Java in 2008 - What just happened?

Year in Review: Java in 2008 - What just happened? When high-tech history is inscribed for the ages, 2008 may be remembered as the year Java tipped from a language-centric to a platform-centric technology. Andrew Glover kicks off JavaWorld's Year in Review series with a look back over the last 12 months in Java development, when alternate languages for the JVM took center stage, new directions emerged in the enterprise space, and Sun Microsystems staked its claim on the client side -- with or without Swing. http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-12-2008/jw-12-year-in-review-1.html Best regards, _______________________________________ Hassan Tahhan Software Engineer, CSC Arabia Mobile: 966-50-685-5749 Email: hassantahhan@gmail.com

Google

Does Google Have a Secret OS?

By Andy Patrizio
December 4, 2008

Net Applications caused a bit of a stir this week with a report that showed Microsoft's operating system share had dipped below 90 percent. This played very well where anti-Microsoft sentiment was strongest, not surprisingly.

Net Applications uses software sensors at 40,000 Web sites around the world to measure traffic and come up with its stats. These stats include operating system, browser, IP address, domain host, language, screen resolution, and a referring search engine, according to Vince Vizzaccaro, executive vice president of marketing and strategic alliances for Net Applications.

However, Net Applications noticed something unusual with stats from Google.com, which would represent Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) employees, not the public at large that use its search engine. Two-thirds of the visitors from Google.com did not hide what operating system they were running, which Net Applications recorded in its survey.

One-third, however, were unrecognized even though Net Applications' sensors can detect all major operating systems including most flavors of Unix and Linux. Even Microsoft's new Windows 7, which is deployed internally at Microsoft headquarters, would show up by its identifier string. But the Google operating systems were specifically blocked.

"We have never seen an OS stripped off the user agent string before," Vizzaccaro told InternetNews.com. "I believe you have to arrange to have that happen, it's not something we've seen before with a proxy server. All I can tell you is there's a good percentage of the people at Google showing up [at Web pages] with their OS hidden."

A proxy server shouldn't cause such a block because it would block everything, which Net Applications sees all the time. With the one-third obfuscated Google visitors, it was only the OS that was removed. Their browser, for example, was not hidden. And two-thirds of Google systems surfing the Web identified their OS, mostly Linux.

Internal deployment would make sense, as that's the best way to test an operating system or anything else under development. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) has Windows 7 deployed over certain parts of its Redmond campus, using its staff as testers by making them work with it daily. The company refers to this as "eating their own dogfood."

Google's secret OS?

So what's Google hiding? When asked, the company sent InternetNews.com a statement that it would not comment on rumor and speculation. But some Silicon Valley watchers think they know: the long-rumored software-as-a-service-oriented Google OS.

"I think they could be working on an application infrastructure, because an operating system really connotes the stuff that makes the hardware and software talk to each other, and they are not in that business," said Clay Ryder, president of The Sageza Group.

"But as an infrastructure for building network apps, I would think Google would be working on something like that," he continued. "They've been rolling out more and more freebie apps and I would think they would eventually want to make some money the old fashioned way. It would make a lot of sense that they would want to have a network app infrastructure that they could roll out most anywhere."



source:http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/print.php/3788821

Relational Mapping

A View on Object Relational Mapping

Object/Relational Mapping and the Vietnam of Computer Science In this interview, Ted Neward examines object databases, which don't translate to a relational form at all, highlighting db4o as an example of a successfully deployed object database, and describes where their strengths and weaknesses as compared to object/relational systems. http://theserversid ecom.bitpipe. com/detail/ RES/1178562676_ 577.html? src=wc_atssc_ \ sitepost_05_ 08_07_c&li=53472

Anti-virus Ranking

Ranking of 58 Different Anti-virus

products

Hi all,

It has been always an open question "Which Anti-Virus software is the best?"

Some classifications depend on how much viruses can the current version of the software detect? Or how quickly would the software producers detect and develop "fixes" for the newly speeded viruses every day. Others might be interested on how much would the Anti-Virus program affect the performance of the CPU and its memory usage.

