All Skills

Name
Description
More Info
More info
3D Modeling/animationIn 3D computer graphics, 3D modeling is the process of developing a mathematical, wireframe representation of any three-dimensional object (either inanimate or living) via specialized software. The product is called a 3D model. It can be displayed as a two-dimensional image through a process called 3D rendering or used in a computer simulation of physical phenomena. The modeling process of preparing geometric data for 3D computer graphics is similar to plastic arts such as sculpting. ...www.the3drevolution.comen.wikipedia.org
300mm software Automation standards
Able to work in team environment
AccessMicrosoft Access is a relational database management system from Microsoft, packaged with Microsoft Office Professional which combines the relational Microsoft Jet Database Engine with a graphical user interface. It can use data stored in Access/Jet, SQL Server, Oracle, or any ODBC-compliant data container. Skilled software developers and data architects use it to develop powerful, complex application software. Relatively unskilled programmers and non-programmer "power users" can use it to build simple applications without having to deal with features they don't understand. It supports substantial object-oriented (OO) techniques but falls short of being a fully OO development tool. ...www.mvps.orgen.wikipedia.org
Accounting or Banking industry experience
Active record patternIn computer science, the active record pattern is a design pattern frequently found in enterprise applications.

Active record is an approach to accessing data in a database. A database table or view is wrapped into a class, thus an object instance is tied to a single row in the table. After creation of an object, a new row is added to the table upon save. Any object loaded gets its information from the database; when an object is updated, the corresponding row in the table is also updated. The wrapper class implements accessor methods or properties for each column in the table or view. ...
www.martinfowler.comen.wikipedia.org
ADOMicrosoft ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) is a set of Component Object Model objects for accessing data sources. It provides a layer between programming languages and OLE DB (a means of accessing data stores, whether they be databases or otherwise, in a uniform manner), which allows a developer to write programs which access data, without knowing how the database is implemented. You must be aware of your database for connection only. No knowledge of SQL is required to access a database when using ADO, although one can use ADO to execute arbitrary SQL commands. The disadvantage of this (i.e. using SQL directly) is that it introduces a dependency upon the type of database used.

It is positioned as a successor to Microsoft's earlier object layers for accessing data sources, including RDO (Remote Data Objects) and DAO (Data Access Objects). ADO was introduced by Microsoft in the winter of 1996. ...
msdn.microsoft.comen.wikipedia.org
Adobe AIRAdobe Integrated Runtime, also known as Adobe AIR, codenamed and originally called Apollo, is a cross-OS runtime environment for building Rich Internet Applications, using Flash, Flex, HTML and Ajax, that can be deployed as a desktop application.

A public preview release of the AIR runtime, then known as Apollo, along with an SDK and extension for developing Apollo applications with the Flex framework, was released on March 19, 2007. On June 10, 2007, it was renamed to AIR and a public beta of the runtime was launched. Public beta 2 of AIR SDK was released by Adobe on October 1, 2007.

Currently, beta-builds of Adobe AIR are available from Adobe for the Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows operating systems. A Linux version is expected to be released in the third quarter of 2008.

Adobe announced at Adobe MAX 2007 that AIR is expected to be released in the Spring of 2008. ...
labs.adobe.comen.wikipedia.org
Adobe Central Output ServerAdobe Central Pro Output Server software enables businesses to generate professional-looking documents from core applications such as CRM, ERP, and legacy systems for improved customer communications.

* Dynamically generate personalized electronic documents
* Create highly formatted, easy-to-read documents
* Generate high-volume distributed printing
* Reduce network traffic
...
www.adobe.com
Adobe designerAdobe LiveCycle Designer is a forms authoring tool published by Adobe Systems. The purpose of Designer is to be a one-stop design tool for XML forms to be rendered as PDF or HTML files. ...www.adobe.comen.wikipedia.org
Adobe PDFPortable Document Format (PDF) is an open file format created and controlled by Adobe Systems, for representing two-dimensional documents in a device independent and resolution independent fixed-layout document format. Each PDF file encapsulates a complete description of a 2D document (and, with the advent of Acrobat 3D, embedded 3D documents) that includes the text, fonts, images, and 2D vector graphics that compose the document. PDF files do not encode information that is specific to the application software, hardware, or operating system used to create or view the document. This feature ensures that a valid PDF will render exactly the same regardless of its origin or destination (but depending on font availability). ...www.pdf-tools.comen.wikipedia.org
Adobe PhotoshopAdobe Photoshop, or simply Photoshop, is a graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Systems. It is the current and primary market leader for commercial bitmap and image manipulation, and is the flagship product of Adobe Systems. It has been described as "an industry standard for graphics professionals" and was one of the early "killer applications" on Macintosh.

Photoshop CS3, the current tenth iteration of the program, was released on 16 April 2007. "CS" reflects its integration with other Creative Suite products, and the number "3" represents it as the third version released since Adobe re-branded its products under the CS umbrella. Photoshop CS3 features additions such as the ability to apply non-destructive filters, as well as new selection tools named Quick Selection and Refine Edge that make selection more streamlined. On April 30th, Adobe released Photoshop CS3 Extended, which includes all the same features of Adobe Photoshop CS3 with the addition of capabilities for scientific imaging, 3D, and high end film and video users. The successor to Photoshop CS3, Photoshop CS4, will be the first 64-bit Photoshop. ...
www.adobe.comen.wikipedia.org
Agile software development experience.Agile software development is a conceptual framework for undertaking software engineering projects. There are a number of agile software development methods, such as those espoused by the Agile Alliance, a non-profit organization.www.agilealliance.comen.wikipedia.org
AICCThe Aviation (All Emcompassing) Industry CBT (Computer-Based Training) Committee (AICC) is an international association of technology-based training professionals. The AICC develops guidelines for aviation industry in the development, delivery, and evaluation of CBT, WBT and related training technologies.

The AICC HACP standard for CMI is widely used by Learning Management Systems and other systems to call content and assessments. Although it's pre-XML, it's very robust and unambiguous and many consider it to be more secure and reliable than alternatives such as SCORM, especially for content or assessments hosted on web servers not colocated with the calling system.

