DBSophic Launches a Free Trace Analyzer Tool for Microsoft SQL Server

DBSophic, a developer of innovative software solutions for database performance optimization, today announced the launch of its new Trace Analyzer tool for Microsoft SQL Server. This innovative tool, which can be downloaded from the company's web site, free of charge, allows users to instantly find out what is slowing down their databases by enabling them to easily pinpoint which batches or specific parameter value sets consume the most resources.

DBSophic's Trace Analyzer helps database administrators (DBAs) quickly analyze trace events, stored in multiple trace files and trace tables. Within a few minutes, the user views all the trace events analyzed, de-parameterized, grouped and clearly arranged in a tree format and ordered by their resource consumption. The results display the total resource consumption and enable the user to drill down to specific parameter value sets.

"The new product is aimed at assisting DBA professionals in analyzing database transactions in order to help them better monitor and improve the performance of their applications," said Hagi Erez, CEO of DBSophic. "The Trace Analyzer tool can save them a lot of time and effort, while being completely free of charge. DBSophic is committed to contribute to the IT community."

"The Trace Analyzer eliminates the need to read hundreds of thousands of trace file events, thus saving time and resources," explained DBSophic CTO Ami Levin. "Moreover, it allows users to determine immediately which batches are overloading their servers, and provides an overall yet detailed view providing IT managers with the opportunity to see the whole picture."

About DBSophic
DBSophic develops innovative software solutions for database performance optimization. DBSophic provides comprehensive, fully automated, yet simple solutions for performance tuning and optimization of database systems.

DBSophic's flagship solution, Qure, is an innovative software for automatic analysis, identification and optimization of database performance. Qure uses unique proprietary algorithms with unparalleled precision, providing organizations with a rapid return on investment. Qure saves unwarranted hardware expansions, saves database administrators and developers months of painstaking manual analysis and tuning, and significantly improves user experience and productivity.

DBSophic was founded in 2007 by CEO Hagi Erez and CTO Ami Levin, an SQL Server MVP. The company headquarters and R&D are located in the High-Tech Village at Givat Ram, Jerusalem, Israel.

For more information about DBSophic, or to download the free Trace Analyzer Tool, please visit www.dbsophic.com. Read More >>

Build Your Own Database Driven Web Site Using PHP & MySQL -- New from SitePoint

SitePoint today announced the release of "Build Your Own Database Driven Web Site Using PHP & MySQL" (4th Edition) ($39.95 USD), an updated edition of their best-selling PHP beginners book.

Build Your Own Database Driven Web Site Using PHP & MySQL is a practical hands-on guide to learning all the tools, principles, and techniques needed to build a fully functional database driven web site using PHP and MySQL. This book covers everything from installing PHP and MySQL on Windows, Linux, and Mac computers through to building a live, web-based content management system.

Authored by SitePoint's own Technology Director, Kevin Yank, the earlier editions were praised for their easy-to-read tutorial style, and this latest release is no exception.

"This book will suit anyone who knows HTML and is looking to take the next step in learning web development. Whether PHP becomes your first programming language, or whether you've been copying and pasting PHP code for years without fully understanding it, this book will give you a firm grasp of the fundamentals, and the confidence to build your own database driven web sites from scratch," explains Kevin.

This edition features a radically new approach to learning PHP, with a strong focus on writing the highest quality, most easily maintained code possible, even when building very simple scripts. Employers and clients expect a much more professional standard of work from PHP developers these days, and this new edition ensures that your skills will be up to scratch from the very first script that you write.

About the author
Kevin Yank is a world-renowned leader in web development. When not writing best sellers, Kevin is the Technical Director of sitepoint.com and editor of the popular SitePoint Tech Times newsletter.

Additional Resources
Build Your Own Database Driven Web Site Using PHP & MySQL (4th Edition) is available right now in printed and PDF formats. To download free sample chapters and view the table of contents, visit:

http://www.sitepoint.com/books/phpmysql4

About SitePoint
SitePoint specializes in publishing fun, practical, and easy-to-understand content for web professionals. Its popular online magazine, blogs, newsletters, and print books teach best practices to web developers and designers worldwide.

Source: PRWeb Read More >>

Full Sail University Announces New Game Design Bachelor of Science Online Degree Program

Full Sail University (fullsail.edu), an award-winning entertainment media institution near Orlando, FL, is proud to announce the expansion of their Gaming curriculum into a newly developed Game Design Bachelor of Science Online Degree Program.

The new 32-month degree program is based on the core disciplines of the on-campus Game Art and Game Development Bachelor of Science Degree Programs and is designed for students who want to create compelling and inventive experiences for the next generation of games.

With the help of industry professionals and the specialized curriculum, students learn the production process used by top game design studios that helps to hone their skills by studying the building blocks of narrative design, storytelling, character sketching, level design, and the production tools used to translate these ideas to the screen.

Throughout the program, students apply these techniques to projects and learn a practical understanding of taking a game from concept to completion. As a final project, incorporating all the critical and analytical techniques learned in the program, the students must create a complete game prototype.

"Having the opportunity to teach game design online allows students to peruse their passion for gaming from all over the world," said Rob Catto, Course Director Game Development. "Learning from industry professionals prepares students for a creative and competitive career in the gaming industry."

About Full Sail University:
Since 1979, Full Sail University, located outside of Orlando, FL, has been an innovative educational leader for those pursuing careers in the entertainment industry. With over 32,000 alumni, graduate credits include work on OSCAR®, Emmy® and GRAMMY®-winning projects, best-selling video games, and the #1 grossing U.S. concert tours. Full Sail's 190-acre campus and online education platform proudly welcomes over 7,000 students from 50 states and 65 countries.

Full Sail currently offers a total of 24 degree programs including: Associate of Science Degrees in Graphic Design; Bachelor of Science Degrees offered in Computer Animation, Digital Arts & Design, Entertainment Business, Film, Game Art, Game Design, Game Development, Graphic Design, Internet Marketing, Music Business, Recording Arts, Show Production, and Web Design & Development; and Master of Science Degrees in Education Media Design & Technology, Game Design, Entertainment Business, and Internet Marketing; and a Master of Fine Art in Media Design.

Full Sail was most recently named the 2008 "School/College of the Year" by the Florida Association of Postsecondary Schools and Colleges. The university has also been previously named: The Harvard of Game Schools by Tips & Tricks Magazine; one of the top three New Media Schools by Shift Magazine (alongside the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and New York University); one of the Top Five Game Degree Programs in the world by Electronic Gaming Monthly; one of the Best Music Programs in the country by Rolling Stone Magazine; one of the Best Music Business Departments in the Schools That Rock: The Rolling Stone College Guide; and one of the Best Film Programs in the country by UNleashed Magazine.

For more information about Full Sail, please visit www.fullsail.edu.

Source: PRWeb Read More >>

Zend Framework 1.9 Features PHP 5.3 Readiness and New Professional Components

Zend Technologies, Inc., the PHP company, today announced that the widely successful open source project Zend Framework, which has been downloaded many millions of times, is issuing its fifth update since debuting two years ago and will be available Friday. The new version, Zend Framework 1.9, features PHP 5.3 support, plus new and enhanced community-built professional level features for web application development.

