- Test Center Tracker: Porn sites aren't the only Internet danger zones
- Ubuntu sponsor seeks feedback
- Test Center Tracker: Mobile drive encryption goes native
- Test Center Tracker: The zen of Web apps and Mac OS X
- Test Center Tracker: Safe Surfing
- Test Center Tracker: Savoring MS InfoPath and Forms 2007
- Compuware challenges developers
- Test Center Tracker: Lotus Notes is new again
- WSO2 adds Web services for PHP, C
- Test Center Tracker: App limits
August 31, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Porn sites aren't the only Internet danger zones
Malicious Web: Not just porn sites: The New Zealand Honeynet Project finds porn-related Web servers tend to serve up the most malicious code, there's plenty of other site types of sites out there that are just as nearly as dangerous. That's just one of seven interesting security nuggets that Roger Grimes has extracted from the study. Read more in his Security Adviser column.
Happy birthday, Aperi! Storage Insider Mario Apicella blows out a celebratory candle in honor of open-source storage management project Aperi turn one (give or take a month). The project hasn't garnered much attention, Mario notes, but it should, because it's come a long way. And lo, it's a runtime version is available for download now. Read more here.
AMD vs. Intel, Round III: Independent consulting firm Neal Nelson and Associates continues its series of raw power-performance tests between the AMD Opeteron and Intel Xeon. Once again, AMD demonstrates an overall edge, but it's not cut and dry. For certain configurations and at certain load levels, the Intel Xeon based server was 2.4 to 11.7 percent more power efficient while in other cases the AMD Opteron based server was 9.2 to 23.1 percent more power efficient. The more memory on the machine, the better the Opteron fared.
Posted by Ted Samson on August 31, 2007 02:17 PM
August 30, 2007 | Comments: (0)
User input is being sought on a planned 2008 release of the Ubuntu Linux distribution, according to an official at the project's sponsor company.
In his blog, Jono Bacon, Ubuntu community manager for sponsor Canonical, said Ubuntu 8.04, also known as "Hardy Heron," is due next April. Version 8.04 will feature "Long Term Support""and get security updates on the server for five years and on the desktop for three years.
"Each new release gives us all an opportunity to shine, irrespective of which bricks in the project we are laying, and this is at the heart of our belief - working together to produce an operating system that will empower its users and shape the IT industry, putting free software at the cornerstone of our direction," Bacon said.
"Everyone is welcome to think of and develop ideas for features that could be present in the Hardy Heron release," said Bacon.
Users can add their specifications by linking to this Web page for Ubuntu blueprints.
An Ubuntu Developer Summit meeting will be held in October in Cambridge, Mass. to discuss the specifications for version 8.04.
Version 8.04 follows the Ubuntu 7.10 release, also known as "Gutsy Gibbon," which is due in October.
Posted by Paul Krill on August 30, 2007 03:35 PM
August 30, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Mobile drive encryption goes native
Drives you can afford to lose: The runaway leading cause of slips listed in the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse's sobering chronology of data breaches is the lost or stolen laptop. New mobile drives from Hitachi and Seagate -- quipped with hardware-based, full-disk encryption -- aim to keep laptop data under wraps, unless you're Paris Hilton and your password is Tinkerbell. Check out the results of Mario Apicella's test drive in today's review.
Gadgets gone green: Bamboo monitors, keyboards, and laptops are good-looking and eco-friendly. Interestingly, they are not made of wood. Find the answer to this conundrum, and a neat survey of other green gadgetry (including a manual cell phone charger, a solar panel jacket, and AA batteries you can recharge by plugging directly into a USB slot) in Ted Samson's "Green gadget guide for geeks".
What's wrong with Web 2.0? In a nutshell, the problem is that too many Web businesses don't "understand the huge difference between a site and an application," notes Tom Yager in yesterday's Ahead of the Curve, "Never send an HTML hacker to do a developer's job".
Posted by Doug Dineley on August 30, 2007 11:16 AM
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 28, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Safe Surfing
Everyone wants to be secure while using the Internet, but tucking your enterprise into the warm, comfy blanket of safe surfing can be, at best, a significant challenge. James Borck looked at the Clearswift MIMEsweeper Web Appliance ENW10 and says that it does a job that's both reliable and broad, protecting web surfing, e-mail, IM, and ftp traffic from the various nasties that we've all come to know and loathe. It's not a perfect tool, with HTTPS contents being among the packets that remain hidden to its probing, but it could be the sort of tool that makes on-line life a bit safer and happier for your enterprise.
