An Anonymous Coward posted a comment to our New York Area Fails to Hit 90F in July for Second Time in a Century article, identifying yet another incompatibility between the Slash code and our SQL database.
We fixed the problem and the comment now displays itself in the way that it should have originally. Thank you AC!
Dave Aiello wrote, "Yesterday, I started hearing reports that temperatures in New York City failed to reach 90 degrees Fahrenheit for the entire month of July. According to the Associated Press, this is only the second time in the past 100 years where this was the case."
"In this area, we had lots of days last summer where it was opressively hot. The only summer I remember that was like this one was when Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991, except that I believe it rained even more than it has this year."
Dave Aiello continues, "It's hard to say whether it actually rained more in 1991 than it did this year. If I have time, I will try to find out and update this story."
The Associated Press article quoted Paul Breur, owner of Mountain River Tours at Hico, WV, saying, "This is one of the best seasons for rafting in years." Normally at this time of year, it can be almost impossible to travel down most small rivers on the East Coast in a raft.
The Web Site www.ctdata.com was developed by Dave Aiello.
The CTDATA logo was designed by Dave Aiello and rendered in Adobe Illustrator. It has been
in continuous use since 1989. CTDATA is the trade name for Chatham Township Data
Corporation. It has been used to refer to Chatham Township Data Corporation and its
predecessor company since 1984.
CTDATA is Dave Aiello, Kathleen Kuykendall, George Kuykendall, and Scott Aiello. Martin
O’Donnell of Intellidyne works very closely with CTDATA on many Internet projects.
This site is Web Application based on the Slash
Engine. This version of the Slash Engine is a heavily modified fork from Version 0.3, designed by Dave Aiello, Richard Ziegler of Modis, and Scott Bevier of J.P. Morgan and Company. The original Slash Engine was developed for Slashdot.org by Rob Malda and a number of his friends.
This article contains the legal information and notices pertaining to the ctdata.com Web Site.
The materials ("Materials") contained in Chatham Township Data Corporation’s ("CTDATA")
web sites are provided by CTDATA and may be used for informational purposes only. By
downloading any of the Materials contained in any of CTDATA’s sites, you agree to the terms
and provisions as outlined in this legal notice. If you do not agree to them, do not use this site or
download Materials.
CTDATA and the CTDATA logo are trademarks of Chatham Township Data Corporation. All other tradenames referenced may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective
companies.
Unless otherwise noted, the information contained in this site is copyrighted and may not be
distributed, modified, reproduced in whole or in part without the prior written permission of
Chatham Township Data Corporation.
Certain information from the CTDATA Web Site is provided in a form that permits it to be republished on other Web Sites or stored in databases not owned by CTDATA ("syndicated content"). This syndicated content may be distributed and/or reporduced in whole or in part, provided CTDATA's copyright notice is preserved.
Use of the software from this site is subject to the software license terms set forth in an Chatham
Township Data Corporation Software License or another software license, if a different one is specified. The relevant software license agreement is available for
review whenever software is downloaded at this site.
Any person is hereby authorized to:
Unless otherwise noted, mention of third-party products, companies and web sites on the CTDATA Web Site is for
informational purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation.
CTDATA assumes no responsibility with regard to the selection, performance or use of these
products or vendors. CTDATA provides this only as a convenience to our users. CTDATA has
not tested any software found on these sites and makes no representations regarding the quality,
safety, or suitability of any software found there. There are dangers inherent in the use of any
software found on the Internet, and CTDATA assumes no responsibility with regard to the
performance of use of these products. Make sure that you completely understand the risks
before retrieving any software on the Internet. All third party products must be ordered directly
from the vendor, and all licenses and warranties, if any, take place between you and the vendor.
CTDATA makes no representation whatsoever regarding the content of any other web sites
which you may access from the CTDATA Web Site. When you access a non-CTDATA web
site, please understand that it is independent from CTDATA and that CTDATA has no control
over the content on that web site. A link to a non-CTDATA web site does not mean that
CTDATA endorses or accepts any responsibility for the content or use of such web site.
