Breaking DNS with Wildcard records
Posted By Mike Fratto at 10:43 AM

Charter Communication’s wildcard DNS resolution maybe useful to users surfing the web through a browser, but will break all other IP applications. Error handling needs to be performed locally by the application receiving the error. Handling errors in the network for application traffic causes more problems that they solve. Using wildcard domain names to handle unresolved hosts is bad engineering. Period.

Continue reading "Breaking DNS with Wildcard records "


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Interview with Marja Koopmans, Director of Partner Strategy for Microsoft Office Live
Posted By Tom LaSusa at 05:12 PM

NWC contributor Robert Hertzberg talks with Marja Koopmans, the Director of Partner Strategy for Microsoft Office Live talks about the company's ambitious new entry in the area of web hosting and software as a service. | Click to listen

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Friday Freebie
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 08:55 AM

Happy Friday!

Today's freebie is a product that's just been released as a service and provides IT analytic capabilities for free.

Continue reading "Friday Freebie"


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Friday Freebie
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 09:59 AM

Happy Friday!

Today's freebie is for the coders out there - an AJAX/JSF open source toolkit that lets you develop cool Web 2.0 applications without JavaScript...

Continue reading "Friday Freebie"


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Friday Freebies
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 10:17 AM

That's right - freebies for your Friday. You know you missed them.

Today's freebies are all about anti-spyware and online storage...

Continue reading "Friday Freebies"


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iNetWord
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 11:19 AM

iNetWord is a free, AJAX-enabled WYSIWYG editor that comes damn close to proving that Web 2.0 can compete with desktop applications.

Continue reading "iNetWord"


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Friday Freebies
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 09:45 AM

Happy Friday!

Today I have three freebies for you: a desktop skinner, a web-based bookmark repository, and a really cool JVM clustering technology from Terracotta.

Continue reading "Friday Freebies"


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Acquisition of the Week: RightNow and Salesnet
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 09:39 AM

RightNow has announced its intention to acquire Salesnet for its workflow automation capabilities and, in a surprising show of honesty, its customer base in all all-cash merger of the two companies.

Continue reading "Acquisition of the Week: RightNow and Salesnet"


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Friday Freebies
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 11:16 AM

Happy Friday!

Today I have two freebies for you - one for you fellow developers and one for the videophiles who just have to share their latest reel with the world.

Continue reading "Friday Freebies"


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Friday Freebie
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 10:57 AM

Happy Friday!

Today we've got two freebies for you: one for Linux fans and one for the gamers.

Continue reading "Friday Freebie"


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Friday Freebie
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 10:46 AM

Happy Friday after Interop!

Today I have a couple of freebies for you, both focused on sharing content on the web.

Continue reading "Friday Freebie"


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ThinkFree Office Online Beta Available
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 09:12 AM

Another Web 2.0 Office application beta goes live, this one from ThinkFree.

Continue reading "ThinkFree Office Online Beta Available"


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TechQuiz: Web Applications
Posted By Tom LaSusa at 09:47 AM

Having a tough time with our Web Applications TechQuiz (based on our April 27th cover package)? Our answer key is available here -- try not to cheat though!:

Continue reading "TechQuiz: Web Applications"


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Opera 9: The other, other browser
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 01:59 PM

Opera today announced the availability of Beta 1 of version 9 of its browser. New features include AJAX-based components called 'widgets', a BitTorrent search engine, and updated content blocking.

Continue reading "Opera 9: The other, other browser"


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Oracle's In My Google
Posted By at 10:01 AM

Google’s digging deeper into the enterprise, today announcing a new Google Search Appliance. The key new feature on the latest version of the product is what the search giant calls Google OneBox—it’s the same top-of-the-search results you find as a consumer using the Google search engine, only now applied to enterprise applications data.

Continue reading "Oracle's In My Google"


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Friday Freebie
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 10:39 AM

It just wouldn't be Friday without a freebie. This one is a useful set of command line utilities for Windows that makes administration of web, database, and general purpose servers just a bit easier...

Continue reading "Friday Freebie"


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You'll Have To Do Better Than That
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 10:54 AM

The explosion of online, AJAX-enabled word processing applications is far from complete. The latest entry is AjaxWrite, offered to you by Michael Robertson (of MP3.com, Linspire, and GizmoProject fame - or is that infamy?).

Continue reading "You'll Have To Do Better Than That"


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Friday Freebie
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 12:35 PM

Today's freebie is all about networking and keeping your neighbors off your wireless connection.

Continue reading "Friday Freebie"


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Friday Freebie
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 09:20 AM

Happy Friday!

Today's freebie is all about streaming live video.

Continue reading "Friday Freebie"


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Deja Vu
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 09:28 AM

A long, long time ago...
I can still remember
How that browser used to make me smile.
And I knew if it had a chance
That it could make a website dance
And users would be happy for a while.

Continue reading "Deja Vu"


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Friday Freebie
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 08:27 AM

Today's freebie is brought to you by the letter "N", for NetJaxer.

NetJaxer integrates Web 2.0 applications like Gmail, iOutliner, TadaList, Digg, Writely (recently acquired by Google), and Meebo with Windows, making them easily accessible via several traditional Windows launch mechanisms.

Continue reading "Friday Freebie"


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Borland: The Saga Continues
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 08:56 AM

I had a great chat with Borland last week, and discovered that the death of its IDE business "was greatly exaggerated", in a way.

Continue reading "Borland: The Saga Continues"


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Friday Freebie
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 10:40 AM

Happy Friday!

Today's freebie is a CD/DVD/BD-compliant disc burning utility.

Continue reading "Friday Freebie"


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Standards. Acquisitions. Lunacy.
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 01:14 PM

As seems often to be the case, a few vendors and analysts seem to be having issues understanding an acquisition strategy. This time it the controversy surrounds BEA and BPM vendor Fuego...

Continue reading "Standards. Acquisitions. Lunacy."


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Acquisition of the Week: BEA and Fuego BPM
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 11:27 AM

BEA announced this week that it had acquired BPM vendor Fuego for $87.5 million in cash.

Continue reading "Acquisition of the Week: BEA and Fuego BPM"


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Friday Freebie
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 03:17 PM

Today I actually have something free for you! Woo hoo!

Continue reading "Friday Freebie"


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Friday Freebies
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 07:51 AM

Happy Very Snowy Friday!

Today I've got two freebies for you, so sit back and ignore the need to shovel the sidewalk for a while longer and read on...

Continue reading "Friday Freebies"


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Standards Watch: OASIS WS-Security
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 05:37 PM

OASIS today announced that the WS-Security (WSS) v1.1 specification has been ratified as a standard.

Continue reading "Standards Watch: OASIS WS-Security"


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You Go Girl
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 09:17 AM

It was a sad statement that a discussion of women who've had an impact in technology, specifically computer science, often results in a discussion of just one woman, Admiral Grace Hopper (1906-1992).

Continue reading "You Go Girl"


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Friday Freebies
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 09:07 AM

Happy (snowy, at least where I am) Friday!

Today we have two freebies for you...

Continue reading "Friday Freebies"


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The End of an Era
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 05:49 PM

Today, along with Borland's announcement that it would acquire software testing vendor Segue Software, it also announced its intention to divest itself of its IDE lines.

Continue reading "The End of an Era"


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Friday Freebies
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 11:32 AM

Happy Friday! Today's Friday Freebies are all about rich internet application development, because I'm still a code monkey at heart...

Continue reading "Friday Freebies"


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Which Office Suite Would You Choose?
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 06:52 PM

An IM chat sometimes takes the strangest turns...

Just as Firefox has continued to make inroads in the browser market, so have StarOffice and ThinkFree made strides in gaining at least some mindshare in the market. But if you're the one making the choice - or perhaps more importantly, footing the bill - what are you gonna decide?

Continue reading "Which Office Suite Would You Choose?"


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AJAX Vulnerabilities != Web Services Vulnerabilities
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 04:52 PM

AJAX is in the news. Not for being an exciting "new" (I disagree with this description and anyone who makes such a claim, for the record) technology but for its ability to potentially expose clients (browsers, really) to vulnerabilities.

Continue reading "AJAX Vulnerabilities != Web Services Vulnerabilities"


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Friday Freebie
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 07:39 AM

Happy Friday!

Time to celebrate the end of the week with a free toy!

Centennial Software is heralding a new freebie from Sharp Ideas. Abe Usher's Slurp Audit is a free tool that provides information on what files might be at risk for theft on your network. It's designed to run right from a USB stick, and generates reports showing what files could have been downloaded using a USB connected device, effectively being stolen.

This application helps to highlight the threats associated with endpoints and portable storage devices, which is why Centennial (which creates IT asset management and endpoint security products) is "noting" the announcement.

You can get Slurp Audit here.

Get out there and scare your security guys! They love this stuff, really!

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Testing Update: Registry Hacking
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 04:16 PM

I'm really finished testing ESBs, but during the course of writing the article I often need to go back and double check something. I usually don't write at the lab (can't chain smoke around the servers) so I need to take advantage of remote access.

Except I forgot to enable one machine for remote access and I really don't want to run to the lab just to get access. So I did what any good admin does - I hit google.

Sure enough, this great article describes step by step how to remotely modify the registry on a remote machine to enable remote access. A few minutes of playing "find the registry key" and voila!

All Hail Mitch Tulloch and Google. How did we ever do without them?

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Why is Microsoft unique?
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 03:30 PM

I was just reading a ZapThink report on Microsoft's new XAML-extensions for WWF (Windows WorkFlow) and got stuck again on one of Ronald Schmelzer's comments.

Ron is quoted in several publications as saying:

"Microsoft’s use of XAML as a way to specify business processes is unique, Schmelzer said."

Now I don't know what you've been doing lately, Ron, but I just finished writing an entire book on XAML and let me tell you something, there's very little "unique" about XAML. Oh, don't get me wrong - it's cool, it's sexy, it's neato-nifty-keen and there's some new features available that will knock your socks off, but it isn't unique and neither is extending it to incorporate business process specific calls to WWF.