If your on-line duties include blogging, you'll want to check out Geeks in Paradise, where Brian Chee has been discovering the kinks, hiccups, and promise in Microsoft LiveWriter 64. Brian's managed to get it working (with significant support from Microsoft), and likes the way it helps get more rich-media bloggy goodness up and on the web.
Posted by Curt Franklin on August 28, 2007 08:46 AM
August 27, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Savoring MS InfoPath and Forms 2007
Another helping of MS servers: Contributors Oliver Rist and Brian Chee continue dishing up their meaty assessments of Microsoft's newest crop of servers. (So far, they've looked at SharePoint 2007 and Groove 2007.) This week, they bite into InfoPath 2007 and Microsoft Office Forms Server 2007 and discover that, combined, they make for a delectable pairing for processing forms: "From content to display capabilities, the duo handles it all and adds security and business intelligence into the mix to boot."
iPhone unlocked: As you may have gleaned from his review of the iPhone, Chief Technologist Tom Yager is no fan of the device, in part because Apple is limiting you to one service provider, AT&T, to use it. While a resourceful teen has come up with a way to bypass that restriction (using a soldering iron), and an Australian company is offering to sell you a Turbo Sim, Yager has an alternative approach: "Buy a real phone."
Posted by Ted Samson on August 27, 2007 11:30 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 23, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Lotus Notes is new again
Notes lives! If you're still thinking of Lotus Notes as a giant, awkward, and ornery beast, or as a decrepit desktop version of the Winchester Mystery House, look again. Mike Heck previews the modernly modular and mashup-friendly Lotus Notes and Domino 8, with related news analysis by Ephraim Schwarz.
Chillin' at the HP Datacenter: How cool is your datacenter? Odds are it's much cooler than the one at HP Labs in Palo Alto -- which is a sign that it's much less efficient. Sustainable IT blogger and green guy Ted Samson reports on his visit with HP Fellow Chandrakant Patel, who is working with a team of researchers to find more effective ways to cool entire datacenters, individual server racks, and specific server components. Don't miss the video!
Does Vista still suck? In yesterday's Enterprise Windows column, Oliver Rist explores some common Vista gripes and returns a verdict: Vista doesn't suck, so get over it.
Don't blame us. Just add your comments to the long long list.
Posted by Doug Dineley on August 23, 2007 12:41 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 21, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: App limits
By now, pretty much everyone is aware that Skype suffered a massive meltdown last week, with bazillions of users unable to log into their P2P VoIP accounts. Skype says the problem was caused by Microsoft's Patch Tuesday, but not everyone is buying that explanation. Here at the Test Center, we're accustomed to the routine of testing products and watching them break, so Skype's explanation is plausible--though that doesn't mean it's correct. That's the real value of the kind of testing we do here, and it's why we're going to keep doing it. Sure, we're probably not going to be able to simulate every single combination of conditions, and modeling millions of clients rebooting at once is dicey, but we'll test as many products as possible, under conditions that give readers as much information as possible. We'll also be grateful that we're not responsible for keeping the Skype network up and running, but that's probably another blog entry.
Speaking of keeping things running, Ted Samson reports on Fujitsu's installation of a hydrogen fuel-cell generator for back-up power. I've seen very small hydrogen fuel cells for emergency back-up power, but Fujitsu has gone out on the leading edge for a facility of its size. Since most building-sized back-up generators are diesel units, switching to hydrogen could have a significant impact on both particulate and green-house gas emissions.
Finally, it's been amazing (and frustrating) to watch the evolution of the Storm Worm. Zero Day Security is tracking the twists and turns of this dangerous malware--if you're responsible for the security of even one system, you should follow along and stay on top of this truly vicious worm.
Posted by Curt Franklin on August 21, 2007 09:11 AM
August 20, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Microsoft's Groove is a bit off
Not feelin' so Groove-y: Senior Contributors Oliver Rist and Brian Chee are tackling Microsoft server after server, and the most recent project on their plate: Groove Server. "For companies with more than 100 seats that really want to exploit Groove client, Office Groove Server is a must-have," conclude Rist and Chee. "The security and data retention capabilities alone make it worth the cost and effort -- probably." However, getting it up and running is quite the challenge, plus pricing is vague. But when it's all said and done, it's worth the effort.
