Latest News from Apache Developer's Journal

Cisco Cloud 3.0 Consulting

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 09:09:00 EDT

A great way to illustrate the basic principles of Cloud computing and provide a quick sense of the market, as well as then linking it to a Canadian Cloud Roadmap, is to review the associated strategy for a vendor like Cisco. They offer their own maturity model for Cloud adoption that advances from simple private Cloud implementations (now) through to advanced ‘Inter-Cloud’ architectures (future). It’s also a great example because Canada recently took a heavy body blow to their IT industry innovation capacity with the demise of Nortel. Generating start-ups around a vendor like Cisco is one way to respond. Cloud is so big because it’s enveloping all of IT including telecomms, and the vendors too, it’s the big game in town for everyone now.

Analyzing Load on Apache Web Server

Tue, 21 Sep 2010 14:22:00 EDT

A web server plays an increasingly important role in the computing world as the world has shifted away from traditional stand-alone desktop computing to Internet's Client-Server and its variants based computing paradigm. Almost everything on networks is consumed either by using web services or web-pages, for all of which, a web-server is integral. As such, it becomes imperative for organizations to be able to finely monitor their servers' load usage and average performance over different times of day and according to the kind of resources hosted on the server. This raises the need for a solution through which organizations and individuals can monitor their web servers' performance to an arbitrary level of granularity depending on their needs.

Rightsizing Your Risk Architecture

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 03:30:00 EDT

In today’s evolving corporate ecosystem, managing risk has become a core focus and function of many enterprises. Mitigating consequences such as loss of revenue, unfavorable publicity and loss of market share, among others, are of utmost importance. Risk applications vary in a variety ways and the underlying technology is also quite diverse. This article will compare and contrast aspects of risk management and suggest architectures (from cloud-based solutions to high-performance solutions) that satisfy the demands and requirements of enterprises today. We will start with a review of “Risk Management,” followed by a look at the term “architecture.” Then we will review two specific use cases to illustrate the thought process involved in mapping risk management requirements to appropriate architectures.

The Answer Is the Cloud – Now What’s the Question?

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 07:15:00 EDT

In Lewis Carroll’s classic story “Through the Looking Glass,” Humpty Dumpty remarked: “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.” It seems that the same principle applies to almost any industry expert and IT vendor when they talk about Cloud Computing. So, in an effort not to fall into the same trap as Humpty Dumpty, let’s start with the obvious first question: What exactly is Cloud Computing? The most authoritative definition is from the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST), the U.S. federal technology agency that works with industry to develop and apply technology, measurements, and standards. The latest version of the “NIST Definition of Cloud Computing” is available online, but it can be summarized as shown in Figure 1.

[Updated] Supremes Defang Bilski; Software Patents Safe

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 08:00:00 EDT

The Supreme Court of the United States finally handed down its long-awaited decision in the Bilski case Monday. That's the one the FOSS movement hoped would throw a monkey wrench into software patents. Well, the FOSS folks are going to be sorely disappointed. The Supremes in their infinite wisdom shot the pins out from under Bilski and said his method for hedging risk in commodities trading couldn't be patented but did so in such a way that Bilski is basically treated in glorious isolation, setting no precedent for software patents, even business method software patents. As the patent law blog Patently-O says, nothing's changed. It's "business as usual."

Google's Economic Report Is Self-Serving Hype -Consumer Watchdog

Tue, 25 May 2010 15:52:00 EDT

Google, the self-proclaimed "don't-be-evil" company, is following the classic corporate evil-doer's playbook as it attempts to quell worldwide outrage over the WiSpy scandal, Consumer Watchdog said today. The Internet giant's new report claiming that it generated $54 billion in economic activity last year in the United States, is an an example of classic corporate PR spin to divert justified criticism, Consumer Watchdog said. "This is what every big corporation does when they are under fire," said John M. Simpson, consumer advocate with the nonpartisan, nonprofit group. "They divert attention from their wrongdoing and spin a story about their contributions."

Cloudera Recognized as Leading Startup for Making Hadoop Accessible

Thu, 13 May 2010 09:01:00 EDT

Cloudera, the commercial Apache Hadoop company, on Thursday announced that it has been recognized with seven awards in the first four months of 2010. Cloudera's Distribution for Hadoop is becoming the industry standard for enterprises looking to effectively deploy Hadoop and related technologies. Cloudera enhances the Hadoop capabilities through its suite of products, professional services, technical support and training, enabling enterprises to lower their data-processing costs and get more value from the information they collect and generate.

Jobs to Adobe: ‘Yer Stinkin’ Flash Is Over-the-Hill. Get Over It.’