An emerging standard is the AICC PENS standard, which lets content creating tools send a manifest to an LMS easily. The September 2006 AICC meeting included a Plugfest where vendors demonstrated PENS interoperability. ...
www.aicc.orgen.wikipedia.org
AIXAIX (Advanced Interactive eXecutive) is a proprietary operating system developed by IBM based on UNIX System V. Before the product was ever marketed, the acronym AIX originally stood for Advanced IBM UNIX.

The scalable AIX 5L 5.3 supports up to 64 central processing units and two terabytes (TB) of random access memory. The JFS2 file system—first introduced by IBM as part of AIX—supports computer files and partitions up to 16 TB in size. ...
www.ibm.comen.wikipedia.org
AjaxAjax, shorthand for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, is a web development technique for creating interactive web applications. The intent is to make web pages feel more responsive by exchanging small amounts of data with the server behind the scenes, so that the entire web page does not have to be reloaded each time the user makes a change. This is meant to increase the web page's interactivity, speed, and usability.

The Ajax technique uses a combination of:

* XHTML (or HTML) and CSS, for marking up and styling information.

* The DOM accessed with a client-side scripting language, especially ECMAScript implementations such as JavaScript and JScript, to dynamically display and interact with the information presented.

* The XMLHttpRequest object is used to exchange data asynchronously with the web server. In some Ajax frameworks and in certain situations, an IFrame object is used instead of the XMLHttpRequest object to exchange data with the web server, and in other implementations, dynamically added <script> tags may be used.

* XML is sometimes used as the format for transferring data between the server and client, although any format will work, including preformatted HTML, plain text, JSON and even EBML. These files may be created dynamically by some form of server-side scripting.

Like DHTML, LAMP and SPA, Ajax is not a technology in itself, but a term that refers to the use of a group of technologies. ...
developer.mozilla.orgen.wikipedia.org
Altiris software deliveryAltiris Inc. is a subsidiary of Symantec specializing in service-oriented management software which allows organizations to manage IT assets. They also provide software for web services, security, and systems management products. Established in 1998, Altiris is headquartered in Lindon, Utah, United States. Altiris has over 20,000 customers managing more than 3 million servers and 60 million desktops and laptops.

On January 29, 2007, Symantec announced plans to acquire Altiris and on April 6th, 2007 the acquisition was completed. ...
www.altiris.comen.wikipedia.org
An interest in financial derivatives products
ApacheApache HTTP Server is a free software/open source HTTP web server for Unix-like systems (BSD, Linux, and UNIX systems), Microsoft Windows, Novell NetWare and other platforms. Apache is notable for playing a key role in the initial growth of the World Wide Web, and continues to be the most popular web server in use, serving as the reference platform against which other web servers are designed and judged. ...httpd.apache.orgen.wikipedia.org
Application Maintenance
ASP
ASP.NetASP.NET is a set of web development technologies marketed by Microsoft. Programmers can use it to build dynamic web sites, web applications and XML web services. It is part of Microsoft's .NET platform and is the successor to Microsoft's Active Server Pages (ASP) technology.www.coolinterview.comen.wikipedia.org
Assembly LanguageAssembly language refers to a class of low-level languages used to write computer programs, or to a particular such language.

* Assembly language is a human-readable notation for the machine language used to control a specific computer architecture.

* An assembler is a computer program for translating assembly language — essentially, a mnemonic representation of machine language — into object code.

* Machine language is a pattern of bits encoding machine operations, specific to a given processor.

Assembly language was once widely used for all aspects of programming. Today it is used in limited situations, primarily when direct hardware manipulation or unusual performance issues are involved. ...
www.asmcommunity.neten.wikipedia.org
AS/400The Application System/400 (also known as AS/400), now System i, is a type of minicomputer produced by IBM. It was first produced in 1988. It was then renamed to the eServer iSeries in 2000 as part of IBM's e-Server branding initiative. Now with the global move of the server and storage brands to the System brand with the Systems Agenda, the family has been renamed to System i in 2006, with the POWER5-based members of the series being called the System i5 ...www.ibm.comen.wikipedia.org
AS/400 SynonSynon was a software company which, at its height, dominated the worldwide market for third party application development tools for the IBM iSeries AS/400 platform. Its products continue to be widely used in that sector today, distributed and supported by Computer Associates.

Synon pioneered what is now called Architected Rapid Application Development (ARAD).
www.ca.comen.wikipedia.org
Automotive experience
AutoShellWhen a typing mistake can result in thousands of dollars in lost revenue, it's important to have a proven robust software to monitor factory functions. AutoShell software tools provide a framework for factory automation, enabling operator, factory equipment, and databases to communicate with each other accurately, reliably, and quickly. AutoShell’s reusable set of software modules handle all the details of communicating with factory resources, translating the native languages of the equipment and operator into an easily mediated language called AutoNet. ...www.adventact.com
Bachelor degree in Mathematics or Computer Science
Bachelor of Science degree in Computer ScienceA Bachelor of Science (B.S., B.Sc. or less commonly, S.B. or Sc.B. from the Latin Scientiae Baccalaureus) is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three years in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, England, Germany, Hong Kong, India, the Republic of Ireland, Israel, Latvia, Malaysia, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Poland, Quebec, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland and Wales; or four years in North America, Iceland, Iran, Japan, Pakistan, the Philippines, Scotland and Brazil.

In North America, a Bachelor of Science degree may be a more specialized version of B.A., with more focus on the subject and less on a broad liberal arts background; for example, a B.S. in economics may require several more advanced economics courses than a B.A. in economics, and possibly more support courses (such as statistics). The B.S. is also frequently used for professional areas of study such as engineering, journalism, and advertising. ...
en.wikipedia.org
Bachelor of Science degree in math or scienceA Bachelor of Science (B.S., B.Sc. or less commonly, S.B. or Sc.B. from the Latin Scientiae Baccalaureus) is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three years in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, England, Germany, Hong Kong, India, the Republic of Ireland, Israel, Latvia, Malaysia, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Poland, Quebec, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland and Wales; or four years in North America, Iceland, Iran, Japan, Pakistan, the Philippines, Scotland and Brazil.

