If you have Microsoft Great Plains and support it for your company then you need to know typical set of problems you have in Great Plains and their fixes to have Great Plains run smoothly in your company. We'll describe techniques applicable to Microsoft SQL Server as well as to legacy platforms: Pervasive SQL.2000 (btrieve) and ctree. The last Ctree/Pervasive version is 7.5. New Microsoft Great Plains 8.0 is for SQL Server/MSDE. You should also know that Great Plains as well as Small Business Manager is written in proprietary Great Plains Software language/environment: Great Plains Dexterity, which has Dynamics.exe and Dynamics.dic files as the core of the Great Plains workstation.
How to delete the user? This is the first problem you encounter - when user shuts down the computer - Great Plains doesn't have the command to log off the user and when user tries to login the next day - she gets error message that user is already logged on. The fix:
* Microsoft SQL Server - open SQL Query Analyzer, switch to DYNAMICS database and run the following script: DELETE ACTIVITY WHERE USERID='KATHY'.
* Pervasive SQL/Ctree - if you have more than one user registered you can delete the user from GP: System->User Activity->Delete User. If you like to work on the file level - ask all the users to log off. On the server, where you have your Great Plains files structure - DYNAMICS is the root, in SYSTEM folder delete ACTIVITY.* files
How to unlock the batch? This happens when user posts the batch and has her computer crashed (via surfing the internet - smile - or things like this)
* General tip - Great Plains recommends to logoff and then login back with the same user id. Then Great Plains will prompt the user to recover posting batch. Unfortunately it doesn't work in 70% of the cases
* MS SQL Server - the batch record is stored in Batch Header table: SY00500 in the company database. The fields to clear are: BCHSTTUS and MKDTOPST. In some cases you have to delete the record from SY00800 from DYNAMICS db.
* Pervasive/ctree - you have to install ODBC driver for Pervasive or Ctree and hook the tables: SY00500, SY00800 with Microsoft Access - use linked tables technique
Now we would like to stress you the need to move away from Pervasive SQL 2000/Ctree platforms - you are in trouble - Microsoft Business Solutions cuts technical support for Microsoft Great Plains 7.5 and prior on these platforms. This means not only the support, but also tax updates (especially Payroll and Federal Magnetic Media).
What is migration from Ctree/Pervasive.SQL 2000 to MS SQL/MSDE? MBS has migration tool. You need first to install Great Plains on SQL Server with exactly the same account/segments structure and then install migration tool (it is Dexterity chunk) on your ctree/Pervasive workstation - then, when you integrate the chunk - you will map it to target SQL-based Great Plains Company, select all system and company tables, click the button and it will move all your tables one-by-one. In the case when your Great Plains ctree/Pervasive has third parties - you need to check if the vendor has migration tool - otherwise you have to do manual move, use SQL Linked server to your legacy data
Do I need consultant? It is probably good idea to have consultant to do the upgrade. We strongly recommend you to use consultant in the following cases
* You have Dexterity customization
* You are doing migration from Pervasive/Ctree to Microsoft SQL Server/MSDE, especially when you have third-parties without migration tools
* You have a lot or ReportWriter Modified Great Plains Reports
* You have old version of Great Plains: Dynamics or eEnteroprise 6.0 or prior - in this case you can not appeal to Microsoft Technical Support - it is discontinued
* Your Great Plains has more than 20 users and you have to have upgrade done over the weekend - if it fails - you have business problems
* You don't have support - in this case you have to select your Microsoft Business Solutions Partner and pay for the annual support/enhancement plan - you will get new registration key and will be ready for the upgrade
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Sunday, September 28, 2008
The House Of Print.Com
Publishing has always been a difficult business to promote successfully, which titles by which authors to promote, which genre, will it be fiction or non-fiction? Will they sell? Will they make money, both for the publisher and for the author? So many questions which there is no definitive answer and so the publisher takes a chance with his money and his time and resources and decides on which books to publish, promote and distribute to the bookshops. He may only distribute to bookshops in his own country and if they don't sell well enough, will not be seen by anyone else in the world.
What a loss to humankind and their quest for more knowledge to enhance their work, their lives.
The fount of civilisations knowledge were always universities, libraries, and bookshops, and if publishers don't find it profitable to publish certain titles at all, to distribute to university libraries, and bookshops, then civilisation is the poorer.
When I was young going through school the public library was a must to enhance my knowledge of the world around me, it filled the gaps in my science, geography and literature lessons, and gave me new insight. I often gazed in awe at the rows of shelving containing all the worlds knowledge which had been written up by scientists, explorers, academics, and others, and oftentimes, you would have seen me taking an armful of books home to read at bedtime, anything from how atoms work, to famous authors tales of pirate treasure or tales of Victorian London.
The young people of today have all this technology at hand, not only at school, but in the home as well, they are only a mouse click away to the fount of knowledge, but in digital form on the internet. Many students believe that if a book is not on the internet it does not exist, and they would not waste time going around to the local bookshop on their High Street to enquire about it.
It behoves, therefore, all authors, publishers and booksellers, to at least put a synopsis of their books on the internet so at least letting peple know they exist, and where to obtain it in print or where to download it from. Many books are now downloadable, but they are published only by technology enlightened individuals, not the large publishers.
Even prints can be obtained from such e-books, the technology has advanced that far. It needs the willingness of publishers and authors to add value to this new fount of knowledge. The first great library was established in Alexandria, in ancient Egypt by Ptolemy, but it was burnt down later by invaders, and all manuscripts were lost. What lost knowledge we could have gained we do not know, for there was often only one copy made on papyrus scrolls and no other copies ever made. With the internet and the enormous computing capacity we have, there would be countless copies of e-books online for instant download, and therefore new knowledge, and works of great literature, need never be lost, for they are so easily replicable and distributable to a potential audience of three billion people on this planet.
Modern man, and woman, now looks for information on the internet, they no longer go to bookshops looking for it, with the enormous capacity available, all information should be on the internet including all government information.
The fact that retail sales of printed books have been falling off over the last few years means that publishers, and authors, have got to get with the new technology - we no longer use papyrus scrolls.
What a loss to humankind and their quest for more knowledge to enhance their work, their lives.
The fount of civilisations knowledge were always universities, libraries, and bookshops, and if publishers don't find it profitable to publish certain titles at all, to distribute to university libraries, and bookshops, then civilisation is the poorer.
When I was young going through school the public library was a must to enhance my knowledge of the world around me, it filled the gaps in my science, geography and literature lessons, and gave me new insight. I often gazed in awe at the rows of shelving containing all the worlds knowledge which had been written up by scientists, explorers, academics, and others, and oftentimes, you would have seen me taking an armful of books home to read at bedtime, anything from how atoms work, to famous authors tales of pirate treasure or tales of Victorian London.
The young people of today have all this technology at hand, not only at school, but in the home as well, they are only a mouse click away to the fount of knowledge, but in digital form on the internet. Many students believe that if a book is not on the internet it does not exist, and they would not waste time going around to the local bookshop on their High Street to enquire about it.
It behoves, therefore, all authors, publishers and booksellers, to at least put a synopsis of their books on the internet so at least letting peple know they exist, and where to obtain it in print or where to download it from. Many books are now downloadable, but they are published only by technology enlightened individuals, not the large publishers.
Even prints can be obtained from such e-books, the technology has advanced that far. It needs the willingness of publishers and authors to add value to this new fount of knowledge. The first great library was established in Alexandria, in ancient Egypt by Ptolemy, but it was burnt down later by invaders, and all manuscripts were lost. What lost knowledge we could have gained we do not know, for there was often only one copy made on papyrus scrolls and no other copies ever made. With the internet and the enormous computing capacity we have, there would be countless copies of e-books online for instant download, and therefore new knowledge, and works of great literature, need never be lost, for they are so easily replicable and distributable to a potential audience of three billion people on this planet.
Modern man, and woman, now looks for information on the internet, they no longer go to bookshops looking for it, with the enormous capacity available, all information should be on the internet including all government information.
The fact that retail sales of printed books have been falling off over the last few years means that publishers, and authors, have got to get with the new technology - we no longer use papyrus scrolls.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Microsoft Great Plains Dynamics on Pervasive SQL.2000 data repair – overview for Database Administrator
Up to the version 7.5 Microsoft Great Plains, and if you are looking to version 7.0, 6.0, 5.5, 5.0 or 4.0 - then it was Great Plains Dynamics were available on Pervasive SQL.2000 or Btrieve. I am confident that majority of database administrators know how to do data repair via Transact SQL query if you are on Microsoft SQL Server 2000/7.0, but I would like to help these ones, who have to support Microsoft Great Plains on Pervasive SQL.2000 or Ctree. Some introduction into Great Plains Software products, now Microsoft Business Solutions. Microsoft Great Plains becomes more and more popular, partly because of Microsoft muscles behind it. Now it is targeted to the whole spectrum of horizontal and vertical market clientele. Small companies use Small Business Manager (which is based on the same technology – Great Plains Dexterity dictionary DYNAMICS.DIC and runtime DYNAMICS.EXE), Great Plains Standard on MSDE is for small to midsize clients, and then Great Plains serves the rest of the market up to big corporations.
If you are database administrator who is supporting the version on Pervasive SQL.2000/Ctree – read this and you will have the clues on where to look further.
1. Microsoft Great Plains Tables Structure – Launch Great Plains and go to Tools->Resource Description->Tables. Find the table in the proper series. If you are looking for the customers – it should be RM00101 – customer master file, account master file - GL00101, Sales Header Work file - SOP10200 - and you got the idea.
2. Use Microsoft Access. Lunch Microsoft Access and make a link to Microsoft Great Plains tables. This will allow you to do data modification/repair. Some people are trying to use Pervasive control center - we do not recommend this - MS Access does job better.
3. Locked batch repair – unlocking the batch, which was interrupted in posting. The tables: SYoo500 - batch header - you need to change Batch Status or Marked for Posting field
4. Activity table - If you have user locked in Great Plains - just ask all the other users exit and delete ACTIVITY.BTR (Pervasive) or ACTIVITY.DAT (Ctree)
5. Crystal Report link to Pervasive/Ctree - you have to install Pervasive SQL ODBC driver from Great Plains Dynamics CD. This will allow you to deploy ODBC connection to Great Plains database
6. Sometimes you have to rescue to Great Plains Dexterity - when you need ongoing data import and you do not own Great Plains Integration manager or when Integration Manager doesn't have the object to deploy. This is proprietary Great Plains Software tool and development environment and you need some time invested, before you can do programming.
7. Complex Data Migration - use MS SQL Linked Server - you can create linked server to Pervasive/ctree and then you can create the cursor, coming through all the tables in your migration set - we usually recommend reading tables schema in MS SQL Server (it is the same to Pervasive) and pull the data from Pervasive database using EXEC statement in Transact SQL.
Happy data repairing! if you want us to do the job - give us a call 1-866-528-0577! help@albaspectrum.com
If you are database administrator who is supporting the version on Pervasive SQL.2000/Ctree – read this and you will have the clues on where to look further.
1. Microsoft Great Plains Tables Structure – Launch Great Plains and go to Tools->Resource Description->Tables. Find the table in the proper series. If you are looking for the customers – it should be RM00101 – customer master file, account master file - GL00101, Sales Header Work file - SOP10200 - and you got the idea.
