Hire PHP developer for Open Source Customization & Custom PHP Web Development

PHP is one of the fastest growing web scripting languages on the Internet today, and for good reason.

PHP (which stands for Hypertext Preprocessor) was designed explicitly for the web. Designed in 1994 to enable the creation of dynamic web pages quickly and easily, PHP has exploded in growth and has been adopted by major vendors such as Linux that have included the language with their web servers. PHP is mostly used in conjunction with MySQL Database for web development services like Open Source Ecommerce Websites, Open Source CMS based Websites, & Custom PHP based web applications. This works on Linux Apace MySQL PHP (LAMP) Environment.

PHP Web development is becoming increasingly popular in web development industry mostly because of the fact it is open source. In easy words what Open source Means is you can install a popular ecommerce solution or cms solution and customize it as per your requirements and you have your website up and running in matter of a week.

t Profit By Outsourcing We do Open Source Customization for Popular ecommerce engines (like oscommerce Customization, zen cart Customization, x cart Customization, CS cart Customization, virtuemart customization, and magento customization), CMS engines (Mambo Customization, Joomla Customization, Drupal Customization, typo3 Customization, phpnuke Customization and expression engine customization). Apart from this we also do Custom PHP Web Development.

At Profit By Outsourcing, we provide 2 Options:

• You can hire there Own team of Dedicated PHP Programmer(s) from Profit By Outsourcing, who will work dedicatedly and exclusively on your Projects for 176hrs/mo and will provide a daily work status reports at close of play.
• You can also work with Profit By Outsourcing on a project basis, where we agree on a total project cost for your php web development requirements before project commencement, the cost is calculated on basis of project specifications provided.

Microsoft preps for open-source cloud apps PHP gets Azure tinge

Microsoft has unveiled a toolkit for PHP developers building open-source applications that help fluff its planned Azure cloud.

PHPAzure is a software development kit (SDK) for programming to both Windows Azure and the underlying SQL-like Windows Azure Storage service's blobs, tables, and queues. PHPAzure is an open-source project developed with RealDolmen and hosted on Microsoft's CodePlex site.

The PHPAzure community technology preview (CTP) was unveiled by Microsoft India and is due for completion on August 21. Azure is itself currently in CTP and has been promised for delivery by the end of this year.

PHP is one of the web's most popular programming languages, running more than 20 million sites. It's also used in conjunction with Apache, Linux, and MySQL - a web server, operating system, and database combo that Microsoft is in competition with.

Microsoft's recognized the importance of winning over PHP developers and has worked with Zend Technologies to fine-tune PHP to Windows until now. The risk was developers would otherwise build their PHP applications on Windows and deploy on Linux instead.

With PHP being a default web-programming environment, Microsoft has accepted it must embrace the language as a way to populate Azure with applications, moving it from a standing stop.

PHPAzure sounds like a framework for PHP programmers to build to Azure and its underlying storage system rather than a new language from Microsoft. Features include PHP classes for Windows Azure blobs, tables, and queues, for HTTP transport, AuthN/AuthZ, REST, and error management, and there is manageability, instrumentation, and logging support. You can read more on the architecture here.

Bootnote

Sybase has announced plans for its server products to work in Amazon's cloud. The company said it'll make Amazon Machine Images (AMIs), developer guides, and developer software for its software freely available for development and testing. Sybase is also working with Amazon to devise "flexible utility computing models" of its software to enable pay-per-use billing on the Amazon cloud.

Once a database contender to Oracle, Sybase today has a diverse set of products covering mobile and business intelligence. But the announcement will likely only apply to its database and data integration and replication products. It will expand the number of database options available on Amazon and keep Sybase in the game - though it's coming a little late. Amazon's EC2 currently offers IBM's DB2 and Informix, Oracle 11g, Microsoft's SQL Server Standard Edition 2005, and MySQL Enterprise.

Sybase also said it's working with Symantec and its Veritas Storage Foundation to optimize its Virtualized Resource Management framework from the company's ASE Cluster Edition for use in cloud-based storage. ®

Desktop computers dragging down Canada's PC market

MONTREAL — The Canadian market for personal computers isn't expected to reboot to positive growth until 2010 because consumers and businesses are delaying purchases and waiting for new technologies, says IDC Canada.

Desktop computers dragged down the market in the first quarter and the volume of netbooks - small mobile computers that allow users to surf the Internet and check email - has levelled off, IDC said Tuesday.