In North America, a Bachelor of Science degree may be a more specialized version of B.A., with more focus on the subject and less on a broad liberal arts background; for example, a B.S. in economics may require several more advanced economics courses than a B.A. in economics, and possibly more support courses (such as statistics). The B.S. is also frequently used for professional areas of study such as engineering, journalism, and advertising. ...
en.wikipedia.org
Banking or financial services
Banking or retail experience
Bespoke ApplicationsSoftware, which means it is software written in-house, designed specifically and customised for a particular company and task.en.wikipedia.org
BIZDeskSee Microsoft Commerce Server
BiztalkMicrosoft BizTalk Server is a Business Process Management Server by Microsoft which allows software applications to communicate for Enterprise application integration. The original product appeared to be an original Microsoft development headed by Milan Shah and was first announced in March 1999. ...www.microsoft.comen.wikipedia.org
BIZTalkMicrosoft BizTalk Server is a server product by Microsoft which provides the following functions: Business Process Automation, Business Process Modeling, Business-to-business Communication, Enterprise Application Integration and Message broker[1].

It's a server product targeted mostly at medium to large enterprises, but has been popular among small companies as well. In a common scenario, BizTalk enables companies to integrate and manage business processes by exchanging business documents (e.g., purchase orders and invoices) among applications, within or across organizational boundaries.

Development for BizTalk Server is done through Visual Studio .NET.
www.microsoft.comen.wikipedia.org
Blaze AdvisorFair Isaac Corporation (NYSE: FIC), founded in 1956 by engineer Bill Fair and mathematician Earl Isaac, provides consulting services and enterprise decision management systems. They developed the FICO scores, a measure of credit risk, that are the most used credit scores in the world. FICO scores are available through all of the major consumer reporting agencies in the United States and Canada: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. (FICO is a registered trademark of Fair Isaac Corporation).

Fair Isaac is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A., and has offices in North America, South America, Europe, Australia and Asia. The company employs about 3,000 people (2006) and earned revenue of about $800 million in 2005.

Fair Isaac's client list covers more than 1,400 financial-service providers, including 99 of the top 100 U.S. banks and 49 of the top 50 global banks. More than 200 retailers, including nine of the top 10 retail card issuers in the U.S. use Fair Isaac retail management software. Fair Isaac serves more than 100 telecommunications providers worldwide, including the top 10 U.S. wireless providers and six of the world's top 10 telecommunications service providers. ...
www.fairisaac.comen.wikipedia.org
BluetoothBluetooth is an industrial specification for wireless personal area networks (PANs). Bluetooth provides a way to connect and exchange information between devices such as mobile phones, laptops, PCs, printers, digital cameras, and video game consoles over a secure, globally unlicensed short-range radio frequency. The Bluetooth specifications are developed and licensed by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group. ...www.howstuffworks.comen.wikipedia.org
Booch MethodologyThe Booch method is a technique used in software engineering. It is an object modeling language and methodology that was widely used in object-oriented analysis and design. It was developed by Grady Booch while at Rational Software (now part of IBM).

The notation aspect of the Booch method has now been superseded by the Unified Modeling Language (UML), which features graphical elements from the Booch method along with elements from the object-modeling technique (OMT) and object-oriented software engineering (OOSE).

Methodological aspects of the Booch method have been incorporated into several methodologies and processes, the primary such methodology being the Rational Unified Process (RUP). ...
infolab.stanford.eduen.wikipedia.org
Bussiness Works
CThe C programming language is a standardized imperative computer programming language developed in the early 1970s by Dennis Ritchie for use on the Unix operating system. It has since spread to many other operating systems, and is one of the most widely used programming languages. C is prized for the efficiency of the code it produces, and is the most popular programming language for writing system software, though it is also used for writing applications. Although it was not designed as a teaching language, and despite its somewhat unforgiving character, C is also commonly used in computer science education, in part because the language is so pervasive.c-faq.comen.wikipedia.org
C shellThe C shell (csh) is a Unix shell developed by Bill Joy for the BSD Unix system. It was originally derived from the 6th Edition Unix /bin/sh (which was the Thompson shell), the predecessor of the Bourne shell. Its syntax is modeled after the C programming language. The C shell added many feature improvements over the Bourne shell, such as aliases and command history. Today, the original C shell is not in wide use on Unix; it has been superseded by other shells such as the Tenex C shell (tcsh) based on the original C shell code, but adding filename completion and command line editing, comparable with the Korn shell (ksh), and the GNU Bourne-Again shell (bash). An independently-developed and modernized C shell, created by Nicole Hamilton, also survives on Windows in the form of Hamilton C shell. ...www.faqs.orgen.wikipedia.org
Can assist with evaluation of add-ons and applications for potential product opportunities for company and add-ons to core product
Can develop Business Case for overall product line and support in same for Partner organizations
Can develop metrics for qualification of sales leads
Can research target markets and new industries to target
Can work with customers to determine their needs and wants
CASE ToolsComputer-aided software engineering (CASE) is the use of software tools to assist in the development and maintenance of software. Tools used to assist in this way are known as CASE Tools.

All aspects of the software development lifecycle can be supported by software tools, and so the use of tools from across the spectrum can, arguably, be described as CASE; from project management software through tools for business and functional analysis, system design, code storage, compilers, translation tools, test software, and so on. ...
www.cs.queensu.caen.wikipedia.org
CGIThe Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is a standard protocol for interfacing external application software with an information server, commonly a web server. This allows the server to pass requests from a client web browser to the external application. The web server can then return the output from the application to the web browser.

CGI arose out of discussions on the www-talk mailing list between Rob McCool, John Franks, Ari Luotonen, George Phillips and Tony Sanders in 1993. Rob McCool, working at NCSA, drafted the initial specification and provided a reference implementation in the NCSA HTTPd web server using environment variables to store parameters passed from the web server execution environment before spawning the CGI program as a separate process.

An example of a CGI program is the one implementing a wiki. The user agent requests the name of an entry; the server will retrieve the source of that entry's page (if one exists), transform it into HTML, and send the result back to the browser or prompt the user to create it. All wiki operations are managed by this one program. ...
www.w3.orgen.wikipedia.org
CICSCICS® (Customer Information Control System) is a transaction server that runs primarily on IBM mainframe systems under z/OS or z/VSE. CICS is available for other operating systems, notably i5/OS, OS/2, and as the closely related IBM TXSeries software on AIX, Windows, and Linux, among others. The z/OS implementation is by far the most popular and significant.