Ever heard of BPEL, Ron? You know, an XML-based specification that describes...

wait for it...

wait for it...

You got it - business processes. Specifically, the activities and steps that make up a business process. Sound familiar?

WWF XAML: <SequenceActivity />
BPEL : <sequence />

Oooohhh.. now that's unique, isn't it?

Yes, there's some differences, but the core terminology - notice the term "sequence", Ron? - and concept is the same. They are both XML-based formats for referencing activities and interacting with a business process. Both are interpreted by a runtime engine. (BPEL -> BPEL Engine. WWF XAML -> WPF + WWF)

The only reason you might (and that's a big might) consider Microsoft unique in this area is because it is embedding activities and steps right in the user interface. That's right, XAML was primarily built for declaring user interfaces, and is being extended to support other Windows specific technologies as we speak. It certainly isn't unique because activity artifacts can be changed on the fly and reinterpreted because BPEL is treated the same way.

Why is using XAML unique? XAML is extensible, all XML is. That's not unique. I point you at WS-Policy as an example, which is being extended to support domain specific policy declarations such as security (WS-SecurityPolicy).

Using XAML - or any other XML - to specify business processes is hardly unique. Unless you're going to fall on your sword and claim that it's unique because it's a) embedded inside a user-interface (which breaks Microsoft's own best practices statement of separating user interface from application logic) or b) because it's a lot neater and cleaner than BPEL, I call horsepuckey.

Well, which is it? I'd really like to know because this quote on the subject is really quite...vague...and quite frankly, I don't see how you can seriously say it's unique.

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Friday Freebie
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 10:26 AM

Well, after spending three hectic weeks in the lab testing ESB products, you can imagine that I've had to find a few interesting tools.

Today's freebie is one of them. It's called XMOJO and it's an OSS JMX implementation, supporting both instrumentation and management. XMOJO, aside from having a cool sounding name, is a complete implementation of version 1.0 of the JMX specification. It offers multi-management via RMI and HTTP and has been tested on multiple enterprise service platforms: WebLogic, WebSphere, Oracle9iAS, JBoss, and TIBCO Hawk among them.

XMOJO includes an MBean RMI client for testing developed JMX agents.

You can get XMOJO here.

Go crazy!

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Stop with the e-mailS already!
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 04:05 PM

It has come to my attention - usually painfully - that many people erroneously believe that the plural of e-mail is e-mails.

It is not.

Does the post office deliver mail, or mails? Yeah, exactly. "Hey, look at the mails I got today!" Sounds pretty retarded, doesn't it? So does "Hey, look at the e-mails I got today!"

E-mail is like beer, and deer. You don't have "beers" (unless you're from the UP, eh? Ya!). You don't shoot "deers", and you don't send or receive e-mails.

And yes, as a matter of fact it is a hyphenated word. If you don't like the hyphen, petition Merriam-Webster.

Just like anal-retentive.

Your observations that this last example applies to the author of this blog are unnecessary. She already knows.

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Friday Freebies
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 05:40 PM

Thought I forgot about you (again), didn't you?

I've got a couple of interesting freebies for you this Friday.

Textmessage.cc is launching its new site for sending text messages free. Everyone gets free access to send text messages from a website to most digital mobile phones that permit the sending of short messages directly from your Blog or website.

Also included in the launch is a free tool for adding code directly to your website to enable this functionality.

Go nuts!

The second freebie is more work oriented and is from IBM. During the course of testing MQ it became necessary to read and write messages from the queue. Enter RFHUTIL, available for free download and use here (IBM Supportpac IH03). This is a pretty cool tool and lets you view messages in just about any conceivable format (including COBOL copybook), so grab it and start reading and writing from those queues!

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Testing Update: Get Outta My (Name)Space!
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 09:41 PM

So here's a weird one for you. I was testing another ESB today and just finished setting up the classpath to include the OpenJMS jars. After testing connectivity (yeah! it worked) I tried to hit the administrative console for the underlying application server and ... nothing.

The server responded, but no page displayed. Well this is weird...a bit of digging showed that the servlets and portlets responsible for displaying the page were hooked into Log4J. Many Java-based applications are, so that shouldn't be a problem.

Looking at the logs, it appeared that some sort of conflict had arisen in the Log4J system. Some sort of class conflict. Some sort of OpenJMS-is-using-old-libs conflict.

After removing the OpenJMS jars from the classpath - voila! The administrative console returned to normal.

I have seen some strange things while testing, but never something like this. I'd expect the administrative console to not load at all, but given the fact that the proper class exists and is apparently just missing a method (log, believe it or not), I guess it isn't that surprising. Just weird.

Someday I'll get through a product test without anything weird happening. Everything will go smoothly. Everything will work as advertised...

Why yes, I'd love to buy a piece of your bridge. How much?

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Testing Update: Contact Your System Administrator
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 04:51 PM

I started perf testing one of the ESB products today and immediately discovered that it wasn't responding as expected. Okay, no problem, I'll just remove the extra message logging I put it while building an orchestration and restart the test.

Wait...it's still not responding. What is this? 2095 active BPEL processes? Hmmm...okay, there's a delete button. I should just be able to push the button and the process will go away...sure, I have to do it 2095 times but hey, better than nothing.

What's this? A Java exception? On the console? What do you mean, "Contact your system administrator". I am the system administrator and I can assure you I have no idea what this generic exception is trying to say. Maybe the log has more information...ummm, yeah. A stack trace. Oooh, and another copy of the exception message thrown on the admin console. That's nice. But why, exactly, was this exception thrown?

Was it privileges? Is the manager not responding? Solar Flares?? Magnetized shoes??!?! What?

A general exception error that is printed out on the screen with no clue as to what really happened is less useful than just saying "Yo, that didn't work!". Ya gotta give me something more to go on here, people!

Please?

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Acquisition of the Week: Mercury and Systinet
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 04:30 PM

Wow. Well, this one came out of nowhere. Mercury picked up Systinet for a cool $105M in cash today.

Everyone who's reporting on this seems to be focusing on how good a move this is for Mercury; how purchasing the Registry/Repository provider is going to enable Mercury's product lines to continue embracing and extending SOA. What everyone keeps ignoring is what this acquisition might do to the other SOA-based ISV product lines...Come on. When a company tells me about its registry, the conversation is nearly inevitably ended with an admission that the ISV OEM's Systinet's Business Service Registry. BEA. Oracle. Et al...

Nearly every BPM and ESB product out there either OEM's the product or interoperates with it - and makes a point of mentioning that. Why? Because Systinet is, and has been, entrenched in the wider SOA market for about two years now. So why aren't these analysts talking about the impact this acquisition will have on the wider market?

Maybe because right now it looks like nothing. Mercury claims it will run Systinet as a "wholly owned subsidiary" so one hopes that nothing will change with its partners and customers.

But the registry/repository space is a small one, and this acquisition leaves only Infravio and SOA Software as the most well recognized providers of registry/repository solutions in the market. Yes, Software AG has a solution, but its just making its first appearance this year and doesn't have the traction with ISVs that Systinet has. I'm guessing that Infravio and SOA Software are both licking their chops in anticipation that this acquisition will not be viewed positively by Systinet's OEM partners. With all the financial problems Mercury Interactive has had in the past few months - including being delisted from the NASDAQ - you can bet that some of Systinet's old OEM partners - and customers - are likely willing to listen.

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Testing Update: License to Connect
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 12:15 PM

An enterprise service bus (ESB) is essentially an integration technology. It's designed to integrate applications and technology using standards-based protocols. JDBC. JMS. SOAP. FTP.

But it is, at its core, an integration technology. That means adapters. Endpoints. Integration points. Whatever.

Part of testing an ESB must, therefore, be to evaluate the mechanisms provided for connecting to disparate systems, such as NWC Inc.'s Oracle 9i database. That requires a database adapter.

Most vendors I've tested are using DataDirect JDBC drivers as the means by which a database is integrated with the bus. Some, however, use a proprietary adapter. There's no technical issue with this whatsoever. But let's discuss the licensing issue because that is, as it has always been with integration technologies, a problem.

Usually, it's just a painful process of insuring that a single, all encompassing license file includes all the adapters you'll need. But this week I learned a new trick, one I'm going to call a connect license. Usually license files are added to the system through the administrative console and never thought of again. But this product required - yes REQUIRED - that a license key be entered whenever a database connection was configured. Every. Time.

Now you may be thinking "So what? I'm only going to set up maybe 3 or 4 database connections, that's not a big deal!"

Well, yes it is - if the product in question also tightly couples a single database query to a connection. I won't even go into the fact that tightly coupling anything in a product that is allegedly the "underpinnings" or "foundation" of an SOA which is, by necessity, a loosely coupled system, is counter-intuitive and makes no sense. One connection. One SQL statement. One license.

This. Is. Ridiculous. People.

It's one thing to license software, it's another to license particular features of software, it's a whole other ballgame to license connectivity. It's craziness, it's annoying, and it's just plain silly.

I guess at least I should be grateful that the license check is done during configuration. Imagine the impact on performance of a system conducting a license audit at runtime - to make certain the system is actually licensed to connect at runtime.

I think it's time to shut up, before someone decides that's a good idea. You never know with software.

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Friday Freebie
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 12:01 PM

Welcome back! Hope the holidays were as good to you as they were to me.

Today's Friday Freebie is a video service from DKWare called DKMessenger.

DKMessenger is a free PC-to-PC videophone and messaging service that permits communications via text, video and audio simultaneously. Yeah, kind of like Skype 2.0 (though I doubt they have the cool Wireless Linksys Skype phone that Santa brought Don for Christmas).

DKWare also offers a business edition of DKMessenger that's not free (as in gratis) but includes additional collaborative technologies such as whiteboarding, encryption, virtual meeting rooms, and more.