"This year, the bottom has completely fallen out of desktops," said Tim Brunt, IDC's senior analyst in personal computing and technology. "The market is demanding mobility."

The overall desktop PC market declined by 27 per cent from last year, but on average a desktop PC now sells for more than $200 more than a portable personal computer, IDC said.

Netbooks continued to garner a larger share of the overall market for portable PCs due to their lower price, but unit shipments were down by five per cent from the fourth quarter, Brunt said.

Netbooks, also called mini notebooks, usually cost between $200 and $500, but can be found at even lower prices.

"They're really taking a price leadership role," he said, adding that laptops also have compete with the price of netbooks.

"Mini notebooks came along at an opportunistic time - a down economy and a low price point," Brunt said from Toronto.

The overall PC market took a step decline in the quarter with unit volumes down 14 per cent over the same period last year to reach about 1.3 million desktops, laptops and netbooks shipped in Canada.

The most popular PC brands in Canada in first quarter were HP, Dell, Acer, Toshiba, Lenovo and Apple, Brunt said.

Canada didn't fare well globally in the quarter, Brunt said. In the United States, PC shipments were down just 3.4 per cent in the quarter with 14.9 million units shipped, he said.

"While the overall PC market continues to retreat, and the remainder of 2009 does not look optimistic, there is light at the end of the tunnel in 2010, where there are several factors that will drive the industry back to positive growth."

Brunt said consumers and businesses are waiting for faster chip sets in PCs, Microsoft's new Windows 7 operating system, and different form factors. He added that small businesses will be looking to take advantage of the federal government's stimulus package before the end of the year.

Analyst Duncan Stewart said consumers used to have to pay more for a mobile computer, such as a laptop, than for a desktop.

"In the early stages of a technology, people pay a premium for smallness and portability but then as you figure all of that out, you realized that you don't need that much power for a little, portable device," said Stewart, director of research, technology, media and telecom at Deloitte Canada.

But he said desktop prices will "hang in there" because people will buy them to do more things with them.

Despite a decline sales volumes in the first quarter, netbooks still have appeal.

Dell announced on Tuesday the launch of the Latitude 2100, a netbook specifically designed for students from kindergarten to Grade 12.

Netbooks will also be a source of revenue for wireless carriers with Verizon and AT&T in the United States offering them with multi-year contracts and some rebates.

Source : http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5jD5RoOT25Tl0H5sktWHmXVA7T6Hg

Software switch advised for e-commerce success

A new report from Gartner has advised online retailers to make greater use of open source, commercial or off-the-shelf software to focus their budgets on the areas that matter.

The research company claims that too much money is spent on custom web development for functions that could be easily addressed by standard software.

It states that large e-commerce retailers could save up to 35 per cent of their ongoing maintenance and license costs by using software instead of custom development for functions such as shopping cart management.

For small retailers, this figure could be anything up to 25 per cent.

Gene Alvarez, research vice-president at Gartner, said web retailers should ask web specialists to concentrate on "developing rich internet shopping capabilities or [improving] site design for search engine optimisation so that the site can rank higher in a Google-based search".

E-commerce retailers could also save money by using Magento hosting for their websites. The software is open source, which means that it is free to use, although Magento has also recently announced the launch of a paid-for enterprise edition of its solution for those requiring more features.

Written by Dipika Patel

Source : http://www.globalgold.co.uk/web-hosting-news/custom-web-hosting/software-switch-advised-for-ecommerce-success-19165017.html

NASA astronauts from the space shuttle Atlantis today installed a new computer on the Hubble Space Telescope during a spacewalk today.

During a 7-hour-and-20-minute spacewalk today, NASA astronauts gave the Hubble Space Telescope a new backup computer to replace the onboard system that had to be put into use after a technical failure last fall.

The computer, called the Science Instrument Command and Data Handling Unit, is designed to send commands to Hubble's science instruments and also format science data so it can be transmitted to the ground.

The Hubble telescope's main unit failed late last September, leaving the orbiter unable to send data to Earth. Michael Moore, a program executive for the Hubble Space Telescope, has said that the computer problem was the worst the Hubble has suffered since it went into orbit 19 years ago. NASA engineers remotely switched the telescope over to the backup system, and today's spacewalk added another system, which will now serve as Hubble's backup unit.

