Developing New Paths - The Mojavi Project

Archive for November, 2011

Blogging

November 25, 2011

Online tutoring and help with your schoolwork

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Today’s tuition for both public and private colleges continue to climb and it puts parents in a challenging situation on how to pay for college. There are numerous scholarships available and if your kids happens to be talented enough then an athletic scholarship may help pay the way. For the majority of kids the one factor they do have control over is their grades. That is what an Online tutoring resource that your kids can access and get help with math,history, or even English questions is sure to be a huge advantage. Kids today in high school can start taking college level classes that will apply to their overall degree which can be a huge savings for the parents and lead to academic scholarships. Using online tools to get some extra help when you do not have access to teachers and school resources can help your kids get their homework done and give them the confidence and knowledge to stay ahead in class. At TutorHub.com they offer a community of tutors that will help answer questions and you can see those questions live on the front page. If you need more individual coaching there are reasonable rates to help you with your specific subject. As of this posting they had 112 registered tutors and over 1400 students using their site. This type of community learning can only help your child excel in school and hopefully help them as they heads towards college.

Technology

November 24, 2011

End to end document management

A well-organized document management system setup around the office can make life easier on everyone where they can convert documents to a more secure format that allows for easier storage and sharing across multiple platforms. There are Document Imaging solutions that enable you to scan your hard copy documents in large batches and have them prepared in a digital format. From the top of the ladder with the company boss or president, all the way down to the working-class of employees, these organized documents can help all who are involved in any company or small business. It may not be too easy getting to the point in which your office is organized, but once you do get there, everyone can see how much better and faster things can run in the 21st century.
The year of 2011 is almost over with and this gives all offices everywhere, a 1 month head start, on getting things right for the start of the new year in 2012.

Blogging,Marketing

November 23, 2011

audio conference tools getting your company name noticed and branded

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In addition to creating brand awareness through social media companies need to also consider company name development for their product in order to capture the interest of their target audience. Having your social networks more readily accessible as you surf and visit blogs can have great advantages for brand managers as well. It is one thing about creating a campaign about your new product and then pushing it out to Facebook for groups to comment on and it is another about putting together a global strategy on branding that profile and offering ways in which the consumer can interact with your brand and your product. You can deploy audio conference programs that you invite those customers from your social networking  pages to join in the conversation. You want to make sure that if you are in the company name development stage that you understand your target audience and how this will play out in the social marketing space. This was put to practice when Ashton Kutcher wanted to have a million followers on Twitter and he challenged CNN to try and beat him. This was not just some thought that happened one day but very well thought out strategy that involved some big name brands that consumers could relate too and then be show how to use Twitter to connect with their friends.

There are three types of Communication in social media:

1) How to Broadcast.

This is where you broadcast a message out to your followers and add value to their life as well as update your followers about new blog posts, podcasts, interesting sites and blogs you have run across, and whatever else you want to broadcast. You can use high end audio conference services from companies like the Conference Group to help you deploy on a larger and faster scale than trying to do this on your own.

2) Start the Conversation.

If you have a new company name then getting in front as many people as possible is key to faster brand awareness. This is where you actually hold a back and forth conversation with people on your social sites. It is a 140 character conversation that could go on for a while. We were in a conversation about the various microblogging sites that went on for over three days and involved over 200 updates and the traffic was amazing..

3) Create Collaboration.

This is where more than one person is communicating in one message. It could be two, three, four people that are collaborating on a project that all are part of the message and efforts. You can even reach out to social networks to help in your company naming project and create various social media tools that will allow your potential customers have a hand in developing the name.

Mojavi Project

November 22, 2011

Migration and file extensions

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The New Way:
Remember that there are certain file extension like the File Extension OGG that you may need to have proper calling attributes around in order to make certain parameters work.

$this->getContext()->getRequest()->getAttribute(’myobj’)->doSomethingSpecial()->execute();

Okay, so maybe that wasn’t the best example, as it is rather lengthy, but you get my point, 1 line vs 3 lines, and no possible mistakes when dealing with large objects like copying them over without references, etc.