Have at it, folks!

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When Free Isn't
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 09:58 AM

I was excited last year when Microsoft announced that it would join the rest of the modern world and offer express versions of its development environment for free, targeting hobbyists and students.

So I went to download Visual C# Express Edition....and discovered a little disclaimed regarding the "freeness" of the Express editions:

Continue reading "When Free Isn't"


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Friday Freebies
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 09:26 AM

Two freebies for you today.

The first is a well hidden, undocumented, unsearchable free virtual CD driver from Microsoft. VCdControlTool has no documentation and you'll need to read the readme in order to properly "install" the proggy as it involves copying the driver to the appropriate system directory, but once installed it works as advertised. You can mount ISO images as a "virtual cd" and access them through the drive letter you assign.

Come to think about it, it really acts similar to mounting a remote file system on a *NIX box. In any case, it's pretty simple and easy to use and while it is unsupported by Microsoft, it's a great little tool for mounting images without requiring that you burn them off to a CD/DVD.

The second freebie is from a company called Turbine that has just taken its Dungeons and Dragons: Stormreach into beta test. Its looking for beta testers and all you have to do is sign up at FilePlanet to get access to the beta test. Yes, it's binary crack, just like World of Warcraft, but dag nabbit, the screen shots look good and aside from the fact that its staged in the world of Ebberon, it looks appealing. This is your chance to try it out before you spend the cash to buy the GA version, so give it a whirl. Turbine's trying to stress test its servers (the game is online-only) so you'll be doing them, and yourself, a favor by trying it out early.

It looks to have some advantages over WoW, such as private adventures for your party that can't be affected/interrupted by other players/parties, so that's a huge plus considering the amount of PvP action that has marred so many other MMORPGs like WoW and Diablo.

I'll stick to my tabletop games, thanks, but if you like the digital addiction or don't have a DM living with you, this might be for you.

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Business as usual in Redmond
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 12:23 PM

OpenDocument.
Open XML.

Two standards, both open, from two different sets of vendors. Of course you've already gathered that one of the standards is coming from Microsoft who, like the cheese, stands alone.

Continue reading "Business as usual in Redmond"


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The Emergency Email System
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 11:36 AM

Since today's snowstorm in NE Wisconsin is causing schools to close early, a friend pointed out the existence of the Emergency Email System, which is how he's getting information about what schools are closing and how bad the weather really is.

Pretty cool, and it's free (everyone likes free stuff, right?) You can choose from a lengthy list of alerts covering everything from school closings to severe weather to changes in the homeland security threat level.

This is great, especially when weather turns suddenly and you don't listen to the right radio stations (why are school closings always on the country music or easy listening stations??) or watch the right television station. Or when you're at work and don't have access to either.

Cause everyone has access to their e-mail 24x7, right? Stop looking at me like that - I know darn well I'm not the only one...

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Testing Update: ESB Performance
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 03:42 PM

That's right. We love you so much that we're testing the performance of ESB products so you don't have to.

The things we do to make your lives easier...

Continue reading "Testing Update: ESB Performance"


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Friday Freebie
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 10:32 AM

Welcome back! It's been a couple weeks, but you'll like this freebie - I guarantee!

Today's freebie comes from Autodesk. This past week Autodesk, the maker of CAD and GIS software, released its mapping server into the open-source community by joining up with the OSS map server group responsible for MapServer. Autodesk put its server side mapping software, based on a wealth of OSS components, into the hands of a newly created foundation, the MapServer Foundation. Autodesk will continue to provide financial and development support for the project.

Two server side mapping projects are managed by the foundation: MapServer Cheetah (the original MapServer software) and MapServer Enterprise (Autodesk's server side geospatial software). Both are heavily based on open standards, and both are free for download at the MapServer Foundation web site.

While some geospatial data in the free version of MapServer Enterprise is read/write (such as ESRI), some sources are read only. Autodesk will be offering a commericial version of MapServer Enterprise in 2006, which will support read/write capabililties for additional geospatial data sources such as Oracle.

If you need software to provide geospatial capabilities via the web, then check this offering out.

If you find any comments in the MapServer code left by me, well, remember that I was much younger then! :-)

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Testing Update: When Out of the Box Isn't
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 11:04 AM

Every integration product claims out of the box adapter support for standard enterprise databases: Oracle, IBM, and SQL Server.

Maybe I'm just being pedantic, but "out of the box" means that a feature can be used right away, with no additional software. I should be able to point an Oracle JDBC driver at NWC Inc.'s Oracle 9i database, give it the appropriate credentials and start integrating to my heart's content.

Oracle and Microsoft, however, apparently don't believe in supporting their partners. Or at least that's the ISV's story and they're sticking to it. The first ESB product I started testing provides an adapter for Oracle and SQL Server, but of course the appropriate JAR files must be manually copied to the right location on the server before either adapter will actually work. And that's assuming you can figure out where the JAR files need to reside. Is it in /lib? Is it in /ext? Maybe it's in another subdirectory? Why don't you have more details on this? It's a fairly common process, dag nabbit! Would it be so difficult for you to provide an interface that lets me tell you where the JAR file is and then your software can put it where it wants it? Cause you don't want me to tell you where it can go right now...

That's not out of the box, people. I don't know whether to be irritated at the ESB vendor or Oracle and Microsoft for prohibiting distribution of their JDBC driver JAR files with third-party products. It's easy to find the Oracle drivers, they're on the Oracle database server in the lab. But the Microsoft JDBC drivers - which every last J2EE-based integration product requires - are carefully hidden on Microsoft's site. So carefully hidden that the last time I needed them I stored them on NWC Inc.'s NAS so I wouldn't have to go through the pain of finding it again.

Yeah, it's not that big of a deal, but it's the little things that annoy you when you're doing something that ought to be a hell of a log easier than it is. I don't know which is more annoying - the proprietary "open" JDBC and JMS standards or claiming out-of-the-box support for a feature that isn't.

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Product Announcement: Forum Vantage
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 10:52 AM

So up until recently there's really only been one external hardware solution for speeding up XML parsing/XSLT processing: DataPower's XA35. Yes, the mean, green XSLT machine.

With IBM's recent acquisition of DataPower there's a hole in the market for this type of technology. Not that IBM/DataPower isn't selling the XA35, but the WebSphere division isn't as good at pushing hardware as it is software and there's quite a few folks who don't want to buy Blue. Yeah, imagine that.

Enter Forum Systems Vantage. A new offering from the security-focused Forum Systems, the Vantage line is a direct competitor to DataPower's XA35 and focuses on accelerating XML parsing/XSLT processing using its customized hardware/software XML parsing and acceleration technologies.

Forum has been a strong player in the security market, and unlike many of its competitors has stayed away from the temptation to move into the SOA management space. This is the first lateral move for Forum into the broader SOA market and it will be interesting to see if its newest product will perform and sell as well as its Sentry and XWall product lines.

With the growing interest in SOA and the number of intermediaries being deployed on commoditized hardware and operating systems, the need for accelerated XML parsing/XSLT processing is coming on fast, so Forum's move into the market is well-timed.

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Acquisition: Intalio and FiveSight Technologies
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 09:56 AM

The Open Source BPMS Company, Intalio, today announced that it has acquired FiveSight Technologies, a privately-held company based in Chicago, Illinois. FiveSight brought to market an open source implementation of the BPEL 2.0 specification, developed to address the growing need for Business Process Management (BPM) as a core competency for companies large and small.

"Intalio was started as an open source company and initiated several major open source projects such as OpenEJB, which served as a foundation for Apache Geronimo," said Ismael Ghalimi, founder and CEO of Intalio. "With this acquisition, we are bringing open source to the world of Business Process Management and have what it takes to change the economics of the BPM industry."

Intalio has incorporated the FiveSight technology within Intalio|BPMS 4.0, which is currently available through an Early Adopter Program and will be released to the public in Q1 2006. Intalio is planning to continue the development of the FiveSight BPEL 2.0 engine under the open source Common Public License, and release its BPMN process designer and BPEL4People workflow suite under similar open source licenses later in 2006.

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Friday Freebies
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 08:16 AM

Happy Friday!

Today we've got three freebies for you.

The first is an On-Demand office suite, gOffice. This hosted office suite offers you the functionality of a productivity suite in a web browser, with a rich text editor and presentation composition in any browser.

Firefox and Internet Explorer are supported, though some functionality is limited in Firefox. Storage of up to 100 files is free, and you can e-mail,fax, and download PDF versions of your office documents with the click of a button.

The second is an open source collaboration suite from Zimbra. The Zimbra Collaboration Suite provides support for email, contacts, and group calendaring, and consists of a server and client. 3.0 Beta 2 is available now, with GA planned for early 2006. The Zimbra suite offers a plethora of functionality including:
Mail, calendar, contact management, an AJAX user and administrative UI, IMAP4/POP3 support, indexing and search, and single copy message storage.

The beta 2 release adds a delegated calendar, multi-calendar views, calendaring printing, spell checking, an enhanced distribution list, and alias management, among other features.

Zimbra offers both an Open Source edition and a network edition. The latter includes regular updates and support.

The third freebie is from GreenSloth. No, it's not a new creature for Dungeons and Dragons, it's a disposable e-mail service designed to cut down on the amount of SPAM in your inbox.

It's a free, web-based e-mail service that doesn't require registration. You pick a disposable address, like dontspamme@greensloth.com and use that addy whenever you like. Then you hit the homepage at greensloth.com and check "nospam".

You type in the e-mail addy you used and hit "CheckMail". (remember that greensloth.com is case sensitive!). There are no passwords, nothing to remember but the e-mail address you used. Yes, this means other people could read your mail, so choose a unique e-mail address that will be hard for people to figure out.

Greensloth.com keeps the e-mail it receives for only 4 hours, so this really is a disposable service that's best for receiving registration /activation e-mail or signing up for forums, etc... Check it out, it sounds pretty darned cool.