CTDATA actively and aggressively enforces its intellectual property rights to the fullest extent of
the law. CTDATA supports the Software Publishers Association’s efforts to combat software
piracy worldwide. CTDATA publishes some of its products using "OpenSource" licenses, and those products may be used and modified to a greater extent, as long as the terms of the license are honored.
Any feedback you provide at this site shall be deemed to be non-confidential. CTDATA shall be
free to use such information on an unrestricted basis.
Any comments that you submit to the CTDATA Web Site are your legal responsibility. Comments may be removed from the CTDATA Web Site at any time, at the sole discretion of CTDATA or its authorized agents.
Chatham Township Data Corporation intends for the information and data contained in the
CTDATA Web Site to be accurate and reliable, however, since the information and data have
been compiled by CTDATA from a variety of sources, it is provided "AS IS." CTDATA
EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES AND/OR CONDITIONS, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, AS TO ANY MATTER WHATSOEVER RELATING TO OR REFERENCED
BY THE CTDATA WEB SITE, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED
WARRANTIES AND/OR CONDITIONS OF MERCHANTABILITY OR
SATISFACTORY QUALITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND
NON INFRINGEMENT.
CTDATA provides access to its Web Site to users throughout the world. Many of CTDATA’s
products and services are only available in the United States of America. Therefore, if you live
or work outside of the United States of America, some of the product and service information
contained in this Web Site may not apply to you.
Dave Aiello, Founder and President, has been in office since August 22, 1989. He is assisted by private investors acting as corporate officers.
CTDATA’s primary businesses are:
Chatham Township Data Corporation is a computer software consulting and system integration
firm. CTDATA is a privately held company that was incorporated in the State of New Jersey on
August 22, 1989. From 1989 to 1997, it was a Subchapter “S” Corporation. On January 1,
1998, CTDATA elected to become a Subchapter “C” Corporation.
CTDATA had an annual profit in calendar year 1997 for the first time in its history.
Chatham Township Data Corporation was founded by David E. Aiello as the successor to
CTDATA Systems, a proprietorship he started in 1984 when he was 17 years old.
CNET News.com is reporting that the puppeteer that plays the sock puppet dog in the ads for Pets.com is on strike as a result of the job action by the Screen Actors Guild and the American
Federation of Television and Radio Artists against the advertising industry.
Among other things, the article says that Pets.com has sold over 35,000 of its sock puppets. That's amazing.
Yesterday, Matt Drudge reported that Rush Limbaugh is planning to expand his Web Site beyond its current role as a gateway to streaming versions of his radio program. The new functionality will include many features traditionally associated with a portal, although nothing in the report indicates that it is being designed as a portal.
"It will operate much like a listener's guide, with links to newspaper, magazine, internet articles
and wire copy that Rush brings up on his show," says an insider. "It will also feature many of the
comedy bits, current and from years past."
This site is going to be one of the biggest sites on the Internet, regardless of its production values. He will drive traffic just by referring people listening to his program to the site for more information about what is being discussed.
We join the chorus of people thanking Lawrence Lee and his Tomalak's Realm for being the Web's group memory. He pointed out that Clay Shirky wrote a great piece on Napster that was published by Feed way back in April.
Likening the debate between Napster and the RIAA to the futile attempt by state and Federal governments to enforce the 55 mile per hour speed limit, Shirky wrote:
"As with the speed limit, Napster
shows us a case where millions of people
are willing to see the law, understand the
law, and violate it anyway on a daily basis.
The bad news for the RIAA is not that the
law isn't on their side. It plainly is. The bad
news for the RIAA is that in a democracy,
when the will of the people and the law
diverge too strongly for too long, it is the law
that changes."
Dave Aiello wrote, "I have never used Napster, so I have to admit that I have some catching up to do with the people who have used it and understand the implications more fully. Scott Rosenberg wrote an excellent piece in Salon that points out a number of issues that will quickly come to the forefront now that it looks like the RIAA will succeed in shutting most of Napster down." Among other things, it says:
Dave Aiello continues, "I agree that the RIAA members are slowly killing themselves by trying to shut down the small number of servers owned by the Napster company. They need to think outside the box they have placed themselves in, and figure out ways to rehabilitate their relationships with their customers and the artists that they collectively have under contract. The answer to the recording industry's problems will not be found by shooting the messenger."
