Historic

The Internet is the worldwide network of networks, which is available to business, government, education, and individuals. Many different services are provided over the Internet, including electronic mail, instant messaging and web applications. Single devices and entire local networks can join the Internet and become connected worldwide at a variety of speeds. Many large telecommunications companies carry the backbone of the Internet. The Internet “provides, uses or makes accessible, either publicly or privately, high level services layered on the communications and related infrastructure described herein.” [1] An “intranet is a private network inside a company or organization that uses the same kinds of software that you would find on the public Internet, but that is only for internal use. An intranet may be on the Internet or may simply be a network.” [2] I have found that Intranet and internal web are often interchanged, as well as Intranet and internal network. I think in general it is safe to refer to the all services available within the private networking domain of the organization. The Intranet of a company is often available by plugging into the network at a business office or virtually plugging in to it through remote Virtual Private Network access. I have found several overlapping definitions of Extranet, but in general they all refer to the same concepts. An Extranet is a company provided extension of its Intranet services to customers and business partners. [3] Using Amazon as an example, they do business over the Internet with the majority of people with a web application. They also have business partners that receive orders and provide special services to Amazon’s customers. Business partners have access to Amazon’s Extranet, which allows them to interact with the private portion of the business’ network services, but only those services Amazon allows. [1] http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~hgs/internet/definition.html [2] http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Glossary.html [3] http://elab.vanderbilt.edu/research/studentprojects/extranet/execsumm.html [4] http://elab.vanderbilt.edu/research/studentprojects/extranet/extranet.html

Logical design is, “The part of the design phase of the SDLC in which all functional features of the system chosen for development in analysis are described independently of any computer platform.” [1] A logical design for a network is an abstract functional specification for a telecommunications solution. A logical design lacks specific details such as technologies and standards and focuses on the needs at a general level. A logical network design can be a view of any part of a network. An entire enterprise educational network can be a composition of many logical designs. The lower level designs can be a university campus network that connects each building to the Internet, or it could be a view of the standard office telecommunications setup. The important quality of a logical design is that is communicates all needs in general terms.Logical designs communicate with abstract concepts, such as a network, router or workstation, without specifying concrete details. A definition of abstraction that I like is, “the process of formulating general concepts by abstracting common properties of instances.” [3] Another is a “general concept formed by extracting common features from specific examples.” [3] Abstractions for complex systems, such as network designs are important because they simplify the problem space so humans can manage it. An example of a network abstraction is a WAN. A wide-area-network carries data between remote locations. To understand a WAN, you do not need to understand the physics behind fiber optic data communication, although WAN traffic may be carried over optical fiber, satellite, or copper wire. Someone specifying the need for a WAN connection on a logical network diagram can understand the concept of a WAN connection without understanding the detailed technical specifics behind it.Logical designs are often described using terms from the customer’s business vocabulary. Locations, processes, roles from the business domain can show up in the logical design. An important aspect of a logical network design is that it is part of the requirements set for a solution to a customer problem. The basic idea of physical design is that it communicates “decisions about the hardware used to deliver a system.” [2] A physical network design is created from a logical network design. A physical design will often expand elements found in a logical design. For instance, a WAN connection on a logical design diagram can be shown as a line between two buildings. When transformed into a physical design, that single line could expand into the connection, routers and other equipment at each end of the connection. The actual connection media might be shown on a physical design as well as manufacturers and other qualities of the network implementation. The primary difference between logical network design and physical network design is that of iterative production of a solution from the identification of a problem. For example, when a business needs to share information in real time with remote offices, they are thinking in terms of business first and technology second. This is where identification of a problem begins, and as the problem is documented, it can be iteratively evolved from a logical solution into many possible physical designs. The logical design of a network can be re-implemented with new technology, and yet the logical design remains the same. Logical designs can span generations of technology, while a physical design is one realization of a logical design. References[1] http://myphliputil.pearsoncmg.com/student/bp_hoffer_modernsad_3/glossary.html[2] http://lms.thomsonelearning.com/hbcp/glossary/glossary.taf?gid=21&start=p[3] http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn2.0?stage=1&word=abstraction

Morgan and Murphy From Dogs Morgan and Pablo From Dogs This Means “Excuse Me” in Dog From Dogs The Pack From Dogs

Adios to the best damn tennis-ball-fetch dog ever. Get some rest fella. From Dogs