CICS is a transaction processing system (like TCAM) designed for both online and batch activity. On large IBM zSeries and System z9 servers, CICS easily supports thousands of transactions per second, making it a mainstay of enterprise computing. CICS applications can be written in numerous programming languages, including COBOL, PL/I, C, C++, Assembler, REXX, and Java. ...
www.ibm.comen.wikipedia.org
CIS PlusThe Career Information System (CIS) has added premium features that can be leased
annually at a considerable cost savings compared to individual purchases. For one low price,
all students at a school can take SAT and ACT practice tests, or access other new components.

As always, CIS (provided by the Illinois Department of Employment Security) is available at no charge. All assessments and test prep scores can be stored in the user's My CIS Portfolio. ...
www.ilworkinfo.com
CIS (customer information system)
CitrixCitrix Systems NASDAQ: CTXS is a U.S. technology company, based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with subsidiary operations in the UK, Australia and India. Citrix is primarily a software company, but does have a hardware offering since its acquisition of Net6 in late 2004 and of NetScaler/Teros in 2005. Citrix offers a suite of products that are intended to provide secure access to applications and content from a wide range of clients. ...www.citrixonline.comen.wikipedia.org
ClarionClarion is a 4GL programming language and Integrated Development Environment from SoftVelocity used to program database applications. It is compatible with ISAM, SQL and ADO data access methods, reads and writes several popular flat file desktop database formats including ASCII, CSV, DOS (Binary), FoxPro, Clipper, dBase, or all SQL RDBMS databases via ODBC, MS SQL Server, Sybase SQLAnywhere and Oracle through the use of accelerated native database drivers, and XML, Clarion can be used to output to HTML, XML, plaintext, and PDF, among others. As of the time of writing (2006), Clarion is on version 6.3.

Database access is simple to implement, and list box formatting can be handled with easy to use WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) formatting windows.

One of Clarion's strong points is its use of "templates" which are used in conjunction with a code generator (named AppGen) to produce much of the repetitive, yet time consuming code that is typically required when producing an application. An "embeditor" shows the developer the code that will be generated and embed points where the developer can enter his/her own hand-code in the context of the template generated code.

Templates are open for developers to modify to suit their needs, and the template language, though very robust, is simple to learn. This makes the possibilities of what can be done in Clarion endless. Many companies sell third party templates to extend the functionality that comes "out of the box" with the Clarion product, as does SoftVelocity itself.

Development of templates that generate Microsoft .NET code from Clarion applications is underway at SoftVelocity, which will give Clarion developers the best of both worlds: Clarion developers will be able to program with the ease and speed they're accustomed to, and will be able to provide .NET code to clients who just have to have projects developed in Microsoft technology. ...
www.softvelocity.comen.wikipedia.org
ClearcaseRational ClearCase is a software tool for revision control (configuration management, SCM etc) of source code and other software development assets. It originally derived from a product of Apollo Computers: DSEE (Domain Software Engineering Environment), which was ported to Unix and further developed by Atria Software after Hewlett-Packard bought Apollo. Atria later merged with Pure Software to form PureAtria. That firm merged with Rational Software, which was purchased by IBM. IBM continues to develop and market ClearCase. ClearCase forms the base of version control for many large and medium sized businesses and can handle projects with hundreds or thousands of developers, but the price is quite steep for smaller companies.

Rational supports two types of SCM configurations, UCM (see below), and base ClearCase. UCM provides an out-of-the-box SCM configuration but is fairly rigid. Base ClearCase supplies the basic tools, and can be configured in many different ways.

ClearCase can run in many different Operating systems ranging from Linux, Solaris, and Windows. It can handle large binary files, extremely large numbers of files, extremely large repository sizes, and is extremely reliable. It handles branching, labeling, and versioning of directories very easily and intuitively, and doesn't clutter each directory with any SCM-only files like .scc or attic files. ...
www-3.ibm.comen.wikipedia.org
ClearQuestRational ClearQuest is a customizable defect and change tracking system for software development. With ClearQuest, you can manage every type of change activity associated with software development. This includes activities like enhancements, defects, documentation modifications, and artifact migrations/deployments. ...www-306.ibm.comen.wikipedia.org
Client/ServerClient/Server is a network architecture which separates the client (often a graphical user interface) from the server. Each instance of the client software can send requests to a server or application server.

Although this idea is applied in a variety of ways, on many different kinds of applications, the easiest example to visualize is the current use of web pages on the internet. For example, if you are reading this article on Wikipedia, your computer and web browser would be considered a client, and the computers , databases, and applications that make up the Wikipedia would be considered the server. When your web browser requests a particular article from Wikipedia, the Wikipedia server finds all of the information required to display the article in the Wikipedia database, assembles it into a web page, and sends it back to your web browser for you to look at. ...
en.wikipedia.org
CMMiThe Capability Maturity Model (CMM) is a method for evaluating and measuring the maturity of the software development process of organizations on a scale of 1 to 5.

The CMM was developed by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. It has been used extensively for avionics software and for government projects since it was created in the mid-1980s.

The SEI has subsequently released a revised version known as the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI).
www.sei.cmu.eduen.wikipedia.org
CM-SynergyTelelogic SYNERGY is a software tool for revision control (configuration management, SCM etc) of source code and other software development assets. It was formerly known as Continuus/CM. Continuus was purchased by Telelogic in 2000. Telelogic continues to develop and market SYNERGY. ...www.telelogic.comen.wikipedia.org
COBOLCOBOL is a third-generation programming language. Its name is an acronym, for COmmon Business Oriented Language, defining its primary domain in business, finance, and administrative systems for companies and governmentswww.cobol.comen.wikipedia.org
COMComponent Object Model (COM) is a Microsoft platform for software componentry introduced by Microsoft in 1993. It is used to enable interprocess communication and dynamic object creation in any programming language that supports the technology. The term COM is often used in the software development world as an umbrella term that encompasses the OLE, OLE Automation, ActiveX, COM+ and DCOM technologies. Although COM was introduced in 1993, Microsoft did not begin emphasizing the name COM until 1997. ...msdn.microsoft.comen.wikipedia.org
Comanche
COM+
Control systemsA control system is a device or set of devices to manage, command, direct or regulate the behavior of other devices or systems.

