Git your Software Engineers on

Source: SYS-CON Media ()

Unit tests give us the confidence to change applications, even legacy applications that we didn’t write ourselves. To avoid the drudgery of writing a test case for every edge and boundary, we can let JUnit Factory generate a large set of characterization tests for us. If we need to explore an existing code base, characterization tests can act as a learning guide by documenting what the code actually does. If we need to change existing code, characterization tests act as critical "change detectors" that help us avoid unforeseen side effects.

Tests Give Us the Confidence To Change
We often inherit applications that we didn’t write. The application works and the users seem happy, at least for now. But, we still need be ready to maintain the application as soon as the next bug report or enhancement request comes down the pike.

Source: Hindustan Times ()

There has been a rise in couples who only meet on weekends with couples increasingly taking up jobs in different cities or due to erratic shifts. How does this bode for marriages and family life?

Aparna and Abhishek live in the same house, but rarely meet on weekdays. Both work in a BPO Aparna works the day shift and Abhishek on the night shift. “Abhishek comes home when I am leaving for office. We are lucky if we share breakfast. He then hits the bed and I leave for work,” she says.

When Shashank was offered a lucrative job in Mumbai, Gayatri, his wife, decided to stay back in Pune with their seven-year-old twins and opted for a weekend marriage. Routines are important “It works fine for both of us. I did not want to disturb my daughters’ routine, especially when Mumbai is easily accessible. It was just not worth changing the entire set up,” she says. “Getting little time together makes the couples conscious of the time fights take up. This reduces squabbles in the marriage”

Gayatri adds that when Shashank worked in Pune, he often wouldn’t meet the girls for days on end due to long working hours. “At least the weekends are ours now,” she adds.

Patience is key
The initial days can be quite frustrating but it’s a matter of adjusting to the new lifestyle.

Sandeep Kulkarni, a journalist, married to Sneha, a software engineer, says, “In the first two years of our marriage, even our weekly dayoff didn’t coincide.” But they had dated for five years and were used to each other’s lifestyle. “We knew what to expect. At times Sneha would get upset but it was just a phase,” he adds.

Gayatri and Shashank plan their weekends a month in advance. “We try and spend as much time together as possible including bonding sessions by ourselves,” says Shashank.

Little gestures
Of course, the couples do have their own problems. There is no one come back to after a bad day not much , of family life and children’s illnesses …

Source: Seattle Times ()

In the comfort of these rooms, you can write a computer program. You can talk about the meaning of life. You can just sit there quietly, reading.

The only real expectation at Saturday House, a weekly gathering in Sodo, is “background friendliness.” And even that bar is set pretty low.

“If someone asks you what you’re reading, you can’t glare,” said Lion Kimbro, 30, a software engineer and one of the founders.

For the past several months, a group of self-described geeks has gathered weekly to re-create the feeling of kindergarten, where everyone has a project and stays for the day, learning in a free-form kind of way.

Saturday House began last spring, a few tech-savvy friends sitting around each Saturday in someone’s living room. Now it has migrated to an $850-a-month, 1,000-square-foot space in Sodo where as many as 25 people settle in each week for tasks and talk.

People in Ballard like the idea so much, word is they want their own. Their Saturday House is expected to begin next year, with a focus on sustainability.

The Sodo Saturday House is open to all types and all ages, from toddlers to seniors. But this weekend, it was, as usual, mostly men who liked to talk computer code. They sat around a long table in the front room, comparing notes on programs. Next door, a child was learning from his mentor how to create computer graphics.

The big attraction early in the day was the XO computer, a colorful, compact, low-cost machine designed for children in developing countries. Members described it as more durable, and more sophisticated, than anything currently on the market.

At various times, they huddled around it in awe.

“That’s a weird little piece of static,” said one person. “Ah, sneaky,” said another, studying the screen.

Another XO arrived, via its owner, and the men with the “acoustic tape measure” feature, tracking the distance between the two machines using sound.

