Information Technology for the Rest of Us

Office 2011 for Mac

2010-10-20T03:44:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has come out with office for Mac 2011 for Mac. Only available through download currently. I have installed it and found that it is much faster with opening up documents then Mac office 2008. The change that is the most obvious is that of the mail client. Bye, bye Entourage! I have to say THANK GOODNESS! I thought the interface or GUI (Graphical User Interface) was horrible. Welcome Outlook to Office for Mac 2011. I can't wait to start emailing people using it. Will keep you posted.

MAC OS 10.6 and Active Directory

2009-11-16T16:09:00.000-08:00

So do you want to add your new MAC 10.6 Operating System to Active Directory? Well get ready because I have that information.

When Snow Leopard came out, Apple decided to move things around and one of those things was the directory services in 10.5.

Directory Utility has been moved to Core Services located /System/Library/CoreServices/directory utility.

Php Scripts

2009-11-09T10:35:00.000-08:00

Here are a few good PHP scripts that I found for free. Check them out.

http://www.gotocode.com/apps.asp?app_id=13

The Internet

2009-10-16T05:44:00.001-07:00

I do think that Business use of the Internet, intranet, and extranets has changed how business people except from information technology in their jobs because it is the fastest way to communicate. If someone is in Japan and you need to share files, the easiest way is to email the file. Where as before you would have to mail the file to Japan and it could take several days or a day depending on how it is sent. So business people except IT people to have the tools that they need to get their job done. For Businesses to be successful, IT is a very critical aspect of a business.

So having Internet available, business people tend to reply on using it in the work place and at home to work on documents, business transaction, and post news articles on line. Business people are upset when they do not work correctly and except IT people to fix problems and monitor Information Systems.

Virtualization in Modern Computing

2009-10-02T11:09:00.001-07:00

Englander briefly goes into virtualization and talks about how “an individual computer system is used to stimulate multiple computers.” (Englander, 2009) I would like to expand on this because I think that virtualization is modern to computing today. With companies moving to virtualization because of cost and also for the environment due to lower costs in power consumption helps consolidate computers or servers in any organization.

Virtualization in the last couple of years has become popular making multiple installations of Desktop operating systems and also servers. In the event that a server goes down, you can bring up a virtual machine to do exactly what the physical machine was doing. Allowing each computer to run its own operating system and programs. (Englander, 2009) Here is one example of the use of virtualization.

At the University of California, San Diego Libraries, they wanted to have virtual desktops for training without the costs of licenses of Microsoft. They decided download VMware Player and built a Linux distribution with MYSQL and sent it to the workshop on site. (2009) This enabled them to install the VMWARE Player with the Operating System by the instructor and enabled the students to follow along with the instructor. Not only did they save in software, but also time by using Open Source Operating System.

In conclusion, Virtualization in modern computing is essential because of the time and cost savings associated with it. With using virtualization, programmers and IT professionals are able to test and then deploy applications with out the big costs of purchasing new hardware and re-using hardware that is currently available; assuming that the hardware meets the requirements for that project. This also helps with organizations that want to keep IT costs down.

References

Hutt, A., Stuart, M., Suchy, D., & Westbrook, B. D. (2009). Employing virtualization in library computing: Use cases and lessons learned Retrieved from http://find.galegroup.com.ezproxy.umuc.edu/gtx/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T002&prodId=CDB&docId=A207282219&source=gale&srcprod=CDB&userGroupName=umd_umuc&version=1.0

Englander, Ira. (2009). The architecture of computer HArdware, systems software, and networking (4th Edition ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

64 Bit Computing

2009-09-23T06:30:00.001-07:00

I found this to be very interesting. Where I used to work, we couldn't find computers that were fast enough or good enough for AutoCAD. So we purchased 64 bit machines and after testing and testing, we wanted other users to play with them. True that 32 bit applications will only use up to 3 GB of the 4 GB installed, When Apple came out with Snow Leopard of its operating system it is built so that when new computers are made that it can handle the Operating System.

