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Navicat, an impressive database admin tool which has versions to manage specific databases is now offering an unique tool named Navicat Premium which can manage:

• MySQL
• PostgreSQL
• Oracle

    

within a single application with amazing features.

Navicat Premium allows you to control these 3 database types like they are the same & saves you too much time. You can:

• drag’n drop tables from Oracle to MySQL, PostgreSQL to MySQL and vice versa
• schedule operations for different databases such as print report in MySQL, backup data in Oracle and synchronize data in PostgreSQL to run automatically
     

The application comes with all the nice features of the Navicat family:

• advanced import/ export wizard
• query builder
• report builder
• data synchronization
• backup
• job scheduler
• & more
         

For anyone who works cross-database, Navicat Premium is a must-have software that removes all the headache of working with multiple applications & compatibility problems between databases.

It is available for two platforms – Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X.

Pattern8 was created to make it easier to find high quality free seamless patterns. It offers free vector and pixel patterns you need. It keeps things simple and allows searching by color.

You can use Pattern8 files for personal and commercial work. You can also use Pattern8 files in your own design work. That includes web design, t-shirts, business cards, greetings card, stationery, posters, flyers, branding etc.

Face Your Manga is a Flash Web Application that allows you to create an Avatar for yourself or your friends in an absolutely free, easy and quick way. You will be  able to use it with the most common Instant Messaging Programmes, or even on website, Forum, Blog and wherever you want in the virtual world.

With FaceyourManga you can create your own pretty and funny Avatar without needing any artistic skills. Once you have completed the Avatar, enter your nickname, birth date and e-mail address. You will receive an e-mail containing the Avatar immediately.

BySlideMenu is a plugin for Mootools which allow you to easily create a beautiful accordion menu (sliding menu) on any element you want using images and/or text. It works horizontally or vertically. Menu can be pinned or not, by mouseover or click. It’s totally free. You can download it, modify it and use it in any commercial project as long as you respect the license. It’s Open Source!

If you like this plugin, you should take a look at Phatfusion Image Menu as well.

It is a good news to web application developers. Google Analytics Data Export API beta is now publicly available to all Analytics users. The Data Export API is easy to use and provides read-only access to all your Analytics data. Any data that’s available through the standard Analytics web interface is available through the API.

Developers can integrate Google Analytics into their existing products and create standalone applications that they sell. Users could see snapshots of their Analytics data in developer created dashboards and gadgets. Individuals and business owners will have opportunities to access their Google Analytics information in a variety of new ways with Google Analytics Data Export API.

For example, you can accessing Analytics from your desktop with Polaris from now on. Polaris is a cross-platform desktop widget for Google Analytics. With 8 standard reports it’s the easiest way keep your data always instantly available. The rich interface and swift navigation make it a pleasure to use.

Over the last few years Rails has helped Ruby’s popularity explode. One of the biggest reasons for this is the time that Rails can save you. By working within a well defined framework a lot of development decisions are simplified and it is easier to be more organized. Throw in some great tools like ORM, Unit Testing, Mocking, and more and you have a powerhouse of developer efficiency and quality.

There has always been and probably always will be feuds over what is the best platform but what I want to show you is that those arguments are mostly irrelevant. Regardless of what platform you choose to develop on there are most of the same tools available in one form or another. The common components, for me anyway, that help me produce high quality code faster and is easier to maintain are a good IDE, easy to use unit testing and mocking frameworks, an ORM, a MVC framework, and a good JavaScript library.

I am a .Net developer by trade and a PHP developer sometimes by choice. I enjoy both environments for different reasons. I am going to talk about each of these components in a bit of detail and explain why I think they are important and then at the end of the article I will provide a list of each of these components for various languages (.Net, Java, PHP, Python, and Ruby). I have decided to only list free or open source tools because they are easy for someone to try out and we all like to save a few bucks.
The Integrated Development Environment (IDE)

To me this is the prime essential. Sure you can program in Notepad and compile with the command line but it will likely take longer and it will require more discipline to stay organized. With a good IDE you have easy project management (all you files grouped together with tabbed browsing), syntax highlighting, compilation (if applicable), and auto complete.

