Techno Terra

Sun buys MySQL

2008-01-17T10:35:00.003-08:00

Being the owner of a pioneer DBMS open source, Sun Microsystems fill a gap in its product lineup and become a supplier of software for companies of Web 2.0.
On Wednesday, Sun announced its intention to acquire $ 800 million for all shares of MySQL and allocate about $ 200 million in stock options. However, to capitalize MySQL popularity, it will have to make a serious adjustment. Many young companies want to create sites in the spirit social networks, and are already using MySQL. After purchasing a supplier database open-source, Sun will be able to serve those customers who seek to maximize interact with the customers, collect feedback from users and take a starting position on the second spiral of development websites.
"This step is in line with the strategy of Sun. It strengthens the position of the group LAMP [Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP], which is supported by Sun against Microsoft. Net. This is a strong initiative "- comments on databases analyst Forrester Research Noel Yuhanna.
The stakes in the open-source world are rising. $ 1 billion, which will pay Sun, almost equal to the sum of all previous acquisitions of open-source companies: Red Hat paid for JBoss $ 326 million; Citrix posted XenSource for $ 500 million; Yahoo commended for Zimbra $ 350 million, and Oracle acquired Sleepycat for unknown amount.
MySQL is a small fraction of the RDBMS world market of $ 15 billion: according Yuhanny, its revenue was close to $ 200 million a year. But this database, the most commonly used for new Web applications, particularly sites social networks, with the active involvement of users, such as Facebook.
Acquisition of MySQL, the first commercial company organized for the sole purpose of disseminating source code, makes Sun a major open-source company. It has already made an open its Solaris operating system and comes on the same path connecting with the software, making finally available as a software open-source Java Standard Edition.
"Customers have confirmed what we had long known: MySQL - the most popular platform on which developers are building advanced network services" - wrote in his blog general director of Sun Jonathan Schwartz. According to him, Sun - committed to the business model of open source when the source of income is not selling licences, and technical support products. When a database like MySQL, is the basis of the functioning of the business, many businesses are willing to pay for its support.
Yuhanna said that the acquisition will "Sun is in a new direction for her, to where is the web".

Oracle buys BEA Systems

2008-01-17T10:35:00.001-08:00

The company announced that Oracle has agreed to buy software producer binder for about $ 8.5 billion, or $ 19375 per share.
In October BEA board of directors rejected the proposal for Oracle to pay $ 17 per share BEA, saying that it was "a significant underestimation of the company". Oracle, for its part, dismissed the BEA price of $ 21 per share as "incredibly high". However, on Wednesday the company arranged.
"This is an extremely important step towards our goal to become the preferred provider of strategic corporate software - said the general director of Oracle Larry Ellison. -- Merger with BEA makes us what we should be… provider of the entire range of software for most sectors and in most regions of the world. Both companies have numerous suggestions on the binder, but the family of products BEA has staggering complementarity ". According to him, the transaction will enhance business binder on Oracle, and eventually lead to the creation of "a leading platform for the implementation and management of enterprise applications."
Chairman of the board and general director of BEA Alfred Chuang promised that in the coming months, leaders of the two companies will develop a comprehensive integration plan. "We understand that the success of this operation is important is smooth and rapid integration" - he said.
According to Forrester Research analyst James Kobilusa, "is a useful acquisition for Oracle and for BEA": "BEA took a strong position in certain areas, such as processing of complex events. This is a powerful platform for business systems analysis real time. On the other hand, Oracle is very strong in the area of data storage and retrieval technology, data transformation and loading (ETL), while BEA is a powerful data integration platform AquaLogic. We also have Oracle data integration platform, but BEA powerful platform ".
Ellison promised that Oracle would actively support products BEA, and Kobilus believes that it can trust: "In the past, Oracle well with the acquisition of major brands, including them in its portfolio binder on Fusion and allowing to grow further. Take, for example, Hyperion. Many said that the Oracle system eliminates Hyperion business analysis, but this has not happened and I think that will not happen. "
Companies expect to complete the transaction by mid-year, subject to approval by regulators and shareholders BEA.

Online Shopping beats record

2007-12-11T13:38:00.001-08:00

Since 1 November to 2 December, Americans spent online $ 14 billion, a 17% increase over the same period last year, reported comScore Inc.
So far, most crop for online purchases Day season remains cyber-sunday 26 November, when consumers are left in the Internet $ 733 million Then three more days of online spending more than $ 700 million a day, said the statement, chairman of comScore Gian Fulgoni. "But by the end of the week sales declined as a result led to a 17% growth mu compared with the same period in the previous year - a figure that coincides with the growth that we are seeing over the entire season to date," he adds.
As usual, the most popular categories of online holiday shopping season remained video games, consoles and accessories: in this sector increased by 145% to the previous year's level. At furniture, appliances and equipment, consumers spent 45% more than last year, while the sports and fitness-for 30% more. Toys, consumer electronics products, books and magazines bought for 17% more that coincides with the overall growth rate of consumer spending online, said comScore.

Microsoft about changes made in Vista SP1

2007-12-11T13:36:00.001-08:00

Microsoft has published a detailed list of modifications to the Windows Vista service package, which the company plans to release this week in an open beta.
17-page document details what Microsoft calls "significant changes" in Vista SP1 Release Candidate 1 (RC1), a preliminary version of which in recent weeks has sent thousands of invited testers and will be open to all comers. Microsoft said the tens of additions and improvements in all areas of equipment and support to the security and reliability of sync with future Windows Server 2008. Most of the items contained in the section "The improvements in productivity and energy consumption." Microsoft claims that Vista has become a local copy files to 25% faster, but from a remote PC, which was also installed Vista SP1-to 50% faster. In addition, Vista SP1 quickly opens up large images, and the attached Internet Explorer 7 faster working with the sites where intensively used JavaScript scripts.
On security, except for all issued patches to November, in Vista SP1 made some more general changes. For example, corrected a mistake that the company did not want to acknowledge and does not explain: "SP1 includes improvements in the Secure Development Lifecycle, which allows Microsoft to identify the cause of each vulnerability, and improves our internal tools, excluding programs such fragments, which could lead to new vulnerability" , says in the document.
Microsoft kept promise given year ago Symantec, McAfee and the European Union, which complained that the company has blocked access to the nucleus 64-bit edition Vista. In autumn 2006, Symantec and McAfee technology rebelled against Microsoft Kernel Patch Protection (or, otherwise, PatchGuard), and stated that it impedes the work of existing technologies, such as preventing incursions. They were joined by the EU, accusing the company in the application of technology to suppress competition in the market for security devices.
According to the list of enhancements in SP1 entered Ends applications that Microsoft first introduced in December last year. "These API to help developers create software, extending the functionality of Windows kernel for 64-bit platforms, with adequate support and documentation and without blocking or weakening of the functions of the protection of the Kernel Patch Protection" says the document.

