MVC Design Patterns

MVC design pattern is well established and spreading through the VS community. A bit like OOP on steriods but requiring the architect to be a lot more diligent in the seperation of files and objects.

MVC stands for Model View Controller and splits your code into three distinct areas:
1. The Model: represents the business logic and data elements of your program2. The View: the interface given the user. 3. The Controller: combines the model and the view to interpret user requests and present them via a view.

Splitting your code into these distinct sections allows you a high degree code re-use in the future. Getting to this point is not as simple as you think to acheive. A software architect often combines code at the various different levels in order to acheive a desired result but with MVC they must remember that there must be a creation of theoretical black boxes that can interact with various other black boxes.

Using MVC can be both beneficial and difficult. We found it not much use for small and medium sized projects but quite handy for large scale projects with multiple developers. Extra files are created to handle code and managing all these can be difficult.

Im simmary this is a good paradigm ready to be used by people in any of the modern development languages. It allows for modularity and code re-use and that can only be a good thing. Just make sure your projects are big enough....

MySQL Snapped Up By Sun

The M in LAMP has been bought by Sun for $1 billion. MySQL in the database engine powering most of the current online data driven websites and is highly popular because of its open source status. Sites such as Facebook and Google rely on MySQL to provide scalable and reliable systems. Usually a great technology which is consumed by big business is seen as a bad sign by the open-source community but not in this case. Sun has a long established history of promoting open-source products and programming tools and MySQL will no doubt benefit immensely from having such a big player backing it.

Elsewhere in the technology realm of business HP bought EDS in a move which sees the HP service sector open to many more opportunities aorund the globe. EDS has long been involved in UK government contracts so expect HP machines to be making an appearance in a civil service office near you soon.

Your Servers Enjoying A Virtual World

The subject of virtualisation is strong in the minds of many businesses around the world as they try and eke more out of the existing software. Microsoft was forced to release Virtual Server for free and issue refunds for those who had paid for it in the face of the free VMWare players popularity. There are many companies who offer virtualisation services but be careful which one you use. As with any new technology there will always be those who are out to take advantage of the initial bewilderment and lack of knowledge in the wider community. We have staff who have worked across the entire spectrum of business from small companies to SME's to large financial institutions and we always make sure the client is fully aware of what is happening.

Why virtualise? There are multiple reasons:

1. Less physical boxes means you will free up more space.
2. Save on electricity bills to counter the rising utility costs.
3. Disaster recovery policies are vastly simplified in that as long as you can save a backup of your virtual server files off-site then you will be fully able to restore these as soon as possible.

The area of virtualisation is vast and growing everyday with new tools and technologies pushing things further. BACK Consulting would suggest you give it some thought and if you would like some advice then please get in touch.

Vista Business Upgrade Problems?

According to reports in the press it looks likes Microsofts key operating system Vista is becoming much maligned in the business world. This week the US giant GM has stated that it will probably skip a firm wide Vista upgrade and wait for Windows 7 to come along. This is due to the multiple problems found during trial runs. Microsft has stated: "We're continuing to work hard with our customers and partners on the development of Windows 7." This reinforces Steve Ballmer's comments about speeding up releases of OS software. We look forward to seeing how other businesses react to the upgrade issue.

Search Engine optimisation

Search Engine Optimisation was a hot topic back in the day when businesses were starting to find a real use for the web. Nowadays it is taken for granted but it shouldn't be! With more and more people becoming wise to the ways of pushing your brand in an online world you need to make your site stay ahead of the crowd. BACK Consulting have long specialised in this field with many large corporate clients happily relying on our expertise.

Your company needs to strike a balance between spreading its name around and avoiding the risk of becoming blacklisted by way of an over agressive policy. Companies often use online automated promotional gateways which go about a pseudo spamming campaign to gain market awareness for your website. This can come back and haunt you in the long run. We always think that a tailored approach consisting of web registrations, use of appropriate tags throughout your site, site architecture, refreshing content, web crawlers, etc. is a more effective and ethical method of recognotion.

Search Engine Optimization objective for any online business the following is essential to keep a competitive edge in today’s marketplace. The aim of this Search Engine Optimization proposal is to present you with a competitive solution to increase the traffic to your web site through Search Engines and thereby attract new clients. We use our own unique Search Engine Placement Techniques. We can help you get better search engine positioning, optimization and placement at an affordable price.