- SapphireSteel backs IronRuby in alpha release
- Adobe upgrades Director
- Gordano offers Gizmos for mashups
- AccuRev change management links to ClearCase
- Klocwork advances source code analysis
- Visual environment eyed for Ruby on Rails
- VersionOne adds Eclipse to agile development
- Microsoft contributing spec for disabled access
- OpenSpaces framework gets community site
- Ruby on Rails gets new default database
February 28, 2008 | Comments: (0)
SapphireSteel backs IronRuby in alpha release
SapphireSteel Software has released a public alpha version of the IronRuby edition of its Ruby in Steel developer tool for Visual Studio.
IronRuby is a .Net version of the Ruby programming language. The alpha release is accessible here.
Included in the tool is a visual forms designer for IronRuby. Also featured are a range of code editing and project management features
Posted by Paul Krill on February 28, 2008 07:01 AM
February 19, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Adobe is announcing Tuesday an upgrade to its Director multimedia authoring tool for building interactive applications and rich content, featuring built-in Ageia PhysX technology to expand graphical display capabilities.
Used for building interactive applications, e-learning and simulation as well as games, Director 11 features a customized publishing interface and functionality enabling users to convert files developed in previous versions of the product.
Ageia PhysX technology provides enhanced built-in physics, Adobe said. Real-life interactions can be developed, according to Adobe.
Also featured in Director 11 are simplified authoring in multiple languages and cross-platform support. Adobe acquired Director when it merged with Macromedia. Version 11 is the first release of the product combining Adobe and Macromedia capabilities.
With Director, users are able to bring in content from a wide variety of formats, said Rick Jones, Adobe director for Director and ShockWave.
Director 11 can work with the ShockWave Player for developing content for desktops, CD/DVDS, kiosks and online playback. Corporate presentations can be developed using Director 11.
Also, users can add Adobe Flash SWF files to Director projects. These files then can be played in Director and Shockwave and edited by launching Adobe Flash CS3 Professional.
Also featured in Director 11 are bitmap filters to speed up the addition of characteristics such as shadowing to text or images.
The JavaScript and Lingo languages are supported in version 11, with JavaScript now offering feature parity with Lingo.
Director 11 is expected to ship March 8, priced at $999 for the full product and $299 for an upgrade from the prior three versions.
Posted by Paul Krill on February 19, 2008 06:09 AM
February 05, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Gordano offers Gizmos for mashups
Gordano is announcing the release Tuesday of Gizmos, a mashup technology bundled with the Gordano Messaging Suite (GMS), which serves as an alternative to Microsoft Exchange.
With Gizmos, GMS users can interface with external data sources without leaving the GMS interface. Integrated into the main WebMail interface, Gizmos can in some instances do work in the background with no interface at all, Gordano said. Email tasks such as dictionary lookups and playing video and sound files are some of the mashups offered. Users also can build their own Gizmos in GMS.
Gordano's technology will simplify integration with third-party data such as customer databasesa dn CRM systems, the company said.
A Gizmo is a JavaScript file containing code needed to build an object with a set of predefined prototypes. Code required to develop Gizmos is related to what is used in Greasemonkey scripts. By aligning Gizmos with Greasemonkey code, users get access to more than 13,000 user-written scripts that can be adapted to work with GMS.
Posted by Paul Krill on February 5, 2008 10:50 AM
February 01, 2008 | Comments: (0)
AccuRev change management links to ClearCase
AccuRev formally unveiled this week its AccuRev 4.6 for ClearCase product, enabling the AccuRev software change and configuration management (SCCM) system to co-exist in environments with the IBM Rational ClearCase software change management platform.
The AccuRev product provides bidirectional integration, said Cliff Utstein, AccuRev vice president of marketing. Users often need to have multiple SCCM systems under the same roof to accommodate different needs, according to Utstein.
"The benefit [of the integration] is in a ClearCase shop, they can now enable individual teams to choose the tool that best meets that team's requirements," Utstein said.
AccuRev's product accommodates agile development practices and outsourced, distributed development, for example, while ClearCase is seen as the commercial market leader in the space and is for a larger scale of use, Utstein said.
Although only officially announced this week, AccuRev 4.6 for ClearCase actually has been shipping since November.
Posted by Paul Krill on February 1, 2008 06:50 AM
January 30, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Klocwork advances source code analysis
Klocwork this week announced shipments of Klocwork Insight, bringing system-wide source code analysis to the developer desktop, the company said.
The company has filed multiple patents on what it calls ground-breaking advancements in the product.
With Insight, users get the productivity benefits of local desktop code analysis with the accuracy of system-wide analysis, thus making source code analysis a developer support tool. Organizations can find complex cross-system bugs within a developer's local build and ensure that vulnerabilities are not propagated into the code stream, according to Klocwork.
Developers can use a collaborative peer-to-peer environment that provides a view of an entire system from an individual workspace. Also, developers get greater connectivity to static analysis to enable them to contain defects at the point of creation rather than having to check in buggy code in order to find out what is broken.
The product, Klocwork said, gives development organizations the ability to track bug fix rates at the desktop. A reporting interface aggregates information on what is found by Klocwork and fixed on the desktop before code is checked into the integration build.
Also featured is a declarative language that can extend Klocwork products to customize analysis of C, C++ and Java for any code base, Klocwork said. Developers can extend the Klocwork built-in library by adding their own checkers for organizational, regulatory or code base requirements.
Posted by Paul Krill on January 30, 2008 04:48 PM
January 25, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Visual environment eyed for Ruby on Rails
SapphireSteel Software, which has specialized in development tools for Ruby programmers, plans to soon release a visual design environment for Ruby on Rails, to be named The Visual Rails Workbench.
Due in late-February, the environment will be an addition to SapphireSteel's Ruby In Steel Developer IDE, which is a Ruby development tool for Visual Studio users. In addition to a design workspace, the workbench will feature tools to navigate through ERb templates and to drag and drop components. ERb is the native Rails view format, SapphireSteel said.
"The main benefit [of the workbench] is that, for the first time Rails developers will be able to design complete Web pages including styles, colors, graphics and forms," said SapphireSteel Director of Technology Huw Collingbourne, in an email.
Developers also will be able to import and export pages to and from external HTML editors. The Visual Rails Workbench will be part of Ruby in Steel 1.2 Developer.
A screen shot of the workbench can be found here.
Posted by Paul Krill on January 25, 2008 08:26 AM
January 23, 2008 | Comments: (0)
VersionOne adds Eclipse to agile development
VersionOne this week announced an upgrde to its V1: Agile product suite for managing agile software development projects, featuring what the company calls a simpler, more intuitive user interface and Eclipse integration.
With Release 8 of V1, Users get "1 click" access to agile process functionality. Through Eclipse integration, developers can work in Eclipse without leaving the Eclipse IDE.
Also featured is a release forecasting tool and open source tool integrations for plug-and-play integration into existing environments. The Intelligent Release Forecaster tool enables teams to do a "what if" analysis of projects. Parameters are input such as velocity to forecast the release delivery date.
Software integrations include data sharing and updates with development tools Jira, Bugzilla and HP Mercury Quicktest Pro. Integrations are provided via open source at the VersionOne community site.
V1 is available in both behind-the-firewall and hosted versions.
