Advantages of Using LINQ

There are four main advantages of LINQ. They are,

The availability of strong typed queries: The classes are auto generated according to the relations in relational databases. The language is very much easy to understand as in SQL.

The automatic join functioning in foreign keys: In normal SQL, the user has to join the tables if it is necessary. In LINQ, it provides the ability to join each function automatically when there is a foreign key reference.

The code size: There are many occasions that the users have to write long sentences for getting a SQL query. LINQ provides relatively short codes in such advanced occasions. It reduces the complexity of the code and makes it much easy for the program to read.

Code equality: One of the most advantages in using LINQ is that its availability over any .NET platform language such as C#.net, VB.NET and F#.NET.

LINQ to Objects and XML

The local query execution engine in LINQ can be used for the purpose of querying memory in collections. It allows IEnumerable collections to be queried locally while defining it in the sequence pattern. The currently available LINQ to Objects does not allow complex queries, but the simple and linear queries. The XML document is converted to the XElement objects through the LINQ to XML provider. The XElement objects are queried then against the local search engine.

LINQ to SQL

Both SQL Server Databases and SQL Server Compact Databases can use the LINQ to SQL provider. When the database is available in a remotely located SQL server, LINQ converts its queries to the SQL queries and then it is sent to the SQL server for the processing. LINQ is used as encapsulated data objects as the SQL server stores data as relational data. Those two should map each other with the support of LINQ to SQL mapping framework. There the classes being made according to the name of the database table. All or a part of the columns of the table are being taken as the data members. SQL defined attributes are used for the purpose of relating the other relational model attributes.

What LINQ Can Do More Than SQL?

Structured Query Language is designed for the purposes of querying data, updating, deleting or inserting from a database. What LINQ can do when compared to the SQL is very much. The users can call to several data sources not only a database, by using LINQ. It can take a single enumeration by calling to a database as well as a file system. Most important advantage of LINQ is the reduction of the code length. When executing a large query the length of SQL code is very much larger when comparing to the Method Based Query in LINQ.

LINQ to DataSet

The DataSets must be populated before using them. The way how data is loaded is not that important in this case. Two methods can be used for the purpose of loading data. The data can be retrieved directly from a database or the users can take the advantage of DLinq to query the database and then load the data that comes as the result into a DataSet. Either, you can use DataAdapter to querry data from the databases. Querying data is possible after loading them. There is an enumerate querried through the LINQ. The different between a normal enumeration and an enumeration that get from a LINQ query is that the LINQ querry gets an Enumeration of a DataRow object rather than getting a data set of a custom type. The DataSets can be devided into two main parts as typed and untyped. Typed DataSet declares the corresponding data type such as bool, int, date or etc.

TableAdapters are also can be used in case of querying. The TableAdapter is an adapter that is configured early and encapsulates the connection information, and the queries also predefined and exposed as methods that can be used for filling an already created table or creating a new table and working on it to fill.

There are number of custom operations can be made for the purpose of enabling LINQ queries over the DataSet.

Security Matters in LINQ

There are several matters both positive and negative that users have to concern when using LINQ. The security concerns vary from the reason and the place where the code is used.

LINQ to SQL

SQL injection attacks have been a very much popular threat than SQL always had with it. One of the recommended techniques that is said to use is that writing the code using parameters. LINQ is always used as parameter manner. That threat is reduced for certain extend.

LINQ to XML

Extensible Markup Language is used for the purpose of transporting data. So the security is very much concerned in this matter. According to the Microsoft releases it is not yet advised to use LINQ in places where security is concerned a lot. This application is not much for the server-side applications other than the programming convenience. If it is very much need to use LINQ to XML for such advanced scenarios, the only acceptable way is creating an instance of an xmlReader class that can filter out the XML DOS attacks.

When Not to Use LINQ

LINQ is a good implementation that could help lot of areas in a very convenient manner. In most of the LINQ make things much easy than the others. But using LINQ for small SQL queries might not be suitable at all. In addition when working with LINQ to XML, one of the major concerns should be avoiding the Denial of Service attacks.

References

• Bussman, T. (2009, 04 03). Why use Linq instead of SQL? Retrieved 06 16, 2010, from Entrance Software: http://www.entrancesoftware.com/blog/post/Why-use-Linq-instead-of-SQL.aspx
• Mirceat. (2008, 03 12). LINQ Framework Design Guidelines. Retrieved 06 16, 2010, from MSDN BLOGS: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mirceat/archive/2008/03/13/linq-framework-design-guidelines.aspx

History

CSS1

CSS1 is the first edition of Cascading Style Sheets which were introduced in 1996. It came with the support for several properties. Introduction of unique ‘id’ for each property and introduction of classes to properties that should have the same styles attributes were the most important things there were.  Margin, border, padding and positioning also powered by style sheets although they could be done by using the HTML elements. Spacing between lines and rows of tables are also easily done using the stylesheets. The W3C stated the importance of using CSS instead of having the html as the giving the ability to optimization and making it easy for the designers to design and settle down the design easily.

CSS2

CSS2 was published in 1998. Positioning of index with several property values such like fixed, absolute, relative and indexing were the commonly highlighted ones among them. Bidirectional texts and some other new front properties such as shadows were introduced by this edition of CSS. Two updates and features came in to fix the errors in CSS 2. CSS 2.1 was the last 2^nd generation edition of CSS.

CSS3

CSS3 is the latest edition of the CSS Stylesheets. There are several new functionalities have been provided through CSS3. Functions such like opacity, Text-overflow, media queries and box shadows are some of the much attractive introductions.

What’s New In CSS3?

Rounded Corners

As there are much new features, the simplest and easily useable one is that the rounded corners. The previous CSS2 stylesheets did not allowed users to make this available in one step. They had to add four circular images for the four edges of the div and make the border rounder. The “-moz-border-radius” and “-webkit-border-radius” properties enable the users to be those borders round. Male the border image availability is another great introduction as it lets the user to add custom and decorated images for the borders.

Background Decoration

The background decoration is available with the possibility of customizing it. ‘background-origin’ and ‘background-clip’ gives a customized display for the content background. It has also enabled to have multiple backgrounds to the same content through the CSS3 styles. In addition, there is a new feature which is called background-image-size to resize the size of the background image of the divs.

Colors

There is a huge variety of colors available with the new CSS edition. HSL, HSLA and RGBA are the new color schemes. The new ‘A’ value stands for the opacity. With this value, the divs can make transparent and give a much attractive look to the appearance. In early editions, the transparency was obtained by adding a .png or .gif image as the background.

Text Effects

Most of the occasions when it is need to add customized text effects such like the shadow; the designers used graphics made using the Photoshop like software. With the latest edition of the CSS, it can be done without adding a weighted image to the content. The ‘text-shadow’ property comes with making them possible and providing a better image than the CSS. Text overflow control has made it easy to give good boundaries to the content while having the two values which are ‘ellipsis’ and ‘clip’. ‘Word wrap can be used to mark the boundaries of a particular text area while giving the options to mark the boundaries even by the number of letters or words.

Attribute Matching

Attribute matching made the styles available for some tags which are named with some starting part of a string. For example, the ids’ which are named as ‘sosa’ and ‘sopa’ can be easily applied with styles by making the tag name starting value as ‘so’. The outline property can be used to make an outline for the content. In earlydays, it was done by having two separate divs and applying the border to the outer one in which the width and height values greater than the inner one.

Box Model

Box model is a new property which was introduced with the CSS3 edition. With this, it can be easily assigned with customized div appearance. There should be two inner divs and a single outer div with the width of each inner div being 50%.