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:15:00 EDT

As a diversion from its high-profile “who-knows-where-it-will-end” dogfight with Gizmodo over an errant iPhone prototype, Apple has posted a longish open letter on its web site over the signature of its CEO Steve Jobs reiterating all the reasons why Apple has no use for Adobe’s Flash technology. Steve – or his ghost writer – says Adobe mischaracterizes the Apple ban when it says it’s business-driven and only meant to protect the Apple App Store. He claims it’s technology-driven.

IT Fears Change...and Cloud Computing

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 19:00:00 EDT

We have a brittle system underpinning the data center: the network. It’s brittle, yes. But it works. Thanks to years of tweaking and tuning and troubleshooting, it works. We know where everything is, and how everything interacts, and it works. It works well, in fact, now that we’ve got it all figured out. Is it any surprise then that we might be resistant to change that might (probably will) upset that delicate balance?

Who Was First to Anticipate New Media's Coming Importance?

Sun, 25 Apr 2010 13:45:00 EDT

It is often said that becoming an entrepreneur is the modern-day equivalent of choosing to be a pioneer on the old frontier. Only people with certain strength of fiber decide to found companies. They tend to be forward thinkers by nature, natural born pathfinders. But in age that loves metrics, how do you measure the extent to which the true trail-blazer is ahead of the pack? How prescient does a go-getter's prescience need to be to qualify for the label of business 'visionary'? Well let us take the current new-media movement as one example. The precursor to that, undeniably, was the rapid popularization of Internet itself - without which New Media would not ever have been possible.

SaaS, IaaS Lead Cloud Initiative in Thailand

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 04:15:00 EDT

As the Fifth International Cloud Expo continues this week in New York, global developments with the cloud continue apace. A new initiative in Thailand provides a good example, where SaaS and IaaS are part of a Cloud Computing agenda being developed by the government’s Software Park Thailand and True IDC, a data center and hosting company. A software development training program that’s in the works here is slated to last nine months and create a total of 20 cloud-bsaed solutions. Local IT leaders have at least tacitly admitted that the country is trailing in the emerging Cloud development market, but aims to improve things through its ECIT (Enhancing Competitiveness Through ICT) program. As originally reported in the Bangkok Post, Software Park director Suwipa Wanasathop said that Software Park has an agenda for cloud computing readiness based on three approaches: • To create the right understanding and expertise for the software entrepreneurs about cloud computing in order to promptly transfer experience to the industry by which the software entrepreneurs can access information • To provide a cloud computing testing system and expertise for consulting • To extend the collaboration to other cloud computing providers so that there will be variety of cloud computing channels without depending on one or either provider.

Cloud Computing Integrates Next-Gen Databases

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 07:07:00 EDT

With every minute of uptime crucial, developers need to be able to deploy backend solutions for their Websites that house, support and access huge amounts of related data. Without it, both vendor and developer will be seeing that dreaded error message more often than not. Industry efforts to architect next generation databases that can scale massively by pairing open source databases and content management technologies with cloud-computing are underway. The door is also “opening” to a whole new world of user benefits which will be made possible by access to data - cross-cloud - in non-proprietary database. The Apache Cassandra Project and Drizzle are open alternatives to traditional databases that offer new opportunities by utilizing cloud computing to improve performance. Both are going to change the way we think about databases for the next few decades.

John Zachman, Edward de Bono and the Art of Presentation

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 05:00:00 EDT

What is common between John Zachman (who created the field of Enterprise Architecture) and Edward de Bono (who originated the term Lateral Thinking)? Both of them are now septuagenarian and have been pioneer in their respective field – but that is not the what I am talking about. It is how they view the use of latest technology for presentation.

IBM & Verizon Go into the Cloud Backup Biz Together

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 22:00:00 EDT

IBM and Verizon are going into the private cloud storage business together; IBM’s supplying the infrastructure and Verizon’s supplying the pipe, a secure high-speed private network based on – customers’ choice – Private IP (MPLS), Ethernet or Sonat Optical Ring. The backup-and-restore-as-a-service widgetry, called Managed Data Vault, is supposed to appeal to the Verizon base of large customers – your basic financial, retail and healthcare companies that are laden down with terabytes of data – mostly database material – and presumably attract others who are laboring under the same kind of weight. They support most everything.

500 Worst Passwords Illustrated

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 16:04:00 EDT

The 500 Worst Passwords Illustrated So, even if I were to use one from the list, a hacker might still need 500 tries to crack it (tags: password security illustration) Social-Media Sites Become War Front for Nestlé – WSJ.com Another case of the viral web & online protests (tags: activism facebook socialmedia environment brands nestle) Boost Creativity: 7 Unusual Psychological Techniques [...]

