|
Are You Being Web-served?
By
Michael Burns
Web
Services is now the most hyped technology on the planet. It has
the potential to let different systems communicate with each
other easily. Integration problems would be no more. EDI
(Electronic Data Interchange) would be replaced by Web Services.
Business to Business (B2B) eCommerce would become a reality. New
applications could be assembled using programs available on Web
Services. Despite the hype, there is a lot of confusion about
what is actually meant by Web Services.
Web
Services refers to application logic accessible to programs via
standard web protocols in a platform-independent way. So, if you
hear that companies already have web services in place, this is
a stretch. They may be using XML (eXtensible Markup Language),
which is a key component in Web Services and they may be
communicating over the internet, but they are not using
standards in a platform independent way. Before they can use
standards, there needs to be agreement on the standards. And
that’s the big problem. Just as Paul Simon sings about the 50
ways to lose your lover, there are 50 ways to define a purchase
order. There are also different levels to Web Services that need
to be standardized. You may have heard of SOAP (Simple Object
Access Protocol) which acts as the envelope for XML-based
messages, covering message packaging, routing, guaranteed
delivery and security. Another layer is UDDI (Universal
Description, Discovery and Integration), which acts as the
Yellow Pages or as a directory of web services. Technology
companies need an acronym for everything they do, and Web
Services has more acronyms associated with it than you would
care to know about it.
Although the obstacles to Web Services are large, there is huge
momentum and commitment by all the major technology companies to
sort out the standards. Only this year, the WS-I (Web Services
Interoperability Organization) was created to act as a quality
assurance group over web services. The group includes IBM,
Microsoft, Intel, and will soon include Sun Microsystems.
Although Web Services is a tangled web of acronyms, technologies
and companies, its net or as Microsoft refers to it, its .NET
will catch us all. Only this time getting caught in the net/.NET
is a good thing.
About the author:
Michael Burns, MBA, CA, is President of 180 Systems, which
provides objective consulting advice in the selection and
implementation of accounting and ERP systems. Michael can be
reached at 416-963-1296 or by email at
mburns@180systems.com.
Web site:
http://www.180systems.com
Startling News!
OK, I admit it - I misled you with the above
headline. This news is not all that startling - but it should
be: too many businesses are still neglecting their data backup
and disaster recovery procedures. And sadly, this includes some
Blue Link users as well. So here is another of our regular
"nagging" sessions:
-
please ensure
that you back up your business data daily
-
please ensure
that, if backup does not run on a given day, someone is alerted
so this can be rectified
-
please,
please verify that your backups are valid by regularly
performing a test restore
OK, that's it - I'm off my soapbox for now.
Here's wishing you all a wonderful December, and
a safe and happy holiday season.
|
|
|
 |
|
|
In this
issue:
Are You Being Web-served?
Startling News!
Tips and Tricks
Our Products
Tips and Tricks
Excel 2002 Tip
Quickly add, count or average a range
(To use this tip, ensure that the status bar is
displayed: from the pull-down menus at top of screen, select View,
then ensure that the checkbox next to "Status Bar" is checked. The
status bar is the bar at the bottom of the Excel window.)
Now select any range of cells on a spreadsheet that
contains at least two numeric values. On the status bar, near the
right hand side, the sum of all numeric values in your selected range
will display as "Sum=X".
Now for the really cool part: right-click on the
status bar, and a pop-up list allows you to change this to a count of
the number of cells, an average of the values, or one of 3 additional
options.
.
Our Products
|
|
|
Our flagship
product, Blue Link Solutions, is a completely integrated business
and accounting package with functionality unmatched in its price
range.
|
|
|
|
Affordable yet powerful Human
Resources management software for small and medium sized
businesses.
|
|
Industry-Specific Add-ons |
|
|
The comprehensive functionality of Blue Link Solutions is
further extended by the availability of add-on components, mostly
industry-specific.
|
|
Other products include:
- ProQuote
- Business Alerts
- Asset register
- Track 'n' Bill
- Web.Venture
- Expense Tracker
- Point of Sale
|
|
|
For a complete listing of all of our products
and for more information about them, click here.
|
|
156 Corstate Avenue, Suite #3, Concord, Ont., Canada,
L4K 4X2 Tel:(905) 660-0599 ( in the Toronto area)
Toll free: 1-877-BLU-LINK
(1-877-258-5465)
www.bluelink.ca
|
