. A process orientation greatly restricts the reusability of software. It has only taken 35 years to come to realize that there might he a hefter way!
A BETTER WAY IS POSSIBLE

Suppose, rather than having programs that represented paying employees, issuing orders or keeping track of inventory, you had pieces of software that represented things such as employees, orders, items that had been manufactured and so forth. For each employee, there would he a separate and distinct chunk of software on the company's computer; similarly there would he one for each customer order, for each piece of company equipment, and so on. Such a software environment would be thing-centred, as opposed to process-centred. That is the essence of the object-oriented approach to software.

In the terminology of this approach, each little chunk of software is termed an object. An object can he thought of as a self-contained combination of code and data. A software object that represents me, for example, would likely he a specific instance of the broad class of objects called employees (of UWO). The data contained within this particular object might include my name, my employee i.d. number, my telephone number and the like -- in other words, data about me. The same type of data would be included in every other employee object.

Now, suppose I get a new telephone number. How is the representation of my phone number within the object changed? As part of the code that comprises the rest of the object, there would he a small routine named, perhaps, ChangePhoneNumber. That routine would he "called" by having some other object send a message to the SidHuff object. The message would instruct the SidHuff object to execute its ChangePhoneNumber routine (or method, as it is called), and would pass the new phone number to the object as part of the message. Other routines would be included in each employee object to perform other actions upon the object's data. The object itself, then, is just a collection of the routines, together with the encapsulated data.

In an object-oriented world, each object appears as a black box to the rest of the software. All that needs to he known about an object is its name, and the various types of messages it can accept. In principle, there is no need to look inside an object to make use of it. A useful parallel here is that of electrical engineers designing a new circuit. They know they can buy prefabricated chips from various suppliers, and incorporate them into their overall design. They do not need to know how each chip works internally -- only what the appropriate inputs and corresponding outputs are.

Similarly, an object-oriented software designer only has to know the types of objects available, and the types of messages each object can receive and act upon. Programming, in an object-oriented environment, consists of defining classes of objects, then stringing together appropriate objects to perform whatever task one sets out to accomplish. The focus for an object-oriented software developer is not so much solving the problem (the old process perspective), hut rather, determining what objects are required, what the various object types should do (that is, what methods each should embody) and how the various objects relate to each other. It is, in short, a very different perspective on software development.
NEED TO STANDARDIZE

Once a full library of objects has been defined, building software systems can be done extremely rapidly, almost unbelievably so for someone schooled in the traditional procedural approach to software creation. Developing a library of objects, in a real-world setting is a major undertaking, however. For this reason, various groups, such as the open object Foundation, have been formed during the past few years to try to set standards for many types of common software objects, to standardize the language and concepts surrounding the object-oriented approach, and especially to build sharable libraries of reusable coded objects.

It may at first seem surprising that different organizations are able to share software objects. From an object-oriented perspective, however, much commonality exists across organizations, even those in very different lines of business. While some details will differ, an account object in a manufacturing firm has much the same structure as an account object in an insurance company. The same is true for customer objects, supplier objects, inventory stock objects, employee objects and so forth. Thus, a generic, standardized library of object types (or classes) can greatly accelerate the learning and startup of an organization adopting the object-oriented approach.

Obviously, some industries will have specialized requirements. Insurance companies need to define and employ policy objects, for instance, while banks require loan objects. Even here, however, insurance company associations could collaborate on a generic definition for policy objects that could be shared, and perhaps tailored by specific firms.
BENEFITS OF THE OBJECT-ORIENTED APPROACH

A number of benefits are expected to accrue to firms adopting the object oriented approach to software, including:

* A dramatically improved productivity resulting from the reusability of the software, once a company's library of object classes has been fully developed;
* Higher quality programs, because the bulk of a company's software will be built out of reusable objects, which will have been thoroughly tested and debugged well ahead of time;
* Improved software flexibility, since, just as with toys made from Lego pieces, applications programs will be able to be disassembled and reassembled quickly and easily as the organization's shape and requirements change;
* Simplified and reduced software maintenance;
* Enhanced data integrity, resulting from the black box nature of software objects;
* Improved ability to handle complexity, since, as experience to date has shown, it is possible to build far more complex and challenging systems, with fewer people, when they are built using an object-oriented approach.