An article in the Computer Act!ve said that those that purchase Windows 7 will find both 32 bit and 64 bit versions of the operating system in the box already (Bastounis, Orestis, 2009). I think that even though most today do not need 64 bit, most companies are pushing toward 64 bit computers to oppose to 32 bit. With more memory people won't have to worry about their computers going slow.

The article also points out that some computers that AMD come out with already had the ability of 64 bit computing (Bastounis, Orestis, 2009). Servers back in the day also used the 64 bit like SPARC by SUN. They seem to have made a come back due to the ability to use more memory especially processing large databases or large files. For architects, this is especially important with drawings or graphics designers.

References:

"64-bit computing." Computer Act!ve (Sept 3, 2009): NA. Computer Database. Gale. University of MD University College. 22 Sept. 2009
http://find.galegroup.com.ezproxy.umuc.edu/gtx/start.do?prodId=CDB.

Automated Software Testing

2009-09-17T15:17:00.000-07:00

Background: This was done in a CIS 210 class at Strayer University.

Abstract

This is an abstract of automated software testing applications to help a systems analyst in researching, planning, coordinating and recommending software to meet the needs of an organization that wants to build a application in house whether it be a computer application or web application. Discusses the many applications available. What there functionality is available and what are the advantages of using that software.

Automated Software Testing

In the Information Technology field, a system analyst job is to research, plan, and coordinate and recommend software that will meet an organization’s business. The perfect example is the firm that I work for. It is an architectural firm in which I was hired to handle the workstations and servers. From time to time, I have projects that need to be completed. One of our biggest projects was the new software package from Deltek that allows you to bill clients for time spent and materials for each project. We had done some testing, however once the server was live, we found out that there were a couple issues. Employees were receiving error messages and we couldn’t figure out why.

Finally, Deltek said that it had to do with communication from the server to the workstation. This brought us to the point where we made changes to our network and thus far we now seem to have fixed the issues. In this paper, we will discuss what products are available to test software and compare and contrast some of their features.

After doing some research a came upon a couple software packages that allow you to test software and also web based code. Due to time I could not contact testers to find out the process that they go through testing out software and couldn’t test any software due to time also, because a lot deal with contacting software vendors that don’t allow you to download right away.

Some of the products that I found are located at opensourcetesting.com. They offer Open Source Testing software one that is web development is called seleniumhq.org. Opensourcetesting.com is best resource if you want to test your own web applications.

For Software development, the software package Automation Anywhere allows you to record windows tasks, has a windows GUI automation, Non-invasive windows integrator allowing a user to capture text and put it in a variable form. Fanfare software enables teams and developers to build tests and run tests, track results and pass-fail criteria. It also allows them to generate documentation that can be shared. They both have different versions from standard, personal, and enterprise solution for teamwork.

Fanfare iTest Team gives you the ability to capture how the application will run, along with web applications, connect to devices, start setup, automated system testing. You can add tasks and have them run, documentation generator, “add looping constructs to help automates repetitive tasks.” It functions as a standalone product but with the ability to share information to other team members. It allows complex systems to test hundreds of devices.

Another application developed by Automation Anywhere Enterprise, which allows you to work with a team. The features available are recording images of time of recording tasks, statics, show IT process and manage it, remote deployment, system logs in a single database of evens in your automation, advanced web recorder, scheduled tasks, email notifications.

Both products are good and the things they have in common are web application testing, capture, logs, pass/fail determination, network traffic, SNMP, telnet, and Shell.

I am split on a software package to do testing. If I had a choice on commercial software to do my testing, I would recommend Automation Anywhere because their software has seems to have more functionality for testing then some of the other software packages. You can also work in a time. The cost is a little too much even for the personal edition. “Developers need to test early and often if they want to deliver quality code, according to experts. With that in mind, tool makers and developers are welcoming the idea of a breakthrough in the testing arena.” (2007, November 21). Retrieved December 16, 2008, from http://www.devsource.com/c/a/Architecture/Industry-Seeks-Software-Testing-Breakthrough . This is why I would recommend Automation Anywhere. I would also develop my own software testing application because it helps to know how your application will work. At times some software vendors do not know the best way to test software, except by the developer. I think this is one of the reasons why Open Source applications come into the picture is because developers want to ensure that their applications will work properly and I agree. Software vendors need to test their applications or software to ensure that it is compatible with other vendors. I won’t mention any names.