Is This the Closest I Get to Space?

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 04:45:00 EDT

When I was a child, I wanted to be a spaceman. No great surprise there, perhaps, and also no great surprise that I — like so many others — never got to achieve that dream. Still, when the opportunity presented itself to write a space-y piece as my latest contribution over on GigaOM Pro, I jumped at it. It was fascinating to hear about the very different efforts at the European Space Agency and NASA to harness Cloud Computing… and it brought back some of that childhood excitement in the process.

Lucid Imagination Secures $10 Million in Series B Funding

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 03:01:00 EST

Lucid Imagination, the commercial company for Apache Lucene and Apache Solr search technology, today announced it has raised $10 million in venture capital funding, completing its Series B round with a new investment from Shasta Ventures and participation from existing investors Granite Ventures and Walden International. Funding will be used to accelerate enterprise readiness and adoption of Lucene/Solr search technology, allowing organizations to more easily tap the disruptive power of Lucene/Solr for delivering timely, accurate access to the critical information their customers and employees demand.

Shoutem Makes It Easy For Users To Create Their Own Private Social Networks

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 06:59:00 EST

3rd March, 2010 - Zagreb, Croatia - Shoutem enables users to easily and quickly create their own mobile social networks that are private, targeted to niche groups and location-based. Shoutem brings together many of the familiar features of existing public platform social networks, but lets users control access, look and feel, without requiring any programming or development skill. Networks can be created in just minutes. Currently free to download, Shoutem includes mobile apps for iPhone and Blackberry, with Android following soon. www.shoutem.com

Shoutem is designed to bring together groups, whether friends, students or communities, or more specialist niches such as sports fans, clubs and events - whether users are geographically dispersed or need location-based communications. The new Shoutem platform is being used by social networks worldwide, including UK, Europe and WE Harlem, NFL Shouts and Ranch & Rodeo in the USA. See user comments below

New features & benefits
This new product builds on the success of its original microblogging tool, which has over 11,000 networks worldwide. The new product takes Shoutem into a new league, with the addition of feature-rich social networking tools (such as camera function, file uploads), as well as being optimised for mobile and location-based communications.

The popularity of social networks has been proven by public platforms such as Facebook, Foursquare, Ning and Twitter. However, these are open networks used by hundreds of thousands of users. Shoutem takes a different approach, by giving users the tools they need to create their own social networks, quickly and easily. This means that users have full control over the look and feel of the network and who has access, but without the need to develop their own software. Instead, Shoutem provides a robust set of Web-based tools, together with direct customer support where needed. Shoutem is available for free download at www.shoutem.com.

User comments:

WE Harlem (USA) - founder Sergio Lilavois: "Twitter is too big, with Shoutem we can keep it focused. Shoutem is the best fit for what we are looking for: good features and reliable technology. I like the flow of Shoutem: it is not complicated and people can easily see what to do. It's a very user-friendly interface. People spend a lot of their time communicating on their mobiles. 50% of the time I'm logged into Shoutem myself it's from my mobile device. It's great that there's a mobile application for Shoutem, not just an API. It's meant we haven't needed to develop it ourselves."

NFL Shouts (USA) - founder Hussein Yahfoufi: There is a lot of NFL presence on Twitter, but it's just an open space with no groups. We decided we wanted to have a Twitter-like site but just for the NFL community. I really like Shoutem because it has given us everything we needed to build our site without needing to do our own development. The mobile function is important to use. We've seen that the most traffic on NFL Shouts is during football games, so people can connect with each other at the ground. We call it 'Watch N' Shout' and users can even "shout" pictures from the game."

Ranch and Rodeo (USA) - Matt Fury: "We thought, what better than a Twitter-like function to connect with our audience and at the same time, create a destination site where everyone can connect, not just nationwide but internationally too. Shoutem is easy to use and understand. It provides us with everything we need, so we don't need to do our own development."

About Shoutem - the company:
Shoutem is part of Croatian-based Five Minutes Group, which has been building social networking and Web 2.0 services since 2006 for global clients including Real Networks, Vodafone and Microsoft. Founders Viktor Marohnic and Sasa Sarunic bring a wealth of start-up and technology experience and head a 25-strong team based in Zagreb, Croatia. The company is currently funded by its founders, supported by seed investment from the Croatian government. PC World recently named Shoutem as one of the top five technology start-ups to watch in 2010.

www.shoutem.com

Images available on request
European and US media/analyst contact:
Maxine Ambrose, Ambrose Communications
shoutem@ambrosecomms.co.uk
+ 44 (0) 1491 412944

Hyper9 to Present at Cloud Expo

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 10:00:00 EST

Today enterprises are virtualizing more of their IT infrastructure than ever, leading to a whole new set of operational challenges. From rising data volumes and complexity to lack of cross-domain visibility and shifting data center roles and responsibilities, today's virtual environments are too dynamic for traditional (think: "static") management approaches. Even new approaches targeted for virtualization management contain hard-wired static reports and management views. It's time for a more mature approach to virtualization.