The Community Edition of V1 is free while the Enterprise variant costs $30 per user per month. A Team edition, for five users, is priced at around $17 per month per user.
Posted by Paul Krill on January 23, 2008 07:19 AM
January 17, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Microsoft contributing spec for disabled access
Microsoft announced plans Thursday to contribute its UI Automation specification royalty-free to the Accessibility Interoperability Alliance (AIA), an engineering working group looking to make it easier for developers to make computer products accessible to people with disabilities.
The specification describes the company's latest accessibility framework technology and will help developers include advanced accessibility into implementations designed to be used with any operating system, Microsoft said. Featured is a programming model for developers to make software compatible with assistive technology products such as screen readers for persons who are blind.
AIA, Microsoft said, was formed by a coalition of information and assistive technology companies intending to collaborate on reducing barriers that people with disabilities can encounter when trying to access information and technologies, including Web sites.
Developers currently must work across multiple platforms, application models and types of hardware to create accessible technology. AIA is addressing interoperability by working to harmonize current technologies so they interoperate more easily and by working to build a unified accessibility model.
UI Automation is available now for Windows platforms. Microsoft has agreed to grant a royalty-free license for Microsoft patents necessary to implement portions of the specification.
Posted by Paul Krill on January 17, 2008 02:43 PM
January 15, 2008 | Comments: (0)
OpenSpaces framework gets community site
GigaSpaces Technologies announced Tuesday OpenSpaces.org, a Web site for developers who want to use and contribute to the open source OpenSpaces development framework.
Tools provided on the site offer the ability to upload, review and download code. Bug tracking and forums are offered as well.
Geared to the building of applications for distributed environments such as SOA and cloud computing, OpenSpaces extends the Spring Framework for Java and leverages the GigaSpaces eXtreme Application Platform (XAP) for data caching, messaging and as the container for application business logic, GigaSpaces said.
OpenSpaces has been used in industries such as financial services, telecommunications, e-commerce, Web 2.0 and retail.
OpenSpaces.org features more than two dozen projects submitted by developers. Among these projects is an instant messaging platform and another that integrates with PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor).
GigaSpaces recently announced its OpenSpaces Developer Challenge, a developer competition that will feature prizes for the most innovative applications built using OpenSpaces.
Posted by Paul Krill on January 15, 2008 04:20 PM
January 03, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Ruby on Rails gets new default database
A minor, incremental upgrade to the Ruby on Rails Web application framework released on December 17 makes a change in the framework's open source default database.
With the 2.0.2 release of Ruby on Rails, the default database has been switched from MySQL to SQLite3, David Heinemeier Hansson, the founder of Ruby on Rails, said on Thursday.
The default database is just the database that a fresh Rails application is configured to use, Hansson said in an email.
"It's really not that big a deal, it's just what database the default configuration file is designed to work with," he said. Ruby on Rails still supports the same databases as before, said Hansson.
"MySQL is still by far the preferred production database and will continue to be so. SQLite3 is just great for getting started (you don't have to run a separate server) and for small applications," Hansson said. "Rails makes it effortless to switch from SQLite3 to MySQL when you're ready to go into big production."
Ruby on Rails 2.0, a major upgrade to the platform, was released on December 7 and emphasized REST-based (Representational State Transfer) Web services.
Posted by Paul Krill on January 3, 2008 04:46 PM
December 18, 2007 | Comments: (0)
WaveMaker ships Enterprise Web 2.0 tools
WaveMaker is shipping its "Enterprise Web 2.0" application toolset this week, the company said on Tuesday.
Featured is the WaveMaker Visual Assembly Studio and WaveMaker Rapid Deployment Framework. Developers can bring Web 2.0 capabilities such as self service to the enterprise, according to the company. Visual Assembly Studio comes with the Apache Tomcat server and the deployment framework. "Customers don't pay until they go to deploy," said Rick Saletta, WaveMaker director of marketing and product management.
Once deployed, WaveMaker Rapid Deployment Framework lists for $25,000 per server.
WaveMaker, formerly called ActiveGrid, announced the products in November.
Posted by Paul Krill on December 18, 2007 12:02 PM
December 14, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Sybase offers SQL developer tool
Sybase this week announced Sybase WorkSpace 2.0, a design and development environment combining enterprise modeling and database and Web development in an Eclipse-based framework, Sybase said.
WorkSpace 2.0 also offers data federation and services development. Enhancements in this version include advanced integration with the Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise, Sybase IQ and SQL Anywhere databases. Incorporation of open source technology is done via plugins such as the Eclipse Data Tooling Platform, the company said.
With WorkSpace, users can leverage the Sybase environment from data, reporting and analytics levels. Data services can be developed. SQL editing and debugging is featured for Sybase databases. Support also is included for notification of real-time database events.
Pricing for Sybase WorkSpace 2.0 begins at $495 per seat.
Posted by Paul Krill on December 14, 2007 03:55 PM
December 11, 2007 | Comments: (0)
IBM offers complex systems tools
IBM is announcing Tuesday upgraded software products intended to take the complexity out of complex systems development while also improving developer productivity.
Complex systems development involves systems such as cellular phones, airplanes, missile defense systems and even automobile anti-lock braking systems.
Among the products being unveiled is an upgrade to IBM Rational Test Real-Time, for testing to meet industry standards such as Defense Standard 00-55 and MISRA (Motor Industry Software Reliability Association). Static analysis, runtime analysis and component-testing are featured; the Eclipse tools platform is leveraged. Host and target platforms include C, C++, Ada and Java. Developers can ensure the quality of real-time and embedded systems, IBM said.
Also introduced are updated versions of IBM Rational Systems Developer and IBM Rational Software Modeler, which are design and development tools for model-driven development via UML (Unified Modeling Language) 2.1. These have been updated with the new UML Profile for DoDAF (Department of Defense Architecture Framework) and MoDAF (UK Ministry of Defense Architecture Framework) standards defined by the Object Management Group, which describe enterprise architectures in such a way that the architectures can be exchanged and analyzed. These two products are built on top of the Eclipse platform.
Posted by Paul Krill on December 11, 2007 09:02 AM
November 30, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Microsoft links design tool to Visual Studio 2008
Microsoft this week released an update to its Expression Blend application design tool to enable Blend projects to work in the newly released Visual Studio 2008 application development platform, said S. "Soma" Somasegar, corporate vice president of the Microsoft Developer Division, in his blog.
Expression Blend Service Pack 1 can be downloaded on this Web site.
"Earlier this year, we released Expression Blend that is tailored to the designer community. Last week, we released Visual Studio 2008 for the developer audience. These are two products that together can help to build this seamless workflow and relationship between developers and designers," Somaseger said. "Obviously, we all want the latest versions of these products to work together."
Posted by Paul Krill on November 30, 2007 07:07 AM
November 07, 2007 | Comments: (0)
CollabNet is announcing Wednesday the latest release of the CollabNet Desktop for Eclipse, providing Eclipse developers with access to CollabNet application lifecycle management (ALM) tools for distributed teams.
CollabNet Desktop - Eclipse Edition 1.1 features integration with the CollabNet Cubit virtualization technology, giving developers access to build and test servers and environments allocated to their project, CollabNet said.