Microsoft offers beta Office Live Workspace

2007-12-11T13:34:00.001-08:00

Office Live Workspace, attacked another Microsoft in the world of business tools, begin their lives.
The company will open the system to exchange documents gradually, starting on Monday with a pre-registered users. Office Live Workspace to store Word documents, PowerPoint and Excel online, share and work together on these instruments. Related SharedView annex to share desktop settings and work together on Office documents in real time.
While Microsoft belatedly entered the market means teamwork-based Web, the company is the dominant force in the business market instruments, while online competitors, such as Google, have not demonstrated any notable success in attracting a wide audience of users. Nevertheless Office Live Workspace is a good beginning for the development of online functionality, which will probably prove to himself embedded Office. This is not a full set of online business applications, and a set of tools teamwork, "confined" by custom Office applications.
Office Live Workspace is one of the best examples that demonstrate where it focuses its strategy of Microsoft software "plus" services, which is designed to connect local and veb-functionality in Microsoft applications. In custom applications integrated Office toolbar that lets you save in Office Live Workspace, such as Word documents, and uses the web to store and review, leaving most of the actual work on the editing of a client.
In October, Microsoft Office Live Workspace tests in several universities, including the University of Pennsylvania, University of Washington and Vanderbelt. Send feedback prompted the company to make some changes in the user interface Live Workspace and work on productivity improvement. Although the beta test will be open, the timing of release final product until Microsoft calls.

Nokia will develop internet-services

2007-12-07T15:05:00.001-08:00

On Tuesday Nokia introduced an ambitious plan of moving beyond market cellular phones and deeper into the world of Internet-services, where the company intends to compete directly with Google, Apple and Microsoft.
The plan is Ovi.com websites (Ovi evokes means "door"), which Nokia will deliver both personalized "dashboard" where users can share photos, music recordings and buy turn to a third-party services such as site for Yahoo Flickr photo. As explained at a conference in Amsterdam Nokia World general manager of Nokia Multimedia division Anssi Vanoki, the idea is to offer a single place where users will be able to manage content, services and contacts collected in the process web-surfing through their phones and PCs. Ovi.com become single portal for all services, so that people will not have to memorize multiple logins and passwords. Nokia is also developing a desktop ON Ovi for content offline.
Nokia speak on Ovi in August, and a portion of the service, the updated version of mobile games platform Nokia N-Gage Arena and spends so far this month, reported Vanoki. So far, it has worked only with mobile gaming platform Nokia N-Gage, but the company promises to make it compatible with other devices. But the game is only the beginning. They will be followed by an online music store and other services: mapping service, and photographic video shop to store photos from phones and link them with maps, as in Google Picasa. Ovi will also allow people to participate in social networks and communities to share content. "This is the foundation from which we will build on Nokia in new directions," said President and CEO Nokia Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo.
Nokia controls over a third of the world market for mobile phones, and hoped that in future the main way to access the Web will become vehicles with the support of the Internet, such as the N95. "We must not only become a producer of devices, but also the Internet, and connect the two peace," said Kallasvuo. "This is a very difficult task, but it opens up tremendous business opportunities." In the assessment of Nokia, mobile phones have three billion people across the world, but only 300 million are using multimedia machines, of which about 200 million from Nokia. These devices must be made simpler to administer. "Need" a lot of improvements, "acknowledged Vanoki.
Ovi.com passes internal testing starting next year as a publicly beta simultaneously with the release of desktop software. The company demonstrated this catch on with the interface elements such as files, if navigating in three-dimensional space. Perhaps the service will include an online component of a data warehouse to facilitate the exchange of files. "We have not yet announced file sharing service, but it will be part of the commercial proposals Ovi.com" says Kari Tutti Nokia representative. According to him, access to Ovi.com and will be free for the desktop. ON will be distributed on CD along with Nokia phones and offered for downloading through the Web.

Technorati Tags: business

Adobe forward Flash to the high-definition standard

2007-12-07T15:02:00.001-08:00

On Tuesday, Adobe announced its cheaper software Flash Media Server, which will be compatible with additional video and open gateway to the potential flow of videos online.
The new product family Adobe Flash Media Server 3 will be available in January, a new version of the client for Adobe Flash Player 9 Update 3, with the code name Moviestar already available for free download. Now includes support video standard H.264, which is used in high-definition video images and Blu-Ray HD-DVD, as well as audio High Efficiency AAC (HE-AAC). This open standards, is already integrated into existing processes and avtoringa publication, so that producers can use to play for the Adobe Flash Player already screened material H.264. Flash Player also now supports full-playback of high-definition video hardware acceleration for multi-processors on all popular operating systems and browsers.
Adobe Flash Media Server 3 provides streaming media and the proliferation of real-time connection for many computer platforms. The new codec is support for the standard H.264 (this means that the Flash can be used for the iPhone and Apple TV) and audio HE-AAC. Content owners will receive expanded opportunities for the protection of high-quality streaming video. Moreover, the server now allows interactive broadcast media soft who work the same way on many browsers and operating systems.
The new version of Flash Media Server includes Adobe Flash Media Streaming Server 3 to broadcast "live" streaming video and video on demand, as well as Adobe Flash Media Interactive Server 3 for specialized services and video streaming social media portals. Both products offer new opportunities for publishers, which include almost twice the number of streams on the server, support for standard codecs, the new version of a patented protocol for secure content delivery, and improved support for Adobe news, concerts, sporting events and social media services. In addition, Adobe Flash Media Server 3 supports broadcast as a pre-recorded or live video at Adobe Flash Lite 3, which guarantees adequate presentation of the video on mobile devices.
Adobe Flash Media Server 3 will cost $ 4500, a license to install Adobe Flash Media Streaming Server 3 on a server company will offer for $ 995.

Technorati Tags: adobe,flash

Red Hat introduced real-time Linux

2007-12-07T14:58:00.001-08:00

On Tuesday, Red Hat introduced the software, which combines the functions of the communications processing system, real-time operating system and distributed computing system. It is designed for enterprises that want to OS capable of very rapid processing of messages and transactions.
The system of Red Hat Enterprise MRG (Messaging, Realtime and Grid), which is planned for release early next year and sell on subscription models, the next step-Red Hat to implement its strategy of "automation" aimed at simplifying the implementation and operation of applications in a distributed computing environment . The idea of automation that best simplify the introduction of IT applications, wherever it worked: the hosting service, the physical server or virtual environment. Public Beta MRG will be available at the end of the week, to participate in the process of testing can register online.
MRG will not only play the role of interim reports for processing, such as IBM MQSeries or Tibco of Tibco Software, but also adds the possibility of real-time systems, as well as the distribution of tasks and computing resources. In addition to establishing the level of software on top of the operating system to handle messages with a short time delay, MRG will also be able to plan tasks and allocate resources in heterogeneous infrastructures. For example, if an enterprise idle desktop computers Windows, MRG will be able to include them in a common pool of resources and computer use for other purposes. This functionality is based on the integration of technology management MRG with Intel vPro desktop PCs.
To create the infrastructure open-source MRG Red Hat uses mainly two technology projects. One of them is developing a standard Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP) to describe the process of communication between different systems, and is supported by companies such as Cisco, Credit Suisse and JP Morgan Chase. Another is a project open-source the University of Wisconsin to develop a high-performance computing environment Condor, which offers a way to efficiently allocate and utilize IT computing capacity. Red Hat is working with the University for production of the source code under license Condor approved Open Source Initiative organization, and participates in the financing of the project.
According to the Chief The 451 Group analyst William Fellouza, MRG uniquely combines multiple technologies to those Andersen, which require OS for processing transactions for Microseconds. This is especially important for the financial services industry, "where there is delay [communications] sets the stage for arbitration - that is allows people to make that they were the first to have access to information". Fellouz added that Red Hat would probably decided to submit its new internet work reports to the forthcoming update of MQSeries.