Have a great holiday next week. I'll be out of touch for the holidays so there's no Friday Freebies next week, but I'll try to make up for that upon my return. Eat well, drive safely, and enjoy the break!

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Whoooooooo are you?
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 02:01 PM

You almost need an ID management product to keep track of who acquired who in this space.

Oracle announced its acquisition of ID management vendor Thor Technologies this morning, for an undisclosed sum.

Now, in case you were wondering what happened to the rest of the space, here's a refresher on the timeline:

• September 2002 - IBM acquires Access360


• November 2003 - Sun acquires Waveset


• January 2004 - Netegrity acquires Business Layers


• October 2004 - CA acquires Netegrity


• November 2005 - Oracle acquires Thor Technologies

That leaves Novell with its DirXML product suite and Courion with its IdM suite.

You might say, "Hey! What about Oblix?"

What about them? Oracle acquired them soon after they had acquired Web services management/security vendor, Confluent. So Oracle now has a full portfolio in this space that covers everything from provisioning to Web services security.

This gives Oracle the provisioning and full systems' management it didn't get with the Oblix acquisition, and plays well into its Fusion architecture plans. CA is well positioned in this same space, along with IBM due to its Access360 buy in 2002 and recent acquisition of DataPower.

Joanne over at Secure Enterprise has a great overview of IdM, and you may want to check out our last review of IdM technologies.

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Acquisition of the Week
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 11:56 AM

Ooohhh...fun stuff out there this week. Citrix made another acquisition, this time targeting web appplication firewall vendor Teros.

This coming on the not so distant acquisition of layer 7 load balancer and application acceleration vendor, Netscaler.

The Teros offering will be rebranded as the Citrix NetScaler Application Firewall and we expect to see deeper integration between the NetScaler product line and Teros' technology as a result of the acquisition.

This is definitely a leap frog over competitor F5 Networks, who announced (nearly at the same time, coincidence? We don't think so) its Application Security Module (ASM) for its BIG-IP product line. ASM is the same robust application firewall technology found in F5's standalone TrafficShield appliance but it runs as a software module on the BIG-IP platform.

The difference between the two is that Teros has the added edge of protection for Web Services (SOAP), something that F5 has not yet added into its security module.

This is a good move for Netscaler, though we've seen performance issues with Teros in the lab that will need to be addressed during integration efforts if the application security functions of the Teros product is to keep up with the traditional performance of the Netscaler product line.

Watch closely, we've said for years that application/Web services security and content switches were a natural fit, and we wouldn't be surprised to see more acquisitions by other layer 7 players in the near future.

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Friday Freebies
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 10:17 AM

Today's Friday Freebies are kind of fun. Both offer the ability to send yourself an e-mail in the future for whatever reason you'd like.

Want to remind yourself in 2020 what your goals were this year? Send yourself an e-mail to your "future you" today and these organizations will hold your e-mail until the date you specify and then send it out to you.

Sound freaky? Could be, especially if you forget that you did it!

The first one is from FutureMe.org. The cool thing about futureme.org is that you can mark the e-mail as public and other people can see what you're sending to yourself in the future - without your name and e-mail addy, of course. It's amusing to see what people are planning on sending to themselves - everything from high school kids reminding themselves to study hard and pass all their exams to adults exposing their goals for themselves. Even if you don't want to send yourself an e-mail in the future it's an interesting read.

The second organization plugging this service is, believe it or not, Forbes.com. Yes, Forbes.com. Forbes has entered into an agreement with Yahoo and a couple of other internet savvy organizations to provide the same service, but it's done so as a kind of technological survival experiment and the description of how it's planned for loss of services and built redundancy into the system is an interesting read.

So get on out there and send your future self an e-mail.

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Product Announcement: Emic^H^H^H^HContinuent
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 10:46 AM

Emic Networks has rebranded itself as Continuent and completed its Series B funding this month.

With the rebranding comes some great news for databases, as the previously MySQL focused HA database product line will be expanded to support not only MySQL and PostgreSQL, but commercial databases including SQL Server, Sybase and Oracle in 2006.

Continuent's HA solutions have been completely rearchitected and are transparent to middleware and fully transactional. It runs on any tier and has been enhanced to support heterogeneous databases.

Yup. You can support your mission critical database by providing high availability failover support to a MySQL database. How cool is that?

Way cool. Talk about lowering the cost of redundancy in the data center. Continuent's products also do on the fly conversions of between specific SQL implementations, so the oddities between SQL Server and MySQL or Oracle and SQL Server can be handled transparently by Continuent's products without worrying about recoding.

You've got to check this out. Continuent

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Who's Got Your Back?
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 10:12 AM

Not Sony, that's for sure.

Mark Russinovich over at Sysinternals discovered Sony BMG's rootkit recently and blogged the process (great reading for anyone who likes nitty gritty, device driver details and hex code dumps).

The fuss was over Sony's unauthorized installation of a rootkit that cloaked files from the system and inserted a driver into the CD device driver stack that, if removed, would break the ability of your PC to play any CDs. The software was installed off of Sony BMG "copy protected CDs" and no mention of it was made in the EULA.

Since then, Sony has altered its EULA to cover its...software and has grudgingly offered instructions on how to safely remove its rootkit without killing your PCs ability to play CDs. Antivirus providers pointed out that such a rootkit could potentially provide a mechanism for virus writers to hijack PCs, and today we learn that this is exactly what has happened with the discovery of a trojan using the Sony DRM rootkit to drop an IRC trojan on user's machines.

A new trojan which uses the cover provided by the Sony DRM component to hide has been detected by BitDefender Labs at 12.15 PM GMT today and is in the wild. This is the first ever observed instance of malware using the Sony DRM rootkit detected and analysed by Mark Russinovich.

***UPDATED (14.02 pm GMT)***

Analysts at the BitDefender Labs have completed a technical description of the threat and published a signature update. A removal tool for the trojan and a detection tool for the Sony DRM component are in preparation at the BitDefender Labs and will be made available to the general public in the following hours.

The full analysis of the trojan is available here

While we understand the desire of music companies (greed) and the (evil) RIAA to protect their copyrighted content from being illegally obtained, it is improper for them to endanger users to protect their own pocketbooks.

This isn't the first time that music companies or the RIAA has utilized questionable tactics to protect their interests (money money money). The RIAA has fought for the right to destroy user's computers in the event that illegally traded music files are discovered, has polluted file sharing networks with virus laden files, and used other underhanded, blatantly illegal tactics to protect its content despite the lack of hard facts to prove that file sharing networks are the cause of the decline in CD sales (crap music would explain the decline just as well).

DRM may sound like the perfect way to protect your content, but if you use techniques that endanger users or destroy their PCs then you are as guilty as virus writers of breaking the law and, my friend, you have become what you claim to despise.

"As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy."
Christopher Dawson, The Judgment of Nations, 1942

Be careful out there...

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Friday Freebie
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 09:34 AM

Today's Friday Freebie comes to you from SpamButcher.

SpamFreeze is a free tool for webmasters, bloggers and anyone else who needs to publish their e-mail address on the web but abhors spam. (Who doesn't?)

SpamFreeze makes your email address invisible to spiders, helping to minimize how much spam you receive. SpamFreeze works by encoding the publisher’s email address within a URL. This URL can be placed on any webpage, blog or online forum where they would like to make their email address available.

When a user clicks the link, they will need to identify a word jumbled within an image to confirm they are not actually a spider collecting addressees for spamming. They are then provided with the publisher’s email address.

SpamFreeze is a completely free service provided by SpamButcher. SpamButcher does not send SpamFreeze users unwanted email, or sell their addresses to third-parties.

Hey, it's free, and it stops spam. What more could you ask for?

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Friday Freebies
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 10:15 AM

We've got two really different freebies for you this Friday.

The first is from IBM and it's the WebSphere Application Server Community Edition. Based on Apache Geronimo, version 1.0 is a lightweight, Java 1.4 certified, Javaâ„¢ 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) application server.

Features are:
-- Eclipse plug-in for creating, deploying, and debugging your WebSphere Application Server Community Edition applications
-- Support for Apache Tomcat
-- Integrated IBM Cloudscape database for supported use in development and production
-- Database support for Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, and MySQL
-- Runtime customization
-- User management
-- Centralized configuration and control through administrative console (tech preview)
-- Migration aids from Gluecode Standard Edition, Apache Geronimo, and Apache Tomcat
-- Convenient access to product binaries and source code

Our second freebie is the VMWare Player from VMWare. VMware Player installs like a standard desktop application and runs virtual machines in a separate window, making it easy to share and evaluate software running in virtual machines.

-- Run: VMware Player can be used by anyone to run 32- and 64-bit virtual machines on a Windows or Linux PC. VMware Player makes it quick and easy to take advantage of the security, flexibility and portability of virtual machines.

-- Share: VMware Player can be used by anyone to run a virtual machine shared by a colleague or friend. For example, customer support and development teams can share a customer scenario encapsulated within a virtual machine.

-- Evaluate: VMware Player is ideal for safely evaluating pre-built application environments, beta software or other software distributed in virtual machines. With VMware Player, anyone can quickly and easily experience the benefits of pre-configured products without any installation or configuration hassles. Pre-built applications from
leading software vendors are available from the Virtual Machine Center on VMware Technology Network

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Standards Watch: WS-SX
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 11:01 AM

Last week brought us WS-TX, this week brings us WS-SX.

Members of the OASIS international standards consortium announced plans to define extensions to the WS-Security OASIS Standard that will enable the trusted exchange of multiple SOAP messages and will define security policies that govern the formats and tokens of those messages. The new OASIS Web Services Secure Exchange (WS-SX) Technical Committee brings together users and vendors in an open process to refine and finalize a set of specifications based on three initial contributions, WS-SecureConversation, WS-SecurityPolicy and WS-Trust.