Michael Stutz wrote an excellent piece on the small tools philosophy of programming, and how that has been implemented in Linux. He puts the architecture that supports this in the proper context, going all the way back to the initial versions of UNIX written by Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson, and Brian Kernighan, among others at Bell Labs.
"Unix-like operating systems do not put so much weight on application programs.
Instead, they come with a lot of small programs called "tools." Each tool is
generally capable of performing a very simple, specific task, and performing it
well -- one tool does nothing but output the file(s) or data passed to it, one tool
spools its input to the print queue, one tool sorts the lines of its input, and so on."
The British Broadcasting Company is reporting that U.S. physicists have documented previously unknown vulnerabilities in the continuity of the Internet. Scientists at Notre Dame demonstrated in simulations that attacks against only the top four percent of Internet nodes (according to the number of interconnections that they have access to) would result in terrible problems with packet loss.
Anyone who has servers that are co-located somewhere else in the United States already has some sense of how vulnerable the network is to a large scale loss of continuity. Even if you buy your access from a provider that own a great deal of backbone connectivity, you can find yourself unable to access servers in other parts of the country. This is often due to router or capacity problems at ISPs with which your provider has peering agreements.
Dave Aiello wrote, "One of the advantages of having clients on Wall Street that I have never taken advantage of is the opportunity to visit the New York Stock Exchange during the trading day. However, today at the New York Stock Exchange, Lance Armstrong was honored for
winning
the Tour de France. He was accompanied by Phil Knight of Nike and his
family
to ring the closing bell."
"My friend Richard Ziegler and I took a little
time
off from work to be there. It was fun, but we got about as close to him as
we
would have standing at the finish of one of the stages."
"There is no photography allowed inside the NYSE, otherwise I would have taken a picture with my Nikon Coolpix 950. But, I have a witness and
the
ticket to prove I was there." (Update: Story on Yahoo! about all the events that Lance Armstrong took part in today.)
We learned from a posting on Slashcode that the Independent Media Center of Philadelphia has launched its Slashcode-based Web Site in time to participate in the hoopla surrounding the Republican National Convention.
The Independent Media Center describes itself as "a collective of independent media ogranizations and hundreds of journalists offering grassroots, non-corporate coverage. Our IMC is a democratic media outlet for the creation of radical, objective, and passionate tellings of truth." {Emphasis added by CTDATA.}
Hmm... wonder if they were in favor of Bush picking Cheney as his running mate?
There's a great article in today's Wall Street Journal (syndicated via MSNBC) that discusses the lengths to which Napster will go to ensure that it retains control of its own itellectual property. According to the article:
Napster’s hopes of transforming its busy Web service
into a source of revenue depend on its withstanding the
music industry’s legal assault. At the same time, however, it
is taking an increasing amount of flak from those seeking
access to its database or its technology. The result is a
public-relations skirmish over whether Napster, which
portrays itself as a champion of youth culture and the Web’s
freewheeling ways, applies a double standard to intellectual
property, making it cavalier toward other people’s, but
hyperprotective of its own.
Joseph Garber's column in the August 7 issue of Forbes discusses on-line technology training. It highlights V-Lab, a unit of Mentor Technologies and an advertiser on Slashdot.
The opportunity to use a router lab with top-of-the-line Cisco hardware for approximately $65 per hour is an overwhelming incentive to give this a try if you need to upgrade your skills. This also seems like an ideal solution for companies that are planning to replace non-Cisco hardware and need to get their network folks up-to-speed quickly and cheaply.
Forbes is reporting the Roots, a stylish Canadian clothing retailer similar to The Gap, is planning to found an airline in partnership with an air charter firm.
