AJAXWorld News Desk

dynaTrace AJAX Edition 3.5 Delivers Beta Support for IE 10 and Firefox 10

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:21:00 EST

With the new release of the dynaTrace AJAX Edition you have beta support for the Firefox 10 browser and can test the performance of your websites with the latest available browsers from Mozilla and Microsoft. The new dynaTrace AJAX Edition also helps you prepare for the future. With support for the Internet Explorer 10 developer preview you’re now able to start testing the performance of your website before Microsoft releases its new browser. However, you are not only testing the performance of the latest browsers – to test the web performance of legacy browsers take a look at the dynaTrace AJAX Edition Premium, which helps guarantee a good performance for legacy, current and future browsers.

Internet Explorer 9 & Firefox 8/9 Support with dynaTrace Ajax Edition 3.4

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 09:30:00 EST

After announcing support for Internet Explorer 9 and Firefox 8 and 9 in dynaTrace AJAX Edition Premium we now also provide support for the latest versions in the dynaTrace AJAX Edition. The latest version of dynaTrace AJAX Edition 3.4 therefore gives you full JavaScript, AJAX, Network and Rendering analysis support for Mozilla Firefox 8 and 9 as well as Internet Explorer 8 and 9. You can also check out the Release Notes for a more detailed description of the enhancements.

How Quickly the Mighty Have Fallen

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 09:30:00 EST

On November 9, Adobe announced in a blog post[1] that it had decided to cease efforts to develop browser plugins for mobile devices to play Flash, indicating that HTML5 was “the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms.” In case that sounds like Adobe abandoned Flash entirely, it should be noted that Adobe indicated their intentions to continue to develop the AIR player for mobile devices, so that the role for Flash on mobile devices would be restricted to native apps, just not browser-based apps. A few days later in another blog post[2], Adobe also noted that it was releasing the entire Flex SDK (used by the Flash Builder IDE to generate Flash RIA applications) to open source, indicating that “In the long-term, we believe HTML5 will be the best technology for enterprise application development.”

SmartBear Software Advances Load Testing for Websites with RIAs

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 06:00:00 EST

SmartBear Software has unveiled LoadComplete 2.0, the latest version of the company's load testing tool for Web applications. Featuring new support for rich Internet applications (RIAs), LoadComplete 2.0 now makes it easy to create and run realistic load tests, without scripting, for websites built using Adobe Flash and Flex, AJAX, and Microsoft Silverlight technologies. New data presentation and reporting options make it easier for users to control data parameters and interpret and diagnose results to improve the performance, reliability, and user experience of Web applications. Mathijs Groen, QA Engineer, Benelux, at Kewill B.V., said, "LoadComplete 2.0 is an economical and efficient tool for us to more easily test the performance of our rich Internet-based applications and compare performance statistics by running it on several types of application servers. This enables us to better assist customers by providing them with the most ‘smoothly running' framework."

Fifteen Minutes to Type 5 JDBC Success

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 10:00:00 EDT

Have you ever run into one of the many limitations of Type 4 JDBC drivers? Ever wished there was an EASY way around them? If you haven’t already, now is the time to check out Progress DataDirect’s Type 5 JDBC Drivers. In this short video you will learn how to install and test the benefits of the Type 5 JDBC driver in your own environment. After viewing this video, you can start enjoying all that Type 5 has to offer in 15 minutes or less. Guaranteed!

Sun Settles Eolas’ Java Claims

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 07:45:00 EDT

Remember Eolas, the one-man company whose 1998 browser patent struck so much fear in the heart of Would Wide Web creator Tim Berners-Lee that he personally asked the US Patent and Trademark Office to invalid it as a “major impediment to the operation of the web”? Well, Eolas rushed out Monday to say that it had settled with Sun Microsystems that morning. Naturally the terms weren’t disclosed. That leaves another 18 defendants to go. In October of 2009 Eolas sued 23 brand name companies in the infamous plaintiff-leaning Eastern District of Texas – specifically faulting Adobe’s Flash and Shockwave; Apple’s QuickTime, Safari for Windows and Mac and Apple desktops and laptops; Google’s Chrome for Windows and Mac; and Sun’s Java and JavaFX – and that was after finally settling up with Microsoft, its test case, two years before.

