Cloud computing is something of a dominant force in today’s IT enterprise and business world: much of the discussion in conferences and IT board rooms is about the pros and cons of the cloud and how it can apply to their particular business. Cloud computing is a powerful force that, used correctly, can increase an organization’s efficiency and reduce the cost of your IT infrastructure. Handled poorly, however, cloud computing can be an immense detriment to your organization’s productivity and ultimately be harmful in the long run. To help you avoid these issues, here are some general do’s and don’ts… View full post »
How Secure is your Cloud Provider?
October 26th, 2012 Leave a commentSince the cloud is becoming one of the principal areas of development for businesses, many companies are offering the chance to access file remotely from various locations. A lot has already been said about the potential benefits of the cloud and the role it can play in future development but what many companies are starting to ask is: how secure is my data? In this article, I hope to give you more information to help you answer that question. Security is probably the main area of concern for those interested in the cloud. This is a new worry for development businesses… View full post »
Top 5 Network Management Apps For Android
October 23rd, 2012 Leave a commentSometimes it can be rough being a sysadmin on the go- many of the calls sysadmins get asking for help are when they’re stuck somewhere without access to a computer. When you’re stuck in a train without your laptop and your junior sysadmin floods your inbox with panicked emails about the mail server not responding, sometimes it can be helpful to have something to act as a backup. Enter your Android phone! With the host of Android apps available that relate to network management, you never have to be without some form of remote control over your servers. Here are… View full post »
The Dangers of Cloud Computing – Staying Informed
October 20th, 2012 Leave a commentAs more and more businesses move towards cloud computing, there are some pitfalls we have to look out for. Most business desktop computers depend on the Internet or Web hosted applications to run such as Google Docs, Amazon Cloud Storage or Dropbox. Employees depend on access to these services to check email, share documents and get work done. It makes sense for people that manage multiple devices to move all of their documents to a cloud service where everything is always accessible, but there are some serious implications that you should consider before moving all of your data to the… View full post »
10 Things Your Android Phone Does to Make Life Easier
October 17th, 2012 Leave a commentWe all want our lives to be simpler. These days, our portable devices should be helping us with our daily tasks and assisting us with things that stress us out. We have all read the “top 10″ lists for different kinds of apps and games, but what if you just want to know about some simple things that your Android device can do to make your life easier? Never fear, this list of apps will help you relax and make it through your day. 1. Executive Assistant The best way to stay organized is to have all of your… View full post »
Book Review: The Cloud Computing Bible
October 14th, 2012 Leave a commentBy Barrie Sosinsky Cloud computing is one of the buzzwords that has taken the Internet by storm in the past couple of years, and it seems to show no signs of slowing down. There are a great deal of different cloud services out there and it seems that new ones are popping up every day. The urge to get involved in cloud computing is huge, especially for the IT cost savings and ease of use it can potentially provide, but for someone just wading into the cloud computing foray, all of the different services, acronyms, and applications involved in cloud computing… View full post »
Creating a Simple Drop-Down Menu with jQuery
October 10th, 2012 Leave a comment 1 commentIf you have learned anything about JavaScript, it is most likely that you have heard about jQuery. jQuery is a powerful tool for creating dynamic effects with JavaScript and can be used with CSS to create many different kinds of navigation systems on your Web sites. In this article, I will show you how to create a drop-down menu using jQuery and CSS. Creating the HTML First, we create the HTML for the menu structure. We will use <div> tags with the HTML list tag <li> to create the top level and submenu items. <div class="menu"> <a class="links" >My… View full post »
Google Fiber: What 1 Gigabit Internet Means For Enterprise Networking