I've seen the future, and it's ...: Subscription-based virtualized apps? Dynamic, virtual server farms? Multi-threaded chip cores? InfoWorld's bloggers and analysts have whipped out their crystal balls to predict the Next Big Things under 15 different technology umbrellas, from databases to middleware to security to open source.
Honeyd gets sweetened: Security guru Roger A. Grimes reports that Jesper Jurcenoks, co-founder of netVigilance, has released an updated version of Honeyd for Windows. Honeyd, Grimes says, "is one of the best virtual honeypot software programs in existence."
Posted by Ted Samson on August 20, 2007 10:02 AM
August 17, 2007 | Comments: (0)
OK, so it's not particularly cool to blog and point to your own article, but that's the way the cookie crumbles on this fine Friday in August, so bear with me...
If you're like most of us, cell phone reception has moved far beyond "Can you hear me now?" to a matter of serious business need and service-level requirement. If you haven't been blessed by geography and cell-tower placement, then a little boost can be just what the doctor ordered for your RF signal strength woes. The Spotwave Z1900 can provide just the sort of boost you need and the price is right, so take a look at my review to see if a Z1900 can solve your cell reception problems.
Next, take a look at Roger Grimes' Security Adviser, where he talks about applications that just won't go away. No, it's not malware he's talking about, but legitimate apps that leave older versions on your system after updates--older versions that just sit there, holding the door open for pirates and thieves to exploit vulnerabilities you thought you'd taken care of.
Finally, with air conditioners humming all over our fair land, it's a good time to read Ted Samson's Sustainable IT and learn how the right networking architectures and technologies aren't just good for business--they're good for the planet.
Have a good weekend and head back to the Test Center on Monday...there's a big week ahead.
Posted by Curt Franklin on August 17, 2007 04:29 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 14, 2007 | Comments: (0)
A Day Without SPAM is, well, Rare
A couple of interesting security announcements today, one positive and one much less so.
On the positive side, Microsoft has released Forefront Security of Exchange Server SP1 Beta 2 just in time for the release of Exchange Server SP1 Beta 2. The really good part about this is the recognition that security is a critical part of any application suite. According to the press release, the new version offers IPv6 support, improved filtering for profanity (in 11 languages, yet), better integration with Microsoft System Center Operations Manager, and more flexibility in dealing with ZIP and RAR files as attachments. More information on the product is available from Microsoft.
The less-good announcment came from Proofpoint, which says that there has been a spike in SPAM using .PDF files as a payload. How big is the spike? It's up 500% in the last two week, with .PDF spam accounting for roughly 25% of all SPAM on August 13. I don't have independent verification of their numbers, but in my own in-box I've seen a dramatic rise in the number of .PDF SPAM messages. We're already seeing more product that claim to deal with this sort of problem (oddly enough, Proofpoint has one of these products), and I think it's heading towards being a check-box requirement for any product that claims to provide e-mail security.
As if e-mail security weren't enough of a challenge to an IT staff, over at the Zero Day Security blog, Matt Hines fills us in on the amount of user silliness going on with FaceBook. It turns out that some people believe no one with bad intentions ever looks at Facebook entries. I like to call these blissfully ignorant people "victims". If they haven't been hit yet, they will. I can offer only sympathy to their security teams.
Posted by Curt Franklin on August 14, 2007 12:07 PM
August 13, 2007 | Comments: (0)
XenEnterprise 4.0: Questions and answers
XenSource's XenEnterprise 4.0, announced today and available August 20, erases a number of shortcomings Paul Venezia noted in his July 9 review of XenEnterprise 3.2. These included lack of support for 64-bit guests, no live VM migration or automated load balancing, and in fact no support for shared storage, putting XenEnterprise well behind the curve set by VMware and even a few steps behind Xen-based rival Virtual Iron (see Xen masters take aim at VMware).
XenEnterprise 4.0 fills some of these gaps but not others, and some of the important details were left out of the press release (surprise). XenSource CTO Simon Crosby was kind enough to set the record straight with the following answers to my questions.
Q: Does XenMotion automate load balancing, or are migrations triggered manually?