The following link provides statistics about 58 different Anti-Viruses software which have been tested using the same test-bench.

http://www.virus. gr/english/ fullxml/default. asp?id=82&mnu=82

Microsoft

Microsoft User Group - Eastern Province

Greetings, We have recently established the Microsoft User Group for the Eastern Province. The purpose of the group is to share knowledge and build local expertise. The group will focus on Microsoft technologies ranging from architecture, design, infrastructure and development. Some of the benefits available to members are listed below. We welcome you to come and join the group and be a member of the this prestigious community. Please feel free to pass this on to your friends. For further information, please contact : Fauzan Ali Khan email: fauzanali.khan@ aramco.com Benefits · Access to the online User Group portal · Access to Reference books (Hard Copy) · Meet and collaborate with peers · Discuss with industry experts · Monthly user group meetings providing sessions on new and upcoming technologies · Access to technical materials, white papers, demos and beta software · Become part of INETA This is what INETA has to say The International .NET Association (INETA) provides structured, peer-based organizational, educational, and promotional support to the growing worldwide community of Microsoft® .NET user groups. INETA's mission is to offer assistance and resources to community groups that promote and educate their membership in Microsoft's .NET technologies. INETA welcomes user groups or special interest groups from all facets of the .NET user community including developers, architects, project managers, and IT professionals. Some of the many benefits of being an INETA member Books At Addison-Wesley, we value our relationships with user groups. To ensure that you have the best access to our books, we offer the members of INETA a 20% discount coupon. Manning Publications is pleased to offer members of the user group community free access to our authors' expertise at our Author Online forums and a special discount on our .NET books. Never heard of Murach books? Since 1974, professional programmers have been relying on Murach books for quick, effective training and reference. Their .NET development subjects include C# and VB.NET. Osborne User Group Partnership Program: 30% discount on User Group bulk purchases of 10 or more Osborne books. .NET Questions? Sams With 35% OFF select .NET titles! Sams Publishing was among the first to predict the impact .NET would have on the developer community. From introductory tutorials to comprehensive reference books, Sams has the answers. Wiley Publishing, Inc. offers INETA members 20% off all Wiley Technology books! Select from our top series and brand imprints, including Wrox Press, Bibles, Visual, and For Dummies. Conferences There is a $100 discount for INETA members Magazines asp.netPRO is the information resource for ASP.NET developers. Build, debug, deploy, and run the next generation of Web applications quickly and easily. INETA special for US subscribers: 12 issues for $19.99 (originally $34.99). See subscription form for international special rates. Windevnet.com is the single point of access for Windows developers who need timely and technical Windows coverage. WDN provides critical information for software professionals developing and deploying complex distributed applications. The website focuses exclusively on building sophisticated Windows applications in all types of software environments, for the desktop and beyond. Windows developers go to www.windevnet. com to search for in-depth articles, stimulating opinions, book reviews, and archives covering every aspect of Windows development. Software $100 discount when purchasing IP*Works! or IP*Works! SSL .NET Edition. More than 30 .NET components implementing Internet Protocols such as HTTP, FTP, SMTP, POP, IMAP, SNMP, NNTP, MIME, Telnet, etc. INETA members, save 20% on the most flexible and powerful .NET tools and components, including grids, tree views, obfuscators, user interface components and a report engine We are pleased to offer 25% off to all ineta members. TierDeveloper is an object to relational mapping (O/R mapping) code generator that lets you develop extremely high performance .NET applications in record time. TierDeveloper lets you map and generate .NET business and data objects, ASP.NET apps, and Windows Forms apps. TierDeveloper, you'll cut down your development time by 50% to 70% depending on your application. devAdvantage combines features of a refactoring tool and code analyzer to create a unique tool for C# .NET development. devAdvantage detects and corrects issues surrounding best practices and standards in .NET. Aspose offers a wide assortment of powerful components which allow .Net developers to create, manipulate and save the following file formats: Excel®, Word®, PowerPoint®, Project® and PDF®. Aspose also offers a host of other components for charting, spell checking, emailing, ad hoc query generation and much more. Aspose provide a 10% discount for any INETA member. CodeEngine-an advanced Model Driven Architecture tool, providing code generation for the .NET framework. Using UML models from Rational Rose and Visio, it generates 80% of the code for scalable applications. Freeware version available. 