Web Fonts

A new collection of web fonts was introduced with the CSS3 edition. The multi column layout view also can be applied to the content as it can be used to provide multi column paragraphs. Media boxes are also a new implementation that could help to give a good view to the end user.

Suggestions For Future Development

One of the most expected further implementations are that the ‘Math’ functions of the CSS. It can be used in a vast area if it was introduced with mathematic functions. Aural Stysheets also expected to released but the W3C has not made a clear statement about that. There will be a set of properties for creating charts in the near future. Although CSS can be used now also to draw these charts, it is expected to be more convenient way in the near future. Image processing functions will be a good implementation to future. The page size could be removed from a large capacity. Though W3C has introduced universal standard for CSS, different browser engines have slight variation of interpretation. This can be identified as a major drawback of CSS standards. Due to this developer still have to think about using CSS in some special development scenarios. Furthermore in future releases CSS might contain advanced image processing techniques too. When thinking about far future CSS might be able to control HTML tags beyond 2D layout. Even at this moment there are some demonstration of 3D image gallery made using CSS3 with the aid of HTML5. They will be even improved most importantly to work on any browser platform.

References

• 7 Awesome CSS3 Techniques You Can Start Using Right Now. (n.d.). Retrieved 06 07, 2010, from Mashable: http://mashable.com/2010/06/04/awesome-css3-techniques/
• Cross-browser CSS3 border-radius (rounded corners). (2010, January). Retrieved June 2010, from dimox.net: http://dimox.net/wp-images/css-border-radius.jpg
• CSS3 Modules. (n.d.). Retrieved 06 08, 2010, from CSS: http://www.css3.info/modules/

Bitmap Graphics

A bit map is a map of bits. The bits are stored in well organized arrays where the array elements are called as pixels. Bitmaps are also named as the Raster Artworks. Possibility of making very smooth color gradations makes it easy to apply photographic or artistic effects. Graphic Interchange Format (.GIF), Joint Photographers Expert Group (.JPG, .JPEG), Tagged Image File Format (.TIFF, .TIF), Encapsulated Postscript (.EPS) are some of the famous Bitmap graphic file formats.

Graphic Interchange Format

It was introduced in 1987 and has become a very popular graphic file format since it supports a wider area of the worldwide web. This format can be used to create the animations as well. With available 256 different colors, it supports 8 bits per a pixel. Images with continuous colors will not be well viewed by this format.

Joint Photographers Expert Group

It is a widely used bitmap graphic format that uses lossy compression. The compression ratio is 10:1 and there is a little quality reduction also.

Tagged Image File Format

TIFF formats are very often used in Apple Macintosh computers. This format can use both lossy and lossless compression techniques. The TIFF format is the standard for document management systems and document imaging.

Encapsulated Postscript

EPS can be used as a postscript document that contains additional information about the file formats. In addition this can be used to have a preview on a document containing information.

Bitmap Graphic software

• Adobe Photoshop
• Corel Paint
• Paint Shop Pro

Advantages And Disadvantages Of Bitmap Graphics

The main advantage of a bitmap is that it can be accessed sooner through the internet when you have the proper size. The accuracy is very high when displaying image information including the shadings and the other complex and smooth places. Another advantage is that it can be used as a universal format. Most of the Bitmap graphics are not proprietary.

There are many disadvantages of using the bitmap images when it comes to professional level. The main disadvantage is that it cannot get the original quality when resizing. The best solution to overcome this is to cut the image in the size which it is needed to use.

Vector Graphics

Lines and curves are the basics of Vector Graphics. The Vectors are defined by the mathematical drawings and calculations. Illustrator (.AI), Encapsulated PostScript (.EPS), PostScript (.PS), Windows Meta File (.WMF) and Flash Movie (.FLA, .SWF) are some of very popular file formats.Vector images do not have the issue of reducing the quality when zoom the images. The mathematical functions that describe the images can resize the images without getting blurred.

Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator Artworks are proprietary file format of Adobe Systems. There is much software that supports Adobe Illustrator file formats. This AI formats supports both PDF and EPS formats.

Windows Meta File

It can be used in Microsoft Windows systems as a graphics file format. As WMF was a 16-bit file format, the new 32-bit Enhanced Meta File format was introduced to support the windows versions after Windows 3.0. Enhanced Metafile Plus extension and compressed formats such as Compressed Windows Meta File and Compressed Windows Enhanced Meta file formats were announced with the Windows XP released.

Flash Movie

This is also a format developed by Adobe Systems with the intention of making the video streaming available over the internet. The SWF format was released first in 2002, with the Flash player version 6. The latest formats of flash movies are much different compared to the previous versions. There are two main video formats named .f4v and .f4p and two audio formats named .f4a and .f4b.

Vector Graphic Software

• Abobe Illustrator
• Corel Draw
• Macromedia Freehand
• Macromedia Flash
• Resizing is better in vectors than the bitmaps
• Vector graphics usually require fewer amounts of data than the bitmaps.
• Vector graphics are easy to edit than the bitmap graphics.

Advantages And Disadvantages Of Using Vectors

There are some disadvantages over using the vector graphics. The images with complex curves are hard to reproduce. It can be harder to write the code for a particular image. The vector images come relatively slower. The other disadvantage is that the most of the vector formats are proprietary.

When To Use Vector And Bitmap

Vector will be the best option for images with text, many colored graphic objects. Due to its algorithmic functions, it will not be hard to give a quality image. Bitmaps are the best choice for complicated images with shadows and many shades, 3D effects, textures and photographs. The main thing is to consider when choosing a bitmap image is that to choose the same size that is need to be applied on the corresponding place.

Converting Two Types

Bitmaps to Vectors: The edges of the objects are located in a bitmap image and the resulting shapes are converted into vector objects.

Vectors to Bitmaps: There are two main issues when converting vectors to bitmaps. The first step is rasterization. Determining the color of each pixel can be not that perfect. Vectors being the mathematical functions of lines and curves cannot make a perfect contact with the each pixel of the image.

References

• (2009). Retrieved May 2010, from www.eznetu.com: http://www.eznetu.com/Graphics/graphic_types/images/bitmap-vector-diagram2.jpg
• Harris, A. (n.d.). Vector Graphics. Retrieved 05 31, 2010, from http://wally.cs.iupui.edu/n351/vector/Vector_Graphics.html

Color

It is the frequency of a light wave within the bandwidth located in the electromagnetic spectrum where human eye can catch it. The range of frequencies which are higher than the maximum of the above bandwidth is called as the ultraviolet region while the lower frequencies are in the infrared region. Every visible color in the spectrum is a combination of the three basic colors which are Red, Green and Blue.

Color Depth And Color Pallets

In general, a picture is a collection of pixels where each pixel has a unique color. The number of colors that a pixel can have is defined as the color depth. The color depth is equal to two to the power of number of bits that image have. For example an 8bit color image can have 256 colors to represent a one pixel and a 16bit color image can have 65536 colors to represent a single pixel. A color pallet is a mathematical table that defines the available color of a pixel. They are also called as the Color Look Up Tables. Most common pallets are of 1, 4,5,16 and 24 in bit depths.

Web safe colors are the colors that are being shared by the Windows and Mac operating system pallets. There is a combination of color codes ‘00’, ’33’, ‘66’, ‘99’, ‘CC’, ‘FF’ for each color in the web safe color palette. Each color is defined with three pairs of numbers.

Color Models

Color Model is the way to specify colors in the terms of computer. RGB, SGB, HSL, CMYK, CIE are some of them. It represents color in a mathematical system.

