Israel Denis

C# Developers – Long Term Project

Israel Denis — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 16:28:01 +0000

Looking for C# developers for a long term project in Dallas, Texas. If you know anyone please have them contact us.

Phone: (214) 245-4580
Email: recruiters (@) cendien.com
Web: http://www.cendien.com

The developers will be assisting in creating Peoplesoft HR interfaces and must have experience with the following skill sets:

C#
.NET
ASP.NET
1.1-3.5 .NET Framework
WCF
TFS
IIS
SQL Server 2005-2008
Visual Studio
Windows Services
XML

For more information and all the details of the project please contact our recruiters at (214) 245-4580 or recruiters (@) cendien.com

Thx

iOS4 Cool Features Review

Israel Denis — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 03:14:07 +0000

iOS4 was released publicly this week and the new features are awesome.

Custom App Folders
Better Email Interface
Threaded Emails
Links to Dates for Events
Spell Checking
Playlist for Songs
Tethering Support

Multitasking
5x Built-in Digital Zoom
Video Focusing
Video Uploading to YouTube
Bluetooth Support
Home Wallpaper
Keyboard Layouts

This post will help you understand the features and functions you need to know.

Custom Folders

Custom folders allow you to organize apps by categories, usage or any other topics. There is some limitations to just 12 apps per folders, however, with this feature you can add tons more apps. It picks the category of the first icon that you drag your app into, but it gives you the option to rename it. For example, if you drag an app into the Facebook icon, by default the name displays as “social” until you change it.

To create the app folder, hold and then drag the app to another icon. Then drag and drop any application on top of it to add more apps in that folder. One suggestion is to put a folder in the bottom row so this makes it easy to access commons apps quickly.

Better Email Interface

With the new email interface you can quickly glance at all the emails in one place rather than going into the individual accounts. This unified box is an excellent feature that was long overdue. I also like that you can now see all current emails from the sender once you click on it, no more searching. Very nice feature indeed and its called threaded emails. Note that it also does a count on the thread.

Playlists

I am surprise this was not there on older iPhones since the iPod was released a while back, but now you can create your playlists for the office, the gym or the car. For years, creating new playlists on an iPod (or the iPhone for that matter) defaulted to the “On-the-Go” playlist. Now you can create a playlist for anything you want.

Multitasking

Until you start using this feature, you wont appreciate the real value and it’s truly the most hyped feature. The new OS tries to make educated guesses as to what apps should be in the background, but the cool thing is that you can swipe through the list and close the ones you don’t want running. Double tap the home button for quick app switching, this pulls up most of the recently opened applications. Tap on any app you want to quickly switch to without going back to the home screen. Note that this is feature is not available on the older iPhone 3G.

One thing to consider is that as more apps start supporting background processing by default, you may want to notice the performance (and battery life) and make sure that you don’t have any apps running in the background that you don’t really want or need running. To remove the app from running in the background, double tap the home button, then tap and hold the app you want to remove from the background, until you see a red minus sign on the corner of the icon. Tap it to remove the app from the background.

Spell Checking

No more worrying about spellings, with this feature you can type the message and it will spell check things as you go. Once you hit return, the phone will red underline those words that the device thinks are misspelled and by tapping it, it will suggest the correct spelling for you. It’s a great start for a spell checker feature.

5x Digital Zoom

The new zoom feature is one cool component that has changed with the camera in this version of the IOS. You can also snap photos a lot faster and upload videos directly to YouTube from your phone. The feature does a decent job but it could lead to blurry photos if you are not careful. One other thing to notice is the shutter speed when taking photos in-motion, this seems to be causing blurry photos as well – not sure if its a bug.

Bluetooth Support

Starting with the iPhone 3Gs, Apple added Bluetooth capable hardware/software and with this version you can start taking advantage of it by pairing it with an external keyboard. Cool feature if you need a bigger writing device.

Homepage / Lock Screen – Backgrounds

Now you can add a background wallpaper as eye candy for your phone. However, this feature is not available for the older 3G iPhone, mainly because “The icon animation with backgrounds didn’t perform well enough” as Steve recently pointed out.

If you have a minute, let me know what’s your favorite features in the comments section below. Would love to hear your thoughts.

For a different and more thorough review check out this clip by Michael Sherlock.

Share your thoughts below.

06/22/2010 id -

Started Using Twitter

Israel Denis — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 09:30:06 +0000

Just started using Twitter to connect with people and to build my social and professional networks. The goal is not to have a ton of followers or to follow the universe but rather to leverage a new communication medium. My objective is to tweet and discuss topics of interests and hopefully get different views, commentary and diversion from it.

Over time, no doubt, things change – our interests, our friends and certainly strategies. The quality and quantity of your tweets are important and I expect that over time, my tweets (and probably yours) will change. I am always interested in learning new things and sharing those that are of value. While I believe knowledge is power, I also feel too much communication can be overwhelming. However, I certainly plan on using Twitter to post and learn about relevant and important things.

Let it be known though, I find interests in a number of things so I certainly will follow people with diverse and fascinating experiences. The topics range from hobbies, to activities, pursuits, to pastimes and even leisure. If you share my interests lets connect but don’t expect my tweets to just be about one topic. One week I may tweet about important world events, while on the same day tweet about my excitement in some bizarre thing.

This is what is fascinating about connecting with people.

I Like Your Content

Israel Denis — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 08:54:33 +0000

There is a ton of information (“content”) that friends share on social sites like Facebook, Friendfeed, Twitter, Plancast and Foursquare just to name a few. Whether it’s pictures of a recent trip, high school reunion meetings, updates on the BP oil spill or the location where they are having dinner – one cool feature which lets people know you enjoy their content is the “Like” button. This button helps avoid friends posting “Awesome”, “Cool” and “Congrats” comments multiple times and reduces noise. It also increases the amount of content your friends will “Likely” share. And unLike a rating system, the button greatly improves the preferences of knowing what to share.

Facebook recently rolled out the ability to show appreciation for comments which offers support for approval in conversations. This feature is central to the way people communicate on social sites and no doubt will become one of the most heavily used feature. It’s also becoming the norm in establishing relationships. When Facebook first started they allowed people to join groups and/or pages – now they basically just display the “Like” button. Instead of clicking a button to “become a fan”, you now click a button to “Like” it — the same that you would if it were a status update or a photo — and this is true for comments.

Part of Facebook’s “Like” expansion is bringing the button to the rest of the Web. As you can see, my blog is currently using it and so are a ton of other sites, like CNN and TechCrunch. In essence, social is about enjoying things together and Facebook is making it easier to offer better experiences through appreciation of content. But be weary, the “Like” button will allow companies like Facebook (in my opinion the next Google) to keep a record of the stuff you linked to (or liked) providing it with ever more details about your preferences.

Sure you think its cool to “Like” my blog or the article about golf, but what if I could display articles to readers based on their preferences determined by they way they “Like” comments, pictures and statuses – I think I can also display advertisements in much the same way Billy Mays did - “But wait there is more!!!”.

I am not surprised if social sites will use fans to gather information and suggest ads based on their preferences. When Google first started out, they had no formal way to make money until they discovered what is now called “Adwords” – basically valuable search terms.

In my opinion, the value for social is that it creates a system based on preferences – call it “AdPreferrences” or call it what you will, this feature is certainly more powerful (and relevant) than showing me ads based on “me” searching for something. To understand the value, preferences are no longer based on you (or me) but rather you and your collective friends, their proximity of you and the friends and the content they “Like” or approve.