30% off to INETA members. If you like the IBuySpy portal sample, you`ll love the .NET portal solutions from Cubic Compass. In use by developers worldwide, Passage is rapidly becoming the standard for .NET enterprise portals. INETA members receive a 20% discount on all products. PowerTCP Internet components have been used worldwide since 1994. These ActiveX, .NET, and ASP.NET tools are backed by hundreds of full-size samples, an expert in-house support staff, and detailed documentation. Save 10% off any Suite by Dart Communications. Create business frameworks and applications in record time without repetitive coding or cumbersome modeling. DeKlarit is the only Model Driven tool that combines agile database modeling, declarative business rules, and automatic code generation with seamless integration with Visual Studio. Buy DeKlarit at 15% off the list price. Save 20% on Desaware software. Discount is applicable to software purchases only. Not applicable to source code or bundled products, books or ebooks. Get 20% discount off Constructor( ), an advanced toolset integrated into Visual Studio .NET that facilitates rapid application development driven from a UML model. With the ability to import a model, generate code, user interfaces and DDL script, Constructor( ) automates the tasks of turning a business model into an application. Genome is an object-relational mapping tool for .NET. Depending on the type of application, efforts for development can be reduced by 20-80% while increasing maintainability and flexibility of the code. Get Genome Express for USD 99 only and 15% discount on other Genome editions. INETA members - Save $200 on Graphics Server .NET. Easily add 2D/3D charts and graphs to your applications with the latest technology from the industry pioneer – Graphics Server. 100% managed C# code. Server licenses not required. IdeaBlade, Inc. is currently providing a variety of .NET development resources for the Microsoft developer community including a Royalty Free version of our DevForce Developer suite, a Smart Client Reference application and most recently our Composite Application Block Reference application currently seen on Microsoft's patterns & practices site. 20% off SRP on Infragistics NetAdvantage Suite! Mach5 Mailer Gold provides scriptable email creation to deliver personalized messages to your customer list efficiently. M5 is glad to offer a 20% discount on both Mailer as well as our log analysis package Analyzer to user groups $10 discount when purchasing Developer's Assistant, a must-have .NET code library. Try a free 30 day trial. Go to www.developersassis tant.com. Access Whiz is a set of Access conversion tools for Access/.NET developers. It includes Access to ASP .NET, VB .NET, VB6, Crystal Reports Converters. INETA members get a 15% discount on any Microtools product license. iStudio is a simple and powerful add-in for Visual Studio.NET that brings essential features for C# developers: refactoring, coding styles, templates, handy navigation. INETA members get 20% discount. Nevron LLC provides consistent and powerful Data Visualization abilities to your Windows Forms and ASP.NET applications. INETA members can receive the most advanced Charting, Diagramming and User Interface Components for .NET with 20% discount INETA members receive 10% discount off any product purchased from Red Gate Software. Products include tools for comparing and synchronizing SQL Server databases, understanding and fixing .NET code problems, and load-testing .NET web applications. Fully-functional, free trials available. RichTextBox is the no.1 content editor for ASP.NET. You can add it to a page using two lines of code (no plugins or Java). It supports bold, italic, styles, images, hyperlinks, + more. INETA members get 10% discount Pass your next certification exam the first time when you use Self Test Software's certification practice tests. Endorsed by Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, Novell, Lotus, CIW and CompTIA, there is no better simulation of the real exam. INETA members SAVE 20%. Silk Webware is a asp.net webcontrol and component developer. Silk Webware offers a 20% discount to all Ineta Usergroup Members. 