Can Economic Growth Pressure Green Energy Projects?

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:00:00 EST

Will leaders be able to come up with sustainable solutions in time to meet demand? Is investment in new technology too late to stay Green in the short term? All Eyes are on the NGU EU summit to find out.

DevCentral Top5 01/22/2010

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 15:15:00 EST

Wow! What a whirlwind it's been the past few weeks. Between holidays and vacation and people traveling out of town, it's been an absolute zoo around here. Though I've been out the past week or so there has been an avalanche of content. I've hemmed and hawed and finally managed to slim my picks down to just five, though there are at least a dozen awesome things worth checking out on DevCentral in the past week or so. So don't be shy, get out there and poke around for yourself. For now, though, here are my top 5 picks for the week:

Storage Virtualization Takes Steps Forward

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 02:00:00 EST

Anyone wonder why storage virtualization is still growing relatively slowly while server virtualization platforms like VMware have gone on a tear? If so, a look at the licensing strategies that these two respective virtualization technologies have adopted provides some insight into why. In server virtualization, once a software feature is licensed, it is available to all of the virtual machines (VMs) hosted by that server virtualization OS. Granted, there is a caveat in that the software license pricing is dependent upon the number of CPUs in the physical host. In the case of VMware, it licenses its software in pairs with 2, 4, 8 and 16 license combinations so the price does go up as more CPUs are added to the physical host.

Servers, Energy Consumption & Green IT

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 15:00:00 EST

The Copenhagen Summit may not have achieved what was hoped for. However, SECUDE, in its own modest way, has taken the initiative to tackle energy consumption effectively. SECUDE maintains two large server facilities: the primary server in Switzerland with over 70 servers plus auxiliary equipment and a second server serving as back up in Germany. Those servers and related hardware as well as necessary air cooling systems require significant amounts of electricity consumption. Investing into greener means of energy consumption will help SECUDE reduce its overall energy needs by a whopping 30%.

JVP Media Studio Invests in Cloud Computing Startup Navajo Systems

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 15:00:00 EST

The Israeli venture capital fund, JVP, has made a seed investment in Navajo Systems through JVP Media Studio, its incubator. Navajo Systems develop unique data encryption systems for cloud computing and SaaS applications. Navajo's products will benefit organizations by protecting data privacy and managing regulatory requirements, thereby enabling secure deployment of SaaS solutions and cloud computing environments.

How to Configure CloudFront Streaming with CloudBerry S3 Explorer

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:15:00 EST

Amazon CloudFront’s new streaming feature allows you to stream your content directly from Amazon s3 bucket. New version of CloudBerry Explorer helps to configure a streaming distribution and generate URLs for streaming content as well as HTML code for your video player. Configuration is easy and straightforward. First, select a bucket, right click it and select Streaming option in the context menu.

Public Input and Public Social Media-Driven Information Sharing Welcome

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 10:00:00 EST

Data.gov is a fairly recent Federal initiative with respect to data and information sharing and transparency; i.e. encouraging and facilitating the exposure (by all Government agencies) of verifiable, raw government data/geodata and data tools/visualization techniques to the public. Data can be accessed and downloaded in many formats, for any purpose - including datasets in XML, CSV, Text, KML, KMZ, or ESRI Shapefile formats.

Recently the Data.gov CONOPS was released by the Federal CIO Council, together with OMB, along with a very interesting method and means to encourage public dialogue and input. To help stakeholders "join the dialogue", per se, the "http://www.datagov.ideascale.com" site was developed - essentially a blog with social media hooks (i.e. facebook, twitter, RSS).

I went ahead and submitted an idea recently (to be moderated); as follows - be sure to review and submit your own, and/or comment on mine!

"The Data.gov CONOPS provides a great deal of information regarding the governance and advisory support made available by “POCs” and “Data Stewards” and other roles engaged in populating and supporting data on the site. The CONOPS also describes how Personally-Identifiable Information (PII) is protected, both for submitters and those engaged in the governance process. As well, some existing community forums are referenced as other places to find answers, along with various other “communities” that evolve around dataset contexts.

