- Microsoft readies ESP simulation platform
- Test Center Tracker: App limits
- Safari for Windows: So fari, so bumpy
- Hands-on: Adobe Digital Editions marks a new chapter for e-books
- Compuware offers IT portfolio management
- Adobe enables rich Internet apps with LiveCycle
- Oracle's big gulp: How will the Hyperion acquisition shake out?
- Preview: Scrybe organizer pushes Web 2.0 limits
- Preview: Spotfire DXP turbocharges interactive BA
- Preview: Voyager Analyzer brings BI to library information system
November 14, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Microsoft readies ESP simulation platform
Microsoft announced Wednesday a visual simulation platform, Microsoft ESP, which uses games-based technology to enable use of simulation for learning and decision-making.
Supporting off-the-shelf PC hardware and software, ESP enables simulations to be built faster and more effectively, Microsoft said. Leveraging the Microsoft Flight Simulator franchise, partners and developers can build Windows solutions using games-based learning as training tools. Initially, ESP will be targeted to military and commercial aviation audiences. Future versions will be extended to ground and maritime operations, indoor and avatar-centric simulations for commercial, government and academic learning.
ESP provides a simulation engine, tools, APIs, documentation and content that can be tailored for custom solutions. Geographical, cultural, environmental and scenery data is included.
Posted by Paul Krill on November 14, 2007 10:56 AM
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 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
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
June 26, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Compuware offers IT portfolio management
Compuware is announcing the release Tuesday of Changepoint 12, an IT portfolio management package that can automate IT processes.
With version 12, users can define decision-making scenarios encompassing existing and potential demand on IT, with graphical comparisons. The Web-based Client Portal in the package has been enhanced to enable participation by clients involved in key business processes, Compuware said. Web-based resource leveling and management of project dependencies also are featured in the new product, enabling more responsiveness to business change.
Users can develop decision-making scenarios that encompass a range of IT activity including projects, planned work and request-driven work. These scenarios are analyzed via a new interface.
Changepoint 12 can be coupled with Compuware Changepoint Supply and Demand Accelerator, featuring prepackaged business metrics, process automation, templates, management portlets and reports based on industry standards.
Posted by Paul Krill on June 26, 2007 06:51 AM
June 03, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Adobe enables rich Internet apps with LiveCycle
Adobe Systems on Monday is introducing Adobe LiveCycle Enterprise Suite (ES), its software for automating processes such as electronic forms.
With the ES version of LiveCycle, the product expands beyond being an interactive, PDF-based environment to enabling use of rich Internet applications. "I can create a UI with [Adobe] Flex that leverages all of the back-end services of LiveCycle," said Brian Wick, Adobe group product marketing manage for LiveCycle.
"The forms can be processed and created within a Flex environment, which is more wizard-like and engaging, or a PDF environment," Wick said.
A rich Internet application can be generated that steps a user through a process in a much better way, he said. More intuitive user experiences can be created than what was possible with just a PDF-based environment, said Wick.
LiveCycle ES enables delivery of applications that better communicate with people who may be confused by or frustrated with online procedures and are likely to abandon online transactions in favor of in-person visits or phone assistance. Processes such as account enrollment and claims processing can be transformed.
Components are featured in the suite for capabilities such as security, output, data capture and process management.
LiveCycle ES will be available in a Business Transformation Edition and a Data Capture Edition. The Business Transformation Edition features Data Capture Edition and components for process management, digital signatures, rights management and output. Data Capture Edition offers forms, data services, bar-coded forms and reader extension components.
Posted by Paul Krill on June 3, 2007 09:01 PM
March 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Oracle's big gulp: How will the Hyperion acquisition shake out?
Oracle's acquisition of Hyperion Solutions is wonderful for stockbrokers and people who play the markets for a living, but mergers always generate uncertainty... and uncertainty is a vicious overhead element for IT.
What does the merger mean for those responsible for choosing, deploying and supporting solutions? We won't know solid details for a while, but the underlying technologies, products, target markets, and missions of both corporate acquirer and corporate acquiree shape the probable outcomes.