Technorati Tags: linux

Microsoft Volta translates .NET to Web

2007-12-07T14:56:00.001-08:00

Microsoft wants developers to facilitate the creation of Web applications. On Wednesday the company issued via Microsoft Live Labs preliminary version Volta technology, which distributes the possibility of developers. NET to the web and facilitates splitting code on the client and server parts.
Rather than write separate programs to different parts of applications to work as a web browser or on the server, programmers enough to cause the desired menu items from the Volta-optional module for Visual Studio 2008 for the establishment of an appropriate connecting code. Volta uses Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL). That means the possibility of applying the usual Microsoft programming languages such as C # and Visual Basic, or, for example, Ruby implementations of Microsoft. Programmers can work as if they are creating client application. NET, and at the end of the process a few mouse click adapt it to the web.
"The idea that programmers can focus on functionality, thoughts and sense of the use of the program, and when the desired goal is easy to turn it into AJAX annex or something else, explained in an interview with Eric Meyer, chief architect of the Volta team Microsoft SQL Server. - Standard annex client-only gradually turns into a web. Programmer said only what he needed, and we insert all the necessary code. "
Applications written with the assistance of Volta, you can nurture in Visual Studio, which is not always easy to manage multiple applications in the design, working on the client and server. "One of the unique opportunities provided to us is the ability to debug the code in different forms, whether the client or server," said the team manager, in an interview products Microsoft Live Labs Alex Daly. Volta could also add the necessary code to programmers can receive information on the productivity of Microsoft Service Trace Viewer.
As with other development Live Labs, the company does not plan to issue Volta, as a separate product. Meyer is also the author of LINQ technology, which simplifies programming with the use of databases, support is now built into Visual Studio and Silverlight.

Technorati Tags: microsoft,web

Next week will begin extensive testing Vista SP1

2007-12-07T14:54:00.001-08:00

Microsoft has reached release candidate phase in the process of developing the first service package for Windows Vista and plans to make it widely available next week.
This week the company is experienced code 15 to thousands of testers who are already experiencing SP1, and on Thursday it also publishes programs for participants MSDN and TechNet. On Wednesday, in his blog on Vista, the company also reported that it will provide a "blocker", which will allow customers Vista using Windows Update, update to block the final version of SP1 to continue testing. Microsoft offered a similar opportunity for Windows XP Service Pack 2.
Service Pack 1 is essentially a collection of patches and enhancements to improve performance and adds a few new features. Among the innovations is the opportunity to use BitLocker encryption volumes in multiple hard disks, as well as changes in the functions of local search made to satisfy antitrust complaints by Google.
This week, Microsoft also announced its intention to change the way the work of anti-piracy protection in SP1 by deleting system, which translates Vista machine, which it considered illegal in almost unfit for use regime "underweight" functionality. Instead, Microsoft will demonstrate a visible notification to the owners and offer to buy illegal license.
Since the start of testing SP1 company contributed to a number of changes. In particular, it has reduced the size and scope of renewal of free disk space required for its installation. Nevertheless, in a typical configuration, Vista still need to 4.5 gigabytes of disk space, although in the early betas required 7 gigabytes. Most of the space returned to the user. But for owners portative machines or those who installs Vista section on computers Mac disk, it can be an obstacle. Microsoft has significantly reduced the size and Windows Update- and complete versions of the service package.
Version release candidate Vista SP1 comes almost simultaneously with the same version of Windows Server 2008. The development of both operating systems are parallel, and the other, and planned to be published in the first quarter. However, the exact date of the two products may not be the same, especially if, for some of them have questions to quality.

Technorati Tags: microsoft,vista,support

The market for servers shows good results

2007-12-04T14:10:00.001-08:00

In the third quarter of the world market for servers has improved markedly as revenue, and the volume of supply-thanks to the growing demand in developing countries and the need for additional resources data storage.
According to a report released on Monday Gartner, for the third quarter has sold 2.2 million servers by 8.7% more than during the corresponding period last year. Revenue producers to 2.6% rose to $ 13.4 billion The engine of growth serve servers both the x86, while revenues from UNIX- RISC-Itanium servers grew by 8%.
"The growth in developing markets, combined with the continuing demand for additional capacity exceeds any overwhelming factors, such as virtualization of servers the statement says Gartner analyst Errola Reyzita. - No impact of the instability of financial markets servers on the market in the third quarter is not noticeable. "
The income market IBM servers continues to lead, despite their decline by 8%. Deliveries of IBM servers in kind declined by almost 4%, with a total market share of the company fell slightly less than 2%. Revenues from sales of servers IBM System p and System x rose, but revenue from System z and the System i declined.
The maximum number of servers still sells HP, which has placed customers at 20.2% more devices than a year ago, and completed the quarter with a market share 26.5%.
Dell continues to show steady progress after months of setbacks. Sales of the company are growing second consecutive quarter and increased by 5.4%. Market share volume for Dell shipments grew by 0.7%.
Sun Microsystems demonstrated income jumped to 11.4% because of the successful sales of its Sparc Enterprise servers. However, total deliveries in kind declined by 4.5%.
The engine of growth remained blade-server market, where sales increased by 13.8%. In the third quarter of the share blade-server had 10% of the market. In this segment still leads HP, which has increased the supply over the same period the previous year starter at 91%.
Five leaders of proceeds from sales of servers looks like this: IBM with 30.1% market share, HP with 28.1%, Dell with 11.8%; Sun with 11% and Fujitsu / FSC with 4.9%. For the first five volumes of supplies seats are: HP with 29.3%, Dell with 21.8%, IBM with 14.4%, with 3.6% Sun and Fujitsu / FSC with a 3.4% market share of servers.

Technorati Tags: business

What about mobile Internet?

2007-12-04T14:07:00.001-08:00

New project to study mobile Internet market measures the parameters of web sites, trying to determine how well they work in terms of mobile users.
Index quality mobile web analysis firm Keynote Competitive Research planned to make a permanent showcase weekly indicators of the quality of mobile websites. He appreciates the ten top mobile services on the three parameters, demonstrating a wide variation in their standard of quality. These parameters are:
• Response time in seconds is the average time to download a mobile site in smartphone.
• speed downloads-average speed downloads site in bytes per second.
• The level of success is the percentage of successful downloads of the entire site to a mobile phone.
At the rank of popular mobile sites claimed nine very different type and content: CNN, ESPN, Facebook, Fandango, Google, MapQuest, MSN, Schwab (online brokerage firm), The Weather Channel and Yahoo. The first data cover the period from 19 to 26 November.
Results
Response time varies from less than 7 seconds for Google and Facebook to over 15 seconds for ESPN. Some of this disparity is due to the size of downloadable homepage: Google has found to be 6684 bytes, and the ESPN-26635 bytes.
But speed also varies widely. In many cases, sites with the largest number of bytes downloaded, and also demonstrated the lowest rate. Most proved slow Facebook with an average speed of 693 bytes / sec, with the amount of downloads 4663 bytes. However, the first site took place at the speed of CNN downloads 2368 bytes / s at the amount of 24211 bytes. Google showed the average result in 1009 bytes / sec. Based on the level of success of sites vary much less. Foremost on this parameter shared Facebook and Google with the level of success of 99.23%. There MSN, takes last place, this option, however, was 97%.
Keynote uses its own testing Mobile Application Perspective, which is to monitor, measure and assess the quality of mobile content library uses of 1000 simulated devices. Targeted sites downloaded from the networks for operators in emulated cellular modem connected to the real wireless networks.
In this case, Keynote emulates smartphone Motorola RAZR, which the company considers the most popular in the United States. Each modem hourly produces one dimension each site to all addresses within a week. At the end of the week the results of hours, and operators are assigned the index for each of the three benchmarks. Keynote maintains a similar index for European mobile sites.
Keynote The statement says that during the week, all three parameters that are constantly changing for the better, the worse: "It is clear that the company is still not able to offer services to mobile users ideal."