I believe one of the reasons many businesses do not use the Software Development Life Cycle is due to lack of awareness that such a process exists. I have experienced this first hand from my own attempts at running projects early in my career. My first positions were in smaller companies where less formality was necessary. Those experiences with planning and running projects were for small tasks. I would do development for the solution, and I would work with at most three other people. The other technical people working on the task would test or help out in other aspects. Most decisions were made at the office kitchen table and little needed to be recorded in documents. Once an awareness of the Software Development Life Cycle exists, the next problem is how to go about producing the artifacts that are necessary to project success. We have been given a very wide and shallow introduction to the System Development Life Cycle. This is good if you never have seen this before in your life. I have specific questions now about what is needed to be documented in each project phase. For instance, what do good requirements look like? Seeing templates or samples of existing project documents would speed an immature team’s understanding of where formality can stabilize a project and how much overhead formal process will add to the project time line. The final possibility that may contribute to lack formal processes for development is that business management does not believe it brings as many benefits compared to the existing system of project management. The SDLC affects not only the Information Technology team, but the departments receiving and affected by the creation of an automated solution to a business problem. I found an article on the web, talking about formal methods of engineering. I think this paragraph brings some insight into the business decision of bringing formality to an existing business infrastructure: “The decision to use a new methodology is driven by economics: Do the benefits of the new method exceed the costs of converting to it and using it by a sufficient margin to justify the risks of doing so?” [1] [1] An Overview of Systems Design and Development Methodologies with Regard to the Involvement of Users and Other Stakeholders, SHAWREN SINGH AND PAULA KOTZ, University of South Africa

In my experience developing software, I find the most important phase is the Elaboration phase. The reason I feel it is the most important is because it is the join point between the definition of the business problem and the construction of the solution. During the Inception phase, you baseline your vision and solution to a problem and you make the business case for building it. At the end of the Inception phase you should have support and funding from the business to move forward. Everyone involved with the project should be in agreement about what the team is trying to build. If there is any misinterpretation, especially from your funding source, you need deal with it here. The Elaboration phase is when the technical solution is determined - not actually built. This phase is the clarification phase. There is modeling, risk analysis, prototyping and refining of the requirements. This phase is when you find out if the solution can actually be built. You leave the elaboration phase with an architecture on paper (or in a modeling tool) and something that runs just enough that can prove the system can be completed successfully. I believe this is the point where funding really needs to kick in. During Construction and Transition, headcount is being adding in the form of developers, testers, documentation writers, test engineering, release engineering, legal, etc. You are beginning to train the trainers, the sales staff, and the consultants. If the project is not going to succeed, it is in your best interest to kill it off before you begin construction phase.

This is Murphy. He is a Rottweiler mix - mostly mixed with love and anti-seizure medication. From Dogs Photo by www.nicolehowardphotography.com

Here is a small photo album from our trip. Cancun 2005

I think this can be answered from the user’s perspective and from the developer’s perspective. I think a page can be considered well designed if it looks good, works with many browsers, and can be maintained by others than the original author. From the user’s perspective, I was able to come up with the following list: Accessibility - the page is compatible with screen readers and alternate input devices. At work we recently went through a remediation process with one of our web sites. We needed to assure HR the site was compatible with accessibility utilities. I think about 75% of this can be handled by writing good HTML source. In addition to this, testing tools such as WebKing can help identify other problems that can prevent the web code from working in certain situations. Navigation - the page is easy to leave. Another way to say it is the page should have the necessary links to navigate away to other major areas, if it is part of a larger web site. Placement - the page is easy to find in the site and navigate to. Compatibility - the page can be loaded and properly displayed in popular browsers. I think in e-commerce, it is important to give this item some amount of priority. You want to encourage visitors to browse and buy regardless of the specific brand or version of their technical resources. This is also important to consider if your viewer base consists of users with handhelds or Internet-capable cell phones. Organization - information on the page is presented in a visually appealing way, including text style choice and page positioning. From the developer’s perspective: Documentation - comments in the code or a short design note helps the author remember what they did and helps other maintain the page later. Organization - the page’s source is consistently organized and formatted into blocks. I think with today’s tools that can reformat source code, this is less of a problem.

The difference that draws my attention is that print media is static - ink or other compound is bonded to a page and is permanently fixed. Unlike a web site, there is no hope of that print jumping up and rearranging itself if the user wants to see a different layout. The first difference is that web publishing has the possibility of introducing dynamic content to the user in a number of different ways. Web sites used for e-commerce have the ability to show customized content based on the user’s past purchase history, or if they have a particular preference for how the page is arranged. My Yahoo is another example, where each user can have a customized view of information they choose. The other primary difference I can think of between web and print media is that designing for a newspaper, for example, is a controlled process from end to end, unlike a web page in which the rendering and quality of the final product is out of the control of the publisher of the content. The newspaper publisher chooses layout, fonts and other aspects of style just list a web published would, but the similarity stops there. A print publisher also chooses the rendering mechanism and the paper it is printed on. In web publishing, that last step is somewhat variable in that browser differences have the possibility of producing different output with the same HTML code.