Hyperion is itself a company put together through significant acquisitions and the integration of some pretty remarkable third-party tools, and their focus shifted over time from business intelligence (BI) to business performance management (BPM). They have been steadfastly platform-agnostic, supporting Microsoft’s various applications and database infrastructure. Oracle has been a somewhat closer partner on the database side, and with Oracle's acquisition of ERP players (the creation engine for the data that Hyperion’s technology analyzes), a lot of Oracle customer sites have already had a lot of exposure to Hyperion offerings.
There's a good deal of BI and BPM duplication (triplication?) in Oracle's product portfolio already. Hyperion has been digesting acquisitions and resolving overlap for a while now, and had seemed on the cusp of advancing with some remarkable looking original technology, including Smart Search (previewed here) and most especially Smart Space, a thrilling collaborative environment for BPM that due in August/September 2007. And since Hyperion is focused on BPM, most of Hyperion's products zoom in on the specific customers, interfaces and requirements of BPM and BI users. Oracle, on the other hand, is more focused on broadly-horizontal enterprise deployments and database back ends.
Because of the companies' different approaches, it remains to be seen how Oracle will proceed with deciding which of the overlapping technologies stay, which go into support-but-no-upgrade land, and which get chucked. It's the first problem one confronts when two big multiproduct tech companies merge: Best-of-Breed versus perceived convenience of single-source.
For example, Hyperion's Dashboard Builder is a single-purpose tool, designed to focus on one thing, while building dashboards is one of many things that Oracle BI Enterprise Edition supports. It probably costs Oracle less to maintain its own product and let Hyperion's go to seed, but customer IT may have already made the investment in training end-users to build their own Hyperion dashboards with the Hyperion tool. Which one wins out?
Given Hyperion's significant installed base of customers, it's unlikely in the near term that Oracle will liquidate the goodwill they paid for. The buyer has bought other significant companies recently, PeopleSoft and Siebel Systems, and they continue to support -- for the next few years contractually -- the products the purchased companies old and with only subtly-changed (if at all) names.
Longer-term Hyperion technologies that are still under development might be good candidates for re-naming and release under Oracle's name. If so, that's not a loss to innovation. But as Gary W. Patterson, principal at FiscalDoctor, a Wellesley, Mass. strategy consulting firm notes, "As someone who helps early stage software companies grow and provide new options for customers, I always hate to lose a major company like Hyperion as a potential exit strategy to motivate technology entrepreneurs to build the next great product." In other words, one less potential buyer reduces demand and competition for the fruits of creative designers' inventions.
Overall, it will come down to the age-old question about mergers in general, and tech mergers more precisely: Who will pay? The stockholders, the executives, the employees or the customers (through direct prices or losing superior technology)? In the near-term, unfortunately, it's almost never the executives and it's usually the customers.
Posted by Jeff Angus on March 5, 2007 01:04 PM
January 23, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Preview: Scrybe organizer pushes Web 2.0 limits
Generating buzz about new software is relatively easy for established companies: Just look at the interest surrounding the public betas of Adobe Photoshop 3 and Microsoft Vista. But what if you're a startup with a Web 2.0 service -- and based solely on a YouTube demo, people were so enthralled they even offered payment for a login to the closed beta? I actually found that deal presented on Scrybe's forum, and naturally had to find out why.
Put simply, Scrybe is a Flash 9-based, open-standards calendaring and personal organizer, and it's packed with every bit of eye candy and fluid interaction Flash developers can muster. For example, in the Planner view, calendars zoomed and contracted as I clicked from day to week to month. While Scrybe's interface is a model design, that's only a small reason for all the attention. The rest is because it delivers a user experience and features that are often beyond anything else I've ever used.
Consider just one aspect of the calendar, a function called GlobalTimez. When I opened the details of a meeting, Scrybe displayed four world clocks so I didn't have to calculate the time for participants in Europe and Asia. Further, the software will display a secondary time zone alongside your daily planner appointments.