Technorati Tags: business,mobile

Russian company buys LiveJournal

2007-12-04T14:05:00.001-08:00

On Monday, Moscow media "SUP" has acquired a company Six Apart site LiveJournal online community, seized most popular in the world blogging-resource.
In October 2006, "PAF" and Six Apart collaborated on the issuance of a Russian-language version of LiveJournal, which accounts for 28% audience "The Living" magazine. LiveJournal competes with blog hosting services such as Blogger, which in 2003 acquired the Google Wordpress and TypePad, also owned by Six Apart.
LiveJournal changed the hosts for the second time: in 2005, Six Apart bought it from founder Brad Fitspatrika. The company claims that during her government service number of accounts has increased from 5 million to 14 million
While this is not such a big deal, as the acquisition of News Corp MySpace corporation., It indicates the continued interest of media services based on social networks and users generated material. For example, in May 2007, "acquired" Yandex site social MoiKrug.ru network.
Financial terms will not be disclosed. "To manage Living magazine" "SUP" has established a new company in San Francisco LiveJournal Inc. As part of the agreement team who worked on LiveJournal in Six Apart, moving to a new company. "" EMS plans to hire a new general manager and manager of marketing and sales. The new company announced the Education Advisory Council LiveJournal, to be composed of industry experts and members of the community "The Living" magazine. One of them will be Brad Fitzpatrick himself and the other two seats on the board, set for members of the community, will be filled in the online election.
Six Apart at least another 12 months will represent LiveJournal as advertising and sponsorship. In the future, Six Apart focus on its core products Moveable Type, TypePad and Vox. The company will also continue to work on open-source technologies, such as platform Memcached, Mogile, Perlbal OpenID and on the basis of which is designed LiveJournal and other sites now being developed, including Craigslist and Facebook.

Technorati Tags: blogging,resource

The company is creating the open-source code directory

2007-12-04T13:58:00.001-08:00

The new company created Cloudsmith site, which provides developers access to a "virtual" distributions, or specialized software configuration of open source, as well as the possibility of sharing.
Service, which is currently in beta, does not keep any code, but only information about where are the various components of a certain distribution. It also offers tools for collecting and assemblirovaniya individual components. The purpose Cloudsmith significantly accelerate and facilitate the process of creating open-source distributions.
One of the first users became Cloudsmith Eteration located in the Turkish and German company, which creates Lomboz, applications development tool Java- open source. Lomboz Customers often request the company to prepare a special distribution optimized for their infrastructure. "Many of our customers to combine with other technologies open-source to write their own applications, they can select servers Apache, use the portal OW2 etc.," explains Chief Eteration Nachi Dai (Naci Dai). - The site Cloudsmith allowed us to collect configuration preferred by our users in the form of virtual distributions. To update all configuration, enough virtual distro update ... We hope that, over time, this approach will be the only way to build and spread of our software, it will depend on customer feedback. "
Cloudsmith Business model is under development. As long as the services are provided free of charge, but at the end of the beta period Cloudsmith will offer subscription model for those customers who wish to share information only with certain other users.
Services Cloudsmith not targeted at Tech, and the programmers. The biggest concern at the moment they are the developers Eclipse. "We love this community," said Director General Cloudsmith Mitch Souniz (Mitch Sonies). "But in the very near future, we will take measures to demonstrate that we are not committed to any one technology."

Technorati Tags: business,startup

NASA has published an interactive map of Antarctica

2007-12-04T13:56:00.001-08:00

The National Agency for Aeronautics and Space USA has opened online access to satellite images compiled from detailed maps of Antarctica, which, according to the scientists will revolutionize the study continent.
Map Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica (LIMA), established with the assistance of NASA satellite, Landsat 7, contains nearly unclouded continent with the type of resolution is 10 times greater than previously available on any maps. By providing an unprecedented opportunity to examine the details of the size of half basketball court, the card contains a geographically the most accurate high-resolution color images of Antarctica. It was attended by USGS, the National Science Foundation and the British Institute for Polar.
"This will open up new opportunities for scientific research and allow the public a closer look at the Antarctica and so, as scientists use satellite images in their research" the statement says Representative Space Flight Center to them. Robert Bindshadlera NASA Goddard. He said researchers can use the map, in particular the planning for scientific expeditions and exploring mountain formations. It is more than a thousand images, made over three years observing the continent's landscape. To download available eight different versions of the resulting "mosaic".
Bindschadler, who initiated the project in NASA, began collecting his collection of images of Antarctica, in 1999. He and his colleagues chose the images for the card and have developed new methods of data interpretation. Collage "contains almost no white spots", with the exception of round-field pole in the southern hemisphere. "Map serves as an important result of the cooperation of American and British scientists says in the statement of the representative of the British Polar Institute in Cambridge Andrew Fleming. "I have no doubt that researchers will find this mosaic, one of the first results of a joint initiative for the invaluable scientific planning campaigns."

Technorati Tags: NASA

Google will offer online storage service?

2007-12-04T13:54:00.001-08:00

As reported on Tuesday newspaper Wall Street Journal, with reference to anonymous sources, Google plans to offer an online data storage and backup, giving users accessible via the web storage space, where you can move information from their home computers and to provide access to others.
The product will be an "umbrella" for service data storage services, which Google already offers in some of its web, such as e-mail and photo-sharing service. No date is not known, and there is no guarantee that in the course of further development of Google will not abandon the project.
U-rivals Google, Yahoo and Microsoft already have a similar service, respectively SkyDrive and Briefcase. In addition, there are many smaller players, such as Box.net or Mozy, which offer a broad range of services back up. Google, however, believes that it can get a competitive advantage by developing a more intuitive user interface. The only obstacle, which bypass Google fail, it is slow data transfer with many types of broadband connections, especially DSL. If a person works with large video files, then transfer them Google, as with any other online service data storage can take hours or even all day.
Communication on the project, which, according to Wall Street Journal, was named interior My Stuff, came three months after the start of Google offers fee-for-service data storage for its web. For example, users Picasa Web Albums and Gmail for $ 20 a year may receive a 6 GB of disk space, and for $ 500 a year-250 gigabytes. Free Picasa offers 1 GB, and Gmail-2.8 gigabytes.
Shortly before Google advertisement Microsoft has opened all these services online data storage SkyDrive service, which offers 500 megabytes of free disk space. And about the same time Apple upgraded its service. Mac by adding 10 gigabytes for $ 100 a year.
It is not clear how the new Google service would compete on price and functionality with the rest. However, a growing number of online disk space proposals indicates that suppliers see this commercial potential. In the case of Google knowledge that is on the hard drive, can expand opportunities for targeted advertising.