"For $3.4 million, privately held Roots will own a 13% stake in Roots
Air; Skyservice Airlines, an air charter company, will be majority
owner and will supply the crews. Roots Air is looking for an additional
$27 million of capital from institutional investors."
Canada may need to competition in commercial air service, now that Canadian has been acquired by Air Canada. But, is having a Roots-branded airline the right way?
Update: Roots Air launches March 26, 2001. Further information at www.rootsair.com.
Amazingly, this is one of the most popular Web Pages on ctdata.com.
We note that the RSS file generation script that we wrote was leaving the last word off of each story title. This has been corrected, but it resulted in my.userland.com reporting that the entire story flow in CTDATA.xml was new.
Sorry Dave Winer, but there was nothing we could do to avoid that once it had been identified as an issues. Both the before and after RSS files validated properly. We'll try to keep that script simple and bug free, if we can.
Now that CTDATA has joined the My Netscape Network (MNN) you can easily add a CTDATA Channel to your My Netscape Portal Page. To do so, simply click on the button shown immediately below:
WIDTH="88" HEIGHT="31" BORDER="0">
This button is also conveniently located at the bottom of every page on the ctdata.com Web Site.
Dave Aiello wrote, "On behalf of CTDATA, I would like to extend a special welcome to visitors who found us through My Netscape and the My Netscape Network (MNN)."
"My Netscape was one of the groundbreaking Web applications, in that it introduced a content syndication technology called RSS (Rich Site Summary). RSS allows any company operating a database-driven, information oriented Web Site to publish a summary of its latest content from its Web Site. This summary can be integrated into other Web Sites that support content syndication, including a number of portal and directory sites."
Dave Aiello continued, "CTDATA is a consulting firm that builds database driven Web Sites. We especially like to build weblogs, knowledge management systems, self-managing directories, and other types of sites that help to build virtual communities."
"We hope you enjoy your visit to our Web Site, and that you will come back to ctdata.com for more news and information about content management, content syndication, Web user interface design, database driven Web Sites, and advanced Perl programming techniques."
Chatham Township Data Corporation is a Web
Development and System Integration company
founded in 1989. CTDATA™ builds database driven Web Sites. Our clients often ask us to build
weblogs, knowledge management systems, self-managing directories, and other types of sites
that help to build virtual communities.
We develop for the UNIX and Windows operating systems. When we
develop on Windows, we use UNIX
programming techniques. We often use Open Source
technologies, like Perl, to get the job done.
On July 21, 2000, CTDATA relaunched its corporate Web Site using a content management system based on the Slashcode Open Source Project. This content management system is being actively used on both Solaris and Windows NT.
Some Weblogs have already weighed in on Jakob Nielsen's latest column at useit.com called End of Web Design. Many of the comments that have been written so far, such as this analysis in Stating the Obvious, have been critical of this piece.
Our view is that he came close to nailing the key success factors for site evolution at this point in the development of the Web. What Nielsen is saying is that the focus for Site designers and maintainers will be on a lightweight page design that allows for high fidelity reproduction of key page information through two new mediums: the "mobile internet" that others have refered to as the wireless web, and XML-based content syndication.
To the extent that this means a renewed emphasis on information (euphemistically known as content) over form, and a movement away from the design techniques that Razorfish exemplifies (DHTML and Javascript in your company's press releases), we whole heartedly agree.
Nielsen's point about the influence of application service providers exerting a certain conservative influence over the physical appearance of Web Sites is esoteric to many people because they do not yet have the experience of running several sites in a data center. We agree that in many cases companies have to trim their "gee whiz" features in order to adapt a site to the realities of co-location.
Richard Ziegler pointed out this piece in Sports Illustrated by Jack McCallum that takes the American sports media to task for failing to properly cover Lance Armstrong's second consecutive victory in the Tour de France. McCallum wrote, "Now that the weekend results are in, we see that Armstrong's
six-minute victory in the Tour was every bit as dominating as Woods' win
at St. Andrews, but will no doubt be the secondary story on most sports
pages Monday morning, as well as on the tongues of most Americans,
mine included."
