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Criteria for a Capable Monitoring System

aibrahim — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 06:30:33 +0000

This is a note from a book i was reading about scalable architectures that I would like to keep in front of me to look into from time to time.

The book is named Scalable Internet Architectures, In brief it states that what makes a good monitoring system is two criteria :

The time invested in it.
Being reliable and extensible.

and the most basic capabilities of this system would be :

SNMP support
Extensibility
Flexible Notifications
Custom Reactions
Complex Scheduling
Maintenance scheduling
Event acknowledgement
Service dependencies

Recruitment System – One of my projects

aibrahim — Sat, 08 May 2010 14:57:04 +0000

I wanted to post this since a while.

The recruitment system is one of the applications I built for cha-international while working there beside developing the Middle East & North Africa travel awards system, mail marketing system, and converting all their servers from windows to Linux.

In brief the system has the following features :

Backend :

Managing countries, Nationalities, Languages, World Areas, System Announcements.

Managing Education Levels, Industries, Titles, Departments, System Reply Messages, Candidate Status, Candidates Classifications, and Quotes.

Testimonials section where the company can post its clients testimonials to be displayed in the frontend.

Managing 2 types of resumes : Uploaded Attachments, and Detailed filled forms Resumes.

Easy form for the data entry team to add the resumes from the backend.

Searching for candidates, using simple forms like name, email or advanced one which contains name, different nationalities, different languages, age, sex, industry, title, keyword in resume, etc.

Consultants area where they can post / close job posting, search for candidates, export word version of resumes, add to their favorite list, recommend them to another consultant.

Consultants also can comment on the resumes, change their availability status to be seen by other consultants, and communicate with the candidate through the reply messages and keep track of those sent messages.

The system has a approval workflow engine, the admins have to check the resume to approve it first.

The system has a privileges section where the administrator can create a new role, assign access to certain areas in the backend to certain role, and assign the roles to system users.

Feedback system where the backend users can communicate with the administrator for support tickets, etc.

Auditrail system where every action in the system is logged.

Frontend:

Simple upload form where users can just upload their resume and simple details.

Advanced profile form where users can fill in all the details, and add many attachments to their profiles.

Listing, Simple search, advanced search for jobs, and applying to them.

Clients area where they can request certain services.

Featured profiles, where a certain profiles selected by the admins showed in frontend.

The project was completely built from scratch using Zend Framework, and right now it has more than 70,000 applicant in its database, and the system is as fast as you see in the videos, these demos were taken with 50,000 record in the database.

Please don’t give me any feedback on the design , I am just a developer.

Here is some videos describing the different features of the system, I will try to post a better quality ones later.

Change your Signature

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXMg4q43Vf0

Search Resumes

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUCuQ3XZmHg

Apply as New Candidate

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNMVIahQAeU

Send Feedback to support

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QiwYphCi2k

Consultant Functionality walk through

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU6MDYO-xsw

Check who applied for your job

www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7_ZNVjksKg

Apply for Posted Job

www.youtube.com/watch?v=B06xlZr8A-w

What is your favorite MAC App?

aibrahim — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 12:16:42 +0000

Many of the new mac users are looking for apps to do the tasks they need on their new OS.

I am making a list of Mac apps to help the new converters , and the best source to prepare such a list is mac users, so what is your favorite MAC app ?

Mine is TextMate

TextMate

What is yours ?

note: your mentioned apps will be listed in a later post, thus your replies is highly important

Manage your notes / Code snippets with Snippely

aibrahim — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 17:27:35 +0000

It has been a challenge for me to keep tracking code snippets I want to remember, I have always used text files, or sending my self email with the snippet that I feel I am gonna need to look at again in the future, same for notes also.

Today I have found this nice Air App called Snippely, it allow you to manage your notes / code snippets, It is enough for me and better than text files and emails, I believe I am gonna stick to it for now.

Only Two options I wish to see in the coming version, to backup / restore the data & to sync the data across many machines, but like I said, I am happy with what I have now.

You can get Snippely from their Google Code page : http://code.google.com/p/snippely/

I hope you will find it as much useful as I did.

Web Developer Brain

aibrahim — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 22:22:09 +0000

A Developer Brain is not like an ordinary person brain, he has experienced things ordinary people never had, that led that organ to grow in a complex way, the below diagram i found is the best to describe it.

Web Developer Brain

Desktop Linux For The Windows Power User

aibrahim — Fri, 22 May 2009 02:43:22 +0000

Very nice article about Ubuntu 9.04 “Jaunty”, posted by Adam Overa yesterday on tomshardware.com

Click here to read : http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ubuntu-linux-guide,2293.html

Highlights :

Introduction
Understanding Partitions
Partitioning
Installation
Booting Ubuntu for the first time
Ubuntu Desktop
Updating Ubuntu system & drivers
How to install software on Ubuntu
Codecs for multimedia playback on Ubuntu
Getting help online

Enjoy reading & feel the freedom, Long live Ubuntu

Zend Whitepapers – PHP Leads the way

aibrahim — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 10:55:59 +0000

I have been browsing Zend website, and i have been going through its white papers, and it is really interesting, so i thought about sharing it with my blog visitors

Zend White Papers

An overview on PHP (PDF)

This paper gives a clear and concise overview of PHP. The paper covers many aspects of PHP, it goes through the history of PHP, the people behind PHP, the PHP market, the future of PHP, and more.