“Zend Framework continues to broaden its appeal for professional PHP developers who want to benefit from a cohesive set of best practices, design patterns, and a community-driven project,” said Zeev Suraski, chief technology officer and co-founder at Zend. “With Zend Framework, worldwide talent and solutions are available for any business problem at hand, already solved and pre-crafted by someone in the massive Zend Framework open-source community.”

New features in Zend Framework 1.9:

• Complete support for PHP 5.3 as well as 5.2 means developers can use the latest PHP language features in their Zend Framework-based apps
• RESTful web services: now made easier through automated routing/detection
• Message queues: useful for offload processing (credit card transactions, media uploads), cross-platform communication, user messaging features, and more.
• LDAP: Microsoft ActiveDirectory & Novell, plus searching, filtering, and tree features
• RSS & Atom: consume these popular feed formats using a common API and higher performance cached HTTP
• DBUnit support: DBUnit’s test data setup and teardown make unit testing Zend Framework applications much easier

"In addition to building the new Shape.com site using Zend Framework, SonomaCreative is building all new websites we design on a combination of the rock-solid Zend Framework components in combination with our own custom in-house components,” said Mark Gordon, CEO of SonomaCreative, a Northern California based web development firm.

“We have also found that the new Zend Studio 7, with support for creating and generating Zend Framework code, makes our job building web applications for our clients much faster and easier. The combination of Zend Framework and Zend Studio means we are more productive because we spend more of our time actually customizing applications for our clients and less time building the plumbing and standard components that every application needs.”

In other news
Zend Studio 7.0 was released today with new and expanded support for code generation of Zend Framework applications. For more detail, please go here: http://tinyurl.com/zendstudio7announced

About Zend Technologies
Zend Technologies, Inc., the PHP Company, is the leading provider of products and services for developing, deploying, and managing business-critical PHP applications. PHP is used by more than 20 million Web sites and has quickly become the most popular language for building dynamic Web applications. Deployed at more than 27,000 companies worldwide, the Zend family of products is a comprehensive platform for supporting the entire lifecycle of PHP applications. Zend is headquartered in Cupertino, California.

For more information, please visit http://www.zend.com or call +1 408-253-8800. Read More >>

Zend Launches Major New Release of its Zend Studio PHP IDE

Zend Technologies, Inc., the PHP company, today announced a major new release of Zend Studio, the company’s leading integrated development environment (IDE) for the dynamic PHP language. Designed to dramatically improve productivity for professional-grade Web application development, Zend Studio 7.0 features support for the newly-released PHP version 5.3 as well as tight integration with Zend Server and Zend Framework.

“PHP is rapidly becoming a mainstay in the enterprise, and Zend Studio 7.0 provides everything a developer needs to quickly build dynamic, professional-grade PHP applications with high performance, security, and reliability,” said Andi Gutmans, CEO and co-founder of Zend Technologies. “Zend Studio, together with Zend Framework and Zend Server, provides a PHP solution that addresses the entire Web application lifecycle, from development to production.”

Zend Studio is the leading PHP IDE, providing a complete, professional-grade environment to maximize PHP developer productivity. Built on the Zend-led Eclipse PHP Development Tools (PDT) 2.1 open source software – currently the most popular Eclipse project – Zend Studio is the only IDE available for developers that encompasses all the capabilities needed to build professional-grade business applications. In addition, Zend Studio customers benefit from the huge ecosystem of solutions available to the Eclipse community.

Zend Studio 7.0 adds many new features and enhancements to ease development and increase performance of Web application development. Indicative of customer interest, the beta version has been downloaded from the Zend Website ( http://www.zend.com ) over 20,000 times since it was released last month.

Key new features in Zend Studio 7.0 include:

• Support for PHP 5.3: Zend Studio 7.0 is a complete IDE for the new PHP version 5.3. Zend Studio’s support for 5.3 features makes for easier maintenance and more concise code with code assist, new syntax highlighting, and new language features in PHP 5.3, such as namespaces and closures, which allow programmers to better organize their code and use more dynamic coding patterns.
• Point-and-click Zend Framework coding: Better integration with Zend Framework, the leading PHP development framework, delivers more productive engineering with rapid application development (RAD) programming, enabling point-and-click creation of standards-based, customizable, professional-grade Zend Framework applications.
• Enhanced integration with Zend Server: Zend Studio 7.0’s support for Zend Server -- Zend’s Web application server for deploying, managing and monitoring PHP Web applications -- delivers significantly faster and more reliable software. Zend Server maximizes PHP application reliability, security, and performance in the enterprise with ongoing application monitoring, security fixes, product updates and event notifications.

For more information about the new features and functionality in Zend Studio 7.0, please go to http://www.zend.com/products/studio

Jon Whitcraft, lead application developer for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, commented, “Zend Studio is hands down our PHP IDE of choice for our high traffic Web sites, such as indy500.com The upgrade from Zend Studio for Eclipse 6.1 to 7.0 is significant, as our team can now rapidly build out our Zend Framework-based applications and easily deploy them on Zend Server to further boost performance and ease of maintenance.”

In other news today
Zend Technologies announced that Zend Framework 1.9 will be released this Friday and will include PHP 5.3 and 5.2 support, plus new and enhanced professional level features for web application development. For more detail, please go here: http://tinyurl.com/zendframework1-9-0announced

About Zend Technologies
Zend Technologies, Inc., the PHP Company, is the leading provider of products and services for developing, deploying, and managing business-critical PHP applications. PHP is used by more than 20 million Web sites and has quickly become the most popular language for building dynamic Web applications. Deployed at more than 27,000 companies worldwide, the Zend family of products is a comprehensive platform for supporting the entire lifecycle of PHP applications. Zend is headquartered in Cupertino, California.

For more information, please visit http://www.zend.com or call +1 408-253-8800. Read More >>

Murach’s ADO.NET 3.5, LINQ, and the Entity Framework with C# 2008 Just Published

Mike Murach & Associates has just published a new, C# edition of their popular ADO.NET book.

Entitled Murach’s ADO.NET 3.5, LINQ, and the Entity Framework with C# 2008, it covers what today’s C# developer needs to know to create database applications the way the best professionals do. Here are some highlights:

#1: For rapid application development and prototyping...
This book shows how to use the ADO.NET tools, like data sources and the DataGridView control, that enable developers to create working database applications in a minimum of time, with a minimum of coding.

#2: For serious production applications...
This book shows how to go beyond the RAD tools, using heavy-duty ADO.NET coding and object data sources to build 3-layer applications that consist of presentation, business, and database classes.

#3: For incorporating LINQ into Windows and web applications...
This book has a 6-chapter section that’s a short course in LINQ, the .NET 3.5 feature that provides a consistent way to query different types of data. This section covers LINQ to Objects, LINQ to DataSet, LINQ to SQL, LINQ data source controls for web applications, and LINQ to XML.

