Nov 22nd, 2008 - Research released this week by Evans Data showed that 73 percent of the market currently use or plan to adopt the Spring application framework for Java within the next two years. More remarkable is that 83 percent of companies with 500 or more developers use Spring, according to the study. So I... (Read More)

Nov 20th, 2008 - Ubuntu and CentOS are now in the rPath. The company yesterday began shipping a version of its rBuilder build and release management system for Linux that adds those distros; the tool previously worked only with Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise and its own rPath Linux. rBuilder packages a Linux... (Read More)

Aug 26th, 2008 - Are you participating in Hack Week? That's Novell's open invitation to the world for suggestions on how to improve its openSuse Linux distro running through this Friday, Aug. 29. And you might just even win a prize. Calls for porting Tomboy to Windows (and maybe even Mac OS X), adding geocode... (Read More)

Nov 14th, 2008 - Isn't anything safe from hackers? Now they've apparently found a way to hack into systems through a media stream, threatening users with denial of service attacks that can bring down servers and desktops alike. The vulnerability was reported yesterday by VoIPshield Laboratories, a security tools... (Read More)

Sep 10th, 2008 - Microsoft yesterday released a security update intended to fix eight critical vulnerabilities in as many as 42 Windows apps and components, including IE6, Media Player, Office, SQL Server and Visual Studio. The patch was made available before they could be discovered and exploited by malicious... (Read More)

Nov 12th, 2008 - Two weeks ago I was asked a question to which, given my occupation, I should have known the answer. The question was: “How many software testers are there?” Being editor of a magazine about software testing, that's a number I should have know cold. At the time, I offered an estimate of about... (Read More)

Aug 22nd, 2008 - I can just hear Jerry Seinfeld’s monologue taking jabs at Redmond: “…and what’s with Microsoft Vista—Bob and Windows ME weren’t embarrassing enough?” Who knows, maybe he already has. But now all that must be put aside as he takes on the role of pitch man for Vista. Do the folks in Redmond realize... (Read More)

Nov 11th, 2008 - Android's Java front-end gives Google's mobile platform an instant community of app developers and Java-specific tools. But beginning today, there's also a static code scanner that's aware of Android's APIs. Klocwork, which makes automated source code analysis solutions, today began shipping a... (Read More)

Sep 4th, 2008 - Bravo to Google for daring to compete in the two-party system of the world's desktop browser market. And kudos for bucking the status quo to design a "modern platform for Web pages and applications," as its release statement read. But there's also skepticism out there about Google's bravado, and... (Read More)

Sep 1st, 2008 - With dozens of freshly minted applications on hand to stock its shelves, Google's Android Market is all but ready to open-- right across the street from Apple's App Store. All Google needs now is for someone to start selling phones that use Android, its Linux-based mobile operating system.... (Read More)

Aug 30th, 2008 - Google yesterday announced winners of the Android Developer Challenge, which put up US$10 million in prize money to developers of the best applications for its nascent mobile platform. In doing so, Google also helped to stock the shelves of Android Market, a forthcoming online retail site for... (Read More)

Nov 9th, 2008 - I think we can safely say that Windows Vista was a flop. The only one that doesn't seem to know it is Microsoft. Or does it? This week at WinHEC, the company introduced a series of capabilities in Windows 7 that it says will "make it easier for hardware partners to create new experiences for... (Read More)

Sep 6th, 2008 - If your plan is to strong-arm customers into offering your products exclusively, you had better give them something people want to buy. With Microsoft and Windows Vista, such is not the case, and Hewlett-Packard isn't taking it lying down. HP, the world's number one PC supplier in terms of... (Read More)

Sep 5th, 2008 - If you have to release a statement explaining your commercial, I think it's safe to say it was a failure. The much anticipated Microsoft commercial featuring comedian Jerry Seinfeld debuted yesterday, and quickly rose in the viewer ranks on YouTube. Not only was the 90-second spot not funny, it... (Read More)

Nov 6th, 2008 - Support for RESTful Web services, JBoss Seam and Java refactorings and code inspections are among the new features in IntelliJ IDEA 8, JetBrains' Java IDE for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows that began shipping today. If you're not familiar, JetBrains' raison d'être is to make an integrated development... (Read More)

Oct 9th, 2008 - Which hypervisor performs better, Xen or VMware's ESX? That apparently depends on which organization you ask. But for a team that's tasked with choosing a virtualization platform, some impartial data would sure be helpful. "That's where we come in," said Michael Salsburg, director of the... (Read More)

Sep 20th, 2008 - A company called Moderro Technologies this week unveiled the Xpack Web 2.0 Cloud Computer, a palm-sized appliance dedicated to cloud computing. The US$395 computer was being demonstrated at the 2008 Web 2.0 Expo in New York City this week, and is set to begin shipping in late October. Although... (Read More)

Sep 16th, 2008 - VMware yesterday unveiled a series of solutions yesterday--its Virtual Datacenter OS and related products--that I personally believe are a gigantic advance not just for IT administrators, but for software developers and testers too. And that's just the beginning. The company also introduced a new... (Read More)

Sep 15th, 2008 - Making what now seems like the next logical step for operating system evolution, VMware today told the world about Virtual Datacenter OS, which it positions as a way to "pool all types of hardware resources--servers, storage and network--into an aggregated on-premise cloud." The solution gives... (Read More)

Sep 13th, 2008 - A new application programming interface released this week gives development and test teams the ability to link their ground-based test systems with virtual operating systems accessed through a browser. It all comes from Skytap, which earlier this year released Virtual Lab, a Web-based... (Read More)