October 8th, 2012 Leave a commentThe buzz from Kansas City has been crazy these past few months as Google has both unveiled and begun implementing its landmark Google Fiber project. For those who haven’t yet heard of it, Google Fiber is Google’s ambitious new project that has just launched in Kansas City that provides 1 gigabit upstream/downstream speeds to neighborhoods in Kansas City. Google and its spokespeople are confident that this will lead to new online innovations in Kansas City, and they’ve already begun to roll out benefits to local schools and other organizations that could benefit from the service. Not only does Google envision… View full post »
Top 5 Cloud Computing Backup Solutions
October 2nd, 2012 Leave a commentThe cloud isn’t just a nebulous buzzword: it’s a robust infrastructure that can be extremely helpful to you and your business. Offsite backup is one of the things that cloud computing can do extremely well. With the rise of fast connections in businesses, offsite backup no longer has to be relegated to the arena of backup tapes that get shipped off to another facility once a month. Here are a few of the different business cloud backup services available to you – let’s see how they stack up and you can choose the one that fits your company’s needs the… View full post »
Top 5 Java Web Development Frameworks
September 28th, 2012 Leave a commentIntroduction Writing web applications in Java from scratch can often seem a great way to go in an enterprise-level environment simply because it may seem that there is no other way to ensure a consistently high level of quality control and design paradigms. There are, however, a number of Java web development frameworks designed to facilitate enterprise-level Java application development- almost too many, in fact, to choose one. Here are our top 5 Java web development frameworks to help you narrow down the choice of which framework is right for you! 1. Apache Struts 2 Apache Struts 2 is, as with all of… View full post »
Website Speed Testing: Tools to Make Your Site Faster
September 26th, 2012 Leave a commentWhile more and more users are using high-speed internet connections to access the web, there is still a need to optimize our web pages so that our users do not have to wait for pages to load. Most people are impatient on the internet and your web site’s performance needs to be top-notch to compete. In order to determine where the speed problems or bottlenecks are in your site, you often need to use speed test tools that can analyze what is going on. In this article, I discuss various speed test tools you can use to… View full post »
Useful CSS Tricks for Better Looking Pages
September 23rd, 2012 Leave a commentAs a Web developer, you begin to learn many tricks with cascading style sheets (CSS) to help you create the layouts and look that you want. There are many ways to change the look of your pages with CSS that look complex but are easy to achieve. In this article I will show you how to create some great changes you can make with CSS so you can begin to create better Web pages. Create and IE specific Stylesheet You can create a stylesheet that is specific to Internet Explorer to try to fix IE related style problems. IE Only <!–[if IE]> <link… View full post »
Sending Text Messages with PHP
September 21st, 2012 Leave a comment 1 commentThese days text messaging is everywhere and not just for personal conversations. Companies are using text messages to send you coupons, let you know when you bills and statements are ready or that your dry cleaning can be picked up. Text messaging seems more convenient than making phone calls and creating your own PHP script to send these messages is a very easy thing to set up. Get on board with these other companies that have found how convenient text messages are for their customer and start integrating text messaging into your PHP applications. In this… View full post »
The $_SERVER PHP Variable In-Depth
September 18th, 2012 Leave a comment 1 commentWhether you are new to PHP or have been working with it for a while, you have probably heard of the $_SERVER variable. PHP automatically stores some important information in the $_SERVER super global array that can be used in your scripts or to help you troubleshoot problems with your requests. If you are used to previous versions of PHP, the $_SERVER has taken the place of the $HTTP_SERVER_VARS array. In this article I will show you some of the useful attributes of the $_SERVER array so you can begin using them in your scripts. This useful tool… View full post »
Using the Java final Keyword: Best Practices
September 16th, 2012 Leave a comment 1 commentMost new developers these days learn how to program in an object-oriented language such as Java and many people have learned Java as one of several programming languages over the course of their career. Java has some unique characteristics that are not always found in other languages and the final keyword is one of them. Since we are not accustomed to using it, it may be misused or misunderstood. Some developers over-use it because they think it will enhance performance, other underutilize this powerful tool where it could be useful because they don’t understand it. In this article I will… View full post »