#4: For database programming with the Entity Framework...
This book gets developers going with the Entity Framework, the .NET 3.5 feature that may change the way you do database programming. EF provides a flexible model for mapping the business objects in an application to database objects, and it generates a lot of the code that has to be written from scratch otherwise. A 4-chapter section shows how to create an Entity Data Model and work with it using LINQ to Entities, Entity SQL, and Entity data source controls for web applications.

#5: For training and reference: The “paired-pages” format...
This book uses Murach's standard format to present the content in 2-page spreads, pairing a page of explanation with an illustrative page of syntax, screen shots, coding examples, and bulleted guidelines. Developers report that this lets them read less to get information faster, whether they use the book for training or reference.

Murach’s ADO.NET 3.5, LINQ, and the Entity Framework with C# 2008 is available directly from the publisher at www.murach.com and from all major retail outlets. Read More >>

RightScale Cloud Management Platform First to Support New IBM DB2 Software

RightScale, Inc., the leader in cloud computing management, today announced that the RightScale Cloud Management Platform is the first solution that lets users create, manage and automate IBM DB2 Express-C 9.7 database software on the cloud. Now, RightScale users can more easily build, test and deploy applications on leading clouds such as Amazon EC2 using the most advanced version of IBM DB2 directly from the RightScale platform.

"We are proud that RightScale customers will be among the first to take advantage of the latest advances in DB2 technology by deploying their database servers on a cloud in a fully managed RightScale cloud deployment," said Michael Crandell, RightScale CEO. "Both DB2 and the RightScale Cloud Management Platform have been developed with a focus on ease of use, and with this combination, organizations can get up on a cloud quickly, with an affordable, enterprise-class data management solution."

RightScale's Web-based cloud management platform lets any organization tap the enormous power of cloud computing for scalable, cost-effective IT infrastructure on demand, with complete control and portability. RightScale reduces the complexity of cloud deployments, enabling organizations to launch business-critical applications rapidly, without the risk of lock-in. IBM DB2 Express-C 9.7 is a no-charge community edition of the DB2 database server. DB2 Express-C can be set up quickly, is easy to use, and includes self-managing capabilities.

The RightScale Platform now includes "cloud-ready" ServerTemplates for IBM DB2 Express-C 9.7 for both the CentOS and Ubuntu operating systems. RightScale ServerTemplates are pre-built templates for common server configurations, such as front-end Web servers, redundant database servers, or grid processing servers. ServerTemplates launch servers that know how to operate in the cloud - how to obtain an IP address, how to access and manage storage, how to submit monitoring data and how to collaborate with other servers in a cloud deployment. ServerTemplates speed the configuration and simplify the ongoing management of servers in a deployment by innovating beyond the "machine image" model.

Availability:

IBM DB2 Express-C 9.7 is available immediately through the RightScale Cloud Management Platform for both the CentOS and Ubuntu operating systems. For more information about RightScale and the RightScale Cloud Management Platform, please go to RightScale.com.

About RightScale, Inc.:

RightScale is the leader in cloud computing management. Founded in 2006, the company offers a fully automated cloud management platform that enables organizations to easily deploy and manage business critical applications across multiple clouds with complete control and portability. The RightScale Cloud Management Platform is delivered as "software as a service" (SAAS) and is available in a range of editions, from the free Developer Edition to Enterprise Editions. To date, thousands of deployments and more than 500,000 servers have been launched on the RightScale Platform for leading companies such as Animoto, Playfish, Sling Media and TC3. To learn more about RightScale, please go to RightScale.com.

RightScale is a registered trademark of RightScale, Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. Other product or company names mentioned may be trademarks or trade names of their respective companies.

Source: PRWeb

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Drupal Comes to Dallas

Drupal fever is hitting Dallas. Over the weekend of August 1st-2nd, Drupalers from all over the state of Texas will congregate at Improving Enterprises in Dallas to learn, share, and discuss all things Drupal. Organized by a group of Dallas area Drupal enthusiasts, the camp will feature two full days of sessions. Sessions will cover everything from structured presentations from local and national Drupal experts, to unstructured "Birds of a Feather" sessions, where people with similar interests form small groups to learn and collaborate.

This year, for the first ever Dallas DrupalCamp, the event will feature presentations from local Drupal experts like Ben Finklea, CEO of the Austin area Drupal search engine optimization company, Volacci, and Tom McCracken President of Dallas area Drupal agency, LevelTen Interactive. Sessions plan to cover a wide range of Drupal oriented subjects from setting up a Drupal website for the first time to advanced optimization techniques and how to master niche subjects within the Drupal framework.

The camp will feature three different tracks to accommodate a range of skill sets. The Developer track is for Drupal users who are at an advanced level, and wish to learn more about the inner-workings of the Drupal platform, and how to best use it. The Webmaster track is for those who either know little about Drupal, or who are familiar enough with the platform to get around, but need help to do advanced tasks. The final track is comprised of free form sessions that encourages participation and collaboration. Affectionately referred to as "Birds of a Feather", these sessions provide the opportunity for anyone to speak on a subject, or for people to get help with their Drupal websites. This year's DrupalCamp will also provide attendees the opportunity to participate in the Drupal.org website redesign, with official Drupal.org redesign sessions.

Said Lee Raney of Koine Media, a Dallas-based Drupal web development company, "In tough economic times, companies and non-profits are turning to open source solutions like never before. At DrupalCamp, attendees will see that Drupal will not only save them money, but it is truly a better CMS than the proprietary alternatives. Part of the power behind Drupal is the world-wide community, and Drupal has a strong community in Texas as well. That's why we are excited to be a part of the first-ever DrupalCamp in the state of Texas."

DrupalCamp Dallas is organized by a team of local Drupal users and agency owners: Lee Raney, Jennifer Conley, Tom McCracken, David Hahn, Randall Knutson, Colin Alsheimer, Dustin Currie and Mark Sonnaubaum.

About Drupal Camp Dallas:

Drupal Camp Dallas is a two day event for Drupal developers, users, and those who are curious about the open source platform. Admission for the event is $30 and users can register on the website, www.drupalcampdallas.org. Admission to the camp will cover all sessions, food at the event, and the first 50 to register will receive a free DrupalCamp Dallas t-shirt. For more information about the camp, visit http://www.drupalcampdallas.org or call 214.887.8586.

About Drupal:

Drupal is a popular content management system that blends web content management and social media capabilities with an enormous library of custom extensions. The Drupal framework and supported exentions are all backed by a large network of professional developers and hobbyists. Using the Drupal framework, companies and individuals can easily create engaging, socially interactive websites.

Drupal powers many popular websites world-wide, including large entertainment companies like Warner Brothers Records, Sony/BMG, CBC, and MTV Europe. Major news and magazine sites like Now Public, FastCompany, Forbes and The New York Observer are powered by Drupal, as well as on-line communities like Team Sugar and Spread Firefox. Finally, Harvard University, Recovery.gov and The United Nations provide other noteworthy examples of Drupal's strength and versatility.