THERE ARE SOME DRAWBACKS

The adoption of the object-oriented approach is not something that can be undertaken quickly; it requires a long-term perspective. Some of the potential problems an organization faces in moving to it include:

* The object-oriented approach requires a company's software professionals to learn a whole new way of thinking. In particular, it requires new, unfamiliar programming methods and languages, such as C++, Smalltalk or perhaps visually-oriented languages, such as Visual Basic or Objectvision.
* At present, libraries of object classes are limited and far from complete. Companies adopting the object-oriented approach will have to spend considerable time investing in the design and creation of their own object class libraries. Sharing the effort with other firms will mitigate this problem somewhat, however.
* The object-oriented approach is not compatible, at least today, with most purchased software.
* There is a human harrier to be overcome. Many computer professionals are still skeptical of the value of the object-oriented approach, much as they have been, until recently, skeptical of the benefits of personal computers. They are often unwilling to surrender the years of investment they have made in the process approach to software creation, to learn the new methods.

BEGIN BY BEGINNING

The drawbacks to adopting the object-oriented approach are considerable and should not be underestimated. Nonetheless, as a long-term solution to the problem of software reuse and development productivity generally, the object -oriented approach offers a compelling alternative - indeed, arguably the only realistic alternative-to current process-oriented methods. Appropriate steps you might consider for your organization to develop a better appreciation for object-oriented methods include:

* Get your organization involved with one or more groups developing standardized objects;
* Provide appropriate training for a group of your computer professionals to get them up to speed in object-oriented development methods;
* Arrange some small-scale experiments that will allow this advance team to try out different object-oriented techniques and languages;
* Undertake a series of pilot projects of small but increasing scale, in which the advance team applies the new methods to real problems in the organization;
* Work towards architecting and developing your organization's own object class libraries;
* Actively seek out other organizations with which you can share your firm's experiences in the object-oriented approach.

OOP IS NOT A QUICK FIX

Very few organizations, other than software companies, have yet undertaken wholesale conversion to object orientation. Partly this reluctance is due to the huge mountain of existing software most companies currently own, which was built using traditional methods and tools, and which must be maintained for years to come. Even if the world experienced a massive conversion to the object-oriented philosophy tomorrow, it would take many years to replace the existing inventory of company programs with new object-oriented systems. Any talk of instant benefits from adoption of the object-oriented approach, therefore, is ridiculous. Conversely, for years companies have sought solutions to their software crises - costly development, low productivity, difficult maintenance, inability to reuse their code - with little to show for it. The object-oriented approach, an entirely new paradigm for software creation and maintenance, holds the key to a door leading out of the current morass. While not a short-term fix, by enabling the sharing and reuse of software, the object-oriented approach offers a long-term solution to today's software crisis.

Go Blogger !!

2009-11-04T23:53:00.000+07:00

Blogger is Google’s free tool for creating blogs. It can be found on the web at http://www.blogger.com.

Blogs, short for web-logs, are a form of online journal.

Getting Started With Blogger

You can use blogs for everything from updating your friends and family about your life, giving your own advice column, discussing your political views, or relating your experience in a topic of interest. You can host blogs with multiple contributors, or you can run your own solo show. You can even use Blogger to make your own podcast feeds.

Although there are fancier blog tools out there, the mixture of cost (free) and flexibility makes Blogger one of the best deals around.

Setting Up Your Blog

Setting up a Blogger account takes three easy steps. Create an account, name your blog, and choose a template. You can host multiple blogs with the same account name, so you only need to do that part once. This way you could separate your professional blog about your business from your personal blog about dogs, for instance.