Technorati Tags: business,storage,google

Hotmail Founder opened an online service for working on documents

2007-12-04T13:52:00.001-08:00

Sabir Bhatia (Sabeer Bhatia), which gained fame in 1997, after selling Microsoft for $ 400 million online mail service Hotmail, says that the new service an even greater commercial potential. He made a bid for a set of online business applications that must compete with similar products of Microsoft and Google.
The company from Bangalore Collaboration Software Technologies (InstaColl), which is co-founder Bhatia, has opened an online service Live Documents, which allows to store and edit documents, as well as work together on them through any Web browser that supports Adobe Flash, and on any operating system.
The documents and work offline using additional client-add-on program for Microsoft Office, which ensures that online teamwork. When a user connects to the network, Live Documents synchronizes documents.
For individual users of the service, which is currently in the beta stage limited, will be free, but businesses will have to pay a subscription or purchase a license to install software on the server. In Live Documents applied technology Adobe Flash and Flex-company claims that they work better online Google applications, which it calls a truncated version of Microsoft Office. And Microsoft will not sacrifice its business box software, to offer a full range of online office applications, which gives a chance to market participants such as InstaColl.
InstaColl aims at the market for office, which for this year is estimated at $ 20 billion, and the market for teamwork. The company decided to offer the service free of charge for personal use to publicize it. Now when working in offline it supports only Microsoft Office, but in the coming months InstaColl promises to add support for OpenOffice.org. At the same time the company plans to release its own desktop client to work with documents in the offline.

Technorati Tags: startup,hotmail,business

Rank Tracker

2007-02-20T12:43:00.001-08:00

You must track your search engine rankingss to verify that you have reached your SEO goals. If you don't measure, how do you expect to know what needs to be improved? Yeah, you can guess and hope you get it right, but if you have effective tracking SEO tool, then you simply have unbeatable facts in front of you.
With Rank Tracker SEO Tool, you can check major search engines for all your keywords at once. Moreover, Rank Tracker allows you to track the progress of your search engine rankings over time. And what is more, Rank Tracker is an absolutely Free SEO tool - so you don't have to pay a red dime for it!

Downlaod Rank Tracker

IPligence Community Edition

2007-02-20T12:42:00.001-08:00

IPligence is a geolocation solution for the internet which allows high precision localization of visitors, immediately after entering on to a domain, without the need to store and analyze cookies or fill out tedious registration forms. Find the location of your visitors. Detect city, state, country + more. IPligence can be used to content in an appropriate language and currency. Administer digital rights. Restricted country filter. Filter for high risk countries. Reduce credit card fraud. Audience analysis statistics. As a base for IT security. Prevents service abuse, theft or ID sharing & passwords. Geolocated Publicity to increase web traffic and sales. Auto-Form filling tailored, legal compliance. IPligence advantages, high precision data. large coverage locally and globally. Easy integration with any development medium. Competitive Pricing. Immediately available. Regular updates.
This is a free product for Non-Commercial use and is subject to the IPligence Community Edition license. Basically this is
the only requirement: You must link / credit ipligence.com back in any webpage or service using this product.

Download IPligence Community Edition

BackLinks Master

2007-02-19T10:46:00.001-08:00

It is well known that backlinks are an important way to increase your rank in search engines. No matter how you get inbound links to your site, you need a tool to control the status of these links - whether they still point to your website, what anchor text these backlinks have and so on.
Of course, you can check the status of your inbound and reciprocal links manually, but it is a huge time-saver to use BackLinks Master instead. BackLinks Master helps you find who has links to you, whether these links are direct or embedded into JavaScript and what keywords they have in their anchor text.
BackLinks Master is free backlink checking software.

BackLinks Master

Free Google PageRank checking and monitoring tool

2007-02-19T10:43:00.001-08:00

PaRaMeter stands for "Page Rank Meter" - a free Google PageRank checking and monitoring tool. PageRank is one of the methods Google uses to determine how relevant and important a page is. PageRank is a "vote", by all other pages on the Web telling Google how important a particular page is. It is one of the parameters of search engine ranking. With PaRaMeter, you can easily check the page rank of multiple pages with one click.
PaRaMeter is a free bulk PageRank checker.

Download ParaMeter

Seo Tool

2007-02-19T10:41:00.001-08:00

This SEO Tool allows you to check a webpage for its meta tag keywords, meta tag description and body keywords which are displayed in density and cloud density. This tool shows some very cool information about the server too, and has certainly helped us a few times with SE optimization. SEO Tool analyzer shows load times as well as IP Address. It also has a Keyword cloud.

Download SEO Tool

SmartStartMenu

2007-01-07T06:41:00.000-08:00

If you ever use the 'Start' menu then you will find that this free Windows utility is a much better way to open the item that you are looking for. SmartStartMenu helps you to turn the task of running any program and opening any document, folder, or website into a two or three key-stroke effort.SmartStartMenu helps you to clean up your desktop and 'Quicklaunch' toolbar by reducing your dependencies on them.

Download SmartStartMenu

JkDefrag

2006-12-27T01:48:00.000-08:00

Freeware disk defragment and optimize utility for Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista/X64. Completely automatic and very easy to use, fast, low overhead, with two optimization strategies, and can handle floppies and USB sticks. Included are a Windows version, a command line version (for scheduling by the task scheduler or for use from administrator scripts), a screensaver version, a DLL library (for use from programming languages).

Download JkDefrag

Amazon S3Drive

2006-12-07T08:12:00.000-08:00

Amazon S3Drive simulates a local network drive but actualy stores the files on the Amazon Storage Service S3. You can handle it like any other network drive on a Windows machine. It works in a DOS box and can be access from every program or any programming language that can access files.

[Via Larkware News]

Network Diagnostic Tool

2006-10-31T01:20:00.000-08:00

The Network Diagnostics for Windows XP tool analyzes information about your network connectivity to help you troubleshoot network-related problems with your computer.

Download Network Diagnostic Tool

Technorati tags: tool, network, diagnostic, microsoft

Microsoft Calculator Plus

2006-10-31T01:19:00.000-08:00

This application allows you to complete many different types of conversions; it also includes all the mathematical functions offered in Microsoft Calculator.

Download Microsoft Calculator Plus

Technorati tags: microsoft, tool, calculator

13 Useful Firefox Extensions

2006-10-24T07:22:00.000-07:00

All-in-One Gestures - This extension allows you to execute common commands using mouse gestures, rocker navigation, scroll wheel navigation and page scrolling.

Download Statusbar is a browser extension that allows you to keep track of ongoing and completed downloads in a hide-away statusbar.

Show Image is an extension for Mozilla Firefox which enables user to reload a broken image without loading the entire page.

MinimizeToTray always allows you to send Firefox to the tray by right-mouse clicking on the minimize button.

Enhanced History Manager is an extension that allows you search and sort browser history entries

CuteMenus is an extension for Mozilla Firefox which adds icons to the most menu-items in your popus and menus.

SessionSaver restores your browser exactly as you left it, every startup, every time. Not even a crash will phase it. Windows, tabs, even things you were typing they're all saved.

ScrapBook is a Firefox extension, which helps you to save Web pages and manage the collection. Key features are lightness, speed, accuracy and multi-language support.

Tabbrowser Extensions is a package for extending operations of tabbed browsing, for example tabs become reorderable by drag and drop.

User Agent Switcher adds a menu and a toolbar button to switch the user agent of the browser.

Gmail Notifier allows checking for new Gmail messages directly from the browser's UI

FireFTP is a free, secure, cross-platform FTP client for Mozilla Firefox which provides easy and intuitive access to FTP servers.

The Web Developer extension adds a menu and a toolbar to the browser with various web developer tools.

Sage is a lightweight RSS and Atom feed reader extension for Mozilla Firefox.

DeskTask

2006-10-16T06:30:00.000-07:00

DeskTask connects to Microsoft Outlook and displays your calendar and task items on the desktop.