RGB is the most famous color model from all. It contains Red, Green and Blue which are the primary colors of light. The 24-bit RGB color system represents each color by providing 8-bits for each color. Therefore there are 256 shades of each red, green and blue color.

HSB is a combination of Hue, Saturation and Brightness. Every color has 3numbers from each representation. Hue is a value between 0 to 360 degrees. The next number saturation is a percentage value between 0 and 100. The last one is brightness that can have a value between 0 and 100. HSL is the replacement of lightness for the brightness in HSB. Lightness means the black color availability of the color.

HSI color model includes a parameter for the intensity. The distance unit percentage from the center of the HSI color pyramid is defined as the Saturation. Intensity defines the distance up axis from black which will be ‘0’ or ‘1’.

CMYK color model is a collection of Cyan Magenta Yellow and black and it is the color model used in printers as well. Cyan is the while light without red. Magenta is while light without green. Yellow is white light without blue. But this model is less applicable in multimedia production. They are the primary colors of pigments that are used to make the other colors in practical.

Analogous And Complementary Colors

Analogous Colors are defined as any close three colors on a 12 colored color wheel. The nature is the best example for a practical place where the Analogous combination can be found. There is lot of varieties of greens that are closer to each other in the jungles as well. They are very much pleasant to the eye because of the less change in it. Also it has less attraction in it due to the low color change n it. Split Analogous colors are the colors that are located once after a once in the color wheel.

Complementary Colors are any two colors that are located one against one. They are very hard to pick up on human eyes and it shows things highlighted. Places where to find quick attraction can be colored with complementary colors. Although these combinations are not that cool for eyes, it will not be a good implementation for the pictures that should keep the eye for a long time. Split-complementary color scheme are the ones that have one hue but located in each one’s opposition.

Color Theory Applications

There are so many applications of color theory can be found in the day today life. Graphic designing is the most famous one among them. Several artworks have become famous due to the proper application of the color theory. Color theories are highly applied for the advertising purposes. There are so many products that has become much famous and so many that has become less popular due to the color selections for the advertising. A company logo is the trademark of a company. It will be a key factor in the business purposes. Normally the Analogous color patterns are applied to the logo designs because of it provides the majesty of that company. Advertising is very much different from the logo designing and the complementary colors are applied to get more consumer attraction for the sales purposes. Video games are also applied the color theory with several intentions such like changing the player’s mind during the play, highlighting and hiding several operations for the player and so many other tricks that could attract the player to play the game. World Wide Web is another famous application of the color theory that gives dynamic content to the site visitors by using several techniques. Cascading Style Sheets are often used to provide the content to the user in a very much attractive manner. Interior designers concern very much on the color theory to match the suitable colors for the building according to the place.

Color theory is not that famous as most of the other theories used for any other works. But it is one of the rapidly used theories in the world and this can be applicable for most of purposes and activities.

References

• Color Models: HSB, RGB, CYMK and LAB. (n.d.). Retrieved 05 27, 2010, from WOWAREA: http://www.wowarea.com/english/help/color.htm

Lossless Compression Algorithms

There will be no data loss in this type of compression as it is defined by the name. Both original data and the compressed data are the same in this compression. The algorithms for the compression and decompression are exact inverse of each other in the Lossless Compression. The main mechanism in this compression is removing the redundant data in the compression and adding them in the decompression.

Advantages: The original format of the data remains even it is compressed.

Disadvantages: Reduction of the size of the data is a small. Sometimes the size can increase instead of decrease.

Run-length Encoding

Run-length encoding can be named as the simplest method of encoding. Any combination of symbols can be compressed by this encoding technique. The concept of this algorithm is removing continuous sequence of symbols using another shorten symbol which represent it. Practically what is does is to replace the number of occurrences with the numeric value and the symbol itself. For example, a text like ‘AAAACBBBBB’ is replace by ‘A04C01B05’. This method is very much efficient when there are only two symbols.

Huffman Coding

This is a little bit complicated than the previous one. First, the frequency of each appearing character is taken. Then the characters that have least frequencies being taken to give values ‘1’ for the higher one and ‘0’ for the lower one and there wise it is continued. Then the each available character is represented by a separated code included with 1s and 0s.

Lempel Ziv Encoding

This system does the encoding as two processes. They are indexing and compressing a string of symbols. When there is a set of characters, first step is to check whether an index have the minimum available character combination that appears. If available then put the index number in the string. If not, it will be added to the index. This compression technique is more effective as it has a two way compression method.

Lossless Compression File Formats

Audio

• Waveform audio format (WAV)
• Free Lossless Audio Codec  (FLAC)
• Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC)
• ATRAC Advanced Lossless
• Audio Lossless Coding
• MPEG-4 SLS
• Direct Stream Transfer (DST)
• DTS-HD Master Audio
• Meridian Lossless Packing (MLP)
• Monkey’s Audio APE
• RealPlayer – RealAudio Lossless
• Shorten – SHN,TTA – True Audio Lossless
• WMA Lossless

Graphics

• Adaptive Binary Optimization (ABO)
• JPEG XR
• Progressive Graphics File (PGF)
• Portable Network Graphics (PNG)
• Tagged Image File Format (TIFF)

Video

• Animation codec
• CorePNG, Dirac
• FFV1
• JPEG 2000
• Huffyuv
• Lagarith
• MSU Lossless Video Codec
• SheerVideo

Lossy Compression Algorithms

It is the compression technique which will lose data in the original source while trying to keep the visible quality at the almost same amount. The compression ratio will be very high. Most probably the ratio will be a value near 10. It reduces non sensitive information to the human eyes and the compressed media will not be the media that was available before compression.

Advantages: Can reduce the file size more than in the Lossless Compression

Disadvantages: The original file cannot be taken after the decompression

Mathematical And Wavelet Transformation

In this process, images are converted to the mathematical functions. Discreet Cosine Transformation uses series of cosine functions to approximate image.  This technique is used with JPEG, MPEG1 and MPEG 2 formats. A wavelet function is used to approximate the image. This can be used with the JPEG 2000 and MPEG 4 formats.

JPEG Encoding

In this encoding, an image is represented by a two dimensional array of pixels. A Grayscale picture of 307*200 pixels is represented by 2,457,600 bits and a color picture is represented by 7,372,800 bits. Due to the number of calculations to be had in a JPEG format of a grayscale picture, it is divided into blocks of 8*8 pixels. The number of the units’ id equal to the number of mathematical equations of each picture. The whole idea of JPEG is to change the picture into a linear set of numbers that reveals the redundancies. In addition to those techniques, MPEG is also a Lossy Compression technique. It is a way to encode the moving images and audio included in it. It supports many video formats from mobile phone to HD TV.

H.261, H.263, H.264

H.261 is designed for video telephony and video conferencing applications. It was developed in 1988-1990. Data rate is a multiplication of a 64 kb/s. H.263 is a video coding technique for low bit rate communication. In addition, a 30% of bit saving can be done by this technique when it is compared to the MPEG-1. H.264 is a joint project of ITU-Ts Video Experts Group and the ISO/IEC MPEG group. All those three methods use different methods of reducing redundant data. There for the output differs from bit rate, quality and latency.

Future Trends Of Compression

cvements as they are being proposed. One of the available problems is the way how to handle the errors in a data loss of a data packet. Wavelet transform techniques will be a good further implementation for the next generation. Wavelet coding has two main advantages. The first one is that the video construction is achieved in a fully embedded style. Two processes of encoding and decoding can be stopped at a defined bit rate. The desired spatial resolution and the required frame rate can encode the stream. Vector quantization makes use of the correlation and the repeats between the pixels located near or between the frequency bands.