2. Use Microsoft Access. Lunch Microsoft Access and make a link to Microsoft Great Plains tables. This will allow you to do data modification/repair. Some people are trying to use Pervasive control center - we do not recommend this - MS Access does job better.
3. Locked batch repair – unlocking the batch, which was interrupted in posting. The tables: SYoo500 - batch header - you need to change Batch Status or Marked for Posting field
4. Activity table - If you have user locked in Great Plains - just ask all the other users exit and delete ACTIVITY.BTR (Pervasive) or ACTIVITY.DAT (Ctree)
5. Crystal Report link to Pervasive/Ctree - you have to install Pervasive SQL ODBC driver from Great Plains Dynamics CD. This will allow you to deploy ODBC connection to Great Plains database
6. Sometimes you have to rescue to Great Plains Dexterity - when you need ongoing data import and you do not own Great Plains Integration manager or when Integration Manager doesn't have the object to deploy. This is proprietary Great Plains Software tool and development environment and you need some time invested, before you can do programming.
7. Complex Data Migration - use MS SQL Linked Server - you can create linked server to Pervasive/ctree and then you can create the cursor, coming through all the tables in your migration set - we usually recommend reading tables schema in MS SQL Server (it is the same to Pervasive) and pull the data from Pervasive database using EXEC statement in Transact SQL.
Happy data repairing! if you want us to do the job - give us a call 1-866-528-0577! help@albaspectrum.com
Monday, September 22, 2008
Microsoft Navision Customization Upgrade – tips for Programmer/IT Specialist
When Microsoft bought Navision it had the plan to take over European market of Business Applications. Now Navision has multiple installations in US and it is very good fit for mid-size manufacturing companies. Currently Microsoft Business Solutions is on the way of creating so-called suites: Microsoft Financials, Microsoft Distributions, Microsoft HR, Microsoft Manufacturing. It is very difficult to say which product will be the core of which suite, but the best guess is this: Microsoft Great Plains - Microsoft Financials and probably Distribution/Supply Chain Management and HR, Solomon - Microsoft Project or Professional Services, Navision - Microsoft Manufacturing. If you have Microsoft Business Solutions Navision and support it for your company then you need to know some technical details about Navision version upgrade and what is going on behind the scenes, which options do you have in case of C/SIDE customization or Jet Reports.
The challenge of Navision Upgrade This should be understood by both: software developer and company executive.
• One Dictionary - in contract to such product as Microsoft Great Plains, where customization goes into separate dictionary - Navision customization sits in the same dictionary. This means that when new version is out there - the customization should be re-analyzed and moved from the old dictionary to the new. If you remember the history - Navision actually merged several dictionaries couple of versions back - this was very tough time for customization upgrade
• SQL Server side - from this side upgrade is smooth, because Navision doesn't use complex SQL functionality and SQL Server itself is rather data storage.
Do I need consultant? It is probably good idea to have consultant to do the upgrade. We strongly recommend you to use consultant in the following cases
• You have C/SIDE customization or any customization for your Navision
• You have a lot of custom Jet Reports
• Your Navision has more than 20 users and you have to have upgrade done over the weekend - if it fails - you have business problems
• You don't have support - in this case you have to select your Microsoft Business Solutions Partner and pay for the annual support/enhancement plan - you will get new registration key and will be ready for the upgrade
The challenge of Navision Upgrade This should be understood by both: software developer and company executive.
• One Dictionary - in contract to such product as Microsoft Great Plains, where customization goes into separate dictionary - Navision customization sits in the same dictionary. This means that when new version is out there - the customization should be re-analyzed and moved from the old dictionary to the new. If you remember the history - Navision actually merged several dictionaries couple of versions back - this was very tough time for customization upgrade
• SQL Server side - from this side upgrade is smooth, because Navision doesn't use complex SQL functionality and SQL Server itself is rather data storage.
Do I need consultant? It is probably good idea to have consultant to do the upgrade. We strongly recommend you to use consultant in the following cases
• You have C/SIDE customization or any customization for your Navision
• You have a lot of custom Jet Reports
• Your Navision has more than 20 users and you have to have upgrade done over the weekend - if it fails - you have business problems
• You don't have support - in this case you have to select your Microsoft Business Solutions Partner and pay for the annual support/enhancement plan - you will get new registration key and will be ready for the upgrade
Thursday, September 18, 2008
RSS Reader is a life raft saving us from getting lost in a sea of useless information.
One of the main problems with the Internet these days is the fact that there is so much information out there; it can be quite hard to find the particular knowledge that you’re looking for. It can often feel like you’re surfing waves of thick chocolate fudge sauce and your honeycomb board has a crack that’s getting wider by the second. Over stimulus is the issue here; you wanted to read opinions from music enthusiasts about music, and every second blog article had to do with new punk hairdo trends and which band has the coolest tattoos. How can we find only the content we’re looking for without getting bogged down in miscellaneous information that erodes both time and patience?
The answer is in context. There’s now a way to sift through the cacophony of babble and wisdom to find exactly what you’re looking for. Instead of having to join clubs and organizations and receive their newsletters via email at their convenience you can now have control over what you receive. Having to search through millions of blogs to find the few you like has now become an obsolete task. The new system is called an RSS Reader: ‘Rich site summary’ or ‘really simple syndication’ are the common definitions of this software. The process begins by signing up to receive automatic updates from blogs and other Web sites that distribute summaries of their latest postings to your reader. You then find which ones you like and delete the rest. You can keep adding new sites until you have literally hundreds of informative connections in your areas of specific interest.
Another great aspect of the RSS Reader program is the fact that you can put in key words of interest and the computer will surf the Web for you and add new blogs and web sites to your list, rating them according to the terms you have selected. You then scan over these and add the ones you feel are relevant, deleting the detritus. Eventually you will have an email-style formatted file where you can search through all your favourite writers, news, and topics’ latest information. Then you also have functions such as ‘comment’ so you can automatically share your input with your fellow humans. Or, you can reply to the ‘messages’ and actually communicate with the producers of the ideas.
This will really help to decentralise the information sharing processes of the current top-down mass communication systems like the media. We can hear multiple opinions on an issue and give our own views, instead of being told one story that is heavily affected by the company’s personal perspective of the situation.
So, you can see this has the potential for something quite big. Less time wasted, finding all the knowledge you’re looking for, and sharing your opinion and meeting others similar to yourself has never been so easy. The RSS Reader is a knife cutting away all the useless packaging, revealing the true content of the gift of the Internet.
The answer is in context. There’s now a way to sift through the cacophony of babble and wisdom to find exactly what you’re looking for. Instead of having to join clubs and organizations and receive their newsletters via email at their convenience you can now have control over what you receive. Having to search through millions of blogs to find the few you like has now become an obsolete task. The new system is called an RSS Reader: ‘Rich site summary’ or ‘really simple syndication’ are the common definitions of this software. The process begins by signing up to receive automatic updates from blogs and other Web sites that distribute summaries of their latest postings to your reader. You then find which ones you like and delete the rest. You can keep adding new sites until you have literally hundreds of informative connections in your areas of specific interest.
Another great aspect of the RSS Reader program is the fact that you can put in key words of interest and the computer will surf the Web for you and add new blogs and web sites to your list, rating them according to the terms you have selected. You then scan over these and add the ones you feel are relevant, deleting the detritus. Eventually you will have an email-style formatted file where you can search through all your favourite writers, news, and topics’ latest information. Then you also have functions such as ‘comment’ so you can automatically share your input with your fellow humans. Or, you can reply to the ‘messages’ and actually communicate with the producers of the ideas.
This will really help to decentralise the information sharing processes of the current top-down mass communication systems like the media. We can hear multiple opinions on an issue and give our own views, instead of being told one story that is heavily affected by the company’s personal perspective of the situation.
So, you can see this has the potential for something quite big. Less time wasted, finding all the knowledge you’re looking for, and sharing your opinion and meeting others similar to yourself has never been so easy. The RSS Reader is a knife cutting away all the useless packaging, revealing the true content of the gift of the Internet.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Could there be a new way of hearing the stories we feel are relevant in our lives?
If you’re anything like me you are really getting tired of the mainstream media’s one-voice-to-many analysis of life on Earth. First of all, it’s just too negative! I read a survey recently that stated that fourteen out of fifteen newspaper and TV News stories had negative fear-based stories. I don’t know about you, but if I look at my everyday life, the amount of good and bad I experience seems to be much more balanced. Why does the ‘big’ media think we all love hearing the dark side of things so much?
If you look at what news stories truly are in historical terms, it is a person sitting around the tribal campfire at night telling a tale to inform the people both in wisdom and knowledge. In any tribe there were many storytellers, so different perspectives were always available to the masses. Well, if you think today’s media sources are too monopolized in their power of authority over the stories we are told, there’s a new option for humanity. The answers and views we are seeking in our daily lives could lie in the Internet. This Internet thing really could be the key for humanity to evolving into a species that thinks independently, leaving this age of fear behind.
It’s time to bypass the main media sources. On the Web we can access non-profit news organizations, we can hear personal views of individuals in news forums and blogs, we can even express our own views on world issues as well as sharing our own personal experiences! With this newly accepted technology called RSS Readers we can start to get the type of information that we feel is most relevant to ourselves as individuals. It comes straight to us and then we can sort through it and decide which people and sources we want to hear from on a regular basis. This is awesome as it means we don’t have to search through a bunch of stories that have little interest to us. It also means if we want to hear more positivism, we can push the negative views out of our perceptions.
Although this idea is in its infancy, the repercussions once realized could have a mammoth impact on how individual humans see and live their lives on Earth. Imagine a society that stretches across the globe where a collective consciousness speaks to itself in an informative many-to-many communicative process. There are a lot of happy, positive, intelligent people in this world who are interested in similar things to you. Wouldn’t you like to hear their stories and share their knowledge as a way of constructing your view of reality?
Let’s leave behind this era of negative perspectives and singular authorities telling us how life on Earth should be viewed. It is interesting that some of the most over-wealthy, greedy individuals media moguls who tell us what is important. Don’t you want to have a say in how you look at your life while you are here? Positivism and wisdom surrounds us at all times. Would the Universe exist otherwise? Lets reconnect with that source of energy that makes us smile so many times each day. If life were meant to have so bleak an outlook, would there even be stars in the sky?
If you look at what news stories truly are in historical terms, it is a person sitting around the tribal campfire at night telling a tale to inform the people both in wisdom and knowledge. In any tribe there were many storytellers, so different perspectives were always available to the masses. Well, if you think today’s media sources are too monopolized in their power of authority over the stories we are told, there’s a new option for humanity. The answers and views we are seeking in our daily lives could lie in the Internet. This Internet thing really could be the key for humanity to evolving into a species that thinks independently, leaving this age of fear behind.
It’s time to bypass the main media sources. On the Web we can access non-profit news organizations, we can hear personal views of individuals in news forums and blogs, we can even express our own views on world issues as well as sharing our own personal experiences! With this newly accepted technology called RSS Readers we can start to get the type of information that we feel is most relevant to ourselves as individuals. It comes straight to us and then we can sort through it and decide which people and sources we want to hear from on a regular basis. This is awesome as it means we don’t have to search through a bunch of stories that have little interest to us. It also means if we want to hear more positivism, we can push the negative views out of our perceptions.