Source: PRWeb

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PHP 5/PostgreSQL Bootcamp Offers Fast Track to Web Developers August 31-September 4, 2009

You asked for it and the Big Nerd Ranch delivers. When the Big Nerd Ranch, Inc., first offered PHP 5/PostgreSQL Bootcamp in February 2007, seasoned and would-be web developers clamored for a seat in the class. Since then, it has continued to attract web developers hungry for a context-driven PHP 5 training class that goes beyond the basics. Students unable to secure a spot in the last offering have another chance to register for this intensive and dynamic class, scheduled for August 31-September 4, 2009.

"Even when we taught PHP 5 as a stand-alone class, database integration was a crucial aspect of the development process. Students really focused on the database as a tool to create powerful, dynamic web applications," said Mark Fenoglio, PHP5/PostgreSQL instructor. "The writing was clearly on the wall. Students were ready to sink their teeth into something more substantial that better represented real world challenges. The new PHP/PostgreSQL Bootcamp meets that demand."

Mark now offers a hybrid class that combines the flexibility and usability of PHP5 with PostgreSQL, which has earned a reputation for scalability, stability and robustness that outpaces its competitors. Most importantly, the combined class retains the depth and breadth of instruction formerly provided in the two previously distinct classes. Lessons are taught using a working web and database server to create a more realistic learning environment, and by the end of the class, students will have developed a complete web-based customer relationship management (CRM) application.

"Students immediately see the impact of the lesson and have a better context in which to master the content," Mark added. "That is really the key to helping students emerge from the class ready to take on complex, database-backed web applications."

Syllabus topics include:

• Understanding PHP 5 from functions to objects to arrays
• Accessing PostgreSQL and creating dynamic, public-facing web pages
• Securing your application from common outside attacks
• Reducing development time by integrating with third-party libraries like PEARProducing dynamic pdfs on the web with FPDF and integrating AJAX, CSS and XML into the application
• Improving your code by learning to apply important design patterns

For more information, visit http://www.bignerdranch.com.

Source: PRWeb Read More >>

Publisher Announces Long-term Support for Oracle Technologies

Packt Publishing has today unveiled ambitious plans to improve its support for Oracle documentation by announcing a long-term commitment to publishing in the area.

Professional documentation is regarded as an essential element to the growth and success of any technology and despite Oracle's size and success, it is no different. Support from books, tutorials, and case studies can speed up adoption rates and cement long-term success.

Since 2006, Packt has developed and published a wide range of Oracle focussed books, including those on Oracle Modernization, BPEL, and ODP.NET. In doing so, Packt has established itself as one of the key publishers on Oracle technologies.

During 2009, Packt will publish more than a dozen additional titles. Since the turn of the year the company has released titles on Oracle Essbase, Oracle Utilities and Oracle VM Manager amongst others. James Lumsden, Packt's Publisher, said: "Oracle titles represent a cornerstone of Packt's Enterprise thinking. We understand the value, significance, and effectiveness of Oracle technologies, and aim to publish books that cover the full range of products." He went on to explain that "from the Database to Applications, from Middleware to 'Industry specific offerings, Packt is looking to become the first port of call for book buying Oracle professionals."

Since February, Packt has published half a dozen titles in both hardcopy and eBook format. These titles include Oracle's Hyperion Essbase 9: Implementation Guide by Sarma Anantapantula & Joseph Sydney Gomez. This book is a complete step-by-step guide covering timeless Essbase fundamentals, providing an immediate understanding of multidimensional database technology.

Oracle 10g/11g Data and Database Management Utilities by Hector R. Madrid, which allows readers to master twelve must-use utilities to optimize the efficiency, management, and performance of your daily database tasks.

Mastering Oracle Scheduler in Oracle 11g Databases by Ronald Rood, which is a practical guide for Database Administrators and Developers in setting up enterprise class job scheduling.

Further Oracle books from Packt include Oracle VM Manager 2.1.2 by Tarry Singh, a book which teaches users to manage a Flexible and Elastic Data Center with Oracle VM Manager. Processing XML documents with Oracle JDeveloper 11g by Deepak Vohra, which is designed to get users to create, validate, and transform XML documents with Oracle's IDE and also Oracle SOA Suite Developer's Guide by Matt Wright & Antony Reynolds. This book is focused on teaching users to design and build Service-Oriented Architecture Solutions with the Oracle SOA Suite 10gR3.

Later this year, Packt shall be publishing further titles, which will include: Getting Started With Oracle SOA Suite 11g R1, which is a hands-on tutorial written by Heidi Buelow, Manas Deb, Jayaram Kasi, Demed L'Her, & Prasen Palvankar. Oracle SQL Developer 2.1 by Sue Harper.

Oracle Warehouse Builder 11g: Getting Started by Robert Griesemer and Create Internet-scale applications using Oracle's high-performance data grid Oracle Coherence 3.5 by Aleksandar Seovic & Robert Varga.

The full list of Packt's published and announced Oracle titles can be found here: www.PacktPub.com/oracle-books.

Packt is currently looking for budding authors. If writing is something that appeals to you, please drop the company an email (author(at)packtpub(dot)com) and one of their experienced Acquisition Editors will be able to help advise what publishing opportunities exist, and how Packt can turn your book idea into a reality. In turn, you might want to take a look at their Author Website which explains more about the company, its existing authors, and how they develop books. The site is at: http://authors.packtpub.com.

Source: PRWeb

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C/C++ interpreter Ch and Embedded Ch 6.1 for AIX 64-bit Released

SoftIntegration, Inc. today announced the availability of Ch 6.1, Embedded Ch 6.1, SoftIntegration C++ Graphical Library,and Control System Toolkit for AIX 64-bit platform. Ch is an embeddable C/C++ interpreter for cross-platform scripting, 2D/3D plotting, numerical computing, shell programming and embedded scripting.

"We are pleased with the release of Ch and Embedded Ch for AIX." Said Jay Kruemcke, AIX Marketing Manager, IBM. "The Embedded Ch has demonstrated a simple and innovative embedded scripting for our enterprise solutions and will be a great tookit for our AIX customers".

The release of Ch and its toolkits for AIX 64-bit continues SoftIntegration's leadership in cross-platform scripting, numerical computing and embedded scripting.

Below is a list of Ch major features.

C/C++ interpreter

Ch supports 1999 ISO C Standard (C99) and C++ classes. Ch also supports many industry standards with over 8,000 functions, including POSIX, socket/Winsock, X11/Motif, OpenGL, ODBC, C LAPACK, GTK+, Win32, XML, and CGI. With built-in Ch SDK, functions in static or dynamic binary C/C++ libraries can be executed in Ch script file or Ch command shell without re-compilation. Programs can also be developed and executed using a user-friendly ChIDE.

Embeddable scripting

Ch is easy and simple for embedded scripting. Embedded Ch allows users to embed Ch into C/C++ application programs and hardware as a scripting engine. It is ideal for open-architecture application integration. With Embedded Ch, C/C++ applications can be extended with all features of Ch. It allows execution of C/C++ scripts generated dynamically. Embedded Ch supports multi-threading and debug. It has a small footprint. The pointer and time deterministic nature of the C language provides a perfect interface with hardware in real-time systems.