The primary advantage to using any automated software-testing package gives the software developer or a quality assurance of testing to make sure that all the bugs are worked out of that particular program. A perfect example is Windows. It has the most flaws in its Operating System and Internet Explorer uses the kernel (OS level) and a hacker can attack the operating system where attacks happen at the kernel level. Proper testing can avoid this similar to Linux/UNIX.

In conclusion, when developing a application you need to look at the business problem, recommend a solution, come up with a time frame of implementation, and test, test, test. I used to bank with Arizona Federal Credit Union. There software for banking was out dated. They decided to upgrade their system to enhance the way customers banked, and also implement charges to credit cards (debit cards) if customers went over their account balance. Bingham, a Assistant Vice President for information technology stated: “Quality should increase when testing works efficiently.” (Schwartz, K.D., 2008) When developing it is important that testing could take a long time from months to years depending on what you are developing. As I mentioned Microsoft has brought a lot of heat on themselves because most of their software is not fully tested on application like Adobe and end up crashing the application. This frustrates the end-user and makes them not want to purchase other products from them. In the end with proper planning you can build an effective application with Automation testing software to have a application bug free.

References

Taft, Darryl K., Industry Seeks Software Testing Breakthrough Retrieved December 16, 2008, from http://www.devsource.com/c/a/Architecture/Industry-Seeks-Software-Testing-Breakthrough/

Schwartz, S.D, (2008). Banking on Software Testing. Eweek, D1, D2.

Open Source - The Way to Go

2009-09-08T20:18:00.000-07:00

Imagine getting all the software you ever wanted for free; it is called Open Source Software. The purpose of Open Source Software is to make it available to everyone for free. It allows people in the Open Source Community to share their Source Code with other users or developers.

Proprietary software tends to be more plagued with viruses and security issues. Instead of taking almost six months to come out with a update, it is easy for Open Source Software developers to resolve issues by putting a patch for various security issues. Everyone in the open source community has access to the source code and you are free to modify it for your use.

Open Source Software has many advantages besides being free. One, to extend the life of an application, making the source code available allows people to support it and the right to modify it to fit their needs. Second, being able to redistribute modifications and improvements to the code allows others to reuse other open source code, and to include it with other applications. Third, the right to redistribute rights to use the software in any way you want. Fourth, unlike some companies there is no one with the power to restrict the way the software is used. Fifth, since proprietary software depends on a manufacturer to support it, with open source software there is no single entity on which the future of the software depends. You can join a mailing list group or a forum on a web site and receive free support.

In conclusion, proprietary software does not allow you to modify the use of the applications. Open source has a guideline called “no black boxes are possible.”

By having the source code available, it is possible to perform a thorough inspection and verify the correctness of the algorithm and the implementation scheme used. Of course with all things there are risks. With Open Source Software there is a potential liability for intellectual property infringement. The typical open source project is a grass-roots effort that contains contributions from many people. In effect someone could claim that it is their software. Of course this essay doesn’t explain everything about Open Source Software, but you can find some pretty cool programs that you can use if you can’t afford to buy a proprietary application. Some examples of an application is OpenOffice which is similar to Microsoft's Office Professional 2007.

Technology...here we go!

2009-08-25T10:33:00.001-07:00

Wow! Technology these days is just amazing. You have facebook, myspace, may be a personal web site, twitter, blog spot, you name it. Wow Look at technology! I will be posting some articles that I have written while I was in college. Some are out-of-date, but as time goes by I will revise them. These are all drafts and are not final until I remove the draft statement. Enjoy!