Nov 5th, 2008 - Attention marketing professionals: Sending cute toys along with press releases is a good way to get me to notice them. I received a package today from Actuate, which makes RIA and business intelligence tools. In addition to news about BIRT-based Actuate 10, which I’ll get to in a minute, the... (Read More)

Oct 23rd, 2008 - Research In Motion yesterday released new versions of its BlackBerry development tools, including the BlackBerry Java Development Environment (JDE) Plug-In for Eclipse Beta 2 that's better integrated with the open-source IDE, can perform pre-processing for builds and receives updates through the... (Read More)

Sep 27th, 2008 - Apple this week released an update to its Java Virtual Machine, taking users of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and 10.5 Leopard to 1.6.0_07. Depending on your operating system, the patch fixes as many as 27 bugs, and chances are pretty good that you'll benefit. There are separate updaters for Tiger and... (Read More)

Nov 3rd, 2008 - Who couldn't use some extra cash these days? Thousands of dollars in prize money is up for grabs as testers face off in Battle of the Browsers, a seven-day contest that starts today. Applications in the contest's arena are Google's Chrome, Firefox 3.1 alpha 2 and IE 8. To qualify, bugs must be... (Read More)

Oct 27th, 2008 - Zephyr today launched version 2.0 of its namesake software test management tool, which is now available as a SaaS in Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud. Zephyr gives development teams a Flash-based system for communication, collaboration, resource, document and project management, test-case creation... (Read More)

Sep 16th, 2008 - Zend Technologies today is set to announce a series of alliances intended to allow its PHP framework and development environment to work with other widely deployed RIA technologies from Adobe, Dojo and IBM. In a keynote speech at ZendCon, the company's annual PHP developer conference in Cupertino,... (Read More)

Aug 25th, 2008 - In the late 1990s an innovative company called Enroute Imaging came out with QuickStitch, a program that could analyze a series of digital photos and "stitch" them together into a single image. It cleverly figured out where the image data repeated and combined the photos seamlessly. It was really... (Read More)

Oct 25th, 2008 - I don't care who Joe Buck supports for President. I just don't want to know. Thankfully, he's never shared his preference while describing plays of the World Series for Fox Sports, at least as far as I've ever heard. Likewise, I don't want to know the views of Robert Deniro on climate change, Susan... (Read More)

Oct 5th, 2008 - Steve Ballmer should limit his worries to Microsoft and his advice to his employees. Last week the Microsoft CEO reportedly had the audacity to suggest that Apple "become more like Microsoft," and loosen the bonds between Apple hardware and software. Is he really that clueless? Surely he's aware... (Read More)

Oct 3rd, 2008 - With the first availability of an Android-based phone is only weeks away, it's my guess that T-Mobile's G1 phone will be the next big "must-have" gizmo for today's techno geeks. The carrier, which promised delivery on the Oct. 22 launch date to customers placing advance orders, has sold through its... (Read More)

Sep 30th, 2008 - Adobe Systems has confirmed what many in the media have been speculating for months--that it will produce a version of its Flash runtime environment for Apple's iPhone. The move will open the device to an enormous wealth of applications and Flash-enabled Web content. What remains to be seen is... (Read More)

Sep 28th, 2008 - They've been available on the black market almost since the beginning. They'll be selling in Russia next week. And now you can get them at the Apple Store. What are they? They're unlocked iPhone 3Gs, usable on the carrier of choice, not just AT&T. Simply insert your existing SIM card and activate... (Read More)

Sep 11th, 2008 - Yahoo yesterday released an update to Blueprint, its mobile development platform that it says now allows developers to build stand-alone Java apps, and apps for devices running Symbian and Windows Mobile. Previously the platform was limited to building mobile widgets for its Yahoo Go mobile... (Read More)

Sep 9th, 2008 - There's been no shortage of speculation about apple CEO Steven Jobs has up his sleeve for the media event he's about to give today in San Francisco at 10 am local time. There's even been a leaked photo of a new "taller"iPod that's also thinner and less costly. Apple today also is expected to... (Read More)

Sep 3rd, 2008 - It was widely reported today that Apple will begin selling iPhones in Russia through agreements with at least two of the country's top three carriers. Apple might be better off settling for its current black market sales figures, which one report has at about 20,000 units a month. Because Apple... (Read More)

Oct 25th, 2008 - Wouldn't it be nice if you could track Gmail messages about specific features and bugs from within your defect tracking system? You can if you're using the open-source SugarCRM, thanks to a team of Italian developers that today launched DolceGmail. The new plug-in for Firefox links Google's... (Read More)

Sep 28th, 2008 - With ElectricCommander 3.0 set to begin shipping this week, I caught up with Electric Cloud CEO Mike Maciag to better understand the build automation tool's new "preflight" capability. That's a feature that determines whether changes to code will integrate correctly with the main build before those... (Read More)

Sep 17th, 2008 - If you're part of a software development team that performs multiple daily builds, then you might replace the term "continuous integration" with "continuous build failure." A company called Electric Cloud may offer a solution. The software production tools maker later this month will begin shipping... (Read More)

Aug 22nd, 2008 - Intel Thursday unveiled something Nikola Tesla could only dream of. The company this week was demonstrating the ability to transmit 60 watts of electrical power across three feet of thin air with 75 percent efficiency. I had a toothbrush once that recharged without wires. Every time the handheld... (Read More)

Aug 28th, 2008 - Most of the reports out yesterday about the release of Internet Explorer 8Beta 2 focused on its so-calledInPrivate Browsing, which leaves no trace of the Web sites you visit and protects anonymity. And while that's certainly useful, developers are likely to be more interested in its improvements in... (Read More)