ESPN refers to Woods and Armstrong as if they shared the spotlight on either side of the English Channel. How can that be when network television didn't even bother to show anything on the final day of the Tour? And isn't it true that ABC and ESPN are not renewing their contract to cover the Tour for next year?
Dave Winer pointed out on Scripting News that Go.com has released its Content Management system under a modified Apache license. Their system is called "Tea" and you can check it out at http://opensource.go.com/.
Wired News is reporting that a credit profiling service called CyberSource may be excluding certain consumers with good credit histories from participating in e-commerce transactions.
"CyberSource's database includes the purchase history of all cards used
across all of its client sites. The company analyzes each new purchase
request against the database, running it through a complex series of
algorithms that ultimately spit out a single number between 0-99. The
higher the number, the higher the likelihood that the requested transaction
is fraudulent, according to CyberSource."
What happens next depends upon the vendor. But, a lot of vendors simply tell declined customers to call their credit card company. This is often the beginning of a big run-around because the credit card company typically has no access to the risk information on which CyberSource based its calculation.
Steven Vore of Mumble Daily was the first person to report a glitch at ctdata.com since we implemented the new Slashcode-based architecture.
hmm, it may just be me, but right now (~2048 eastern, Sunday evening) some parts of the site appear sick :-) I get a lot of
"[an error occurred while processing this directive]" in various places, and when clicking on the "Also by dave_aiello" link I get
a whole bunch of fun messages.... just thought you might like to know, in case this wasn't expected
Former CTDATA customer L.L. Bean is quietly establishing retail stores in exclusive suburban malls in the Northeast. This is reported this morning by the Associated Press, among others.
We stumbled upon this new approach to their business when Kathleen Kuykendall and Dave Aiello walked into Tyson's Corner Center in McLean, VA last weekend after a biathlon. The store is not set to open until this coming weekend, but it is obvious that L.L. Bean was looking for retail space in exclusive malls to create stores that bring a bit of the Freeport retail store experience closer to their customers.
Next time you see him, ask Martin O'Donnell how he went to Freeport for a day of shopping and didn't set foot in the L.L. Bean retail store? That must be like getting to Mecca and not going to the mosque.
Reports this morning indicate that VoiceStream Wireless Corporation has agreed to be acquired by Deutsche Telekom (NYT: registration required) for $50.8 billion pending the approval of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
Who is VoiceStream? It's an acquisition vehicle that was created to unite most of the GSM-based cellular telephone systems in the United States. A former McCaw executive named John Stanton founded it in 1995 as a spin-off from Western Wireless that focused on digital mobile communications. They bought Omnipoint and Aerial along the way to assembling a national footprint. Hutchison Whampoa and Sonera invested before most people had ever heard of the company.
This will be a merger to die for if you are a Washington lobbyist. Congress and the FCC are very hesitant to let a company that is largely owned by a foreign government (Telekom) acquire a potentially large national communications company. If this deal goes through, however, it would apparently dilute the German government stake in Deutsche Telekom to less than 50 percent.
The New York Times says that Reed Hunt, ex-chairman of the FCC and current consultant for McKinsey, predicts that the deal will not receive approval of all the constituencies in the U.S. Government that will claim jurisdiction unless the German government reduces its stake in Telekom to 25 percent. Perhaps they could merge with the U.S. Postal Service instead?
Think of the possibilities...
What will happen, however, is that this will put further pressure on AT&T Wireless Services and other telecommunications companies with international ambitions to make acquisitions and network infrastructure investments that permit worldwide use of the same mobile phones. This was one of the things that made VoiceStream such a great candidate for Telekom in the first place.
Congratulations to folks like Richard Ziegler who had the foresight to get an account on Omnipoint before it became fashionable to roam from the U.S. to Europe with the same phone. Did they give you stock options when you opened your account? We should all be so lucky....
Over ten years experience in all aspects of client / server application design and maintenance. Three years experience in full life cycle implementation of World Wide Web, electronic mail, File Transfer Protocol (FTP), and other Internet-style servers. Two years experience with integration of various Internet servers and SQL databases. Implementor of encryption and digital certificates (Secure Sockets Layer 2.0 and 3.0) on the Netscape SuiteSpot server platform. Developer of several Web applications which have been converted from "legacy" client / server systems.