Features:

Your tasks will always be visible, saving precious time to launch or switch to Outlook.
Just minimize every window, and see what are the items due for today or tomorrow.
DeskTask displays the whole week so you can be prepared to organize your work.
Besides the calendar items, the Outlook to-do list (Folder Tasks) is also displayed. If you work with Outlook, DeskTask is for you

Download DeskTask

10 Useful Free Windows Programs

2006-10-16T04:30:00.000-07:00

Notepad++ - a great text editor with tabbed interface, configurable syntax highlighting, syntax folding, line numbering, multi-view, bookmarks and regular expression search.
Windows Live Writer - lets you post blog entries directly to your blog from within Windows Internet Explorer. You can add links, images, maps from Windows Live Local, and more. If you have more than one blog, you can use Writer to post to any or all of them.
Process Explorer - ever wondered which program has a particular file or directory open? Now you can find out. Process Explorer shows you information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded.
GetRight - downloads, resumes and most importantly, splits up large downloads over HTTP or FTP into as many as 10 concurrent streams. Great with FlashGot for FireFox.
Paint.NET - an image and photo manipulation software designed to be used on computers that run Windows. It supports layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools.
Hamachi - a program that allows you to arrange multiple computers into their own secure network just as if they were connected by a physical network cable.
Foxit Reader - a free reader for PDF (Portable Document Format) documents. You can view and print PDF documents with it.
SmartFTP - an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) client which allows you to transfer files between your local computer and a server on the Internet.
RSS Bandit - an RSS/Atom aggregator (also known as an RSS Reader) for your desktop
Cropper - a screen capture utility.It makes it fast and easy to grab parts of your screen.

Code Style Enforcer

2006-10-05T16:12:00.000-07:00

Code Style Enforcer is a DXCore plug-in for Visual Studio that checks the code against a configurable code standard and best practices. It is developed for C#, but some of the rules will also work for VB .NET, though not tested. The code standard is currently configurable with the following rules:
• Name rules, where it is possible to have different rules for different members, i.e. fields, constants, variables, methods, properties and so on.
• Visibility rules, where you can specify the visibility that is valid for different members. It is also possible to specify that the visibility has to be specified explicitly.
• Implementation rules, where it is possible to specify that interface implementations are to be made explicitly or implicitly.
The default rules are based on the C# Coding Standard from IDesign. It is the most complete code standard available and it is free to download.

Download Code Style Enforcer

Technorati tags: addin, plugin, vs2005

Free online Blog client - WriteToMyBlog

2006-10-05T03:12:00.000-07:00

WriteToMyBlog is a free web word processor for your Blog.

Features

Create Post entries with advanced word processor and have them published directly to your Blog.
Advanced text styling.
Control image positioning and wrapping.
Add tables to your Posts.
Easy tagging.
Multilingual AJAX spellchecker.
Works with all major Blog services.
Publish to one or many Blogs at the same time.
Select Categories to list in.
Trackback support.
Doesn't store or view any of your Posts or your Blog account details, simple acts as an interface gateway between you and your Blog service.
View and preview your recent Posts.

Technorati tags: blogging, web2, writer, editor, tool

Seekafile - Open-Source Indexing Server

2006-10-05T01:07:00.000-07:00

Seekafile Server is a Windows Service that indexes DOC, PDF, XLS, PPT, RTF, HTML, TXT, XML, and other file formats on the background.

Features

Incredibly fast search

Incredibly fast searching powered by DotLucene (open-source search engine).
It recognizes any change within a second.

Flexibility

The index is stored in DotLucene/Lucene 1.3+ compatible format.
The index can be accessed directly from other applications (you can search even when the indexing is in progress).
Access the index directly from any custom application (ASP.NET, Windows Forms application, Java application).
The download package includes an ASP.NET searching application.

Support for common file formats

Built-in support for the following file formats:

Microsoft Powerpoint (PPT)
Microsoft Word (DOC)
Microsoft Excel (XLS)
HTML (HTM/HTML)
Text files (TXT)

Extensible using IFilter

Supports IFilter interface for searching other extensions:

Adobe Acrobat (PDF)
Microsoft Visio (VSD)
Rich Text Format (RTF)
XML
etc...

Extensible using custom plugins

Supports custom plugins written in .NET.

Zero maintenance

The indexer runs on the background as a Windows service.
You specify the directories to be watched for changes in the configuration file.
Indexer works in the background with low priority (it doesn't slow down other operations).
Runs on Windows 2000/XP/2003 with .NET Framework 1.1.

Watch the new releases and other news on the Seekafile blog

Download Seekafile Server

Technorati tags: indexing, freeware, IFilter, dotnet, tool

Subtext 1.9 “Daedelus”

2006-10-04T14:49:00.000-07:00

"Subtext is a personal blog publishing platform that focuses on usability, elegance, and simplicity. If you’ve ever caught yourself throwing your hands in the air and declaring that you’re going to write your own blogging engine, then Subtext is for you."

New Features

Removed some old skins and added some snazzy new ones. Also implemented a way for custom skin definitions to not get overwritten when upgrading code.
Improvements to the packaged skins. Added the Previous/Next control to nearly every skin as well as Gravatar support among other minor improvements.
Comment Moderation.
Changed the default Html Editor to use the FCKEditor.
Implemented RSD (Really Simple Discovery) and the MetaWeblog API’s newMediaObject method so that Subtext works quite well with Windows Live Writer.

Download

The Most Intelligent Integrated Team Environment - TeamCity

2006-10-04T02:28:00.000-07:00

JetBrains has released their integrated team environment.

"TeamCity is an innovative, IDE independent, integrated team environment targeted for .NET and Java software developers and their managers. It automates and coordinates key collaborative processes to eliminate manual systems and delays, providing tight integration with multiple build and test tools, real-time unit test frequency, server-side inspections and code coverage analysis."

Features

Continuous Integration & Testing
Efficient, Effective Build Management
Timely Automated Team Communication
Server-side Code Analysis
Code Coverage Analysis & Reporting
Web-based Interface & Project Dashboard
Extensibility
Tight IDE Integration
Pre-tested (Delayed) Commit
Remote Run for Personal Builds

[Via LarkWare News]

WinSnap

2006-09-27T16:16:00.000-07:00

WinSnap is a small enhancement utility for taking and editing screenshots. It can easily capture windows of non-rectangular form with the background of your choice, automatically perform simple canvas transformations and coloring effects, add professional smoothing shadows in Photoshop style and more. Also, WinSnap supports variety of image formats and provides advanced auto-save features.

Easy makes screenshots of windows with rounded corners
WinSnap saves info about window form and adds real smoothing shadows!
Unique "Application" mode allows you to capture all visible windows of the foreground application with one click.
Basic coloring effects and canvas transformations.
Advanced auto-save and auto-copy options.
Usual keyboard and mouse control (Print Screen replacement).
Make all this work with one 100-kb application - smaller than Paint!
It is FREE for personal, educational and non-commercial use!

Download WinSnap

Technorati tags: screencapture, utils, tools, freeware

Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 Beta is now available

2006-09-27T16:04:00.001-07:00

This Service Pack includes over 2,000 bug fixes, as well as Hotfixes and General Distribution Release Updates .

The fixes in this service pack address many issues received from customers via the Product Feedback Center, which was introduced first in the Visual Studio 2005 product cycle. We are also including any fixes addressing security issues categorized as MSRC Critical, Important or Moderate, fixes for product reliability and stability issues, and the crashes most frequently reported via Watson.