Shell programming and cross-platform scripting

Ch shell is C compatible shell while C-shell (csh) is a C like shell. Ch is an interpretive implementation of C, similar to Unix/MS-DOS shells. Ch in Windows includes over 200 commonly used Unix commands for portable shell programming. Ch can also be used as a login shell just like sh, csh and ksh. Ch bridges the gap between the C language and shell languages. With its built-in string type and many enhanced scripting features, Ch is an alternative to other scripting languages for automating repetitive tasks, regression test, and hardware testing with direct interface to hardware.

2D/3D plotting

Ch graphical extensions are the best choice for plotting in the C/C++ domain. Ch supports high-level 2D/3D graphical plotting. Two and three dimensional graphical plots can be very easily accomplished. Plots in Ch can be generated from data arrays or files, and can be displayed on a screen, saved as an image file in a variety of different file formats, or output to the stdout stream in a proper image format for display in a Web browser through a Web server. With SoftIntegration graphical library (SIGL), the same program using 2D/3D plotting features can be executed in Ch or compiled using C++ compilers without any modification.

Numerical computing

Ch numerical extensions are the best choice for numerical computing in the C/C++ domain. Ch has built-in generic mathematical functions and computational arrays for linear algebra and matrix computations. It contains advanced high-level numerical functions for linear systems, differential equation solving, integration, non-linear equations, Fourier analysis, curve fitting, etc. For example, linear system equation b = A*x can be written verbatim in Ch. Ch supports C LAPACK, GNU Multiple Precision Arithmetic Library, and GNU Scientific Library. Applications written using these libraries can be executed in Ch or compiled using C compilers without any modification.

Ch toolkits and third party software support

Ch is ideal for rapid application development and deployment. Ch supports an increasing number of third party software applications. It includes Ch Control toolkit, Ch Mechanism Toolkit, Ch NAG Statistics Package, Ch CGI toolkit, Ch ODBC toolkit, Ch XML toolkit, ChExcel for manipulating Microsoft Excel in C/C++ scripts, Intel OpenCV for computer vision, ImageMagick for image processing, National Instruments' data acquisition toolkit NI-DAQ and motion control toolkit NI-Motion.

Pricing and Availability

Ch and Embedded Ch for Windows, Linux x86, Linux x86-64, Linux PPC, Mac OS X, Solaris, HP-UX, FreeBSD and QNX Neutrino RTOS are available. Ch Standard Edition is free for both commercial and non-commercial uses in all platforms. Ch Student Edition is free for registered students in educational institutions. For Ch Professional Edition, the price starts at $399 and the discount is available for academic use. To purchase Embedded Ch, contact SoftIntegration directly.

About SoftIntegration, Inc.

SoftIntegration, Inc., is the leader of scripting technology for ubiquitous computing. SoftIntegration provides infrastructure software and services for rapid application development and deployment, scientific numerical computing, embedded scripting, and Web-based software integration. Ch®, the company's flagship product, is an embeddable C/C++ interpreter that provides a comprehensive solution for engineers, scientists, Web programmers, software developers, C/C++ beginners and experts, system administrators, real-time programmers, quality analysts, and instructors and professors.

Contact:
SoftIntegration, Inc.
216 F Street, #68
Davis, CA 95616
tel (530) 297-7398
fax (530) 297-7392
http://www.softintegration.com

Ch and SoftIntegration are registered trademarks of SoftIntegration, Inc. Microsoft and Windows are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. AIX is a trademark of IBM, Inc. Solaris is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. Unix is a trademark of The Open Group. HP-UX is a trademark of Hewlett-Packard Co. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds. Mac is a trademark of Apple, Inc. QNX, Neutrino, and Momentics are registered trademarks of QNX Software Systems Ltd. in certain jurisdictions.

Source: PRWeb Read More >>

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Dining philosophers problem

In computer science, the dining philosophers problem is an illustrative example of a common computing problem in concurrency. It is a classic multi-process synchronization problem.

In 1965, Edsger Dijkstra set an examination question on a synchronization problem where five computers competed for access to five shared tape drive peripherals. Soon afterwards the problem was retold by Tony Hoare as the dining philosophers problem.

This is a theoretical explanation of deadlock and resource starvation by assuming that each philosopher takes a different fork as a first priority and then looks for another.

Problem

The dining philosophers problem is summarized as five philosophers sitting at a table doing one of two things: eating or thinking. While eating, they are not thinking, and while thinking, they are not eating. The five philosophers sit at a circular table with a large bowl of spaghetti in the center. A fork is placed in between each pair of adjacent philosophers, and as such, each philosopher has one fork to his left and one fork to his right. As spaghetti is difficult to serve and eat with a single fork, it is assumed that a philosopher must eat with two forks. Each philosopher can only use the forks on his immediate left and immediate right.

The dining philosophers problem is sometimes explained using rice and chopsticks rather than spaghetti and forks, as it is more intuitively obvious that two chopsticks are required to begin eating.

The philosophers never speak to each other, which creates a dangerous possibility of deadlock when every philosopher holds a left fork and waits perpetually for a right fork (or vice versa).

Originally used as a means of illustrating the problem of deadlock, this system reaches deadlock when there is a 'cycle of unwarranted requests'. In this case philosopher P1 waits for the fork grabbed by philosopher P2 who is waiting for the fork of philosopher P3 and so forth, making a circular chain.

Starvation (and the pun was intended in the original problem description) might also occur independently of deadlock if a philosopher is unable to acquire both forks because of a timing problem. For example there might be a rule that the philosophers put down a fork after waiting five minutes for the other fork to become available and wait a further five minutes before making their next attempt. This scheme eliminates the possibility of deadlock (the system can always advance to a different state) but still suffers from the problem of livelock. If all five philosophers appear in the dining room at exactly the same time and each picks up their left fork at the same time the philosophers will wait five minutes until they all put their forks down and then wait a further five minutes before they all pick them up again.

The lack of available forks is an analogy to the locking of shared resources in real computer programming, a situation known as concurrency. Locking a resource is a common technique to ensure the resource is accessed by only one program or chunk of code at a time. When a program is interested in a resource which is already locked by another one, the program waits until it is unlocked. When several programs are involved in locking resources, deadlock might happen, depending on the circumstances. For example, one program needs two files to process. When two such programs lock one file each, both programs wait for the other one to unlock the other file, which will never happen.

In general the dining philosophers problem is a generic and abstract problem used for explaining various issues which arise in problems which hold mutual exclusion as a core idea. For example, as in the above case deadlock/livelock is well explained with the dining philosophers problem.

Solutions

Waiter solution
A relatively simple solution is achieved by introducing a waiter at the table. Philosophers must ask his permission before taking up any forks. Because the waiter is aware of which forks are in use, he is able to arbitrate and prevent deadlock. When four of the forks are in use, the next philosopher to request one has to wait for the waiter's permission, which is not given until a fork has been released. The logic is kept simple by specifying that philosophers always seek to pick up their left hand fork before their right hand fork (or vice versa).