IDE are continuously getting more and more sophisticated and plugins allow for lots more functionality like svn and git management in the IDE.

For me my favorite IDE is Visual Studio. There are some other great programs out there like NetBeans and Eclipse but for whatever reason I have become partial to Visual Studio.
Unit Testing And Mocking

These two items go hand in hand. No application is complete without proper testing. There are plenty of people on both sides of the fence when it comes to testing. I know, I was a skeptic for a along time. It just felt weird to spend time writing code to test the real code I was going to write. Finally I just decided to give it a try and it has changed the way I program. When you are focusing on how to test your code you just write cleaner code and it’s nice to have a quick way to know if the change you just made broke anything.
Object Relational Mapper

If you have ever used an ORM you know that it can save you a huge amount of time. One of the concerns I had before jumping to an ORM was performance. I wanted to know if using an ORM would make my application slower but I was asking the wrong question. I should have been asking whether or not the small performance hit was worth the huge time savings. The answer to that is a definite YES! Rarely in an application will the ORM be the source of poor performance and if it is it can be refactored to improve or you can use straight SQL if need be.

It all comes down to not worrying about performance issues before you have any. Yes it is important to keep performance in mind but using an ORM shouldn’t be anything to worry about.
MVC Framework

MVC has become very popular thanks in part to Rails and it’s revolution in the way we do Web Development. The key component to it’s popularity is that it separates the different concerns of your application into seperate pieces. This separation allows easier testing, better design, and makes your application more maintainable overall.
JavaScript Library

It seems there is a JavaScript library for just about everything these days. I remember not too long ago there were that many and JavaScript use hadn’t exploded yet. A JavaScript library is important to your productivity. The library shouldn’t compensate for poor JavaScript skills, you need a solid foundation, but should compliment a good understanding of it. The library will take care of browser compatibility issues and low level operations letting you focus on getting the job done.

ASP.Net
IDE: Visual Studio 2008 Express
Unit Testing: NUnit
Mocking: Rhino Mocks
ORM: NHibernate
MVC: ASP.NET MVC
JavaScript: jQuery

Java
IDE: NetBeans
Unit Testing: JUnit
Mocking: EasyMock
ORM: Hibernate
MVC: Struts
JavaScript: jQuery

PHP
IDE: PHPEclipse
Unit Testing: PHPUnit
Mocking: PHPMock
ORM: Propel
MVC: Symfony
JavaScript: jQuery

Python
IDE: PyDev
Unit Testing: PyUnit
Mocking: PythonMock
ORM: SQLObject
MVC: Django
JavaScript: jQuery

Ruby
IDE: RadRails
Unit Testing: Test::Unit
Mocking: Mocha
ORM: Sequel
MVC: Rails
JavaScript: jQuery

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We could use those around our house. My kids always start out the year with crisp binders, everything in its place inside, and plenty of pens and pencils. But one month flows into the next, and organization can slip.

Lifehacker has 10 Top Back to School Tips that are good for high school and college students. They range from a textbook deals finder (BookFinder.com), a bibliography maker (OttoBib), LitSum online literature summaries and study guides, and some nice apps for sharing class notes.

If you’ve got a Mac, Desktop Organizer Schoolhouse 2 looks very intuitive, offering a great way to put all class assignments, tasks, grades and more in one place.

The Stu.dicio.us notetaking site allows students to take, share, and find notes with friends, connect with Facebook friends, and keep track of dates.

Notely, a web-based student organizer, looks really helpful and easy to use, too. It helps you keep track of class notes, to-do lists, schedules, friends, and bookmarks.