There are two common classes of control systems, with many variations and combinations: logic or sequential controls, and feedback or linear controls. There is also fuzzy logic, which attempts to combine some of the design simplicity of logic with the utility of linear control. Some devices or systems are inherently not controllable.

The term "control system" may be applied to the essentially manual controls that allow an operator to, for example, close and open a hydraulic press, where the logic requires that it cannot be moved unless safety guards are in place.

An automatic sequential control system may trigger a series of mechanical actuators in the correct sequence to perform a task. For example various electric and pneumatic transducers may fold and glue a cardboard box, fill it with product and then seal it in an automatic packaging machine.

In the case of linear feedback systems, a control loop, including sensors, control algorithms and actuators, is arranged in such a fashion as to try to regulate a variable at a setpoint or reference value. An example of this may increase the fuel supply to a furnace when a measured temperature drops. PID controllers are common and effective in cases such as this . Control systems that include some sensing of the results they are trying to achieve are making use of feedback and so can, to some extent, adapt to varying circumstances. Open-loop control systems do not directly make use of feedback, but run only in pre-arranged ways. ...
en.wikipedia.orgen.wikipedia.org
ControlWORKSLeading semiconductor equipment manufacturers worldwide choose ControlWORKS to address and exceed the complex requirements of 300mm production tools. The ControlWORKS development environment delivers the latest in SEMI standards for equipment control, process control, and factory communications with built-in links to support real-time fault detection and run-to-run process control.

The fully integrated, object-oriented development environment enables applications to be fully portable in several hardware/operating systems. Customers running on different platforms can plug-and-play with tools developed from multiple suppliers. The ControlWORKS development environment offers ControlWORKS configurable controls or custom configuration to boost reusability. Best of all, as new operating systems and hardware are invented, we team up with Cincom to handle porting issues — saving you time and money. ...
www.adventact.com
CORBAIn computing, Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) is a standard for software componentry, created and controlled by the Object Management Group (OMG). It defines APIs, communication protocol, and object/service information models to enable heterogeneous applications written in various languages running on various platforms to interoperate. CORBA therefore provides platform and location transparency for sharing well-defined objects across a distributed computing platform. ...www.omg.orgen.wikipedia.org
Credit card processing
Credit Card Processing
CroquetThe Croquet Project is an international effort to promote the continued development of Croquet, a free and software platform, a network operating system, for developing and delivering deeply collaborative multi-user online applications. It features a network architecture that supports communication, collaboration, resource sharing, and synchronous computation among multiple users. Croquet provides a flexible framework in which most user interface concepts can be prototyped and deployed to create powerful and highly collaborative multi-user 2D and 3D applications and simulations. Croquet can be used to construct highly scalable collaborative data visualizations, virtual learning and problem solving environments, 3D wikis, online gaming environments (MMORPGs), and privately maintained/interconnected multiuser virtual environments. ...en.wikipedia.orgwww.croquetconsortium.org
Crystal ReportsCrystal Reports is a Business Intelligence application originally created by Crystal Decisions (former Seagate Software). Crystal Decisions was acquired in December 2003 by Business Objects. Crystal Reports is used to design and generate reports based on a wide scale of data sources, such as databases like Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Access, MySQL and Oracle, spreadsheets like Microsoft Excel, text files, groupware applications such as Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes, as well any other data source accessible through ODBC or OLAP. An OEM version of Crystal Reports comes bundled with many larger applications, such as Microsoft Visual Studio.www.businessobjects.comen.wikipedia.org
CSSIn computing, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a stylesheet language used to describe the presentation of a document written in a markup language. Its most common application is to style web pages written in HTML and XHTML, but the language can be applied to any kind of XML document, including SVG and XUL. The CSS specifications are maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). ...www.mezzoblue.comen.wikipedia.org
Customer Care systems
Customer Service oriented
CVS
Cyberlife
Czech languageCzech ['ʧɛk] (čeština ['ʧɛʃ.cɪ.na]) is one of the West Slavic languages, along with Slovak, Polish, Pomeranian (Kashubian), and Lusatian Sorbian. It is spoken by most people in the Czech Republic and by Czechs all over the world (about 12 million native speakers in total). Czech is very close to Slovak and, to a lesser degree, to Polish. Czech and Slovak are usually mutually intelligible, however people born after ~1985 may have difficulty understanding the few words that differ significantly, or understanding fast spoken language. Most adult Czechs and Slovaks are able to understand each other without difficulty as they were routinely exposed to both languages on Czechoslovak national TV and radio until its dissolution. ...www.czechforum.neten.wikipedia.org
C#C# is an object-oriented programming language developed by Microsoft as part of their .NET initiative. Microsoft based C# on C++ and was influenced by some aspects of Java. C# has a procedural, object oriented syntax that combines aspects of several other programming languages, most notably C++, Java and Delphi. Since C#'s principal designer was the designer of Borland's Turbo Pascal, Turbo Pascal for Windows, and Delphi, concepts from those languages are apparent in C#. Other contributions can be traced on a programming language history chart. C# attempts to fit well for both rapid development, like Visual Basic or Delphi, and for complete full-featured desktop applications. ...msdn.microsoft.comen.wikipedia.org
C#The .Net language
C++C++ (pronounced "see plus plus", IPA: /siː plʌs plʌs/) is a general-purpose computer programming language. It is a statically typed free-form multi-paradigm language supporting procedural programming, data abstraction, object-oriented programming, and generic programming. Since the 1990s, C++ has been one of the most popular commercial programming languages. ..www.dinkumware.comen.wikipedia.org
C/C++C and/or C++
Data base structures
Data Language/1 (DL/1)Data Language/1 (DL/1) is the language system used to access IBM’s IMS databases, and its data communication system.

It is implemented from any language by making calls to a software stub, DFSLI000. This stub has entry points to handle a variety of programming languages e.g. calling CBLTDLI from a COBOL program. This stub is linked to the calling program, passes on the request to the IMS system, and returns the results and a status code.