To illustrate how this works, consider the philosophers are labelled clockwise from A to E. If A and C are eating, four forks are in use. B sits between A and C so has neither fork available, whereas D and E have one unused fork between them. Suppose D wants to eat. Were he to take up the fifth fork, deadlock becomes likely. If instead he asks the waiter and is told to wait, we can be sure that next time two forks are released there will certainly be at least one philosopher who could successfully request a pair of forks. Therefore deadlock cannot happen.

Resource hierarchy solution
Another simple solution is achieved by assigning a partial order, or hierarchy, to the resources (the forks, in this case), and establishing the convention that all resources will be requested in order, and released in reverse order, and that no two resources unrelated by order will ever be used by a single unit of work at the same time. Here, the resources (forks) will be numbered 1 through 5, in some order, and each unit of work (philosopher) will always pick up the lower-numbered fork first, and then the higher-numbered fork, from among the two forks he plans to use. Then, he will always put down the higher numbered fork first, followed by the lower numbered fork. In this case, if four of the five philosophers simultaneously pick up their lower-numbered fork, only the highest numbered fork will remain on the table, so the fifth philosopher will not be able to pick up any fork. Moreover, only one philosopher will have access to that highest-numbered fork, so he will be able to eat using two forks. When he finishes using the forks, he will put down the highest-numbered fork first, followed by the lower-numbered fork, freeing another philosopher to grab the latter and begin eating.

While the resource hierarchy solution avoids deadlocks, it is not always practical, especially when the list of required resources is not completely known in advance. For example, if a unit of work holds resources 3 and 5 and then determines it needs resource 2, it must release 5, then 3 before acquiring 2, and then it must re-acquire 3 and 5 in that order. Computer programs that access large numbers of database records would not run efficiently if they were required to release all higher-numbered records before accessing a new record, making the method impractical for that purpose.

This is often the most practical solution for real world Computer Science problems; by assigning a constant hierarchy of locks, and by enforcing the ordering of obtaining the locks this problem can be avoided.

Chandy / Misra solution
In 1984, K. Mani Chandy and J. Misra proposed a different solution to the dining philosophers problem to allow for arbitrary agents (numbered P1, ..., Pn) to contend for an arbitrary number of resources, unlike Dijkstra's solution. It is also completely distributed and requires no central authority after initialization.

For every pair of philosophers contending for a resource, create a fork and give it to the philosopher with the lower ID. Each fork can either be dirty or clean. Initially, all forks are dirty.

1. When a philosopher wants to use a set of resources (i.e. eat), he must obtain the forks from his contending neighbors. For all such forks he does not have, he sends a request message.
2. When a philosopher with a fork receives a request message, he keeps the fork if it is clean, but gives it up when it is dirty. If he sends the fork over, he cleans the fork before doing so.
3. After a philosopher is done eating, all his forks become dirty. If another philosopher had previously requested one of the forks, he cleans the fork and sends it.

This solution also allows for a large degree of concurrency, and will solve an arbitrarily large problem.

This solution may be contestable though, as it 'requests' may be considered communication; which the philosophers cannot do.

This article is from The Wikipedia which is published under the GNU Free Documentation License.

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The Art of Unit Testing: with Examples in .NET

Unit testing, done right, can mean the diff erence between a failed project and a successful one, between a maintainable code base and a code base that no one dares touch, and between getting home at 2 AM or getting home in time for dinner, even before a release deadline.

The Art of Unit Testing builds on top of what's already been written about this important topic. It guides you step by step from simple tests to tests that are maintainable, readable, and trustworthy. It covers advanced subjects like mocks, stubs, and frameworks such as Typemock Isolator and Rhino Mocks. And you'll learn about advanced test patterns and organization, working with legacy code and even untestable code. The book discusses tools you need when testing databases and other technologies. It's written for .NET developers but others will also benefit from this book.

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Beginning iPhone 3 Development

Are you a programmer looking for a new challenge? Does the thought of building your very own iPhone app make your heart race and your pulse quicken? If so, Beginning iPhone 3 Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK is just the book for you. Updated and revised for iPhone SDK 3, many of the discussions in the original book have been clarified to make some of the more complex topics easier to understand. In addition, all of the projects have been rebuilt from scratch using the SDK 3 templates.

Assuming only a minimal working knowledge of Objective-C, and written in a friendly, easy-to-follow style, this book offers a complete soup-to-nuts course in iPhone and iPod touch programming. The book starts with the basics, walking you through the process of downloading and installing Apple's free iPhone SDK, and then stepping you though the creation of your first simple iPhone application. From there, you'll learn to integrate all the interface elements iPhone users have come to know and love, such as buttons, switches, pickers, toolbars, and sliders. You'll master a variety of design patterns, from the simplest single view to complex hierarchical drill-downs. The confusing art of table building will be demystified, and you'll see how to save your data using the iPhone file system. You'll also learn how to save and retrieve your data using SQLite, iPhone's built-in database management system. In addition, you'll also learn about Core Data, an important persistence mechanism that has just been added with SDK 3.

And there's much more! You'll learn to draw using Quartz 2D and OpenGL ES, add multitouch gestural support (pinches and swipes) to your applications, and work with the camera, photo library, accelerometer, and built-in GPS. You'll discover the fine points of application preferences and learn how to localize your apps for multiple languages. 

• The iPhone 3 update to the best-selling and most recommended book for iPhone developers
• Packed full of tricks, techniques, and enthusiasm for the new SDK from a developer perspective
• The most complete, useful, and up-to-date guide to all things having to do with Apple's iPhone SDK

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Unlocking Android

Android is a free, open source, Java-based mobile platform developed by Google. Unlocking Android prepares the reader to embrace the Android mobile platform in easy-to-understand language and builds on this foundation with reusable Java code examples. It's ideal for corporate developers and hobbyists who have an interest, or a mandate, to deliver mobile software.

The book first covers the big picture so the reader can get comfortable with the Android approach to the mobile applications. Then the reader learns to apply Android by following the many practical examples. The book concludes with two deep and hands-on examples.

Unlocking Android addresses the Android application framework, its graphical capabilities and media support, data storage, communications capabilities, phone interactions, and notifications.

Unlocking Android covers Android SDK 1.x.

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Natural Language Processing with Python

This book offers a highly accessible introduction to Natural Language Processing, the field that underpins a variety of language technologies, ranging from predictive text and email filtering to automatic summarization and translation. With Natural Language Processing with Python, you'll learn how to write Python programs to work with large collections of unstructured text. You'll access richly-annotated datasets using a comprehensive range of linguistic data structures. And you'll understand the main algorithms for analyzing the content and structure of written communication.

Packed with examples and exercises, Natural Language Processing with Python will help you:

Extract information from unstructured text, to guess the topic or identify "named entities" Analyze linguistic structure in text, including parsing and semantic analysis Access popular linguistic databases, including WordNet and treebanks Integrate techniques drawn from fields as diverse as linguistics and artificial intelligence

Perfect for individual study, or as a classroom and workshop textbook, this book will help you gain practical skills in Natural Language Processing using the Python programming language and the Natural Language Toolkit (NLTK) open source library. If you're interested in developing Web applications, analyzing multilingual news sources, documenting endangered languages, or if you are simply curious to have a programmer's perspective on how human language works, you will find Natural Language Processing with Python both fascinating and immensely useful.