With the CollabNet product, Eclipse developers can from their Eclipse desktop track and manage project assets, Subversion-related activities and tasks managed in CollabNet tracker repositories. Also featured are links to resources including technical tips, discussion forums and blogs available on openCollabNet.
Developers also can search from Eclipse any publicly accessible community sites that run CollabNet Community Edition, such as tigris.org, java.net and dev2dev.bea.com.
CollabNet Desktop - Eclipse Edition 1.1 is available as a free download. The company plans later this month to make CollabNet Desktop available to users of the SourceForge Enterprise Edition ALM platform, which CollabNet acquired from VA Software in April. It is being integrated into CollabNet products.
Later this year, CollabNet Desktop - Eclipse Edition will become the first graphical user interface for the Subversion Merge Tracking capability.
Posted by Paul Krill on November 7, 2007 10:50 AM
November 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Curl this week is unveiling a beta release of Curl Rich Internet Application Platform Version 6, for building enterprise Web applications.
The product works with the Curl language and is intended for applications with large data sets. The company is announcing version 6 of its desktop system as a well as an IDE for building applications.
Curl could be considered an alternative to AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript) and supports implementation of dynamic Web applications, said Richard Treadway, vice president of product marketing at Curl.
"Curl is on the far end of that scale on the enterprise side, where you have hundreds of thousands of records and you have to visualize on the client," Treadway said.
APIs, toolkits and underlying libraries for Curl are open source.
New in version 6 is Macintosh support and skinnable controls for making the UI and components. AJAX interoperability in the release enables Curl applications to be called from an AJAX HTML page and vice versa. "If you wanted to use Google Maps from a Curl app, you would need this," Treadway said.
Curl requires a plugin, which serves as a runtime piece hosting applications that execute on the desktop.
Version 6.0 is available in late-November, with a base entry price of $12,000 for the runtime and $859 for the developer component.
Posted by Paul Krill on November 5, 2007 05:10 AM
November 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Infragistics previews tools for Microsoft apps
Infragistics on Monday is releasing previews of tools built for Microsoft's Windows Presentation (WPF) and ASP.Net AJAX as well as a new gauge to work with the Microsoft Silverlight platform for multimedia applications.
For the Infragistics NetAdvantage for WPF 7.2 toolset, the company is releasing as a preview a chart component allowing developers to build chart types in 2D and 3D rendering styles. Also being released is a preview of ribbon control incorporating capabilities found in the Microsoft Office 2007 ribbon. NetAdvantage for WPF 7.2 ships in January.
Also on tap from Infragistics is a preview of its Aikido framework for the NetAdvantage for ASP.Net toolset, which leverages ASP.Net AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML). The Web user interface in the framework provides for lighter and better-performing controls. The framework is designed to leverage Web development technologies such as XHTML, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and AJAX.
Infragistics also is unveiling several controls to boost Web development in NetAdvantage for ASP.Net, which are built on top of Aikido.
With Infragistics's Silverlight gauge control preview for NetAdvantage for Silverlight, developers can add to executive dashboards gauges that can reveal, for example, how many units have been sold or the level of hits on a Web site. Availability of NetAdvantage for Silverlight is contingent on Microsoft shipping Silverlight 1.1.
Posted by Paul Krill on November 5, 2007 05:00 AM
October 16, 2007 | Comments: (0)
OASIS approves e-business standard
OASIS has approved a messaging standard for electronic business as an official OASIS standard.
Members have approved ebXML Messaging Services 3.0: Part 1, Core Features. EbMS defines a Web services-based method for reliable and secure exchange of business information, OASIS said.
"This specification is the first major revision of ebMS since version 2.0 was approved as an OASIS Standard in April 2002 and subsequently as an ISO Standard in March 2004," said Patrick Gannon, president and CEO of OASIS, in a statement released by the organization. "It ensures ebXML's continuing relevancy and achieves compatibility with Web services specifications developed after ebMS 2.0, including SOAP 1.2 as well as the WS-Security, WS-Reliability, and WS-ReliableMessaging OASIS Standards."
Version 3.0 is designed to handle differences in message flow capacity, intermittent connectivity, lack of static IP addresses and firewall restrictions. Legacy electronic business systems such as EDI and HL7 can leverage ebMS infrastructure as can systems based on emerging technologies.
EbMS can be used with or without other ebXML standards, including ebXML Business Process Specification Schema 2.0.4 and the forthcoming version of ebXML Collaboration Protocol Profile and Agreement.
The OASIS ebMS Technical Committee is continuing to work on Part 2 of ebMS 3.0, which will provide functional extensions to ebMS 3.0 Core.
Posted by Paul Krill on October 16, 2007 04:18 PM
October 16, 2007 | Comments: (0)
StrikeIron forges community for Web services use
StrikeIron, which offers an online marketplace for commercially available Web services, has launched a beta version of StrikeIron Developer Community, enabling developers to collaborate on business applications.
The community, StrikeIron said, lets developers share and collaborate as they build business applications, mashups, widgets and Web sites with Web services available from the company.
Featured in the community are project pages with links to sample code from partners such as Sun Microsystems and IBM; sample code for developing in various languages, including C# and Ruby, and sample applications with source code. Also offered is a framework for submitting code, mashups and applications that can be shared. Technical documentation, videos and tutorials are available as well.
Developers can access StrikeIron data through downloadable widgets, tools and code. Additionally, the community offers a developer forum for researching issues with StrikeIron Marketplace Web Services.
Developers who wish to try out StrikeIron can access free Web services at this Web page.
Posted by Paul Krill on October 16, 2007 11:02 AM
October 15, 2007 | Comments: (0)
JetBrains is offering an upgrade to its Java IDE, IntelliJ Idea 7.0, featuring Web development tools and backing for the Ruby language.
Included are tools for developing complex Web applications, with Web services and dynamic language support. Advanced JavaScript capabilities with basic Flex support will be accompanied with plugins for Ruby/JRuby and Groovy development within a few weeks.
Version 7.0 has new factorings and about 50 new code inspections and bug fixes. A new debugger UI, visual Structure Dependency Matrix and enhanced usability and performance are featured as well.
With so many new features being added, a JetBrains official said the company pondered which ones should be considered the major highlights.
"When we were preparing our press release, this was actually a challenge for us, to determine the main highlights," said Ann Oreshnikova, marketing director at JetBrains.
Also featured is support for Hibernate object persistence technology and the Spring Framework, including aspect-oriented programming.
Improved support for a host of technologies is featured also, including:
* Java Persistence API (JPA).
* EJB (Enterprise JavaBeans).
* JSP (JavaServer Pages).
* HTML.
* CSS Cascading Style Sheets.
* XML.
Version 7.0 integrates with the Maven software project management tool. Unified version control systems support has been extended to Rational ClearCase.
IntelliJ Idea 7.0 costs $499 for a commercial license.
Posted by Paul Krill on October 15, 2007 08:12 AM
October 14, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Borland Software is adding domain-specific language (DSL) capabilities to its Together package for application modeling.
Available Monday, Borland Together 2007 is intended to help developers as well as application analysts and architects to deliver enterprise applications through rich visual models that capture business requirements within a specific business domain.
Project teams can build models that provide a blueprint for a business process, application and enterprise architectures and data structures, Borland said.
"We really see [the new release] as a significant leap forward in its ability to provide better business agility and lower application costs through use of domain-specific languages," said Marc Brown, Borland vice president of product engineering.