Source : http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=43C02D11-1A64-6A71-CEC3E03F87EB7060

The space shuttle Atlantis' 11-day mission is focused on repairing and upgrading the telescope, which has not been serviced since 2002. The repairs and additions should make Hubble far more powerful than it's ever been. And that will put Hubble in the position to make more, and more important, discoveries in the next five years than it has in the past two decades, said Ed Ruitberg, deputy program manager for the Hubble Space Telescope.

Today, NASA Mission Specialists John Grunsfeld and Drew Feustel performed the long, grueling spacewalk, which included removing the telescope's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 and replacing it with a new wide-field camera, which should enable Hubble to take large-scale, detailed photos.

The astronauts, who were aided by astronaut Megan McArthur operating the shuttle's robotic arm, also installed a soft capture mechanism, which will allow future vehicles to attach to the telescope. This is the last space shuttle mission to Hubble, but other space vehicles could someday make another maintenance trip or even go up to retrieve parts of it.

Friday's spacewalk is set up to install six new gyroscopes and three of the six new batteries that will go into the telescope during this mission.

How to: Deploy an ASP.NET MVC Application

If your hosting provider already has ASP.NET MVC 1.0 installed on the hosting server, deploying your MVC application is no different that deploying any ASP.NET Web application. However, if the hosting provider does not currently support ASP.NET MVC 1.0, you must upload the required MVC assemblies in the Bin folder of your deployed application.

After ASP.NET MVC is installed, the following assemblies are located in the global assembly cache (GAC) on your computer:

• System.Web.Mvc (the ASP.NET MVC assembly)

• System.Web.Routing (a .NET Framework assembly that is required by ASP.NET MVC)

• System.Web.Abstractions (a .NET Framework assembly that is required by ASP.NET MVC)

If your hosting provider has ASP.NET version 3.5 Server Pack 1 installed, you have to upload only the System.Web.Mvc assembly. If your hosting provider is using ASP.NET version 3.5 or an earlier version, you must deploy all the listed assemblies.

ASP.NET MVC runs in medium trust. Therefore, it should work with the medium-trust policies of most hosting providers. However, check with your hosting provider about trust policies.

We recommend that you use the Publish feature of Visual Studio to publish to a local folder and then upload the files to your hosting provider. You can then test exported files before you copy them to the hosting provider. If the hosting provider supports FTP, you can often skip this intermediate step and publish directly to the hoster's FTP server. For more information, see Walkthrough: Deploying an ASP.NET Web Application Using XCOPY.

Deploying an MVC Application

To deploy an ASP.NET MVC application

1. In Visual Studio, open the project that you want to deploy.

2. In Solution Explorer, expand the References node.

3. Select the following assemblies:

   • System.Web.Mvc

   • System.Web.Routing

   • System.Web.Abstractions

4. In the Properties window, set Copy Local to True.

5. In Solution Explorer, right-click the project and click Publish.

   The Publish Web dialog box is displayed.

6. In Target location (http:, ftp:, or disk path), browse to a local folder and click Open.

7. Select either Replace matching files with local copies or Delete all existing files prior to publish.

8. Under Copy, select one of the following, depending on your needs: Only files needed to run this application, All project files, or All files in the source project folder.

9. If your application contains files in the App_Data folder such as database files, select Include files from the App_Data folder.

10. Click Publish.

    All the files that are required in order to deploy the application are copied to the target folder.

11. Test your application by deploying the files to a staging server or virtual machine that does not have MVC installed. If you do not have access to a staging server or a virtual machine, you can uninstall MVC and then test the application locally.

12. Upload the application to the hosting provider.source:http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd410407.aspx

What's new in .NET Framework 3.5 SP1?

SP1 advances the art of application development
The new ADO.NET Entity Framework feature in SP1 offers developers a model-based paradigm and a rich, standards-based framework for creating data-oriented applications shared across multiple applications and platforms. The separation of presentation, data, and business logic used in concert with a single data model will enable developers to spend less time writing plumbing code and more time refining business logic.

SP1 makes data-driven programming easier
SP1 offers developers support for ASP.NET Dynamic Data, which provides a rich scaffolding framework that enables rapid data-driven development. Since ASP.NET takes care of creating the presentation layer, a fully functional Website is output and ready for customization without the developer writing a single line of code. Further, with ADO.NET Data Services, Web developers can create RESTful Web 2.0-style applications that have better server scalability and improved caching support.

