Checks Unlimited - Business

Osd India asked:


Latest Web Development Features for Zend Framework

• AJAX support through JSON – meet the ease-of-use requirements your users have come to expect

• Search – a native PHP edition of the industry-standard Lucene search engine

• Syndication – the data formats & easy access to them your Web 2.0 applications need

• Web Services – Zend Framework aims to be the premier place to consume & publish web services

• High-quality, object-oriented PHP 5 class library – attention to best practices like design patterns, unit testing, & loose coupling

• Web 2.0 applications & web services

• APIs from leading vendors like Google, Amazon, Yahoo!, Flickr, StrikeIron and ProgrammableWeb.

About Zend Framework:

Zend Framework is a simple, straightforward, object oriented, open-source software framework developed by Zend. All components are fully object-oriented PHP5. Its Model View Controller (MVC) implementation supports layouts and PHP-based templates by default. Zend Framework has support for multiple database systems including MySQL, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server and PostgreSQL. Zend Framework is also called ZF. The Zend Framework is a powerful open source web application framework for developing PHP 5 web application.

Advantages of using Zend Framework:

• Completely Object Oriented

• Extremely extensible by providing fluent interfaces and abstract classes

• Rich library for frequent usage in applications

• Future expansion scopes

Zend Framework based development at OffshoreSoftwareDevelopmentIndia.Com:

Please contact info@offshoresoftwaredevelopmentindia.com for the inquiry and development using Zend framework or any other open source.

Please visit www.offshoresoftwaredevelopmentindia.com for more information.

Please check zend framework based development at offshoresoftwaredevelopmentindia. / solution.

Andrew Karasev asked:


If you have Microsoft Dynamics GP implemented in your organization and you are currently on one of the old versions: 8.0, 7.5, 7.0, 6.0, 5.5, 5.0, 4.0, Great Plains Dynamics on Pervasive SQL Server 2000/Btrieve or Ctree (version 7.5 and below) or Great Plains Accounting for DOS or Windows: 9.5, 9.2 or earlier, you should consider Great Plains version update or at least moving existing version from old hardware to the new Windows 2003 or 2008 server.  In some situations you may just need to reactivate Great Plains for auditing purposes.  If you have current annual support plan through your official Dynamics GP Reseller, you should have access to newest version registration key: Dynamics GP 10.0 and plan your upgrade with your Great Plains Partner.  For the rest of you, please, read these highlights to get orientation: 1. Microsoft Business Solutions annual support plan and when did it expire for your organization.  If you plan expired, you do not longer have access to your Microsoft Customer Source, where you existing customers have access to Knowledge Base, and your registration keys.  However, even if you do not have support to Customer Source, your Dynamics GP VAR should have and these people should see your records.  If you are not sure who is your Great Plains Partner, please consider calling Microsoft or try fresh start and locate new Dynamics GP Service Provider, who fits your criteria: your industry expertise, technology versus CPA oriented or vice versa, local with reasonable experience version nationwide with broad expertise to give you few criteria determination ideas 2. Get reenrolled to GP annual enhancement program or wait.  If you are on really archaic version of Great Plains, such as 6.0 or earlier, it might be challenging to pay for reenrollment, at least for some of you.  However, the chances are that your organization owns reg key of newer version.  Have you current or newly selected Dynamics GP VAR to check this for you.  For example, if you are on version 6.0, your organization may own reg key for Dynamics GP 7.5 or even 8.0.  Version 8.0 is pretty robust, and instead of staying on Great Plains 6.0 without support (as it is unlikely that Dynamics GP consultants are maintaining their old knowledge) you may move couple of steps up to Great Plains 8.0 3. Great Plains Update Path.  If you are on GP 8.0 or 9.0 – this is not a concern, as upgrade from these versions might be accomplished in just one step (assuming , that you applied required 8.0 SP5 and upgrading to Dynamics GP 10.0 you applied SP2 or 3).  If you are on older version, please first discuss Great Plains Upgrade strategy with your consultant, and do not try to insert GP 10.0 CD, obtained from evaluation programs, such as MSDN, for example.  Old versions are upgraded in two or more steps, coming through intermediary version.  Example, upgrading from Great Plains 6.0 to 10.0 – first you move 6.0 to 7.5, then you upgrade 7.5 to 9.0 and final step to 10.0

