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The Importance Of Technology News

admin — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 05:24:49 +0000

In today’s high tech world it is unsurprising that so many areas of commerce and life depend upon technology and subsequently, any news in these fields is of vital importance to even the lay reader. Technology news is so important that many news websites have created dedicated pages purely to report on technological developments.

Naturally industries such as computing and video gaming are heavily interested in the developments reported as part of technology news stories. In computing new processor chips as well as other developments are always followed closely to assess the power of future computers. The same can be said for the video games industry that constantly uses technology news stories to keep an eye on what competitors are doing.

Not only can news in this industry contain technological developments but sales figures and levels of worldwide sales of consoles or games. Another essential element of news in the gaming industry is to see which games are being banned and heavily policed by regulators as this can help developers gain a good idea of where the boundaries lay in game development.

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There are industries that rely on the technology news pages that may surprise some people; the medical industry relies heavily on technical developments to advance forms of diagnosis and treatment. A recent story on students using consoles to increase their dexterity before surgery was a news article that provided a unique insight into the medical world.

Surprisingly sports are becoming increasingly reliant upon technology to increase their efficiency and skill levels; in cricket it is believed that some players where GPS systems that reveal the amount of running a specific player does during a match and hence alter his training scheme accordingly.

The importance of technology in communications is probably where news is most important. As one of the fastest developing industries in the world, communications has the potential to change our lives unimaginably. Already the mobile phone has revolutionised the way we live and communicate and hence many want to be well informed when a new technology arrives. Next generation phones with full mobile internet as well as GPS navigation systems are at the forefront of the mobile phone industry meaning enthusiasts as well as industry commentators are glued to news stories as they role off the presses.

Other developments reported in the technology news pages include information on the interfaces we use to interact with our various pieces of technology. Recent stories have included reports of headsets that allow users to control game characters through emotions and facial expressions as well as the ability to move items cognitively in a virtual world. Outside of the gaming sphere the rumours of a ’3D internet’ are rife as increasing progress is made in the way we interact with technology.

Developments include ways in which technology may change our home lives. With news stories reporting of fridges that can automatically order food as it runs out, self cleaning ovens and vacuum cleaners that will clean the house without the lifting of the finger. If you believe all the news stories have to say, in the future we will be living in a world without manual labour.

Everyone should have a passing interest in technological developments as eventually they may change everyone’s lives for the better. Granted some of the technology news stories can be too detailed for the lay reader to enjoy but if the stories are written from a general interest perspective, all should be entertained and educated about technology that may one day change the world.

The Importance Of Technology News

admin — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 15:31:48 +0000

The importance of technology cannot be underestimated; the technological industries are probably the fastest moving in the world following news stories is vital because technology can cover all manner of industries and hence news stories vary greatly in subject matter.
In today’s high tech world it is unsurprising that so many areas of commerce and life depend upon technology and subsequently, any news in these fields is of vital importance to even the lay reader. Technology news is so important that many news websites have created dedicated pages purely to report on technological developments.
Naturally industries such as computing and video gaming are heavily interested in the developments reported as part of technology news stories. In computing new processor chips as well as other developments are always followed closely to assess the power of future computers. The same can be said for the video games industry that constantly uses technology news stories to keep an eye on what competitors are doing.
Not only can news in this industry contain technological developments but sales figures and levels of worldwide sales of consoles or games. Another essential element of news in the gaming industry is to see which games are being banned and heavily policed by regulators as this can help developers gain a good idea of where the boundaries lay in game development.
There are industries that rely on the technology news pages that may surprise some people; the medical industry relies heavily on technical developments to advance forms of diagnosis and treatment. A recent story on students using consoles to increase their dexterity before surgery was a news article that provided a unique insight into the medical world.
Surprisingly sports are becoming increasingly reliant upon technology to increase their efficiency and skill levels; in cricket it is believed that some players where GPS systems that reveal the amount of running a specific player does during a match and hence alter his training scheme accordingly.
The importance of technology in communications is probably where news is most important. As one of the fastest developing industries in the world, communications has the potential to change our lives unimaginably. Already the mobile phone has revolutionised the way we live and communicate and hence many want to be well informed when a new technology arrives. Next generation phones with full mobile internet as well as GPS navigation systems are at the forefront of the mobile phone industry meaning enthusiasts as well as industry commentators are glued to news stories as they role off the presses.
Other developments reported in the technology news pages include information on the interfaces we use to interact with our various pieces of technology. Recent stories have included reports of headsets that allow users to control game characters through emotions and facial expressions as well as the ability to move items cognitively in a virtual world. Outside of the gaming sphere the rumours of a ’3D internet’ are rife as increasing progress is made in the way we interact with technology.
Developments include ways in which technology may change our home lives. With news stories reporting of fridges that can automatically order food as it runs out, self cleaning ovens and vacuum cleaners that will clean the house without the lifting of the finger. If you believe all the news stories have to say, in the future we will be living in a world without manual labour.
Everyone should have a passing interest in technological developments as eventually they may change everyone’s lives for the better. Granted some of the technology news stories can be too detailed for the lay reader to enjoy but if the stories are written from a general interest perspective, all should be entertained and educated about technology that may one day change the world.