SP1 is the fastest and easiest way to deploy Windows applications
With the .NET Framework Client Profile, a small subset of the Framework that powers client applications, developers can offer their end users a dramatically streamlined and rapid application download experience. In addition, improvements in SP1 result in dramatic reductions in cold start times, allowing developers to serve a broader set of customers with varying hardware profiles.

source:http://www.microsoft.com/net/

Magento 1.1.6 Released

As each ecommerce application Magento benefits from different updates. So a recent release of Magento 1.1.6 has been warmly accepted by Magento community. No doubt all bugs noticed since the last Magento release have been taken into consideration and fixed. Having explored Magento 1.1.6 you’ll find out the next improvements:

• Google Checkout table rates work perfectly;
• While upgrading existing databases you won’t experience SQL error any more;
• Refreshing products count in categories management page won’t make you any troubles;
• From now on order status after creating an invoice will be shown in a right way;
• Translations and locale settings used in PDF print-outs have been fixed as well;
• Managing product categories has been also made more effective.

Note we’ve listed just several improvements which have been made. Of course there aren’t perfect things but there are great things and Magento belongs to the last ones. In fact Magento has launched a blank theme for building online shops. This theme has a very simple design but it can be useful for those who can’t afford custom made design or purchasing professionally designed Magento themes.

source:http://www.design4magento.com/category/magento-news/page/3/

Why Magento?

Open Source. Open Source means your store and the platform its built on are fully yours. You have the freedom to customize Magento, tailor it to your business model and expand on it for years to come. No strings attached.
Integration Friendly. Your eCommerce platform should not dictate what third-party solution you use. Magento gives you the freedom to work with the third-party solutions you want.
Feature-Rich. Magento comes out-of-the-box with features like one-page checkout, product comparisons, multi-address Shipping and many more features that will set your store apart.
Support Network. Magento is fully supported by Varien and the international Magento community ensuring that where ever you are, you’re never on your own.

source:http://www.varien.com/products/

Magento launches Enterprise Edition demos

Open source e-commerce platform Magento has released demonstrations of some of the capabilities of its new Enterprise Edition.

Magento hosting users can now access a demonstration Storefront and a demonstration Administrator Panel for the product on the company's demo site, which requires log-in details provided by Magento.

Writing on the Magento blog, designer Minu Oh said that the demonstrations display how the Enterprise Edition "provides increased return on investment for Magento installations and allows retailers and manufacturers on Magento to create multi-faceted, strategic marketing efforts and target them to different audience types".

Magento first unveiled the Enterprise Edition version of its platform in mid-April. The premium product is aimed at larger organisations requiring greater functionality than that provided by the free Magento solution.

The free product has been downloaded more than 750,000 times to date and boasts more than 85,000 community members, according to the most recent figures from Magento.

source:http://www.globalgold.co.uk/web-hosting-news/custom-web-hosting/magento-launches-enterprise-edition-demos-19150303.html

New update for Magento

E-commerce platform Magento has been updated with several new fixes and integration with Amazon payment systems.

Magento hosting users who download version 1.3.1 of the software can now benefit from integration and support for Amazon Flexible Payment and Checkout by Amazon payment options.

Further information about these services will be provided over the next few days, said Yoav Kutner of Magento.

The newest release also includes an improved flat catalogue module for better performance and fixes for a number of bugs.

Mr Kutner said that as Magento 1.3.1 includes an update to the Magento Connect Manager, those using the Magento Connect Manager should back up their index.php and .htaccess files under their Magento root folder before upgrading and restore them after the process is complete.

An Enterprise Edition of the platform was launched last week. The new product is aimed at large companies looking for more advanced features than those offered by the free open source version of the software.

source:http://www.globalgold.co.uk/web-hosting-news/custom-web-hosting/new-update-for-magento-19128187.html

E-Commerce

First, search for an e-commerce website designer. There are several types of solutions that designers will most likely present including, OsCommerce, ZenCart, OpenCart, among others. We recommend finding a designer that specializes in Magento E-commerce Website design. Magento is a very powerful and flexible open source solution for e-commerce websites. It is also easy for the owner to log in and manage inventory, website content, products, images, descriptions, and more.

The next task would be to hire a graphic designer that is able to take your product and design elements of the website to compliment how your product will be displayed. This may include finding a good photographer to that will give you a good package deal to take photos of your products and provide you with the original photos and the photos that have had the backgrounds removed. This will make it possible for you to place your products nicely on a white background.

