Mobile banking is pretty common in Africa for the same reasons T-Mobile is highlighting. Low barrier to entry and with a couple of partnerships with existing brick and mortar shops to act as physical banks you have a bank that is easily more accessible than the traditional banks. References EcoCash Zimbabwe M-Pesa - Wikipedia
Allow me me to rephrase, "using a cheap outsourced agency to build a Drupal/CMS/framework based site usually leads to customers screaming and the site failing under high traffic loads".
The reason is because anti-virus software on these computers is not updated. Reasons for not updating primarily revolve around how expensive it is to connect to the Internet. I don't live in my home country, Zimbabwe. When I did visit the one time I installed Ubuntu on the home PC because half the time the PC was unusable thanks to malware. I blogged about it here http://www.mahalasoft.co.za/blog/ubuntu-linux-experiment . The next time I visited, Windows XP had be reinstalled on the machine because that is what most of the "technies" knew back home, yes the PC was unusable again.
Considering that Sourceforge.net alone hosts "over 260 000 projects" one cannot be faulted for deducing that perhaps they do receive a large number of applications. I would wager they try select projects which will most "benefit mankind". All subjective off course but show me a process that is perfect. Good luck next year.
Perhaps living in Africa has given me a liaise faire approach to archiving mail. Life goes on with or without your years of email. In my working career I have always diligently backed up all mailboxes as I moved from one exchange server to another all with the belief that one day I would go back and read through my mails. I have never done this and I doubt I will be doing so in the near future. Over the years I have lost/misplaced some of the DVDs containing my vast collection of email and I have never felt the need to dig through the attic to locate some DVD with an important email stored on it.
I am struggling to read through my day to day mail. I am not going to bother setting up a backup server because I do not have the time to maintain it and I doubt I will do a better job that the "professionals" at Google. To those who lost their data I feel your pain but believe me there are worse things that can happen in life. Have a glass of wine and start your Inbox afresh.
This makes things interesting, I wonder though if it is not too late. As a developer looking for maximum exposure, developing for one of the other browsers with a bigger market share makes more sense.
+1 Make sure to go to the actual Zotero.org site and install the beta, version 2. It has a whole more features than the version available from the Firefox addons site.
No one has to use google and when you chose to then you should be aware your data is going to be on their servers. Personally I do not enter personal information.
I work for a company that provides Business Intelligence services. While we are all highly competent IT professionals none of us are developers. Using Drupal we have been able to set up our knowledgebase and task tracking system mainly using CCK and Views modules.
The point I am trying to make is for individuals like you who can write code, do write your code. But if your core business is not writing code and you need to create some sort of web application without having to learn to code then a CMS is a good idea.
I am not sure on my own with my limited knowledge of PHP (and limited time) if I could create something more secure than Drupal.
I am doing a study trying to find the most cost effective method to develop small in house systems. I am leaning towards using an Open Source Software (OSS) Content Management System (CMS) type of architecture. Here is why:
By nature OSS is modular; the core system is supplemented by third party modules. Through OSS methodology iterative refinements these modules soon become pretty nifty and are able to fill most usersâ(TM) requirements. Letâ(TM)s take Drupal for instance and some of the key modules:
CCK - allows user to define different types of content. This is done through a user interface and content fields range from numbers to complex data matrix fields. There are also field to reference users and other nodes hence the ability to create relationships between content and users.
Views - allows you to create views of the current content created using CCK. A view is a selection of the fields you would like to display. Filters can be applied on the fields and dynamic filters such as "Logged in user" are available.
Panels - allow you to create custom content displays. This is similar to web applications that allow you to place different widgets in different locations. In this case the widgets can be views or content or other types of content.
Workflow and Actions - allows you to define a workflow for each content type. Action is the action to be executed when an item reaches a workflow stage.
So for example an application to store a list of employees will typically be structured thus:
CCK - Employee
Fields - Name->Text, DOB->Date, Manager->User Reference, Address->Address Field...
Workflow - Start->
Views - Employees by Manager, Employees I manage....
For a task list the structure will be thus:
CCK - Task
Fields - Requested By -> User Reference, Date Requested -> Date, Assigned -> User Reference
Workflow - Assigned, UAT, Complete
I would go on but I think Slashdotters are bright enough to catch to work out the rest
Worthy modules bubble to the top and talented developers chip in and enhance these modules. The users provide testing.
Off course there will always be situations when you will need to write some code but it should not be for every web system if using Drupal. Besides custom code requires too much maintenance.
Slashdot Mirror
Mobile banking is pretty common in Africa for the same reasons T-Mobile is highlighting. Low barrier to entry and with a couple of partnerships with existing brick and mortar shops to act as physical banks you have a bank that is easily more accessible than the traditional banks.
