David Keener has published a variety of articles in different venues over the last six years. The most recent ones are listed below.

Ruby on Rails Articles

Rails, a web developmenet framework built on top of the Ruby programming language, is one of the hottest new web technologies. Find out more about this exciting technology.

• Multiple Form Buttons in Rails: Simple forms may be sufficient for most web solutions,but not all of them. Find out how to create forms in Ruby on Rails that contain multiple buttons.

• Getting Started With Ruby on Rails: This article describes a few tools, such as InstantRails and RadRails, that will help new developers get started with Ruby on Rails.

ASP.NET Articles

ASP.NET is one of the key technologies provided by Microsoft for implementing high-performance web sites.

• URL Rewriting in ASP.NET: URL rewriting is a technique in which a request for a web resource is intercepted and an alternate resource is substituted for the response. This is sometimes done, particularly in content management systems, to create simple, easy-to-remember URLs for web-accessible content. Find out how this technique can be accomplished in ASP.NET.

• Banner Display Using the ASP.NET Ad Rotator Control: The enhanced Ad Rotator control provided by ASP.NET provides numerous advantages over the Ad Rotator component provided in so-called Classic ASP. Find out how easily banners can be handled in ASP.NET.

• Generating Dynamic Graphics in ASP.NET Web Applications: Find out how GDI+, ASP.Net's wrapper for Microsoft's Graphics Device Interface, can be used to dynamically create images such as charts and graphs within the context of a web application.

Java Articles

Java and related technologies such as servlets and Java Server Pages (JSP) are among the most widely used elements of entreprise-caliber web sites for large businesses. Find out more about some of these key technologies.

• Creating Dynamic Charts With JFreeChart: JFreeChart is a Java-based, open source charting library. Find out how to use JFreeChart to dynamically generate sophisticated charts and seamlessly embed them within web pages.

• Introduction to Java Servlets: The Java Servlet API (Application Programming Interface) allows developers to create Java classes that dynamically construct and return web pages. Discover how to create highly functional servlets.

Web Strategy

The web is an extremely useful communication channel for businesses, but there are as many ways to use the medium badly as there are strategies for using it effectively.

• Top 10 Best Practices for Creating Web Sites: Designing effective commercial web sites is a difficult task, with numerous potential pitfalls. Discover some best practices that will help you make your web site dvelopment effort a successful one.

• Generating Traffic for Your Web Site: All online businesses face the struggle to get visitors to come to their web site. Here are some inexpensive but highly effective ways to generate traffic for your web site.

• Software Testing: A Forgotten Art: Solid testing is one of the hidden ingredients of successful web sites. This article on software testing as it applies to web sites and web-based applications was created for a small web consulting company.

• Effective Writing for the Web: The web is a different medium than print, and content works better if it's tailored to suit the medium. This short article on writing for the web has appeared on at least three separate web sites.

Web Technologies

There are a variety of technologies used today in the creation of quality web sites. A few of these technologies are described in the articles below.

• Harnessing the Power of XML for Your Business: There's a lot of hype about the usefulness of XML. This article cuts through the hype and explains some of the major advantages that XML offers for businesses.

• Handling Credit Card Transactions Using CyberCash: Implementing a solution for handling credit card payments is one of the defining hurdles that has to be overcome by many online businesses. Find out how credit card processing works in the online world, plus learn how this task can easily be accomplished using the ColdFusion language. Originally published in the ColdFusion Developer's Journal.

• Simple Banner Rotation Using Active Server Pages: Using the ASP programming language (now referred to as Classic ASP), Microsoft's widely available Ad Rotator component can easily be used to manage banners for a web site.

• Tracking Software Issues: The almost universal accessibility of the web makes it an ideal platform for fielding collaborative applications. In this article, originally published in the ColdFusion Developer's Journal, a simple web-based system for tracking and managing software issues is described.

Database Articles

Today's highly functional web sites are often supported by enterprise-caliber databases such as Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL or other databases.

• Simulating IDENTITY Columns in Oracle: Microsoft SQL Server supports IDENTITY columns that can be used to generate unqiue primary key values. Unfortunately, Oracle does not support this useful feature. Find out how this feature can be simulated in Oracle.

• Understanding How Oracle Triggers are Executed: This article on Oracle triggers was created for a small IT contracting company. It also describes a useful convention for naming triggers to better support future maintenance activities.

UNIX/Linux Articles

The UNIX operating system, in its many different flavors, includes a wide variety of tools and utilities that can be used to provide critical back-end services for web sites.

• Using Cron to Schedule UNIX Activities: The freely available cron program is an extremely useful utility for scheduling the automatic execution of tasks. Find out how to use this useful UNIX utility.

Career Advice Articles

These articles were originally written for CareerBank.com, a niche career site that specializes in accounting, banking and finance jobs. Through the miracle of online syndication, these articles are available on over a thousand career-related web sites.

• Competing With the Monster: This article describes how niche career sites can compete effectively with large career sites like Monster.com, HotJobs.com and others.

• Taxonomy of Career Sites: There are literally thousands of career-related web sites. This article provides a useful guide for categorizing them, with an emphasis on then using the categories to determine which web sites might be most effective for a job search.

• Privacy and the Online Job Hunt: Privacy is one of the major concerns for job seekers when it comes to using online career sites. This article discusses the various privacy features offered by the major career sites.

• Interviewing Tips for Recruiters: Interviewing candidates is a difficult task. This article provides practical tips for interviewing candidates.

• Rating Career Sites Using the Candidate Ratio: In advertising to employers, career sites often promote their "candidate ratio," a statistic that describes how many job seekers they have in comparison to the number of job opportunities listed. How useful is this statistic?

• The Most Glamorous Job in Accounting: Every year, a team of accountants is responsible for tabulating the votes for the Oscars. These accountants have the most glamorous job in the accounting field.