Read on for [ Experience | Education | Additional Training | References ]
See also [ Biographical Sketch of Dave Aiello ]
Lead the effort to adapt the Slashcode Open Source Project to the J.P. Morgan Chase corporate IT environment. Successfully ported Slash 0.3 and 0.93 from Linux / Apache / mySQL to Solaris / Netscape Enterprise Server / Sybase. The Slash Engine implementation is currently being used as the basis for a Knowledge Management application within the Audit Department.
AuditXchange, the Internal Audit Web Site, is implemented on Netscape Enterprise Server 3.6 under the Solaris operating system. Content is generated dynamically from a Sybase SQL Server 11.9.2 database using Perl 5.005 and DBI with the DBD::Sybase driver.
In October 2000, AuditXchange surpassed 1,000 individual stories (content pages). Content under management is growing at an annualized rate of approximately 725 percent.
Implemented a series of Java Beans, Java Servlets, and Java Server Pages within the Epicentric Portal Server application framework. These "portal beans" appear to the user as modules within the portal environment. Created the first module for the employee portal the implemented Rich Site Summary (RSS) syndication. Also implemented modules that capture headlines of several other news-oriented Intranet sites on the J.P. Morgan internal network.
The Employee Portal is implemented on Netscape Enterprise Server 3.6 under the Solaris operating system. Content is generated dynamically by Epicentric Portal Server Version 2.1.
The Web Sites ctdata.com and rcnj.org were converted from small Web Sites with individually designed Web Pages between June and September 2000. Page views on the two Web Sites increased approximately 1,000 percent. They are now considered two of the best Web Sites in their market niches. Headlines from these Web Sites appear on my.netscape.com, my.userland.com, and xmltree.com.
In order to complete this project, a fractional T1 had to be ordered, installed, and tested. Internet services had to be established with an ISP. A Windows NT Server running WebSite, Post.Office (POP3 / SMTP server), and an FTP server had to be installed, tested, and maintained. The Server had to be configured for multiple TCP/IP addresses and home pages. FrontPage Server Extensions also had to be installed and configured.
Managed successful conversion from WebSite to Microsoft Internet Information Server Version 2, and from IIS Version 2 to Version 3. Managed successful conversion from Internet Information Server Version 3 to Netscape Enterprise Server Version 3. Managed successful migration from Post.Office to Netscape Messaging Server.
Managed successful migration from 256k Frame-Relay Connection to full T-1. This required a co-ordinated cut from the existing virtual circuit to one with a larger capacity. It also required a multi-stage DNS change to ensure that service to customers? Web Sites and mail servers was not interrupted.
Designed and co-developed the Atlantic District Officiating Program Web Site, http://www.aaharefs.org/, the largest and most technically complex Web-based application operated by USA Hockey or its affiliates. This Web Site went live at the beginning of August 1999.
The Atlantic District Officiating Program Web Site was implemented on Netscape Enterprise Server 3.6 on the Windows NT operating system. Content is generated from Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 using Perl 5.005 with DBI and DBD::ODBC.
The database was originally implemented as a client / server application based on 4th Dimension for the Macintosh, which was maintained from 1994 to 1996. In May 1996, the database was successfully ported to Microsoft SQL Server 6.0. This was upgraded to SQL Server 6.5 in 1998.
Consolidated a number of partially functioning individual Web Pages, and made a single, coherent Web Site out of them. This became the Unilever North American Foods Intranet.
Designed a new look and feel for the North American Foods Intranet using NetObjects Fusion 3.0 for Windows NT. Deployed the Web Site on a Lotus Domino Web Server (Version 4.6). Created an interface between the NetObjects Fusion Web Site and a number of Lotus Notes databases that had been "Web-enabled."
