Software

I was recently approached by a client who wanted a custom Drupal module.The module was supposed to be a clone of Drupal's "Who's New" and "Who's Online" modules, but with user defined input. The specifications were that would be an admin defined list of users, and the module will select some of them at random. There would also be a user defined list of how many users to show online at a certain time (how many registered users, and how many guests). In other words, it would give a fake sense of the site being a very busy one.I politely told the person who requested this module that this amounts to deception. Their answer was it was like the opening day of a restaurant when it is packed with guests, but all of them are really relatives and friends of the owner who invited them for the opening night.

PHPonTrax is another Model-View-Controller architecture using PHP.  It used to be called PHP on Rails,  attempting to be the Ruby On  Rails version for PHP.It uses Active Record for Object/Relational Mapping (ORM), much like Hibernate for Java.  

One technology that has been getting good reviews and lots of attention laterly is Ruby On  Rails (RoR). It is a Rapid Internet Application Development framework that is  easy to use and really fast to write applications in.

One of the drawbacks is that it requires the Ruby programmng language, which although powerful, is less widespread than other languages, and hence not available at most web hosts. 

Now there is CakePHP, which is supposed to be Ruby On Rails but for PHP, the most widely deployed web development language. CakePHP follows the Model-View-Controller architecture, and  provides basic  CRUD (Create, Read,  Update, Delete) operations. Of course, it is fully object oriented, just like RoR is.

Most of the world does not know that many of the famous actors they see in Hollywood movies or TV productions are not Americans, but rather Canadians.Names such as Keanu Reeves (The Matrix), Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix), William Shatner (Star Trek), John Candy, Dan Akroyd, and even Leslie Nielsen (Naked Gun) and Lorne Greene (Battlestar Galactica, Bonanza), are all Canadians. There was even a mockumentary (Mock Documentary) in HBO in 1985 called  The Canadian Conspiracy poking fun at the fact that lots of Canadians are in the US, and are not overtly saying they are Canadians.

A question that often arises as an objection to Open Source software is: How can I make money from software if I am giving it away for free?Let us start by a few news items first.Techworld reports that the German National Railway has successfully migrated 55,000 users to Linux. The roll out was overseen by IBM.Reuters reports that in Extremadura, Spain, 14,000 medical professionals will be given access to a system that is based on Open Source software. This is also an IBM contract for 33$ million.

My brother Omar is a business man with a background in economics and business.

One often comes across objections to using free software in commerical packages. These objections are often not based in reality but rather misperceptions, and FUD (Fear, Uncertanity and Doubt).

In this article, I will try to explore these objections, and counter them by facts.

Outsourcing software development to India has become more and more popular over the last few years, and picked up even more momentum lately. Corporations in the USA has followed this path because a technology worker costs some five times less in India than in the USA.

This is quite an interesting and a bit long winded story of how I got into the computing field.It was the late 1970s when I was deciding which university I should go to. I had a passion for science and academia, and an aversion to humanities and math. At various points since middle school, I was into chemistry, biology, astronomy and botany.

The following is a useful collection of links, articles and discussions on starting your own software company.Note: Many of these articles were discussed on the Slashdot technology web site. While some comments may be off topic or abusive, or simply childish, many others are quite useful. If you do not want to read hundreds of comments, then change the "Threshold" level to see only the highest rated comments.