The process of Web application development is critical to the success of web-based projects.

When technologies begin their ascent up the hype curve, typically there’s a lot of opinions, confusion and nonsense. Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is no different in this regard. I’d like to try and demystify the whole SOA world and debunk some of the myths that are being propagated about how SOA can and cannot help in solving real computing challenges.

There’s a new adapter that adds a new standard as another option for Integrating Enterprise Java Applications.

Lean supply chain management is for many companies. It is not just for manufacturers who practice lean management. It is also for non-manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors, retailers and others.

As more web practitioners have assumed the title of Information Architect to describe the work they do, and as more information architects (and user experience designers and user interface designers and information designers) are multitasking on reduced staffs, information architects have uncovered a wide range of ways to view both the practice and ourselves practicing. Unfortunately, a common response to this multiplicity has been to reiterate certain narrow definitions of information architecture, to impatiently seek consensus, and to view with suspicion those who don’t fit.

Reader question:
I read somewhere that every single page on a Web site should be optimized for the search engines. I do not have the time to optimize my entire database-driven site, but my site still relies on search engine traffic for business. If people do not have the time or the budget, what are the best optimization strategies to implement? What do you consider the minimum number of pages to optimize?

Most materials discussing the phases of a software development project are intended for the developers community. I decided to take a different look at the issue and help those novices who are going to outsource a software development project to an outsource service provider (OSP).

Reader question: I hear search engine marketers talk about site architecture all of the time and how important it is for search engine optimization. What exactly is site architecture and how should I be implementing it on my Web site?

Reader question: I hear search engine marketers talk about site architecture all of the time and how important it is for search engine optimization. What exactly is site architecture and how should I be implementing it on my Web site?

Search engine optimization for today’s search engine robots requires that sites be well-designed and easy-to-navigate. To a great degree, organic search engine optimization is simply an extension of best practices in web page design. SEO’s relationship with web design is a natural one. By making sites simple and easily accessible, you are providing the easiest path for the search engine robots to index your site, at the same time that you are creating the optimum experience for your human visitors.

Every successful brand has managed to communicate its company’s core beliefs and attitudes-what the company stands for-to its target customers.

When people come to your website they have a mental map of how their ‘ideal’ webpage should be. They expect to see certain things in certain places. They expect to read certain killer words in your classification and content. The more you meet their mental map, the more successful your website will be.

How do you unlock the value of the information your organization manages? Business integration is the key technique in unlocking this information. Business integration is the single biggest issue for end-users, and therefore, for the IT industry. Recent Gartner research in this area has highlighted the importance of “service-oriented architectures” in solving the business integration issue. There is a growing realization that integration is best solved using a service-oriented architecture.

We can understand without difficulty why Web Services are produced if we will look at the computer and software world. There are many systems and platforms out there on the Internet and there are even more applications that are living on these systems and platforms. If we need more explanation about this, there are many technologies to connect clients to servers- including DCOM, CORBA and others, with Web Services growing on a new and much simpler type of connectivity, based on open standards such as HTTP, XML and SOAP.

The major goals of the Web services architecture are interoperability, reliability, security, manageability, scalability and extensibility and integration with the Web.

Ask Shari anything about search engines and see your answer published in DevWebPro’s weekly SEO Corner column.

Have a question? Ask it here.

We are not able to think of the name of a single enterprise in this modern information technology era that does not have different applications (ranging from simple to vastly complicated) implementing its internal processes and exposing them to their partners (buyers, suppliers, customers, and so forth).

This information-packed session should be on a “not to be missed” list for future participants, no matter what their level of expertise. I found myself continually saying, “Oh yeah! I forgot about that!” as they discussed strategy after strategy. The session offered excellent reminders of things that are so easy to forget, especially considering how complex search engine marketing is. And, it presented new strategies as well, important strategies that need to be placed in the forefront of all search engine marketing endeavors.

UIE: Adaptive Path’s methodology for creating information architectures has gained a lot of attention lately. How do you go about creating an IA for large sites?

Personalization. It’s everywhere. It’s the big thing. Everyone wants to implement it–and you can’t blame business stakeholders for this viewpoint. Personalization can be a powerful ally in gaining competitive advantage.