Test Center Daily | InfoWorld Staff | July 2007

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July 2007

July 31, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Test Center Tracker: Digging a little deeper

Yesterday, Ted mention that we would be getting back on track here at the Test Center Daily, and so we shall. This time, we'll call your attention to a few more reviews that you might have missed while you were out following baseball or getting ready for the X-Games this Summer. First, let's talk about VoIP.

Polycom: Paul Venezia looks at Polycom's high-def VoIP offerings as played through an Asterisk IP PBX. The top-of-the-line Polycom phone isn't just about high definition sound--there are tons of features to look at, as well. If your needs run to conference room speaker phones, then his look at the Polycom SoundStation IP 4000 should be right up your alley.

If you'd rather not be tethered to a desk (or a conference room table), then you'll want to read to the end of the article, where Paul looks at the SpectraLink NetLink e340 WiFi VoIP handset.

Web Content Management: Managing your content on the web and in other media can be done with a single CMS, but to take advantage of each type of media you might be better of with separate systems to manage content. Mike Heck looked at the Tridion RF Web content management system, and found a lot to like.

Misc.: I'm new here, so take a moment to leave a comment and let me know the sort of thing you'd like to see in the Test Center Daily. This could be the start of a beautiful blogging friendship...

Posted by Curt Franklin on July 31, 2007 02:08 PM

July 30, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Test Center Tracker: Bluespring wades into BPM waters

Diving into Bluespring: Businesss process management (BPM) can be downright complex, what with the applications, documents, employees, and customers you've got in the mix. I envision it as a determined juggler trying to keep a dozen balls (ranging from tennis to bowling), a couple of torches, and chainsaw aloft. Well, Senior Contributing Editor James R. Borck recently dipped his toe into version 4.5 of Bluespring Microsoft-centric BPM suite, and he found some might fine, easy-to-use tools for managing business processes. It's by no means a perfect solution, but it's a promising one well worth watching.

Riding the RadRails: Strategic Developer Martin Heller is revisting open source IDE RadRails, from Aptana. Having giving it a test run, he concludes that "it retains all the strengths that RadRails had in its previous incarnation, and is stronger still because of the JavaScript support provided by Aptana." But he'd love to hear what other developers out there think.

Back on track: As an aside, for those of you dedicated Test Center Tracker fans who've missed daily updates, we apologize for the lapse. But expect daily updates to resume, pointing you to the best product reviews and analyses we have to offer.

Posted by Ted Samson on July 30, 2007 09:34 AM

July 18, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Hands-on: Adobe Digital Editions marks a new chapter for e-books

Almost 65 percent of new book titles are available in electronic form. Still, sales from e-books represent a miniscule fraction of total sales, which was $24.2 billion last year, according to the Association of American Publishers.

In part, low digital-book consumption results from poorly designed dedicated e-book readers and difficult-to-use software for laptops and PDAs. Adobe Digital Editions (ADE), combined with the latest thin laptops and promising ultra mobile hardware platforms, should tip things in digital's favor.

Adobe Digital Editions is a lightweight (about a 3MB download on Windows) rich Internet application for easily downloading, organizing, and reading e-books and other digital publications. Beneath the hood is Flash Player 9 and Flex 2, which makes for an especially consumer-friendly experience. This starts with a bookshelf metaphor for organizing publications that you've borrowed, purchased, or read. Other tools let you sort your library by author, title, or other criteria.

I downloaded and viewed a variety of Adobe PDF, flowable XHTML-based publications, and Flash SWF files without problem. In each case, the advantages of Adobe Digital Editions were very apparent.

For instance, compared to using Adobe Acrobat, ADE didn't have any performance lags, while offering essential reading features, including bookmarks, full text searching, highlighting, and font-size changes – all surrounded with Flash-style interactivity.

Interestingly, notes are stored in open XML format, which has future social-networking possibilities. The only small disadvantage I could find is that Adobe Digital Editions can't be run from within a browser, a feature Acrobat offers.

Documents with embedded Flash played without problem in my tests; it illustrates how academic material can be made more memorable with rich media. The same approach could be used, say, with how-to magazines or books to improve subscription rates.

Another underlying technology that Adobe smartly supports is IDPF OPS (Open Publication Structure) – a standard many e-publishers are starting to adopt. This XHTML format allows content to be reflowed, so it can be used on many devices, especially small-screen mobile units. [AdobeDigitalEditions_EPUB.jpg]

One way to author for ADE is, unsurprisingly, Adobe InDesign CS3. After composing a document for a traditional print layout, I merely used InDesign's built-in export option to save it as an e-publication. Without any additional work, pages were automatically reformatted depending on the screen size of the device I used to run Adobe Digital Editions.

While DRM (digital rights management) in this product isn't perfect, I found that it generally balances the needs of publishers to protect content without inconveniencing users too much. ADEPT (Adobe Digital Editions Protection Technology), a turnkey hosted services based on Adobe LiveCycle Content Server, is used here. Publishers can take advantage of ADEPT's various business models, including subscriptions and ad-supported.

