Seven
No, I am definitely not going to write about the lucky number! I’ll talk about the most anticipated operating system of the year, yet to be released from the stables of Microsoft. Welcome to the new Windows 7.
I already have 7 questions on my mind. What shall be the minimum hardware requirements for this OS? Will the support for drivers be better than the previous releases of Microsoft? Will the new OS beat Vista and rival operating systems on performance issues? What about security? Phew!
Content Management System
The current explosion in eCommerce has highlighted the advantages of and excellent Content Management System (CMS) like Sitecore.
For businesses that consider their website and their customers who contact them online to be an integral part of their business, using a content management system is only logical. It will allow those businesses to provide a seamless, high quality online experience that open source or low-end solutions simply can't provide.
For many of our customers, their website is a strategic part of their business. The added security and performance features of a CMS allow these businesses to focus the website and the usability features that make the customer experience truly superior.
By giving developers and content providers a simple to use and intuitive system, a CMS allows the marketing department or the sales department to create website content and design elements of the site. These professionals understand the customers and their needs better than developers or IT departments. With a CMS, the control goes to the people with the ideas, not only to the people with the programming expertise
Sitecore Keeps Ahead of Web Trends
One of the many reasons we choose to partner with Sitecore for our content management system is that they keep ahead of business trends, and are ready for the future.
Sitecore recently identified the three key web content management trends for 2009 – do any of these sound like goals for your company this year? If so, let us help you implement them using the seamless integration tools Sitecore provides.
The first trend is the growth of ecommerce elements. Companies want to integrate more and more ecommerce tools into their websites. One of the most popular tools for businesses to implement is InSite Commerce, a program that integrates ecommerce solutions. It allows a business to manage multiple websites and allows a great deal of flexibility for customers.
The other top ecommerce solution used by businesses is Microsoft Commerce Server, which offers intuitive tools for integrating ecommerce solutions including an out of the box shopping solution.
CLOUD COMPUTING: The Next Big Thing
Cloud computing or computing in the cloud is now one of the latest happening trends in the business world and the “next big thing” after Web 2.0. According to a 2008 paper published by IEEE Internet Computing "Cloud Computing is a paradigm in which information is permanently stored in servers on the Internet and cached temporarily on clients that include desktops, entertainment centers, table computers, notebooks, wall computers, handhelds, sensors, monitors, etc." In other words, we can say that this is about increasing an organization’s or user’s capability by using different applications from some external servers without investing much on its own infrastructure and maintenance of local servers. Rather the organization/user pays for raw computing power. Here the word “cloud” is used as a metaphor for internet.
The basic architecture of this cloud computing is a massive network of interconnected servers where the web applications reside. The user accessing these applications need not be aware of the physical location of the application’s computer. This not only reduces the cost of installing licensed software at the end user’s computer but also saves the cost associated with deploying, maintaining and upgrading of different business technologies.
Web 2.0 Gets Big – and Corporate
As the economy totters, it’s easy to make fun of the concept of “Web 2.0” — the rallying cry of a generation of chipper start-ups spawned over the last few years with an unusual aversion to vowels.
Certainly, most of the venture capitalists I’ve talked to at the Web 2.0 Summit have said they are shying away from companies that are based on the idea of growing an audience now and figuring out how to make money later. However, after listening to the presentations here over the past three days, it is clear that some of the key concepts of the Web 2.0 movement are, in fact, taking root in deep ways.
One of the most significant trends is how the big companies that make very complicated systems are reworking them using the principles of Web 2.0 companies, particularly the notion of programs that talk to other programs. They are breaking up their technologies into discrete modules that can work alongside data and applications from others.
Facebook can be credited with taking the first step to open up large parts of its service to third parties. Last year, it let their applications on its site. Now, through its upcoming Facebook Connect service, it will let other companies build applications that use its list of people and who their friends are to deliver new services.
Intro to DotNetNuke
DotNetNuke - another powerful content management system to add to the existing list. With so many CMS's around and each one of them offering you a vast set of features, you feel pampered. A few years back, building your dream website for your organization and managing its content simultaneously, seemed such a daunting task. However after Content Management Systems have come into existence, publishing dynamic content in a consistently structured and customized manner has been astonishingly simplified.
With over 500,000 registered users and 5.0 million downloads in late 2007 (as per official sources), DotNetNuke has become one of today’s largest and effective open source CMS. It has been written in Microsoft’s VB.NET for the ASP.NET (also by Microsoft) framework. With an extensible core and a set of additional customization features that include modules and skins, DotNetNuke can be used to develop, deploy and efficiently manage websites, including extranets and intranets.
Intro to Umbraco
With a plethora of Content Management Systems available today, it becomes very difficult to choose form one of them. As a matter of fact, the CMS that you would choose would also depend on the architecture or the platform where you would deploy your project. Having discussed on the Joomla CMS which is based on PHP and MySql, it is now time to review the Umbraco CMS that is based on Microsoft’s ASP.NET technology. Well, this one is for the .NET fans. The entire source of the CMS has been written in C# and is available for the developers to download and modify for free. Yes, Umbraco is open source.
You do not require beforehand knowledge of Microsoft’s .NET framework or C# in particular, to get started with the Umbraco CMS. All you would need is Microsoft’s Internet Information Services (IIS) server, where you would host and deploy your website.