Although this idea is in its infancy, the repercussions once realized could have a mammoth impact on how individual humans see and live their lives on Earth. Imagine a society that stretches across the globe where a collective consciousness speaks to itself in an informative many-to-many communicative process. There are a lot of happy, positive, intelligent people in this world who are interested in similar things to you. Wouldn’t you like to hear their stories and share their knowledge as a way of constructing your view of reality?
Let’s leave behind this era of negative perspectives and singular authorities telling us how life on Earth should be viewed. It is interesting that some of the most over-wealthy, greedy individuals media moguls who tell us what is important. Don’t you want to have a say in how you look at your life while you are here? Positivism and wisdom surrounds us at all times. Would the Universe exist otherwise? Lets reconnect with that source of energy that makes us smile so many times each day. If life were meant to have so bleak an outlook, would there even be stars in the sky?
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Creating Quality Websites
Websites, there are literally billions of them out there in cyber-space. How many of them do you go to and just think this is boring, bland, or hard to use? It seems like too many to mention. So what makes a good website? I reckon it’s about interaction. You’ve got to make the visitor interested. You’ve got to grab their attention. Many sites use plenty of bright and shiny gimmicks to attract you, but once you make it through to the content of the site it’s just not worthy. A good site uses easy navigation, relevant content, and interactive media like comments and message boards. If you’re fortunate, whoever builds your site may even have a few tricks up their sleeves to make it really fun with sound, video, and other interactive fun stuff.
Do you want people to come to your site and then tell their friend and family about it? Do you want to have huge amounts of visitors? Do you want to succeed in making your dreams come to fruition on the Web? Make your website exciting! It might be easier said than done, but there are people around whose job it is to construct and design sites for a living. If you can afford it, go for the best. How great is it when you come across a site that has some special feature that you’ve never seen elsewhere? Isn’t it great when you find a site that relates to one of your interests that is simple and easy to get to the information you want? If you want to have people to come back again and again, you’ve got to keep updating the content to keep it fresh and interesting. Have a way for people to communicate with yourself and others who are into the same things. E.G. Forums, message boards and comments. The aim is to catch the ‘viewer’s’ interest.
A lot of sites just look like giant advertisements and you have to search for the needle in the haystack to find out what the actual site is for. I know advertising is a way of making money, but if you want your site to have an authentic, respectable atmosphere that exudes a feeling of integrity, you better be careful. People are becoming wary of this consumer driven, mindless attack at the average civilian’s wallet. Some people will automatically leave a site if a bunch of commercials pop-up on the screen. Pop-ups, don’t even make me go there…
So, the aim of the game is to make a site that offers the public to be part of the action as well as being a source of knowledge or information that is in demand. A simple to navigate, good ‘feel’, and if possible-innovative site is the means to becoming the popular Internet magnate you’ve always dreamed of becoming. Another important fact is the idea of ‘you’. Your website is a chance to put your identity out there in the world. Be yourself. If you try to appeal to an audience in a way that doesn’t reflect your true self, you’re destined to fail. Be honest and speak from your real perspective on life. Give it to us from the heart.
Do you want people to come to your site and then tell their friend and family about it? Do you want to have huge amounts of visitors? Do you want to succeed in making your dreams come to fruition on the Web? Make your website exciting! It might be easier said than done, but there are people around whose job it is to construct and design sites for a living. If you can afford it, go for the best. How great is it when you come across a site that has some special feature that you’ve never seen elsewhere? Isn’t it great when you find a site that relates to one of your interests that is simple and easy to get to the information you want? If you want to have people to come back again and again, you’ve got to keep updating the content to keep it fresh and interesting. Have a way for people to communicate with yourself and others who are into the same things. E.G. Forums, message boards and comments. The aim is to catch the ‘viewer’s’ interest.
A lot of sites just look like giant advertisements and you have to search for the needle in the haystack to find out what the actual site is for. I know advertising is a way of making money, but if you want your site to have an authentic, respectable atmosphere that exudes a feeling of integrity, you better be careful. People are becoming wary of this consumer driven, mindless attack at the average civilian’s wallet. Some people will automatically leave a site if a bunch of commercials pop-up on the screen. Pop-ups, don’t even make me go there…
So, the aim of the game is to make a site that offers the public to be part of the action as well as being a source of knowledge or information that is in demand. A simple to navigate, good ‘feel’, and if possible-innovative site is the means to becoming the popular Internet magnate you’ve always dreamed of becoming. Another important fact is the idea of ‘you’. Your website is a chance to put your identity out there in the world. Be yourself. If you try to appeal to an audience in a way that doesn’t reflect your true self, you’re destined to fail. Be honest and speak from your real perspective on life. Give it to us from the heart.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Internet Tutorials are the Teachers of the Future
I know some people don’t even believe that the Internet or World Wide Web exists. They think that it is an abstract concept and that if asked to show it to someone they would fail miserably. Well, whether or not it exists I think that the collective consciousness of humanity is evolving everyday because of the sharing of ideas on the strange boxes called computers and the electronic network that connects them.
Every time I go on the Internet these days I am surprised by some new function that it has for our lives. My most recent discovery has been on-line tutorials. Tutorials are websites that have been created to help novices and amateurs alike learn more in their areas of specific interest. Just about any aspect of life seems to have tutorial sites dedicated to it that will teach you want you want to know. Of course some knowledge can cost you money but you’d be pleasantly surprised to see how much information you can get for free.
For example, I am interested in learning about how to play the guitar. You should see how many sites are out there, just look up guitar+tutorials on your search engine (E.g.: Google). There’s all sorts of great help from how to change your strings, hold a plectrum properly, and tuning, to learning complex chord scale systems and finger tapping on your electric guitar.
There are often diagrams, photographs, and intensive explanations relating to everything you ever wanted to know. Some sites have video and audio to help drive the lessons home. Life really has changed. In the past you had to get lessons from a teacher, drive to and from their house or music school, pay high tuition fees, and buy books on chords and songs. Everything is downloadable these days, and a lot of it is free.
Web designers could also probably learn a few things from these guitar tutorial sites. The ways the guitar teachings are expressed are often quite extensive but done so in a very simplistic manner. It’s a real one, two, three approach starting with verbal explanations of exercises, followed by diagrams, and then finally with audio and visual representations. It is an extremely thorough way of teaching without ever having to meet anyone in person.
However, a strange phenomenon is the fact that if the site is good, the visitor does feel a connection to the personality of the creator. Making the site individual is a major factor in both achieving success and touching a personal chord (no pun intended) with people. Many of the sites have means in which you can get direct contact with the site owner thus creating an opportunity for real personal interaction and tuition. Check out some of these sites:
* www.alanhorvath.com/tutorials
* www.ezfolk.com/guitar/Tutorials/tutorials.html
* www.learnthat.com/courses/fun/guitar/
* www.8j.net/~lwind/guitar.html
* www.tutorgig.com/t/Guitar
Get connected to the teachers of the future. Find a tutorial that helps you to follow your dreams.
Every time I go on the Internet these days I am surprised by some new function that it has for our lives. My most recent discovery has been on-line tutorials. Tutorials are websites that have been created to help novices and amateurs alike learn more in their areas of specific interest. Just about any aspect of life seems to have tutorial sites dedicated to it that will teach you want you want to know. Of course some knowledge can cost you money but you’d be pleasantly surprised to see how much information you can get for free.
For example, I am interested in learning about how to play the guitar. You should see how many sites are out there, just look up guitar+tutorials on your search engine (E.g.: Google). There’s all sorts of great help from how to change your strings, hold a plectrum properly, and tuning, to learning complex chord scale systems and finger tapping on your electric guitar.
There are often diagrams, photographs, and intensive explanations relating to everything you ever wanted to know. Some sites have video and audio to help drive the lessons home. Life really has changed. In the past you had to get lessons from a teacher, drive to and from their house or music school, pay high tuition fees, and buy books on chords and songs. Everything is downloadable these days, and a lot of it is free.
Web designers could also probably learn a few things from these guitar tutorial sites. The ways the guitar teachings are expressed are often quite extensive but done so in a very simplistic manner. It’s a real one, two, three approach starting with verbal explanations of exercises, followed by diagrams, and then finally with audio and visual representations. It is an extremely thorough way of teaching without ever having to meet anyone in person.
However, a strange phenomenon is the fact that if the site is good, the visitor does feel a connection to the personality of the creator. Making the site individual is a major factor in both achieving success and touching a personal chord (no pun intended) with people. Many of the sites have means in which you can get direct contact with the site owner thus creating an opportunity for real personal interaction and tuition. Check out some of these sites:
* www.alanhorvath.com/tutorials
* www.ezfolk.com/guitar/Tutorials/tutorials.html
* www.learnthat.com/courses/fun/guitar/
* www.8j.net/~lwind/guitar.html
* www.tutorgig.com/t/Guitar
Get connected to the teachers of the future. Find a tutorial that helps you to follow your dreams.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Translation Plez !
While we are here sending messages in English, there are at least one third of the worlds population who can't read them, for English is not even a second language for them.
I refer to China.
More people in China are logging on to the net every day, but most of what has been put up on the net is in English, this can be very frustrating for them.
Very few web sites I visit, and I visit very many in any given week, don't have any way of giving translations into other languages, and I feel, this is a thing that webmasters have got to address as soon as possible.
On my own website, www.ebook-sales.com I have inserted a script code at the top of every html page to offer Alta Vista's translationservice - 'Babel Fish'.
This offers translation into eight languages at present, including Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, as well as European languages. As more languages become available automatically the script will activate them.
Since I put "Babel Fish' on my site I have noticed in the stats on my server that more people are logging on from China!
This problem of translation for web-sites I recently wrote up about in a article filed with IdeaMarketers.com called "Reach Out And Touch Billions", no sooner it was filed within minutes it was being read by users of the service, usually editors.
Take a look at the article and let me have some comments, and if you know of other translation services, why not give me some details about them for others to benefit from?
I will write another article to follow up.
Question 1.
Should it be a mandatory requirement that a translation should be made available for web-sites - incuding blogs?
Question 2.
Now that there is the technology available, should search engine's like Google and Yahoo rank sites lower if they have no translation available?
(Therefore rank sites higher if they do provide translation?)
Question 3.
Should all email service providers be made to provide translation services for all emails?
(Do you know of any that do?)
I refer to China.
More people in China are logging on to the net every day, but most of what has been put up on the net is in English, this can be very frustrating for them.
Very few web sites I visit, and I visit very many in any given week, don't have any way of giving translations into other languages, and I feel, this is a thing that webmasters have got to address as soon as possible.
On my own website, www.ebook-sales.com I have inserted a script code at the top of every html page to offer Alta Vista's translationservice - 'Babel Fish'.
This offers translation into eight languages at present, including Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, as well as European languages. As more languages become available automatically the script will activate them.
Since I put "Babel Fish' on my site I have noticed in the stats on my server that more people are logging on from China!
This problem of translation for web-sites I recently wrote up about in a article filed with IdeaMarketers.com called "Reach Out And Touch Billions", no sooner it was filed within minutes it was being read by users of the service, usually editors.
Take a look at the article and let me have some comments, and if you know of other translation services, why not give me some details about them for others to benefit from?
I will write another article to follow up.
Question 1.
Should it be a mandatory requirement that a translation should be made available for web-sites - incuding blogs?
Question 2.
Now that there is the technology available, should search engine's like Google and Yahoo rank sites lower if they have no translation available?
(Therefore rank sites higher if they do provide translation?)
Question 3.