Hosting Your Blog

Blogger will host your blog for free on blogspot.com. You can also use Blogger to automatically ftp your blog posts to your own web space. Make sure you have the correct server settings from your internet service provider, otherwise you may have unpredictable results.

Posting

Once your blog is set up, Blogger has a basic WYSIWYG editor. (What you see is what you get) This is not necessarily a bad thing. Most blogging tools do not have robust html editors, and the ones that do often require java or other plug-ins.

If you need more formatting options and a larger window, you can use Google Docs to post to your Blogger blog. You could also do advanced editing with HTML. Blogger has an HTML tab to let you do this directly, although it does not allow JavaScript.

Email Your Posts

You can optionally configure Blogger with a secret email address, so you can email your posts to your blog. This is handy for making updates on the fly or updating from your cell phone or other mobile device.

Pictures

Blogger will let you upload pictures from your desktop and post them to your blog. You can choose the basic layout and size of your images, and they’ll be uploaded to Bloggers’s server space, so you don’t have to host the pictures on a different website.

That doesn't mean you can't post with pictures that you've hosted elsewhere on the Web. You can also use Picasa Web Albums to post pictures to your blog.

Google Video and YouTube videos can similarly be directly linked into your blog posts.

MANAGEABILITY COMPARISON: ORACLE DATABASE 10G AND ORACLE 9I DATABASE

2009-11-04T23:46:00.001+07:00

MANAGEABILITY COMPARISON: ORACLE DATABASE 10G AND ORACLE 9I DATABASE

ION LUNGU, TEODORA VĂTUIU *

ABSTRACT : In this paper we performed a basic and common DBA tasks on the two products and measured the time taken and the steps required to complete each task, to assess their relative manageability. The time taken to complete the tasks was then weighted according to their frequency of use in a typical DBA workday to arrive at an overall time savings percentage.

KEYWORD: manageability comparison, software application, management system

1. OVERVIEW OF ORACLE BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE SOLUTIONS
Oracle Database 10g is the first designed for grid computing, reducing IT costs by automating management and clustering servers to dynamically allocate resources. Editorial reviews applaud Oracle's manageability, scalability, and value. Information management systems today play an increasingly strategic role for businesses. We can exploit now the wealth of data your business collects every day to enable Corporate Performance Management and gain competitive advantage. Oracle Business Intelligence solutions deliver the right information at the right time, so you can make the right operational, tactical and strategic decisions.

Effective management of such systems, therefore, is vital to business success. With the cost of day-to-day operation and management of such systems easily outstripping their initial acquisition costs, it has become progressively more important for businesses to have systems that are easy to manage and maintain. Besides this cost of ownership factor, manageability also has serious ramifications for the availability, reliability, and maintainability of a system.

With human error accounting for more than 50% of unscheduled downtime, any system that is simple and easy to use is less likely to encounter human errors and hence will be more immune from harm that such errors can cause. For all these reasons, it is no surprise that Oracle has taken significant steps to greatly enhance the manageability of its product by making it more self-managing, more proactive, and less complex.

Oracle Database 10g is the latest release of Oracle database software which contains a number of new features and functionalities designed to make businesses more productive. In this study, we will analyze the manageability improvement from Oracle9i to Oracle 10g and will attempt to establish a quantitative measure for the manageability differential between the two releases. This will give Oracle customers an objective basis for calculating management cost savings due to Oracle Database 10g and allow them to ascertain the business benefits of upgrading to this new release.

The tasks performed in this study covered the following four categories:
- Installation and Simple “Out-of-Box” Setup,
- Day-to-Day Database Administration,
- Backup & Recovery, and
- Performance Diagnostics & Tuning.

The study showed that Oracle 10g made tremendous gains in manageability. The main findings of the study are summarized below: Oracle 10g database administrators require 50% less time than Oracle9i to perform the basic management tasks included in this study; Oracle 10g needed 57% fewer administrative steps than Oracle9i to complete the same DBA workload.