PHP Leads Web 2.0 (PDF)
This paper defines and applies Web 2.0 for today’s users. Though it is difficult to define Web 2.0 there are usually a few common denominators such as, rich web applications, SOA (service oriented architecture), and social Web elements. This paper also explains what Web 2.0 means for the Enterprise and what it means for technology today.

PHP 4 to PHP 5 Migration (PDF)
A little over three years ago, the PHP community released version 5 of its popular programming language. PHP5 has now become the version of choice for many new PHP projects. PHP4 however remains popular and is still widely used. This whitepaper is aimed at developers who are still using PHP4 and considering switching to PHP5. It is also intended to provide IT managers responsible for PHP applications additional information for their decision on whether to stick with their current version or migrate. This paper seeks to answer the questions, “What are the benefits of migrating to PHP5? And, equally importantly, what are the risks?” The information below will put you in a better position to make an informed decision between PHP4 and PHP5.

A Practical Guide to Data Caching with Zend Server
When asked about the most significant methods to speed up PHP applications, most experts would say “Cache, Cache and Cache”. There are a lot of optimizations that could be done to PHP code that would make it run faster, but the most effective method to speed up PHP execution is to simply execute less, and one of the best ways to achieve that is through caching.

Team Development with Zend Studio for Eclipse
Today’s development organizations are under ever increasing pressure to be more productive. One key factor for productivity is effective coordination across development teams. Learn how Zend Studio for Eclipse can help improve productivity and team coordination with capabilities to allow for effective use of Source Code Management, Code Refactoring, integration between development and deployment environments and more.
PHP is Not Java: Session Management White Paper (PDF)
PHP is used by developers that have a wide range of backgrounds and skill levels. When writing scalable PHP applications, it is crucial to understand the “shared nothing“ architecture of PHP. The most misunderstood component in this architecture is the session handling. PHP sessions are different from the ones used in other languages. Due to the “shared nothing“ architecture of PHP, objects cannot survive a request. Session data is therefore serialized to external storage for each request, meaning that only serializable data can be stored, not resources such as DB handles. This is a very powerful and scalable approach for session data averaging around 10-100kb, as serialized session storage can easily be spread over a cluster and serialization does not introduce a great deal of overhead.

Zend Download Server (PDF)
This paper will explain how the Apache web server works. The paper will answer key question such as: How do large file downloads affect your server’s performance? What is the difference between web page and file download serving? What do you do when your web server gets saturation? Additionally, this paper clearly defines and explains what Zend Download Server does.

Scalability and Responsiveness with Zend Platform’s Job Queue (PDF)
This paper defines Job Queue for users. The paper also details as well as explains how Job Queue is used and how it works.

Integrating PHP with System I using Web Services (PDF)
The following paper examines the ways in which PHP and Zend helps System I developers. The paper demonstrates how quick and simple it is to create a Web Service wrapper for an existing RPG program.

PHP and Oracle (PDF)
The following paper explains how to install and utilize Zend Framework to develop applications in PHP.

Programmer Productivity Tips At Work

aibrahim — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 23:04:32 +0000

Some nice tips in an article that caught my attention, Most of the tips are general, but some are specifically suited to programmers/engineers in situations with long compile/simulation phases (compiling is the act of building an executable, simulation is the act of running it to completion).

Click here to start reading

ZendCasts – Free Zend Framework Screencasts

aibrahim — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 07:57:39 +0000

A really good Zend Framework Resource that has been posted in the ZF mailing lists couple of days ago.

very usefull

URL : www.ZendCasts.com

Appcelerator :: Building RIA Apps and Use Cases with ease

aibrahim — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:35:17 +0000

Yesterday i was browsing Zend Framework Webinars, and i stopped by the title :

Get “Rich” Quick : Building Ajax-based RIAs with the Zend Framework and Appcelerator

i didn’t hear about the Appcelerator thing before, but the title was really interesting as i use Zend framework extensively and it is a great idea to add some interactivity and UI to my apps.

after watching the webinars, i really liked the idea of being able to build the full prototype and have it working with no server side code, and then in the development phase with some slight changes to the prototype, it becomes the working front end interacting with the server side code with no problems @ all.

i went to try.appcelerator.org and gave it a try on the fly, that got me more interested. so i downloaded the sdk installer for MAC and installed it, the installation was at ease, even creating the projects and testing.

Appcelerator supports what we call “technology driven agile development” and we call that process Interactive Use Cases.