A DSL is a notation that allows individuals within a business to capture a model visually within the context of a business domain, such as for insurance or health care, Brown said. DSL encompasses architectures and business processes.
The DSL Toolkit in Together 2007 is intended to overcome the complexity of Unified Modeling Language (UML) models by enabling project teams to build model notations aligned with a business domain.
Borland is enabling creation of models that leverage UML but are simpler and domain-focused, said Richard Gronback, chief scientist at Borland and co-leader of the Eclipse Modeling Project.
Together 2007 is based on the open source Eclipse framework and conforms to Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) standards, including UML, XML, Metadata Interchange and Object Constraint Language.
Also in Together 2007 is .Net support with C# code generation. Users can generate C# source code from UML 2 models in support of .Net development projects.
Support for the Eclipse Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools (BIRT) project bolsters generation of documentation in a standardized way, Borland said.
Posted by Paul Krill on October 14, 2007 09:01 PM
October 10, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Serena offers software configuration management tool
Serena Software announced this week the release of Serena Dimensions Express, a developer-focused software configuration management tool that is intended to be easy to use.
With the product, advanced software configuration management is offered as a standalone capability, giving companies a way to address immediate requirements and position for a more holistic approach if needed in the future, Serena said.
Leveraging the Serena Dimensions 10 Dimensions distributed development platform, Express is intended to address issues of rapid implementation and usability with the need for control and management. Developers gain native platform support for their preferred workspace/repository and native integration with leading IDEs, Serena said.
When changes are made to source code, Dimensions Express handles version control so if the need arises, developers can revert to the previous configuration.
Support for parallel development is supported, enabling Dimensions Express to be used by development teams.
Dimensions Express is available now for $995 per user.
Posted by Paul Krill on October 10, 2007 02:30 PM
October 08, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Infragistics offers toolsets for Windows apps
Infragistics announced Monday Infragistics NetAdvantage for .Net 2007 Volume 3, featuring toolsets for ASP.Net and Windows Forms.
NetAdvantage for .Net is a suite of controls, components and tools for .Net. Developers can build user experiences in line-of-business applications, Infragistics said. Featured in the new release is a reduction in development time.
The ASP.Net toolset includes PDF/XPS (XML Paper Specification) reporting capabilities, export to Excel enhancements and charting features for building commercial-class interfaces and rich Internet applications.
With the Windows Forms side of the product, new tools, including a navigation bar and tool bar manager, make it easy to build user interfaces with the same look and feel as Windows Vista, Infragistics said.
Infragistics in 30 days plans to release TestAdvantage 2007 Volume 3, which will have parity with NetAdvantage for Windows Forms 2007.3. TestAdvantage enables automated testing of the presentation layer, including regression testing for Windows Forms applications.
A single NetAdvantage product, such as NetAdvantage for ASP.Net, starts in price at $795.
Posted by Paul Krill on October 8, 2007 03:19 PM
October 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Green storage, converged storage, and rich enterprise apps
Rotating green matter?: So while AMD and Intel have been shouting in our ear about how they are putting money in our pockets by making their processors more power efficient, storage vendors have been eerily silent. Now they're starting to get the green religion too. Green storage starts with management tools like thin provisioning (hey look, we were green already!) but is moving toward power management technologies like MAID (massive arrays of idle disk) and Hitachi Data Systems' PSSS (Power Savings Storage Service). Ted Samson outlines these developments in yesterday's Sustainable IT. And don't miss his video interview on the subject with HDS CTO Hu Yoshida.
Deja vu all over again: In his October 1 blog post, "All the Wood Behind One Arrow," Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz announced that Sun would be combining its Storage and Server product teams to "focus on the evolution and convergence of computing." Does that portend a datacenter without arrays? Mario Apicella says grab a camera and take some souvenir photos, because stand-alone storage has booked an appointment for a makeover.
Server-side mashups: For "rich enterprise application" frameworks JackBe Presto and Nexaweb Enterprise Web 2.0 Suite, rich AJAX clients (and in the case of Nexaweb, also Java clients) live to be windows into back-end data resources. These toolkits shine in exposing server-side resources as data services, and creating business dashboards and other clients for interacting with data. See Peter Wayner's review, "Refining the art of enterprise Web apps."
Posted by Doug Dineley on October 5, 2007 09:38 AM
October 04, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: California's vision for an accessible Web, Microsoft's blunted run at Flash
Opening the Web to everyone: The state of California has taken the long overdue step of enforcing Web site accessibility requirements. Developers, dev tool vendors, content creators and on-line advertisers should be making accessibility a priority if for no other reason than the substantial market they're turning away. Some software companies, like Apple and Adobe, get it. Apple added support for captions to QuickTime, and Adobe's Web authoring tools check for accessibility standards adherence. Perhaps this judicial nudge will make accessibility core of the next-generation Web.
Sorry, Microsoft, but Flash already has its AIR apparent: Martin Heller's review of Microsoft Silverlight details Microsoft's .net-based rich Web client framework. It's packaged as a rather fat native code plug-in for Windows and OS X browsers. Looked at in a vacuum, Silverlight is nice, and it demos smashingly well, but Microsoft is bringing a plug-in and unfamiliar tools to developers and content creators, while Adobe is expanding its Flash ecosystem with its own Internet run-time framework, AIR. The cross-platform ubiquity of Flash, a worldwide community of skilled developers, a well-established toolsuite and legitimate (read that: beyond lip service) engagement in open source will net Adobe the crown in rich Web apps when AIR debuts in Q1 '08. If Silverlight amounts to little more than a wedge that carries Windows Media Player and .net+HTML to Intel-based Macs, that's a win for Microsoft and for Mac users. But there's no need to hope for a Flash killer; Flash just needs to be opened and evolved. Adobe's on that.
Here's a bit of parting-shot trivia for non-developers: What's Adobe's little-acknowledged high card in the rich Web app game? JavaScript.
Posted by Tom Yager on October 4, 2007 12:52 PM
October 02, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Interface21, builders of the Spring Framework, are partnering with Tasktop Technologies, builders of Eclipse Mylyn, to develop Spring Tool Suite, with the goal of reducing complexity in Java development and maintenance.
Mylyn is an open source, task-focused UI for Eclipse while Spring is a popular open source framework for Java. Building on Eclipse and Mylyn, Spring Tool Suite will simplify the large aggregation of tools used to develop complex enterprise Java applications. This will reduce information overload and streamline developer workflow, Interface21 said.
The suite will support: Spring 2.0 framework features, including namespace-based configurations; Spring Web Flow; tools for Spring AOP (aspect-oriented programming) and Spring Java configuration.
An open source project, Spring Tool Suite is expected to be available in March 2008.
Posted by Paul Krill on October 2, 2007 03:55 PM
October 02, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Silverlight Shines
It's a great day in the Test Center, with a review on a top web app development system, and looks at sustainable reading and hacker tools.
Coding by Silverlight: The race is on for web-application development framework, with Ajax, Flash, Curl, Ruby, and others all muscling and edging one another for attention. Microsoft has thrown Silverlight into the mix, and Martin Heller finds a lot to like in the upstart development language. Between a well thought-out development environment and a clear division between tasks for designers and programmers, Martin thinks that Silverlight can offer a lot to new web app developers, especially if they've already committed to Microsoft Visual Studio.