What would be very useful, however, (and that doesn’t seem yet to be addressed) would be a means whereby direct dialogue could be established between the public and actual SMEs or communities of SMEs, associated with particular datasets. Obviously, protection of privacy and security concerns are to be considered, as are policies including those protecting the government and its citizens against undue influence during procurement processes. However, a method whereby authorized, verifiable government SMEs voluntarily participate, in a moderated, monitored and metered basis, in public dialogue…either scheduled, or on request.

For example, a search on a subject yields several dataset options; yet it would be very worthwhile to have a quick, efficient and timely chat with someone intimately familiar with the information to assist in further research or utilization of the data. Likewise, instead of searching by subject or organization taxonomies, a search by expertise may yield a contact (or perhaps an anonymized background/description of expertise) and appropriate contact method for online, publically-exposed dialogue (one-time, or ongoing). In fact, a search for “expert”, “expertise”, “email” or “contacts” on the current data.gov yields no results at this time.

Many government employees (and perhaps authorized contractors) may in fact be happy to share wisdom and experience in a protected, equitable and productive manner – and perhaps some government roles would include this kind and style of participation as a basis of performance measurement (and as a basis of highlighting the great work of individuals)."

Rackspace Offers Its First-Ever Showcase for Retailers

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 22:45:00 EST

Rackspace Hosting announced a new service to assist its e-commerce customers this holiday season. The Rackspace Holiday Shopping Mall, a promotional area hosted on NoMoreServers.com will offer discounts and coupons to encourage holiday shopping and highlight the benefits of using e-commerce. Rackspace counts more than 2,000 e-commerce stores among its customers. The Rackspace Holiday Shopping Mall is the first of its kind for Rackspace Hosting. The website will feature offers from retailers who are also Rackspace customers, like Coca-Cola, Levi Strauss, and ULTA as well as firms like Bonobos, TeeFury, and ChristmasLightsEtc. A complete list of offers is available at http://nomoreservers.com/mall.

Technology Adoption & the Age Myth

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 10:00:00 EST

As I evangelize around the upcoming surge in innovation driven by technology and globalism one topic that is often raised is the issue of how older people are unable or unwilling to adapt to the change brought on by technologies. Hence, the rapid states of change I predict are unlikely because of this "age" phenomenon.

What’s in a Namespace

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 10:00:00 EST

Although XML has been around for quite some time many developers still don't know too much about it. Not needing to know too much about it is one of XML's strengths, but cursory knowledge is rapidly becoming mandatory for all developers. This post will discuss some of the details of namespaces in XML.

In XML a namespace is just that, a space (or area) identified by a name. When we look at a namespace such as http://novaenterprisesystems.com/schemas/purchaseorder we are not actually identifying a location on the web. Granted it does look like a URL and your browser will probably make you want to click it (don't bother, at least for now it doesn't actually go anywhere). In an XML document this simply means in a namespace that certain nodes of the document exist in this namespace. That is they are identified by their Element / Attribute name and this namespace. Here is an example:

In this case this means that the PurchaseOrder element is identified using the specific namespace http://novaenterprisesystems.com/schemas/purchaseorder. I could have just as easily (and legally) made the name space "bob". Although bob would be a legal namespace, it doesn't do much to describe what this schema represents. All this really means is that the PurchaseOrder element has an identity in the definition space of this schema. I could import another schema that defines a different PurchaseOrder element in another schema with no ill-effect (it would clearly need another namespace in order to be unique).

Namespaces ultimately should convey information about the service or document in question. The generally accepted pattern for naming schemas is as follows:

http://[company]/[role]/[businessarea]/[date or version]

Where Company is obviously the entity exposing this schema, Role is either schema (for message types) or interface (for operations such as web services), business area would be the vertical or horizontal segment of the service or document Company is providing (such as purchasing or billing). Date / version should be self-explanatory, but is most often the year and month the schema is effective (more on that in another post). A better example would be: http://novaenterprisesystems.com/schemas/purchasing/2009-11.

You may be asking yourself 'so why all the fuss'? The two main issues are legality in XML (more of a technical concern) and much more importantly readability by consumers. A namespace should clearly express the intent of a schema to which it is attached. If this is for a business document or file that should be clear (as well as what business document this represents). The definition difference between schema (message) and interface (operation) should clear confusion about what the document really means. You wouldn't want the consumers of your services to tightly couple the purchase order document to the operation of submitting a purchase order.

A last note I'd like to stress is that although the domain name http://novaenterprisesystems.com appears in this schema and message, the domain will receive no traffic as a result. Again that name is just an identifier, very similar to a namespace in .NET such as System.Data. Only when an import or include location points to a URL will network traffic occur.

Is Cloud Computing Like Teenage Sex?