15% off SSW Access Reporter .NET for IIS. Designed to keep Access open and available, SSW Access Reporter .NET for IIS lets you deliver your existing, great-looking Microsoft Access reports online now! $100 DISCOUNT on Syncfusion's Essential Studio. This comprehensive suite of components for Windows Forms and ASP.NET applications will accelerate the development cycle and help you build in quality. Telerik presentation layer components can help you unleash the power of the Thin Client and deliver web solutions with the richness of Windows applications. Get a 20% discount on any telerik product license. SQL Accessories develops tools to compare and synchronize SQL Server databases and offers 10% off the regular prices to all INETA members. Save 10% on HarnessIt(tm) , the premier unit testing software for Microsoft's .NET Framework. Designed from the ground up for .NET, HarnessIt takes full advantage of .NET's language innovations to create a simple, flexible unit testing environment for your .NET and legacy code. Save 20% on Vanatec OpenAccess, the feature-rich object-relational mapping tool. Tightly integrated into Visual Studio, it offers all of the O/R mapping essentials built right in. And it separates the storage details from the object model, simplifying code and boosting productivity. Get $50 off VistaDB 2.0, the #1 data engine alternative for Jet, MSDE and Xbase. True RDBMS built for .NET featuring a small 1MB footprint, SQL-92, managed .NET Provider, utilities, supports billions of rows and free unlimited deployments. Xceed Software is the internationally renowned developer of Xceed Zip, Xceed Grid and Xceed Smart UI amongst many other components for Microsoft Windows developers. Xceed prides itself on developing clearly designed, easy to use components that offer a wide range of features. To commemorate Xceed's 10 year Anniversary, Xceed is offering a 10% discount on all its components to INETA Members. Training American IT, with over 75 locations, is the nation's largest partnership of independent Microsoft CPLS training centers. We would like to extend a 25% discount for all Microsoft Software Development and IT Professional technical training classes to INETA members. Deep Training offers hands-on training in ASP.NET, VB .NET, C#, and other .NET technologies taught by world-renowned .NET experts. Many Deep Training instructors are members of the INETA speakers bureau. Receive $250 discount. Summer of Love - A truly amazing training event hosted by DevelopMentor and featuring the Visual Basic product team in Redmond from July 8th-11th. Workshops covering everything from ASP.NET to developing secure applications, and some quality time spent with the Visual Basic .NET team. The training comes complete with Visual Studio .NET Enterprise Architect 2003. Intertech, Inc. delivers 3-5 day hands-on .NET workshops in ASP.NET, C#.NET, VB.NET as well as advanced topics like Distributed .NET and COM and .NET Interoperability. Andrew Troelsen, best-selling .NET author, leads Intertech's training. Get a 10% discount Get 15% discount on newtelligence open enrollment training classes so as TornadoCamp .NET, a five day .NET crash course, or the Service Oriented Architecture Workshop and 10% on standard rates for custom workshops. Canada's leading .NET Training & Consulting organization, ObjectSharp, is pleased to offer 15% off our hands-on classroom training Our Toronto & Vancouver classes are led by consulting instructors who share their real world experience, best practices and architectural guidance. BRAND NEW! Our SANS .Net Security (SEC616) course teaches critical aspects of security in .Net, the Framework's internals, ASP.NET and XML Web Services. Receive a 10% discount Save 15%! TranscenderCert exam simulations are used by IT professionals worldwide to prepare for certification. Be sure to try the new TransTrainer videos, an excellent and affordable training tool. Fine Print TRADEMARKS. The INETA name and logo are trademarks of the International .NET Association. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. LINKS TO THIRD PARTY SITES. Some of the links in this area allow you to leave the INETA Web Site. Linked sites are not under the control of INETA and INETA is not responsible for the contents of any linked site. The links are provided for convenience only. INCLUSION. INETA reserves the right to include or exclude offers at their discretion.