It is best to organize your products into categories and variations as soon as possible. This will help your website designer configure Magento with custom attributes and categories that will make it easier for you to manage your store once the website designers job is complete. Of course, once these steps are complete, your job is not over. Now it is time to market your website.

New update for Magento

E-commerce platform Magento has been updated with several new fixes and integration with Amazon payment systems.

Magento hosting users who download version 1.3.1 of the software can now benefit from integration and support for Amazon Flexible Payment and Checkout by Amazon payment options.

Further information about these services will be provided over the next few days, said Yoav Kutner of Magento.

The newest release also includes an improved flat catalogue module for better performance and fixes for a number of bugs.

Mr Kutner said that as Magento 1.3.1 includes an update to the Magento Connect Manager, those using the Magento Connect Manager should back up their index.php and .htaccess files under their Magento root folder before upgrading and restore them after the process is complete.

An Enterprise Edition of the platform was launched last week. The new product is aimed at large companies looking for more advanced features than those offered by the free open source version of the software.

source:http://www.globalgold.co.uk/web-hosting-news/custom-web-hosting/new-update-for-magento-19128187.html

Magento - The radical Ecommerce open source

Magento is the new improved e-commerce platform that gives a superior force to web traders to get rid of obstacles in the way of business process implementations. With downloads surpassing the magical figure of 600,000, Magento is easily the fastest growing commercially available tool for online business solutions.

Don’t be misled by the free and open source background of Magento—it excels the best commercial tools with its theme based structure and support for a panoply of digital products.

We at Maven Infosoft have solid expertise in working with all leading e-commerce and portal-building platforms and have managed and implemented heavy-duty enterprise-level content management systems. We can safely assert that Magento has outshone all of them.

There remain a few uncertainties, as with any growing and emergent platform, in the design and development capabilities that Magento has to offer. The high competence level required means that it is not for all and sundry. Having said that, Magento is by far the most adaptable and compliant e-commerce program to hit the online trading market.

In many ways, Magento is not a typical open source solution. It is free to download and use. It does give you the ability to create customize themes and module extensions. It has all the potential for swell in usage and gain in popularity. However, it has a dedicated company supporting its growth. Magento is the product of Varien, an e-commerce design house that seems to benefit from Magento by offering traditional web agency services.

Magento is based on a theme based framework with individual layouts, templates and skins, which in turn has greater look and feel customize capability. Once you get the hang of it, creating stores in Magento turns into a piece of cake. Unlike shopping carts and content management systems devoid of themes, this framework elevates Magento to a different level

The comprehensive features available reflect long years of e-commerce experience. Features such as advanced pricing rules, product image zoom, side-by-side comparison and inventory management indicate the strong relevance to marketing functions and requirements. Other features that we approve of are:

• Ready to go iPhone theme
  
• Single page checkout
  
• Availability of real time rates from UPS, FedEx and the US Postal Service
  
• Great analytics and reporting
  
• One administration panel and product catalog to manage  multiple websites/stores
  
• Customer reviews
  
• Flexible coupon rules for flexibility of campaigns
  
• Layered and faceted navigation for filtering
  
• Google Website Optimizer integration
  
• URL rewrites
  
• Newsletter management
  
• Easy integration of third party tools using Web API
  
• Choice of more than 50 payment gateways
  
• Option to up sell during checkout
  
• Self-generating site maps
  
• Full support for digital and downloadable products
  
• RSS feeds for customers and administrators alike
  

Though Magento does have simple usage rules including easy handling of the administration interface, it does require developers to have fundamental skills in PHP, MySQL, SOAP, XML, XHTML, Apache and CSS. This is indeed the case for most shopping carts or platforms, but Magento is much more application oriented. Even a standard implementation will have you accessing files and programming code that other simpler platforms do not ask for.

All said and done, Magento is an outstanding tool for online commerce and web marketing. It is no less than a boon for leading Internet retailers.

If you are looking to design and develop Magento ecommerce store for your business, Maven Infosoft is a one stop helping point for all your requirements. 

Maven Infosoft is one of the initial starters who work on Magento since its first version. The expertise of Magento developers at Maven Infosoft, serves Magento customers to meet their Enterprise requirements.

Maven Infosoft provides services for enterprise Magento theme development, enterprise Magento template design, Magento extensions like Vendor module, Purchase module, accounting module and Magento payment extensions like iVeri, Paymentec, Safepay, Secpay, Secpay 3D secure, DIBS DirectPay, Cardinal Direct, Cardinal 3D secure

As Magento is free open source application, Maven Infosoft also provides free Magento theme, free Magento templates, and free Magento extensions to help Magento grow in terms of ecommerce application.