Also designed and built a small document repository using the Windows NT File System (NTFS). Wrote CGI and non-CGI scripts with ActiveState Perl 5.003 which would dynamically build "index" pages for each directory in the file system. These index pages were automatically linked into the North American Foods Intranet by a combination of the logic embedded in the Perl scripts and the settings established in the Domino Server Administration database.
Served as Database Administrator for the IRexpress project through the development, alpha, and beta testing stages. Managed schema and server-based logic using Embarcadero DBArtisan and Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise Manager. Built four separate server environments using Compaq Proliant and Prosignia servers, and IBM Netfinity servers.
Managed schema migrations between 16 SQL Server databases on four servers. Wrote most of the stored procedures and triggers. Tuned the database for performance by creating new clustered and non-clustered indexes, changing device and segment placement, and moving database logic from web server to database server.
Wrote End-of-Day batch processes in ActiveState Perl for Win32, an implementation of Perl 5.003. The End-of-Day scripts integrated calls to Microsoft SQL Server with calls to the Windows NT operating system via the Korn Shell in MKS Toolkit. Made the script portable to a Sybase System XI / UNIX environment by abstracting all calls to the Windows NT operating system away from the core code of the scripts.
Developed, implemented, and documented a testing program which evaluated the differences between Analyst Workstation, a Microsoft Windows application developed by Management Science Associates of Pittsburgh PA, and DataNet, a similar application written for the Apple Macintosh.
IRIS is a bio-informatics application written by Human Genome Sciences of Rockville MD. The legacy front end of the application is written in 4th Dimension and 4D SQL Server by ACI. The rewritten version of the front end is being implemented in Netscape LiveWire running on Netscape Enterprise Server Version 3.0, connecting to Sybase via DB-Library.
In order to complete this project, a frame relay connection had to be ordered, installed, and tested. Internet services had to be established with an ISP. A Windows NT Server running Netscape Enterprise Server and Netscape Messaging Server had to be installed, tested, and maintained.
Provided SQL Server consulting services to InterWorld for enhancement of this major Internet site owned by Ziff-Davis' ComputerShopper publication. Advised InterWorld to denormalize certain information to reduce number of joins required to complete a query initiated by a Site user. Also recommended improvements in the non-clustered indexes on most important tables.
Netbuyer Web Site is run on a Compaq Proliant with multiple Pentium CPUs, 512 megabytes of RAM, and gigabytes of hard disk space in RAID configuration. Server runs Windows NT 4.0, Microsoft SQL Server 6.5, and Internet Information Server 3.0.
Adapted major portions of the FX Options Systems' functionality to the Emerging Markets business. System has been used primarily in the FX, FX Options, and Cross-Markets Proprietary Trading businesses at J.P. Morgan, worldwide. Acted as DBO (database owner) on two Sybase 4.9.2 databases and one System XI database. Wrote and installed stored procedures and triggers, wrote UNIX shell scripts that performed operations on development and production databases, made changes to database schemas.
Supported a User Acceptance Test, lasting more than 6 weeks, in J.P. Morgan's Mexico City Office. Test consisted of individual application functionality and synergistic testing of three custom software packages, one custom Sybase Open Client application, and interfaces to several vertical market applications in the Mexico City office.
In order to complete this project, a fractional T1 had to be ordered, installed, and tested. Internet services had to be established with an ISP. A Windows NT Server running WebSite, Sybase SQL Server for NT, and Post.Office had to be installed, tested, and maintained.
System was decommissioned at the request of the client in May 1996, when the proposal to Citibank was completed.
Currently serving as President of the Rensselaer Club of New Jersey, http://www.rcnj.org/, the New Jersey Chapter of the Rensselaer Alumni Association.
Received the Alumni Key Award from the Rensselaer Alumni Association, for outstanding service to Rensselaer, in June 1998.
Dave Aiello wrote, "On behalf of CTDATA, I would like to extend a special welcome to visitors who found us through my.userland.com and xmltree.com. These Web Sites are among the world leaders in the application of Content Syndication techniques."
"CTDATA is a consulting firm that builds database driven Web Sites. We especially like to build weblogs, knowledge management systems, self-managing directories, and other types of sites that help to build virtual communities."
