SaaS & BI - The History & Future

Posted By: cutter on June 29, 2010

The concept of Software as a Service, or SaaS was first introduced in 2001 to describe the delivery method of a then-emerging concept, the Application Service Provider, or ASP. An ASP is a company who provides on-demand licensing and access for an application, usually using the internet as a delivery mechanism. As web browsers continue to evolve and become more ubiquitous in the workplace, SaaS solutions are on the rise. Since 2001 the Software as a Service (SaaS) model has matured into a reliable, cost-effective method of delivering software. Once limited to small and medium size businesses, SaaS solutions are increasingly used by large enterprise organizations. SaaS solutions are being offered by an expanding range of software development companies. Even large development organizations who have traditionally used an installed license model are embracing the SaaS model as either a primary or alternative delivery model.

The SaaS model offers ease of…

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Getting Started with Android

Posted By: Kelly Klein on June 22, 2010

Do you have an idea for the next revolutionary or “magical” mobile application that will change the world? Do you want this application to run on the premier open mobile operating system, Google® Android™? Are you not sure where to start or what tools you need? Do you want your application compatible with all the various Android handsets on the market?

If you answered yes to those questions, you are in the right place! This blog post will give you some basic information and point you towards sources to help you in designing your application.

Tools

Android is all about openness. So it should be no surprise that the tools needed to create Android applications are open source and available for the 3 main desktop operating systems, allowing you the freedom to develop your application in the environment that works best for you. Google has come up with a Read the whole entry...
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NoSQL: Leaving Schema Behind (Part 1)

Posted By: Nick Floyd on June 15, 2010

Recently at Fellowship Tech we deployed a new feature that takes advantage of a new type of data store called NoSQL. Specifically we used MongoDB as the backing data store for this feature. During this process we have learned a whole lot about NoSQL through our development and testing that I feel merits sharing.

New data store design: NoSQL

In recent months there has been a lot of chatter about this new way of storing data called NoSQL. NoSQL is currently defined by the community as data stores that are schemaless and non-relational. There are two types of NoSQL databases.

Key-Value Stores

Key-value stores work just as you would think. You store a bunch of key-value pairs that are grouped similar to a row in a relational database. For example, one row can have FirstName=Jesse,LastName=Dearing and the next can have FirstName=John,MiddleInitial=Q,LastName=Public. Some key value stores include Redis, Read the whole entry...
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Your Feedback…and a $25 Gift Card!

Posted By: Nick Floyd on June 9, 2010

Did you know we love feedback? Well, we do!

Today we just sent out a survey to some of your email addresses, but we want to learn from everybody, even if we didn’t get an email out to you.

All you have to do is fill out this survey, which should be a pretty quick task. And, if providing feedback that will shape the future of our API isn’t a good enough incentive for you…we’re going to sweeten the deal! If you complete the survey by 5:00pm CT on Tuesday, June 15, you’ll be entered to win a $25 iTunes gift card! Sweet, huh?

So there ya have it, we want to learn from you and would love it if you filled out that survey!

And no, you can’t fill out the survey multiple times to have a better chance at the gift card…sneaky idea though!

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A Scrum Ceremony? Is this a wedding or something?

Posted By: Lance Dacy on June 8, 2010

Ceremonies. Pretty fancy word when talking about software development right? Maybe we should walk around saying we are headed to the next ceremony all the time, but we think that would be weird. So from now on, let’s call these ceremonies…meetings. So what are all these meetings about? That is what this blog post is going to explain. 2 quick notes before we dive in… 1) There are only 4 meetings that are prescribed in Scrum with most implementations adding a fifth. 2) These meetings occur to facilitate collaboration, inspection, and adaptability to the realities seen throughout a project.

Planning
This is a meeting that occurs before an iteration begins. The team negotiates with the Product Owner the items that will be worked during the iteration. Once the negotiation has ended, the Product Owner agrees to not change the items before the iteration is complete (2-4 weeks). The team…

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Variables in PHP

Posted By: Jas Singh on June 1, 2010

This is the second post of a series of PHP Introduction posts. Be sure to check out the first post, An Introduction to PHP and check back for additional posts in the future to learn all about PHP!

Variable Declaration

A variable always begins with a dollar sign, $, which is then followed by the variable name. eg: $color Variables do not have to be explicitly declared in PHP. Rather, variables can be declared and assigned values simultaneously.

Value Assignment

Assignment by value simply involves copying the value of the assigned expression to the variable assignee. This is the most common type of assignment. A few examples follow:

$color = "red"; $number = 12;

Reference Assignment

Reference Assignment means that you can create a variable that refers to the same content as another variable does. Therefore, a change to any variable…

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