This attention to detail extends throughout. Type "Dinner at 6 p.m." anywhere in your calendar day and Scrybe automatically places the appointment in the 6 p.m. slot. I added tasks in the same way to my to-do list (called PowerLists). Similarly, information in different contexts is effortlessly linked: Drag an item from a to-do list to the calendar and it becomes an event with all the associated reminders.
ThoughtPad, the second main application, lets you assemble notes and Web clippings -- complete with links, images, and files. As with tasks, you label notes to keep them organized. A Bookmarklet let me highlight text and images on Web pages and the content was added to my ThoughtPad -- while I used a simple rich-text editor to add my own comments. Moreover, a preview at the bottom of ThoughtPad let me easily navigate forward or backward through my notes.
One important aspect of Web 2.0 apps that Google and others haven't mastered is offline access, which Scrybe nails. The service made a local copy of my data, let me work disconnected, and then automatically synced changes when I reconnected. Yet what's most intriguing is the low-tech, yet brilliant PaperSync. Scrybe provides three elegant print formats that you can fold in less than 20 seconds to take your data anywhere. 
There are some features missing from the phase two beta I tested, most notable calendar sharing. Scrybe indicated they are evaluating iCal, hCal, RSS, SSE, and e-mail for this feature (planned in the next beta cycle).
Even incomplete, Scrybe teaches the established players a lot about Web 2.0 innovations. While I'd love mobile capabilities (currently the interfaced requires a 1,024 by 768 pixel resolution screen), there's enough here to make me give up my Microsoft Outlook Calendar and abandon Google Calendar.
Scrybe Phase 2, Beta
Availability: Mid-February
Pricing: To be announced
Verdict: Scrybe's online organizer melds Web 2.0 innovations with new approaches to traditional functions, including printing. With a minimalist design and attention to detail characteristic of Apple products, Scrybe should find a home with business and professional users faced with planning complex schedules and capturing notes -- especially anyone needing to work offline
Posted by Mike Heck on January 23, 2007 11:24 AM
December 18, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Preview: Spotfire DXP turbocharges interactive BA
When I last reviewed Spotfire's Decision Site, I noted that its originality derived from its
structure. Spotfire divides the design and analysis cycle into a model that provides a separate, user-appropriate interface for each of three kinds of user: analyst, domain expert, and end-user.
The trend continues in the company’s newest offering, Spotfire DXP. DXP is a highly-interactive Windows client that appears on its way to joining Tableau as a way to successfully push BI/BA efforts out of IT and closer to a largely self-service system.
But where Tableau pushes its drag-and-drop interface toward a graphical model, Spotfire is building out its graphics strength with drag-and-drop interface. The result is surprising...in a good way.
Put DXP out as a client for Spotfire's Analytics Server, and one can deploy a versatile BI system based on views pre-built by user role. Even better, authors can design robust in-window narrative help and definition systems that provide sequenced instructions and hints ("guided analyses") for users playing with interactive graphical output. This helpful feature (shown at right; click to see full screen) makes delivering instructions and explanations to less-sophisticated users simple.
And perhaps best of all, you can export non-interactive slide shows for free or for a fee, use an optional runtime "player" that supports the delivery of polished models to users who now don't need the client to get 
clear and graphically-rich business intelligence. The filter panel (shown at left; click to see full screen), with its ability to interact through selection or area definition, makes Spotfire DXP analysis quicker and easier for both experienced and novice users.
Spotfire DXP advances the product line's already muscular graphical abilities with slider controls on variables, region selects for drill-down, and a boatload of other intuitive (if not always well-documented by the interface) methods of interacting with the data. I'm very impressed.
Spotfire DXP
Cost: Starts at $3,000
Platforms: Analytics Server requires Oracle, IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Access, MySQL, SAS/SHARE, PostregSQL, Sybase, or Informix database; DXP client requires 32-bit Windows
Verdict: Spotfire DXP is a very impressive graphical client for interactive BI/BA. If the firm can figure out a way to distribute a free or almost-free version of their player that pushes non-interactive results using dynamic data to a wide mass of users, it might make their offering tops in the field.