In any full-function IMS database, the smallest element that can be retrieved is a segment. Each segment is made up of fields, one of which, typically, will be a key field. The segments are arranged hierarchically in the database, the highest level segment type being a root segment. 255 different segment types, on up to 15 levels, are allowed in any database. A database record consists of a specific root segment and all its dependent child segments — there is no limit to the number of segments in a record, or to the number of records in a database (apart from physical limitations of storage space). ...
www.geocities.comen.wikipedia.org
Data miningData mining is the principle of sorting through large amounts of data and picking out relevant information. It is usually used by business intelligence organizations, and financial analysts, but it is increasingly used in the sciences to extract information from the enormous data sets generated by modern experimental and observational methods. It has been described as "the nontrivial extraction of implicit, previously unknown, and potentially useful information from data" and "the science of extracting useful information from large data sets or databases". ...www.kdd.orgen.wikipedia.org
Data ModelingIn computer science, data modeling is the process of structuring and organizing data, typically using a database management system.

Managing large quantities of structured and unstructured data is a primary function of information systems. Data models describe structured data for storage in data management systems such as relational databases. They typically do not describe unstructured data, such as word processing documents, email messages, pictures, digital audio, and video. Early phases of many software development projects emphasize the design of a conceptual data model. Such a design can be detailed into a logical data model. In later stages, this model may be translated into physical data model. ...
www.methodsandtools.comen.wikipedia.org
Database backup & restore
Database design and management
Database transactionsA database transaction is a unit of interaction with a database management system or similar system that is treated in a coherent and reliable way independent of other transactions that must be either entirely completed or aborted. Ideally, a database system will guarantee the properties of Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation and Durability (ACID) for each transaction. In practice, these properties are often relaxed somewhat to provide better performance.

In some systems, transactions are also called LUWs for Logical Units of Work. ...
c2.comen.wikipedia.org
DataSynapse GRID ComputingGrid computing is an emerging computing model that provides the ability to perform higher throughput computing by taking advantage of many networked computers to model a virtual computer architecture that is able to distribute process execution across a parallel infrastructure. Grids use the resources of many separate computers connected by a network (usually the Internet) to solve large-scale computation problems. Grids provide the ability to perform computations on large data sets, by breaking them down into many smaller ones, or provide the ability to perform many more computations at once than would be possible on a single computer, by modeling a parallel division of labor between processes. Today resource allocation in a grid is done in accordance with SLAs (service level agreements). ...www.datasynapse.comen.wikipedia.org
DB2DB2® is IBM's family of information management software products. Most often though, when people say DB2, they are referring to IBM's flagship relational database management system, DB2 Universal Database (DB2 UDB). ...blogs.ittoolbox.comen.wikipedia.org
DBAA database administrator (DBA) is a person who is responsible for the environmental aspects of a database. In general, these include:

* Recoverability - Creating and testing Backups

* Integrity - Verifying or helping to verify data integrity

* Security - Defining and/or implementing access controls to the data

* Availability - Ensuring maximum uptime

* Performance - Ensuring maximum performance given budgetary constraints

* Development and testing support - Helping programmers and engineers to efficiently utilize the database.

The role of a database administrator has changed according to the technology of database management systems (DBMSs) as well as the needs of the owners of the databases. For example, although logical and physical database design of databases are traditionally the duties of a database analyst or database designer, a DBA may be tasked to perform those duties. ...
en.wikipedia.org
DCL
DCOMDistributed Component Object Model (DCOM) is a Microsoft proprietary technology for software components distributed across several networked computers to communicate with each other. It extends Microsoft's COM, and provides the communication substrate under Microsoft's COM+ application server infrastructure. It has been deprecated in favor of Microsoft .NET.

The addition of the "D" to COM was due to extensive use of DCE/RPC - more specifically Microsoft's enhanced version, known as MSRPC. ...
opengroup.orgen.wikipedia.org
DDEDynamic Data Exchange (DDE) is a technology for communication between multiple applications under Microsoft Windows and also OS/2. Although still supported in even latest Windows versions, it has mostly been replaced by its much more powerful successors OLE, COM, and OLE Automation. However, it is still used in several places inside Windows, e.g. for Shell file associations.

In particular, DDE allowed one application to open a session with another, send commands to the server application and receive responses. However, it did not enable the server application's GUI to be incorporated into the client application's; it did not support incorporation of server application data into client application files (i.e. structured storage); and in order to use DDE, one had to know the DDE commands that the server supported, which were generally not standardised (although some standards do exist, e.g. the spyglass specification for web browsers). Thus, in order to use DDE fully, special code must be added to each client application for each server application it wants to control, or the client application must provide a scripting language or macro facility. ...
www.angelfire.comen.wikipedia.org
Debugging skills
Defect tracking/reporting
Degree or equivalent in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Mathematics, and/or related discipline
Delphi
Design patternsIn software engineering, a design pattern is a general repeatable solution to a commonly-occurring problem in software design. A design pattern isn't a finished design that can be transformed directly into code; it is a description or template for how to solve a problem that can be used in many different situations. Object-oriented design patterns typically show relationships and interactions between classes or objects, without specifying the final application classes or objects that are involved. Algorithms are not thought of as design patterns, since they solve computational problems rather than design problems. ...patternshare.orgen.wikipedia.org
Design PatternsIn software engineering, a design pattern is a general repeatable solution to a commonly-occurring problem in software design. A design pattern isn't a finished design that can be transformed directly into code; it is a description or template for how to solve a problem that can be used in many different situations. Object-oriented design patterns typically show relationships and interactions between classes or objects, without specifying the final application classes or objects that are involved. Algorithms are not thought of as design patterns, since they solve computational problems rather than design problems. ...c2.comen.wikipedia.org
Desire to learn an OO language
DHTMLDynamic HTML or DHTML is a method of creating interactive web sites by using a combination of static markup language HTML, a client-side scripting language (such as JavaScript), and the presentation definition language Cascading Style Sheets and the Document Object Model.

It may be used to create applications in a web browser: for example to ease navigation, to create interactive forms or to create interactive exercises to use in e-learning applications such as WebCT. Because it can be used to dynamically move elements around the screen, DHTML can also be used as a tool for creating browser based videogames.
www.dhtmlcentral.comen.wikipedia.org
Discrete event simulationIn discrete-event simulation, the operation of a system is represented as a chronological sequence of events. Each event occurs at an instant in time and marks a change of state in the system [1]. For example, if an elevator is simulated, an event could be "level 6 button pressed", with the resulting system state of "lift moving" and eventually (unless one chooses to simulate the failure of the lift) "lift at level 6".

