Single Source of Truth with Open Source?
More and more people are embracing the open source approach. In the below article, there is a mention of an open source CRM system
being adopted and there is an attempt to slightly punch the Enterprise Software giants like Oracle and SAP. Fine, everyone talks about the
benefits of open source but what are the critical issues that open source products like these can open up?

In the article the candidate company is frustrated with the way how their customer records and other information is spread all over and there
is no single source of truth.

No system can solve these problems if the data is not integrated. Integration is the key to "Single source of truth". I can see the benefit of Open source system if it is going to replace exactly "one and whole" entity of the corresponding entity provided by giants like Oracle. For e.g replacing your email client with a open source client like Thunderbird, using an open source web server etc.

InfoCaptor also uses some open source products like POI but that product does only 'one and whole' function.

The one good thing about ERP products from Oracle is that all your data is maintained as "Single source of truth" (atleast the critical data). For e.g the customer records, employee records etc are maintained in one place and shared across all different subsystems. Customer records are stored in AR but shared across all the other modules, similarly Employee records are defined in HR but shared across all the modules where applicable. So the net result is that there is only "one source of truth".

What would happen if there is an open source product for Account Receivables, one for Accounts Payables, one for HR and so on... and they all are coming from different vendors? Can an Enterprise think of adopting all these modules from different vendors and hope that their business will continue to run smoothly in a cost effective manner? Isn't your CRM data talking to any of your other systems?

I think of all these modules(including CRM) as 'One and whole' as they share the same data across the enterprise. Ofcourse you can integrate all the open source modules like Open CRM, Open GL, Open AR etc that requires to write interfaces to pass data 'to and fro' but then where is your cost advantage with open source system? Aren't you creating and nurturing a monster at home?



http://news.com.com/Unlocking+the+enterprise+for+open+source/2100-7344_3-5840338.html
- 7:35 AM 0 comments  

 
How to write blogs, basic blog writing
Here are some basic guidelines from MarketingProfs

"
Adopt a direct style.
Declarative sentences are good. Web readers demand them.

Link like crazy. One thing that distinguishes blog posts from dead-tree journalism is that bloggers link prodigiously.

Link to any other blog or Web site you mention. Link to articles, books, products, bios, explanatory materials on other sites and anything you mention in your blog.
Always link to information that clarifies or gives background on information and opinions in your post.

Write less. Omit all unnecessary words. The best advice I ever got about writing was from my first boss, the late "press agent" Leo Miller, who taught me a game to play with sentences. He'd keep taking out words until removing one more word destroyed the meaning of the sentence.
"

Complete article
- 9:02 AM 5 comments  

 
Why is InfoCaptor developed using Java
We started out developing InfoCaptor using Java because we had quite a good feel about it for numerous reasons, some of them were..

1. Business and Enterprise applications especially are mostly written in Java. I may be wrong but let me confess here, I strictly come from Oracle background and have never touched any Microsoft tools for development. In the Oracle world Java rules (atleast thats my obversation through my little viewing window (0.0) ).

2. Java is good for Database oriented applications because of good JDBC APIs and it can talk to almost any database available in the market.

3. Theoritically(only theoritically!) Java Application can work on any platform and talk to any database. InfoCaptor is currently being targeted for Oracle database and will be supported only for windows platform and it feels good to have the theoritical possibility to target a population of 6 billllliiioooonnnn ( in the Austin Powers isstyle with the little finger raised to the lips) .

4. So many free Development tools available, requires zero (again a little exaggeration!) investment to start your software shop.

I think these are pretty good reasons to atleast consider Java for developing professional applications. I know with Java, you cannot create native look and feel (liar liar, checkout what Eclipse SWT can do!) but Java has so many options for Look and feels, it can emulate the native OS look and feel very closely but then if you have free and open source Look&feels like Jgoodies you can standardize your whole application to look the same way irrespective of the native OS look and feel.
- 5:14 PM 0 comments  

 
Jtable Performance issues
InfoCaptor has entered into so called internal rigorous testing phase. We are facing lot of performance related issues. Some of them have been resolved and some are direct result of the Java Core API's. One such candidate is the performance of the Jtable rendering. Since InfoCaptor allows for individual cell level formatting, the rendering of Jtable with large data set makes it seem slower to refresh.

Folks at Sun are aware of this problem
http://java.sun.com/developer/community/chat/JavaLive/2005/jl0215.html

Also, here is the list of Jtable issues
http://java.sun.com/products/jfc/tsc/articles/jtable/Warning.txt
- 6:35 AM 0 comments