A: XenMotion is manually initiated from the GUI, however it can be manually or programmatically managed via the XenAPI which offers bindings in Java, C, C# and the CLI, which offers 3 scripting language bindings. There are various plug-in products that will be announced by ISV partners and by XenSource as a result of its Symantec partnership, that deliver on the value propositions of HA, DR, DRS, and so on.
Q: The 4.0 release "also supports up to 8-way SMP per guest, and leverages ACPI to support dynamic hot-plugging of CPU, network and storage into running virtual machines." Is this also a manual operation?
A: There is a very simple wizard that allows you to add hard disk storage or networking interfaces into a running guest VM. You have to identify what storage you want to use, and then you simply assign it to the VM, and it automatically shows up as "hot plugged hardware" in the guest, where you can assign it to various volumes etc. Nutshell, entirely automated via simple wizards.
Q: Is XenMotion enabled in v4.0, or does it (and support for shared storage in general) await the integration of Veritas Storage Foundation? If enabled now, what flavors of shared storage are supported?
A: Enabled now. Shared Storage Repositories include NAS, LVM over iSCSI, and LVM over FC, with the specific proviso that the LVM over FC support is an enablement statement subject to continued ongoing testing against the very large number of vendors' products; we will support customers' use of this only for storage subsystems that we have certified. Moreover the Veritas Storage Foundation product suite also simply plugs in as an SR type, and we believe is the way most customers really want to manage their SAN based storage. It also allows us to leverage the certification and testing that Symantec will do for the integrated product in its labs.
Q: Does XenEnterprise support 64-bit Linux and 64-bit Windows guests? Any other 64-bit guests?
A: In this release 64-bit Windows Server only; 64-bit Linux will come in a point release toward the end of the year. The key workload we want to host with 64-bit is the 64-bit 2007 releases of Exchange and SQL Server.
Q: Veritas Storage Foundation will not enable incremental backups of virtual hard disks, will it?
A: Symantec will certify Veritas Net Backup for XenEnterprise, as the preferred backup utility.
I'll take that last answer as an artful no. Or maybe it's the answer to another question that I should have asked.
Posted by Doug Dineley on August 13, 2007 11:00 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)
Test Center Tracker: Beware the power of Office SharePoint Server
With great power ...: Senior Contributors Oliver Rist and Brian Chee are boldly tackling all five of Microsoft's new Office servers, and this week, they're sharing their experience with SharePoint 2007. The duo is blown away by the amazing new potential the offering yields for Office users. But the server is just so packed with power, Chee and Rist caution admins "to be careful when planning architecture and hardware distribution as well as when and in what order they’ll roll out certain features."
Die, Access, die, revisited: Over in the Database Underground, Sean McCown reiterates his call for the death of Microsoft Access, a proposal he made last week that generated quite a bit of controversy. He's sticking to his guns on the subject, though, and goes to great lengths to explain why: "Why give users another avenue to create a data store that's ill-conceived and basically unmanaged? From my perspective it just doesn't make sense. ... [T]here's no such thing as trivial data. You either need it or you don't."
What's your Geek IQ? School may not be in session, but we're springing a pop quiz on your anyway. Oliver Rist has come up with 20 questions aimed at taxing your technical intellect. Will you prove yourself the top dog at Geek Summer Camp?
Posted by Ted Samson on August 13, 2007 11:32 AM
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 10, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Daily: Elluminate the collaboration possibilities
Dive into Elluminate Live: Test Center Contributor Mike Heck has dabbled in many a Web-conferencing tool for InfoWorld, so when he finds something he considers innovative, it's worth noting. In this case, it's Version 8 of Elluminate Live. "The live, interactive environment with high-quality video improves the meeting and learner experience," Mike observes. Plus it's platform agnostic and boast some nifty features such as breakout rooms.
RocketStream fuels file transfers: Thanks to high-speed Internet, I think we've all become less and less patient waiting for pages to load or files to up- or download. InfoWorld Senior Analyst Mario Apicella has discovered a potential cure for slow file transfers between far-flung locations: RocketStream, a suite "built around the company's proprietary PDP (Parallel Delivery Protocol), which harvests the best characteristics of TCP and UDP (User Datagram Protocol) and adds features such as on-the-fly data encryption and compression."