A common exercise in learning how to build discrete-event simulations is to model a queue, such as customers arriving at a bank to be served by a teller. In this example, the system entities are CUSTOMER-QUEUE and TELLERS. The system events are CUSTOMER-ARRIVAL and CUSTOMER-DEPARTURE. (The event of TELLER-BEGINS-SERVICE can be part of the logic of the arrival and departure events.) The system states, which are changed by these events, are NUMBER-OF-CUSTOMERS-IN-THE-QUEUE (an integer from 0 to n) and TELLER-STATUS (busy or idle). The random variables that need to be characterized to model this system stochastically are CUSTOMER-INTERARRIVAL-TIME and TELLER-SERVICE-TIME.

A number of mechanisms have been proposed for carrying out discrete-event simulation, among them are the event-based, activity-based, process-based and three-phase approaches (Pidd, 1998). The three-phase approach is used by a number of commercial simulation software packages, but from the user's point of view, the specifics of the underlying simulation method are generally hidden. ...
www.topology.orgen.wikipedia.org
Distributed architectures
Distributed Computing skills
Distributed Smalltalk (DST)Distributed Smalltalk (DST) provides an integrated set of object-oriented frameworks for the development and deployment of multi-user, enterprise-wide distributed applications. Fully integrated with VisualWorks, DST lets developers build multi-tiered applications that are compliant with the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA®). Applications built with DST make the best use of existing resources for increased performance, scalability, security, and easy maintenance.

DST provides an interactive environment for creating highly portable applications and a robust set of classes to simplify the process of building large, complex applications. By raising the level of abstraction, Distributed Smalltalk enables developers to become more productive when developing and deploying their applications. For example, developers do not need to write a communications infrastructure, a process which typically is tedious and error-prone. ...
www.cincomsmalltalk.comwww.omg.org
DOE Orders and guides
DTS PackagesData Transformation Services, or DTS, is a set of objects and utilities to allow the automation of extract, transform and load operations to or from a database. The objects are DTS packages and their components, and the utilities are called DTS tools. DTS is included with Microsoft SQL Server, and is almost always used with SQL Server databases, although it can be used independently with other databases.

DTS allows data to be transformed and loaded from heterogeneous sources using OLE DB, ODBC, or text-only files, into any supported database. DTS can also allow automation of data import or transformation on a scheduled basis, and can perform additional functions such as FTPing files and executing external programs. In addition, DTS provides an alternative method of version control and backup for packages when used in conjunction with a version control system, such as Microsoft Visual SourceSafe. ...
msdn.microsoft.comen.wikipedia.org
Dutch languageDutch (Nederlands) is a West Germanic language spoken by around 26 million people, mainly in the Netherlands and Belgium. ...www.linguasphere.neten.wikipedia.org
EclipseEclipse is a free software / open source platform-independent software framework for delivering what the project calls "rich-client applications", as opposed to "thin client" browser-based applications. So far this framework has typically been used to develop IDEs (Integrated Development Environments), such as the Java IDE called Java Development Toolkit (JDT) and compiler that comes as part of Eclipse (and which are also used to develop Eclipse itself). However, it can be used for other types of client application as well. See the BitTorrent client Azureus for example.

Eclipse is also a community of users, constantly extending the covered application areas. As an example, the recently created EMP Eclipse (Top Level) Modeling Project covering most areas of Model Driven Engineering.

Eclipse was originally developed by IBM as the successor of its VisualAge family of tools. Eclipse is now managed by the Eclipse Foundation, an independent not-for-profit consortium of software industry vendors. Many notable software tool vendors have embraced Eclipse as a future framework for their IDEs, among them Adobe, Borland, SAP AG, BEA Systems, and IBM Rational. ...
www.eclipse.orgen.wikipedia.org
EDIElectronic Data Interchange (EDI) is the computer-to-computer exchange of structured information, by agreed message standards, from one computer application to another by electronic means and with a minimum of human intervention. In common usage, EDI is understood to mean specific interchange methods agreed upon by national or international standards bodies for the transfer of business transaction data, with one typical application being the automated purchase of goods and services.

Despite being relatively unheralded, in this era of technologies such as XMLservices, the Internet and the World Wide Web, EDI is still the data format used by the vast majority of electronic commerce transactions in the world.
members.aol.comen.wikipedia.org
EJBThe Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) specification is one of the several Java APIs in the Java Platform, Enterprise Edition. EJB is a server-side component that encapsulates the business logic of an application. The EJB specification was originally developed by Sun Microsystems (EJB 1.0 and 1.1) and later under the Java Community Process as JSR 19 (EJB 2.0), JSR 153 (EJB 2.1) and JSR 220 (EJB 3.0).

The EJB specification details how an application server provides:

* persistence
* transaction processing
* concurrency control
* events using Java Message Service
* naming and directory services (JNDI)
* security
* deployment of software components in an application server
* remote procedure calls using RMI-IIOP or CORBA

Additionally, the Enterprise JavaBean specification defines the roles played by the EJB container and the EJBs as well as how to deploy the EJBs in a container. ...
java.sun.comen.wikipedia.org
Embedded software
Endeavor
English language
Enhanced Reliability Security Clearance (or ability to attain enhanced reliability)
Enterprise ExtenderEnterprise Extender (EE) is a valuable technology that allows you to preserve your SNA application investment while exploiting the advantages of a consolidated IP backbone. EE allows you to utilize an IP network for the transport of SNA traffic, including SNA traffic between different companies (SNI). But how does the technology work? What are the associated controls, planning, and migration issues? This two-part presentation on Understanding Enterprise Extender will discuss these questions, and other issues, associated with deploying EE. ...www-1.ibm.com
EntireXSoftware AG is a German software company, best known for its Adabas database management system and Natural application development language. The company continuously grows in the area of enterprise transaction systems, and is achieving more and more success in the market for service-oriented architecture (SOA) solutions with its Crossvision integration suite.