References

• (2002). MultimediaElements. In J. G. Shuman, Multimedia In Action. Vikas Publishing House Pvt Ltd.

It has a lot of advantages. The best thing is that it gives us an accurate idea about a position of some object or a person. That feature of the Global Positioning System can be used for so many applications and already done by several people. Another advantage of this Global Positioning System is that it gives us whole details about the location with a lot of details such Altitude etc.

Technology

The Global Positioning System is a system which has a group of satellites in earth orbit that transmit precise signals, it allows GPS receivers to calculate and display accurate information about the location, time and speed to the person who is using the application. The GPS receiver is designed to calculate the location of the receiver based on the singles received using Mathematical formulas.

The way how Global Positioning System works is simple. Each satellite transmits a unique signature as the signal. That signature consists of the position of each satellite. When there is a need of calculating a place, at least four satellites transmit signals to the object and calculate the time taken to receive that signal back. With the time and the speed of the signal, the distance is measured. At least a GPS unit needs to have four channels To be able to lock onto four signals. Most of the units have 12 channels. Calculations were made for the orbits necessary for each of the 31 satellites. As the orbit has 360 degrees in it, at least 6 satellites are visible to any place on the earth.GPS can be used in any type of weather and they are used on land, air, and in water.

Applications

There are so many devices made with the implementation of Global Positioning System. Google Earth is the most famous application that uses the signals received by the GPS receivers. It enables public also to access the maps which tell the users about the locations all around the world.3DEM is freely available software that will create 3D terrain scenes and flyby animations and export GIS terrain data files using any of the following freely available terrain data as a source.People use Global Positioning System for several uses. A research published on a magazine states that the percentage of uses for each several requirement is as follows.

• Car navigation 37%
• Hand held 26%
• Tracking 10%
• GIS 8%
• Survey 7%
• Manufacturing 7%
• Vessel Voyage 2%
• Military Related 1%

United States and European countries show a rapid growth in using GPS for the car navigations and the number of GPS equipped mobile phone usage. Those facts prove that the Global Positioning System helps many people in many other ways.

Navigators

Navigation applications are the most famous GPS applications. The latest releases of those applications allow users to have much advanced features and facilities.

DeLorme Street Atlas 2010: This is software that enables users to do things like trip planning, GPS navigation and mapping. This was much harder to learn how to work with it with the software. It is said that the latest edition has removed that complexity and made it easy for the users to use.

Gramin nRoute: This is free software that enables laptop users to make their work easy with the GPS maps. However, users must already have a MapSource product running on your computer for nRoute to work.In addition to those Microsoft AutoRoute and Streets and Tips are some of the other famous applications.

Tracking

A tracking applications are not that much popular as the navigation applications. But, so many people take uses of them. It enables users to find a location of any object that is tagged with a system.

Top Grossing Apps on iTunes: iPhone users can have this facility through the iTune store. This made the iPhone look much smart in its words.

LOCiMOBILE Apps for tracking people: This enables iPhone users to track people in a particular place at a particular time.

GPS Tracking Lite v2.0 is taking the nation by storm: GPS Tracking v2.0 by Locimobile is their biggest update to date application and it includes much advanced features than the others.

Auto pilot Applications

An auto pilot application is software that enables a vehicle to travel automated with the GPS map. These have been tested and made so many applications where the accuracy is also high.

Future of GPS Applications

There can be several further implementations also as this GPS has become widely available. This can be used to provide a solution for the deforestation.  The green plant density of a certain area can be calculated or estimated. With a comparison and analyze, the deforestation rate can be calculate and can ask the officials to pay their attention on those areas.

Cultivation also can be helped with this Global Positioning System. The empty lands can be explored and let the people to cultivate on those areas is something that can help the people to improve their production and the right place for the right product will be available through this system.

The functioning of the currently available GPS is at a very low level. This can be developed with advanced features that could be able to find the areas where marijuana cultivated likewise. The cameras should be much more sensitive to identify such objects. The research things will be easy if that kind of facility can be established. The application developers will have much advanced API for their development that can give a greater outcome.

Other Satiate Grids

IRNSS

It is named as Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System which will be released by 2014 as it was approved by the government in 2006. This will be fully control of the Indian government. This will be totally base on India.

QZSS

Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS) is to be developed by Japan for their GPS coverage.

References

• Forssell, P. B. (2009). The dabgers of GPS/GNSS. Coordinates , 6-10.
• Hlavac, M. (2007, October 11). List of laptop GPS navigation software programs and review. Retrieved May 16, 2010, from laptop gps world: http://www.laptopgpsworld.com/37-list-laptop-gps-navigation-software-programs-reviews

History

Flat File System

A Flat File is a database that stores the data in a plain text file. Each line of the file stores a single value. Each field is separated by delimiters such as commas or tabs. Although it can have multiple tables, it cannot have multiple relations as the Relational Databases have.

Relational Databases

The main advantage of Relational Database over the Flat File System is that the proper organization of data that has. A relational database also defines the relationships between those tables. In the relational databases, queries are used to fetch data with the help of the indexes. The relational database technology makes the databases efficient, lighter and faster. Some of the advantages of the relational databases are;

• Bringing tables together using relations
• Provides a structure query language (SQL) to define and manipulate data.
• Security

Object Relational Model: It is also a relational data model but with object orientation in it. It reduces the gap between the conceptual data modeling techniques and object-relational mapping.

Object-Oriented Database

An Object Oriented database is a combination of objects in a persistent storage which holds information. It is quite similar to the object oriented languages. It can be named as the fifth-generation database technology that was began to develop in mid 80’s.  The real world entities are represented like an object in the Object Oriented Data Model.

Multidimensional Database

It is a database system that can be used to utilize the advantages of the databases. It is usually structured to optimize online analytical processing and data warehouse applications. The multidimensional database can receive data from a variety of relational databases and structure the information into categories and sections that can be accessed in number of different ways.

Sub Modules

Engine

There are several tasks done by the DBMS. It accepts various logical requests from various other DBMS sub systems. Then convert those requests into their physical equivalent and actually access the database and data dictionary as they exist on a storage device.

Data definition and manipulation

In Structured query languages, they have four different operations mainly to operate data. They are Select (Retrieve data from a table/tables), insert (insert data to the tables), update (update a certain field of a column) and delete (delete rows). In addition to them there are several other commands for creating, dropping databases, etc…

Administration

The database administration means the maintaining the functionalities and managing the DBMS. There are 3 main types of Administration. They are

• Operation Administration
• Development Administration
• Application Administration

There comes several tools for the database administration and they are called as native tools.

Other services

Security: The security of data is the most important thing. A DBMS allows to let several users to access the database up to several extends. In addition to that the DBMS allows setting passwords. In addition to that the DBMS allows setting passwords. Encrypting the data is another security feature provided by the advanced DBMS.

Disaster recovery: Database Management Systems allows its users to maintain backups. It makes easy to recover when there is a crash of data. In addition to that most of the DBMS provide role back to a previous state in order to undo transactions in a given period..

Indexing: Indexing makes the operations such as insert and update easy. The data is ordered randomly and the way how it was ordered is described by the logic Indexing speed up manipulation of data since it keep a summary of mata date and it make the SQL engine to access the required data without searching whole database.However indexing doesn’t seep duo the data manipulation in the case the query is conditional, like ‘select name from student where age<10’.  In such a scenario SQL engine must go through whole table regardless of the indexed data.

Advantages of Using A DBMS

• Application programs are independent of data representation and data storage details.
• Data is stored and accessed efficiently including the support of very large files and index structures.
• Centralize administration of data shared among many users.
• Let users feel the data is accessed only by him at that time.