References
EcoCash Zimbabwe
M-Pesa - Wikipedia
Allow me me to rephrase, "using a cheap outsourced agency to build a Drupal/CMS/framework based site usually leads to customers screaming and the site failing under high traffic loads".
In most cases the malware is transported to the unconnected PC via a USB stick that was used at an Internet cafe.
The reason is because anti-virus software on these computers is not updated. Reasons for not updating primarily revolve around how expensive it is to connect to the Internet. I don't live in my home country, Zimbabwe. When I did visit the one time I installed Ubuntu on the home PC because half the time the PC was unusable thanks to malware. I blogged about it here http://www.mahalasoft.co.za/blog/ubuntu-linux-experiment . The next time I visited, Windows XP had be reinstalled on the machine because that is what most of the "technies" knew back home, yes the PC was unusable again.
Please mod parent up! There is nothing like friendly competition on Slashdot. It's either may way or you are an idiot :-).
In short, use the right tool for the right job.
Considering that Sourceforge.net alone hosts "over 260 000 projects" one cannot be faulted for deducing that perhaps they do receive a large number of applications. I would wager they try select projects which will most "benefit mankind". All subjective off course but show me a process that is perfect. Good luck next year.
Perhaps living in Africa has given me a liaise faire approach to archiving mail. Life goes on with or without your years of email. In my working career I have always diligently backed up all mailboxes as I moved from one exchange server to another all with the belief that one day I would go back and read through my mails. I have never done this and I doubt I will be doing so in the near future. Over the years I have lost/misplaced some of the DVDs containing my vast collection of email and I have never felt the need to dig through the attic to locate some DVD with an important email stored on it.
I am struggling to read through my day to day mail. I am not going to bother setting up a backup server because I do not have the time to maintain it and I doubt I will do a better job that the "professionals" at Google. To those who lost their data I feel your pain but believe me there are worse things that can happen in life. Have a glass of wine and start your Inbox afresh.
This makes things interesting, I wonder though if it is not too late. As a developer looking for maximum exposure, developing for one of the other browsers with a bigger market share makes more sense.
but that's no reason to continue using what should be a dead project due to its lack of quality.
Maybe the user base of millions upon millions of web sites is enough motivation to continue developing developing the "low quality" project.
+1 Make sure to go to the actual Zotero.org site and install the beta, version 2. It has a whole more features than the version available from the Firefox addons site.
but not the deputy
No one has to use google and when you chose to then you should be aware your data is going to be on their servers. Personally I do not enter personal information.
I work for a company that provides Business Intelligence services. While we are all highly competent IT professionals none of us are developers. Using Drupal we have been able to set up our knowledgebase and task tracking system mainly using CCK and Views modules.
The point I am trying to make is for individuals like you who can write code, do write your code. But if your core business is not writing code and you need to create some sort of web application without having to learn to code then a CMS is a good idea.
I am not sure on my own with my limited knowledge of PHP (and limited time) if I could create something more secure than Drupal.
I am doing a study trying to find the most cost effective method to develop small in house systems. I am leaning towards using an Open Source Software (OSS) Content Management System (CMS) type of architecture. Here is why:
By nature OSS is modular; the core system is supplemented by third party modules. Through OSS methodology iterative refinements these modules soon become pretty nifty and are able to fill most usersâ(TM) requirements. Letâ(TM)s take Drupal for instance and some of the key modules:
CCK - allows user to define different types of content. This is done through a user interface and content fields range from numbers to complex data matrix fields. There are also field to reference users and other nodes hence the ability to create relationships between content and users.
Views - allows you to create views of the current content created using CCK. A view is a selection of the fields you would like to display. Filters can be applied on the fields and dynamic filters such as "Logged in user" are available.
Panels - allow you to create custom content displays. This is similar to web applications that allow you to place different widgets in different locations. In this case the widgets can be views or content or other types of content.
Workflow and Actions - allows you to define a workflow for each content type. Action is the action to be executed when an item reaches a workflow stage.
So for example an application to store a list of employees will typically be structured thus: ....
CCK - Employee
Fields - Name->Text, DOB->Date, Manager->User Reference, Address->Address Field...
Workflow - Start->
Views - Employees by Manager, Employees I manage
For a task list the structure will be thus:
CCK - Task
Fields - Requested By -> User Reference, Date Requested -> Date, Assigned -> User Reference
Workflow - Assigned, UAT, Complete
I would go on but I think Slashdotters are bright enough to catch to work out the rest
Worthy modules bubble to the top and talented developers chip in and enhance these modules. The users provide testing.
Off course there will always be situations when you will need to write some code but it should not be for every web system if using Drupal. Besides custom code requires too much maintenance.
http://mahalasoft.co.za/ for a survey on Drupal