My Two-Year-Old Daughter Sofia Facing Life-Long Disability in Syria

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 19:30:00 EDT

The day after my last tweet regarding the lack of any new information about my abducted daughter Sofia since March 4, I received an updated letter on Thursday, April 7, 2011, from the State Department on Sofia's welfare in Syria. Sofia was abducted by her mother from the United States to Syria last July, following her diagnosis of GDD with possible autism. She had 13 remaining medical appointments left at the time of her abduction, none of which she was able to keep.

Early Bird Registration Savings for Cloud Expo New York to Expire Friday

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 10:45:00 EDT

Cloud Expo New York, June 6-9, 2011 early bird registration will expire on Friday. Register now for a Gold Pass for the 8th International Cloud Expo on June 6–9, 2011, at the Javits Center in New York City and save $500 on your full conference pass. Gold Pass Delegates will receive full conference access for four days to all conference sessions at Cloud Computing Conference & Expo as well as the Virtualization Conference & Expo June 6-9. Gold Pass registration includes: lunch on Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Welcome Reception on Day 1, and refreshment breaks, collectible conference bag and access to all conference sessions including all technical sessions, the exhibit floor, keynotes, vendor technology presentations, Cloud Computing Bootcamp and SYS-CON.TV Power Panels.

My Abducted Two-Year-Old American Guest Worker Daughter in Syria

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 15:06:00 EDT

Since her abduction by her mother last summer, my two-year-old US citizen daughter, who is in ailing health, remains in her abducted country of Syria under the immigration status of "Palestinian Immigrant Worker." Sofia needs to appear every three months before Syrian immigration authorities to renew her "guest worker" visa, stamped in her American passport. Syria, one of the most oppressed regimes in the world together with North Korea and Iran, does not offer many human rights, freedom or democracy, nor does it recognize the International Hague Convention for Child Abduction. Not being a Syrian citizen Sofia has no civil rights. For the past seven months she did not receive any medical care for her GDD - Global Development Delay condition with autism. Since she is an out-of-status American child, she is also not able to enroll in any accredited child care facilities in Syria.

A Bedtime Story for Sofia Who Remains Abducted in Syria

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 11:15:00 EDT

Diane Macedo of Fox News worked on Sofia's story for more than a month, studying documents, interviewing more than a dozen people, and fact-checking before publishing her news story on Monday and airing our interview. On Monday, she also published a detailed article on Sofia that was picked up by a dozen or so media outlets around the world during the week. When Sofia returns safely home, she will pay her first visit to Diane at the Fox News headquarters in New York City. The following is a short "bedtime story" for my daughter while she remains abducted in Syria.

dynaTrace AJAX Edition 3.0 Released

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 07:15:00 EDT

With its latest release, dynaTrace updates its Product Suite for Deep Dive, Automated Cross-Browser Web Performance Optimization with two products: dynaTrace AJAX Edition 3.0 is the free standalone tool that has been downloaded by 30k+ users so far supporting both Firefox (3.6, 4.0) and Internet Explorer (6, 7 & 8) dynaTrace Development Team Edition is the Premium Upgrade and provides extended automation, end-to-end performance and automated regression analysis for modern Web 2.0 Applications

Cloud9 IDE Launches PaaS for JavaScript and HTML5

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 05:15:00 EST

“It’s ironic that all web and mobile apps written to date have been developed on the desktop,” said Matt Marshall, DEMO executive producer. “Now, thanks to Ajax, developers can follow their users to the web to enhance their productivity with a true, all-cloud IDE.” On Monday, Ajax.org announced launched Cloud9 IDE, bringing web and mobile app development into the total cloud with a commercial PaaS. Cloud9 IDE provides a cloud-based Integrated Development Environment for JavaScript incorporating HTML5, and supporting Python, Ruby and PHP. Developers can access, edit, and share projects anywhere, to build, test, debug, and deploy web and mobile applications in as little as half the time, with fewer technical skills. Its merger with the Mozilla Skywriter project underwrites the quality of Cloud9 and the breadth of its community support.

Twitter Down, Arab Revolution on Hold

Sat, 26 Feb 2011 11:30:00 EST

Newsfuzion.com posted at 10:00 Eastern time "Twitter is back up and functioning normally. Let's hope it stays that way." Other reports say access is intermittent. Breaking News from Libya and other middle Eastern countries where the Arab Revolution (sometimes referred to as the Twitter revolution) appear on Twitter first. CNN International and Al Jazeera monitor Twitter and heavily rely on breaking news feeds around the clock.