As the results show, compared to Oracle9i, Oracle Database 10g reduces management complexity by half and therefore, makes the administrators twice as productive. This has huge cost savings implications for businesses, not only due to greater DBA productivity, but also due to the fact that increased automation in Oracle Database 10g reduces the chances of human errors leading to higher system availability and lower training and management costs.

Oracle 10g manageability features responsible for advances made over Oracle9i covered a wide range of areas, with the most remarkable improvements coming in the performance diagnostics and tuning category. With DBA’s spending nearly a third of their time doing performance diagnostics and tuning related functions, the new automatic diagnostic and tuning engine of Oracle 10g, i.e., ADDM and SQL Tuning Advisor, completely transform the way these functions are performed and were the biggest factors responsible for making Oracle 10g easier to manage. Other areas of noteworthy improvements for Oracle 10g were software installation & configuration, space management, and human error recovery.

The study clearly demonstrates the huge leap taken by Oracle 10g over Oracle9i in the area of manageability. DBA’s can significantly lower their workload and improve the availability and reliability of their system by simply adopting Oracle 10g. With Oracle 10g, businesses can expect to lower the cost of management and improve quality of service for their users.

2. METHODOLOGY OF MEASURING OR COMPARING EASE-OF-USE OR MANAGEABILITY

As there no exists standard method of measuring or comparing ease-of-use or manageability, we have used the approach employed by a similar study conducted by Rauch Associates comparing Oracle9i Database with IBM DB21. We performed a set of basic and common administrative tasks that reasonably represent a typical DBA’s workload on both Oracle9i and Oracle10g, and measured them on a common set of metrics to gauge their relative manageability. The metrics used were:
- Time: Total time that a DBA spends in carrying out the task.
- Steps: Number of steps required to complete the task.

The time metric is used to ascertain the relative management efficiency of the two products. The quicker a DBA can complete a task, the more efficient and productive he/she will be. It should be noted that the time metric above represents DBA time and not necessarily task completion time, since the goal is to determine DBA time savings. For example, for certain tasks such as the backup database task, the time required to setup a regularly scheduled backup job by the DBA is measured and not the actual backup time, since actual backups normally happen unsupervised at off-peak hours when the DBA could be, and normally is, doing other things.
Hence, the time savings in this task comes from simplification of backup management and this is what has been measured in the study. The second metric, steps, is used to determine and quantify relative complexity of the two releases. This, in our opinion, is a reasonable way of quantifying complexity as it would be difficult to refute the contention that if one product requires its users to perform significantly greater number of discrete steps to complete an identical task than its counterpart, then the former is more difficult to use and hence, more complex than the latter.

Once measured, these metrics were used to perform a comparative manageability analysis of the two products. However, before interpreting these results, it was recognized that not all of the tasks in the workload are performed with equal frequency. For example, software installation is not done as often database backup. To realistically account for this, a weighted average was used to weigh each set of tasks according to their typical degree of use. A survey of database administrators was used to determine the appropriate weights for the tasks. This weighted time was then used to compare the overall relative manageability of Oracle9i and Oracle 10g.
Tasks covering all the key DBA functions were performed. The tasks were grouped in the following four categories:
- Installation and Simple “Out-of-Box” Setup;
- Day-to-Day Database Administration;
- Backup & Recovery;
- Performance Diagnostics & Tuning.