Reaching into Black Hat: Security wizard Roger Grimes today is sharing some take-aways from the Black Hat conference. Among them: Hacking Macs is easy -- though don't blame Grimes for that tidbit; it's from Mac enthusiast and security researcher, Dr. Charles Miller. Roger also discovered a tool for cloning RFID cards, prompted the warning that "If you use 125KHz proximity cards, your doors are highly insecure!"
Posted by Ted Samson on August 10, 2007 11:43 AM
August 09, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Hands-on: Elluminate Live v8 enhances Web interaction
Online meetings are pervasive in most organizations, which translates into a healthy industry offering many choices for these services. Unquestionably, solutions from Adobe, Microsoft, and WebEx are very good – but they still leave room for innovation.
Elluminate Live Version 8 takes this challenge seriously, delivering a meeting experience that I found was especially interactive for large groups and more productive when small groups collaborated.
Based on Java, Elluminate's meeting service plug-in quickly loaded and worked flawlessly on my Windows, Mac, Solaris, Red Hat Linux, and Novell SUSE Linux clients. (If you want to install an Elluminate server in-house, all aforementioned server OSes are supported).
As a baseline, Elluminate provides what you'd expect of online collaboration systems. The default user interface (which has multiple layout presets) provides easy access to a whiteboard, application sharing, and Microsoft PowerPoint presentation functions. Full-duplex audio was crisp and clear, even over slow modem connections; you can also integrate a phone bridge – or have a mix of VoIP and teleconference. Moreover, I created quizzes (polls), allowed open and private chats, and gave control of applications to others.
Version 8 improves this experience in several significant ways. For example, Elluminate adds high-quality video settings (with three sizes, up to 640 by 480 pixels); the large size would be ideal, say, in academic settings when conducting a medical or science demonstration. I especially liked the ability to grab a video frame, drag it to the whiteboard, and then mark it up with the various drawing tools.
Elluminate also reduces housekeeping for presenters. For instance, when I displayed a Web site (Web Tour), the URL was automatically published as a live link to the chat session. Similarly, this Active Content feature worked when I typed links on the whiteboard.
The Synchronized Notes is another unusual feature, and one that should keep your audience engaged. Put simply, attendees can take notes during a session in a separate window, with these notes saved on their computer. Then, when viewing a meeting recording, personal notes play back in sync with the presentation. Further, recordings are now indexed based on actions, such as slide changes, application sharing, or file transfers. Because this index is searchable, it speeded finding particular information during a playback.
But perhaps the best interactive feature is Elluminate Live 8's enhanced breakout rooms. As moderator, with a click, I created many rooms and placed audience members in these intimate settings. Each room has private audio and content (such as whiteboards and applications sharing). Moreover, I freely moved between these rooms to facilitate discussions. After the breakout session, it was just as easy to bring everyone back into the mainsession. In much the same way, I created Virtual Labs where participants worked independently on applications; here, they send keystrokes to remote machines and control applications.
Lastly, Elluminate Live doesn't skimp on administration functions. For example, setting up sessions and sending customized e-mail invitations doesn’t take much time. And you get a range of attendance reports.
Of course, there's the green factor of online meetings. Just for Elluminate, based on the number of sessions hosted in the first three months of 2007, the company estimates they reduced the carbon footprint by 1.8 million pounds through reduced travel.
Although I could suggest a few minor improvements, such as options to present more file formats, overall Elluminate Live v8 is a notable solution. Its dynamic collaboration and community-building should make corporate meetings more productive. Plus, Elluminate brings live interaction to distance learning, making courses more memorable.
Elluminate Live Version 8
Availability: Now
Pricing: Starts at $55 per seat, per month. The company also provides a free, three-seat vRoom version of the product, which has full functionality with the exception of recording capabilities.
Verdict: For enterprises, academia, and e-learning organizations, Elluminate Live v8 provides an easily deployed, platform-agnostic solution. The live, interactive environment with high-quality video improves the meeting and learner experience. Further, online virtual conference rooms allow employees to brainstorm and work on group projects.
Posted by Mike Heck on August 9, 2007 03:02 PM
August 09, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Blogs and More Blogs
When test center analysts and editors aren't busy writing reviews, what are they doing? Blogging! There's lots of bloggy goodness today, with information that can make life in your data center more productive, more efficient, and more interesting.
First, Geeks in Paradise continues to left the curtain and show what's been going on behind the "Pimp My Data Center" series. Brian's insight is good because it's so easy to forget about all the physical infrastructure that has to be changed whenever major upgrades come to the data center.