Sustainable Reading: Some folks cast a skeptical glance at any capitalist involvement with "Green" issues, but Ted Samson looks at a business publication and finds encouragement in corporations that take a serious look at sustainable operations. When top management sees sustainability in terms of dollars and cents, that's when change can truly start in the enterprise.
Learning the Hacker Way: There's no reason that hackers should have all the cool tools, and Roger Grimes points out two of the best in his latest column. The Security Adviser thinks you should know how hackers think and how they work -- and these tools will give you a leg up on each of those goals.
Posted by Curt Franklin on October 2, 2007 10:30 AM
September 20, 2007 | Comments: (0)
BluePhoenix assists with Cobol migrations
BluePhoenix Solutions this week announced a solution for migrating mainframe customers from outdated or unsupported versions of Cobol to Cobol Language Environment (LE).
Older Cobol compilers are no longer supported for DB2 V8 and CICS TS V3.1, BluePhoenix said. Only the Cobol LE runtime is supported for these environments. DB2 V8 only supports Enterprise Cobol V3.4 and starting with CICS TS V3.1, transactions compiled with OS/VS Cobol or earlier must be converted and re-compiled to an LE environment.
With IBM's withdrawal of support for older Cobol versions, mainframe customers must migrate to LE environments to receive full support for mission-critical systems and implement new technologies and architectures such as SOA, BluePhoenix said.
"Mainframe customers are facing a major challenge with IBM's withdrawal of support for older versions of COBOL," said Arik Kilman, CEO of BluePhoenix Solutions, in a statement released by the company. "Especially now, as SOA projects continue to proliferate, mainframe customers are looking for ways to leverage their existing DB2 and CICS application components as reusable resources in SOA environments. Our enhanced solution provides an excellent means for these customers to rapidly and safely migrate their existing systems to LE conforming environments upon which they can build for the future."
The Blue Phoenix offering features a service that identifies, upgrades and recompiles non-LE-compliant modules. Source code and executables are analyzed. A report is provided on code and modules that need to be modified. The BluePhoenix Cobol LE enabler tool modifies selected source code, compiles impacted modules and promotes development of cost-effective test plans before migrating the LE code.
IBM declined to comment on the BluePhoenix announcement.
Posted by Paul Krill on September 20, 2007 02:41 PM
September 17, 2007 | Comments: (0)
StrikeIron, IBM partner on enterprise mashups
StrikeIron and IBM are partnering to deliver more than 100 data services from StrikeIron to IBM's enterprise mashup maker, QEDWiki,
Also, StrikeIron has developed seven widgets allowing users to drag and drop data directly onto the mashup maker, for users to leverage Web 2.0 and SOA, StrikeIron said.
Mashups are quickly-developed new applications pieced together from parts of other applications. To build enterprise mashups, users need data sources and the StrikeIron-IBM parternship provides access to business services such as business intelligence, address verification, e-mail verification, currency rates and more.
QEDWiki is a browser-based assembly canvas to build mashups. Web users and developers gain a wiki foundation with a single framework for hosting and developing a range of Web 2.0 applications.
StrikeIron is publishing seven data access widgets for public use on IBM's alphaWorks Web 2.0 content repository server and feed generator, called Mashup Hub. Widgets include:
* D&B (Dun and Bradstreet) Business Prospect, providing information on business prospects.
* Global SMS (Short Message Service), for communication to contacts on mobile phones via text messaging.
* Reverse Phone Residential Intel, providing address information in conjunction with any residential phone number.
* Reverse Phone Business Intel, providing address information connected with a business phone number.
* Sales and use Tax Rates Complete, offering tax data for shopping cart applications.
* US Address Verification, to improve deliverability and save on shipping costs.
StrikeIron Web services also are available via the IBM SOA Business Catalog.
Posted by Paul Krill on September 17, 2007 10:44 AM
September 13, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Koders assists with code search
Koders released this week Koders Pro Edition, for individuals and teams to search private code bases.
Koders Pro Edition lets developers find, reuse and share source code on their computers and in networked version control systems. Development teams get access to existing code assets and visibility into distributed code repositories, Koders said.
Once deployed, Koders Pro can be shared using email or instant messaging.
Specifically, developers can search multiple version control systems from Eclipse, Visual Studio or a Web browser and generate source code metrics across repositories. Opportunities for reuse can be identified through reporting and analysis.
Featured in Koders Pro are APIs and Web services to integrate with existing application lifecycle management tools and enterprise content search products, such as Google appliances and Microsoft SharePoint. Koders Pro is preconfigured to index CVS (Concurrent Versions System) and Subversion as well as code in a file system.
After a 30-day trial period, Koders Pro users can upgrade to annual support subscriptions, priced at $99 per year. The product is available for download by clicking here.
Posted by Paul Krill on September 13, 2007 04:42 PM
September 10, 2007 | Comments: (0)
CollabNet on Monday is announcing availability of its CollabNet Enterprise Edition 5.0 application lifecycle management platform.
The platform leverages tools such as the Eclipse IDE, software configuration management and testing platforms, which are available to internal or external project members. With version 5.0, Web 2.0 features and structured collaboration tools such as e-mail, discussion forums and Wikis have been adapted for the software development process, CollabNet said.
Features of version 5.0 include:
* ALM templates, with an enhanced version of the CollabNet Baseline Process template allowing project teams to get started more quickly in ALM.
• Subversion reporting, for code management.
• Project-level Wiki, for collaboration on project content.
• Online discussion services, with integrated communication capabilities including e-mail, mailing lists and discussion forums.
• Web services APIs, to integrate CollabNet with other solutions at the administration level.
Posted by Paul Krill on September 10, 2007 06:07 AM
September 10, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Infragistics plans to release Monday a reference application for using Microsoft's Windows Presentation Framework (WPF). The company is partnering with Amazon and Microsoft in this endeavor.
WPF focuses on visual effects. Reference applications and guidance on WPF are few and far between, said Andrew Flick, product manager for rich clients at Infragistics. The reference application, called Tangerine, features a storefront browser for searching on Amazon, featuring use of Amazon Web services.
WPF is about user experience, Flick said. With the reference application, developers can see how it works.
"It gives you the ability to say, OK, this is how I would use the different features of WPF and you take that knowledge and plug it into your existing environment," said Flick.
The reference application, which leverages Infragistics NetAdvantage for WPF, is downloadable on Monday at this Web site.
Posted by Paul Krill on September 10, 2007 05:00 AM
September 06, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Adobe Systems on Thursday unveiled features planned for the upcoming Adobe Flash Media Server 3 release.
Due in the first quarter of 2008, the upcoming release will offer traditional streaming media capabilities and an environment for building and delivering interactive social media applications. Performance will double and industry-standard H.264 video codec backing is included along with AAC+ audio codec support. A new encrypted protocol will protect streamed content.
Adobe on Thursday also announced:
* The Cisco Content Delivery System will be the first system to support Adobe Flash streaming capabilities. Cisco's service will be able to deliver Adobe Flash Player capabilities to PCs and TVs via Adobe Flash streaming.