The tasks were performed on two separate machines, one for each product, with identical parameters. The hardware and software details are as follows:
• Hardware Platform
- Dell single-CPU box with Intel Pentium processor, 1.7 GHz.
- Memory: 512 MB RAM
- Operating System: Windows 2000 (version 5.00.2195), Service Pack 4
• Software
9 Oracle9i
- Oracle9i Database Release 2 on Windows 2000.
- Enterprise Manager and Packs (Oracle’s bundled management tool including Diagnostics Pack and Tuning Pack)
9 Oracle 10g
- Oracle Database 10g on Windows 2000
- Enterprise Manager and Packs (Oracle’s bundled management tool including Diagnostics Pack and Tuning Pack)

Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM) was the main tool used to perform the tasks for both Oracle9i and Oracle 10g. As this is the management tool that comes bundled with the Oracle database product, it was considered appropriate to use it for the purposes of this study.

3. STUDY FINDINGS

The tables below summarize the main findings of the study. As noted earlier, two metrics were measured in this study, time and steps needed to complete each task. The first metric, time to complete task, was measured to compare relative efficiency of the two products.

The other significant improvement in the performance diagnostics and tuning category in Oracle 10g was due to the new SQL Tuning Advisor feature. This feature automates all the steps required for tuning SQL statements and gives comprehensive tuning advice, along with the exact commands for implementing the advice. A user only needs to run the advisor and then accept its recommendations to comprehensively tune SQL statements in Oracle 10g. In addition, Oracle 10g provides infrastructure for tuning multiple SQL statements together in one step using SQL Tuning Sets. In our study we only tuned a single SQL statement; hence this functionality difference between Oracle9i and Oracle 10g, which is very useful for real world environments, was not highlighted. The actual advantage of Oracle 10g in SQL tuning, therefore, is much more than what is revealed in the study results.

Table 1 shows the time comparison between Oracle9i and Oracle 10g. The time taken to complete the tasks has been aggregated by task category in order to show the advantage one product has over the other for the different categories. The timings shown are the actual timings measured in the study and have not been weighted to reflect DBA workload savings.

Another area where Oracle 10g has made performance tuning very easy compared to Oracle9i is in memory management. With Automatic Shared Memory Tuning DBA’s no longer need to tune individual memory pools of the SGA. Just like with Automatic SQL Execution Memory Tuning feature introduced on Orace9i, users simply specify an SGA target size and the database automatically adjusts the sizes of the various memory pools as needed. This new Oracle 10g feature makes memory tuning a very simple exercise for DBA’s, as they only need to be concerned with 2 memory parameters (as compared to 6 for Oracle9i) whose optimal value is proactively recommended by ADDM. Thus, all a DBA has to do in Oracle 10g is to make sure that the value of the 2 memory parameters are in line with ADDM recommendations.

The last area of improvement in this category is the automation of query optimizer statistics collection in Oracle 10g. As a result, DBA’s no longer have to identify objects with stale or missing statistics by regularly monitoring objects to see if they had undergone sufficient DML activity to warrant regeneration of statistics, and then collect statistics on them as needed. This task has now been entirely automated in Oracle 10g and the database itself determines what objects need new statistics and then collects them on a regular basis without requiring any user input.

These are main areas of improvement in Oracle 10g that are responsible for the considerable manageability difference between Oracle9i and Oracle 10g. The improvements are not confined to a single area but are comprehensive and cover all the major areas where DBA’s spend most of their time. This across-the-board improvement in Oracle 10g is aptly reflected in the study by the huge margins by which Oracle 10g outperforms Oracle9i.

4. CONCLUSIONS

Oracle 10g represents a giant step forward from Oracle9i in making the database easier to use and manage. The key factors behind Oracle 10g’s superior manageability are its new intelligent self-managing infrastructure that provides proactive, self-monitoring and diagnostic capabilities, and the increased automation of many manual but vital DBA tasks such as SQL and memory tuning, space management, and performance diagnostics. Oracle 10g is the first truly self-managing database that is intelligent, automatic, adaptive, and proactive.
The study clearly demonstrates and quantifies the manageability advances made by Oracle Database 10g. Oracle Database 10g reduces the DBA management workload by more than half and the management complexity by the same factor relative to Oracle9i. This translates into more productive DBA’s, more reliable systems, and significant cost savings for businesses.