If you have Microsoft Dynamics GP implemented in your organization and you are currently on one of the old versions: 8.0, 7.5, 7.0, 6.0, 5.5, 5.0, 4.0, Great Plains Dynamics on Pervasive SQL Server 2000/Btrieve or Ctree (version 7.5 and below) or Great Plains Accounting for DOS or Windows: 9.5, 9.2 or earlier, you should consider Great Plains version update or at least moving existing version from old hardware to the new Windows 2003 or 2008 server.  In some situations you may just need to reactivate Great Plains for auditing purposes.  If you have current annual support plan through your official Dynamics GP Reseller, you should have access to newest version registration key: Dynamics GP 10.0 and plan your upgrade with your Great Plains Partner.  For the rest of you, please, read these highlights to get orientation:

1. Microsoft Business Solutions annual support plan and when did it expire for your organization.  If you plan expired, you do not longer have access to your Microsoft Customer Source, where you existing customers have access to Knowledge Base, and your registration keys.  However, even if you do not have support to Customer Source, your Dynamics GP VAR should have and these people should see your records.  If you are not sure who is your Great Plains Partner, please consider calling Microsoft or try fresh start and locate new Dynamics GP Service Provider, who fits your criteria: your industry expertise, technology versus CPA oriented or vice versa, local with reasonable experience version nationwide with broad expertise to give you few criteria determination ideas

2. Get reenrolled to GP annual enhancement program or wait.  If you are on really archaic version of Great Plains, such as 6.0 or earlier, it might be challenging to pay for reenrollment, at least for some of you.  However, the chances are that your organization owns reg key of newer version.  Have you current or newly selected Dynamics GP VAR to check this for you.  For example, if you are on version 6.0, your organization may own reg key for Dynamics GP 7.5 or even 8.0.  Version 8.0 is pretty robust, and instead of staying on Great Plains 6.0 without support (as it is unlikely that Dynamics GP consultants are maintaining their old knowledge) you may move couple of steps up to Great Plains 8.0

3. Great Plains Update Path.  If you are on GP 8.0 or 9.0 – this is not a concern, as upgrade from these versions might be accomplished in just one step (assuming , that you applied required 8.0 SP5 and upgrading to Dynamics GP 10.0 you applied SP2 or 3).  If you are on older version, please first discuss Great Plains Upgrade strategy with your consultant, and do not try to insert GP 10.0 CD, obtained from evaluation programs, such as MSDN, for example.  Old versions are upgraded in two or more steps, coming through intermediary version.  Example, upgrading from Great Plains 6.0 to 10.0 – first you move 6.0 to 7.5, then you upgrade 7.5 to 9.0 and final step to 10.0

KWizCom Corporation asked:


Just about any developer working long enough with SharePoint will, at some point, wake up in the middle of the night with the words “Memory Leak” echoing in through their head… No – it is not the cat’s fault, and no it does not mean you forgot to take out the trash again… What did happen? You came across one of Microsoft’s “best practices” articles regarding disposing of SPWeb and SPSite objects in SharePoint…

According to the original MS guidance, every SPWeb or SPSite object you create (or get) that was not initiated within the page’s context (i.e. not SPContext.Current.Web and not SPControl.GetContextWeb(Context) ) must be disposed of.

It used to be that the “using” statement construct was recommended to avoid forgetting to dispose… in other cases you’d put up a flag and dispose of it at the end of your code’s life cycle – either way was good enough.

Being the “good guys” that we are, we went over and updated all of our codes and components to match these guide lines.

And what happened? Every once in a while disposing these objects would cause baffling errors such as: “Trying to use a SPWeb object that has been closed or disposed and is no longer valid”.

But hey, if we call SPContext.Current.Site.RootWeb – the best practices guidelines said we have to dispose of it! Same goes for SPContext.Current.Web.Site and SPContext.Current.Web.Site.RootWeb etc.

Recently I came across a great article by Roger Lamb showing a few updates from Microsoft regarding these disposable objects and recommendations.

So – pay close attention to these updates… it just might help you sleep through the night!

* When making a call to SPContext.Current.Web.Site.RootWeb – you now have to dispose only of the SPSite object: SPContext.Current.Web.Site!

Basically, you should NOT dispose of the SPSite.RootWeb object directly.

* When calling SPWeb.ParentWeb – you should NOT dispose of the ParentWeb object!

* Same goes to SPList.ParentWeb – do NOT dispose of the SPWeb object.

Other updates I found interesting (and frustrating) are:

* Calling SPWeb.AllWebs collection requires you to dispose of this collection object.

* Creating a new site by SPWeb.Webs.Add() – need to dispose of the web object returned.

* Calling GetLimitedWebPartManager() method? It will create a SPWeb object of its own and not dispose of it properly.

Please review the complete updated best practices guide at MSDN here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa973248.aspx

I hope Microsoft will release an update for this issue soon.. Just thinking of all the code lines I wrote under the wrong best practices article is making me dizzy…

Good luck and happy disposing!