Great Plains Reseller Chicago, San Diego News: Verticals

admin — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 04:55:49 +0000

Microsoft Dynamics GP ERP in its core set of modules is ready for implementing in industries as ERP and MRP platform, however every business is unique with its business processes and workflows. If you are on the edge of your industry, chances are high that existing GP add-ons do not exist or do not do the job for your company. In this case Dynamics GP implementation requires customization, and new unique add-on development specially for your company. These add-ons are often referred as vertical ERP solutions or verticals. In the case of Microsoft Great Plains we would like to give you GP add-ons programming highlights:

1.       Customizations. If we are talking about intervention into Great Plains user interface, then this is technically customization (not integration, where it is happening on data feeding or exporting level). Great Plains customizations traditionally are written in Great Plains Dexterity with SQL stored procedures and sometimes eConnect extensions. Dex allows you to plug in your add-on into GP user interface and security realm. If you need Dexterity modification, you should probably seek professional Great Plains consultant help, as Dex learning curve is pretty long and not practical in most of the cases

2.       Integrations. You can use Dexterity for integration development, however you can deploy also eConnect or SQL stored procedures, which you could call directly from C# or VB.Net MS Visual Studio project

3.       Reporting. Reports design could be done again in Dexterity, however you can use more open tools, such as Crystal Reports, MS SQL Server Reporting Services (SRS), MS Access and even MS Excel reporting plug-ins (Pivoted Tables, for example). Integrated Reports are written in GP ReportWriter (which is Dexterity based interface), where you modify such popular and needed forms as Check, Sales Invoice, Purchase Order, Aging Reports, Bill of Lading, to name a few

4.       Financial Reporting. Here you use FRx, which is naturally linked to your General Ledger accounts and their summaries, plus it allows you to create reporting trees and consolidate multiple GP companies

Dynamics GP Partner Chicago, San Diego News: Integration Manager

admin — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:32:31 +0000

Great Plains integrations, especially in Edi and ecommerce scenarios are very popular and in our opinion they are not overly too complex to design and implement. If you are MS Visual Studio C#, VB .Net programmer with some SQL and XML skills, you should be able to program real time or batch mode integrations in eConnect SDK for Dynamics GP, and as such your integration could be called directly as part of your ecommerce web site instruments. However if you do not carry programmer in your IT department, but have some SQL expertise, you do not even have to touch eConnect, as most of the job could be done in Great Plains Integration Manager directly, and you could schedule integration as macro, and the rest of work for EDI or ecommerce integration could be done in SQL Views. Read this small publication as orientation session in GP IM:

1. Simple integration scenarios. If you have text CSV or tab delimited file as integration source, then all you need to do is to establish simple text file source and if your target has header and lines, where you have only single file, you need to look at grouping feature. For example, if you plan to import GL transactions – one per each day of Retail operations, natural grouping would be transaction date. Two sources will be based on one text file, where header will be grouped by date and transactions will be as they are and you link header and lines by Date field