Like Magento, Maven Infosoft is helping internet business to grow further to reach new heights.

For more information please refer http://www.offshoresoftwaredevelopmentindia.com/php-mysql-pgsql-programming/magento-customization-solutions.html

Or drop us an email at info@offshoresoftwaredevelopmentindia.com

Author Name: - Anand Pandya

Resource: - http://www.offshoresoftwaredevelopmentindia.com/blog/

Zend Framework new preview release 1.8

The all new Zend Framework preview release 1.8 is here! It brings us
* Tools for dependable bootstrapping
* A command line client for creating and maintaining projects
* Devices for menus, sitemaps, breadcrumbs, and whatnot
* Full support for Amazon EC2 and S3
* A simple and reliable framework
* New additions and bug fixes
Check out Mathew’s blog for more detailed description.

Zend Framework 1.7.0 is now available

New Zend Framework released with many new components and features.

Zend Framework 1.7.0 is now available from the Zend Framework download site:

http://framework.zend.com/download/latest

This release introduces many new components and features, including:

• Zend_Amf with support for AMF0 and AMF3 protocols
• Dojo Toolkit 1.2.1
• Support for dijit editor available in the Dojo Toolkit
• Zend_Service_Twitter
• ZendX_JQuery in extras library
• Metadata API in Zend_Cache
• Google book search API in Zend_Gdata
• Preliminary support for GData Protocol v2 in Zend_Gdata
• Support for skip data processing in Zend_Search_Lucene
• Support for Open Office XML documents in Zend_Search_Lucene indexer
• Performance enhancements in Zend_Loader, Zend_Controller, and server components
• Zend_Mail_Storage_Writable_Maildir enhancements for mail delivery
• Zend_Tool in incubator
• Zend_Text_Table for formatting table using characters
• Zend_ProgressBar
• Zend_Config_Writer
• ZendX_Console_Unix_Process in the extras library
• Zend_Db_Table_Select support for Zend_Paginator
• Global parameters for routes
• Using Chain-Routes for Hostname-Routes via Zend_Config
• I18N improvements
o Application wide locale for all classes
o Data retrieving methods are now static
o Additional cache handling methods in all I18N classes
o Zend_Translate API simplified
• File transfer enhancements
o Support for file elements in subforms
o Support for multifile elements
o Support for MAX_FILES_SIZE in form
o Support for breaking validation chain
o Support for translation of failure ,messages
o New IsCompressed, IsImage, ExcludeMimeType, ExcludeExtension validators
o Support for FileInfo extension in MimeType validator
• Zend_Db_Table_Select adapater for Zend_Paginator
• Support for custom adapters in Zend_Paginator
• More flexible handling of complex types in Zend_Soap


The Zend Framework team would like to thank everyone who made this release possible. As always, our generous ZF community has provided countless new features, bug fixes, documentation translations, etc. We'd also like to thank Adobe Systems and Wade Arnold for contributing the new Zend_Amf component. A big thanks to PHP Belgium and everyone who participated in bug hunt day and/or the Zend Framework bug hunt week.


Source:- prlog.org/

Zend Framework 1.7 Includes DB2/400 Adapter

Zend Technologies, the commercial entity behind the open source PHP programming language and its related development tools, has delivered a new release of its suite of PHP tools. Zend Framework 1.7 includes a general release of the new DB2/400 adapter introduced earlier this year, which should improve the interoperability of PHP applications and DB2/400 data. The update also includes various other AJAX-related enhancements.

Zend provided an early release of the DB2/400 adapter with the delivery of Zend Core for IBM i 2.6 in September. At the time, Zend said the new adapter would provide better, faster, and more secure access to existing data and applications residing on System i server.

After poking and prodding at beta sites and the resolution of various technical issues, the DB2/400 adapter was declared ready for prime time at Adobe Systems's MAX conference in San Francisco last month, which was the venue for the launch of Zend Framework 1.7.

Zend Framework 1.7 brings other enhancements, in addition to the new data adapter. For instance, load times have improved by 25 to 50 percent, Zend says, and support for the Action Message Format (AMF) data transfer protocol should improve the product's integration with Adobe's Flex and Flash programming technologies for creating rich Internet applications (RIAs).