Posted by Jeff Angus on December 18, 2006 09:52 AM
November 27, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Preview: Voyager Analyzer brings BI to library information system
Data-intensive applications have always had reporting facilities (what's the use of pouring all that data or garbage in unless you can get it out?). But as business intelligence (BI) practices become more refined and users become accustomed to better flexibility and creative self-service, the demand for intrinsic output that's closer to BI output is on the rise.
One of the finer recent accomplishments in this area is the addition of interactive BI output to Endeavor Information Systems' Voyager, a library information system. The module, called Analyzer, is an interactive reporting and analysis system with a Web interface that works well alongside Voyager's existing model.
The Voyager library information system is built to manage the physical and digital media collections of research and academic libraries; it's used at organizations including Pfizer, Children's Hospital - Seattle, National Geographic Society, and the Library of Congress. Analyser, released in September, comes with preformatted and interactive ad-hoc designs for managing suppliers, acquisitions, circulation, lists, and even catalog printing.
More importantly, it takes the old ODBC connection model -- expensive to administer and maintain -- and moves it to a browser interface. The Query Studio utility gives users a drag-and-drop UI for developing outputs. A Report Studio allows more expert BI types to produce more complex results.
Librarians are, as a group, very metrics-oriented, and more than almost any other discipline are driven to research and examine the success and components of their work. 
Judging from what I've seen of Analyzer, it seems to do a good job of supporting that kind of iterative query. The product's design is solid, devoid of glitz, and sports no extraneous, showy surprises that might get in the way of its basic duties. On the administrative side, the operator can run the biggest outputs overnight as scheduled processes or by triggering them manually.
A future version of Analyzer will include management dashboards as an additional way to communicate dense results, continuing Voyager's push to incorporate external BI practice as an intrinsic part of their own data-intensive system. Endeavor is not the only vendor bringing such abilities into their applications, just one of the cleverest.
Voyager Analyzer
Cost: Starts at $6,500
Platforms: Solaris v9 or v10, Red Hat v4
Verdict: Endeavor Voyager's new reporting module, Analyzer, is in the vanguard for showing what can be done to deliver BI output within data-intensive environments, including a straight-ahead interface, dual interfaces with different levels of complexity for different types of users, and built-in domain expertise.
Posted by Jeff Angus on November 27, 2006 10:00 AM
November 15, 2006 | Comments: (0)
When was the last time you used WinZip? If you're like me, it's probably not once since using Windows XP. That's a pity because WinZip has so many more features than just the few compression capabilities embedded in the XP OS.
The just-released WinZip 11.0 includes new features that should appeal to both home and corporate users. My favorites are a powerful wizard that simplifies creating jobs for tasks such as scheduled backups of files and directories in compressed format, and the ability to explore directories of archived files as easily as directories of plain files.
Admins will like the option of using variables instead of the actual file name for common directories such as "My Documents," because jobs so created will work unchanged on multiple machines. You can also filter files by file type, and select from common backup options such as full, incremental, or differential.
Moreover, for each job you can specify which compression and encryption method to use and automatically maintain multiple versions of archived files.
Backup job targets include the standard disk drives as well as CDs or DVDs, for which the benefits of compression have become more appealing. For example, Winzip shrank a 60MB "My Pictures" folder to a CD archive that was smaller than 20MB.
With Winzip 11.0, you browse an archived folder via an Explorer-like view. In fact, you can view thumbnails without have to uncompress each file (as in the screenshot above), which comes in handy when searching for the right image to restore.
Another intriguing new feature adds AES 128 and 256 bit support to the simplistic encryption of previous versions of WinZip. AES encryption goes hand-in-hand with WinZip Companion for Outlook; the Outlook add-on is not free, but makes encrypting e-mail attachments, well... a zip. Just select which files to attach, and before sending your message, Companion will automatically compress them. You can also specify automatic encryption, which will trigger a window in Outlook asking for a password and for the algorithm to use. Obviously, the recipient should have similar capabilities to be able to unlock the attachments.
WinZip 11.0 also supports two more archive types (.BZ2 and .RAR File), adding to its already long list. In addition, to bypass possible restrictions set on your network, you can create archives with extension different from .zip (don't say you learned this from me, though!).