2. Advanced ODBC over text file. Imaging that you have CSV or Excel file, which has several columns, staying for SOP Invoice Item lines each column. In our opinion, this one is pretty challenging in creating Advanced ODBC Source and then creating unions over the same text file, pulling specific column in first select, then unionize it with the second column in the second select and so on. This natural technology of building unions is unfortunately complicated by bugs in ODBC Text driver, where you cannot save Select statement field format in INI file. The work around – have driver guess on field format every integration once again

3. Advanced ODBC over SQL View. This is the most advanced scenario, when you can expose transactions from ODBC compliant DB: MS SQL Server, Oracle, Linux PHP MySQL, Microsoft Access, Lotus Notes (with repetitive records). Our favorite technique is this – create linked server in MS SQL Server 2005 Management Studio or SQL 2000 Enterprise Manager and then create heterogeneous, meaning cross-platform SQL View and base Advanced ODBC Source on that view. Here you can practice with EDI (precisely formatted SQL Select statement). To make your integration more powerful, consider creation SQL DTS package, where you expose specific day transactions set and mark them as exposed and when integration is accomplished with success flag, mark those transactions as integrated

4. VBA scripting in IM integration. Here you have additional alteration options in even driven scripts: Before Integration, Before Document Commit, etc. Good example would be something like this – imagine you are in Collection business and you have to issue checks to your customers with 30 days payment delay. In Before Document commit script you can increase check date accordingly

Great Plains Technology Partner News: Dynamics Gp Implementation

admin — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:04:07 +0000

Former Great Plains Software Dynamics and eEnterprise, after being acquired by Microsoft, received new name Microsoft Dynamics GP. Great Plains is very solid ERP and MRP platform for traditional functional implementation, as well as to be integrated into corporate IT infrastructure, where you may already have such pieces as CRM, Sales Order Processing, ecommerce, EDI, Warehouse Management with Barcode, Contract Management, Groupware for example. In this small publication we would like to review the specifics of our company as Great Plains Certified Partner and Reseller:

1.       Orientation in Technology. If you are reading these lines, likely the case is your partial disappointing in local Great Plains VAR project implementing case. Traditional local GP partner, especially small and mid-size, has to make their profit on new Great Plains software license sale, followed by traditional implementation and user training. Of course there are multiple exceptions, however it is not necessary the case that local GP VAR carries robust department of Great Plains Programmers and Technical consultants. There is probably not enough local business for local Dynamics GP reseller to support its own Software Development Factory. Great Plains advanced technical expertise could be found in nationwide Dynamics GP technology partners

2.       Dynamics GP technology highlights. Talking about Great Plains customization and programming – you should review such tools as Dynamics GP Dexterity, eConnect, SQL stored procedures. In GP integrating arena – GP Integration Manager, where you need strong SQL views and select statement programming with grouping and aggregation, plus IM itself may need VBA scripting and such technologies as name translation. In the case of e-commerce, your tool of choice is eConnect and for Automatic batch posting in Great Plains from eCommerce application you need Alba Spectrum Posting Server

3.       Great Plains Software Development Factory and key success factors to work with it. SDF is centralized place with large number of GP Dexterity, eConnect, C# and VB.Net developers and SQL coders and programmers. You are probably OK with the idea to pay for Great Plains project manager to travel to your location, however it is impractical to invite GP programmers onsite. As key success factor in our practice we see the option to setup test server for your modification, reporting and custom integration project

4.       International Environment Support. As you may know Great Plains is available in English speaking countries: USA, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, UK, Philippines, Oceania, South East Asia, Middle East. Plus it is available in Spanish for Central, South America and Caribbean region. We also recognize Chinese and Brazilian businesses in US, where they implement GP for US operations. GP support in Spanish, Chinese and Portuguese is recommended in International business

Great Plains Dynamics Gp Reseller News: Custom Ecommerce Integration

admin — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 14:16:25 +0000

Microsoft Dynamics GP or former name Great Plains Dynamics ERP has large number of installations in USA, Canada, Mexico, Caribbean, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Asia. Modern market forces companies to go online and expose their stock through B2B or B2C e-commerce stores. If you are starting from scratch, then you should pick existing e-commerce add-on for GP, however if you ecommerce web store has long history and works as you need, then you should map custom integration to and from Great Plains. Obviously each case is unique and each company has different criteria and business procedures, in this small publication we will try to give you just general highlights in custom eCommerce programming

1.       GP modules, exposed to integration. Likely these are Sales Order Processing module, receiving either customer orders or directly invoices. Also, Inventory Control module, which exposes inventory items, as well as pricelists and pricing schemas. Often you need to expose custom catalogues, depending on the customer class or individual customer. In this case, you need to build this catalog on the fly, based on customer login credentials.