Vendors participating in WS-SX are:

Actional, Adobe, Amberpoint, BMC Software, BEA Systems, Computer Associates, DataPower, Forum Systems, HP, IBM, Infravio, IONA, Microsoft, Nokia, Novell, Oracle, Reactivity, Ricoh, Sarvega, SAP, SOA Software, Sonic Software, Systinet, TIBCO, VeriSign, and webMethods

OASIS WS-SX Technical Committee Online

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Gossip and news
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 02:48 PM

Earlier this month, very quietly, Oracle acquired OSS database vendor Innobase, producers of InnoDB which, just so you know, ships as a component to MySQL. Interesting, ain't it?

This announcement from Oracle indicates that Oracle expects to renegotiate the contract between Innobase and MySQL, which comes up for renewal next year.

Let's hope so.

Gossip says Oracle isn't the only one shopping for open source databases. Rumors say Sun is also shopping around and could acquire PostgreSQL. Hmmm...interesting, would they just acquire the assets for PostgreSQL or would they acquire Pervasive Software who offers Postgres as the commerically supported alternative to its open source offering, PostgreSQL. Hmmm....

In other fun and exiciting news, a little company called Scientego has made a claim based on a couple of patents it owns, namely No. 6393426 and No. 5842213 which cover the "transfer of data in a neutral format". Hmmm...the lawsuits filed by Scientego and the patents discuss non-hierarchal data, so that leaves us stumped as to the nature of its claims since XML is most certainly hierarchal in nature. More to come on this one, we're sure, but likely just more poking fun at this little company playing barrater.

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Acquisition of the Week
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 12:14 PM

This one's not even cold off the press. IBM just acquired Web services security and acceleration vendor, DataPower.

IBM acquisition of DataPower

IBM expects that the acquisition will smooth implementation of SOAs using its WebSphere technology, as well as improving security, performance and management of business processes. IBM will continue to offer DataPower's products (our latest review including DataPower's XS40) and, we assume, will integrate DataPower technology into its SOA strategy - specifically its ESB story - as a complementary component of its architecture, likely with specific tweaks in the WebSphere line to harness the power of DataPower's accelerated XML parsing and tranformation capabilities.

This is an odd move for IBM, given that DataPower is a hardware based solution and IBM's hardware is server focused, not networking focused. The announcement comes on the heels of Intel's recent acquisition of Sarvega, though it does not appear that the Intel acquisition was a driver behind the IBM acquisition. Instead, there is speculation that this is perhaps a slap at Cisco's AON technology, which has yet to see the light of day.

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Product Announcement: Reactivity XOS 4.3
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 05:03 PM

Reactivity has just released the latest version of its XML optimized operating system, XOS 4.3. Some of the cool new features include the ability to support Integrated Windows Authentication, which means single sign on capabilities - even when web services managed by Reactivity's gateways are called from Office documents such as Excel.

XOS 4.3 also adds WS-Trust, Kerberos and RADIUS support to the SAML, X.509, username/password and basic authentication support Reactivity Gateways already offer as well as compression/decompression capabilities through PKZIP and support for leading anti-virus scanning of XML attachments from companies such as Symantec.

Reactivity XOS 4.3 is available now for the Reactivity Gateway 2400 Series family including the XML Security Gateway, SOA Gateway, Manager and Gateway-D.

Reactivity web site
Our latest review of XML/Web Services Gateways

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Product Announcement: Plumtree (BEA) G6
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 10:32 AM

Plumtree, recently acquired by BEA, has annonuced the availability of a new version of its portal suite along with some nearly vertical versions of the same, targeting specific audiences such as communities and application developers.

Plumtree's G6 Suites come in three flavors:

• Portal Solution Suite. Traditional portal.


• Community Solution Suite. Built for collaborative environments with support for projects and teams.


• Application Solution Suite. A development oriented suite with an eye on composite application implementation.

Some of the newest features include integration of Fuego's BPM (Business Process Management) technology. (For more about BPM and Fuego's offering, read our most recent review).

The only downer is that Plumtree is not committed to tripping gaily down the UDDI Registry path for application composition. Yet. But the integration of BPM and the offering of targeted suites make this latest release of Plumtree's portal a sweet deal.

We'll be reviewing portals again in 2006, so ya'll come back, ya hear?

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Standards Watch: WS-TX
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 10:25 AM

Members of the OASIS international standards consortium announced plans to define a set of protocols for coordinating the outcome of distributed application actions. The new OASIS Web Services Transaction(WS-TX) Technical Committee brings together users and vendors in an open process to refine and finalize a set of specifications based on three initial contributions, Web Services Coordination (WS-Coordination), Atomic Transaction (WS-AtomicTransaction), and Business Activity Framework (WS-BusinessActivity). Other contributions and changes to these input documents will be accepted for consideration without prejudice or restriction and evaluated based on technical merit.

The Committee plans to begin its work by focusing on the underlying specification, WS-Coordination. It will then proceed to advance WS-AtomicTransaction and WS-BusinessActivity.

Organizations involved in defining this standard:

• Actional


• Adobe


• BEA Systems


• Cast Iron Systems


• DataPower


• Fujitsu


• Hitachi


• IBM


• IONA


• Microsoft


• Oracle


• Reactivity


• Ricoh


• SAP


• SOA Software


• Sonic Software


• Systinet


• TIBCO


• webMethods

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Friday Freebie
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 10:20 AM

Today's Friday Freebie is an odd one. It's a recently open-sourced Automated Data Collection (ADC) transaction set from DataMax. You may recognize the company better if I say it's the provider of RfGen.

Ahhh.. yes.

DataMax has open-sourced a collection of ADC transactions for JD Edwards and JD Edwards One World. These pre-defined transactions for warehousing and manufacturing can be downloaded, with source, for free from DataMax and incorporated into your supply-chain management architecture for free.

This is the first open-sourcing of any type of previously proprietary ERP solution, so it will be interesting to see where this goes in the next few months.

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Why We Don't Have BO
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 03:32 PM

No, not body odor. Business Objects.

I just finished up a review of Business Intelligence suites.

As expected, Business Objects, although invited, refused to participate. Business Objects "doesn't do reviews". I did this same review a few years ago and guess what, Business Objects did not participate then either. But they were invited last time, and again this time. They chose not to participate. I'll invite them the next time, and they're likely to decline again.

For all you readers who want to know why BO wasn't included, it's because they chose not to participate. You'd be doing me a big favor if you wrote to BO and let them know YOU'D like them to participate the next time I do this review, because otherwise, they aren't likely to agree to let me play with their toys.

Seriously. Let them know you want to see them reviewed against the competition. I know I'd like to see them participate, and from the amount of e-mail I've gotten already - and am likely to get over the next few months - on this subject, you'd like to see it too.

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Friday Freebies
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 09:24 AM

This week's Friday Freebies are all about VoIP, as Don and I have spent some time this week checking out alternatives to Skype due to its limitations on conferencing in friends.

The first free VoIP tool we tried was Ventrilo. Runs on Linux, client on Windows, easy to set up and run. Some tooling around the net tells me that a lot of gamers are using Ventrilo and claim the voice quality is better than that of our second Friday Freebie, but even on our internal network we had some issues getting it to sound good. Now, we're not using headsets and needed a solution that would handle use of an external mic and speakers, and from what I've read in forum posts around the net about Ventrilo this is probably the cause of our particular problems.

The second Friday Freebie is TeamSpeak and it is also used by a ton of gamers. Also runs on Linux/Windows and has clients for both operating systems. I set up the server on Linux for a quick test and we've been playing with it ever since, having friends from around the country call in and test it out. Again, headsets are what this proggy was designed for, and with an open mic and speakers we're hearing feedback and echoes that we just don't get with Skype in a similar configuration, but we've been able to work around that a bit by strategically placing the mic behind a box of Cheese Nips. Really. The only problem with TeamSpeak appears to be getting the client. It doesn't download properly off the TeamSpeak site, nor off about a hundred different servers I tried - just this one.

Both apps are free, and both overcome the 5 person conference limitation of Skype, so check 'em out if you're in need of a voice chat app that lets you conference in more than 4 friends or family.

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Friday Freebie
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 10:30 AM

Today we have just one Friday Freebie, but it's a good one.

CLAM AV is a GPL'd anti-virus package available on a plethora of operating systems - Linux (SuSE, Fedora Core, Slackware, etc..), Debian, FreeBSD, MacOS, Windows, and even BeOS.

CLAM AV offers the following features:

• command-line scanner
• fast, multi-threaded daemon
• milter interface for sendmail
• database updater with support for digital signatures
• virus scanner C library
• on-access scanning (Linux® and FreeBSD)
• detection of over 40000 viruses, worms and rojans
• built-in support for RAR (2.0), Zip, Gzip, Bzip2, Tar,MS OLE2, MS Cabinet files, MS CHM (Compressed HTML), MS SZDD
• built-in support for mbox, Maildir and raw mail files
• built-in support for Portable Executable files compressed with UPX, FSG, and Petite

The CLAM site lists a ton of hosting companies and universities that are using the GPL software for anti-virus scanning, but what it doesn't show is ISVs that are using the AV as a default option for scanning, like Forum Systems.

Forum is using CLAM AV as the default AV scanner for XML documents, and though I haven't tested CLAM on its own merits, I've been testing Forum Systems' latest XWall release in the lab and as part of that testing I've been pounding on its AV capabilities, which necessarily means that CLAM is being peripherally tested. Thus far, CLAM AV has stopped the viruses it should in the XML documents and attachments I've tried to send through the device, and hasn't impeded performance overly much.

Check it out. It offers automated update capabilities and the database appears to be updated daily. You'll never again get those "subscription expired" notices with this AV scanner, guaranteed.

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The Zen of Password Management
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 07:45 PM

Stage 1: Denial
They don't really mean that I have to change my password. It's just a suggestion, really, more of a guideline than a hard and fast rule. Really, that warning will go away if I ignore it.