Beta will include VS2005 SP1 and Express in English and Japanese only

Customers may sign up and download the Beta by accessing the Microsoft Connect site at https://connect.microsoft.com/visualstudio

Technorati tags: vs2005, microsoft, dotnet, c#

Windows Live Writer 1.0 (Beta) Update with Windows Live Gallery

2006-09-27T15:41:00.000-07:00

Windows Live Writer is a desktop application that makes it easier to compose compelling blog posts using Windows Live Spaces or your current blog service.

The following is a summary of the changes in the Writer 1.0 (Beta) Update:

Tagging support
Support for Blogger Beta
Categories are sorted by name and support scrolling, plus improved support for reading categories from your blog
Improved startup performance
Paste is enabled for Title region and TAB/SHIFT+TAB navigation between title and body supported
Insert hyperlink added to context menu when text is selected
Title attribute in Insert Link dialog
Custom date support for Community Server
Improved keyboard shortcuts for switching views
Change spell-check shortcut key to F7
Add ‘png’ to insert image dialog file type filter
More robust image posting to Live Spaces
Improved style detection for blogs
Fixed issues with pasting URLs and links
Remember last window size and position when opening a new post
Open post dialog retrieves more than 25 old posts

Download Windows Live Writer 1.0 (Beta) Update

ExtractNow

2006-08-30T03:28:00.000-07:00

ExtractNow is a simple utility that allows you to extract multiple archives quickly and easily. ExtractNow is not a complete archival solution. It's main purpose it to allow the user to extract multiple archives easily.

Features

Supports ZIP, RAR, ISO, BIN, IMG, IMA, IMZ, 7Z, ACE, JAR, GZ, LZH, LHA, SIT archive formats
Drag and drop files or folders from Windows Explorer to extract them
Simple user interface and sleek design in a small package
Recursively search through folders for archives (Just drag and drop them)
Delete files or close program after extraction options
Windows explorer file associations for all supported archive types
Extract files into current directory, named folder, or favorite folder of choice
System tray icon on Minimize and Always on top features
Integrates with Windows Explorer via special context menu items

Download ExtractNow

Folder Marker

2006-08-28T06:41:00.000-07:00

Changing folder icons, Folder Marker will help you to cope with the standard yellowness. Folder Marker adds an item "Mark Folder" in the folder popup menu.

Screenshots

Features:

Folder Marker can change a folder icon with one mouse click
Folder Marker can mark folders by priority (high, normal, low), by degree of work completeness (done, half-done, planned) and by the form of the information contained in a folder (work files, important files, temp files, private files).
Folder Marker can change a folder's color
Folder Marker changes folder icons from a popup menu of the folders. To mark a folder, you don't even need to run the program!
Folder Marker's menu can contain convenient category submenu's.
Folder Marker contains a User's Icons tab. Add up to 10 of your favorite icons and mark folders with them. It's easy!
Folder Marker can work with several folders at once
Folder Marker can assign an icon to a folder from: ICO, ICL, EXE, DLL, CPL or BMP file
Folder Marker supports 32-bits icons
Folder Marker can change the icons of ALL folders in your system. This is the favorite feature of customization lovers. Get rid of monotony! Make your folders your own!

Download Folder Marker

LLBLGen Pro v2.0 released!

2006-07-19T00:51:00.000-07:00

LLBLGen Pro, the O/R mapper and data-access tier generator for .NET, generates a complete data-access tier and business façade/support tier for you (in C# or VB.NET), using an existing database schema set. The generated .NET code is compiler-ready and can, being compiled by the .NET C# or VB.NET compiler, be used immediately by other applications.

Summary of enhancements and new features

Full .NET 2.0 support in generated code and runtime libraries with separate runtime libraries codebase for .NET 2.0, using .NET specific features like generics internally as well for optimal performance.

SqlServer 2005 server side paging queries now use a CTE based query instead of a temptable based query for optimal performance.

Support for nullable types for value-type based entity and view fields. (.NET 2.0 targeting code only)

Support for System.Transactions transactions when applicable (SqlServer 2005, .NET 2.0)

Support for wsdl schema interpretation logic to have wsdl.exe generate typed stubs for webservices instead of DataSet based stubs (.NET 2.0 targeting code only)

New feature-rich validation framework.

Powerful data-projection framework: project any entitycollection or resultset retrieved from a datareader onto any datastructure of any type using generic code.

Ability to specify scalar queries in expressions, so a subquery inside a selectlist or inside expressions in filters is now possible.

It's now possible to fetch a query as a datareader. This query can be a stored procedure call, or a query created on the fly. This datareader can then be used further, if required, to project the data onto classes like entity classes, datatables or custom classes using the generic data-projection framework. This makes it possible to fetch entities through a stored procedure call with very a few lines of code.

EntityView (SelfServicing) and EntityView2 (Adapter) classes added, which are dataview-style objects for entity collections. They support sorting, and filtering in-memory, data projection onto other entity collections, datatables or custom classes. Filtering and sorting is done through strongly-typed, compile-time checked predicate and sortclause objects, which are also used for filters and sorters in database queries.

Expressions now support calls to database functions (UDF's or system functions). Database functions can accept entity fields or normal values you pass to the function or other expressions (like for example scalar queries).

Full support for 2-way declarative databinding and design time databinding in ASP.NET 2.0, using the LLBLGenProDataSource (selfservicing) and LLBLGenProDataSource2 (adapter) controls. These controls support (design time) databinding of entity collections, typed lists and typed views and support server-side paging, sorting and filtering. They also support data persistence / retrieval delegation to different methods (by tracking changes into a UnitofWork object), and filtering/sorting based on parameter binding with other controls on an ASP.NET 2.0 webform.

Full support for design time databinding in .NET 2.0 windows forms.

.NET 2.0/VS.NET 2005: A set of Debugger Visualizers has been added for a lot of classes in the framework to ease debugging your code.

support for CF.NET 2.0 and SqlServerCE 3.0

Oracle support using the Microsoft Oracle provider. This replaces the DataDirect based Oracle support.

SqlServer 2005: support for synonyms for tables and views, support for User Defined Types (UDT) based on CLR classes, support for NEWSEQUENTIALID() so sequential uniqueidentifier values can be generated by the DB and read back into entities.

PostgreSql support for PostgreSql v7.4 and up

Much lower memory footprint of entity collections in memory.

Entity fetch speed has been greatly enhanced.

LLBLGen Pro designer is now running on .NET 2.0, using the new Janus Windows controls v3 for windowing and grids.

Plug-ins can now open their own docked window in the LLBLGen Pro designer

It's now possible to specify in the designer additional namespaces and interfaces to generate into the entity classes

Completely new code generation configuration system, which makes it very easy to add/remove/edit the tasks scheduled in the run queue for code generation.

New template configuration system which makes it very easy to add your own templates to an existing set of templates to enhance or replace existing templates without having to alter any system configuration.

Much more small enhancements, changes, tweaks and additions.

Technorati : programming, soft, tool

ArsClip

2006-07-18T16:11:00.000-07:00

ArsClip is a FREE (freeware) utility for the windows clipboard. ArsClip monitors the clipboard and keeps track of the entries. Press a configurable hotkey and select an item (or items) to quickly paste into a program.