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 00:45:00 EST

It was once said back in the early ‘90s that “Client/server computing is a little like teenage sex – everyone talks about it, few actually do it, and even fewer do it right. Nevertheless, many people believe client/server computing is the next major step in the evolution of corporate information systems."

SECUDE’s Secure Login Client Version 5.0 Enables Windows 7 Support

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:45:00 EST

The need for an easy single, yet secure,login procedure has always been an elusive issue for many big organizations. Multiple user names and passwords, multiple logins, and the ensuing confusion and frustration consume much of a user's productivity in terms of time and energy. Secure Login provides secure Single Sign-On and total landscape encryption for SAP supporting a variety of different authentication mechanisms including Active Directory, LDAP, SAP-ID, RADIUS, RSA SecurID®, SQL DB, and even smart cards.

rPath Refines Release Automation Platform

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 14:00:00 EST

rPath today announced enterprise-focused productivity and management enhancements to the rPath release automation platform. The upgrades refine the functionality and user experience of the fully version controlled release automation solution, meeting the needs of each stakeholder in the enterprise release management process. These upgrades are the first product delivery against “Project Javelin,” which extends rPath’s system version controlled management model into the broader data center automation market.

Navigating the Telecom Supply Chain with Matt Hiles at Mosaic Networx

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 10:45:00 EST

I first met Matt Hiles while he was director of business development with Looking Glass Networks in Los Angeles. As a customer looking for telecom services, navigating the providers, technologies, and deal structures can be confusing. Matt took the time to explain all aspects of the business, cost structures, and how he would get us a great deal – while still making money for his company. Matt stood out alone from a world of “wheeling and dealing” telecom sales people, unique in providing the customer a level of confidence they were getting the best product, for the best price, with the best service.

Accessing Spring Beans from the BIRT Designer

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:45:00 EST

Recently I have described methods that can be used to access Spring Beans from the BIRT Engine. These examples are intended to be illustrative and not comprehensive. In both of these examples I used the BIRT engine to retrieve Spring objects within the scripting environment. In this post I am supplying an example that illustrates how to implement your own menu in the expression builder, so Spring objects can be called within the BIRT Designer. This will allow you to test your report prior to deployment.

CloudCamp Seoul December 16th

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:53:00 EST

I wanted to quickly let everyone know about an upcoming CloudCamp in Seoul December 16th. We're currently looking for a few additional sponsors to help cover some of the costs. If you're interested in helping out, please get in touch. Registration: http://cloudcamp-seoul-09.eventbrite.com

Copy Source as HTML in Visual Studio 2010

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:45:00 EST

I was working on my first SharePoint 2010 post today since I actually installed some bits and quickly discovered that I did not have Copy Source As Html working with Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2. If you’re a blogger like me, you will find that you are quite addicted to this useful tool as it makes pasting good looking code segments quite easy. Unfortunately, they haven’t released an installer that works with Visual Studio 2010 yet, so I decided to see if I could figure out how to get it to work. Now, I’m not expert on Visual Studio Addins, so it took me some experimenting. I installed the product as normal, but when I opened Visual Studio, I did not find the addin loaded. After some investigating, I decided to copy the CopySourceAsHtml.AddIn file into my user folder. Specifically this goes in C:\Users\<UserName>\My Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Addins. Note: the My Documents folder is actually the Documents folder if you are looking at it directly on the file system. Also to note is that the Addins folder probably will not exist so you need to create it.

After I did this, I tried opening Visual Studio again and again did not see my addin loaded. I then decided to open the file and take a look. I quickly saw something that stood out at me.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="no"?>
<Extensibility xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/AutomationExtensibility">
  <HostApplication>
    <Name>Microsoft Visual Studio Macros</Name>
    <Version>9.0</Version>
  </HostApplication>
  <HostApplication>
    <Name>Microsoft Visual Studio</Name>
    <Version>9.0</Version>
  </HostApplication>
  <Addin>
    <FriendlyName>CopySourceAsHtml</FriendlyName>
    <Description>Adds support to Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 for copying source code, syntax highlighting, and line numbers as HTML.</Description>
    <Assembly>JTLeigh.Tools.Development.CopySourceAsHtml, Version=3.0.3215.1, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=bb2a58bdc03d2e14, processorArchitecture=MSIL</Assembly>
    <FullClassName>JTLeigh.Tools.Development.CopySourceAsHtml.Connect</FullClassName>
    <LoadBehavior>1</LoadBehavior>
    <CommandPreload>0</CommandPreload>
    <CommandLineSafe>0</CommandLineSafe>
  </Addin>
</Extensibility>