Should all email service providers be made to provide translation services for all emails?
(Do you know of any that do?)
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Open Sesame - Password Security
“Open Sesame!” is probably the most famous password in literature. It gave Ali Baba access to vast treasure. In the realm of technology, computer passwords also give access to valuable treasures: precious business and personal data.
Information about your personal life, buying habits, credit quality and life style is valuable to those who can profit from it. For the Corporation, information has even greater worth. It is not the “Bricks and Mortar” but the intangibles such as intellectual property, client lists, market strategies, pricing and compensation that account for over half the value of the modern enterprise.
All of this personal and business data most likely resides on a database somewhere and is available with a password. In fact, passwords are the most common means of entry in any system. They are also acknowledged as the most vulnerable points for security. “Weak” or compromised passwords are the easiest way for hackers to gain entry into a system.
Simple or short passwords can be easily discovered through “brute force” or “dictionary” attacks which concentrate intense computer power to crack a password. A two letter password, for example, has only 676 combinations. A password with eight letters offers more safety with 208,000,000 combinations.
Ideally, a password should consist of 8 or more characters. They should also contain a mixture of upper and lower case letters, symbols and numbers. “A$d3B5i9X” would be an example. Microsoft security has encouraged the concept of the “Pass Phrase” as an alternative. A phrase such as,”TheLastGoodBookUBoughtCost$25!” has all of the needed elements and is also easy to remember.
The human factor or social engineering contributes to password compromises. It is estimated that employees share their password eight times a year. Passwords can also be cajoled from untrained or naïve workers. The standard rule is NEVER share a password.
Remember the cliché of the “Six Degrees of Separation.” You cannot know who will eventually end up with your password and own it.
To cope with these issues, many leading edge firms are adopting a defense in depth strategy utilizing three elements to better safeguard their information
The three layers of authentication consist of:
What you know…
A strong password or pass phrase
What you have…
A Crypto-key, smart card or token
Who you are…
A biometric aspect such as fingerprint, hand, or retinal recognition
Usage of these three defensive measures will increase dramatically in the future as people seek to thwart ever increasing threats to their private and personal information. Many companies will be mandating them as a significant part of their security best-practices to safeguard an extremely valuable asset: their treasured data.
Information about your personal life, buying habits, credit quality and life style is valuable to those who can profit from it. For the Corporation, information has even greater worth. It is not the “Bricks and Mortar” but the intangibles such as intellectual property, client lists, market strategies, pricing and compensation that account for over half the value of the modern enterprise.
All of this personal and business data most likely resides on a database somewhere and is available with a password. In fact, passwords are the most common means of entry in any system. They are also acknowledged as the most vulnerable points for security. “Weak” or compromised passwords are the easiest way for hackers to gain entry into a system.
Simple or short passwords can be easily discovered through “brute force” or “dictionary” attacks which concentrate intense computer power to crack a password. A two letter password, for example, has only 676 combinations. A password with eight letters offers more safety with 208,000,000 combinations.
Ideally, a password should consist of 8 or more characters. They should also contain a mixture of upper and lower case letters, symbols and numbers. “A$d3B5i9X” would be an example. Microsoft security has encouraged the concept of the “Pass Phrase” as an alternative. A phrase such as,”TheLastGoodBookUBoughtCost$25!” has all of the needed elements and is also easy to remember.
The human factor or social engineering contributes to password compromises. It is estimated that employees share their password eight times a year. Passwords can also be cajoled from untrained or naïve workers. The standard rule is NEVER share a password.
Remember the cliché of the “Six Degrees of Separation.” You cannot know who will eventually end up with your password and own it.
To cope with these issues, many leading edge firms are adopting a defense in depth strategy utilizing three elements to better safeguard their information
The three layers of authentication consist of:
What you know…
A strong password or pass phrase
What you have…
A Crypto-key, smart card or token
Who you are…
A biometric aspect such as fingerprint, hand, or retinal recognition
Usage of these three defensive measures will increase dramatically in the future as people seek to thwart ever increasing threats to their private and personal information. Many companies will be mandating them as a significant part of their security best-practices to safeguard an extremely valuable asset: their treasured data.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Blogging Communities Turn Faceless Strangers into Close Friends
I’ve been searching the Internet for blogging sites for a fair while now and recently I came across a whole blogging community, which has grabbed my interest greatly. It’s called Joe User and it’s a site that many bloggers all around the globe are partaking in. It is very well organized into categories such as Best Articles, Newest blog entries, Top blogging sites, New sites and Most hit-on bloggers. The blogs range from very personal life introspection to serious analysis of current affairs in the media.
The aspect that has appealed to me the most is the very personal type of blogging community. Many people are talking about their feelings and issues about life with people that technically they have never met face to face. However, the type of camaraderie I’ve ‘witnessed’ as a bystander has truly amazed me. These people talk to each other as though they are extremely close friends, and the strange thing is I think this is the reality.
When one person has something important happen to them in their life, up to 100 or more comments will arrive under their blog entry with advice and information as well as emotional support from their blogging friends. Of course there are some differences in opinion, but the general perspective seems to be one of a positive approach to humanity. People are really spilling out their souls to each other, and then accepting criticism as well as discussing possible solutions to problems. I just find this to be truly inspirational, a human community or ‘tribe’ that has formed simply because of the Internet’s existence.
These people must spend a lot of time communicating with each other. Some are writing new entries everyday, as well as articles and conversations. The conversations usually happen in the ‘comments’ section where one can see that these people often stay up into the late hours of the morning, blogging to each other back and forth. The amount of love shared by these arbitrary acquaintances is astounding. One could perceive the whole experience as a form of therapy but I think it is much more than that. I believe this is a sign of a revolution. The coming of the New Human Tribe has begun.
If random bloggers can evolve into a community of people who trust, respect, and are intimate and united with each other this says a lot for the human condition. People are tired of the segregated, separatist reality of countries, cultures, races and religions. These group blogging sites, or collective on-line journals as I now like to think of them, are symbolic of the future connectedness of all of humanity. It may take a hundred years, or a thousand, or maybe only fifty, but it definitely looks like there’s hope yet for the warring, greedy humans. One day we all may be ‘one’ again in our minds as well as our physical forms.
The aspect that has appealed to me the most is the very personal type of blogging community. Many people are talking about their feelings and issues about life with people that technically they have never met face to face. However, the type of camaraderie I’ve ‘witnessed’ as a bystander has truly amazed me. These people talk to each other as though they are extremely close friends, and the strange thing is I think this is the reality.
When one person has something important happen to them in their life, up to 100 or more comments will arrive under their blog entry with advice and information as well as emotional support from their blogging friends. Of course there are some differences in opinion, but the general perspective seems to be one of a positive approach to humanity. People are really spilling out their souls to each other, and then accepting criticism as well as discussing possible solutions to problems. I just find this to be truly inspirational, a human community or ‘tribe’ that has formed simply because of the Internet’s existence.
These people must spend a lot of time communicating with each other. Some are writing new entries everyday, as well as articles and conversations. The conversations usually happen in the ‘comments’ section where one can see that these people often stay up into the late hours of the morning, blogging to each other back and forth. The amount of love shared by these arbitrary acquaintances is astounding. One could perceive the whole experience as a form of therapy but I think it is much more than that. I believe this is a sign of a revolution. The coming of the New Human Tribe has begun.
If random bloggers can evolve into a community of people who trust, respect, and are intimate and united with each other this says a lot for the human condition. People are tired of the segregated, separatist reality of countries, cultures, races and religions. These group blogging sites, or collective on-line journals as I now like to think of them, are symbolic of the future connectedness of all of humanity. It may take a hundred years, or a thousand, or maybe only fifty, but it definitely looks like there’s hope yet for the warring, greedy humans. One day we all may be ‘one’ again in our minds as well as our physical forms.
Internet Home Business Secrets That Payoff!
I can picture you exactly where I was just a few short years ago --
Sitting in another useless meeting organized by a group of senior managers that have a combined IQ less than your own child at 3-months old.
Around in circles you go, no progress again today and only those who play the game the best will collect the bigger paychecks - but even they can't outlast this game of roulette can they?
Listen - I get asked often, even by my own wife, "why are you so driven!"
It's true, these days I am passionate about just about everything I do - especially my internet home business.
Why?
Is it the thought of a new porsche sitting in my driveway that motivated me to succeed with my internet home business?
What about cruising up and down the Pacific Coast in my new yacht?
Maybe it's being able to take a dream vacation to Australia and New Zealand?
Nope! You guessed wrong.
In fact, what motivates me everyday is the thought of having my time, energy, health and family UNDER THE CONTROL of someone other than myself scares the heck out of me.
I mean all out spiders on my face, snakes in my bed and lizards in my pants scared!
When I hit 30 back several years ago - I was in a hotel, alone on business in downtown London, England.
Incredible city, but I realized that after spending 29 birthdays with my family - I was FORCED to spend this one alone thousands of miles from home.
Every day after, I became incensed each time someone at my old job controlled some aspect of my time, health, energy or family.
I don't mean a little upset - I mean DEEPLY ANGRY.
There's only two ways to deal with something like that in your life - curl over and die a slow death or take action until you change the circumstances
Trick was, to channel that anger in the right direction - postive instead of negative.
Then I discovered something incredibly powerful --
Anger and Pain Are Part of the Formula for Success!
Name me any highly successful person and chances are I can find a burning, gut-churning, unstoppable force within them that will not let them fail. That force usually comes from anger or pain.
LET ME SAVE YOU 5-YEARS OR MORE....
Even with this incredible passion I had to control my own destiny, success didn't come right away.
I tried opportunity after opportunity, scam after scam, UNTIL...
THE HOLY GRAIL - Internet Home Business
Ever since the beginning of business, the same principles hold true - you must have;
1. Compelling product to reachable market
2. Competitive Advantage or Unique Selling Proposition
3. Operation plan that is profitable
4. Constant Plan, Do and Review process to increase profits
Whether you want to market other people's products online or create your own products or services, you must follow these fundamental business principles.
What's great about an internet home business is:
1. You can find reachable markets and compelling product ideas sitting in your office in your underwear
2. You can easily discover and communicate your Unique Selling Proposition without having to spend thousands on competitive intelligence
3. You can develop very profitable operational plans taking advantage of instant download, or build to order systems
4. It's easier, and less risky than ever before to continually test and improve your internet home business.
So - snap out of it!
Stop settling for whatever it is that is eating away at you!
Take action - right now!
Find out all you can about starting and building your own internet home business - turn your anger or pain into health and happiness today.
Sitting in another useless meeting organized by a group of senior managers that have a combined IQ less than your own child at 3-months old.
Around in circles you go, no progress again today and only those who play the game the best will collect the bigger paychecks - but even they can't outlast this game of roulette can they?
Listen - I get asked often, even by my own wife, "why are you so driven!"
It's true, these days I am passionate about just about everything I do - especially my internet home business.
Why?
Is it the thought of a new porsche sitting in my driveway that motivated me to succeed with my internet home business?
What about cruising up and down the Pacific Coast in my new yacht?
Maybe it's being able to take a dream vacation to Australia and New Zealand?
Nope! You guessed wrong.
In fact, what motivates me everyday is the thought of having my time, energy, health and family UNDER THE CONTROL of someone other than myself scares the heck out of me.
I mean all out spiders on my face, snakes in my bed and lizards in my pants scared!