Features

Multiple permanent items groups

Picture, RichText, File Copy, Unicode, HTML support

Keypress emulation

Form Mode for pasting multiple fields

Highly configurable

Requirements

This program was written with Delphi 6 and requires no installation. It has been tested on Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP Professional.

Download ArsClip

Technorati : Software, code, freeware, opensource, tools

Free Online Storage - box.net

2006-06-23T11:46:00.000-07:00

1GB of online storage for free, more for pay.

Features

Save backup copies of important files
Move documents between your computers
Setup sub-accounts for multiple user access
Store photos and other important memories
Share files or create online photo galleries

Go to box.net

Technorati : free, online, storage
Ice Rocket : free, online, storage

Unlocker for Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows 2003

2006-06-15T03:10:00.000-07:00

How often have you tried to delete or rename a file or folder and got
"Cannot delete xxx: It is being used by another person or program." ?

Unlocker is a tool which will help you removing this scandalous Windows
bug.

Simply right click the file or folder and select Unlocker. If the file
or folder is locked then a window will appear with a list of processes
locking the file or folder. Select the locks and click Unlock and you
are done.

Download Unlocker

[Via Roy Osherove's Blog]

Technorati : freeware, soft, tool
Ice Rocket : freeware, soft, tool

Powerful personal Wiki system - ConnectedText

2006-06-03T04:29:00.000-07:00

ConnectedText is a simple but powerful personal Wiki system. With it you can store ideas, pieces of information found in the Web, thoughts, code snippets, recipes, lists, linking them with ease. Like a notebook in which any topic can be linked to any other.

ConnectedText Features

User interface

Multiple workspaces open at same time, with tabbed browsing
Several views can be docked
Full support of Unicode
Store all topic revisions, each with own notes
Use of Cascading Style Sheets to render text
Navigator to show topic relationship
Full text search with boolean, phrase and proximity operators
Complete history navigation
Built-in web browser
Plugin architecture
OLE Automation
Bookmark manager for topics
Minimization to system tray
Configuration of keyboard shortcuts
Toolbar customization

Wiki features

Automatic creation of table of contents for a topic
Tables and bulleted lists
Dictionary lists
Support for GIF, PNG, JPEG and BMP images, with resizing and positioning
Five levels of headers which can be collapsed/expanded.
Text effects: bold, italic, underwrite, strike through, etc
Paragraph indenting
URL, mail and file linking
Allows inclusion of a topic inside other, even from other projects
Links between projects
Anchor links
Automatic URL detection
Special category topics
Mathematical formulas rendered using LaTeX
Rename or delete any topic with automatic change of references
Inline styles to improve text appearance
Topics can have an associated icon
Topics can be locked to prevent editing
Include information dynamically from external sources using plugins
Topic templates can be created

Editor

Completion proposal of topic names
Accept URL, file, image and text drag and drop
Search and replace
Spell checker
Auto save
Special paste to create a new topic
Allows copy of images from browsers or other sources using drag and drop
Allows transfer of topics between projects using drag and drop
Images can be pasted from Clipboard

Tools

Export topics to text, HTML Help or HTML file
Import topics from text, HTML and RTF files
See all topics that links to the current topic
Compare any two revisions
Topic analysis to help figure out linking problems
History of topic changes
Category tree view which shows the hierarchy of categories
Images manager
Revisions removal tool which removes unnecessary revisions based in a criteria
Backup, restore and shrink functions to manage projects

Download ConnectedText (6.3 mb)

Patterns & Practices Guidance Explorer

2006-06-02T05:37:00.000-07:00

Guidance Explorer is a tool to find and use relevant patterns & practices guidance. Guidance Explorer installs with a guidance library including performance and security topics for .NET and ASP.NET applications. The guidance library contains checklists and guidelines covering design, implementation and deployment topics. The tool and the library will evolve over time to include additional types of guidance.

Feature List

Find guidance
- Performance guidelines for .net 1.1 and asp.net 1.1
- Security guidelines for asp.net 2.0
- View guidance based on full library or default p&p views
- Sort and filter by column
- Add and remove columns
- Full text search
Build custom guidance set
- Create new folder
- Create new view
- Drag items into view
- Browse items in view
- Browse all items from views in a folder
Share guidance
- Export view or library as XML
- Import view or library as XML
- Save guidance view or library as doc or html
- Save checklist view or library as doc, html, or xls
Add/Edit existing guidance
- Add new item through UI
- Edit existing item through UI
- Rich text editor for content creation
- HTML editor for content creation
- Template with schema and test cases to guide content creation
- Example to guide content creation

Get Patterns & Practices Guidance Explorer

[Via Larkware News]

Google AJAX Search API (Beta)

2006-06-02T05:32:00.000-07:00

"The Google AJAX Search API is an experimental API that lets you integrate a dynamic Google search module into your web pages so your users can mash up Google search results with other content on your site or add search results clippings to their own content."

ieCapture

2006-05-31T23:05:00.000-07:00

The easiest way to see how your site will render in IE7 - ieCapture

The easiest way to see how your site will render in Safari - iCapture

Technorati : internet, microsoft
Ice Rocket : internet, microsoft, safari

Automise

2006-05-30T04:21:00.000-07:00

Automise is a powerful general purpose automation tool that allows anyone to automate just about anything! Create an Automise project using the fantastic GUI, and then it's easy for anyone to run the project with single click or single keystroke or it can be scheduled to run automatically. Automise saves time, often running tasks in seconds that would take minutes or hours if done manually.

Automise makes complex automation tasks easy as it uses a powerful graphical user interface and includes built in support for many different applications. Automise includes powerful flow control actions which allow the project to decide which actions to run depending on certain conditions, as well as error handling so that your project can clean up and handle errors properly.

Features:

file operations (copy, move, create, delete, etc)
CD/DVD burning
database manipulations using SQL or Stored procedures
FTP operations (put, get, create directory, etc)
Run VBScript or JScript code
iterate files, folders, file content, lists, etc
IIS 5 and 6 operations (start, stop, create website, etc)
create zip files, unpack RAR files, etc
manipulate XML files
operate on the .NET GAC
WMI operations
and much, much more!

Download Automise

[Via Roy Osherove's Blog ]

PayPal Mobile

2006-05-27T04:33:00.000-07:00

PayPal today introduced PayPal Mobile, a text message-based service allowing consumers in the US and Canada to send money anytime, from anywhere, using their mobile telephones.

With PayPal Mobile, users can send money, purchase items or donate to charities from their mobile devices. Using PayPal Mobile's Text to Buy service, consumers can buy things instantly, such as Cd's, DVDs, shoes and apparel, by sending product codes via text message. Already, companies like 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, Bravo, MTV, and the NBA Store are offering items for purchase with Text to Buy. PayPal Mobile also enables users to Text to Give to charities such as Amnesty International, Starlight Starbright and UNICEF.

To use PayPal Mobile, customers first activate their telephones by logging into their PayPal accounts at https://www.paypal.com/mobile. After registering their mobile telephone numbers, users must choose a secure Personal Identification Number (PIN) which protects every mobile payment.

PayPal Mobile users make payments by sending a text message to PayPal. PayPal calls the user back to confirm the mobile payment, and then sends the money to the recipient. In the case of a Text to Buy purchase, after the merchant receives the payment, the item is shipped to the address already saved in the user's PayPal account

Text to Buy

Anytime you see Text to Buy next to something you want to buy-on a poster, in a magazine, at an event-you can securely order the item by text message.
Use your phone to buy items like CDs, DVDs, books, electronics, accessories and much more.