Netbiscuits Extends Development Framework with HTML5+

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 07:15:00 EST

Netbiscuits, a provider of cloud software service for cross-platform development, publishing and monetization of mobile sites and apps, on Tuesday announced the "HTML5+" extension of its Rich UI Development Framework. A set of new rich user interface components allows Netbiscuits' developers to create the most advanced user experiences for mobile web applications using the latest in HTML5 technology. The extended feature set enables auto-location via GPS (Location Biscuit), animated tickers (Ticker Biscuit) and more advanced image and video galleries (Gallery Biscuit). In addition, Netbiscuits' full Rich UI Framework has been expanded to develop multi-touch navigation, floating layers, swiping galleries, dynamic maps, auto-complete, and get-remote content features for mobile web applications. All rich UI features are adapted to more handsets and platforms, including Windows Phone 7.

Appcelerator Acquires Aptana

Sat, 22 Jan 2011 21:00:00 EST

"We are excited to introduce Aptana’s millions of developers to the mobile innovation wave that we have been riding and supporting as a company over the past two years," said Jeff Haynie, CEO of Appcelerator, as Appceleraror this week announced its acquisition of Aptana, the leading integrated development environment (IDE) for building web applications.

Cloud Expo 2011 New York: Application Development in the Cloud

Sun, 12 Dec 2010 15:00:00 EST

At Ajax.org they understand that the browser is the future; therefore they have always seen the Open Web as a robust platform for application development. Meanwhile JavaScript is making its grand comeback. Combine these two ideas and you get Cloud9 IDE. Cloud9 IDE hopes to be the IDE for JavaScript developers built by JavaScript developers. JavaScript applications run online for a purpose, so why shouldn't you develop your application online too? In their session at the 8th International Cloud Expo, Lieke Arends, Business Development Manager at Ajax.org, and Rik Arends, Co-Founder and CTO of Ajax.org, will discuss the advantages of developing in the cloud (many of which most developers probably don’t know).

SmartBear Software Releases TestComplete 8.10

Mon, 06 Dec 2010 13:46:05 EST

SmartBear Software announced TestComplete 8.10, the latest release of its automated testing tool. TestComplete 8.10 includes new functionality for testing Rich Internet Applications, enhanced automation for data-driven and load tests, and numerous enhancements for keyword-driven testing and checkpoints. TestComplete 8.10 now also integrates with the latest version of SmartBear’s performance profiling tool, AQtime 7 Pro, so users can profile their applications during testing and perform code coverage analysis.

Cloud Expo Sponsor Logicworks Betas infiniCloud

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 05:45:00 EST

Enterprise hosting provider Logicworks is beta testing a cloud computing service targeted at sophisticated commercial and enterprise-level projects. It's called infiniCloud and the beta will run through the end of the year, with release to follow in January. It's an on-demand service priced familiarly according to RAM-hour, storage and bandwidth utilization combined with managed services purchased à la carte at fixed monthly rates. Logicworks president Kenneth Ziegler claims cloud computing has so far been used mostly as a testing and development medium or a way to offload non-critical applications or content. "When we talk about moving ‘real apps' into the cloud, we're targeting profit centers like prime time media sites, financial and healthcare applications, massive multi-player online games, and e-commerce. There is a real need in the marketplace for blending dynamic cloud computing and managed hosting for high-performance applications. We've built our managed cloud services to address this need, starting with infiniCloud."

Dell Folds its Mobile Unit

Fri, 19 Nov 2010 07:15:00 EST

Dell's mobile device chief Ron Garriques, the guy Dell hired in 2007 after he didn't cut it at Motorola, is leaving the company effective January 28 although he's supposed to consult for the next year. Dell has reorganized his year-old Communications Solutions Group out of existence, spreading its tablets like the poorly received Android-based Streak, phones like its Aero and Venue Pro and laptops like the pricey Adamo around its primary business groups: large enterprises, government, SMBs and consumer. Development of any next-generation widgets will move under Jeff Clarke, who's responsible for PC engineering, design and development as well as manufacturing, procurement and supply chain.