Saturday House …

Source: GoErie.com ()

The sign’s message — “Caution One Lane Ahead” — is hardly profound, but it has some pretty big implications for Erie-based Signal-Tech.

Founded in 1929, the Pittsburgh Avenue company has sold lighted signs around the world — most of them the small LED signs that signal whether a bank’s drive-up lane is open or closed.

The locally owned company, which employs about 60 people, counts this as the largest sign it has built to date. The sign, which weighs nearly 1,000 pounds and measures 8 feet by 11 feet, is headed for the Marine Parkway Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge, which spans Jamaica Bay and connects the New York City boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn.

It was a nice piece of business for Signal-Tech, where engineers and other employees ironed out design wrinkles and built the sign over a period of months.

It was also a test of engineering skill for a company accustomed to much smaller projects.

“We came up with our own Lite-Brite-inspired design,” said Phil Glass, the company’s head engineer, referring to the classic toy that creates lighted designs on a board using translucent pegs.

“We initially ordered clusters that did not work. So we came up with our own system using 3D CAD software to prototype and test the design prior to fabrication.”

The sign, which will be seen by hundreds of thousands of motorists, is the source of some pride, said Katie Fish of Signal-Tech’s marketing department.

“It was a really big project,” she said.

Along with other company officials, she’s hoping this proves to be a transformational project.

“Once your sign is someplace, it makes it easier to get other similar projects,” Fish said.

Brian Veshecco, who works in sales and marketing at Signal-Tech, is hoping this sign leads to more of the same and to building the sort of transportation signs posted along highways.

“I wouldn’t it was a milestone or anything,” he said. “But it’s a step in the right direction …

Source: Earthtimes ()

Copyright © 2007 PR Newswire. All rights reserved.

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Source: SYS-CON Media ()

Developer productivity is the red thread running through the webcast, in which the NetBeans IDE is shown to be more than a match now for all forms of application development, including mobile.

Licensed from October 2007 under the dual CDDL and GPL2* license (*with the linking exception for GNU Classpath), NetBeans 6.0 offers support for enterprise development in more than just Java. It now integrates well with the Ruby on Rails framework, and here is JavaScript support now too. (Support for C and C++ was already there from version 5.0.)

The code editor infrastructure, Sporar explains, has been completely rewritten - and the code editor is of course the guts of the NetBeans IDE, or any IDE for that matter.

At the beginning of the interview he also explains how NetBeans came into being, bought in 1999 by Sun having begun life two years earlier as a student project in the University of Prague, in the Czech Republic. It was open sourced by Sun in 2000.

Gregg Sporar, a software developer for over 20 years, is Senior Staff Engineer at Sun. He has worked on every kind of software from control software for a burglar alarm to 3D graphical user interfaces in now an evangelist for the NetBeans team.

View NetBeans 6.0 Being Put Through Its Paces by Gregg Sporar on SYS-CON.TV

Source: Earthtimes ()

Copyright © 2007 PR Newswire. All rights reserved.

| News
Archives | Browse | Feedback

(c) 2007 Earthtimes.org, All
Rights Reserved.

The
views expressed in the articles are not necessarily of earthtimes.org and
we accept no responsibility for the views or opinions expressed in the articles
either direct or indirect.

Source: PR-Inside.com (Pressemitteilung) ()

- Visualant, Inc. Lynn Felsinger, 206-903-1351 Fax: 206-903-1352 lynn@visualant.net Visualant, Inc. (OTCBB:VSUL), a technology company developing powerful spectral data-based security, diagnostic and quality control solutions, announced today the election of Marco Hegyi to the Company’s Board of Directors. Brad Sparks, President and CEO of Visualant, Inc., said, “Marco Hegyi’s strategic marketing experience, data base technology background and business

acumen brings a perfect mix of talents and expertise to the Visualant Board. We look forward to his active participation and contributions to the company.”