Other enhancements include a new editor for the Dojo Toolkit, called dijit. Dojo, which was introduced to System i shops with Zend Core for IBM i 2.6, is an open-source collection of JavaScript tools designed to help developers implement graphical and architectural elements of AJAX applications. Zend Framework 1.7 also introduces support for JQuery, a popular AJAX library that was contributed by the Zend community to the larger open source community.

In further news, Zend is now selling support subscriptions for IBM i customers utilizing Zend Framework 1.7. The subscriptions give customers access to Zend resources for gaining support over the Web and troubleshooting or answering basic questions. The standard support package costs $1,500 and gives customers access to five Web-based incidents and two hours of consulting, while the premium package, which costs $2,500, provides 10 Web-based incidents and three hours of consulting.

Source:- itjungle.com/

The world's fastest computers are Linux computers

There are fast computers, and then there are Linux fast computers. Every six months, the Top 500 organization announces "its ranked list of general purpose systems that are in common use for high end applications." In other words, supercomputers. And, as has been the case for years now, the fastest of the fast are Linux computers.

As Jay Lyman, an analyst at The 451 Group points out, Linux is only growing stronger in supercomputing. "When considered as the primary OS or part of a mixed-OS supersystem, Linux is now present in 469 of the supercomputer sites, 93.8% of the Top500 list. This represents about 10 more sites than in November 2007, when Linux had presence in 91.8% of the systems. In fact, Linux is the only operating system that managed gains in the November 2008 list. A year ago, Linux was the OS for 84.6% of the top supercomputers. In November 2008, the open source OS was used in 87.8% of the systems. Compare this to Unix, which dropped from 6% to 4.6%, mixed-OS use which dropped from 7.2% to 6.2% and other operating systems, including BSD, Mac OS X and Windows, which were all down this year from the November 2007 list."

Microsoft is proud that a system running Windows HPC Server 2008 took 10th place... behind nine supercomputers running Linux. Even then, this was really more of a stunt than a demonstration that the HPC Server system is ready to compete with the big boys.

You see, there are no Microsoft programming tools to write supercomputer compatible applications. That will come years from now with Visual Studio 2010 and when Microsoft's F# is more than a research project language. In short, Windows HPC isn't ready for prime-time.

In the meantime, the real work is being done on the Linux computers. The number one supercomputer? Once more it's IBM's Linux-powered Roadrunner That's the same supercomputer, which this summer broke supercomputing's sound barrier: a sustained run of more than one petaflop per second or 1.026 quadrillion calculations per second. Beat that Microsoft!

The Roadrunner does have competition now though. The Cray XT Jaguar also recently busted the petaflop wall. The Cray also, of course, runs Linux. In the XT's case, it's running CNL (Compute Node Linux). CNL is based on SUSE Linux.

Needless to say, all the Linux systems do have working parallel-processing languages, like GCC, PGI and PathScale. For now, and the foreseeable future, Linux will not only stay the fastest computers, they'll also be the most useful fast computers.

Source:- blogs.computerworld.com/

PHP Zend Framework 1.7 adds Adobe support

The open source Zend Framework 1.7 is now available expanding the PHP framework to work better with Adobe Flex and AIR applications. Adobe and Zend announced back in September that they would be collaborating for Zend Framework and now they've delivered.

"Adobe and Zend have been working together to make Flex and AIR application development much easier for PHP developers," Zend co-founder Andi Gutmans blogged " This announcement marks a significant milestone in those efforts with the production release of the Zend_Amf component in ZF 1.7. Now PHP 5 developers can use the open, binary AMF3 protocol (think of it as ActionScript's native tongue) as easily as any other server-client protocol in Zend Framework."

Action Message Format (AMF) is the protocol that Flex uses to talk to the back end enabling both Flex and Flash based applications to exchange data with servers.

The Zend Framework 1.7 also includes some other neat features that PHP developers will likely benefit from. Among them is the ZendX_JQuery module which provides integration with the JQuery JavaScript toolkit. There is also support in the Zend_Search_Lucene module for indexing Office Open XML documents which could be a very useful thing too.

The 1.7 release comes just under three months after the Zend Framework 1.6 release which made Figlets into something useful for CAPTCHA (if you haven't read that story, you should). Great to see that regular progress continues to be made on this PHP framework. It's something that continues to re-inforce the fact that PHP is still a very modern and capable language for web application development.

Source:- blog.internetnews.com/