I applied for a User-ID and password so I could use the US Post Office’s web services. They have some promising looking tools: zip code lookup, city/state lookup, address verification, and some other things.

A couple of hours after I applied for an account, I got my welcome email. I was on to the next task though, so I filed it. Tonight I wanted to take it for a spin.

I wrote a little program to give it a go. I didn’t follow their technical details because I don’t want to put a long XML string in the query string of the XML. This is an idempotent request, but I’ll put that stuff in the message body anyway and use a POST request.

Here’s the code. Notice I have my ID and password in the environment. The USPS says on just about every other page that I can’t give out those credentials. I can’t share them and I can’t tell anyone else what they are. Fair enough.

Look at the request scheme though! It’s plain ol’ HTTP. That’s plaintext floating across the air, or copper, or whatever. I tried sticking https in there, but it never makes a connection. Every time I test this little application, I’m exposing my credentials. You don’t have to hack ChoicePoint to get that.

use HTTP::Request;
use LWP::UserAgent;

my $content =<<"HERE";
API=Verify&XML=<AddressValidateRequest
	USERID="$ENV{USPS_ID}"
	PASSWORD="$ENV{USPS_PASS}">
<Address ID="0">
<Address1>5250 N. Kenmore Suite 157</Address1>
<City>Chicago</City>
<State>IL</State>
<Zip5>60640</Zip5>
</Address>
</AddressValidateRequest>
HERE

my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new();

my $request = HTTP::Request->new( POST =>
'http://testing.shippingapis.com/ShippingAPITest.dll' );
$request->content( $content );

print $request->as_string;

my $response = $ua->request( $request );

print $response->as_string;

Okay, it’s their system and a password to their system. Obviously they know what they are doing. They are the government after all.

Not so fast. Check out this response: All I really have is a User-ID and password. I can’t actually use the service, even on the testing service. It turns out that I have to request that separately. Ughh. Not only that, they are using IIS. Oh boy, so this service will down a lot, won’t it? I’ll have to wait to see about that because I need someone to authorize me to use the web service I signed up for two weeks ago.

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Connection: close
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 11:04:46 GMT
Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
Client-Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 11:04:40 GMT
Client-Peer: 56.0.134.43:80
Client-Response-Num: 1

<Error>
	<Number>80040b1a</Number>
	<Description>API Authorization failure. 
User 931THEPE4647 is not authorized to use API Verify.</Description>
	<Source>UspsCom::DoAuth</Source>
</Error>

Over at the Mozilla Developer Tools Lab, we’re starting work on a new tool to help web developers understand what’s going on with the memory management of their application:

So how does a developer troubleshoot memory problems? There’s only one way good way to do it: use the operating system’s tools. Unfortunately, this option doesn’t provide the right level of detail; you can either see how much memory the browser is consuming in aggregate (which is fine to let you know that your memory use is increasing, but doesn’t tell you why) or you can see which data structures in the browser itself are consuming the memory (which is fine if you understand the guts of the browser, but it’s pretty hard for anyone else to understand how this maps into the web application they’ve developed).

What’s missing is a tool targeted at web developers that makes it easy to understand what’s happening with their application’s memory usage. We propose to create such a tool.

Check out the full entry over at my blog for more on the motivations inspiring us to tackling this problem and for details on the first phase of this approach. Let us know what you think!

Yvo Schaap has created a reasonably interesting real-time front-end to Reddit data over at erqqvg.com. It’s actually a really cool visualization of how Reddit’s stories change over time, with “yellow-fade” indications when new comments and votes and registered. Super-nice.

(The screenshot doesn’t do it justice; go check it out.)

But that’s only half the story. They’ve got a much-better-named service called “Vizeddit” that displays the same data with much richer graphics and animations:

Once again, you really need to go see it. The numbers along the bottom represent stories, and they grow and swap places over time, new ones are inserted, and so forth. You see the votes drop down in real-time, and new comments float in as well.