When I hit 30 back several years ago - I was in a hotel, alone on business in downtown London, England.
Incredible city, but I realized that after spending 29 birthdays with my family - I was FORCED to spend this one alone thousands of miles from home.
Every day after, I became incensed each time someone at my old job controlled some aspect of my time, health, energy or family.
I don't mean a little upset - I mean DEEPLY ANGRY.
There's only two ways to deal with something like that in your life - curl over and die a slow death or take action until you change the circumstances
Trick was, to channel that anger in the right direction - postive instead of negative.
Then I discovered something incredibly powerful --
Anger and Pain Are Part of the Formula for Success!
Name me any highly successful person and chances are I can find a burning, gut-churning, unstoppable force within them that will not let them fail. That force usually comes from anger or pain.
LET ME SAVE YOU 5-YEARS OR MORE....
Even with this incredible passion I had to control my own destiny, success didn't come right away.
I tried opportunity after opportunity, scam after scam, UNTIL...
THE HOLY GRAIL - Internet Home Business
Ever since the beginning of business, the same principles hold true - you must have;
1. Compelling product to reachable market
2. Competitive Advantage or Unique Selling Proposition
3. Operation plan that is profitable
4. Constant Plan, Do and Review process to increase profits
Whether you want to market other people's products online or create your own products or services, you must follow these fundamental business principles.
What's great about an internet home business is:
1. You can find reachable markets and compelling product ideas sitting in your office in your underwear
2. You can easily discover and communicate your Unique Selling Proposition without having to spend thousands on competitive intelligence
3. You can develop very profitable operational plans taking advantage of instant download, or build to order systems
4. It's easier, and less risky than ever before to continually test and improve your internet home business.
So - snap out of it!
Stop settling for whatever it is that is eating away at you!
Take action - right now!
Find out all you can about starting and building your own internet home business - turn your anger or pain into health and happiness today.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Reach Out To Billions
Have you heard of 'Babel Fish'?
It's a service provided by Alta Vista search engine people to translate every page you put 'Babel Fish' code, and up comes a a new language.
Your page may be written in English, but people across Spain and Latin America can translate your web page into Spanish. Likewise if your web page is written in Spanish, German, French, Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, people can have an instant translation into English, or another language they are comfortable with.
I have put 'Babel Fish' code onto every page on my site at:- http://www.ebook-sales.com and I can see from the stats on the server that people are clicking on 'Babel Fish' to have a translation. This I feel, widens my audience out there in cyberspace. The 'hit counter' has substantially risen, I have people bookmarking my site, because I see they don't all come in the 'front door' to the site, they come in to certain pages that interests them.
Every new page I put on my site, and I update fairly often, I make sure the 'Babel Fish' code is at the top of the html on that page.
The technology is certainly improving, I remember science- fiction movies when I was young had computers to instantly translate into any language, but the technology has only just arrived in reality and can be used widely on the web.
In previous articles I wrote about the Chinese market about to be opened up, for there are more people in China logging on to the internet every day. There are businesspeople in the west who are eyeing this market at the moment. To those people I would ask them to seek out some of my previous articles on Ideamarketers.com and take into account what I say there.
It's also no good to the vast population of China, who do not speak any other language, to see sites always put up in English. Some attempt must be made to have parallel pages with Chinese throughout, or resort to the excellent technology that is 'Babel Fish', and as I know the corporate world moves grindingly slowly, the adept and astute entrepreneur could steal a march on their bigger, slower cousins.
Does your company pay a translation service to be able to send documents abroard?
Translation services are costly and slow. If you put your documents on a server in html and insert the code for 'Babel Fish' at the top of every page, you can send an email giving the address of the pages, you can also send a password to get into these pages, no one else will be able to view them, and this will avoid translation costs and slow turnaround of such a service.
Likewise technical manuals could be scanned into html pages, code for 'Babel Fish' inserted at the top of every page, upload the manual to a server, password protect, and your company, to people abroard, will look like something out of 'Startrek', and they will be confident in doing more business with you in the future.
There is only one thing that I have found personally, as I am an author and only write in English, I find if I compile an ebook to an .exe file, as most ebook-compilers do, the 'Babel Fish' code I already placed at the top of every html page before compilation, does not work. The pages are compiled into gibberish anyway, and I suppose the code for 'Babel Fish' the same.
It would be a great leap forward to me and other writers producing ebooks, to have a compiler that can have built-in translation facility into several languages.
If anyone can do this excellent programming idea, I would be the first to buy such a compiler. There lies the nub of a great business invention almost akin to the start of a great software company, like Microsoft.
Why not take this idea further, all movies could be made with built-in translation, all t.v. shows made with translation, to sell these shows abroard.
What else can you think of?
I remember an old saying:- "Whatever the mind of man can conceive, it can achieve!".
Think about it!
It's a service provided by Alta Vista search engine people to translate every page you put 'Babel Fish' code, and up comes a a new language.
Your page may be written in English, but people across Spain and Latin America can translate your web page into Spanish. Likewise if your web page is written in Spanish, German, French, Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, people can have an instant translation into English, or another language they are comfortable with.
I have put 'Babel Fish' code onto every page on my site at:- http://www.ebook-sales.com and I can see from the stats on the server that people are clicking on 'Babel Fish' to have a translation. This I feel, widens my audience out there in cyberspace. The 'hit counter' has substantially risen, I have people bookmarking my site, because I see they don't all come in the 'front door' to the site, they come in to certain pages that interests them.
Every new page I put on my site, and I update fairly often, I make sure the 'Babel Fish' code is at the top of the html on that page.
The technology is certainly improving, I remember science- fiction movies when I was young had computers to instantly translate into any language, but the technology has only just arrived in reality and can be used widely on the web.
In previous articles I wrote about the Chinese market about to be opened up, for there are more people in China logging on to the internet every day. There are businesspeople in the west who are eyeing this market at the moment. To those people I would ask them to seek out some of my previous articles on Ideamarketers.com and take into account what I say there.
It's also no good to the vast population of China, who do not speak any other language, to see sites always put up in English. Some attempt must be made to have parallel pages with Chinese throughout, or resort to the excellent technology that is 'Babel Fish', and as I know the corporate world moves grindingly slowly, the adept and astute entrepreneur could steal a march on their bigger, slower cousins.
Does your company pay a translation service to be able to send documents abroard?
Translation services are costly and slow. If you put your documents on a server in html and insert the code for 'Babel Fish' at the top of every page, you can send an email giving the address of the pages, you can also send a password to get into these pages, no one else will be able to view them, and this will avoid translation costs and slow turnaround of such a service.
Likewise technical manuals could be scanned into html pages, code for 'Babel Fish' inserted at the top of every page, upload the manual to a server, password protect, and your company, to people abroard, will look like something out of 'Startrek', and they will be confident in doing more business with you in the future.
There is only one thing that I have found personally, as I am an author and only write in English, I find if I compile an ebook to an .exe file, as most ebook-compilers do, the 'Babel Fish' code I already placed at the top of every html page before compilation, does not work. The pages are compiled into gibberish anyway, and I suppose the code for 'Babel Fish' the same.
It would be a great leap forward to me and other writers producing ebooks, to have a compiler that can have built-in translation facility into several languages.
If anyone can do this excellent programming idea, I would be the first to buy such a compiler. There lies the nub of a great business invention almost akin to the start of a great software company, like Microsoft.
Why not take this idea further, all movies could be made with built-in translation, all t.v. shows made with translation, to sell these shows abroard.
What else can you think of?
I remember an old saying:- "Whatever the mind of man can conceive, it can achieve!".
Think about it!
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Introduction to Google Page Rank (PR)
For anyone looking to enhance their Google Page Rank (PR) to get a better place in the search results, we now have software that makes finding good links so much easier.
In case you didn't know, to get your PR rating up it is essential to have a significant number of good quality links to your site (the techy bit)... to make a link count, the page who is linking to you needs to have a PR of 4 or more (the higher the better). That's not all though... Every link that page has to another site gives some of the PR away, and every inbound link gives it more, so to know if having a link from another site is going to benefit you very much, you need to look at the PR and then find out how many inbound and outbound links is has! phew!
Not easy I would say, so that's why we now have special software - you give it a URL and the keywords you have optimised for, and it crawls its' way round the web looking for pages to link from and analysing them. You end up with a CSV or HTML file that saves you hours in searching and tells you which links are worth having.
Here's an example of the output for 1 potential link:
Keyword-to-Link search. Used keyword(s) "web site designer".
http://www.1234-find-web-designers.org/
Rank: 7 Estimated: 3 Outbound: 369 Backward: 2460
This tells you the PR of that site is 7, 369 links to other pages, 2460 links to that page, and it would give you a boost of 3 out of a potential 10 for getting a link.
We offer 2 services - 1 where you supply the keywords you want analysing, and we supply the file back to you with the hard work done, ready for you to approach the sites for links. As an introductory price for August / September this is only £99 + VAT.
We also do the complete link building and optimisation service.
In case you didn't know, to get your PR rating up it is essential to have a significant number of good quality links to your site (the techy bit)... to make a link count, the page who is linking to you needs to have a PR of 4 or more (the higher the better). That's not all though... Every link that page has to another site gives some of the PR away, and every inbound link gives it more, so to know if having a link from another site is going to benefit you very much, you need to look at the PR and then find out how many inbound and outbound links is has! phew!
Not easy I would say, so that's why we now have special software - you give it a URL and the keywords you have optimised for, and it crawls its' way round the web looking for pages to link from and analysing them. You end up with a CSV or HTML file that saves you hours in searching and tells you which links are worth having.
Here's an example of the output for 1 potential link:
Keyword-to-Link search. Used keyword(s) "web site designer".
http://www.1234-find-web-designers.org/
Rank: 7 Estimated: 3 Outbound: 369 Backward: 2460
This tells you the PR of that site is 7, 369 links to other pages, 2460 links to that page, and it would give you a boost of 3 out of a potential 10 for getting a link.
We offer 2 services - 1 where you supply the keywords you want analysing, and we supply the file back to you with the hard work done, ready for you to approach the sites for links. As an introductory price for August / September this is only £99 + VAT.
We also do the complete link building and optimisation service.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Lotus Domino/Notes - Microsoft Great Plains tandem as ERP with Documents Workflow - overview for IT Specialist
Lotus Domino/Notes – Microsoft Great Plains tandem as ERP with Documents Workflow – overview for IT Specialist
Microsoft Business Solutions has the whole spectrum of business applications, the good combination seems to be Microsoft Great Plains and Microsoft CRM. However we need to admit that Microsoft is relatively new in the CRM market and also for large corporation it could not be a good idea “to put all the eggs into one basket”. If you have investment into other platform from CRM side – such as Lotus Domino/Notes – we offer you integration with Microsoft Great Plains
Why does the company need document workflow system if it has an Accounting/ERP?
The benefits of having financial, sales, services, communication, negotiation and other information be tightly linked and exposed to simple reporting and data mining are obvious. Now we are observing the second and I would dare to say successful phase of CRM systems implementation, which is probably final successful marriage in the long history of datawarehousing, document workflow, contact management systems.