Shai Petel.

=~=~= Update =~=~=

Ok, this explains why it took me so long to find this problem…

I had this code in my web part, written according to the original best practices:

using(SPSite site = SPContext.Current.Web.Site)

{

    using(SPWeb web = site.RootWeb)

    {

        //Some code here…

    }

}

I cannot explain this but I only got this error on some sites, and on others it worked OK. Strange huh?

What I found is that this code will throw exception on any team site I created within a site collection that is not in the web application root path (i.e. sites under http://server/sites/*).

Anyway – according to the new guidelines, I should not dispose of the RootWeb object in this case. If I dispose of the SPSite object – it disposes of the RootWeb object -in this case my context web object…

So I updated my code to something like this and it worked:

SPWeb web = SPContext.Current.Site.RootWeb;//No disposing

//Some code here…

 

Introduction of performance testing tools in UK asked:


Software testing tactic is a vital method that includes mechanism of software development lifecycle. There are lots of firms that stopped working to execute QC (Quality Control) effectively and standards describe the range of tests for application can deconstruct product reliability, damage the overall project and create a cost feast.

Software testing plan form is a part of the project documentation. The functional, objectives and goals needs of software application are restricted and scoped by the project planning. Mostly, test documents are planned to make test cases to succeed the application for platform constancy, system strength, functional fit, performance and usability.

First of all, functional test needs are performed throughout the last all stages of the first software construction. Development team OR developer locates software through a cycle of tests to make sure that it rally the primary stakeholder needs and to prepare the path for more testing team, end user testing and beta testing, for testing sample. Sometime employed specialised software is during the testing phase. Deterioration software permits the development team to build record and adjustment the changes along the way. This allows ‘rollback’ in the occasion that a change negotiations accessible code utilities.

Testing phase permits fresh eyes set to subject the function to a range of ‘real world’ testing external the paperwork followed by team. It can contain testing software on different machines with different OS, testing for simplicity of application and functional testing. Reaction from this permits development team to make better applications performance and ease of use. In some cases, at first release of the software is offered to plan viewers to secure a wider range of testimonial.

Andrew Karasev asked:


Historically Great Plains Software introduced Great Plains Select, which was available on Pervasive SQL 2000 and Ctree database platforms, not on Microsoft SQL Server.  Later on, when Microsoft acquired Great Plains Software, it decided to switch from Pervasive and Ctree to newly introduced Microsoft SQL Server Desktop Edition or MSDE.  MSDE, which is scaled down Microsoft SQL Server 2000 placed the limit on its database size to be 2GB.  Then in 2004, Microsoft Business Solutions came out with incentive to allow Great Plains Standard 7.5 users to obtain registration key for running GP on SQL Server 2000 platform free of charge.  If you are crossing 2GB DB limit on MSDN, you should consider the following actions:

1.       Purge Transaction History and then rebuild database.  Good idea to work on file rebuilding level.  Purging transaction history, however might not be a feasible option, especially if your Great Plains users have to look up into historical data for your customers, vendors, employees, salespeople, etc.  Good idea is also check the size of company DB transaction log.

2.       Migrate to Microsoft SQL Server 2000 or 2005.  If you are on GP version 7.5 – likely that this option is not available – you will have to obtain new reg key from Microsoft Business Solutions.  If you are on Great Plains Standard 8.0, you will need to migrate to Microsoft SQL Server 2000.  If you are on Dynamics GP 9.0 or 10.0 you can either migrate to SQL Server Select edition or SQL 2000 or 2005 Standard or Enterprise.  Microsoft Business Solutions recommend you simply to reattach existing Dynamics and company databases files to newly installed SQL Server

3.       If you do not have support contract with Microsoft and not sure who is your existing Great Plains VAR.  All written above is definitely cool for those who are current in Dynamics GP annual enhancement program, which allows you to have access to your Customer Source, where you can get your new Great Plains version reg key.  If you lapsed in annual enhancement, you will have to select Great Plains Reseller or consultant, sign Change VAR form to your new GP Partner, and then your new VAR will have access to your historical Great Plains Registration Keys

4.       From MSDE 2000 to SQL Express 2005.  In SQL Express you have 4GB DB limit, which is good postponing option, however please know that you will need to upgrade to at least Great Plains Dynamics GP 9.0.  Last warning.  If you are subscriber to MSDN or Microsoft TechNet – you may have access to all Dynamics GP versions CD images, however these subscriptions are for evaluation only – do not use these CDs for upgrade purpose, if you do not have reg key for targeted version of Dynamics GP