Selecting DBMS

Selecting an appropriate DBMS is an important decision in any software application. An inappropriate application in DBMS will result system instability and lower performance. In the software development context is similar to below cases it’s recommended to not to use a DBMS.

• Single-user applications PC applications.
• Non mission critical systems.
• Non security critical systems.
• If the application handles low volume of data
• In low resource environments. (Ex: Mobile Devices)

Current Database Management Systems

There are several Database Management Systems have been introduced as it became much popular. Some of the most popular databases are MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, Dataphore etc, and they have their own unique features. Considering them software developers can use them for their projects.

Oracle

• Oracle has many advanced functions such as Real Cluster, Flush back recovery etc.
• Oracle DBA and developer cost higher to hire and train. Oracle price is higher and charge you 22% support/maintains every year.
• For very complicated store procedure, Oracle runs faster.
• Oracle runs on many platforms. SQL Server only runs on Windows.
• If you have a big database needs running on powerful Unix or IBM server, with complicated application. Oracle is a good choice.

MySQL

• Mysql replication works well for backup services and scaling out purposes are available.
• In Mysql master-slave replication model, changes only flow from master to slaves.

MSSQL

• T-SQL (Transaction SQL) enhancements
• CLR (Common Language Runtime)

Future Trends

Although the Database Management Systems have been very much developed, there are some areas yet to be developed. The areas like integrating structured and unstructured data, virtual access of data, and simplifying data management through greater automation and intelligence can be developed more than now they are. A research site estimates that more than 90% of all business data in enterprises is unstructured, but only 5% of unstructured data is stored in databases. The DBMS will address this challenge by supporting all kinds of data and content in its native form with much tighter integration, while sustaining high performance in the future as the experts expect.  In the next few years, DBMS technology and middleware will also evolve to support information fabric, virtual access to heterogeneous data.In addition to those, there will be a growth in e-Commerce and enterprise portals. Demand for commodity front-end database servers will increase and the market for the open source DBMS will be much higher than now.Mobile database suites will be a very good trend in the future and it will enable to access the databases located in the mobile phones.

References

• IBIBO masters. (2007, November 07). What is flatfile system. Retrieved May 07, 2010, from IBIBO: http://sawaal.ibibo.com/computers-and-technology/what-flat-file-system-198192.html
• Fundamentals of Database. In e. &. navathe, Fundamentals of Database,4th Eddition. Pearson Education, Inc.
• Yuhanna, N. (2005, September 29). The Future Of DBMS Technology. Retrieved May 07, 2010, from www.forrester.com: http://www.forrester.com/rb/Research/future_of_dbms_technology/q/id/37181/t/2
• insidetech.monster.com. (2009). Retrieved May 2010, from Get a Database Administrator Job: http://insidetech.monster.com/nfs/insidetech/attachment_images/0002/0929/database-250-2_crop380w.jpg

Augmented reality changed the way the users see the world. Augmented Reality enhances a user’s perception of and interaction with the real world.  The virtual objects display information that the user cannot directly detect with their own senses.  The information conveyed by the virtual objects helps a user perform real-world tasks. The base of the augmented reality is on computer graphics. Next-generation augmented-reality systems will display graphics for each viewer’s perspective. Augmented reality (AR) works on the same principles as virtual reality.  Augmented reality overlays virtual objects and information over the real world, unlike VR (Virtual Reality) where the user is immersed in a completely virtual environment. This is usually achieved by the use of see-through head mounted displays and tracking devices.

Applications

iPhone

There are augmented reality iPhone and Smart Phone applications released in to the market. iPhone’s Layar application is a nice example for augmented reality. The Layar augmented reality browser looks at an environment through the phone’s camera and overlays data on top of points of interest such as restaurants, shops and tourist attractions. The app retrieves information from third-party developers who contribute their “layers” to the Layar platform. For example, there is a layer called iMetro, and when that’s selected and you’re standing outside, Layar will display digital overlays of nearby bus stops and the time the next bus is arriving.

There is an augmented reality feature which can be accessible through Easter egg in iPhone 3GS, which is activated by shaking the handset three times. A message will appear reading, “The Monocle has been activated,” and then a Monocle button will appear in the upper-right corner. Tapping that button will launch your iPhone camera, and digital overlays of business listings, accompanied by star ratings, appear on screen. The app presumably draws its geo-aware powers from the iPhone 3GS’ digital compass and GPS.

SmartPhone

There’s a smartphone app named Recognizr uses recognition software to create a 3-D model of a person’s mug. Then it transmits the model to a server, which matches it with an image stored in the database. An online server performs facial recognition, shoots back a name of the subject, and links to his social networking profiles.

Medical

In Medical, Augmented Reality technology could provide an internal view of the human body to 3-D digital dataset in real time. This can be reduced the need for larger incisions.

Military

In military, aircraft and helicopters have used Head-Up Displays (HUDs) and Helmet-Mounted Sights (HMS) to superimpose vector graphics upon the pilot’s view of the real world. Besides providing basic navigation and flight information, these graphics are sometimes registered with targets in the environment, providing a way to aim the aircraft’s weapons.

Transportation

Transportation navigation is one of the main achievements of Augmented Reality. Modern GPS navigation systems using street views which contain augmented reality technologies.

Business and Marketing

In the business world, Augmented Reality could be a really good marketing tool among businesses. Best Buy is a good example for AR advertisement.

In Future It Can Be Used To

• Entertainments, where real world people can be interact with virtual objects. This can be used in gaming environments perfectly.
• Transportation signs and signals, where the roadside signs can be created virtually and placed
• Road vehicles’ navigation system can be replaced with AR technology. Where the driver can interact with the real world virtually.
• Without leave the house, people can do the shopping. Find, match, and change products with a single touch.
• Documents can be created in real world by virtual objects such as virtual AR word processing software.

Disadvantages

Even though Augmented Reality has a lot of advantages, it has some disadvantages as well. Currently, the cost for the technology is high. Therefore, not every people might able to take the advantage of the technology. The GPS on a mobile phone normally only gives a position within around 20 meters, while the iPhone’s compass orientation is only accurate to around 20 degrees. This can lead to problems in determining exactly what’s within the camera’s view.

References

• (2010, 04). Retrieved from cs.unc.edu: http://www.cs.unc.edu/~azuma/ARpresence.pdf
• (2010, 04). Retrieved from augmentedrealreality.com: http://augmentedrealreality.com/
• (2010, 04). Retrieved from howstuffworks.com: http://www.howstuffworks.com/augmented-reality.htm#
• (2010, 04). Retrieved from vr.ucl.ac.uk: http://www.vr.ucl.ac.uk/projects/arthur/arthur2.jpg
• (2010, 04). Retrieved from wired.com: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/tag/augmented-reality/
• (2010, 04). Retrieved from venturebeat.com: http://venturebeat.com/2010/01/27/augmented-reality-the-next-generation/

Intro To Python

From the external glance Python is a server side scripting language like Perl, PHP. Let’s talk about this, so what is a server side scripting language and what are other scripting languages that are currently on the job other than this server side scripting languages? Well server side means that the code you write (scripting) executes on the server side (web server) rather than client side (browser). Examples for client side scripting languages are JavaScript, VB script. The specialty of python is the flexibility, lightweight, high-level and, well it can be use as an OOP (Object Oriented Programming) language. Some may refer Python as a scripting language some may refer it as a programming language anyway the context of the whole idea is still the same. Now at the inner state Python has a collectable adoption within the industry, in the early 1990 that was Guido van Rossum created the language, since then is has been grown steadily and the concentration has increased remarkably in past few years. Python is used extensively for system administration tasks (it is, for example, a vital component of several Linux distributions), but it is also used to teach programming to complete beginners. The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) use Python both for development and as a scripting language in several of its systems. Industrial Light & Magic uses Python in its production of special effects for large-budget feature films. Yahoo! uses it (among other things) to manage its discussion groups. Google has used it to implement many components of its web crawler and search engine. Python is being used in such diverse areas as computer games and bioinformatics. Google’s latest innovation, the Google Wave’s server is also implemented using Python called Pygowave.