Some business situations where you see the benefits
Reports creation without special knowledge
Special skills are required in order to work with complex ERP system. Usually financial specialist has such skills, but top-level managers, who do really need the information, may not be prepared. Also, ERP based reports should be delivered on regular basis. If Lotus Domino/Notes is used as a corporate communication platform, then to resolve the issue, specially designed routines may be used to pull the information from financial systems (Great Plains, Solomon, Navision, Axapta, SAP, SCALA, Accpac, MAS90 to name a few) to Lotus databases on the schedule. In this case users, including top-level managers will work with this information via custom interface.
Documents routing
One of the competitive advantages of CRM is a workflow. Financial documents are usually subject for approval before posting. Typical accounting/ERP systems do not have (or have very limited) workflow design. Such the workflows could be created on Lotus Domino/Notes platform. Then, through the connection to Microsoft Great Plains or other ERP system you will have document approval workflow.
The typical simple workflow would be like this - send notifications to AR to take off the hold from the customer upon the payment receipt.
So the approach to integrate accounting system and documents oriented Lotus Domino/Notes seems very interesting for corporate information architecture.
Happy designing, customizing and programming! If you want as to do the job – call as 866-528-0577, help@albaspectrum.com
Rafael software developer in Alba Spectrum Technologies (http://www.albaspectrum.com/) - USA nationwide Lotus Domino/Notes, Great Plains, Microsoft CRM, Microsoft RMS customization company, based in Chicago, Arizona, California, Texas, New York, Florida, Minnesota, Washington, Georgia, Canada, UK, Australia and having locations in multiple states and internationally, our Lotus page - http://www.albaspectrum.com/Lotus/OffshoreLotus.htm, Rafael is Principal CLP IBM Lotus Domino 6 Application Developer, Certified Professional E-commerce Concepts Analyst
Microsoft Business Solutions has the whole spectrum of business applications, the good combination seems to be Microsoft Great Plains and Microsoft CRM. However we need to admit that Microsoft is relatively new in the CRM market and also for large corporation it could not be a good idea “to put all the eggs into one basket”. If you have investment into other platform from CRM side – such as Lotus Domino/Notes – we offer you integration with Microsoft Great Plains
Why does the company need document workflow system if it has an Accounting/ERP?
The benefits of having financial, sales, services, communication, negotiation and other information be tightly linked and exposed to simple reporting and data mining are obvious. Now we are observing the second and I would dare to say successful phase of CRM systems implementation, which is probably final successful marriage in the long history of datawarehousing, document workflow, contact management systems.
Some business situations where you see the benefits
Reports creation without special knowledge
Special skills are required in order to work with complex ERP system. Usually financial specialist has such skills, but top-level managers, who do really need the information, may not be prepared. Also, ERP based reports should be delivered on regular basis. If Lotus Domino/Notes is used as a corporate communication platform, then to resolve the issue, specially designed routines may be used to pull the information from financial systems (Great Plains, Solomon, Navision, Axapta, SAP, SCALA, Accpac, MAS90 to name a few) to Lotus databases on the schedule. In this case users, including top-level managers will work with this information via custom interface.
Documents routing
One of the competitive advantages of CRM is a workflow. Financial documents are usually subject for approval before posting. Typical accounting/ERP systems do not have (or have very limited) workflow design. Such the workflows could be created on Lotus Domino/Notes platform. Then, through the connection to Microsoft Great Plains or other ERP system you will have document approval workflow.
The typical simple workflow would be like this - send notifications to AR to take off the hold from the customer upon the payment receipt.
So the approach to integrate accounting system and documents oriented Lotus Domino/Notes seems very interesting for corporate information architecture.
Happy designing, customizing and programming! If you want as to do the job – call as 866-528-0577, help@albaspectrum.com
Rafael software developer in Alba Spectrum Technologies (http://www.albaspectrum.com/) - USA nationwide Lotus Domino/Notes, Great Plains, Microsoft CRM, Microsoft RMS customization company, based in Chicago, Arizona, California, Texas, New York, Florida, Minnesota, Washington, Georgia, Canada, UK, Australia and having locations in multiple states and internationally, our Lotus page - http://www.albaspectrum.com/Lotus/OffshoreLotus.htm, Rafael is Principal CLP IBM Lotus Domino 6 Application Developer, Certified Professional E-commerce Concepts Analyst
Saturday, August 16, 2008
FInding a Safe Dating Site
Seems like everywhere we surf on the Internet nowadays we run across this little advertisement: 'Free online personals'. They are everywhere, they are dating sites, and more are opening up shop every day.
Welcome to the newest internet gold rush. More and more people are signing up to these new and "free" dating sites. What they are really getting is a place on the web where they can post their profile and let strangers contact them. As more and more dating sites pile up on the web, more people are ending up with very distasteful experiences because of this. Why? 99% of today's (and tomorrow's) dating sites do not screen their members at all. This means there are sex offenders, predators, scam artists mixed in with genuine people who are looking to find a match. Dating services need to be very discretionary and much safer, until that time comes here are some important things to consider when thinking about joining a dating site.
1). Examine the site's physical properties. Is it poorly constructed with missing graphics or jagged fonts, mis-aligned sections? If so, this indicates a lack of attention to detail in the construction and layout of the site. It may have been pre purchased and the owner does not have the skill to alter it correctly. Why would you care? Well, a site in a state like this gives a clue that the back end program probably is also in a state of disarray or disregard. If the webmaster cannot construct the face of the site, then it is likely they cannot also construct important safety features behind the site. A hacker then could easily penetrate it and get your personal information including your photo. If you eventually pay this site, your credit information could be stolen as well! A nicely designed site means careful construction and a better chance of good quality code running the site in the background.
2). Look at some sample profiles on the site before you sign up by running a quick search. Do the profiles look a little bogus? A lot of them are. Many sites (especially new ones that have just started up) pad their membership database with photos of models or random (usually good-looking people) to attract new members. Do the profiles have a lot of jibberish characters or nonsensical phrases in the descriptions? That means the dating site you are at does NOT screen the people who sign up. This welcomes people with ill-intent. You should get out of there immediately and go to one that does.
3). Does the site have a privacy link? Look at the bottom of the site's main page. If they have a privacy link, click it and examine. Make sure they specifically state that they do NOT sell your information to anyone. This is an invitation to a spam and junk-mail nightmare. Also look for some sort of a web site rules page or a terms of use page. Check to see if they screen their profiles or somehow disallow racial, hate or overly sexual material. If they don't state this than, anything goes for this site, another reason to leave.
4). Does the site have a links page? If so click and examine. See who they are affiliated with. Usually, there will be graphical banners or icons next to the names of their associations. Are they sex-sites? Spam sites? Even a quick glance in this area could tell you what kind of a dating site you are at.
5). What is the copyright date at the bottom? This could indicate the age of the site. If it is very young, this could help you determine if the site has worked out all the kinks (program bugs) and how many members they have accumulated.
6). Be wary of statements like "You are the 4697th member to join today." and "Search through millions of profiles." these statements are usually false. Major sites, which have been running for YEARS usually can support these statements. look for a "whos online" link. If you are the only person (1 guest online means JUST you are there) then you know these claims are false. A site with millions or even thousands of members will always have a bunch of people currently online. If you detect this in a dating site, it is better to leave than to take a chance with a dishonest site.
Welcome to the newest internet gold rush. More and more people are signing up to these new and "free" dating sites. What they are really getting is a place on the web where they can post their profile and let strangers contact them. As more and more dating sites pile up on the web, more people are ending up with very distasteful experiences because of this. Why? 99% of today's (and tomorrow's) dating sites do not screen their members at all. This means there are sex offenders, predators, scam artists mixed in with genuine people who are looking to find a match. Dating services need to be very discretionary and much safer, until that time comes here are some important things to consider when thinking about joining a dating site.
1). Examine the site's physical properties. Is it poorly constructed with missing graphics or jagged fonts, mis-aligned sections? If so, this indicates a lack of attention to detail in the construction and layout of the site. It may have been pre purchased and the owner does not have the skill to alter it correctly. Why would you care? Well, a site in a state like this gives a clue that the back end program probably is also in a state of disarray or disregard. If the webmaster cannot construct the face of the site, then it is likely they cannot also construct important safety features behind the site. A hacker then could easily penetrate it and get your personal information including your photo. If you eventually pay this site, your credit information could be stolen as well! A nicely designed site means careful construction and a better chance of good quality code running the site in the background.
2). Look at some sample profiles on the site before you sign up by running a quick search. Do the profiles look a little bogus? A lot of them are. Many sites (especially new ones that have just started up) pad their membership database with photos of models or random (usually good-looking people) to attract new members. Do the profiles have a lot of jibberish characters or nonsensical phrases in the descriptions? That means the dating site you are at does NOT screen the people who sign up. This welcomes people with ill-intent. You should get out of there immediately and go to one that does.
3). Does the site have a privacy link? Look at the bottom of the site's main page. If they have a privacy link, click it and examine. Make sure they specifically state that they do NOT sell your information to anyone. This is an invitation to a spam and junk-mail nightmare. Also look for some sort of a web site rules page or a terms of use page. Check to see if they screen their profiles or somehow disallow racial, hate or overly sexual material. If they don't state this than, anything goes for this site, another reason to leave.
4). Does the site have a links page? If so click and examine. See who they are affiliated with. Usually, there will be graphical banners or icons next to the names of their associations. Are they sex-sites? Spam sites? Even a quick glance in this area could tell you what kind of a dating site you are at.
5). What is the copyright date at the bottom? This could indicate the age of the site. If it is very young, this could help you determine if the site has worked out all the kinks (program bugs) and how many members they have accumulated.
6). Be wary of statements like "You are the 4697th member to join today." and "Search through millions of profiles." these statements are usually false. Major sites, which have been running for YEARS usually can support these statements. look for a "whos online" link. If you are the only person (1 guest online means JUST you are there) then you know these claims are false. A site with millions or even thousands of members will always have a bunch of people currently online. If you detect this in a dating site, it is better to leave than to take a chance with a dishonest site.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Sales Versus Customer Oriented Websites
Customer oriented websites designed and created with the customer in mind will always outperform sales oriented websites, which often considers the customer as a secondary motivator. Find out what differentiates these websites.
Should Generating Revenue From A Website Be The Prime Motivator?
A pure sales site has only one purpose... to generate as much revenue as possible at any cost. In other words, your experience--good or bad--is inconsequential to the ultimate goal of the site and may well sacrifice customer satisfaction to make a sale.
How many times have you gone back to buy from a website you've had a lousy experience with? My guess is not very often. I know I don’t. How many times have you gone back to buy from a website you've had a great experience with? What was the difference between the two experiences? Do you think the website you had the great experience with was a customer oriented site? And, might it be the other website you had the bad experience with was a sales oriented website?
A business can't survive very long if it's prime motivator is purely focused on sales and revenue. Sure, it may last for a while... but not long-term.
As webmasters and marketers, we must strive to create a long-term business relationship between ourselves and our customers so that they will continue to buy from us for as long as they have a need or desire for our products or services.
No One Does It Better Than Amazon.com
Arguably, Amazon.com is one of the largest customer oriented and successful website businesses on the planet. They're proof that "build a customer oriented website and they will come." They go out of their way to personalize the shopping experience for every single person.
When I visit Amazon.com, I see a very different selection of products than Linda, my wife, sees when she goes shopping. They know what I've purchased in the past and understand my buying habits. They also understand that my buying habits are different than Linda's and are different than yours. So, they tailor the individual experience for each of us. It makes us feel like the site has been designed around our own needs.