Stage 2: Anger
I will NOT change my password. I can't believe that the security of the entire company depends on me changing my password at this time. It's just a silly policy that IT uses to exercise digital control over the rest of the world.

Stage 3: Fear
But if I change my password I might forget it! I like my password the way it is - right now. I probably won't be able to remember what I changed it to and then I'll have to ::shudder:: call the help desk. Oh god, why is this happening to me?

Stage 4: Acceptance
Okay, I'll change my password but I won't like it. I guess maybe it really is important. After all, someone used Mary's password to hack into the corporate database yesterday and now we're under investigation by like every agency with a three letter acronym. I'll do it, but I hope they don't think I'm happy about it.

Stage 5: Wonder
Hey, that wasn't so bad. I remembered what my password is and when I told Bob and Jim and the counter guy at Starback's about the phrase technique I use to remember it they thought I was pretty cool. I'm sure the guy at Starbuck's was writing down my method so he could use it himself.

Stage 6: Joy
Wow, this new password is great! I wish I'd thought of it before. In fact, I've changed all my passwords to match the one I use at work! Gmail, Hotmail, PayPal, eBay... everything! It's such a great password! I love it! Maybe I'll name my first born after it!

Two weeks later ...

Stage 1: Denial
I can't believe I changed my password and told the counter guy at Starbuck's about it. I can't believe he used it to buy a giant cheetoh on eBay with my PayPal account and spammed everyone at corporate HQ from my Hotmail accout. At least he didn't...oh my, why are those men in suits with dark glasses coming my way? They aren't, they're just ... out for a stroll. I'm sure of it. Turn around and face the screen and whistle, they'll just pass me by, I just know it!

...

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Lies, lies and more lies
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 02:47 PM

For the second time in two months the rumormill brings me word of some rather naughty vendors spreading lies. I won't name names, you know who you are, so knock it off.

Look, if you decided not to participate in a review, that's fine. It's your loss and a bad idea, but hey - it's your company, not mine. But when your customers or potential customers ask you why you didn't participate, you don't lie and tell them "it cost too much to get into the review" or dismiss the results of 3 months of our lives by saying "so and so must have paid to get that result".

Network Computing has never been paid for conducting its reviews. We conduct reviews for our readers and we don't take payment for placement. If you want that kind of coverage, you know what magazines and analyst firms you need to go to. It ain't us.

If a product won a review, it's because in our scenario it scored the best out of all products tested. And we test them hard. We beat them, kick them and make them do things you didn't think we'd try. I'm a developer by trade so I can probably make your application do things you hadn't even considered yet - and that means I'm likely to break it along the way, just like your customers - our readers - might do.

If you think someone could pay us to say good things about a bad product, then you're confusing us with test labs and analyst firms that shall remain nameless. Take a look at some of our reviews. We aren't all sunshine and happiness, especially when a product performs poorly. We tell the truth about our experiences, plain and simple.

So please stop. We don't spend months of our lives in the lab testing products to have it casually dimissed by vendors who were afraid to let us play with your toys.

You made your koolaid, now drink it.

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The Strangeness that is San Francisco
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 09:40 AM

Maybe I just have a twisted, warped sense of humor, but a number of things struck me as funny while in San Francisco for Oracle OpenWorld earlier this week.

The strangest thing I heard
Tuesday, 10am. Stockton Street.

"And that's why I won't do crack."

I'm disappointed that I missed the first half of what surely must have been an interesting conversation near Union Square. I didn't even turn around to see who was so loudly and clearly voicing their opposition to crack, but I did find it to be the funniest thing I'd heard all day, given that it was taken completely out of context. I mean, did dude really need a better reason than 'it could kill you' to make this momentous decision? All I can say is, "good choice, buddy".

The strangest thing I saw
Wednesday, 10am. San Francisco International Airport.

Dude is well over 6 feet tall, wearing the quintessential cowboy getup; a big black hat, white shirt, black vest, banjo in its case strapped across his back and .... a fanny pack.

Something about the fanny pack and a cowboy just made me fall into fits of internal giggling. The fanny pack is not something one expects to see on someone dressed as though he just walked out of a Marlboro ad. Maybe it's just me, but it was just funny as hell to me. Perhaps the sight of this guy is why dude on Stockton Street won't do crack?

The strangest FUD I heard
Tuesday, 5pm. Moscone Center

"Solaris 10 is free and it doesn't have the licensing issues that other products are having, because we own the kernel."

At first I was appalled to hear this coming out of a Sun representative, even one whose primary purpose was to entertain conference attendees. But it makes sense. The only vendor making money on selling operating systems these days is Microsoft, and we're betting its days are numbered there also. RedHat makes money off services and support, not the OS, and Sun, having given up and made Solaris 10 free for all comers, has to give users a reason to want to use Solaris over Linux. The best reason it could come up with is SCO's lame licensing claims??

Come on, guys. Give it a rest. You want me to use Solaris 10, fine, tout containers and some of the other nifty neato keen features in the OS. Don't give me FUD - I had some for breakfast, thank you.

The strangest drink I had
Tuesday, 6pm. Buca di Beppo on Howard Street.

Limoncello. A must have according to BEA VP Bill Roth.

I had to do some research on this one after trying this drink at dinner with BEA, because I was absolutely certain after one sip that this was actually Everclear. You know, Everclear - you get it in Tennessee/Kentucky from a guy in overalls and barefeet who barely speaks English but damn does he know how to make alcohol. (Yes, that's experience speaking) Apparently they take a grain alcohol and soak it in lemon peels for 3 weeks, which means that this shot is supposedly just as strong with lemon as it is with alcohol.

Believe me, the alcohol is stronger. Trust me on this. The food was great though, so try it if you get a chance.

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Friday Freebies
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 09:30 AM

To make up for last week's single freebie, we have three freebies for you this week. Enjoy!

Opera
Yes, this one has always technically been free, but in the past that "other" browser has been free at the cost of ad space. No more. Opera is now offered completely free of charge with no ads in your face. If you haven't tried Opera before, check it out - it's been steadily improving over the years and its CSS and HTML support are on track with the standards, something that can't be said about some other browsers out there.

Cashette
Cashette is the priceline.com of SPAM and free e-mail. Users get a free e-mail account - with 3000 MB of storage - and they get to name their price for receiving ... SPAM. That's right - spammers are allowed to send their mail to users at this site, IF they are willing to pay the price set by the users.

Cashette accounts are free and include a full-featured email account with 3 GB of storage space. The Cashette spam-control service works for Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, Cashette, POP3, and many other types of email accounts.

Skaffe.com
And finally, we have yet another free blog hosting service, this one from skaffe.com. The Skaffe Weblog Hosting script features 26 easy-to-use templates, or customized templates for unique looks. New blog entries are easily accomplished using a Windows-style, feature-packed entry system. A category option helps keep blogs neat and organized. Comments on blogs are easily controlled through user administration panels. Popular RSS feeds are available for all blogs. The script can also send pings to popular blog indexing services.

Enjoy your Friday Freebies, folks!

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Virtual Oracle OpenWorld
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 11:54 AM

Wanted to go to Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco this week but couldn't? Want to see whether or not you were missing something?

Oracle has 4 different web cams set up on the floor for your virtual viewing pleasure.

I'm the one with the triple cappuccino and the crazed look on my face. Really.

Web cam #1
Web cam #2
Web cam #3
Web cam #4

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Follow up: Siebel and Oracle
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 08:27 AM

So I knew Oracle wasn't going to "kill" Sieble On Demand as salesforce.com's Marc Benioff remarked to his organization, but it's always nice to have a bit of confirmation.

Bruce Cleveland, Senior VP of Products at Siebel, sent out a rather interesting note yesterday regarding the comments Marc sent out on Monday. In it, among other things, was a quote from Oracle head honcho Larry Ellison, taken during a press conference regarding the acquisition.

"Regarding Marc’s remarks that Oracle will “kill� Siebel CRM OnDemand... Here is what I heard Larry Ellison say word-for-word,

“We think OnDemand is going to be increasingly important. We think the Siebel OnDemand products have -- are improving at a very, very rapid rate and we intend to invest in them heavily. In fact, we expect that all of the Siebel product features and functions that they have in the software products will migrate to the OnDemand products. So we think that is again a very important asset that we want to preserve and invest in as the acquisition is concluded."

Well. There it is then. Now if I could just predict the winning lottery numbers...

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Friday Freebie
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 08:21 AM

Today's Friday Freebie comes from McGrath Info Solution (M.I.S.).

For some background, MIS announced a file standard (MIS) to make it easy for consumers to have information about their multimedia files and for other types of files/information. The specification supports more than 187 tags including notes, multiple chapters, slideshows, subtexts, questions, and website links.

The freebie for today (you knew it was in here somewhere) is "IMDB 2 MIS" (available in English). It takes the free files from the Internet Movie Database (IMDB.COM), allowing the user to create ".MIS" files. By simply pointing to the users folders of recorded movies, the application will search the generated database and build a ".MIS".

It's a helpful organizational tool, and the .MIS files can be easily edited/read with a simple text editor, so if you're a code monkey you can integrate the data into your own system or whatever else your coding heart desires.

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A rose by any other name...wouldn't cost $9.95
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 04:50 PM

Where: my inbox
Time: 8am
Reaction: ROTFLMAO

Message begins: "iSearchNaked.Com Wipes Out Click Fraud and Pay Per Click!"

Do I really need to say anything else? Really? Why would you...and then tell people about it...I just...and then...

'nuff said.

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Acquisition of the Week
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 12:47 PM

Larry strikes again. Oracle today acquired Siebel for $5.85b, ending the CRM pioneer's (and many customers') pain.

The acquisition is somewhat of a family reunion, bringing back Larry Ellison's protege Tom Siebel back to the fold. Siebel left Oracle 16 years ago after Larry dismissed Siebel's idea for software to manage business contacts a Bad Idea. Today's acquisition fills the CRM hole in Oracle's portfolio with software that has steadily become synonymous with Salesforce.com.

