As the year winds down, I thought it would be a good time to think about New Year’s resolutions. Let’s face it. A lot of us come up with New Year’s Resolutions each year. Sometimes we see them through, and sometimes we don’t. I don’t think it would be very interesting to blog about my personal New Year’s Resolutions, so instead I thought it would be good to make some New Year’s Resolutions for vendors.
What would life on earth be like without the moon? Well, chances are, there wouldn't be any life on ... earth without the moon. Life if it had started at all would still be in the earliest stages of evolution.
Understanding of humans' earliest past often comes from studying fossils. They tell us much of what we know about the people who lived before us. There is one thing fossils cannot tell us; at what point did we stop living day-to-day and start to think symbolically, to represent ideas about our environment and how we could change it? At a dig in South Africa the discovery of a small piece of ochre pigment, 70,000 years old, has raised some very interesting questions.
In 1961, a four-year-old chimpanzee named Ham became the first animal to return from space alive. He proved that humans could survive the extreme conditions of space. This drama, based on NASA's records and archive footage, tells the story of this remarkable chimp and Jeff, the handler who came to love him over two years of training.
On July 14, 1789, a mob of angry Parisians stormed the Bastille and seized the King's military stores. A decade of idealism, war, murder, and carnage followed, bringing about the end of feudalism and the rise of equality and a new world order. The French Revolution is a definitive feature-length documentary that encapsulates this heady (and often headless) period in Western civilization. With dramatic reenactments, illustrations, and paintings from the era, plus revealing accounts from journals and expert commentary from historians, The French Revolution vividly unfurls in a maelstrom of violence, discontent, and fundamental change.
EntropySoft has announced the addition of a Microsoft Exchange Web Storage connector to its portfolio. By making available another connector, EntropySoft is working towards simple, normalized access to all content repositories. EntropySoft's Microsoft Exchange Web Storage connector is fully bidirectional. It has read / write capacities for all Exchange objects such as mails, posts, contacts, meetings, events, and tasks. The connector can access user mailboxes as well as public folders.
SayType.com is offering a service that uses voicemail to instantly turn talk into text and send converted messages to any phone, e-mail address or license plate. SayType also searches the internet and translates messages into selected languages. In 2008, the CTIA reported 85 billion text messages are now sent each month, a number expected to reach 8 trillion annually by 2014. According to AAA, nearly every person admits touch texting while driving is dangerous yet many drivers continue texting while driving regardless of the potential consequences. SayType now provides English and Spanish speaking drivers with an alternative to touch typing while driving.
MultiPlan’s business partners and customers needed automated access to client and patient information. MultiPlan initially provided a self-service portal using aging Cold Fusion applications with Oracle databases as the data store. This solution lacked the scalability and flexibility to integrate to enterprise systems or re-use components to develop new applications faster. In addition, their current system was unable to support Rich Internet Application (RIA) development challenges.
The pressure to reduce the costs of operations and future development has become a fact of life for today’s financial services institutions. To meet this challenge, one of the top 20 U.S. banks sought to break away from their historically turnkey, ‘black box’ applications. They wanted to provide an open and integrated approach to IT that would give them more control over how they interacted with and enhanced their business applications. An internal group was formed to investigate and define how the bank should consider using Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) to modernize its infrastructure. Their paramount goal was to create a road map to tangible business value and ROI. Click here to download Bluenog's White Paper now to learn more about how this bank integrated SOA into their IT approach.
Sun Microsystems has announced it will strive to solve accessibility challenges for all devices from cell phones to desktops and Web applications by leading a consortium of over 20 other companies and organizations. The consortium will help define new approaches and solutions for building accessibility support into future information and communication technologies. Funded by a grant awarded by the European Commission, the AEGIS Project is based on the Sun-led proposal and technical architecture. A key component of the AEGIS Project is that it will leverage open source technologies wherever possible. More information can be found at: http://www.aegis-project.eu.
What new cloud technologies are coming over the horizon? Which vendors are driving the most Enterprise-relevant innovation? SYS-CON's Cloud Computing Journal expands its list of most active players in the fast-emerging Cloud Ecosystem.
Cloud computing has the power to revolutionize non-information "soft" product sectors. We haven’t seen too much clear synergistic benefits between mobile apps PLUS cloud computing/SaaS yet, but I sense that we can expect to see more good things out of the intersection of these two. I’ll be tracking the landscape closely.
It’s time to wrap up the year 2008 - a year of change with Obama, the Olympic Games and the financial crisis. It was also the year when Yahoo said no to Microsoft. 2009 will be all about Cloud Computing: the technological hype has started already but the commercial breakthrough will come in 2009 - driven by providers including Amazon, Google, HP, IBM, Intel and Microsoft. The potential of the hype maybe will be clearer with the fact that Amazon's price for one GB in the cloud is only $0.150 at this moment.