* With the unveiling of Adobe Audition 3 software, audio professionals including sound designers, recording and mastering engineers and musicians, can develop music and radio spots and restore imperfect recordings. New features include VSTi (Virtual Studio Technology) virtual instrument support with MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) piano roll, enhanced spectral editing options, fast fade and crossfade controls and advanced multi-core processor support.
Posted by Paul Krill on September 6, 2007 04:51 PM
August 29, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: The zen of Web apps and Mac OS X
Have you been thinking to get yourself a Mac for a long time and never did? Then don't miss this week Enterprise Windows where Oliver Rist asks (with his well known subtlety): "Does Mac OS X suck?". Oliver's column is the closest you can get to walking the Apple road yourself, and may be you will after reading it.
Is the Web treating you well? Or more to the point, are Web applications treating you well? Moving an application from the quiet waters of a corporate network to the stormy weather of the Net takes more than being technically savvy, warns Tom Yager in this week's "Ahead of the Curve". In his column Tom explains why, and reveals what's the secret sauce to make good Web apps. A useful reading also for non-developers.
Posted by Mario Apicella on August 29, 2007 08:30 AM
August 23, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Compuware challenges developers
Compuware is running a contest called the "Broken Code Challenge," in which developers must spot the errors in a sampling of code.
Participants are eligible for prizes ranging from a Starbuck's gift certificate to a Bose stereo, with one participant to be awarded $10,000 in December.
Devised for developers using Microsoft languages including Visual Basic, C++ and C#, players must find four lines of broken code out of about 30 lines. In one game, for example, a developer has to identify a line of code with a buffer overrun error.
So far, there have been 134,000 participants since the contest began running June 29. The endeavor, which was built by media company ePrize, ends on December 15.
Those participating are encouraged to sign up for Compuware's breakPoints newsletter, which features code quality tips. They also can register for a trial version of Compuware DevPartner Studio Professional Edition, for debugging and tuning code in Microsoft's Visual Studio platform.
Posted by Paul Krill on August 23, 2007 03:23 PM
August 22, 2007 | Comments: (0)
WSO2 adds Web services for PHP, C
Open source middleware vendor WSO2 this week launched Web services frameworks for the PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) and C languages.
WSO2 Web Services Framework for PHP (WSF/PHP), 1.0 is a framework for provision and consumption of Web services in PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor). Serving as an extension to the PHP scripting language that supports the WS-* stack, developers using the framework can bring to PHP security and reliable messaging for enterprise-class SOAP Web services, WSO2 said. The framework supports WSDL on both the client and server.
Developers can create new PHP Web services and use existing code in Web services.
WSF/PHP 1.0 is a binding of the Web Services Framework for C (WSF/C) into PHP, providing an open source PHP extension based on Apache technologies. REST (Representational State Transfer) also is supported.
WSO2 Web Services Framework for C (WSF/C) 1.0, features an enterprise-grade library for providing and consuming Web services in C, WSO2 said. It, too, supports the WS-* specifications and is based on Apache projects such as Apache Axis2/C.
Web services standards such as SOAP and WSDL are supported in WSF/C.
WSO2 provides the two frameworks without licensing fees but does sell service and support for them. Both of the frameworks are available on the WSO2 Web site.
Posted by Paul Krill on August 22, 2007 04:30 PM
August 17, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Serena eyes "Business Mashups"
Serena plans on September 10 to offer a tool called Vail for creating "Business Mashups," which are simple business applications that combine content, services, workflow and other applications building blocks.
The tool is intended for semi-technical business developers. These mashups can be deployed on IT-managed servers or to on-demand servers hosted by Serena via a SaaS program.
"In this model, IT and the business enter into a new type of partnership: IT creates the building blocks and the business assembles them into new, nimble applications that meet specific business needs," Serena said.
Posted by Paul Krill on August 17, 2007 03:52 PM
August 13, 2007 | Comments: (0)
JetBrains extends IDE to Groovy, Grails
JetBrains announced Monday a public preview of the JetGroovy Plugin, enabling Groovy and Grails developers to leverage the company's IntelliJ Idea IDE.
Productivity features of IntelliJ become accessible by Groovy and Grails programmers. Capabilities available include:
* Context-sensitive code completion with resolution of symbols between Groovy and Java.
* Syntax highlighting, code formatting and folding.
* Error highlighting, including unresolved classes, unresolved unqualified properties, incompatible type assignments and method calls.
* Auto-insertion of imports statements.
* Refactorings, advanced navigation and views.
* Automatic generators for Grails controllers.
Users of the IntelliJ Idea 7.0 Milestone 2 release can use the JetGroovy Plugin preview, which is downloadable here. The final release is due by the end of the year.
Posted by Paul Krill on August 13, 2007 04:13 PM
August 13, 2007 | Comments: (0)
FireScope adds SDK for business service system
FireScope has added a software development kit for building custom interfaces to its FireScope business service management appliance.
The company's software and appliance offer a real-time view of the health and security of IT operations, FireScope said. With the FireScope Business Services Management Software Developer Kit, developers can integrate customer IT software into the FireScope interface or blend data from security or business applications into FireScope to provide unique views of IT operations.
A reseller, for example, could link to assets being tracked, said Ryan Counts, FireScope marketing director. The SDK is for select partners and clients.
"The SDK itself exposes the data that we're collecting and our own custom interface elements like AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript) charts and graphs," Counts said.
Developers can write portlets in a choice of languages, including Java, PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) or Ruby. Development environments can be used such as Eclipse or IntelliJ Idea. The SDK is based on Java Specification Request 168, which provides a portlet programming model.
More information about the SDK can be found here.
Posted by Paul Krill on August 13, 2007 10:06 AM
August 09, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Rally adds integrations to agile software service
Rally Software is bolstering its hosted service for managing agile software development projects, with new or upgraded integrations with open source and commercial development tools.
New integration connectors link Rally Version 2007.5 to the Subversion version control system, Microsoft Visual Studio and Bugzilla and Jira defect tracking. Also added are integrations with Microsoft SharePoint, Skype, Instant Messaging and Seapine TestTrack Pro for bug tracking.
Rally also offers integrations with the CruiseControl and Maven build systems.
Updated integrations have been made with the Eclipse Mylin project for an Eclipse workbench, and Eclipse 3.3. Linkage to Mercury Quality Center also has been improved.
Agile development, which produces software in short iterations, continues to gain traction, said Ryan Martens, Rally CTO. Software produced through it "tends to be of higher value to customers," than software built via traditional methods, he said.
The new release provide for resource management to balance workloads across teams. Also included are project hierarchies and dependencies for multi-level projects and dependent work products.
Configurable dashboard widgets are featured to display work status. Executive dashboards in the product are easier to understand than before.
Posted by Paul Krill on August 9, 2007 10:21 AM
August 08, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Zend Technologies and IBM are expanding their partnership in the PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) application development space Wednesday, focusing on IBM's DB2 database.
Featured in the arrangement are enhanced IBM DB2 Express-C capabilities in IBM Zend Core for IBM, which is Zend's PHP offering. DB2 Express-C is IBM's hybrid relational-XML data server for accessing enterprise capabilities such as data replication, clustering and offsite disaster recovery.
Also included is new support for DB2 Connect technology to access i5/PS and z/OS DB2 data servers. DB2 Connect technology makes it easy to build PHP applications that leverage DB2 hosted on IBM System z and System i servers.