Next Sustainable IT looks at the difference between IT and politics, and where IT professionals (and their vendors) can most profitably spend their time. Ted points out that time spent lobbying congress is time that isn't being spent developing and encouraging best practices in the industry. It's not that each isn't important: the real question is where an industry group should focus its time and efforts.
Finally, Martin Heller looks at how to set up Microsoft tools for Silverlight development work in the Strategic Developer. As with virtually all development environments, how you set up your systems will determine just how productive you can be, and Martin's made some interesting discoveries in that will make an enormous difference if Silverlight is part of your team's world.
Posted by Curt Franklin on August 9, 2007 01:40 PM
August 09, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Open-source Java testing advances
Sun Microsystems on Thursday is announcing availability of OpenJDK Community Technology Compatibility Kit License, providing access to compatibility tests for open-source Java implementations.
The release enables the community at large to certify "write once, run anywhere" compatability for Java, Sun said.
The license is for the Java Compatibility Kit (JCK), which features tests, tools and documentation to determine if an implementation complies with the Java Platform Standard Edition 6 specification.
Sun is licensing the kit under terms that will permit contributors to comply with terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 while giving the OpenJDK community the means to provide compatibility. The license will enable developers to test compatability of their contributions to the OpenJDK project. Distributors, meanwhile, will be able to test implementations derived from OpenJDK and distributed under GPLv2.
Organizations or developers that use the OpenJDK Community TCK License and then pass compatibility testing will have the option of branding their implementation with Sun's "Java Compatible" trademark and logo.
The open-sourcing of Java was announced in May 2006, with initial code released in November 2006. All available source code was released by this past May.
The license is available here.
Sun Executive Vice President Rich Green, in a blog about the effort, notes that Sun's moves have not pleased Apache. Green cites licensing issues between Apache and the GPL.
"For what it's worth, I completely understand why there is disagreement," Green said. Sun knew its choice of the GPL would not satisfy everybody, he said.
Sun also has posted FAQs about open source Java initiatives here and here.
Posted by Paul Krill on August 9, 2007 01:29 PM
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 08, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: graphics, violence and eye-candies
If developing Web apps interests you don't miss Martin Heller taking a shot at InfiView, an Ajax graphics development tool from MB Technologies that’s built with and complements the company’s own Bindows.
Martin Heller explains how InfiView can produce some powerful charts but our reviewer is put off by its rarefied set of tools and calls for more extensive documentation.
At InfoWorld we do not advocate nor condone violence but Sean McCown may have a point with his calls to arms against Microsoft Access, a database system still present when he last checked Office 2007.
Access is not free, is not scalable and is not very reliable, so why keep it, Sean says. What’s the possible alternative to Access? Read what Sean proposes in Database Underground
Care to have an update on how Apple plans for world domination are progressing? Want to learn how following an iPod can lead to iLife and iWork? Perhaps interested to learn why a 20-inch laptop may cost less than a 17-inch? For this and more do not miss Tom Yager’s latest Ahead of the Curve.
Posted by Mario Apicella on August 8, 2007 08:12 AM
August 07, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Early August is an interesting time of year. In much of the country (Florida, for instance) Summer is at its height. Families are taking last-minute vacations and stores are beginning to run their "back to school" sales. During the next three weeks, things start settling back into what passes for normal most of the time, and people will spend more time thinking about work and less time thinking about SPF. Here at the Test Center we're always thinking about work...
...and Martin Heller's spent some time on CURL, a platform for developing and deploying serious Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). Martin says that CURL makes it relatviely easy to get something very good up and running--perhaps the free personal version should find its way into your back to school shopping list (whether or not you're a student).
As RIAs start up, major security conferences wind down, and Mike Barton has a wrap-up from DefCon. You'll be seeing more from DefCon later this week in other blogs, but the general feeling seems to be that the latest in hot products are making life easier for hackers--just the sort of news we need on a lazy Summer day.
Posted by Curt Franklin on August 7, 2007 01:58 PM
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)
Black Duck helps with GPL changes
Black Duck Software announced Monday version 4.4 of protexIP/development, a platform for software compliance management that now accommodates changes reflected in the new GNU General Public License (GPL) v3 license.