dynaTrace AJAX Edition Celebrates First Birthday with a New Version

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 15:16:00 EST

We are celebrating the first birthday of dynaTrace AJAX Edition with a new version of this deep-dive browser diagnostics tool for Internet Explorer. We just recently reached 20k+ active users and are glad that people like Steve Souders or John Resig endorsed this tool in the last year. Download it here! The early adopters already know the first version of this feature from our dynaTrace AJAX Edition 2.0 Beta 1. Based on the Web Performance Optimization Best Practices from dynaTrace, Yahoo and Google we now grade different aspects of the analyzed web site. We look at the usage of Network Caching, Number of Resources on the page, Server-Side and JavaScript Performance as well as overall page load timings. dynaTrace AJAX Edition celebrates its first birthday with a new version Thanks for all the great feedback on our dynaTrace Forums, on our blog posts or through twitter. Our community has driven this release and the enhancements we made. The Good News is: there is more to come :-)

OTRS Launches 3.0 Release with All-New GUI

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 12:50:27 EST

OTRS (www.otrs.com), the world's leading provider of open source Help Desk and ITIL-compatible IT Service Management (ITSM) solutions, today launched OTRS Help Desk 3.0, featuring a brand new Ajax-powered interface designed to dispatch help tickets 30 percent faster, under the most demanding usage scenarios. "OTRS exceeded my expectations and helped to redeem my faith in open source software," stated Paul Hill, System Administrator of the Sitka, Alaska school district. "As a system administrator, you come across open source solutions that are far from refined and so problematic that the amount of work they save aren't worth the time and effort to get them up and running. OTRS was a pleasant change."

Mac & the Lion Have Been Sleeping with iPad & the iPhone

Fri, 22 Oct 2010 16:00:00 EDT

Apple's App Store has done so well - seven billion downloads - and the Mac is now doing so well - the Mac would be #110 of a Fortune 500 list if it was spun out - that Apple figured why not give Mac its very own App Store? So a Mac App Store should be up and running by mid-January. Apple is going to want its usual 30% of the take. Payment will be through iTunes. Free apps are welcome. Developers can start submitting apps next month. Downloaded apps will auto-install and auto-update. Otherwise software for the Mac will be through the usual channels.

New Azul Software Caffeinates Java

Fri, 22 Oct 2010 08:15:00 EDT

Azul Systems this week began what may turn out to be an orderly retreat from its high-priced high-maintenance hardware – appliances based on ever so chi-chi many-core proprietary chips and 10 rounds of VC funding that tops $200 million. By fielding software that runs on 64-bit garden-variety x86 commodity servers and does essentially the same thing as its six-year-old Vega boxes, which is to tickle the performance of ye ole stodgy, garbage collection-constricted Java applications, the company could wind up in the arms of some sugar daddy with a fat pocketbook. The software is the Zing stuff Azul said it was developing over the summer and now it’s here, an elastic runtime platform for all kinds of configurations of Java apps, especially those high-volume ones like web portals, trading platforms and e-commerce web sites, where response times just might be important.

Cloud Expo 2011 East To Attract 10,000 Delegates and 200 Exhibitors

Thu, 07 Oct 2010 17:45:00 EDT

SYS-CON Events announced today that the 8th International Cloud Expo will take place June 6-9, 2011, in New York City. The International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo series is the world's leading Cloud-focused event and is held three times a year, in New York, Silicon Valley and in Europe. Over 600 corporate sponsors and 10,000 industry professionals have participated in Cloud Computing Expo since its inception, more than all other Cloud-related events put together.

Amazon Scales MySQL for Heavy Traffic

Thu, 07 Oct 2010 13:00:00 EDT

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has added Read Replicas to its Relational Database Service (RDS) to make it easier to scale MySQL deployments to meet the performance demands of high-traffic web applications. Read Replicas lets users create one or more copies of a MySQL Database Instance and an application serve read traffic from the multiple replicas. They can create or delete replicas in minutes using the point-and-click interface of the AWS Management Console. Amazon says Read Replicas can be made to another Availability Zone as a disaster-ready failover measure under its Multi-AZ deployments program. Once a Read Replica is created, any subsequent updates to the source will automatically be replicated in the Read Replica. And Read Replicas can be elastically added to any RDS database deployment to keep query response times fast, even as request volumes scale.