Additionally, users can leverage IBM System i Linux partitions and the System i attached BladeCenter and System x servers.
Users also get a single source of support for the integrated PHP and DB2 stack. Zend will provide this support.
Zend Core for IBM features a PHP-based application development and deployment stack that includes Apache, PHP, the Zend Framework and DB2 Express-C.
Posted by Paul Krill on August 8, 2007 08:34 AM
August 07, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Microsoft's Astoria project advances for data services
The Project Astoria team at Microsoft has extended the online service to enable development of experimental Astoria data services hosted by Microsoft, according to a blog on the project.
The Astoria online service is an experimental effort to explore programming models for data on the Web, offered in the form of a service. The goal of the project is to enable applications to expose data as a data service that can be consumed by Web clients within corporate networks and across the Internet, according to Microsoft.
Developers can build custom structured data stores as much as 100MB in size on the Web and access them anywhere via the Internet. These services can be the storage or data source for mashups or the backing store for Internet-enabled applications. They also can be applied to a scenario requiring a rich data service on the Web.
The Astoria CTP was announced at the Mix 2007 conference this spring.
To develop an Astoria data service, developers need a Passport account. Developers can build services by navigating the "Online Service" page for the project here.
Posted by Paul Krill on August 7, 2007 10:46 AM
August 06, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: BRMS wars, mainframe futures, and encryption caveats
BRMS Pushmi-Pullyu: Doctor Doolittle's two-headed llama has nothing on ILOG's JRules, a product that is moving forward and backward at the same time. JRules 5.0, which James Owen reviewed in June 2005, was a silky combination of strong performance and rich rule tools, nabbing the highest score we've given to a rule management system. But by the time of Owen's evaluation of JRules 6.0 and top rival Blaze Advisor 6.1 in July 2006, JRules had not only lost ground in performance to the Fair Isaac engine, it stumbled on documentation at the same time it introduced more complexity in its tools and repository. With Version 6.5, reviewed last week by Stephen Nunez, JRules continues the flow of important new functionality -- now exposing decision logic as Web services -- but hasn't reversed the ebb in performance, documentation, or general ease of use.
Project Big Green: We already knew that the mainframe is harder to kill than Stephen Seagal. The mainframe's resource management and high availability features are unparalleled, and it has virtualization capabilities that the x86 can only dream about. Although "mainframe migration" stories sprout like weeds from enterprise IT publications, if you ask deep-pocketed IT shops (think IRS) that can actually afford what they really want, they'll tell you they're running their most important apps on Big Iron. Turns out there may be another reason to invest in the monoliths: IBM claims they are more energy efficient than little iron. See Ted Samson's report in Sustainable IT.
Encryption dos and dont's: Embarrassing data breaches are all the rage these days, and encryption seems like a sensible, no-brainer solution. But as Roger Grimes points out in Friday's column, file encryption is not as simple as lock and key. Encryptors can require a surprising amount of free disk overhead. Some files will refuse to be encrypted. Some encryption processes leave readable traces of file text behind. Before you take the plunge, check these considerations and caveats from the Security Advisor.
Posted by Doug Dineley on August 6, 2007 10:52 AM
July 18, 2007 | Comments: (0)
BEA Systems plans this month to release a new version of its business process management suite, AquaLogic BPM 6.0, which has been optimized for complex process needs, the company said in an email bulletin on Wednesday.
Also highlighted in the release are "simple-to-use" tools for IT and business users. In addition, version 6.0 focuses on ad hoc collaboration and SOA. Process types are enabled including collaborative human processes and system-centric processes.
BEA's Dev2Dev Web site for developers has had a page that said version 6.0 features a new version of the BPM Studio process modeling and design tool based on the Eclipse platform. Also in version 6.0 are support for BPEL 2.0, XML Process Definition Language 2.0 and enhanced business rules.
Others features include optimized integration with BEA's AquaLogic Service bus and support for WS-Security User Name Token Profile. A new configuration wizard is featured for the WebLogic Server application server.
Posted by Paul Krill on July 18, 2007 04:21 PM
July 17, 2007 | Comments: (0)
MKS unveils 2007 edition of ALM platform
MKS launched the 2007 edition of its application lifecycle management platform Tuesday, supporting reuse and change management of requirements.
These capabilities, featured in MKS Integrity 2007, enable a project manager to pick up an individual or a complete set of previous requirements and alter them in a parallel development scenario to shorten project and delivery cycles. Automotive and telecommunications industries will especially benefit because they can build products faster, better and cheaper, MKS said.
Also supported in MKS Integrity 2007 is process automation for SAP and change management for Oracle/PeopleSoft within a single ALM platform.
With the new version, MKS enters the testing space, offering a process-based solution for test management that allows a user of the system to link requirements to test specifications, plans, test suites and results. This information can be linked to source code and deployed objects.
MKS Integrity 2007 is offered in a single platform.
Posted by Paul Krill on July 17, 2007 04:24 PM
July 17, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Tamino XML server coupled with Ruby on Rails
Software AG has developed an open source project offering interoperability between the Ruby on Rails Web development framework and the Tamino XML Server.
Tamino On Rails is an open source contribution found here on SourceForge.net. With it, Tamino users can leverage Ruby on Rails to more quickly develop new applications, according to Software AG.
Tamino is an XML server for data management based on Internet technologies, featuring an XML engine to process and exchange XML documents.
"Due to its native support for all XML document types and schemas, Tamino can quickly configure multiple data sources into a single view. This makes it a premier platform for creating highly-dynamic, multi-channel Web applications," said Dr. Peter Kürpick, a Software AG executive board member, in a statement released by the company. "With minimal coding and configuration required, Ruby on Rails makes it comparatively easy to develop highly responsive applications and Web [sites] that fully leverage Tamino’s extensibility. Furthermore, Tamino helps to overcome some of the lack of adaptability inherent in the framework due to the underlying support for complex data types and manipulations that it offers."
Tamino on Rails version 1.0 provides applications using Ruby on Rails with access to XML-based data sets in XQuery-capable databases. Featured in the project are adapters to build Web-based front ends for database applications.
Posted by Paul Krill on July 17, 2007 02:54 PM
July 16, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Nokia launches mobile app dev contest
Nokia is looking for mobile application developers to use the company's Open C environment and has launched a contest in a quest to meet this goal.
The "Open C Challenge" is focused on development of applications for the S60 smartphones running the Symbian OS. Open C Challenge will enable open source and freeware developers to apply desktop and open source development skills using the Nokia Open C Posix environment. The contest is being sponsored by Forum Nokia in conjunction with Orange and the Symbian Developer Network.
Open C Challenge finalists will be invited to present their applications to a panel of industry judges at the Symbian Smartphone Show in London October 16-17. Contest winners can receive cash prizes totaling more than $20,000 or other prizes.
"Nokia's global invitation to millions of developers to take the Open C Challenge taps the exponential growth in open source and Symbian developers currently working on exciting new applications for smartphone devices," said Lee Epting, vice president, Forum Nokia, Nokia’s global developer program, in a statement released by Nokia. "Identifying and rewarding the latest and greatest applications being built or ported with Open C will showcase the exciting growth in developer productivity that Open C is already driving in S60 smartphone application development worldwide."