Amazon.com has gone to a tremendous amount of effort to individualize our experiences. Why? Customers are their prime motivator. Would it have been easier and cheaper to build a strictly sales oriented, sales motivated website? Sure. Would they be the most successful website on the planet if they had done that? Do I really need to answer that?
Customer Oriented, Customer Motivated Website
So, you get the drift of where I’m going with this. Although you may not be out to try to kick Amazon.com from the top of the ladder, it doesn’t matter if you’re selling one product or millions of products, the principles are going to be the same.
Based on what you now know, you've decided that your website is going to be customer oriented whereby your customers are going to be the prime motivator for your business. You already know from your past experiences that customers will go back to websites where their experiences have been positive. You also understand that the web's a finicky place and it’s a "one strike and you're out" business environment. Therefore, you’re going to develop your website using your own experiences as a customer as your guide. What did or didn't you like about the websites you've done business with in the past? What brings you back to the ones you’ve had good experiences with time after time?
Give Your Customers What They Want
Customer oriented sites will win out over sales oriented sites over the long haul every time. Develop your customer oriented website to ensure them a satisfying experience and they will tell their friends about you and so the word gets around. Pretty soon your site will be flooded with friends of friends of friends who will all become life-time customers. Lots of happy, satisfied and paying customers means a long-term, profitable and prosperous business. Enough said?
Should Generating Revenue From A Website Be The Prime Motivator?
A pure sales site has only one purpose... to generate as much revenue as possible at any cost. In other words, your experience--good or bad--is inconsequential to the ultimate goal of the site and may well sacrifice customer satisfaction to make a sale.
How many times have you gone back to buy from a website you've had a lousy experience with? My guess is not very often. I know I don’t. How many times have you gone back to buy from a website you've had a great experience with? What was the difference between the two experiences? Do you think the website you had the great experience with was a customer oriented site? And, might it be the other website you had the bad experience with was a sales oriented website?
A business can't survive very long if it's prime motivator is purely focused on sales and revenue. Sure, it may last for a while... but not long-term.
As webmasters and marketers, we must strive to create a long-term business relationship between ourselves and our customers so that they will continue to buy from us for as long as they have a need or desire for our products or services.
No One Does It Better Than Amazon.com
Arguably, Amazon.com is one of the largest customer oriented and successful website businesses on the planet. They're proof that "build a customer oriented website and they will come." They go out of their way to personalize the shopping experience for every single person.
When I visit Amazon.com, I see a very different selection of products than Linda, my wife, sees when she goes shopping. They know what I've purchased in the past and understand my buying habits. They also understand that my buying habits are different than Linda's and are different than yours. So, they tailor the individual experience for each of us. It makes us feel like the site has been designed around our own needs.
Amazon.com has gone to a tremendous amount of effort to individualize our experiences. Why? Customers are their prime motivator. Would it have been easier and cheaper to build a strictly sales oriented, sales motivated website? Sure. Would they be the most successful website on the planet if they had done that? Do I really need to answer that?
Customer Oriented, Customer Motivated Website
So, you get the drift of where I’m going with this. Although you may not be out to try to kick Amazon.com from the top of the ladder, it doesn’t matter if you’re selling one product or millions of products, the principles are going to be the same.
Based on what you now know, you've decided that your website is going to be customer oriented whereby your customers are going to be the prime motivator for your business. You already know from your past experiences that customers will go back to websites where their experiences have been positive. You also understand that the web's a finicky place and it’s a "one strike and you're out" business environment. Therefore, you’re going to develop your website using your own experiences as a customer as your guide. What did or didn't you like about the websites you've done business with in the past? What brings you back to the ones you’ve had good experiences with time after time?
Give Your Customers What They Want
Customer oriented sites will win out over sales oriented sites over the long haul every time. Develop your customer oriented website to ensure them a satisfying experience and they will tell their friends about you and so the word gets around. Pretty soon your site will be flooded with friends of friends of friends who will all become life-time customers. Lots of happy, satisfied and paying customers means a long-term, profitable and prosperous business. Enough said?
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Great Plains Custom Development: Dexterity, VBA, SQL, Crystal, eConnect – overview for programmer
Microsoft Great Plains is main Microsoft Business Solutions accounting package for the US market. It has multiple customization/modification/reporting tools. Currently there is upgrade campaign to version 8.0 and due to the discontinuation of the technical support for Microsoft Great Plains Standard on Ctree and Pervasive SQL - we see substantial increase in migration needs: migration from ctree/Pervasive to MSDE/MS SQL Server. This in turn increases interest to customization and customization upgrade.
If you are developer who is asked: how do we customize Great Plains – read this and you will have the clues on where to look further.
1. Great Plains Dexterity – this is proprietary programming language and technology, designed back to earlier 1990th with the goal to build platform independent graphical accounting package – Great Plains Dynamics. Dexterity itself is written in C (following popular those days hope – that C will provide platform independence). You can install Dexterity from Great Plains 7.5 CD #2. Obviously it requires a lot of learning / training, but it allows your custom piece be seamlessly integrated with Great Plains interface. Nowadays, however – and this is a good thing – most of Great Plains installations are moved to SQL Server – so you can use Dexterity for custom forms drawing only and make the buttons run SQL stored procedures.
2. Modifier with VBA. Unfortunately you have to purchase this tool and get new registration keys. If you are familiar with VBA customization for Access or Excel – you have all the skills needed – then you just attach your scripts to the buttons and fields on GP forms (you can modify these forms with Modifier – or just tough them with it).
3. Continuum for VB/Delphi – we don’t recommend this tool, because it is using Great Plains as OLE server – and you probably don’t want to be trapped by old technology.
4. Crystal Reports. Great Plains has its own ReportWriter, but its functionality is limited – you can’t do cross modules reports (you can’t link Sales and Purchasing tables in one report, for example). So – you use Crystal. The GP tables structure is in Tools->Resource Description->Tables … and you are in control. Feel free to create views and stored procs directly in the companies databases – it doesn’t hurt the Dexterity engine
5. Direct web publishing from Great Plains SQL databases, using Visual Studio.net and your language of choice (VB.Net, C#, J#, etc). Plus you probably want to have several SQL stored procs.
6. eConnect – this tool is type of SDK with VB.net samples. It allows you to feed data into Great Plains and was primarily created for eCommerce developers.
7. Integration Manager – it is end-user tool for importing to GP, however if end-user meets some challenges in the integration – you as a developer can help with VBA scripts. IM validates 100% of business logic and uses hidden GP forms – so it maybe slow for big on-going integrations, when you have thousands records per day – in this case you rescue to eConnect or directly to SQL store procedures.
8. SQL queries - as a developer you have unlimited potential in using SQL queries, because the database in MS SQL Server. Be careful, it is kind of surgery - you can easily delete all your customers, by executing: DELETE RM00101
Happy customizing! if you want us to do the job - give us a call 1-866-528-0577! help@albaspectrum.com
If you are developer who is asked: how do we customize Great Plains – read this and you will have the clues on where to look further.
1. Great Plains Dexterity – this is proprietary programming language and technology, designed back to earlier 1990th with the goal to build platform independent graphical accounting package – Great Plains Dynamics. Dexterity itself is written in C (following popular those days hope – that C will provide platform independence). You can install Dexterity from Great Plains 7.5 CD #2. Obviously it requires a lot of learning / training, but it allows your custom piece be seamlessly integrated with Great Plains interface. Nowadays, however – and this is a good thing – most of Great Plains installations are moved to SQL Server – so you can use Dexterity for custom forms drawing only and make the buttons run SQL stored procedures.
2. Modifier with VBA. Unfortunately you have to purchase this tool and get new registration keys. If you are familiar with VBA customization for Access or Excel – you have all the skills needed – then you just attach your scripts to the buttons and fields on GP forms (you can modify these forms with Modifier – or just tough them with it).
3. Continuum for VB/Delphi – we don’t recommend this tool, because it is using Great Plains as OLE server – and you probably don’t want to be trapped by old technology.
4. Crystal Reports. Great Plains has its own ReportWriter, but its functionality is limited – you can’t do cross modules reports (you can’t link Sales and Purchasing tables in one report, for example). So – you use Crystal. The GP tables structure is in Tools->Resource Description->Tables … and you are in control. Feel free to create views and stored procs directly in the companies databases – it doesn’t hurt the Dexterity engine
5. Direct web publishing from Great Plains SQL databases, using Visual Studio.net and your language of choice (VB.Net, C#, J#, etc). Plus you probably want to have several SQL stored procs.
6. eConnect – this tool is type of SDK with VB.net samples. It allows you to feed data into Great Plains and was primarily created for eCommerce developers.
7. Integration Manager – it is end-user tool for importing to GP, however if end-user meets some challenges in the integration – you as a developer can help with VBA scripts. IM validates 100% of business logic and uses hidden GP forms – so it maybe slow for big on-going integrations, when you have thousands records per day – in this case you rescue to eConnect or directly to SQL store procedures.
8. SQL queries - as a developer you have unlimited potential in using SQL queries, because the database in MS SQL Server. Be careful, it is kind of surgery - you can easily delete all your customers, by executing: DELETE RM00101
Happy customizing! if you want us to do the job - give us a call 1-866-528-0577! help@albaspectrum.com
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Great Plains Dexterity Programming – overview for developer
Looks like Microsoft Great Plains becomes more and more popular, partly because of Microsoft muscles behind it. Now it is targeted to the whole spectrum of horizontal and vertical market clientele. Small companies use Small Business Manager (which is based on the same technology – Great Plains Dexterity dictionary and runtime), Great Plains Standard on MSDE is for small to midsize clients, and then Great Plains serves the rest of the market up to big corporations.
If you are developer who is asked: how do we customize Great Plains with its native programming language – Great Plains Dexterity – read this and you will have the clues on where to look further.
The history of the Dexterity. Great Plains Dexterity – is proprietary programming language and technology, designed back to earlier 1990th with the goal to build platform independent graphical accounting package – Great Plains Dynamics. Dexterity itself is written in C (following popular those days hope – that C will provide platform independence). You can install Dexterity from Great Plains 7.5 CD #2. Obviously it requires a lot of learning / training, but it allows your custom piece be seamlessly integrated with Great Plains interface.
Native Dexterity Cursors. Dexterity was designed as platform independent programming language and so if you want your code to be operable on all currently supported databases – you use Dexterity ranges and loops to manipulate the records
Great Plains Dexterity with SQL Stored Procs Nowadays, most of Great Plains installations are moved to SQL Server – so you can use Dexterity for custom forms drawing only and make the buttons run SQL stored procedures.
COM Objects calls. Beginning with version 7.0 Dexterity supports COM objects – you register them as libraries in Dexterity. Refer the manual. This technique allows you to call such nice things as web services across the internet.
Dexterity Forms – if you like VBA and are comfortable to do all the business logic in VBA – you can use Dexterity as new forms creator/editor. This is OK – but you have to purchase VBA/Modifier and Customization Site Enabler from MBS.
Some restrictions. Great Plains is actually integration of multiple dictionaries: DYNAMICS.DIC, ADVSECUR.DIC, EXP1493.DIC, etc. In your Dexterity customization you can deal with one dictionary – DYNAMICS.DIC. If you need cross dictionaries customization – consider using SQL Stored Procs for crossing dictionary borders and pulling data/making changes in the other dictionary..
If you are developer who is asked: how do we customize Great Plains with its native programming language – Great Plains Dexterity – read this and you will have the clues on where to look further.