What Is Django And What’s It Origin?

We can simply describe that Django is a web framework that 100% built using Python. That’s it, it’s really a framework that built for convenience and to reduce the time consuming efforts. Out of the box Django is very conceptive and robust basically the environment, so the developers only have to focus on how they going to implement a certain web application using Django, main considerations that affects a web application. Let’s see how Django is invented (the origin), Django grew organically from real-world applications written by a Web-development team in Lawrence, Kansas, USA. It was born in the fall of 2003, when the Web programmers at the Lawrence Journal-World newspaper, Adrian Holovaty and Simon Willison, began using Python to build applications The World Online team, responsible for the production and maintenance of several local news sites, thrived in a development environment dictated by journalism deadlines. For the sites including LJWorld.com, Lawrence.com, and KUsports.com journalists (and management) demanded that features be added and entire applications be built on an intensely fast schedule, often with only days or hours notice. Thus, Simon and Adrian developed a timesaving Web-development framework out of necessity it was the only way they could build maintainable applications under the extreme deadlines. So if we look at the context of this situation, they invent this framework in order to simplify and to speed the development process of their web applications, that underline concept is the hall way to Django’s success within the industry.

Django’s Current States And Capabilities

Now, several years later, Django is a well-established open source project with tens of thousands of users and contributors spread across the planet. Two of the original World Online developers (the “Benevolent Dictators for Life,” Adrian and Jacob) still provide central guidance for the framework’s growth, but it’s much more of a collaborative team effort. This history is relevant because it helps explain two key things. The first is Django’s “sweet spot.” Because Django was born in a news environment, it offers several features that are particularly well suited for ecommerce site like Amazon.com, Craigslist, and The Washington Post that offer dynamic, database-driven information. Don’t let that turn you off, though, although Django is particularly good for developing those sorts of sites, that doesn’t preclude it from being an effective tool for building any sort of dynamic Web site. (There’s a difference between being particularly effective at something and being ineffective at other things.).Let’s take a look at Django’s most conceptual capabilities.

Based On Model View Controller (MVC) Design Pattern

Although Django is based on MVC design pattern the way it uses the naming for the pattern is bit different

• Models (Model) – abstract the used data by defining classes for them and storing them on a relational database
• Views (View) – take the job of the controllers in MVC and basically define, what the user get to see. Functions (functions that changes according to the model) not classes here.
• Template (Controller) – Define how the users see the view.

Division Of Easiness And Maintainability (Applications And Projects)

Give developer a more modularize way of manipulating the web application’s parts

• Application – this is the point where you store actual functionality. For example a discussion forum would be an application; a weblog would be an application.
• Project – A project is for example your whole web site (entire outcome). Here you store your central configuration and general templates and images.

Applications are a simple way to share common functionality between various projects.

Easy Start

• Python (Django can work above the version 2.5)
• A text editor

This is all what you need to start developing with Django frame work, because it ships with a light weight development server (NOT suitable for production environment) to play around with it.

Yet Flexible

• Fast CGI (Common Gate way interface) – Common Gateway Interface, a specification for transferring information between a World Wide Web server and a CGI program. A CGI program is any program designed to accept and return data that conforms to the CGI specification. The program could be written in any programming language, including C, Perl, Java, or Visual Basic. Django itself support better processing metrology to up holds a fast CGI surrounding.
• mod_python – is an Apache module that embeds the Python interpreter within the server.
• mod_wsgi – is a simple Apache module implementation which can use to host any Python application which supports the Python WSGI interface.

Supports Most Common Database Engines

• SQLit
• MySQL
• PostgreSQL
• Oracle

Main Features Resides On Developers Perspective

• A good collection of contributed applications
• Administration interface
• Authentication system
• Comments system
• Template language focused in inheritance.
• Simple form processing.
• Lots of fun stuff.

Summery

As you can see Django is a more convenient and easy to handle web framework purely built using Python, once you have mastered Django it will simply speed up your application development process and enhance the usability of your application through easy maintainability. Django can be used to develop small-scale corporate web application to expandable ecommerce web applications (this is just a surface markup which means Django can be use to develop further more complex web applications, don’t judge it from the outside view). So Django is currently available as an open source product (under BSD license) all developers, architects and fun makers are invited to use it and experience emphasize power of it.

• The latest official version is 1.1.1 – can download form here
• Documentation can be found in the following link (for installation instructions and sample applications.)
• Support + Community can be found here (also there’s a good ticketing system and IRC channel)

References

• Holovaty, A. (2009). The Definitive Guide to Django (Second edition). Apress.
• Home page. (2010). Retrieved from Django project: http://www.djangoproject.com/
• TERM/C/CGI.html. (2010). Retrieved from webopedia: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/C/CGI.html

Bit Of History

After ten year it is in a major position to talk about of it earlier releases, namely referred as J2EE (pronounced J-two-ey). First version of J2EE is the version 1.2 developed by Sun, was released in 1999 as an umbrella specification containing ten Java Specification Requests (JSRs). At that time people were talking about CORBA, so J2EE 1.2 was created with distributed systems in mind. Enterprise Java Beans (EJBs) were introduced with support for remote stateful and stateless service objects, and optional support for persistent objects (entity beans). They were built on a transactional and distributed component model using RMI-IIOP (Remote Method Invocation–Internet Inter-ORB Protocol) as the underlying protocol. The web tier had servlets and JavaServer Pages (JSPs), and JMS was used for sending messages.

JAVA Enterprise Edition 6

What’s New On Java EE 6

The specification for the Java EE 6 was finalized on December 2009, bringing new features and constrains to the world of enterprise development. The most garrulous feature is profile based approach for development of web applications; mainly there are two profile types, Web Profile for development of light weight typical web applications at this stage some of the middle tire technologies such as EJB/persistence are limited and completely not applicable for the sake of ease of development and to lighter up the development/deployment process. The second profile or the Java EE 6 standard implementation is for large scale enterprise and distributed web application/solutions. Also the specification expert team has brought the ease of development form the previous version of Java EE (5.0) with the combination of plug-ability. Let’s look at the new features as a quick overview.

• Java API for RESTful Web Services (JAX-RS) 1.1
• Enterprise JavaBeans 3.1 (EJB 3.1 Lite for web profile)
• Java Servlet 3.0
• JavaServer Pages 2.2/Expression Language 2.2
• JavaServer Faces 2.0
• Java EE Connector Architecture 1.6
• Bean Validation 1.0
• Dependency Injection for Java 1.0

This is just a quick overview you can get the full detailed feature list and the related specifications from here.

Glassfish v3

Along with Java EE 6 the topic Glassfish should be combined because it’s the first application server that released in relatively to the Java EE 6 and it’s one of two supporting application servers for the Java EE 6 platform, the other application server is called TMAX JEUS 7. As per technical experts the Glassfish development team had to rebuild the Glassfish v3 form the scratch to support Java EE 6 profile based architecture and other major capabilities like EJB 3 Lite. Glassfish has served many customers in the past and present, so this version of Glassfish will probably get the attention from the industry. Also the SUN corporate services and technical support is there for anytime to help the developers and the customers with their problems.