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About Objects Releases iPhone SDK 3.0 Developer Examples

About Objects today released a new set of iPhone 3.0 developer examples as free, downloadable Xcode projects. The example projects form a progressive series designed to take developers from the rudiments of iPhone programming through the development of sophisticated iPhone productivity apps.

The examples released today focus on showing developers how to create iPhone apps without using Interface Builder, since many developers have found Interface Builder confusing initially. About Objects plans to release a set of corresponding iPhone 3.0 examples later this summer that show how to accomplish the same things using Interface Builder, allowing developers to compare the projects side-by-side to get a better understanding of the role that Interface Builder plays.

Developers are free to use the examples for their own learning, and can even use the example code in their own projects if they so choose. Among the example projects included in the initial (1.0) release are the following:

• First App demonstrates the basic steps to configuring an iPhone app's user interface programatically, without requiring an Interface Builder (.nib) file.
• Editable Detail View demonstrates the use of controls such as text fields and buttons, including how to connect controls to the code that implements their behavior.
• Animating a View introduces developers to the fundamentals of using Core Animation to animate view transformations.
• Simple TableView demonstrates how to configure a table view programatically to present a list of values.
• TableView with Navigation builds on the Simple TableView app to show how to use a navigation controller to manage navigating from a list to a detail view by tapping on a table row.
• Editable TableView demonstrates how to add, remove, and reorder rows in a list view, and how to edit model object property values in a detail view.
• TableView File Persistence shows how to create and populate a list of model objects from a property list (plist) file, and how to persist changes to the list.

About Objects: http://www.aboutobjects.com
iPhone 3.0 Examples: http://www.aboutobjects.com/tutorials.html
Course Schedule: http://www.aboutobjects.com/training/schedule.html

About Objects is a leading source of training and development in Objective-C on the iPhone OS and Mac OS X platforms, and was the first company in the world to offer public developer training on the iPhone SDK. Headquartered in the Accenture building in Reston, VA, About Objects offers public training at multiple locations, including Cupertino, CA, as well as onsite training. The company also provides development and consulting services for the iPhone OS and Mac OS X.

Source: PRWeb Read More >>

EclipseSource Updates Product Suite for Eclipse 3.5

EclipseSource, the leading provider of Eclipse runtime products and services, today announced that it has updated its full suite of tools and services to provide full support for the Eclipse Galileo release. In addition, as part of the community effort backing Eclipse 3.5, the company is providing free unlimited high speed downloads of the release from its corporate site and through its Yoxos On Demand provisioning system. 

Many members of our team were active project leads and committers for Eclipse 3.5”, said Jeff McAffer, EclipseSource’s CTO and co-lead of the Eclipse Equinox and RCP projects. “3.5 is a solid release and we look forward to working with our customers to assist them with their migration planning and implementation.”

EclipseSource’s course curriculum now offers training in OSGi and Equinox, RAP and RCP for both the 3.4 and 3.5 releases. In addition, Yoxos, the company’s suite of provisioning and configuration management tools, now provides support for development teams using either release.

As an important corollary to their support for 3.5, EclipseSource also renewed its commitment to continue offering subscription-based support for 3.4 as well as earlier releases of the platform.

“Galileo is a great release, but not all of our customers are ready to migrate yet”, said Jochen Krause, CEO, EclipseSource. “We recognize that many organizations will remain on 3.4 or earlier releases for some time and that they will require ongoing support and maintenance for their platform.”

Eclipse Maintenance is currently available for Eclipse 3.3 and 3.4. The subscription-based service offers patches, software updates and a running maintenance stream for releases no longer supported by the Eclipse community.

About Eclipse 3.5 (Galileo)

Galileo is the official release of the newest Eclipse software platform. Eclipse is an open source community, whose projects are focused on building an open development platform comprised of extensible frameworks, tools and runtimes for building, deploying and managing software across the lifecycle. The Eclipse Foundation is a not-for-profit, member-supported corporation that hosts Eclipse projects and helps cultivate both an open source community and an ecosystem of complementary products and services.

About EclipseSource Incorporated

EclipseSource brings together recognized experts from key Eclipse projects and delivers the ability to meet the demanding technical requirements of commercial adopters. EclipseSource provides a complete range of products and services from fundamental technology development, production and developer support, training and mentoring to commercial management and provisioning solutions.

With leadership roles in over ten key Eclipse projects, EclipseSource provides coverage for all essential Eclipse runtime technology under one roof. The organization has staff in North America and Europe and a truly global customer base ranging from Fortune 100 corporations to individual developers.

Source: PRWeb

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JavaBlackBelt Opens Java Fundamentals and Java Advanced Coached eLearning Courses

JavaBlackBelt, a global leader in Java learning and powered by over 50,000 developers in its global community, today announced immediate availability across the EU, the U.S., and India of its "Java & OO Fundamentals" and "Java Advanced" Coached eLearning courses.

Coached eLearning combines Java coaching and eLearning to deliver the fastest and most cost-effective way to gain Java skills. In a recent survey of members of the JavaBlackBelt community, developers selected Coached eLearning as the #1 choice for Java learning compared with instructor-led classroom training and self-paced eLearning.

Highlights of that survey include:

When asked which learning method was preferred by developers and managers, respondents selected Coached eLearning over self-paced eLearning and instructor-led classroom training by 4:3 and 4:1 margins respectively. The top reasons for preferring Coached eLearning over instructor-led classroom training were: "It does not require travel", "It fits into my schedule", "It's more affordable", and "I can proceed at my own pace" -- selected by about 70, 70, 60, and 50 percent of the group, respectively, with this preference. The top reasons for preferring Coached eLearning over self-paced eLearning were: "I would retain the learning better", "An instructor would help me overcome learning obstacles", "I would prefer the schedule and rigor provided by an instructor" -- selected by about 60, 60, and 50 percent, respectively, of this group.

In Coached eLearning courses, the coach remotely meets with the student to begin each course, reviews the course plan and materials, and agrees to a schedule. The student then learns at their own pace from the JavaBlackBelt eLearning platform -- online materials and videos, community forums, exercises, and exams. Along the way, the coach checks intermediate goals, answers questions, helps overcome obstacles, and oversees progress. The course is completed when the student passes the final exam, which, depending on the student's schedule and pace of learning, follows one to two weeks of coursework.

Java & OO Fundamentals is the entry point for learning Java and covers all content and skills in Java SE and OO that Java developers must master to thrive in a typical professional project. The course requires that the student be a computer programmer but no OO knowledge or experience is assumed. Topics include Java Environment, Language Basics, Objects and Classes, Associations, Exceptions, Standard Libraries, Polymorphisms, and Collections. Also, the course prepares the student for all other Java Coached eLearning courses, including JPA/Hibernate, Spring and Java Advanced.