Something else to remember: WinZip 11.0 is no longer offered as free software. In fact, to access its full capabilities you need to buy at least a basic license. Other features -- scheduling, for example --are only offered with the more expensive Pro version; check this chart for more on the differences between the Standard and Pro versions. That may add a few dollars per machine, but getting the extra features seems worth the additional cost.
WinZip 11.0
Availability: Now
Pricing: Standard license, $20; Pro, $50; Companion for Outlook, $20; Pro-Companion bundle, $60
Verdict: Winzip 11.0 has more intriguing new features than I have space to mention, but it's worth remembering that it's no longer offered as free software. The new AES encryption options should guarantee that attachments are safe from prying eyes. Moreover, WinZip 11.0's reliable (and further improved) compression algorithms can stretch the capacity of your removable media and lessen the attachment burden on your Exchange system. Worth a try.
Posted by Mario Apicella on November 15, 2006 02:55 PM
October 10, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Responding to a rumor started on Microsoft Watch that Java doesn't get along well with Vista, Sun Java Client Group Architect Chet Haase declared quite firmly in his own blog that Java runs quite well on Redmond's next-born.
In a Sept. 29 blog posting, Microsoft Watch cited eWeek Lab tests running various Java-based apps on Vista. "In each case, Aero Glass [the Vista UI] wasn't just disabled for the (apparently) offending application, but for our test machine as a whole--until we closed the Java app."
The entry dispenses the following advice to Sun: "Sun Microsystems would do well to give a ring to one of the interop contacts at Microsoft that came out of the firms' historic make-nice agreement back in 2004, and figure out how to make Java apps first-class Vista citizens."
That final bit particularly irked Haase, who responded in a recent entry in his blog.
"[O]lder versions of Java do have problems on Vista, and that's what the original report was about; someone tried running some older version of Java on Vista and noted some problems. But that's like saying that your favorite XBox game, Bloody Mess X, doesn't work on XBox360. Of course it doesn't; the original game was written for a completely different system."
Haase goes into great detail to explain just how hard Sun has worked to adapt Java to the ever-evolving Vista.
"... [It] has been an ongoing process of learning, testing, debugging, submitting bugs against Microsoft, fixing our bugs, re-testing. ... And since Vista has been a moving platform during the Java SE 6 development process, we've been in this development cycle continually with every new drop of Vista (they are still releasing weekly builds for us to test; we just found a bug in RC1 that has since been fixed in the latest release we got yesterday)."
(Application developers in particular may want to read his post; it's quite detailed, technical, and blissfully devoid of marketing.)
Java SE 6, by the way, "is the best solution for Vista," Haase writes. "That release has received most of our focus during the Vista beta release timeframe, and it is where most of the fixes to the known problems currently reside."
As for other flavors of Java: "J2SE 1.5 should work fine, but there may be some nuances that may not be as perfect... . Some additional Vista-specific fixes (such as component animation) may not be back-ported, so the fidelity may not be as close as that in Java SE 6... . But the full gamut of Vista work that we feel is necessary for J2SE 1.5 should be available in update 11, which we hope to release around January of 2007."
Moreover, J2SE 1.4.2 will basically work, according to Haase. "We see 1.4.2 as being functional, usable, and perfect for situations where a customer is absolutely locked into that particular release for now. But we encourage developers and customers to migrate to a more full-feature Vista release soon."
Stay tuned to InfoWorld's ongoing coverage of Vista for the latest news and reviews.
Posted by Ted Samson on October 10, 2006 09:41 PM
October 03, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: How well do Web-based apps handle real-world work?
It was supposed to be a three-hour tour...: Senior Contributing Editor Oliver Rist spent a week living in a browser-based world, from e-mail to spreadsheets to presentation-making apps. According to his recounting of this expedition to Browser App Island, some things went well (Yahoo mail), some things didn't (trying to work in Web apps on spotty wireless connections), and some things required a dose of liquid courage (Johnnie Walker Black). Read more about Oliver's experience and tell us: Do you use any of these online apps? Love 'em? Hate 'em? Let us know on the TalkBack forum or post your comments here on Test Center Daily.