2.       Integrating Phases. Assuming that you already have ecommerce up and running, probably without or with minimal integration to Great Plains, the first phase should just send sales documents as they were generated autonomously in ecommerce to Great Plains SOP module. When this first phase is implemented and proved to be stable, then you could try to move the source of your items and pricing to Great Plains Inventory Control module

3.       Integration tools. To try the simplest approach, which is not real time integration – try to either export your ecommerce orders to text file, or create advanced ODBC integration for GP Integration Manager. In the case of advanced ODBC source, your integration could look back to your ecommerce database and in After Document Commit script you can program ADO connection to your ecommerce database or GP orders integration status tracking table and mark order or invoice as integrated. If you need real time integration, then consider programming integration in eConnect, especially if you have good C# or VB .Net programmer with strong SQL architecture understanding. In certain cases you can create and deploy SQL custom stored procedures, however in this scenario you will be exposed to higher possibility of business logic violating bugs and their fixing

4.       GP automatic batch posting. If you need your ecommerce application to post Sales Order Processing invoices all the way through GL directly from ecommerce and without GP operator approval and even involvement, then you will need Alba Spectrum Posting Server

Great Plains Partner News: Integration Manager and Ecommerce

admin — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 21:52:28 +0000

Microsoft Dynamics GP Integration Manager is often perceived as end user integrating tool only, however if you research and try out Advanced ODBC integration, which is capable to cross DB platforms and work with heterogeneous SQL query to bring data into Dynamics GP Great Plains, then new horizons should open up for you, Great Plains Programmer and Add-On software developer. Please note, that GP IM for GP version 10.0 and newer is built and will be built upon eConnect platform, meaning breaking through Integration Manager performance issues and enabling large scale integrations with GP in real time. Let’s try to organize this small publication in FAQ manner with bullets:

1.          What is eConnect. The technology lowest level of this GP SDK is encrypted SQL stored procedures, which could be called from the stack of under laying technologies. If you are C# or VB .Net programmer, then, assuming that you are using MS Visual Studio – eConnect is open for you in C# .Net projects via eConnect libraries

2.          Integration Manager in the transformation stage. From OLE old integrations to eConnect new integrations. The signal was received from Microsoft Business Solutions at the end of 2006, however up to now, fall of 2008, IM is still in process of being rewritten in eConnect, but the trend is clear and we expect couple of more years, until we will see Integration Manager to be finalized in eConnect technology

3.          Advanced ODBC source query flexibility and performance. IM has simple text data source, simple ODBC and Advanced ODBC source, where only advanced allows you to deploy advanced SQL queries and constructions, such as Unions, Group by, Having and Case clauses. Advanced ODBC integration may look back and pool data from your legacy DB source, where you can pull data using legacy DB ODBC driver or cross platform query from linked SQL server

4.          Overnight eCommerce integration. Deploying GP IM, you could schedule overnight ecommerce sales orders integration to GP, assuming that IM looks at ecommerce SQL compliant database and pulls data from there. We understand that IM programming might be outside of your skill set and intentions , please let us know if you need help and support

Great Plains Consultant Chicago, San Diego News: Dynamics Gp Reporting

admin — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 18:37:06 +0000

Microsoft Dynamics GP ERP has multiple reporting tools: Report Writer, Crystal Reports, MS SQL Server Reporting Services, FRx, Microsoft Access reports, Excel reporting. Seeing such a variety of tools, you need to know that report design tool selection depends on the report nature. For example if you need to link several modules in Dynamics GP, such as Sales Order Processing and Purchase Order Processing (when your project is done for sales commission release, when items and services are sold and goods are delivered by your vendors) – then you should consider Crystal Reports or SRS, where you can create SQL Stored Procedure or View as report background. Let’s briefly review reporting tools selection and their capabilities:

1.       FRx. FRx report designer links directly to Great Plains General Ledger. This means that you should consider this report design tools for GL level reports, including consolidated reports, working over FRx reporting tree. Also it works with GL budgets as well as has an option to consolidate your GP companies with virtual companies, which are exported into Excel worksheet – FRx has Excel linking mechanism.