Dave Aiello continues, "This is our first effort in applying Content Syndication techniques to our own Web Site. We began by relaunching our Web Site, now managed by our own customized version of the Slashcode application. To that we quickly added a content syndication server based on Version 0.8 of the XML::RSS Perl Module."
"We hope you enjoy your visit to our Web Site, and that you will come back to ctdata.com for more news and information about content management, content syndication, Web user interface design, database driven Web Sites, and advanced Perl programming techniques."
User Interface refers to the functional aspects of the appearance of a piece of technology. For instance, the user interface of a car is the steering wheel, accelerator, brake, and other objects that the driver uses to control the car or entertain its passengers.
CTDATA's interest in user interface design mainly concerns the appearance and functionality of Web Sites on the Internet or a corporate Intranet. Our efforts are focused on improving the visitor's experience at a Web Site by enhancing the intuitiveness of navigational and transactional controls. This is a fancy way of saying that we want to:
The Customer Service section of our Web Site will contain announcements that are aimed at CTDATA customers.
Initially, these announcements will be geared toward small businesses that have contracted with CTDATA for hosting of their Web Sites or electronic mail services. Over time, we hope to be able to use this section to communicate with customers who use our Content Management tools.
When people in the Web Publishing industry refer to "Content Syndication", they are referring to the automated process of sharing information between two Web Sites. This process is often facilitated by an exchange of information according to one of several popular XML data formats that are generally understood by high end Content Management systems.
The most popular XML standard for Content Syndication at the moment is RSS or Rich Site Summary.
Proper application of Content Syndication is key to creating a Web Site that visitors keep coming back to over time. That's why we created a section of our Web Site to discuss it.
Content Management is the term that people in the Web Publishing and Web Site Development businesses use to refer to the systems that they use to create, edit, and publish information to their Web Sites.
Most people who talk about content management are talking about high end publishing systems like Vignette, Interwoven, Allaire Spectra, and similar high cost commercial products. Slashcode and the ArsDigita Community System are a couple of the leading OpenSource products in this space.
There is a lot going on in this part of the industry and CTDATA has some experience in the space. We will put articles and information about Content Management systems and operating techniques into this section of the site.
Dave Aiello wrote, "Many of you received an e-mail from me on Monday, July 10, explaining that our mail
servers were attacked by people attempting to send SPAM (junk e-mail) through
them. We have corrected the problem and increased the security of the mail
servers."
Unfortunately, our security changes require that some of you will need to make
configuration changes to the programs that you use to send and receive e-mail.
If you do not use Netscape Communicator for mail, you should pay close
attention to the following information.
E-mail clients like Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Outlook Express allow you
to choose whether to use a protocol called Authenticated SMTP. The mail
servers mail.ctdata.com and mail.gcf-inc.com now require you to use
Authenticated SMTP to send outgoing e-mail. If you do not enable Authenticated
SMTP, your outgoing mail (to domains other than ctdata.com and gcf-inc.com)
will not go through and will not be returned to you.
Here are some instructions that I found that explain how to enable
Authenticated SMTP in Outlook Express. The full text of this is found in the
Microsoft Knowledge Base at:
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q200/7/88.ASP?LN=EN-US&SD=gn&FR=0
"To determine if an Outlook Express client is configured to require
authentication when connecting to an outgoing mail server, follow the steps
below. For other clients, refer to that client's documentation.
Sorry for any inconvenience this may be causing you. Please let me know if you
do not understand how to comply with these instructions, and I will try to help
you determine how to proceed.
Dave Aiello wrote, "My mother had a refrigerator magnet that said, 'Boring women have immaculate homes'. There is a parallel in the Web development community -- Only unemployed Web developers have good Web Sites. That's been our view until now, at least."
"We got tired of saving our best work for our clients. Our friends and family deserve a glimpse of our best technology. Therefore, we present our relaunched corporate Web Site, for your viewing pleasure."
"In the finest eat-your-own-dog-food tradition, we deliver the content through a modified version of Slashcode, the OpenSource project that is based on the Slashdot Web Site."