Jinfonet Announces JReport 10

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 11:35:00 EDT

Jinfonet Software, a provider of Java reporting solutions, on Thursday unveiled JReport 10. This new version adds rich visualization and interactive reporting to a robust, agile BI platform, providing embedded operational reporting to developers and self-service reporting to end users. JReport 10 brings Agile Business Intelligence to the next level with rich visualization features. Web 2.0 self-service reporting allows highly interactive reports to be accessible across the enterprise with superior performance and scalability.

Cloud-based Web Application Testing for Hybrid Web Applications

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 09:00:00 EDT

Sauce Labs on Wednesday announced testing support for Adobe Flex and Flash technologies. Based on Selenium, Sauce OnDemand enables cross-browser web application testing of Adobe Flex and Flash technologies in the cloud. This is the first functional testing product that supports test automation for hybrid web applications that include HTML, JavaScript, Flex and Flash technology. "Now it's easier and faster to do cross-browser tests for our web and Flex based Integrated Online Marketing solution," said Keith Davidson, vice president of engineering and operations at Lyris, Inc. "With testing support for Flex and Flash technology from Sauce Labs, we can write one test for all our Flex and web application functional testing and run it on multiple browsers in the cloud via Sauce OnDemand. Having this automation is an important component of our continuous integration strategy to deliver quality products to our customers."

[Updated] Google Twists in the Wind over Beijing

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 11:15:00 EDT

Google's quixotic and poorly executed attempt to do business in China on its terms rather than the Chinese government's has suffered another serious setback. Google's Internet Content Providers (ICP) license to run google.cn expired on Wednesday and the Communist regime told the company it won't be renewed if Google keeps automatically redirecting google.cn search traffic to its uncensored Chinese language site in Hong Kong. That's where Google unilaterally retreated to in March after the government called its bluff on leaving the country if search was going to be censored. Now Google hopes that if it puts up an intermediate "landing page" where users have to click on the message "We have moved to google.com.hk" it won't get kicked out of the largest, fastest-growing Internet market in the world on its ear. If the gambit doesn't fly, well, as its general counsel David Drummond blogged, "without an ICP license, we can't operate a commercial web site...so Google would effectively go dark in China."

Cloud Expo Announces CloudCamp @ Cloud Expo Silicon Valley

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 08:15:00 EDT

Further cementing its position as The Largest Cloud Computing Event in the World, the organizers of the 7th Cloud Expo, being held at the Santa Clara Convention Center, Santa Clara, CA, announced today that the event will also feature – on November 2nd, 2010 – a CloudCamp unconference. CloudCamp @ Cloud Expo is aimed at anyone working with, or interested in working with, cloud technologies. "With the rapid change occurring in the industry, we need a place where we can meet to share our experiences, challenges and solutions," said CloudCamp co-founder Dave Nielsen, who will personally be facilitating the process on site at the Jacob Javits. "At CloudCamp," Nielsen continued, "participants will be encouraged to share their thoughts in several open discussions, as we strive for the advancement of Cloud Computing."

Two Million iPads Sold to Mounting Competition

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 17:00:00 EDT

Apple said Monday that it has sold over two million iPads in less than two months. It began shipping the dingus, which only launched April 3, in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK over the weekend. Reuters says Japanese and Australian buyers "stormed" the shops while others in London, Munich and Paris stood in all-night queues. The hot new device will be available in nine more countries in July including Ireland, Austria and Mexico with broader distribution slated for later this year. Bootleg devices are selling in China. Internal targets are said to be to move 10 million units this year, a number iPad will exceed if the pace keeps up.

Streamline Workflows Using Barcodes

Thu, 27 May 2010 11:45:00 EDT

With the availability of fast, accurate barcode reading and writing toolkits, it’s quite easy to include barcodes within your applications to reliably transfer information. With some basic information about barcode technologies, you can determine how their use could streamline your document-processing workflows, which symbology best suits your specific needs, and how to maximize their reliability.

Google To Buy Key VoIP House

Tue, 18 May 2010 16:17:00 EDT

Google said Tuesday that it means to buy Norway's publicly traded VoIP codec house Global IP Solutions Holding AB (GIPS) for $68.2 million cash, a move that could put it in contention with Skype not to mention the telecom companies that are selling its phones. The deal, which represents a 27.5% premium over GIPs' closing price Friday, will also give Google ownership of parts of the technology underlying the instant messaging systems used by Yahoo, AOL and Baidu. Global IP Solutions makes the real-time processing software for voice and video calls over the Internet, widgetry used by IBM's Lotus Sametime as well as Cisco's WebEx scheme under a shiny new deal.