Salesforce.com CEO and Chairman Marc Benioff said in comments to his organization:

Oracle put Siebel investors out of their misery today. We have been doing that for Siebel customers for years.

He's got a sense of humor, I like that. This is a great quote. Whoever is writing this stuff deserves a raise!

Our announcement today at Dreamforce will accelerate that. It's the end of software.

Really, Marc, be serious. After all, salesforce.com is still just software, it's merely sold in a different way.

Client/Server software is being consolidated by Oracle just as mainframe software was consolidated by Computer Associates. Oracle's strategy is simple. Instead of innovating, buy as much installed software as possible, call it all Oracle Fusion, and make sure it all uses Oracle's database.

Interesting that you don't mention Microsoft here, Marc, since it has a similar strategy. While I agree that it isn't likely that MS CRM will be a big player in this space, they do have a product and the Microsoft name alone carries enough weight that perhaps you ought not forget they exist.

Now, the same thing that happened to Peoplesoft will happen to Siebel, it will die.

Well, I'd say Peoplesoft was killed. Saying 'it will die' makes it sound like it will just fade away like a cowboy into the sunset. Peoplesoft was systematically and coldly killed by a masked executioner carrying a big axe, and the executioner looked suspiciously like Larry Ellison.

Customers will look for new solutions and new providers. Employees will look for new employers. Siebel on Demand, a joint venture between Siebel and IBM, will be the first to be buried. Siebel on Demand is written exclusively on DB2 and Websphere and runs in IBM data centers. Oracle will kill it. Oracle does not sell DB2.

Wait a minute, Marc. Now I think you're superimposing dreams over reality. Oracle's unlikely to kill Siebel on Demand, unless Larry's been smoking something he shouldn't. The on-demand CRM market is the market that's experiencing growth, not traditional CRM software, so why would Oracle kill it? Oh, there's that little DB2 issue, but because it is on demand, Oracle can take its time to re-architect the back-end of the software and migrate to Oracle 10g without ever bothering a single customer. It's an unbelievable opportunity to showcase the scalability and power of Oracle 10g and increase the market share numbers for the platform all without having to sell to the customer, because they have no control whatsoever over what Oracle does inside the data center.

What It All Means

Salesforce.com would just love for some of its only on demand competition to just disappear, because it could eat up that market like a cat laps up milk. But Larry would have to be pretty silly to kill something he can use to not only market right now but also to increase the use of Oracle 10g, his undisputed favorite among all Oracle product lines.

So yes, this is big news, but it doesn't necessarily indicate the death knell of all competition for Salesforce.com. Oracle has the ability to execute and often lulls competitors into a sense of complacency that will bite them in the ass later if they aren't watching carefully.

So watch out behind you, Salesforce.com, this race isn't over just yet.

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Back to (old) school
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 09:57 AM

It's September, so everyone's children (including mine) are going back to school. In our area, the "must have supply" lists are distributed to local retailers to make certain parents have no money left in their pocket books when they leave the store.

One of the items on our twelve year old daughter's list was floppy disks. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find floppy disks these days? The schools take protection seriously, so the kids aren't supposed to take the disks home and use them for fear of infecting the entire school network with viruses and other nasties and that's just as well because quite frankly, I'm not sure that there is a machine in my house that still sports a 3.5" drive. The children's laptops don't have them, our laptops don't have them and I'm not certain I relish the thought of the kids using the servers that are old enough to have such a drive to copy homework.

Once, long ago (I won't say how long because quite frankly you don't need to know) schools outpaced the home in terms of available technology. I had an Apple ][e at home and that, for the time, was an astounding thing, because most families didn't even know what a computer was at that point. Schools with half a dozen Apple subsidized computers were far ahead of the curve in those days.

Today, however, the technology at home is outpacing the technology in the schools and each year it seems the schools get further and further behind. Our kids use USB fobs to keep electronic journals and transfer files between them and stare disbelievingly at the clunky, 3.5" disks the school requires of them. It's sort of like showing them an LP and having them ask "Is that like a really big CD?"

Schools should be ahead of the curve, but they aren't anymore. The kids today know more about technology than most of the teachers in their middle and high schools and at some point there needs to be established as one of the core education requirements a technology track. The three "Rs" need to be expanded to the three "Rs" and a "T" for technology and that technology needs to at least keep pace if not outstrip the technology available in the home.

We need more educators that are technically minded, and the people in charge of the technology in schools need to be techs, not educators who happen to know where the power button is on a server. We seriously need to reevaluate the immersion of technology as a learning tool as well as a fact of life within our schools and move them into the 21st century.

And running some Linux desktops wouldn't hurt, either. ;-)

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Friday Freebie
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 09:51 AM

Today's Friday Freebie is, perhaps ironically, blog related.

Online blog aggregator bloggator.com has come out of its beta period and added new blogs and new categories to its growing community.

Bloggator offers access to over 15,000 blogs, organized into categories covering a broad range of interests. A personal blog is also provided with each free account, so if you're interested in blogging, here's YAB (Yet Another Blog) site for you that's free (as in gratis).

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Friday Freebies
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 08:01 AM

This weeks Friday Freebies are browser plug-ins.

The first is for all you IE users out there who for some reason we can't fathom continue to use the browser (yeah, we know - standardization in the enterprise, rules, that kind of thing) but want the cool toys the rest of us have when using Firefox.

It's called Foxie and it's available at this site. Foxie is an extension for IE that gives IE tabbed browsing, ad and pop-up blocking support, as well as additional control over security and cookies, such as cleaning up every time IE starts. The tabbed browsing isn't quite as cool as Firefox's native support, but it is tabbed, which makes IE almost usable. For those of you used to hitting CTRL-T to get a new tab in Firefox, you can set the hot keys in Foxie to act like Firefox rather than the defaults offered with Foxie.

Just so you don't feel left out, Firefox users, I have one for you, too. FirefoxIE is a Firefox extension that makes Firefox look like IE. Really, it's just a theme, but there's some work involved here that most users probably aren't willing to do just to get Firefox to appear to be IE, including hand editing chrome and javascript files. But if you want to 'trick' a hard-core IE user into using Firefox, this may be the best way to do it.

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Friday Freebies
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 09:23 AM

Today's first Friday Freebie is a website.

LinuxQuestions offers LQ ISO for all your Linux ISO download needs. LQ ISO allows users to find and rate fast local download mirrors. The site currently allows you to download almost 120 different Linux distributions from over 430 different mirrors. The site now utilizes GEO IP data to help you find the fastest local download mirror.

That's cool, because sometimes finding a mirror, let alone a fast mirror can be a PITA. Thanks, LQ ISO.

The second Friday Freebie is from SolarWinds. It's a TFTP server with security, which is something you don't often find for Windows. SolarWinds TFTP Server runs on Windows and can provide simultaenous download/upload of files. I use it often in the lab for storing and retrieving configurations from our routers and devices under test, like load balancers and other network devices. It works great and, of course, it's FREE.

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Acquisition of the Week
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 10:44 AM

It's been a while since an acquisition was worthy of comment, but this week's Intel-Sarvega acquisition is one that's very, very interesting.

The XML/Web Services security/management space has been in flux for the past two years, with several vendors vying for the top spot in the field and others grooming themselves for acquisition. Sarvega is the first to be scooped up, and by the most unlikely of buyers, Intel.

Intel, if you remember back far enough, picked up XML player iPivot in the 90's. The XML Director was ahead of its time and didn't go far, eventually ending up in the hands of Tarari when it was spun off from Intel a few years ago and entered back into the XML market with its own XML acceleration technology in a PCI form factor.

Now it appears Intel is heading back into the XML game, and Sarvega is an interesting purchase given its architecture. It's a software based solution, so it's possible that Intel is planning on doing exactly what we've been hoping to see - XML accelerated parsing built right into the chipsets that make up most enterprise motherboards. This would be a boon, in the end, for XML security and management vendors to pick up some performance gains without the need for custom silicon and our own testing earlier this year proved that Sarvega certainly has the chops for such a task in terms of the latency introduced by its parsing technology - which is say nearly none.

It would give its leading competitors Data Power, Forum Systems, Reactivity and Actional something to think about. If such a thing were to come to fruition, Actional and Reactivity would surely benefit the most, given their solutions are software only platforms and could easily take advantage of integrated XML acceleration, unlike ForumSystems and DataPower who use custom hardware to generate the horsepower necessary for enterprise class performance when handling XML.

It will be interesting to see if Intel is going to rip apart Sarvega's technology and integrate it into chipsets or whether it will keep the technology as is and attempt to compete against its partners yet again. Past experience has hopefully taught Intel that competing against its OEM channels is a bad idea, but sometimes it's hard to teach and old dog new tricks.

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Friday Freebies
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 10:33 AM

You thought I forgot about you, didn't you?

Nope, not at all. I've got two freebies for you this wonderful Friday morning.

Freebie #1
The first is from a company down under. N4ME (Inform ME) allows users to receive download and file copy notifications almost anywhere.

Developed by New Zealand based software company Data Converter Systems, N4ME for Windows 2000/XP is designed to automate the task of monitoring download and file copies.

The program watches web, ftp, kazza and irc downloads and sends an email report specific to each download.

In addition, the software can copy files, attach UNC (Universal Naming Convention) addresses for one click access to files and email differing email distribution lists depending on whether the download was successful of not.

Pretty cool when you're downloading ISO's or ... other very large files and want to know when they finish.

Freebie #2
The second freebie of the day is from Cenzic, Inc.. Cenzic has ported Nessus to Windows NT and will make the code for the product available free of charge via the Cenzic website. Cenzic is the first company to port Nessus to the Windows NT operating system and offer it for free to the open-source community. The download is available immediately from the Cenzic web site.

Friday Freebies
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 08:49 AM

This Friday we have two freebies for you.