The history of the Dexterity. Great Plains Dexterity – is proprietary programming language and technology, designed back to earlier 1990th with the goal to build platform independent graphical accounting package – Great Plains Dynamics. Dexterity itself is written in C (following popular those days hope – that C will provide platform independence). You can install Dexterity from Great Plains 7.5 CD #2. Obviously it requires a lot of learning / training, but it allows your custom piece be seamlessly integrated with Great Plains interface.
Native Dexterity Cursors. Dexterity was designed as platform independent programming language and so if you want your code to be operable on all currently supported databases – you use Dexterity ranges and loops to manipulate the records
Great Plains Dexterity with SQL Stored Procs Nowadays, most of Great Plains installations are moved to SQL Server – so you can use Dexterity for custom forms drawing only and make the buttons run SQL stored procedures.
COM Objects calls. Beginning with version 7.0 Dexterity supports COM objects – you register them as libraries in Dexterity. Refer the manual. This technique allows you to call such nice things as web services across the internet.
Dexterity Forms – if you like VBA and are comfortable to do all the business logic in VBA – you can use Dexterity as new forms creator/editor. This is OK – but you have to purchase VBA/Modifier and Customization Site Enabler from MBS.
Some restrictions. Great Plains is actually integration of multiple dictionaries: DYNAMICS.DIC, ADVSECUR.DIC, EXP1493.DIC, etc. In your Dexterity customization you can deal with one dictionary – DYNAMICS.DIC. If you need cross dictionaries customization – consider using SQL Stored Procs for crossing dictionary borders and pulling data/making changes in the other dictionary..
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
The Evolution of Technology - The History of Computers
While computers are now an important part of the lives of human beings, there was a time where computers did not exist. Knowing the history of computers and how much progression has been made can help you understand just how complicated and innovative the creation of computers really is.
Unlike most devices, the computer is one of the few inventions that does not have one specific inventor. Throughout the development of the computer, many people have added their creations to the list required to make a computer work. Some of the inventions have been different types of computers, and some of them were parts required to allow computers to be developed further.
The Beginning
Perhaps the most significant date in the history of computers is the year 1936. It was in this year that the first "computer" was developed. It was created by Konrad Zuse and dubbed the Z1 Computer. This computer stands as the first as it was the first system to be fully programmable. There were devices prior to this, but none had the computing power that sets it apart from other electronics.
It wasn't until 1942 that any business saw profit and opportunity in computers. This first company was called ABC computers, owned and operated by John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry. Two years later, the Harvard Mark I computer was developed, furthering the science of computing.
Over the course of the next few years, inventors all over the world began to search more into the study of computers, and how to improve upon them. Those next ten years say the introduction of the transistor, which would become a vital part of the inner workings of the computer, the ENIAC 1 computer, as well as many other types of systems. The ENIAC 1 is perhaps one of the most interesting, as it required 20,000 vacuum tubes to operate. It was a massive machine, and started the revolution to build smaller and faster computers.
The age of computers was forever altered by the introduction of International Business Machines, or IBM, into the computing industry in 1953. This company, over the course of computer history, has been a major player in the development of new systems and servers for public and private use. This introduction brought about the first real signs of competition within computing history, which helped to spur faster and better development of computers. Their first contribution was the IBM 701 EDPM Computer.
A Programming Language Evolves
A year later, the first successful high level programming language was created. This was a programming language not written in 'assembly' or binary, which are considered very low level languages. FORTRAN was written so that more people could begin to program computers easily.
The year 1955, the Bank of America, coupled with Stanford Research Institute and General Electric, saw the creation of the first computers for use in banks. The MICR, or Magnetic Ink Character Recognition, coupled with the actual computer, the ERMA, was a breakthrough for the banking industry. It wasn't until 1959 that the pair of systems were put into use in actual banks.
During 1958, one of the most important breakthroughs in computer history occurred, the creation of the integrated circuit. This device, also known as the chip, is one of the base requirements for modern computer systems. On every motherboard and card within a computer system, are many chips that contain information on what the boards and cards do. Without these chips, the systems as we know them today cannot function.
Gaming, Mice, & the Internet
For many computer users now, games are a vital part of the computing experience. 1962 saw the creation of the first computer game, which was created by Steve Russel and MIT, which was dubbed Spacewar.
The mouse, one of the most basic components of modern computers, was created in 1964 by Douglass Engelbart. It obtained its name from the "tail" leading out of the device.
One of the most important aspects of computers today was invented in 1969. ARPA net was the original Internet, which provided the foundation for the Internet that we know today. This development would result in the evolution of knowledge and business across the entire planet.
It wasn't until 1970 that Intel entered the scene with the first dynamic RAM chip, which resulted in an explosion of computer science innovation.
On the heels of the RAM chip was the first microprocessor, which was also designed by Intel. These two components, in addition to the chip developed in 1958, would number among the core components of modern computers.
A year later, the floppy disk was created, gaining its name from the flexibility of the storage unit. This was the first step in allowing most people to transfer bits of data between unconnected computers.
The first networking card was created in 1973, allowing data transfer between connected computers. This is similar to the Internet, but allows for the computers to connect without use of the Internet.
Household PC's Emerge
The next three years were very important for computers. This is when companies began to develop systems for the average consumer. The Scelbi, Mark-8 Altair, IBM 5100, Apple I and II, TRS-80, and the Commodore Pet computers were the forerunners in this area. While expensive, these machines started the trend for computers within common households.
One of the most major breathroughs in computer software occurred in 1978 with the release of the VisiCalc Spreadsheet program. All development costs were paid for within a two week period of time, which makes this one of the most successful programs in computer history.
1979 was perhaps one of the most important years for the home computer user. This is the year that WordStar, the first word processing program, was released to the public for sale. This drastically altered the usefulness of computers for the everyday user.
The IBM Home computer quickly helped revolutionize the consumer market in 1981, as it was affordable for home owners and standard consumers. 1981 also saw the the mega-giant Microsoft enter the scene with the MS-DOS operating system. This operating system utterly changed computing forever, as it was easy enough for everyone to learn.
The Competition Begins : Apple vs. Microsoft
Computers saw yet another vital change during the year of 1983. The Apple Lisa computer was the first with a graphical user interface, or a GUI. Most modern programs contain a GUI, which allows them to be easy to use and pleasing for the eyes. This marked the beginning of the out dating of most text based only programs.
Beyond this point in computer history, many changes and alterations have occurred, from the Apple-Microsoft wars, to the developing of microcomputers and a variety of computer breakthroughs that have become an accepted part of our daily lives. Without the initial first steps of computer history, none of this would have been possible.
Unlike most devices, the computer is one of the few inventions that does not have one specific inventor. Throughout the development of the computer, many people have added their creations to the list required to make a computer work. Some of the inventions have been different types of computers, and some of them were parts required to allow computers to be developed further.
The Beginning
Perhaps the most significant date in the history of computers is the year 1936. It was in this year that the first "computer" was developed. It was created by Konrad Zuse and dubbed the Z1 Computer. This computer stands as the first as it was the first system to be fully programmable. There were devices prior to this, but none had the computing power that sets it apart from other electronics.
It wasn't until 1942 that any business saw profit and opportunity in computers. This first company was called ABC computers, owned and operated by John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry. Two years later, the Harvard Mark I computer was developed, furthering the science of computing.
Over the course of the next few years, inventors all over the world began to search more into the study of computers, and how to improve upon them. Those next ten years say the introduction of the transistor, which would become a vital part of the inner workings of the computer, the ENIAC 1 computer, as well as many other types of systems. The ENIAC 1 is perhaps one of the most interesting, as it required 20,000 vacuum tubes to operate. It was a massive machine, and started the revolution to build smaller and faster computers.
The age of computers was forever altered by the introduction of International Business Machines, or IBM, into the computing industry in 1953. This company, over the course of computer history, has been a major player in the development of new systems and servers for public and private use. This introduction brought about the first real signs of competition within computing history, which helped to spur faster and better development of computers. Their first contribution was the IBM 701 EDPM Computer.
A Programming Language Evolves
A year later, the first successful high level programming language was created. This was a programming language not written in 'assembly' or binary, which are considered very low level languages. FORTRAN was written so that more people could begin to program computers easily.
The year 1955, the Bank of America, coupled with Stanford Research Institute and General Electric, saw the creation of the first computers for use in banks. The MICR, or Magnetic Ink Character Recognition, coupled with the actual computer, the ERMA, was a breakthrough for the banking industry. It wasn't until 1959 that the pair of systems were put into use in actual banks.
During 1958, one of the most important breakthroughs in computer history occurred, the creation of the integrated circuit. This device, also known as the chip, is one of the base requirements for modern computer systems. On every motherboard and card within a computer system, are many chips that contain information on what the boards and cards do. Without these chips, the systems as we know them today cannot function.
Gaming, Mice, & the Internet
For many computer users now, games are a vital part of the computing experience. 1962 saw the creation of the first computer game, which was created by Steve Russel and MIT, which was dubbed Spacewar.
The mouse, one of the most basic components of modern computers, was created in 1964 by Douglass Engelbart. It obtained its name from the "tail" leading out of the device.
One of the most important aspects of computers today was invented in 1969. ARPA net was the original Internet, which provided the foundation for the Internet that we know today. This development would result in the evolution of knowledge and business across the entire planet.
It wasn't until 1970 that Intel entered the scene with the first dynamic RAM chip, which resulted in an explosion of computer science innovation.
On the heels of the RAM chip was the first microprocessor, which was also designed by Intel. These two components, in addition to the chip developed in 1958, would number among the core components of modern computers.
A year later, the floppy disk was created, gaining its name from the flexibility of the storage unit. This was the first step in allowing most people to transfer bits of data between unconnected computers.
The first networking card was created in 1973, allowing data transfer between connected computers. This is similar to the Internet, but allows for the computers to connect without use of the Internet.
Household PC's Emerge
The next three years were very important for computers. This is when companies began to develop systems for the average consumer. The Scelbi, Mark-8 Altair, IBM 5100, Apple I and II, TRS-80, and the Commodore Pet computers were the forerunners in this area. While expensive, these machines started the trend for computers within common households.
One of the most major breathroughs in computer software occurred in 1978 with the release of the VisiCalc Spreadsheet program. All development costs were paid for within a two week period of time, which makes this one of the most successful programs in computer history.
1979 was perhaps one of the most important years for the home computer user. This is the year that WordStar, the first word processing program, was released to the public for sale. This drastically altered the usefulness of computers for the everyday user.
The IBM Home computer quickly helped revolutionize the consumer market in 1981, as it was affordable for home owners and standard consumers. 1981 also saw the the mega-giant Microsoft enter the scene with the MS-DOS operating system. This operating system utterly changed computing forever, as it was easy enough for everyone to learn.
The Competition Begins : Apple vs. Microsoft
Computers saw yet another vital change during the year of 1983. The Apple Lisa computer was the first with a graphical user interface, or a GUI. Most modern programs contain a GUI, which allows them to be easy to use and pleasing for the eyes. This marked the beginning of the out dating of most text based only programs.
Beyond this point in computer history, many changes and alterations have occurred, from the Apple-Microsoft wars, to the developing of microcomputers and a variety of computer breakthroughs that have become an accepted part of our daily lives. Without the initial first steps of computer history, none of this would have been possible.
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