Failure as a Service

Sat, 15 May 2010 18:15:00 EDT

A recent seven hour outage at Amazon Web Services on Saturday has renewed the discussion about cloud failures and whether the customer or the provider of the services should be held responsible. The conversation stems from two power outages on May 4 and an extended power loss early on Saturday, May 8. Saturday’s outage began at about 12:20 a.m. and lasted until 7:20 a.m., and affected a “set of racks,” according to Amazon, which said the bulk of customers in its U.S. East availability zone remained unaffected.

In one of the most direct posts, Amazon EBS sucks I just lost all my data, Dave Dopson said "they [AWS] promise redundancy, it is BS." Going on to point to AWS's statement " EBS volumes are designed to be highly available and reliable. Amazon EBS volume data is replicated across multiple servers in an Availability Zone to prevent the loss of data from the failure of any single component. The durability of your volume depends both on the size of your volume and the percentage of the data that has changed since your last snapshot. As an example, volumes that operate with 20 GB or lessof modified data since their most recent Amazon EBS snapshot can expect an annual failure rate (AFR) of between 0.1% –0.5%, where failure refers to a complete loss of the volume. This compares with commodity hard disks that will typically fail with an AFR of around 4%, making EBS volumes 10 times more reliable than typical commodity disk drives."

Like many new users to cloud computing, he assumed that he could just use the service and upon failure AWS's redundancy would automatically fix any problems, because they do (sort of) say that they prevent data loss. What Amazon actually states is a little different in that "the durability of your volume depends both on the size of your volume and the percentage of the data that has changed since your last snapshot" placing the responsibility on the customer. On one hand they say that they prevent data loss, but only if you use the AWS cloud correctly, otherwise you're SOL. The reality is that AWS for most users requires significant failure planning -- in this case the use of EBS's snap shot capability. The problem is that most [new] users have a hard time learning the rules of the road. A quick search for AWS failure planning on the AWS forums resulted in little additional insights and really appears to mostly about trial and error.

In the case of hardware failures Amazon expects you to design your architecture correctly for these kinds of events by use of redundancy, for example use mutliple VM's etc. They expect a certain level of knowledge of both system administration as well as how AWS itself has been designed to be used. Newbies need not apply or should use at you're own risk. Which isn't all that clear to a new user, who hears that cloud computing is safe and the answer to all your problems. Which I admit should be a red flag in itself. The problem is two fold, an over hyped technology and unclear failure models which combine to create a perfect storm. You need the late adopters for the real revenue opportunities, but these same late adopters require a different more gentle kind of cloud service, probably one a little more platform than infrastructure focused. As IaaS matures it is becoming obvious that the "Über Geek" developers who first adopted the service is not where the long tail revenue opportunities are. To make IaaS viable to a broader market, AWS and other IaaS vendors need to mature their platforms for a lesser type of user. (A lower or least common denominator) One who is smart enough to be dangerous, otherwise they're doomed to be limited to the only for experts only segment.

The bigger question is should a cloud user have to worry about hardware failures or should these types of failures be the sole responsiblity of the service provider? My opinion is deploying to the cloud should reduce complexity, not increase it. The user should be responsible for what they have access to, so in the case of AWS, they should be responsible for failures that are brought about by the applications and related components they build and deploy, not by the hardware. If hardware fails (which it will) this should be the responsibility of those who manage and provide it. Making things worst is promising to be highly available, reliable and redundant, but with the fine print of "if you are smart enough to use all our services in the proper way" which isn't fair. If EBS is automatically replicated why did Dave lose all his data?

In a optimal cloud environment any single server failures shouldn't matter. But it appears at AWS it does.

Cloud Expo, Inc. Names Jeremy Geelan President & COO

Wed, 12 May 2010 08:00:00 EDT

SYS-CON announced today that Jeremy Geelan was named President & COO of Cloud Expo, Inc. "Cloud Expo, Inc." was spun out of SYS-CON Events, Inc. as a startup events management company which produces and presents Cloud Expo (TM) events worldwide. Jeremy Geelan served as Sr. Vice-President of SYS-CON Media & Events and Conference Chair of the worldwide Cloud Expo series, the Virtualization Conference series, and of the upcoming UlitzerLIVE! event. He's founder of Cloud Computing Journal, Web 2.0 Journal, AJAX & RIA Journal and other leading SYS-CON titles. From 2000-6, as first editorial director and then group publisher of SYS-CON Media, he was responsible for the development of all new titles and i-Technology portals for the firm. Today he has complete responsibility for the content of SYS-CON's entire portfolio of Events.

