Thursday, July 15, 2010

E-Commerce and Zen Cart

Why should you choose Zen Cart to power your e-commerce site over several shopping cart frameworks around?

Every shopping cart framework has its own strengths and weaknesses. The main edge of Zen Cart from other shopping cart frameworks is that it is built by programmers who understand the process of selling online from strat to finish. It is superior to most in ease-of-use and features.

Zen Cart Features
  • Easy Installation
  • Global E-Commerce ready
  • Customer Status Modes
  • Catalog Status Modes
  • Categories and Products
  • Customer Retention Tools
  • Promotion, Sales, discounts
  • Administration Tool
  • Fully Customizable Catalog Templates
As a web developer, I can say that Zen Cart is really the best shopping cart framework. It is easy to use and you can customized it easily to suit your clients' needs.

Click here to download Zen Cart.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

A Simple WordPress Plugin

A wordpress plugin should have a header like this:

/*
Plugin Name: Hello World
Description: This is a simple WordPress plugin that displays "Hello World" on all pages' contents
Plugin URI: 
Version: Version 1.0
Author: Darlene Grace Arcenal
Author URI:
*/

This header lets WordPress recognize that your Plugin exists, add it to the Plugin management screen so it can be activated, load it, and run its functions; without the header, your Plugin will never be activated and will never run.. Except for the header's first line, all the other lines in the header are optional and interchangeable. Note: Plugin Name should be on the header, without it, your plugin won't be recognized by WordPress.After putting the header in the your PHP code, you are now ready to create your plugin that displays "Hello World:

function hello_world()
{
         echo 'Hello World';
}

add_action('the_content','hello_world');

Now your plugin is ready, save it inyour WordPress wp-content/plugin directory. Go to the WordPress admin , then Plugins. Lastly, find Hello World in the Plugins' tab and click activate. It's done! Go to your WordPress front-end site, you will now see "Hello World" in every page's content.

So what does this function really do?

You have a function hello_world() and this function displays "Hello World". This function will not be functional if you won't add the comand add_action().

add_action('the_content','hello_world'), will add your function to the action 'the_content' which is responsible for your WordPress site's contents.

Hope this post will help you.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Basics on PHP

What does PHP stand for?
PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor

What is PHP?
PHP is a server-side scripting language usually written in an HTML context. Unlike an ordinary HTML page, a PHP script is not sent directly to a client by the server; instead, it is parsed by the PHP binary or module, which is server-side installed. HTML elements in the script are left alone, but PHP code is interpreted and executed.PHP's language syntax is similar to C's and Perl's.

PHP scripts are surrounded by what delimiters?



How do you write Hello World in PHP?
echo "Hello World";

In what symbol do the variables in PHP start with?
$

How do you end a PHP statement?
;

How do you create a function in PHP?
function myFunction()

In PHP, how do you connect to a MYSQL Database?
mysql_connect("localhost","username","password");

In PHP, how do you add a comment?
/*...*/ ->for muliple lines
//... ->for a single line


I will post more info about PHP on my next posts.

From Bioinformatics to PHP

Since I am a PHP Programmer, I now shift the topic of this blog from Bioinformatics to PHP. From now on, I will talk about PHP and the web. I just wanted to share the things I learned and will be learning from my job.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

What is Bioinformatics?


Bioinformatics is the science that uses computational methods and approaches to study biological problems and to analyze biological sequences (e.g. protein sequences, DNA sequences) and related data. It is the integration of biology, computer science, information technology, statistics and mathematics.
                Bioinformatics involves data storage, data management, database implementation, data retrieval, annotation, data maintenance, networking and protocols, data analysis, algorithm design, structure prediction, modeling and sequence analysis. On the other hand, sufficient knowledge in Bioinformatics has become a vehicle for pharmaceutical scientists who genetically modify bacteria, plants and animals to produce effective drugs to cure diseases. Furthermore, Bioinformatics can increase our understanding in the molecular mechanisms behind several genetic diseases and can help researchers develop strategies in curing these diseases. In addition, nowadays, Bioinformatics has become an important tool for researchers in constructing drugs targeted to particular organelles to correct a specific defect. With the huge amount of unprocessed biological sequence data and the fact that experimental procedures are time consuming and very costly, automated technology for biological computation (Bioinformatics) is becoming more and more important. These are just some of the importance of Bioinformatics in our daily lives.
                Bioinformatics involves technologies such as sequence analysis, genome annotation, gene expression analysis, biological regulation analysis, protein expression analysis, sequence alignment, signal peptide prediction, homology prediction, comparative genomics and computational databases for biological sequences. Some of the many examples of such technologies are SWISS-Prot, ExPASy, BLAS, SignalP, SigCleave and PrediSi.
                 Today, the technology involving bioinformatics is in demand and for me the most interesting technology because it can lead to several discoveries, improves the lives of the people, cures diseases, saves time and money and it is really challenging since only few people are trained adequately in both biology and computer science. The technology is still very young and promising, and there is a lot of information waiting to be decoded. In addition, there are still a lot of spaces for new interesting discoveries. If this technology will continue its growth, many lives will improve. Furthermore, based on my researches, ranks Bioinformatics ranks as #1 among next hot jobs in SmartMoney and one of the top 50 Masters of Innovation in Business Week; there are plenty of jobs available in the field of Bioinformatics.
                http://www.sigcon.upvcebudcs.edu.ph