On April 5, 2007, Software AG and webMethods, Inc. (NASDAQ: WEBM), announced that they entered into a definitive agreement for Software AG to acquire webMethods in a cash tender offer for $9.15 per share or approximately $546 million. ...
www.softwareag.comen.wikipedia.org
EnvyENVY/Manager is a software engineering environment that provides the
services like configuration, history and change management required for development and maintenance of large software systems (Primarily in Smalltalk). ENVY is based on "What you saved is what you get" paradigm.
www.faqs.org
EquitiesIn financial terminology, stock is the capital raised by a corporation, through the issuance and distribution of shares. A shareholder is any person or organization which holds shares, or fractions of shares, of a corporation's stock. The aggregate value of a corporation's issued shares is its market capitalization.

In the United Kingdom, the word stock has a completely different meaning in finance, referring to a bond. It can also be used more widely to refer to all kinds of marketable securities. However, the usage of "share" (as in the stock issued by a corporation) is the same. ...
www.greekshares.comen.wikipedia.org
Equity asset management knowledge or experience
EsterelEsterel is a synchronous programming language for the development of complex reactive systems. The imperative programming style of Esterel allows the simple expression of parallelism and preemption. As a consequence, it is very well suited for control-dominated model designs.

The development of the language started in the early 1980s, and was mainly carried out by a team of Ecole des Mines de Paris and INRIA lead by Gérard Berry. Current compilers take Esterel programs and generate C code or hardware (RTL) implementations (VHDL or Verilog).

The language is still under development, with several compilers out. The commercial version of Esterel is the development environment Esterel Studio. The company that develops it (Esterel Technologies) has initated a normalization process with the IEEE. The Esterel v7 Reference Manual Version v7 30 – initial IEEE standardization proposal is publicly available. ...
www.esterel-technologies.comen.wikipedia.org
ETLExtract, transform, and load (ETL) is a process in data warehousing that involves

* extracting data from outside sources,
* transforming it to fit business needs, and ultimately
* loading it into the data warehouse.
www.kettle.been.wikipedia.org
EtoysEtoys is a child-friendly computer environment and object-oriented prototype-based programming language for use in education.www.squeakland.orgen.wikipedia.org
ExcelMicrosoft Excel is a spreadsheet program written and distributed by Microsoft for computers using the Microsoft Windows operating system and for Apple Macintosh computers. It features an intuitive interface and capable calculation and graphing tools which, along with aggressive marketing, have made Excel one of the most popular microcomputer applications to date. It is overwhelmingly the dominant spreadsheet application available for these platforms and has been so since version 5 in 1993 and its bundling as part of Microsoft Office ...office.microsoft.comen.wikipedia.org
Excellent communication skills
Experience as a Business Development Manager
Experience in a start-up environment
Experience in other OO languagesExperience with other Object oriented languages like C++, Java, and C#.
Experience in presenting Smalltalk message
Experience interfacing with external applications from Smalltalk(Usually means things like external C programs or DLLs.
Experience troubleshooting .Net/Java applications.
Experience using VisualWorks to build user interfaceswww.cincomsmalltalk.com
Experience with entity-relationship diagramsThe entity-relationship model or entity-relationship diagram (ERD) is a data model or diagram for high-level descriptions of conceptual data models, and it provides a graphical notation for representing such data models in the form of entity-relationship diagrams. ...en.wikipedia.orgen.wikipedia.org
Experience with print and electronic media and customer collateral oriented to the computer technology sector
Experience with researching medical issues
Extreme ProgrammingExtreme Programming (XP) is a software engineering methodology, the most prominent of several agile software development methodologies. Like other agile methodologies, Extreme Programming differs from traditional methodologies primarily in placing a higher value on adaptability than on predictability. Proponents of XP regard ongoing changes to requirements as a natural, inescapable and desirable aspect of software development projects; they believe that being able to adapt to changing requirements at any point during the project life is a more realistic and better approach than attempting to define all requirements at the beginning of a project and then expending effort to control changes to the requirements.

XP prescribes a set of day-to-day practices for managers and developers; the practices are meant to embody and encourage particular values. Proponents believe that the exercise of these practices—which are traditional software engineering practices taken to so-called "extreme" levels—leads to a development process that is more responsive to customer needs ("agile") than traditional methods, while creating software of better quality. ...
www.extremeprogramming.orgen.wikipedia.org
E-CommerceElectronic commerce, EC, e-commerce or ecommerce consists primarily of the distributing, buying, selling, marketing, and servicing of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. The information technology industry might see it as an electronic business application aimed at commercial transactions. It can involve electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, e-marketing, online marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), automated inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. It typically uses electronic communications technology such as the Internet, extranets, e-mail, e-books, databases, and mobile phones. ...www.ec-bp.orgen.wikipedia.org
E-CommerceElectronic Commerce is exactly analogous to a marketplace on the Internet. Electronic Commerce (also referred to as EC, e-commerce eCommerce or ecommerce) consists primarily of the distributing, buying, selling, marketing and servicing of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. The information technology industry might see it as an electronic business application aimed at commercial transactions; in this context, it can involve electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, e-marketing, online marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), automated inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. Electronic commerce typically uses electronic communications technology of the World Wide Web, at some point in the transaction's lifecycle, although of course electronic commerce frequently depends on computer technologies other than the World Wide Web, such as databases, and e-mail, and on other non-computer technologies, such as transportation for physical goods sold via e-commerce. ...ecommerce.internet.comen.wikipedia.org
Familiarity with the internals of VisualWorks tool setwww.cincomsmalltalk.com
Fast
Fast Learner
Fat Wire (was Open Market)The FatWire Content Server™ product suite enables companies to deploy a wide variety and large quantity of Web sites and content-centric applications that build customer loyalty, reach new markets, strengthen brand identity, boost productivity, and reduce costs. ...en.wikipedia.orgwww.openmarket.com
FileNetFileNet Corporation (NASDAQ: FILE), founded in 1982, develops software to help enterprises manage their content and business processes. The Filenet P8 platform, their flagship system, is a framework for developing custom enterprise systems, offering much functionality out of the box and capable of being customized to manage a specific business process. On August 10, 2006, IBM announced plans to acquire FileNet for roughly $1.6 billion[1].

Based in Costa Mesa, California, the company