The first is yet another free webmail offering, this one from Skaffe.com. Skaffe.com is a directory and search engine that has moved into the free email space. Skaffe.com is offering the service with 1 GB of storage available to each user of its offering, competing with the likes of Gmail, but it sounds like without the privacy issues.

The second is a test. You like tests, don't you? This one is a typing test brought to you by Ten Thumbs Typing. The site offers typing tutors for a variety of operating systems (Mac, Windows, Linux) but also provides an online typing test that keeps track of 'high scores' as well. Fun for a quick break from whatever you might be doing.

Friday Freebies
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 08:52 AM

Yup! You guessed it - there are two, count them TWO, freebies this week.

Our first freebie is from Greenplum, who is releasing version 0.6 of Bizgres, the business intelligence suite based on the open-source database, PostgreSQL. This is still a beta release, with performance enhancements being a primary component of this beta release. You can download and try out Bizgres from its website.

Our second freebie this Friday is from FreeTVPlayer.com. FreeTVPlayer is an Internet TV channels player for Windows based system requiring Realplayer and Microsoft Media Player to watch its over 800 accessible stations.

Searching functions help you find your favorite Internet TV channels easily, and you can save preferred channels for easy access later. FreeTVPlayer lets you open up to 5 disparate windows, each tuned to its own station.

Call to boycott IE7 too little, too late
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 11:27 AM

Windows Guru Paul Thurrott called yesterday for a boycott of IE7 after the [sarcasm]startling revelation[/sarcasm] by Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) Lead Program Manager Chris Wilson in his blog that IE7 would most certainly fail the ACID2 test.

Paul, Paul, Paul! Where were you three years ago when I spoke harshly on the subject of IE and standards and vulnerabilities?

IE has never been standards compliant and has always embraced Microsoft's vision of a one-browser Internet. Between proprietary technologies such as ActiveX and VBScript and its non-compliance with standards, web developers have always had to either modify code to handle the idiosyncracies of IE in order to support multiple browsers or simply settle for support of only IE.

A boycott of IE7 is a nice gesture, but it's about effective as trying to treat gangrene once your leg has turned black. By allowing IE to propagate its proprietariness throughout Internet sites like some kind of worm, its inability to comply with standards has permeated just about every aspect of the Web. Whether it's application front ends or entertainment, IE has become the browser most web developers write code to and a boycott now is not going to change that.

I vehemently oppose the use of IE and when I develop sites I don't even test in IE. And guess what, it comes back to bite me every time. Users still use IE despite the fact that it doesn't comply with standards and it's nearly impossible to explain to them the technical reasons behind the decision to not support IE. So you end up doing it anyway, because the majority of users have IE, that's what they know and that's what they want to use, despite myriad reasons not to use it.

A boycott years ago may have had an impact and even gotten the attention of Microsoft but now? It's a token rebellion against an entrenched vision that while certainly myopic has still managed to make its way to the forefront of the race.

You get an "A" for finally seeing the light, but an "F" for execution.

Taming of the Rules
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 09:21 AM

When I recently took a look at BPM Suites I noted a lack of seperated BREs (Business Rules Engines) in most products.

One of the players in that review, Ultimus, recently shipped its Ultimus Director, a new module for its BPM suite that solves not only the problem of a tightly coupled BRE, but assists in dealing with so-called 'unruly processes' within your processes.

Continue reading "Taming of the Rules"

Friday Freebie
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 09:37 AM

This Friday's Freebie is for application developers and is from Watchfire.

Watchfire® PowerTools^TM is a set of free web application security developer tools comprising the following utilities:

• HTTP Proxy - An HTTP intercepting proxy which allows users to stop, edit and submit requests and responses between the client and the server. It includes the ability to write automated scripts in JavaScript using the utility API. This enables users to manipulate requests/responses automatically on the fly. HTTP Proxy also includes logging facilities for debugging of HTTP communications.
• Connection Test - An HTTP pinging utility which helps website developers and auditors to test the connection between a client and a web server. Unlike the command PING, which uses the ICMP protocol (sometimes blocked by firewalls), Connection Test uses the HTTP protocol to communicate with the website.
• HTTP Request Editor – An HTTP Request Editor that enables users to create specific HTTP requests and send them to a website. The editing can be performed either on the raw request, or by viewing the request in a parsed mode. The response to the request can be viewed either raw, or in an embedded browser.
• Expression Test - A tool for testing regular expression patterns on a given text.
• Encode/Decode - A utility that transforms text strings into several encoding methods, such as URL Encoding, Base64, 3DES, MD5, SHA1, HTML entities, Overlong UTF-8 and more.

You can grab the tools from Watchfire's new Security Zone

Friday Freebie
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 08:05 PM

This week's Friday Freebie, which you get a few hours early because I'm in meetings and on the road all day tomorrow, is a cool set of tools from Talkr.

Talkr is inviting all bloggers to convert text-only, English language blogs into podcasts using its free podcasting tool. Talkr takes text-only blogs and turns them into mp3 files and provides tools to bloggers to distribute the audio files as podcasts. Talkr has previously targeted only a select number of bloggers, but now invites everyone to join in the podcasting craze.

To sign up, visit Talkr and click on the 'Want a free podcast of your blog?' link. Talkr claims it will only take about 10 minutes to set up, with no maintenance necessary.

Friday Freebie
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 11:58 AM

That's right, only one freebie this Friday. Considering I lost my stash of e-mail earlier this week, I'm surprised I managed to dig any up for you!

This week's Friday Freebie is from The Gecko Tribe. CaRP (Caching RSS Parser) is available as both a free (as in gratis) version (with some limitations on long term storage and ability to modify contents before display) and as commerial versions at pretty affordable prices.

CaRP GPL allows you to turn RSS feeds into HTML for display on your website or convert RSS into JavaScript for the more technically minded site designer.

Full documentation is available at the GeckoTribe site, so go on out and get it today and get some RSS feeds from your favorite sites integrated into your site.

If you have any suggestions for next week's Friday Freebies, drop me an e-mail.

Google Desktop: Disaster Recovery Solution?
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 03:34 PM

It's been a rough week. For some strange reason Outlook decided it couldn't write to my PST file (maybe because it was more than 1GB in size and I was keeping it on a removable drive) and destroyed the whole damn thing.

A quick download of Thunderbird and I'm back in business - except for the loss of nearly three years of correspondence and all my contacts.

I haven't made much use of Google's desktop search in the past, but I suddenly realized that the fact that it keeps copies of everything it's indexing is going to save my proverbial behind. While it isn't organized, as long as I have an idea of what or who I'm looking for, a quick search and WHAM! There it is, cached and ready for me to review.

While I'm certain Google didn't intend for its desktop search product to be used as a "disaster recovery" tool, I have to say that it's certainly doing a damn fine job of being one at the moment.

So thanks, Google, for saving three years worth of e-mail and, apparently, my sanity.

Latest Microsoft JDBC Driver Available
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 05:16 PM

The Microsoft SQL Server team announced the public beta availability of the SQL Server 2005 JDBC Driver, a new and fully supported JDBC driver for SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005. Available as a redistributable download for all SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005 users at no additional charge, it features enhanced performance, security and support.

Microsoft encourages the Java community to download and test the beta and provide their feedback for incorporation into the product's development. The SQL Server 2005 JDBC driver is available for download here.

Go get it, because as a general rule it can't be distributed with J2EE ISV products so you'll want to have it on hand in the event you've got a J2EE deployment that will require access to a SQL Server 2000 or 2005 database.

Friday Freebies
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 01:00 PM

That's right, it's plural this week cause I have more than one freebie for you.

The first freebie is from an unlikely source. Microsoft is finally joining the rest of the world and offering up an express edition of Visual Studio for free (as in gratis). Express editions of Visual Studio and SQL Server are available for download now (in beta) and are expected to be fully released in November with the general availability of SQL Server 2005. Both products will be optimized for running on the average desktop.

The second Friday Freebie is from ThinkFree. ThinkFree is offering a free service that lets users create, access and edit any Word, Excel or PowerPoitn file without requiring client side software. The free service includes 30 MB of storage, blog embedding and PDF creation.

Users can purchase additional storage and services, but the core office applications will remain free.

Acquisition of the Week
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 10:59 AM

Today's peek into the shopping cart of large ISVs takes us to California, where early (VERY EARLY for me) this morning Sun Microsystems announced its intention to acquire integration and SOA vendor See Beyond.

The acquisition of See Beyond at a mere $387 MILLION in cash (I want to see where Scott McNealy was hiding that wad of cash as he shopped around) will bring Sun's integration and SOA story into line with competitors BEA Systems and IBM as well as competitive offerings from Oracle.

While See Beyond's integration technology will definitely benefit Sun's Java Enterprise System software, the bigger story here is the acquisition of a more mature SOA framework. Coming on the heels of BEA's announcement of its SOA offering, AquaLogic, this acquisition will certain turbo-charge Sun's current SOA offerings, which are less mature than its competitors.

The race is definitely on as platform vendors seek to enhance their current SOA story with acquisitions and new offerings, and we expect that this is not the last we'll hear in the SOA space in terms of acquisitions, mergers and partnerships as platform vendors vie for a piece of the SOA pie.

Friday Freebie
Posted By Lori MacVittie at 05:52 PM

Yes, that's right, there's only one again this week. No arguments, it's been a very busy week with testing and articles due and The News Show.

This week's freebie was discovered while I was trying to test Systinet's Business Service Registry 6.0 today. I needed a way to verify the functionality of its underlying UDDI v2/v3 functionality and the tools I normally use just weren't cutting it.

The answer? A freebie from UDDIBrowser.org. It's been released under the GPL license and it's a great little tool for browsing and searching one or more UDDI registries.

(I'd show you a cool image of what it should look like but we recently migrated to a new system for Blogs and quite frankly me and my M.S. in Computer Science can't figure out how to upload images anymore)