This open-source integration tool is no donkey: Heard of MuleSource before? Open Sources blogger Dave Rosenberg scored an interview with their CEO... which may not have been too difficult, seeing as how Rosenberg is the CEO of MuleSource. But with version 1.3 of this open-source ESB and integration now available, Rosenberg's providing a little glimpse behind the curtain. It's worth a peek.
Virtualization Forum presentations now available: Did you attend the InfoWorld Virtualization Executive Forum in New York last week? If you did - or didn't, but are curious about the seminars and discussions that went on there - the presentations are now available on our Forum Resources page.
Posted by Stephanie McLoughlin on October 3, 2006 06:00 AM
October 02, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Test Center Tracker: Keep your Exchange mail flowing
Keep Exchange chugging: E-mail is a critical communication tool of choice at just about any organization. So when the e-mail server goes down, you're in for some costly downtime. Exchange shops out there might be well-served by one of various e-mail failover solutions, recently tested by Test Center Contributing Editor Logan G. Harbaugh. Neverfail for Exchange and SteelEye LifeKeeper bring true fail-over to an entire Exchange server. Cemaphore Systems MailShadow and Quest Availability Manager protect individual mailboxes on one or more Exchange servers. And Lucid8 DigiVault provides backup of data stores that can be restored to a secondary Exchange.
eCart worth checking out: Microsoft Commerce Server isn't the only player in town when it comes to developing an e-commerce Web site. If you're using Adobe Dreamweaver, you should check out the new release of WebAssist's eCart extension. Contributing Editor Mike Heck reports that "this potent combination provides coders with point-and-click, fully customizable shopping carts." He notes that "one significant new feature lets you select PayPal Website Payments Pro for checkout. Many merchants will find this important because there's one transaction rate for all payments and low monthly fees."
Open source storage seeds? Virtualization is catching on in the enterprise, but Neil McCallister notes in his Open Enterprise column that although server virtualization has some open-source-product representation, proprietary product rule exclusively in the realm of storage virtualization. However, change may be on the horizon, he suggests, as standards such as iSCSI mature.
Posted by Ted Samson on October 2, 2006 06:00 AM
August 15, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Scalix this week at the LinuxWorld conference in San Francisco announced its Scalix 11 email, calendaring and messaging platform for Linux, featuring Web services capabilities and a mobile client.
New in version 11 are two Web services: Scalix Messaging Services and Scalix Management Services. Messaging Services features REST (Representational State Transfer) APIs for email and calendaring application integration; users can integrate Linux messaging with applications such as content management, mobile solutions, CRM and ERP. Management Services features SOAP-based APIs to enhance the ability to manage resources from the Scalix Administration Console.
Also highlighted is Scalix Web Access, which is a Web client featuring a server-side search capability for finding information across mailboxes. A Google-style user interface lets users locate information such as attachments. Performance has been improved as well.
Scalix Web Access Mobile, meanwhile, is a lightweight Web interface enabling mailbox access for cell phones, PDAs and hotel set-top boxes.
New SmartCache technology insulates mobile users form fluctuations in their network by keeping information flowing continuously.
Scalix includes transparent Outlook support, featuring indexed search and improved mobile performance. Version 11 also features a migration tool to migrate data from the 5.5, 2000 and 2003 versions of Exchange and from other legacy systems.
Posted by Paul Krill on August 15, 2006 07:21 AM
April 17, 2006 | Comments: (0)
PolyServe Clusters Sprawling SQL Servers
PolyServe has released the PolyServe SQL Server Utility, a Microsoft SQL Server consolidation solution based on its Matrix Server shared data clustering technology. SQL Server Utility clusters multiple instances of SQL Server 2000 and 2005 databases across multiple x86 servers to ease management and scalability and improve performance and high availability. It supports as many as 16 instances per node and 16 nodes per cluster.
PolyServe SQL Server Utility, PolyServe
Posted by Mike Barton on April 17, 2006 03:30 PM