Contest categories include porting an existing application or developing a native application. Winning applications will be selected based on quality, usability, creativity and degree of middleware difficulty. Participants can be provided with webinars, training sessions and discussions boards to ease migration from desktop to mobile application development by registering here.
Open C leverages three open source projects: OpenSSL, Gnome and Libz.
Posted by Paul Krill on July 16, 2007 12:35 PM
July 10, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Agile development platform upgraded
VersionOne is bolstering its platform for conducting agile software development projects, adding capabilities for strategic planning and enterprise teams.
The Summer 2007 release of V1: Agile Enterprise continues to provide for software development projects based on agile practices, which are characterized by short release cycles and accommodations for changing requirements.
Strategic planning capabilities added in the new release allow users to define strategic or project-based goals and ensure that features are delivered within each short iteration, said Robert Holler, VersionOne CEO. A goal, for example, could be to reduce operating expenses by 10 percent.
Team capabilities in the platform enable tracking and reporting on a single development team's efforts across any number of projects, Holler said. Agile development itself is spreading to larger, more complex organizations, said Holler.
V1: Agile Enterprise is available in hosted or locally installed versions. The hosted version costs $30 per person per month while the local product is priced at $500 per user plus 20 percent added on top of that for support and maintenance.
Posted by Paul Krill on July 10, 2007 03:58 PM
July 03, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Microsoft offers CTPs for .Net 3.5, ADO.Net
Microsoft released this week Community Technology Previews of its upcoming .Net Framework 3.5 and ADO.Net Entity Framework technologies.
A June CTP of .Net Framework 3.5 is available here, following an earlier Beta 1 version. .Net Framework 3.5 features a set of software development technologies including Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Windows CardSpace.
The framework, due for release by the end of the year, builds incrementally upon the current .Net Framework 3.0. It will be part of the upcoming Visual Studio 2008 developer platform.
Other capabilities in .Net Framework 3.5 include Language Integrated Query (LINQ) technology and ASP.Net AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript) for building interactive Web applications.
Web protocol support for building WCF services is featured, including AJAX and REST (Representational State Transfer). Tooling support for .Net Framework 3.5 is included as well. New classes in the framework base library address customer requests, Microsoft said.
The CTP for ADO.Net Entity Framework includes updates since the Beta 1 release of Visual Studio 2008. Changes have been made in areas such as Object Services, Query and the Entity Data Model Wizard.
The CTP is accessible here.
Posted by Paul Krill on July 3, 2007 01:56 PM
June 29, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Microsoft ALM tool offered on CodePlex
Microsoft has posted version 1.0 of its TFS Migration and Synchronization Toolkit on its CodePlex site for hosting of open source projects.
The toolkit enables users of the company's Team Foundation Server software to build custom tools to migrate and syncrhronize with other version control and work-item tracking systems. Team Foundation Server is Microsoft's application lifecycle management software.
"Customers have asked us for this toolkit to help them integrate TFS into their existing development environments," the company said on CodePlex.
The toolkit provides bi-directional synchronization of data between TFS and another system, so that transition can be done over time, Microsoft said. Microsoft is asking developers to try out the toolkit and provide feedback.
Posted by Paul Krill on June 29, 2007 04:51 PM
June 29, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Microsoft published Friday two additional Office Business Application (OBA) Reference Application Packs (RAP), which guide developers and architects on the applicability of Microsoft's Office Business Applications to industry-specific challenges.
New reference applications packs include OBA RAP for Public Sector Electronic Forms Processing, highlighting the use of forms and automated workflows, and OBA RAP for Plant Floor Analytics, for plant floor operations. The packs are free.
The reference application packs published Friday, along with one for health plans published last week, are part of a series of whitepapers and technical resources to guide development of Office business applications.
Previous reference application packs covered supply chain management, retail store management, financial service loan origination and oil and gas price management.
Posted by Paul Krill on June 29, 2007 12:45 PM
June 25, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Open source tools project set by JBoss
JBoss.org will introduce on Monday Exadel Eclipse software development plug-ins as part of the new open source JBoss Tools project.
The intent of the project is centralize tooling for JBoss middleware. The Exadel plug-ins provide for split-screen development, instant synchronization and visual editing of JBoss RichFaces components and JavaServer Faces configuration files. Drag-and-drop capabilities also are included. These plug-ins, along Ajax4jsf and RichFaces, were contributed to Red Hat, which owns JBoss, in March by Exadel.
JBoss's efforts will contribute to the delivery of Red Hat Developer Studio, an IDE due later this summer that will be a superset of JBoss Tools. JBoss and Red Hat runtimes will be part of Red Hat Developer Studio.
Also part of JBoss Tools are Hibernate Tools, JBoss jBPM Tools, Drools IDE, JBoss Application Server tools and others. JBoss Tools features nightly builds and an Eclipse update manager for accessing the latest versions of plugins.
Posted by Paul Krill on June 25, 2007 06:00 AM
June 18, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Expanding its Open ALM partner ecosystem, Borland Software on Monday is announcing integrations between its application lifecycle management software and third-party products providing capabilities such as build automation.
As part of this effort, the Borland Gauntlet integration and test automation package can be linked with Codefast PerfectBuild, for pattern-driven build automation. This provides for a continuous integration and test infrastructure, Borland said.
Also, Borland SilkPerformer, which provides load and stress testing, has been integrated with dynaTrace Diagnostics, for root cause analysis. The resulting integration offers improved detection and resolution of performance issues in .Net and Java applications.
Connectors from Ring-Zero Software to Borland products, meanwhile, are designed to protect investments in third-party tools by enabling better use of products such as HP/Mercury test tools.
Posted by Paul Krill on June 18, 2007 10:39 AM
June 15, 2007 | Comments: (0)
BEA sets July release for Web 2.0 products
BEA Systems plans in July to ship three products that leverage Web 2.0 concepts.
The products are referred to as BEA's "enterprise social computing" products, said Ajay Gandhi, BEA director of emerging products in the company's Business Interaction Division. With the three AquaLogic offerings - Ensemble, Pages and Pathways, the company is looking to meld consumer capabilities for managing information and communities to the enterprise.
"We think Web 2.0 is a logical progression of Web 1.0, where you have this great content space and addressable network that was built and now we added on top of it interaction technologies on the consumer side to let people interact with each other," Gandhi said.
BEA touted the three products at a company event in San Jose, Calif. on Thursday evening.
AquaLogic Pages is a mashup builder designed to let business users build simple Web applications for different business situations. Different data and content can be brought together.
"You can do everything from a basic wiki to a blog," Gandhi said. A mashup could be built, for example, to track a customer support issue.
AquaLogic Ensemble is designed for Web application developers. "It essentially lets you build very flexible and developer-oriented mashups," said Gandhi. Web resources can be mashed with other applications; Ensemble is designed to work with XML widgets. Developers not have to code all the APIs, Gandhi said.
AquaLogic Pathways also is designed for business users. It brings social bookmarking and tagging and the ability to form social networks into the enterprise context. Pathways makes enterprise search more effective, said Gandhi. Users can create networks of relevant persons for a particular subject.
Posted by Paul Krill on June 15, 2007 09:27 AM
June 11, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Kapow Technologies unveiled two editions of its Kapow Mashup Server on Monday, providing what the company describes as a mashup solution offering universal access to data and services across the enterprise.</