The release features capabilities to make it easier to incorporate code governed by the new license or manage internal policies regarding use of code governed by new licensing parameters, Black Duck said. More than 300 open source projects have published code under the GPL v3, according to Black Duck.
GPL v3 is not compatible with certain earlier versions of the GPL and developers must carefully assemble applications, paying attention to GPL license versions that apply to various open source components being utilized, Black Duck said.
Protex can be used to identify and manage components governed by GPL v2 and v3 as well as Lesser GPL v2 and v3.
GPL v3 was released on June 29 by the Free Software Foundation, with improvements in areas such as compatibility with other free software licenses.
Version 4.4 also offers an enhanced knowledge base featuring open source and vendor-added code software components including detailed licensing information for more than 140,000 components. The knowledge base provides information on patent license agreements, patent retaliation clauses and anti-digital rights management clauses.
Also featured in the new version are improved administration, enhanced remote management and the ability for users to add comments about specific license requirements. For example, legal advisors can annotate requirements to explain a company's interpretation.
Black Duck is demonstrating version 4.4 this week at the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo in San Francisco. The new product is available September 3.
Posted by Paul Krill on August 6, 2007 01:50 PM
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
August 06, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Net co-founder pushes router innovation with lean, green Anagran FR-1000
Dr. Lawrence Roberts has a pretty impressive track record when it comes to developing ways to transport data. Recognized as a founding rather of the Internet, he also developed the first computer-to-computer network, wrote the first e-mail app, and founding Telenet, the first telecom carrier company.
Thus it was with great interest that I took a briefing about Roberts's newest project, the Anagran FR-1000 Flow Router, which is being announced today. (The fact that the company touted this as a green networking product also peaked my interest, given my green-tech interests.) While the Test Center hasn't given this is a test run (yet?), it certainly sounds like Roberts's company, Anagran, has developed a highly sophisticated and innovative piece of network hardware that's primed for efficiently handling the increasing swells of rich media that now course through networks, such as video and voice, as well as data and wireless applications.
Rather than processing and routing data as a "disjointed succession of individual packets" like traditional routes, the Layer-3-compatible FR-1000 employs Fast Flow Routing architecture to intelligently watch, evaluate, and route packets collectively as entire flows, according to the company.
This approach, Roberts says, boosts efficiency, especially when dealing with the likes of video, voice, and other such data. Traditional routers waste 40 percent of their power repeating the same operation to route every packet in a flow, according to Roberts. Another 40 percent of the power goes toward queuing and delaying packets, he says.
"Unfortunately, large fixed-rate flows like video are not supported well with current-day routers which have freeze-frame, jitter, and general scalability challenges under even the most moderate levels of network congestion," says Roberts. "As the traffic changes, we can't rely on this last-generation packet technology, which has essentially remained unchanged for 40 years, to power Internet performance."
To ensure sustained performance and quality for real-time applications such as video and voice, the router uses Behavioral Traffic Control (BTC), which prevents any flow from using more than its designated share of network resources, according to the company. It also ensures that mission-critical apps like VOIP can have top priority.
BTC works by digging down into the data flows for statistics to define their nature and health, in real time. Stats include the source, destination, the amount of traffic running, and the duration.
The FR-1000 sports Intelligent Flow Discard (IFC), which, according to Anagran, represents a new approach to traffic control and congestion management. The IFC feature is designed to eliminate large delays and packet losses caused by large queues under overload, both for file transfers and streaming media. By doing so, the company says, the FR-1000 maintains output capacity to a sustained 90 to 95 percent.
The FR-1000 also appeals to organizations' increasingly expanding green sensibilities: According to the company, it requires 80 percent less power than traditional routers, which reduces energy costs, both for the system and for cooling. Additionally, the one RU system is 80 percent smaller than any other Layer-3 router of similar capacity out there, the company boasts. That means it can free up valuable real estate in the datacenter or server room.
The FR-1000 resides at or just before the network edge, and according to the company, drops into any existing IP network infrastructure. It's compatible with other routers, as well as any WAN optimization or deep-packet inspection product, according to the company.
Available now, the Anagran FR-1000 is priced at $70,000. For more information go to anagran.com.