“Visualant has technology advantages that enable it to serve industry and government where its sophisticated tools can reduce fraud, provide enhanced security and perform diagnostic testing. I am excited to assist the Company in opening markets for its technology,” said Mr. Hegyi. “I am proud to join the Visualant team of qualified professionals.”

Mr. Hegyi’s career spans over 25 years in the software industry where he served in CEO and marketing executive roles for private and public technology companies. Currently, Mr. Hegyi provides growth management advisory services to companies of all sizes and works at the board of directors, CEO and senior management levels to form and deploy technology-based growth strategies.

Previously, Mr. Hegyi worked at Yahoo, where he served as Senior Director, Global Product Management/Search Marketing. Prior to Yahoo, Mr. Hegyi was at Microsoft, leading program management for Microsoft Windows and Office beta releases aimed at software developers in the Platform, Products and Services Division. While at Microsoft, he formed new service concepts and created operating programs to extend the depth and breadth of the company’s unparalleled developer eco-system, including managing offshore, outsource teams China and India. He was the named inventor of a filed Microsoft patent for a business …

Source: Seattle Post Intelligencer ()

We are currently expanding our Software Development Team and are looking for enthusiastic, dedicated, and qualified team members!

Privately owned and headquartered in Auburn, WA, Blood Bank Computer Systems, Inc., (BBCS) has been one of the blood banking industry's complete software solutions for information and risk management since 1987.

BBCS is committed to developing and providing safe and effective software solutions, which provide blood center management with the tools necessary to minimize the risks associated with operating either a blood center or a cross match lab. BBCS works closely with their dynamic client group and partners to continually improve the product line and provided services.

The Senior Software Systems Engineer will report to the Director of Software Development. This employee will be responsible for gathering and analyzing software development requirements, designing and preparing detailed specifications.  The Sr. Software Systems engineer must be knowledgeable in Object Oriented Methodologies and Relational Databases.  The Sr. Software Systems Engineer will work with Software Engineers to ensure the development of systems in accordance with the established designs. 

The Sr Software Systems Engineer will be expected to mentor other members of the development staff and to provide input into the improvement of processes and procedures.

Performs other duties as required.

As a  within BBCS, this position will participate with the other staff members to contribute to and support the corporate goals, business plan, standard operating procedures and Corporate Quality Policy, and thus requires personal and professional integrity and work ethics. 

Experience and Requirements: should have a degree in Computer Science or a related field with a minimum of 6-10 …

Source: American Chronicle ()

The company just wants to help Americans pay off their homes faster—and make a lot of money while being so helpful. So why are many people calling it a scam? There are websites about it, blogs about it and even a few forums discussing the scaminess—or not—of United First Financial.

United First Financial is the company behind the Money Merge Account (MMA). United First Financial, also called UFF or U-First, is not a bank nor a mortgage lender or broker. It is the company that was built specifically to support and sell a single product, the Money Merge Account.

The founders, Skyler Witman and John Washenko, have a background in the mortgage business. The UFF website says millions of dollars have been spent since 2002 hiring a mathematical engineer from GE aeronautics and developing the software integral to the MMA. That may be where the “scam” accusation first popped up. Most homeowners would probably not think of hiring an aeronautical engineer to develop algorithms to help them with early mortgage pay off.

The software is pretty spiffy. You don’t install it on your home computer; you don’t own it. The software resides on UFF’s own computers. Primarily, it adds up the income and expenses customers supply to the program, and predicts when they should move their assets—specifically home equity and paychecks—toward their expenses, namely their bills. In addition, the software predicts exactly when the customer’s home will be completely paid for, and calculates ultimate savings by using the accelerated schedule it puts them on. All of that can be done on a fairly simple free spreadsheet, such as OpenOffice. That’s probably the second reason many people think it’s a scam.

At $3500, the Money Merge Account seems outrageously priced, and it may be. But considering customers may need customer service for 10 years (the approximate time it might take to pay off a it may not be too much at all. This, however, could be the biggest reason it’s …