The Java Advanced Course is the ideal follow-up to Java & OO Fundamentals. It begins with skills that experienced Java developers must possess for success in their projects, then elevates the student to SCJP-level performance. Prior to enrolling in this course, students must pass the Java & OO Fundamentals learn exam, available at www.javaBlackBelt.com at no charge. Course topics include Syntax, Classloading, Annotations, Generics, Lifecycles, Overloading, Inner classes, Enums, and Exceptions.

Complete information, descriptions, and immediate enrollment for these new and all Coached eLearning courses is available at www.javablackbelt.com/coachedelearning , where students can begin learning at their convenience. For the full results of the survey, go to http://solutions.javablackbelt.com/m/docs/SurveySummary_07142009.pdf.

Other eLearning Courses open for enrollment or pre-registration include Spring Fundamentals (course and workshop), JPA/Hibernate Fundamentals (course and workshop), Java 5 New Language Features, Java SE Basic, Java SE Core Intermediate, Java SE Collections, Java SE Concurrency High Level, Servlet & JSP Fundamentals, Servlet & JSP Advanced, Struts 2 Basic, Seam Basic, jQuery Basic, and Swing Basic.

Tuition per course is $395 (US), €295 (Europe), and Rs 19,200 (India). To talk to an expert, call +32 498 84 69 91 (Europe), +1 617 418 4450 (US), or +91-11-43086342 (India).

Customer Quotes:

Serge Mathieu, Java developer at Genesis Consulting termed his JavaBlackBelt Coached eLearning course "the best training I've ever taken." He explained, "I'm mostly self-taught and have completed some classroom training. In the JavaBlackBelt course, the materials were top notch, the examples were open and interesting, the learning process was very logical, and, mostly, the self-pacing and coaching were critical. No doubt, I learned at a faster pace - two times faster than a traditional course and 60 percent faster than self-study." Mathieu concluded, "Most rewarding, the final exam result gave my manager the confidence to immediately place me on a project using the technology skills I had just acquired."

Mr. Philippe Varin, Managing Director of Genesis Consult, said, "Especially in these economic times, managers of Java developers have a delicate skills balancing act - keeping skill-sets competitive while holding training costs in check. I'm happy to say that JavaBlackBelt offers the best solution to this challenge - their courses offer the affordability and agility of eLearning and combine that with the skills assurance of instructor training. In our organization, Coached eLearning now gets first approval for training requests and we're looking to install it across all of our projects."

More on JavaBlackBelt

About JavaBlackBelt:

JavaBlackBelt is a global leader in Java learning services. Its web 2.0-based Java skills management site is powered by over 50,000 developers, offering members anytime, online assessments across seven levels and 19 state-of-the-art categories. Its breakthrough Coach-assisted eLearning was voted the #1 choice for Java learning and delivers the fastest and most cost-effective way to gain Java skills. Major organizations that have incorporated JavaBlackBelt into their enterprise skills management include USG innotiv ICT, Smals, Axa, Capgemini, KLM, and XPlore Group.

JavaBlackBelt distribution partners include Global Force DIRECT in the US and India, Skillsmatter in the UK, USG ICT Innotiv in Belgium, iCraft in Egypt, and UDP in Norway.

Learn more at www.javablackbelt.com.

Source: PRWeb

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About Objects announces Programming Workshop for iPhone SDK 3.0

About Objects today announced a new public schedule for iPhone Programming Workshop, a hands-on developer training course on the iPhone SDK. The course has been updated to reflect Apple's recent release of the latest version (3.0) of the SDK. Classes will be conducted July 27 - July 31, and August 10 - August 14, at the About Objects headquarters in Reston, VA, and August 24 - August 28 near the Apple campus in Cupertino, CA.

The iPhone Programming Workshop is built around hands-on lab exercises that allow participants to learn the Objective-C language, iPhone-related libraries and frameworks, and Apple's development tools, including Xcode, Interface Builder, in a progressive series of steps. Attendees begin by writing simple Objective-C programs and gradually work their way up to writing a iPhone apps with a wide variety of features. Class sizes are deliberately kept small to ensure plenty of hands-on guidance; typically, classes comprise eight to 12 attendees.

Topics covered include the following:

Using the Xcode IDE and Interface Builder Objective-C basics Foundation classes Memory management techniques Cocoa Touch design patterns Custom drawing and animation Touch screen user interaction Working with interactive controls such as buttons, text fields, etc. Using table views to present and manage data Navigation and tab bar controllers Working with web content Persisting user and application data Working with accelerometer input, location data, and other core services. Working with .nib files

The iPhone Programming Workshop is taught by developer and author Jonathan Lehr. Jonathan has over a decade of experience developing software in Objective-C for Apple platforms, and has trained hundreds of developers on these technologies.

About Objects also provides training on a number of related topics, including the following course titles: ANSI C Programming, Objective-C Programming, Objective-C for Beginners, and Cocoa Programming Workshop. All About Objects courses are available for onsite delivery as well as for open enrollment in our classrooms.

About Objects: http://www.aboutobjects.com
iPhone Programming Workshop: http://www.aboutobjects.com/training/iphone_sdk/iphone_programming_workshop.html
Team Info: http://www.aboutobjects.com/about/aboutus.html
Testimonials: http://www.aboutobjects.com/about/course_testimonials.html
Course Schedule: http://www.aboutobjects.com/training/schedule.html
Reston Location: http://www.aboutobjects.com/training/location/reston_va.html
Cupertino Location: http://www.aboutobjects.com/training/location/cupertino.html

About Objects is a leading source of training and development in Objective-C on the iPhone OS and Mac OS X platforms, and was the first company in the world to offer public developer training on the iPhone SDK. Headquartered in the Accenture building in Reston, VA, About Objects offers public training at multiple locations, including Cupertino, CA, as well as onsite training. The company also provides development and consulting services for the iPhone OS and Mac OS X.

Source: PRWeb

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Programming the iPhone User Experience

Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch not only feature the world's most powerful mobile operating system, these devises also usher in a new standard of human computer interaction through gestural interfaces and multi-touch navigation. This practical book provides you with a hands-on, example-driven tour of UIKit, Apple's user interface toolkit, and includes common design patterns to help you create novel iPhone and iPod Touch user experiences. You'll learn how to build applications with Apple's Cocoa Touch framework that respond in unique ways when users tap, slide, swipe, tilt, shake, or pinch the screen on these devices.

With Programming the iPhone User Experience, you will:

• Understand the basics of the Cocoa Touch frameworks for building iPhone and iPod Touch applications
• Learn theory and best practices for using Cocoa Touch to develop applications from a user interface perspective
• Work with the Objective-C programming language used by these frameworks
• Customize standard UIKit views according to Apple's Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) and usability principles
• Learn patterns for handling user experience concerns outside of the interface, such as network- and location-awareness

Whether you're a CTO, developer, or UI/UX designer, Programming the iPhone User Experience acts as a companion to Apple's Human Interface Guidelines, and provides the practical information you need to develop innovative applications -- useful and fun programs that perhaps will capture a substantial share of the iPhone and iPod Touch market. The book's companion website will offer examples of working code and user interfaces. 

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