Posted by Ted Samson on August 6, 2007 03:00 AM
August 03, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Safari for Windows: So fari, so bumpy
[Author's Note: I wrote this a few weeks ago and, for various reasons, it didn’t run. I've been re-reading it, and decided that it still works to describe what I think about Safari. We're (with any luck at all) a bit closer to Apples release of the new and improved Mac OS, so we may not have to wait quite so long to see what the longer-term game is, but the issues brought up here are still important. We're very interested in what you think about the browser wars. Let me know if my impressions match yours, of if you think I've missed something critical in my look at Safari.]
If there's one thing the Windows world has been clamoring for, it's another web browser. Right. Apple has heard the cries and released Safari for Windows. I've been using Safari since the day of its public release, and I've found a number of interesting facts and features in the browser. I'm running the software on top of Vista Business, and the parallels between the two are most fascinating. The first and most important parallel is in the overall impression I've gotten from the experience. My take: Safari for Windows (like Vista) is not quite fully baked. Everything else, both good and bad, flows out of that essential understanding.
First, let me cover the good parts of Safari. It's supposed to be fast, and it does seem to load a given page a bit faster than does IE 7.0.6000.26473 (the version currently on my system). Safari has embraced tabbed browsing with an interface that will be familiar to anyone who's using another mainstream browser. It would have been nice if the tab bar were enabled by default, but it's easy enough to have it show up and I can consider this a matter of personal taste. RSS feeds are simple to set up and show up conveniently in the bookmarks bar at the top of the page. I also found that Safari deals with certain add-ins (notably the Adobe Flash player) more gracefully than IE under Vista. Others have noted that Safari may allow better display of colors than IE. This may be so, but on the sites I usually visit it's not critical. All this is nice but not revolutionary. It's also about the limit of the things I've found to be really happy about in Safari. Now, let's look at the other side of the ledger.
I hadn't realized how much I've grown accustomed to Aero until I ran Safari. Safari presents a gunmetal-gray facade that's almost brutal next to IE's translucent Aero skin. In many ways it's an Auto Union aesthetic bluntness versus the Raymond Loewy curves of Vista, but there's a substantial visual difference between the two. In another visual difference, there's no bar across the bottom of the window: the display simply ends at the lower edge of the information. It's not horrible, but it's somewhat disconcerting until you get used to it.
The "unfinished" aspects of Safari begin with the minimizing behavior. Most windows applications have three visual modes: maximized (full screen), restored down (visible in a window smaller than full screen), and minimized (to the task bar). When the app is minimized and then restored, it returns to its previous size. Not Safari. No matter its size when minimized, it always restores down to a small window. This isn’t a fatal flaw, but it's annoying.
Another quirk is closer to fatal: Safari had a great deal of trouble coping with my dual-monitor setup. I run a second monitor to the right of my laptop screen, and typically run the browser on the large second screen. Every Windows application I've tried can be dragged to the second screen and maximized to fill the screen. Safari is different. Dragged to the large screen and maximized, it disappears. It took a couple of tries before I realized that it was actually maximizing to a mythical third screen seen by no other application. I could move it back to the second screen, but this was yet another annoyance, and evidence that Safari isn't recognizing Vista screen parameters in quite the same way other Windows applications do.
To be honest, Safari left me scratching my head in many regards. Apple is known for releasing relatively well-finished software, but Safari for Windows prompted three updates within the first few days of public release. Apple is famous for visual polish in its applications, but has taken less advantage of Aero than any other Vista-capable application I’ve found. Even setting preferences uses the Macintosh convention (you finish setting preferences then simply click the "x" box in the upper right-hand corner), rather than existing Windows conventions. How could Apple have done this?
Pondering that question, I thought back to a discussion with Bill Gates in the mid-1980s. Microsoft had just released Excel to compete with the market-defining Lotus 1-2-3. Excel was a fairly awful piece of software, and the assembled journalists were giving Bill an earful about it. He acknowledged the state of Excel, and told us that Microsoft simply needed an entry point. Having gained entry to the market, he knew that the company could improve the product to become competitive. Given the current market position of Lotus 1-2-3, you have to admit it was a successful strategy.
I have no special insight on Apple's plans, but the current version of Safari for Windows feels like an entry point. It doesn't have the feeling of a fully-cooked application from a major publisher, but it feels a lot like a product that's been brought to market to establish a beach-head, with more development to come. Could Apple be planning other Windows software or wider availability for Mac OS? I don't know. I do know I'm looking forward to the next stage of development for this application.
Posted by Curt Franklin on August 3, 2007 09:51 AM