However, one complaint I've seen on discussion forums is that there are PDF books wrapped with older Adobe DRM technology. Some of those publishers are either out of business or won't republish content using ADEPT, which puts users who purchased this content out of luck if they want to use digital editions.

Overall though, Adobe should be credited with providing solutions that should help ensure a central spot for books in the digital world. Adobe Digital Editions goes a long way in reducing format confusion, client software issues, and costs to publishers.

Adobe Digital Editions 1.0
Availability: Now for Windows and Mac OS X; future Linux release.
Pricing: Adobe Digital Editions is free; InDesign CS3, $699 ($199 upgrade).
Verdict: Adobe Digital Editions make it easy for consumers to acquire and read e-books and other digital publications, while InDesign CS3 lowers the cost of digital publication creation. DRM is generally transparent to end-users, and offers publishers various business models.

Posted by Mike Heck on July 18, 2007 04:40 PM

July 18, 2007 | Comments: (0)

BEA readies BPM upgrade

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 13, 2007 | Comments: (0)

LA Flash users to gather

Los Angeles area Flash users are gathering Saturday to hone their skills in developing rich media experiences for the Web, desktop and mobile devices.

The LA Flash Adobe User Group is holding its LAFLashapaloozastock 2 event, featuring speakers from Adobe, Disney Internet Group, AOL, MTV and others. The event takes place at the Flash Factory in Venice, Calif.

Five one-hour presentations will be featured at the free event.

Posted by Paul Krill on July 13, 2007 09:43 AM

July 12, 2007 | Comments: (0)

IBM offers AIX beta program

IBM announced Thursday an open beta program for AIX, the company's Unix operating system.

Version 6 of AIX exploits the Power 6 microprocessor, which offers advances in energy conservation and virtualization, IBM said.

AIX runs on IBM System p Unix servers. Featured in the new OS are capabilities for security, virtualization, near-continuous availability and manageability, the company said.

A workload partitions capability in version 6 provides for software-based virtualization reducing the number of OS images that have to be managed. Another feature, live application mobility, relocates a running workload.

Role-based access control in version 6 is a security enhancement enabling administrators to grant authorization for management of specific AIX resources to users.

IBM plans to make AIX 6 generally available in the fourth quarter of this year.

To participate in the beta, current AIX clients can visit IBM here and follow links to the open beta Web page here.

Posted by Paul Krill on July 12, 2007 07:34 AM

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 10, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Iona offers open source SOA products

Iona Techonologies announced this week products intended for open source SOA, available under the Fuse brand and based on Apache Software Foundation projects.

Fuse components are designed to meet requirements for messaging, service enablement and SOA connectivity. They are interoperable with the Iona Artix SOA infrastructure suite.

Fuse-labeled products include: ESB, based on Apache ServiceMix and the Java Business Integration specification; Message Broker, based on Apache ActiveMQ; Services Framework, formerly the Celtix Advanced Service engine and based on Apache CXF, and Mediation Router, based on Apache Camel.

Iona provides services and support for the products.

Posted by Paul Krill on July 10, 2007 09:09 AM

July 09, 2007 | Comments: (0)

JBoss offers enterprise product bundle

Continuing its pursuit of enterprise IT shops, JBoss is releasing on Tuesday JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 4.2, which offers a single package of three of the company's open source middleware technologies.

Featured in the platform are JBoss Application Server 4.2, Hibernate 2.4, for object--relational mapping, and Seam 1.2, a application development framework for building enterprise Java applications. Users get updates and patches to the three products, eliminating the guesswork for customers, said Ram Venkataraman, JBoss's director of product management.

"They're all packaged together and integrated together, so the customer has the out-of-the-box experience of actually installing one product," Venkataraman said.

JBoss sells subscriptions to Enterprise Application Platform, which feature support. A Standard Subscription, featuring one year of 12-hours-by-five-days-a-week support, costs $4,500 for a four-CPU configuration.

Other packages planned for release by JBoss later this year include JBoss Enterprise Portal Platform, featuring the Enterprise Application and JBoss Portal 2.6 and shipping this quarter, and SOA Platform, with Enterprise Application Platform plus JBoss ESB (enterprise service bus) JBoss jBPM (business process management) and JBoss Rules. The SOA package is due in the fourth quarter of 2007.

Posted by Paul Krill on July 9, 2007 02:07 PM

July 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Test Center Tracker: It's SAN-tastic

Midrange SANs master high-end features: Midsize companies in search of some bang for their SAN buck have cause for celebration: There are systems on the market that are packed with impressive capabilities, as well as potential to grow with your needs. Senior Contributing Editor Logan H. Harbaugh recently took a look at a trio of systems from Compellent, iQstor, and Xiotech. Impressively, all three reaped Excellent scores.

Virtualized Vista also a dud on Linux? Enterprise Desktop blogger Randall Kennedy is taking Vista to task, saying the operating system runs slower than it should under virtualization. "As with Vista under Windows-based VMware, the Vista-on-Ubuntu VM was slower than it should have been. But whereas the former configuration was as much as 50% slower than its equivalent native performance delta indicated it should be, the Vista-on-Ubuntu scenario showed a 93% slower result."

Posted by Ted Samson on July 5, 2007 08:45 AM

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