Summery

When a company develops a Java application and needs to add enterprise features such as transaction management, security, concurrency, or messaging, Java EE is an attractive choice. It is standard, components are deployed to different a container, which gives you many services, and it works with various protocols. Java EE 6 follows the path of its previous version by adding ease of use to the web tier. This version of the platform is lighter (thanks to pruning, profiles, and EJB Lite), easier to use (no need for interfaces on EJBs or annotations on the web tier), richer (it includes new specifications and new features), and more portable (it includes Standardized embedded EJB container and allows for JNDI names).

Reference

• Goncalves, A. (2009). Beginning JavaTM EE 6 Platform with GlassFishTM 3: From Novice to Professional. Apress.
• Java EE 6 Technologies. (2010, February). Retrieved February 2010, from Sun.com: http://java.sun.com/javaee/technologies/

There are two types of clouds available: Public cloud and Private cloud. A public cloud can be accessed by anyone on the internet but the private cloud is accessible only for the limited number of users. When creating the private cloud using public cloud resources, it is called virtual private cloud.

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)

This type of service allows thousands of users to access a single application through the browser or some kind of front end portal using multi-tenant architecture where a single instance of software runs on a server, serving thousands of customers. It’s a profitable system for customers, where there’s no need for investing in servers and software licenses. In the service providers’ point of view, its just one application to maintain, so maintenance costs are very low. SaaS is commonly used on HR applications. But, it can be anything from web based email services to inventory control systems.

Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)

This is a variation of a SaaS. It provides a development environment for developers to create applications on the platform over the internet using development tools hosted on the service provider’s platform. Usage of this service is not totally convenient to developers, as the development tools are limited to vendor’s architecture. But they can achieve  predictability and pre-integration.

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)

This type of services provides virtual server instances with a unique IP address and storage. Users can access the server using the service provider’s API to start, stop and configure the server. In the enterprise, cloud computing allows a company to pay for only as much capacity as is needed, yet purchase more capacity whenever required.

Web Services In The Cloud

Rather than delivering the whole application, this system offer web services APIs to developers to develop services over the internet. They’re available as discrete business services to the total APIs offered by Google Maps, ADP Payroll Process, the US Postal Service and Bloomberg.

Managed Service Providers (MSP)

A managed service is an application exposed to IT rather than to end-users. These service providers provide infrastructure management services such as network-based services, applications and equipment to enterprises on subscription basis. In addition to these services, the MSP can manage and integrate a range of enterprise networks associated activities including Web hosting, Virtual Private Network (VPN), unified messaging, video networking etc.

Commerce Services Platform

Commerce Services Platform enables service providers and software companies to become solution providers, as this is a hybrid of SaaS and MSP. They’re most common in trading environments, such as expense management systems, that allow users to order travel or secretarial services from a common platform that then coordinates the service delivery and pricing within the specification set by the user.

Internet Integration

The integration of cloud-based services is in its early days. OpSource, which mainly concerns itself with serving as SaaS providers, recently introduced the OpSource Services Bus, which employs in-the-cloud integration technology from a little startup called Boomi. SaaS provider Workday recently acquired another player in this space, CapeClear, an ESB (enterprise service bus) provider that was edging toward b-to-b integration.

Future Of Cloud Computing

In future, for the security purposes, the large enterprises can be building their own private clouds and the cloud computing service providers will support information security as well. The enterprises will become part time cloud-computing vendors and you need only the browser as a development tool. Game Servers will be the most interesting cloud computing in future.

References

• (n.d). Retrieved on 2010, January from infoworld.com: http://www.infoworld.com/d/cloud-computing/what-cloud-computing-really-means-031?page=0,0
• (n.d). Retrieved on 2010, January  from techtarget.com: http://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid201_gci1287881,00.html
• (n.d). Retrieved on 2010, January from zenmediastudios.com: http://www.zenmediastudios.com/_uploads/2009/09/cloud-computing.jpg

History

The Blu-ray Disc Association developed Blu-ray disc. The first Blu-ray disc prototype was unveiled at the CEATEC exhibition as DVR Blue in October 2000. On February 19, 2002, the project was officially announced as “Blu-ray”. On October 4, 2004 the 20^th Century Fox joined hands with BDA’s Board of Directors. The first BD-ROM players were shipped in mid-June 2006. The first movie released in Blu-ray is 2003’s Charlie’s Angels:Full Throttle. This release used the standard DVDs MPEG-2 compression method.

The Technology

Laser and Optics

To read and write data the Blu-ray disc uses a blue or violet laser, which is operating at a wavelength of 405nm. The diodes are InGaN (Indium Gallium Nitride) lasers that produce 405 nm photons directly, that is, without frequency doubling or other nonlinear optical mechanisms. Conventional DVDs and CDs use red and near-infrared lasers, at 650 nm and 780 nm, respectively. The blue-violet laser’s shorter wavelength makes it possible to store more information on a 12 cm CD/DVD-size disc. The minimum “spot size” on which a laser can be focused is limited by diffraction, and depends on the wavelength of the light and the numerical aperture of the lens used to focus it. By decreasing the wavelength, increasing the numerical aperture from 0.60 to 0.85, and making the cover layer thinner to avoid unwanted optical effects, the laser beam can be focused to a smaller spot. This allows more information to be stored in the same area. For Blu-ray Disc, the spot size is 580 nm. Blu-ray Discs feature improvements in data encoding that further increase the capacity.

Hard-coating

To avoid the scratches, the Blu-ray disc has scratch-protection coating names Durabis.

Blu-ray with Java

The Java platform for Blu-ray players is called BD-J, which is based on JavaME Personal Basis Profile (PBP) v 1.1. It contains the additional APIs such as JavaTV and special Blu-ray API. In addition, it is based on a subset of JavaSE 1.4.2, so it uses the standard JVM. This includes Vector graphics, network support and file system access etc. The network connectivity is mandatory for Blu-ray profile 2 with support of TCP/IP and HTTP. For security, the secure connection contains the Java Socket Extension. A Blu-ray play can contain flash disks, a hard-disc or a USB port for extra memory. The file system classes allow accessing the file systems.

The BD-J platform uses AWT for its Graphical User Interface (GUI) with support of a remote control navigation. The Java Media Framework (JMF) is used for playback of the content on the disc. With the Java sandbox security, the user only allowed to access the disc publisher allowed servers. The main reason for incorporating Java in Blu-ray players it to get better possibilities when creating menus, in contrast to DVD players which use a simple MPEG based technology. Another basic feature is the possibility to add interactivity while playing the movie.

The Blu-ray Profiles

Each Blu-ray player must adhere to a specific profile. This specifies such things as the memory requirement. All profile with video requires a full BD-J implementation. This is a short summary of the current profiles:

• 1.0 – This is the profile that is used today. It requires that the player has at least 64 KB persistent memory.
• 1.1 – This becomes mandatory on all players that are manufactured after November 2007. The memory requirement is increased to 256 MB. The players must have a secondary video decoder and a secondary audio decoder. The secondary video decoder is used for picture in picture, whereas the secondary audio could be used for audio commentary etc.
• 2.0 – This is called BD-Live and this requires the player to have network connectivity. The memory requirements are set to at least 1 GB. The memory is not limited to built-in memory, but could also be an external memory, such as an USB memory stick.
• 3.0 – This is an audio only profile. This does not require BD-J.

The Blu-ray with Java platform can bring a new revolution in the field of movie publishing. We can expect our favorite movies with a very good quality in near future.