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

SigCon, A Signal Peptide Prediction Method Based on a Consensus Approach

To complete my BS Computer Science Degree in the University of the Philippines, I need to conduct a Special Problem or Thesis. My Special Problem is entitled "A Signal Peptide Method Based on a Consensus Approach". It is all about signal peptides and cleavage sites. Well, I think only a few know what signal peptides are. Only those Biology/ Bioinformatics people know such.

Here's the overview of my Special Problem:

         The importance of signal peptides has led to the development of several signal peptide prediction tools implemented using different methods. However, no signal peptide prediction tool can predict all signal peptides accurately and each has its own weaknesses.
            This study evaluates five of the publicly available signal peptide prediction tools, namely, SignalP-NN, SignalP-HMM, PrediSi, Phobius and SigCleave. Based from the results of the evaluation, the study comes up with a signal peptide prediction tool, SigCon, implemented using the consensus approach. SigCon uses as input the prediction results of SignalP-NN, SigCleave and Phobius. SigCon, in turn, outputs the consensus of the prediction results. If SigCon predicted a sequence to contain a signal peptide, it will then give the cleavage site location of that signal peptide. SigCon uses the predicted cleavage site locations of SignalP-NN.
SigCon has been tested in terms of its prediction accuracy. Using the data set from SPdb, SigCon acquired a prediction accuracy of 81.3%. On another assessment using a data set generated form PrediSi’s training set, SigCon had a prediction accuracy of 38.2%. Furthermore, SigCon has a low rate in false positive prediction, which is only 1.27%. The result of the first evaluation showed that among the other prediction tools excluding SignalP-NN, SigCon was the most accurate in predicting signal peptides. However, in the second assessment, the performance of SigCon and SignalP-NN are the same. In addition, SigCon has the lowest false positive prediction rate as compared to SignalP-NN and other prediction tools.


If your interested in signal peptide and cleavage site prediction, please feel very to visit the site. :)

Monday, February 1, 2010

Companies that made a turn around after adapting a quality standard.

 

Case Study: Companies that made a turn around after adapting a quality standard.

Company 1: Porsche
Porsche, an auto manufacturing company in Germany, was one of the most distressed companies in auto manufacturing. In 1992, Porsche’s production from 50,000 units a year in 1986 had fallen to 14,000 units a year. Porsche losses more than 10% of its sales when it began to address its problems seriously and the loss were fast.  By this, the Porsche’s German turnaround manager asked the help of Japanese thinkers. Porsche then decided to adopt lean production methods.
Lean Production Methods is a standard strategy in operating turnarounds that led Toyota Motors to be among the most admired companies in the world after facing a crisis.  Many automotive companies facing a crisis adopted Lean Production Methods.
After Porsche practiced the lean production method since 1992, it indeed brought it back from the dead. Productivity doubled, defects in supplier parts declined by 90%, in-process time for a car shortened to five days from six weeks, and parts inventories were being cut 90%.

Company 2: McDonald’s in India
            McDonald’s entered India in 1996 and managed to buck the trend in a struggling economy. The fast-food chain started making profits after it broke even in 2008. Given the unique cultural space of India, where regional food preferences dominated the people’s food habits, McDonald’s, a beef-based hamburger chain, achieve success and was able to put up a number of stores in India.
            Globally McDonald’s is known for its hamburgers, beef and pork burgers. To survive India, McDonald’s adopted India’s local culture by coming up with chicken, lamb and fish burgers. Furthermore, India has a huge population of vegetarian, thus, the company came up with a new line of vegetarian items like McVeggie Burger and McAlooTikki. They also adopted the pricing standard in India. In September 2009, McDonald's announced reduction in prices by almost 25% for its lunch and dinner menus.
            On the other hand, due to these strategies, McDonald’s India was able to successfully gain profits.

References :
[1]Watson H.Dec, 2006.The New Standard in Operating Turnarounds:Lean Thinnking?. http://www.turnaround.org/Publications/Articles.aspx?objectID=3245.[Retrieved: December 7, 2009]
[2]Mc Donald’s: Behind the Golden Arches. http://www.scribd.com/doc/11520753/Marketing-Strategies-of-McDonalds. [Retrieved: December 7,2009]