Keep an Open Eye Eye, Sir

I just finished an all day seminar on BIRT the partially Open Source report writing package available from Actuate[the Core is open, the extended services are closed and the two packages are, according to Actuate people, moving in different directions - More on this in a later posting]. BIRT software is impressive especially with its [...]

Okay, I will admit a bias toward WordPress because I have been using it on 5 of my own blogs and dozens of other projects. But I use Drupal, Joomla. Gallery, PHPBB and Coppermine too. No one CMS is clearly dominant – you fit each CMS strengths to the tasks at hand. Interestingly, WordPress has [...]

Over the past few years, PostgreSQL has caught my attention for spatial processing features, suggestions of enterprise level performance plus features and other virtues. But I have stayed away because PostgreSQL installations were problematic and the Administration features suspect. Well in the past 3 years that has changed substantially – and I have the proof [...]

“Most IT pros not planning on Windows 7 rollout” is the headline of an article at the IT scoop site, theRegister. The story is based on a survey done of 1100 business users by Scriptlogix. This survey goes counter to what Microsoft has been saying about users reactions to Windows 7. A number of factors [...]

Google will have not one but two OS available for Netbooks and PCs by this time next year. Google Android has already been adopted for smartphones and  is also being used on a number of Netbooks for introduction this Fall. But now Google has officially announced the Google Chrome OS – which is a new [...]

Just two weeks ago, our report on Semi-Structured data processing had a major gap – no real IBM presence. True enough, the IBM/Cognos, IBM FileNet and other IBM BI offerings certainly dealt with some aspects of semi-structured data ,particularly FileNet’s positions in Content Management and Record Archiving. But the integration across platforms through semi-structured data [...]

The big trend in database is the effort to  XML-ize Semi- structured data. This is like a big SOAP project in both senses of the Word. Many of the control structures and procedural setting borrow from SOAP. But  it is also an attempt by the major Relational Database vendors such as  IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and [...]

I thought of titling this posting as “Sam P. ? Is that  a Sunny Yolk on  You?”  - but I didn’t. Instead I would like to ask Barrons to reconsider elevating Sam P. to the exhalted ranks of Best of Barrons CEOs. Also I would like to ask the IBM Board to riddle me this [...]

The Sun shines on IBM if Armonk decides to go ahead with the rumored purchase of Sun Microsystems   because Sun fills so many serious gaps at IBM. In fact I was just about  to do an article which would cite IBM as being almost out to lunch on key computing directions including: a)virtualization technology and [...]

RazorSQL is an example of an opportunity missed. This is a general database query, display and editing program that runs in Linux, Mac, Solaris, and Windows. It reads a wide range of  databases from DB2 thru MySQL to SQLite – over two dozen. It is free for 30 day trial and can be downloaded here. [...]

It can be argued that  JavaScript AJAX Frameworks are leading software development right now. This is not just UI Web development but the whole tenor of software being developed. Open, agile developing that is cross browser, OS, and database/web server platforms are the regular mashup targets of more developers. And the primary development software they [...]

On theOpenSourcery.com, I have been doing a revamped series of reviews and tutorials on CSS. One of the facts that is emerging is that W3C standards like CSS, DOM, and DHTML JavaScript are being abused, ignored or delibrately bypassed and thwarted by browser vendors despite having close to ten years to deliver on a very [...]

Information is multi-dimensional and dynamic which in turn makes IT difficult to manage well over time. Here are some of the dimensions of information: 1)It is model based. This means information is not one isolated fact but rather several datum points that are the attributes/properties of a model. That model helps to describe and predict [...]