References

• (n.d). Retrieved on January 2010 from blog.jayway.com: http://blog.jayway.com/2009/12/11/blu-ray-and-java/
• (n.d). Retrieved on January 2010 from kombo.com: http://ps3.kombo.com/images/content/news/blurb_blu_ray_logo_20100106.png

Development

The film Avatar had been in development since 1994 bye James Cameron, who wrote an 80-page script for the film in two weeks. Cameron has stated that “every single science fiction book I read as a kid”. He announced about filming the Avatar after completing the Titanic. From January to April 2006, Cameron worked on the script with Dr. Paul Former, who developed the Na’vi language and culture. The budget for the film is $237 million, with $150 million for promotion. Most of the live action scenes were shot in Wellington, New Zealand on sets constructed by a massive team of 150 contractors.

The Technology

Performance Capture

Cameron first introduced the motion capture technology in Total Recall, with the first CGI human movements. But this had some limitations, in particular the actor of the character being portrayed. Moreover, the actor’s expressions cannot capture with this technology. CGI is traditionally done by placing reflective markers all over an actor’s face and body, which are then interpreted by computer technology to create digitized expressions for CG characters. Cameron and his team developed a new image-based facial performance capture technology, requiring the actor to wear special headgear rig equipped with a camera, which is placed inches from their face to capture and digitalize every muscle contraction or expression.

Animation

The digital animations have done by the Weta Digital in New Zealand, which has owned by Peter Jackson. They’ve transferred basic renderings into photo-real images, using lighting, shading and rendering. The realism was extended to each leaf, tree, plant and rock, which were rendered in WETA computers. In addition, a team of artists designed the props and weapons for the Na’vi and humans. These digital designs have taken to complete over one year of time.

Stereoscopic 3D Fusion Camera

The production partner Vince Pace and James Cameron developed this camera system. This camera was used to bridge up the gaps between the scenes and artistically formed an untraceable connectivity between the live action and the computer-generated scenes.

Virtual Camera/Simul-Cam Technology

The combination of the Virtual Camera and the Simul-Cam gave the best features of the 3D and the CGI technologies for Avatar. The Virtual Camera simulated a camera that was fed CG images by supercomputer surrounding the volume. This allowed amplification of each small adjustment on the virtual production stage, from camera movement to actor interaction. The simul-cam fed, in integrated real-time, CG characters and environments into the live action Fusion 3D camera eyepiece, allowing the director to direct virtual scenes on Pandora the same way he would a live-action scene.

The Software Used In The Making Of Avatar

There are many companies and their software product has involved in the development of the film Avatar. The company list has given below.

• Industrial Light and Magic, USA (most of the character design, modeling and effects)
• Weta Digital, New Zealand (most of the character design, modeling and effects)
• Stan Winston Studios (most of the props, including the AMP suit)
• Framestore, UK (Sully’s arrival at Hell’s Gate and two other shots)
• Hybride, Canada
• Prime Focus, USA – Frantic Films is mentioned for the same thing but not officially credited – (design and compositing of the control room screens, HUDs, etc)
• Look Effects, USA (compositing)
• Hydraulx, USA
• Giant Studios, USA (motion capture)
• Blur, USA (space shots of ISV Venture Star)
• Pixel Liberation Front, USA (screens and HUD design)
• Lola VFX, USA (digital cosmetic)

The Main Software Used Has Given Below

• Autodesk Maya
• Pixar Renderman for Maya
• Autodesk SoftImage XSI
• Luxology Modo (model desing)
• Autodesk 3ds max (space shots, control room screens and HUD renderings)
• Autodesk MotionBuilder (for real time 3d visualisatons)
• The Foundry Nuke Compositor (image compositing)
• Autodesk Smoke (color correction)
• Autodesk Combustion (compositing)
• AVID (video editing)
• Adobe After Effects (compositing, real-time visualizations)
• PF Track (motion tracking, background replacement)
• Adobe Illustrator (HUD and screens layout)
• Adobe Photoshop (concept art, textures)
• Adobe Premiere (proofing, rough composition with AE)
• Many tools developed in-house
• Plug-ins for each platform

Avatar made a big revolution in the 3D and Sci-Fi films. Moreover, the film was a big success.

References

• (n.d). Retrieved on 2010, January from scriptphd.com: http://www.scriptphd.com/?p=1257
• (n.d). Retrieved on 2010, January from twin-pixels.com: http://www.twin-pixels.com/software-used-making-of-avatar/
• (n.d). Retrieved on 2010, January from scienceprog.com: http://www.scienceprog.com/technologies-used-in-avatar-movie/
• (n.d). Retrieved on 2010, January from twin-pixels.com: http://www.twin-pixels.com/wp-content/uploads/4054882656_1b4c62a3cb.jpg

When working on complex operations with a large set of data using a table-based database system, it   needs more resources and time consuming and it is actually an incredible piece of software but it might not be the best tool for every stored procedures. NoSQL is easy to use database system, its performance is fast, and it is a portable without any limitations other than the memory and the processor speed.  It uses key, value pair to store data so, if you want to keep your data in a persistent state and have access to them, then this would be an ideal database system. The object databases are been based on client-centric architecture rather than server-centric architecture and the queries are performed on the client. In addition, without bound to server hardware limitation, the data can be partition and scaled easily. However, if you have to work with around 10 gigabyte of data table that must be update each second from various clients, you cannot rely on the NoSQL since it lacks of performance on very big tables. At the same time some NoSQL databases do not even support a basic feature like automatic partitioning, but they provide reliability features like distribution, replication, snapshot, record-level version history, and MVC. Those are the reasons people like NoSQL most.

It is closely integrated and an extension of the UNIX environment. When using NoSQL, a database is just a regular UNIX ASCII file and you can use, move and maintain it as any other files that you have access. In addition, it does not need a fixed schema or data type, it does not have the ‘JOIN’ query, and ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation and Durability) properties are not important here. Moreover, queries are relatively simple than relational database system. Moreover, when using the table-based database system, there will be problems regarding the versions, but in this NoSQL database, you do not have to care about which version you are developing and which version the clients have.

There are some well know companies use the NoSQL databases as their storage and retrieval database system. Facebook’s Cassandara, LinkedIn’s Project Voldemort, Google’s BigTable and Amazon’s Dynamo are some of them. Chordless, CouchDB, Db4o, GT.M, Hbase, Hypertable, Memcachedb, Mnesia, MongoDB and Redis are some popular open source NoSQL projects.

Nowadays, the web community is more developed than it was. Therefore, it needs more technology with high performance rather than the traditional way of RDBMS to store and retrieve data. To meet the requirements of many ecommerce applications it needs an object database such as NoSQL where you can work with your own preferred language. If you have problems related to the scalability like reaching the limit of the write capacity of a single database server, amount of data is greater than a single server can hold or your page loading is being slow as well as structure related problems like tables with lots of columns and a little of them are actually used, and have a lot of join queries to deal with or your schema have a large number of many to many join tables you can think about to change to NoSQL.

References

• (n.d.). Retrieved January 2010, from Ycombinator.com: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=859468
• (n.d.). Retrieved January 2010, from Odbms.org: http://www.odbms.org/blog/
• (n.d.). Retrieved January 2010, from Eflorenzano.com: http://www.eflorenzano.com/blog/post/my-thoughts-nosql/
• (n.d.). Retrieved January 2010, from Buytaert.net: http://buytaert.net/nosql-and-sql
• (n.d.). Retrieved January 2010, from Carsonified.com: http://carsonified.com/blog/dev/should-you-go-beyond-relational-databases/
• (n.d.). Retrieved from http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_j6mB7TMmJJY/SxKcnXYD5GI/AAAAAAAAAX0/5uC0_Uo1fU8/s1600/p1.png