Laszlo Systems Introduces Webtop Cloud

Thu, 06 May 2010 10:00:00 EDT

Laszlo Systems, a provider of Rich Unified Internet Applications for consumers and businesses, on Thursday announced the launch of Laszlo Webtop Cloud, a web-based platform that merges email, voice and messaging with social networking and other applications to deliver an integrated communications and real-time collaboration experience for consumers. Laszlo Webtop has been adopted and deployed by many of the tier-1 service providers to provide subscribers with engaging personal portals for unifying and managing information, collaboration and communications on the web. The launch of Laszlo Webtop Cloud extends this Web 2.0 capability to companies of all sizes with an affordable suite of robust capabilities and services for creating captivating personal portals that function across devices and foster greater brand affinity and deeper levels of customer engagement.

Apple on Flash: Hey Steve, "C'mon Man"

Thu, 06 May 2010 07:00:00 EDT

Remember Hamlet and the quote, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks"? While in this case it isn't a lady, the question still applies to Apple's CEO. Steven P. Jobs posted a 1,700-word letter on Apple’s Web site on Thursday, explaining the company’s decision not to allow the multimedia software Adobe Flash on Apple’s mobile devices, including the iPhone and iPad. The letter titled "Thoughts on Flash" ran the gamut from philosophical issues about the nature of closed platforms to complaints about performance and crashes.Why would Steve go to the trouble of sharing his "diatribe"? Think back to the Hamlet quote.

Apple Checkmates Adobe

Fri, 16 Apr 2010 10:45:00 EDT

Adobe introduced its Creative Suite 5 (CS5) Monday, the thing on which nearly 60% of its revenues depends, the thing that’s got to sell better than recession-tossed CS4 did, in the middle of a hailstorm that drew more attention to it than it normally would have gotten. Last Thursday Apple quietly rewrote its rules for developers and barred the backdoor that Adobe was figuring on using to get Flash onto iPhone, iPod and iPad, having already been barred from using the front door because Steve Jobs, as everyone must know by now, loathes Flash. CS5 includes – or is supposed to (we’ll see when it ships in 30 days) – an Adobe-advertised write-once Flash-to-iPhone compiler that was supposed to dodge the Apple police. But the latest Apple Developer Program License Agreement says in clause 3.3.1 that developers can’t use any foreign tools or cross-platform interpreters or compiler, only Apple tools. Any apps that don’t conform won’t be allowed in the iTunes store.

My-Channels Nirvana Adds Support for HTML5 Web Sockets

Fri, 16 Apr 2010 07:02:00 EDT

My-Channels, a provider of unified enterprise, web and mobile middleware, today announced support for the HTML5 WebSocket protocol in their Nirvana Enterprise Server and the Nirvana JavaScript client API. My-Channels' Nirvana API for JavaScript has been updated to include underlying support for Web Sockets, an HTML5 technology for full-duplex communication between web browsers and servers. The Nirvana JavaScript API will now use WebSocket communication by default. Browsers yet to adopt this new standard will continue to function using Nirvana's Comet-based streaming implementatio

Adobe Introduces Adobe Flash Catalyst CS5

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 08:05:00 EDT

Adobe introduced on Monday Adobe Flash Catalyst CS5, the new professional interaction design tool that allows designers to rapidly create expressive Web application interfaces and design interaction without writing code. With Adobe Flash Catalyst CS5, Flash Professional CS5 and Flash Builder 4, designers and developers will be able to collaborate and work more productively together. Full details of the announcement and a list of new features in Flash Catalyst can be found in the press release for your reference.

IBM Reads Orwell’s “1984,” Tries Rewriting History

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 15:30:00 EDT

Once the news got out that it had welched on its 2005 patent pledge to the open source community and had threatened TurboHercules (TH) with patent infringement, IBM had to come up with some cover story or another to contain the fallout. So it switched places with many of its observers and turned conspiracy theorist, accusing Turbo Hercules of guilt by association. Besides calling TurboHercules a couple of dirty names - a stock response to any threats to its monopoly in order to scare away its rivals' customers...