2.       Dynamics GP ReportWriter. The strong points of this tool are direct call of existing reports from GP user workstation with parameters screens. RW is seamlessly integrated with GP interface and user security realm. Such reports as SOP Invoice Blank form is one of the most popular for RW modification – you got to place your company logo on Sales Invoice Form. You can also create RW compatible report in Great Plains Dexterity customizations and these reports will be available via GP Customize menu. Such Dex reports are known as GP Alternate Modified reports. RW is less flexible than Crystal Reports or SRS, but it can have GP parameters entry screen within GP user security realm

3.       Crystal Reports and SRS. You may think that these two tools are coming from different vendors and unlikely are comparable. However in the case of Great Plains report design they are similar in report programming technology – the best reports are based on MS SQL Server Stored procedure or SQL view

4.       MS Access, Excel and generic MS Visual Studio .Net report publishing. Excel and MS Access can hook up ODBC compliant DB platform, such as MS SQL Server in VBA scripting. C# or VB .Net programmer or Great Plains Technical Consultant can build GP report via SQL select statement in ADO.Net. If you are .Net MS Visual Studio developer, please consider eConnect programming versus direct SQL select statements. If you need GP tables structure, please install GP SDK from CD #2

Dynamics GP Integration Partner Chicago, San Diego News: eConnect programming

admin — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 08:07:02 +0000

Microsoft Dynamics GP ERP, formerly known as Great Plains Dynamics and eEnterprise has good selection of custom programming and integration tools, plus from the SQL Server itself you could try Stored Procedures integration. Consider Dynamics GP Integration Manager, where you can simply setup integration without programming or even add some integration logic alteration via VBA scripts in Before Integration, Before Document Commit and other events. If your integration requires very deep interaction with Great Plains tables and custom tables, you can try Dynamics GP Dexterity programming (where you create custom tables and handle integration on both standard and custom ones) or eConnect Microsoft Visual Studio C# or VB.Net programming. This publication is not intended as eConnect eCommerce programming guide, we would like to give you the orientation in what to expect from eConnect, and we assume that you as software developer will be able to include eConnect libraries to your MS VS project and work with eConnect sample codes on your own:

1. Work Transactions and Master Records. eConnect allows you to create so-called work transactions, place them into the batch: Sales Order Processing Order or Invoice (this is especially valuable in ecommerce website programming), Purchase Order, GL transaction, etc. and if required create or alter existing master records: customer, vendor, GL account, Payroll Employee, Address

2. eConnect versus SQL Stored Procedures. If you think that there is no need to deploy eConnect and instead code your own custom SQL Stored Procedures, please note, that you in essence will be recoding GP business logic, which is already coded by Microsoft Dynamics GP programmers in Microsoft – in our opinion it is waste of time, unnecessary learning curve and potential source of numerous bugs and even data integrity threat. And again in our opinion Stored Procedures should be coded only when your integration project is very simple – and even here, please look at Great Plains Integration Manager first

3. eConnect versus Integration Manager. The tendency is the following – IM is in process of being rewritten with eConnect connectors, and walking away from legacy OLE Server based approach. This fact should mean for you that IM is as fast as custom eConnect application. eConnect application, however might be triggered in real time, where IM should be either called by IM operator or scheduled with Windows scheduler or special Windows Macro based application

4. Automatic Batch Posting in ecommerce. This is something that eConnect doesn’t have, you should deploy Dynamics GP ISV add-on, Alba Spectrum Posting Server, which will allows you to place batches in Autopost queue and then posting process will be launched by Posting Server GP workstation

5. If you feel that you need Dynamics GP consultant help, please call your Great Plains Guru, or if you do not have one, consider calling to Great Plains Resellers in your area or who are familiar with your industry. Feel free to call us: 1-866-528-0577, help@albaspectrum.com