This is version 10 of Visual Studio so I decided to increment the new two version elements as shown below.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="no"?>
<Extensibility xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/AutomationExtensibility">
  <HostApplication>
    <Name>Microsoft Visual Studio Macros</Name>
    <Version>10.0</Version>
  </HostApplication>
  <HostApplication>
    <Name>Microsoft Visual Studio</Name>
    <Version>10.0</Version>
  </HostApplication>
  <Addin>
    <FriendlyName>CopySourceAsHtml</FriendlyName>
    <Description>Adds support to Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 for copying source code, syntax highlighting, and line numbers as HTML.</Description>
    <Assembly>JTLeigh.Tools.Development.CopySourceAsHtml, Version=3.0.3215.1, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=bb2a58bdc03d2e14, processorArchitecture=MSIL</Assembly>
    <FullClassName>JTLeigh.Tools.Development.CopySourceAsHtml.Connect</FullClassName>
    <LoadBehavior>1</LoadBehavior>
    <CommandPreload>0</CommandPreload>
    <CommandLineSafe>0</CommandLineSafe>
  </Addin>
</Extensibility>

After I saved the changes, I restarted Visual Studio and sure enough the addin loaded and worked correctly. In fact I pasted the above snippets using the tool in Visual Studio 2010. If you have never used Copy Source as Html before, go check it out. It’s a handy tool for pasting code snippets.

How to Handle File Indexing Corruption in Microsoft Windows 7

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:45:00 EST

File Indexing is an allegedly useful feature of the Microsoft Windows operating system. It extracts critical information from files on hard disk and creates the “searchable keyword index” that Is used for making the file search more efficient. Using file indexing service, you can easily searching for a phrase, properly or word in a document, even without knowing name of the file that you want. In some situations, the indexing of file may get damaged and may access all your files inaccessible from Windows hard drive partition. In such cases, you need to opt for Windows Partition Recovery to get your valuable files recovered from affected Windows partition.

Backing Up SharePoint Effectively

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:00:00 EST

Microsoft SharePoint is a fantastic tool for enterprise document management and collaboration. But having said that, there are challenges that come up when integrating this system into your corporate disaster recovery planning. In this article, I'd like to explore some of these challenges and offer potential solutions.

AMD Tops Top500

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:00:00 EST

The world’s most powerful supercomputer is Jaguar, the recently upgraded Cray XT5 rig at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, according to the new semi-annual Top500 list. Jaguar’s roughly 250,000 processors went from quad-core Opterons to six-core Istanbul Opterons and now delivers 2.3 petaflops of theoretical peak performance or 1.75 petaflops on the Linpack benchmark, dethroning IBM. Four of the top five machines are now AMD-based. This and Intel’s money too. My, my. It’s Cray’s first time in the top spot. HP’s got 210 of Top500 machines; IBM’s got 186. China’s got number five.

Five Simple Tips for 2010 Marketing Planning

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:25:00 EST

Admit it. You haven’t started working on your 2010 marketing plan. Sure, you’ve thought about it and maybe you even built an outline. You may have held a meeting or two to discuss. And your calendar for 2010…well, it’s already full of trade shows, weekly meetings with your marketing team, scheduled promotional mailings, and perhaps [...]

Pin the Tail on the Social Media Icon

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:45:00 EST

You've seen them. You can see them on this site, those odd little widget-icons that grace the footers and headers of blog articles. These aren't graphical garnishes, but yet another avenue to get your content out of your own little blogosphere and into the social media networks. What do they do? In a nutshell, they create the potential for major traffic.

Go Viral

It's not rocket science. In case you haven't noticed, the web has been evolving lately. It is no longer just a one-way information channel. Social interaction, i.e., social networks on the internet have exploded in popularity in just the last few years. So, if you haven't already, it's really worthwhile to spend some time on some of the big players, especially in the social bookmarking arena: Digg, Reddit, Delicious, Stumbleupon, and others. This is where stories are submitted and ranked by the crowd. Get familiar with them and even participate. You'll notice that there is a real buzz, especially in the comments sections. Okay, so what do the icons have to do with the sites? Simple: the icons simply provide your visitor with a quick and easy way, a shortcut to submit your specific content to the crowd, so the potential is indeed huge. Likewise, Facebook users and Twitter users who are already logged into their accounts will post or Tweet your article out there.

As mentioned previously, inbound links are one of the most effective ways of improving your Google rankings. This is the good SEO stuff you really want! For example, if thousands are clicking links on Twitter or Digg about YOUR "5 Ways to Improve Window Cleaning Widgets" article and linking to YOUR blog, guess who benefits on Google when someone searches for "Improve Window Cleaning?"