Retail behemoth Wal-Mart announced Friday that is would begin selling Apple’s popular 3G iPhone at 2,500 of its stores. Contingent on a 2-year service agreement with AT&T, the 8 GB model will sell for $197, while the black or white 16 GB model is being offered at $297. Both models will sell for $2 less than the regular retail price. Cloud Computing Technology Contributors of 2009 10Gen, 3Leaf Systems, 6fusion International, Absolute Performance, Ajaxo, Alentus, Appirio, Appistry, Aptaria, Arena Maxtronic, Arista Networks, Asankya Networks, BitRock, BlueLock, Boomi , Box.net, Canaan Partners, Casdex, Chris Richardson Consulting, CITTIO, Cloud Architects, Cloud9 Analytics, CloudRamp, CloudScale Networks, Cloudscape.ws, CloudWorks, CNI Systems, CohesiveFT, CollabNet, Concentric, Cordys, Cronus Partners, CSRware, CuperTek, Cycle Computing, Dataline, Dell, DNAmail, eBay, Elastra, Engine Yard, Enki Consulting, E
Veryant has introduced the latest release of its isCOBOL Application Platform Suite (APS) software. With isCOBOL APS 2008 Service Pack 1 (SP1), organizations with COBOL assets can enhance their core applications and reduce development time by taking advantage of an Eclipse-based Integrated Development Environment (IDE), UniKix mainframe rehosting technology from Clerity Solutions, and advanced diagnostic capabilities. “COBOL continues to be the language of business around the world,” said Alfredo Iglesias, vice president of business development for Veryant. “By including an Eclipse-based IDE and other advances in our latest release, it is now even easier to maintain and modernize COBOL application code.”
The iPhone continues to gain steam in Japan, evidenced by Softbank's latest software announcement promoting Speeek, a voice-enabled electronic dictionary application that translates Japanese to English or Chinese. Using voice recognition technology the application can translate up to 1,500 spoken phrases mostly centered on travel/tourist situations and basic communication. Although designed specifically for Japanese speakers, the tool could also be effectively used as a study aid for advanced native English speakers studying Japanese. The application is available now for 1,800 yen ($19.88).
"When coupled with network and storage virtualization, virtual machines offer sophisticated forms of high availability, disaster recovery, and service migration across all forms of platforms," says Christine Crandell, Executive VP and Chief Marketing Officer for Egenera. "When managed together, these new levels of abstraction will enable true utility computing, 'cloud' style elastic compute services, and forms of IT services that are fully driven by business priorities rather than technical convenience."
This White Paper contains a technical overview of MarkLogic Server, an XML content platform for storing, manipulating and delivering XML content and building content applications using XQuery. MarkLogic combines the capabilities of an enterprise-class DMBS plus full-text search that leverages XML. Create centralized content repositories and rapidly build multiple applications efficiently reusing and repurposing content. MarkLogic Server integrates with any third-party product that supports XML, includes a web server for serving xHTML to web browsers and integrates with XQuery debugging environments. It minimizes the need for other languages to complete data processing and for a thick middle layer of manipulation code. Business logic stays close to the content, making applications more efficient to write and run. Click here to download this White Paper now!
This paper presents a performance analysis of publish/subscribe messaging throughput of FioranoMQ, SonicMQ, TIbco EMS and ActiveMQ. This analysis provides a head-to-head comparison of these products designed to illustrate the products' relative performance characteristics for several messaging scenarios. Download JMS Performance Benchmarks now and learn more! Click here to download!
Documentary explores the continuing appeal of Sherlock Holmes through his various screen incarnations, from early silent films through the classic portrayals by Basil Rathbone and Peter Cushing to the BBC's most recent Rupert Everett version. Contributors include Minette Walters, Kim Newman and Edward Hardwicke.
t's a documentary about poverty in the so-called Third and First Worlds. It analyses both societies from the perspectives of the NGOs, the media, the education, the politicians and the religion, and it challenges the UN eight objectives for the new millennium. Hot For Profit will make you think about your attitude and the potential for change that a single individual may have. The documentary was filmed in Nicaragua and Barcelona (Spain).
A Christmas Carol (1971) is a 25-minute animated cartoon adaptation of Charles Dickens' venerable novella which was originally shown on ABC television in the US. Originally produced as a television special, A Christmas Carol won an Academy Award (for best animated short subject) in 1973; it remains the only film adaptation of the story to date to be so honored.
For centuries the Shroud of Turin has been a touchstone of faith for millions. Many believe it is the primary evidence of the way Jesus Christ died on the Cross. But is it real or a clever forgery? Is it possible that Renaissance genius Leonardo da Vinci played a trick on the Roman Catholic Church? DECODING THE PAST presents the latest theories and the most current tests, some commissioned especially for the program. Despite centuries of scrutiny from scientists, theologians, and art historians, the linen cloth with the faint image has remained an enigma. Like a mirror, for some it has reflected what we know; for others, what we believe.
They are quiet figures at the center of some of the Bible's most miraculous moments. They steeled David against Goliath, warned Abraham of Sodom's destruction and freed Peter from jail. But while the work of angels has long stirred popular imagination, wonder and debate cloud the details of their holy purpose. What do the Scriptures tell us about them? Are they messengers from Heaven? What do they look like? Do they continue to guide and help us today? And what happened to the "fallen angels?" This extraordinary program searches for clues in the stories of the Bible's heavenly spirits, from the archangels Michael and Gabriel to the ethereal forms that announced Christ's birth and resurrection.
As a new year approaches we must prepare for new Internet security threats. Every year, new and innovative ways of attacking computer users emerge and continue to increase in volume and severity. To know where we are going it is helpful to look at where we have been. Finding trends in Internet security has become a valuable, if not necessary, action for companies developing software to protect computer users.