The Data Warehouse ETL Toolkit_Ralph Kimball

The Extract-Transform-Load (ETL) system is the foundation of the data warehouse. A properly designed ETL system extracts data from the source systems, enforces data quality and consistency standards, conforms data so that separate sources can be used together, and finally delivers data in a presentation-ready format so that application developers can build applications and end users can make decisions.
This book is organized around these four steps. The ETL system makes or breaks the data warehouse. Although building the ETL system is a back room activity that is not very visible to end users, it easily consumes 70 percent of the resources needed for implementation and maintenance of a typical data warehouse. Continue Reading »
The Data Warehouse ETL Toolkit_Ralph Kimball

Windows Communication Foundation 4 Step by Step

Microsoft Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), alongside Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), has become part of the primary framework for building the next wave of business applications for the Microsoft Windows operating system WCF provides the underpinning technology driving distributed solutions based on the Microsoft platform; with it, you can build powerful service-oriented systems designed to address connected services and applications WCF is also an integral technology for building and accessing services running in the cloud under Windows Azure. Continue Reading »
Windows Communication Foundation 4 Step by Step

Web Design for Developers

Good web design is about much more than creating pretty pages. Basic concepts such as color theory, typography, layout, and usability are all part of a good design. These things work together to make the site
succeed for users. You could pick all the right colors and use smooth gradients, but if you don’t use a readable font, your site isn’t designed well. You could whip up something awesome in Photoshop or GIMP, but you’ll never be able to make it look good in a browser if you don’t know how HTML and CSS work. If you have sloppy markup, your JavaScript won’t work as you expect it to work. If you don’t optimize your content, search engines will hate your site. And if you take accessibility and usability for granted, your users will hate your site even more. Continue Reading »
Web Design for Developers

Pro Silverlight 4 in VB

Silverlight is a framework for building rich, browser-hosted applications that run on a variety of operating systems. Silverlight works its magic through a browser plug-in. When you surf to a web page that includes some Silverlight content, this browser plug-in runs, executes the code, and renders that content in a specifically designated region of the page. The important part is that the Silverlight plug-in provides a far richer environment than the traditional blend of HTML and JavaScript that powers ordinary web pages. Used carefully and artfully, you can create Silverlight pages that have interactive graphics, use vector animations, and play video and sound files. Continue Reading »
Pro Silverlight 4 in VB

Pro IE 8 and 9 Development

architecture. These binaries are available for Windows platforms only and, as of IE 8, are available on
x86, x64, and IA-64 architectures for supported systems. IE 8 is available for Windows XP SP2 and higher,
and Windows Server 2003 and higher.
The IE browser is a loosely connected set of executables, libraries, and resources that provide a user
interface (UI) and security infrastructure on top of a number of libraries that control networking, document hosting, extensibility, and markup handling. For example, the Trident library (mshtml.dll) controls parsing, layout, rendering, and display of web pages. The URL Moniker library (urlmon.dll) wraps Windows networking APIs to provide IE with a base communication, security, and download infrastructure. The Shell Document View (shdocvw.dll) provides the WebBrowser control, a widely used library that integrates IE functionality with stand-alone applications. Continue Reading »
Pro IE 8 and 9 Development