Content is Still King, But..

Substance matters, it's true and unavoidable. Providing worthwhile, unique information that is interesting and relevant to your readers is probably the most important reason why someone would use those social icons. However, if you spend some time on bookmarking sites you will notice some elements that are common to many of the "most Dugg" stories.

Image courtesy of KnowTheBook

ParaScale Introduces Open Private Cloud Storage Platform

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 01:15:00 EST

ParaScale today introduced ParaScale Cloud Storage software (PCS) R2.0. The new release targets enterprise storage administrators who must economically scale capacity and performance, and service providers who want to offer a variety of storage cloud services. ParaScale’s open solution leverages any commodity hardware running Red Hat Enterprise Linux OS or CentOS, and can integrate applications directly onto storage nodes. PCS R2.0 also provides integration capabilities into virtualized environments and web services.

Quest OnDemand Goes Live

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:23:00 EST

Systems Management as a Service (is there an acronym for this yet?) is finally becoming a reality. Today at Microsoft Professional Developer Conference we have announced beta launch of Quest OnDemand our online IT management services. This is one of the projects which have been consuming most of my time for the last year so I [...]

How 12 Million People Brand Your Company 27.3 Million Times Every Day

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:17:00 EST

That’s 12 million people engaged in 27.3 million conversations on Twitter every day. They are branding your company even if they are not mentioning you. That kind of branding is called “ignoring the non-entity.” In financial social media marketing and every other industry it’s the branding of the invisible. This increased and increasing volume of “conversation” is indicative of the heightened adoption of social media in general and reflects a significant shift in how marketers approach customers. The shift from talking “at” customers to having a conversation “with” them has begun in earnest.

Migrate from GroupWise to Google Apps

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 04:10:00 EST

Cloud Sherpas to host webinar on migrating enterprise messaging and collaboration to the cloud Businesses are responding to the value proposition of Google Apps in a big way. According to a tweet by Dave Girouard, President of Google Enterprise, more than 5000 businesses signed up for Google Apps last Thursday alone! For those of you Novell [...]

Microsoft to Open Source the .NET Micro Framework

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:30:00 EST

(I'm currently in Tokyo, so I'll leave my insights into this news for another time)

Today, at the Microsoft Professional Developer Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles, Microsoft announced the release of version 4.0 of the.NET Micro Framework, but also that they are open sourcing the product and making it available under the Apache 2.0 license, which is already being used by the community within the embedded space.

The .NET Micro Framework,a development and execution environment for resource-constrained devices, was initially developed inside the Microsoft Startup Business Accelerator, but recently moved to the Developer Division so as to be more closely aligned with the overall direction of Microsoft development efforts.

See complete blog post here >

The Planet Joins Microsoft WebsiteSpark Program

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:30:00 EST

The Planet today announced its membership in the Microsoft WebsiteSpark program. Through this partnership, The Planet provides small Web development and design firms with free Microsoft licenses for the latest versions of Windows Server and SQL Server, key tools for building and designing rich Web sites. A Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, The Planet offers the program to qualified companies through its status as an official Network Partner and Hosting Provider.

Global DataGuard to Deliver Security for Cloud Computing Environments

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:30:00 EST

Global DataGuard today announced plans to develop a Unified Cloud Security solution by extending its award-winning, systemic security architecture to support cloud or hybrid networks, in addition to premise-based environments. With commercial availability scheduled for Q1 2010, Global DataGuard’s Enterprise UTM for Cloud Computing offering will fully integrate patented network behavior analysis and correlation technology with PCI-enabled intrusion detection and prevention; vulnerability scanning and management; log management, analysis and monitoring; network access and policy monitoring, and comprehensive threat management capabilities, including prioritized network, global and vendor threats and vulnerabilities. This unified security anywhere™ approach will enable customers to fortify their existing premise-based, cloud or hybrid network infrastructure and future-proof current IT investments with a holistic architecture and applications portfolio that provide virtually unlimited scalability, full regulatory compliance and up to a 60% reduction in network security costs.

Questions Data Center Operators Don’t Want You to Ask

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:15:00 EST

We live in a world of clouds, SaaS, outsourcing, and Everything over IP (EoIP). The challenges IT professionals face when trying to sort through the maze of technology, globalization, SOX, HIPPA, PUE, and on,… result in daunting confusion. Mix in a few overzealous sales people, an inquiring CFO, incorrigible users within the organization, and you have all the pre-requisites for a world class, globalized, migraine headache.

ERP To-Do Checklist

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:30:00 EST

A mid-market ERP solution purchase can be completed rapidly and successfully if you ask yourself and vendors the right questions.”