This subsection is to be continued….
Translating your Renderer

Mojavi2 used ‘renderers’ to translate the API of one templating system into a generic API that would easily allow a developer to switch out one templating system for another. For example, the Smarty templating engine uses $smarty->assign() to allow you to set a variable, while patTemplate, another templating system, uses $pat->addVar(). In Mojavi 2, you would then write or use an existing renderer, which you would then invoke to display your output and be output in the correct file formats.

Note: This was done typically through a filter, which would create the renderer object, then assign it to your $request via

$request->setAttribute(’MyRenderer’,$rendererObj))

Mojavi3 uses largely the same methodology, but instead of getting the renderer directly from the $request object within each of your views, it simply extends the View class. You may need to udate your file extension parameters and if you get any unknown like File Extension OGG then do a quick search as there are quick fixes and .dll updates that may needed.

For example:

abstract class SmartyView extends View
{
…..

function __construct()
{
$this->engine = $this->getContext()->getRequest()->getAttribute(’MySmartyObj’);
}

public function setAttribute($name, $value)
{
$this->engine->assign($name, $value);
}

…..
}

Note: the use of

$this->engine = $this->getContext()->getRequest()->getAttribute(’MySmartyObj’);

was simply the best solution I could come up with for getting any object from within the view, you could also have done the following just as easily:

$this->engine = new Smarty();

View

The Mojavi3 View is mostly an abstract class, which provides a skeleton of functions to work with, thus providing the unified API as was achieved in Mojavi2 (It’s unified because you are forced to comply with the naming conventions implemented by the abstract class View.)

Now, instead of intitializing your Renderer object (as you would in Mojavi2) you simply extend View, and initialize that. Like shown above:

abstract class SmartyView extends View
{

is what our new View would look like. To put this new View type into action, we extend it when declaring views for our modules. For example:

class DoSomeActionSuccessView extends SmartyView
{

}

As you can see, this is much more fluid than pulling the renderer out of $request with every new View, it’s also a lot less code that you have to copy and paste, and thus less code to maintain. You may also have noticed that the naming scheme is different for the Views, instead of naming the file format or File Extension OGG DoSomeActionView_success.class.php you would now name it DoSomeActionSuccessView.class.php, and name the class likewise(In Mojavi2 we just named our view classes DoSomeActionView, in Mojavi3 it’s DoSomeActionSuccessView replacing ‘Success’ with your application’s state).

This subsection is to be continued….
Actions

Actions in Mojavi3 are fairly similiar to those of Mojavi2, with a few enhancement and semantic tweaks here and there. Listed Below:

* When returning a VIEW_SUCCESS in Mojavi2, now return the View class constant corresponding to your application state, ie: View::Success, or View::Error
* When checking for view types supporting execution (getRequestMethods) instead of returning REQ_POST etc, return Request::Post etc.
* There is a new return type for getRequestMethods(), Request::All, which serves all request methods.
* The root Action class which all your actions extend now has a getContext() method, which allows you access to the context object.

Configuration

Mojavi3 configurations are done, by default, using .ini files. This simple and straightforward configuration makes configuring mojavi very easy. The base syntax of these ini files is as follows:

[SECTION]

; a comment…..
ConfigKey = “%MO_APP_DIR%/my/config/value”

Because some people might not like ini files, Mojavi3 was created in such a way that you could write your own configuration handlers. For example, if you wanted to use xml files to configure your mojavi, you could write a configuration handler, plug it in, and start using your custom configuration styles.

This subsection is to be continued….
References

To find out more about PHP5 in general go here: Where can I go to learn more?

Marketing

November 14, 2011

Trade show displays for 2011 conferences

Times are tight, and companies are looking to save money any place possible. A great way to cut costs is to by used, and that includes buying or renting a table top display. The Trade Show Displays cost for some of these elaborate setups can be costly but the amount of business you can potentially gain by being at the even. You can usually work with a vendor that can provide a selection of booths that is second to none, are priced to meet any budget, and are all in like-new shape.
If you’re looking to shave some money from your budget but still need to attend all the major trade shows then plan ahead and don’t wait until the last minute. Last minute shipping and handling costs can adds as much as 30% to the cost of the trade show displays and other trade show items. While you do need to have a professional look when you are at a trade show you do can do it on a budget . You can also get Vinyl Banners  to really make your conference space look better than your competitors. So if you are going to take the time and personnel out of the field to be at a trade show or conference then you might as well make the most of the event and make sure that you get noticed.