Tying together design construction documents with material supply and facility management, interested?...Building Information Modeling

11:20:03 AM    

 

Are you a small business LA trying to be on top of things in a DIY sort of way?   IBM to offer tools tryouts.

Developer tools for SMBs and enterprises will be posted to IBM's alphaWorks site on June 30, with the offerings geared toward automated development, data access and security.

The alphaWorks site features pre-released, experimental technologies that may or may not be released as full products eventually. Developers have free access to tools on the site.

One tool, the Web Access Data Client Developer, generates Web-based data access to databases such as IBM Cloudscape. An Eclipse plug-in, the tool was developed by university students as part of IBM's Extreme Blue internship program.

"It's kind of a forms-based approach to access data from a database," via a Web client, said Gina Poole, IBM vice president of developer relations.

Another tool set, the Security Lifecycle Management Tools for IBM Tivoli Access Manager, enables users of Rational tools to build applications that link to SSO (single sign-on) functions provided by the Tivoli offering. "This is a set of code samples that exploit the plug-in interfaces of the Eclipse framework," Poole said. The Security Lifecycle Tools also plug into Eclipse.

The Availability Monitoring Toolkit being introduced enables developers to check availability of resources such as messaging middleware or an application server when developing an application to leverage these technologies. It, too, is an Eclipse plug-in.

ADIEU (Ad hoc Development and Integration tool for End users), meanwhile, provides forms-like, simplified development. "It requires no knowledge of Java or J2EE," Poole said. Developers can build Web services and applications using a collection of "cards," which provide single-function applications in a forms-based environment, according to IBM.[InfoWorld: Top News]

11:09:35 AM    

 

Phil Ringnalda reviews Microsoft's embrace of RSS. [Scripting News]

 

11:06:46 AM    

 

French answer to Google library. France is responding to Google's online library project with its own version. Click Online reports on the push to preserve French culture. [BBC News | Technology | UK Edition]

 

11:04:33 AM    

 

Design and icon status...Fast Company: Apple in Their Eyes. Digital-audio players weren't exactly virgin territory when Apple entered the fray in 2001. But the iPod -- with its sublime design, intuitive usability, and unparalleled cool quotient -- set a new standard by which all other MP3 players would be judged. Four rivals talk about designing their answer to an icon. [Tomalak's Realm]

 

11:03:46 AM    

 

Wikipedia and KDE Cooperation Announced. eean writes "As reported by KDE Dot News, today Jimmy Wales, chairman of the Wikimedia Foundation, announced the beginning of a cooperation between Wikimedia and the KDE project at LinuxTag in Karlsruhe, Germany. As the first applications, like the media player amaroK, start to integrate Wikipedia content the idea is to create a webservice API to access the information from Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia or Wiktionary."[Slashdot]

 

11:02:32 AM    

 

:)  From Alien to The Matrix. Spencerian writes "Roz Kaveney's From Alien to the Matrix is definitely a love-to-hate book for me, and probably for most fanboys who've forgotten more than the author knows about the meanings, philosophy, and humor found in many popular SF films of the last 35 years. If you love to argue and curse when you read something that's so way off base in interpretation or appears to lack any research in even the basic meanings that most Americans found in a SF film, then this is your book. But if you hate arguing with your non-fannish significant other on why you really liked a particular movie, save your money by not buying this book. Oh, and dump your boy/girlfriend, too." Read on for the rest of Spencerian's review. [Slashdot]

 

11:01:22 AM    

 

...the RFID issue...tracking plants and animals for your security...U.S. lags in effort to create animal ID system. The effort to create a national animal tracking system continues to lag despite the discovery of a cow that tested positive for mad cow disease this month. [Computerworld News]

 

10:58:43 AM    

 

EarthLink puts up more spyware, phishing shields. Adds more intelligence on phishing attacks and plans to swap in new anti-spyware tool to improve protection against Net threats. [CNET News.com]

 

10:55:56 AM    

 

Only 3x optical zoom; but we are getting there...A Camera That Seems as Thin as the Prints. The new Exilim EX-S500 takes five-megapixel still images and shoots video in MPEG-4 format at 640 by 480 pixels and 30 frames per second. By ANDREW ZIPERN. [NYT > Technology]

 

10:53:04 AM    

 

Beyond Wi-Fi: Laptop Heaven but at a Price. Finding high-speed wireless access on the road need not mean locating a coffee bar. Two new cellular cards for laptops let users tap into Verizon's mobile broadband network. By DAVID POGUE. [NYT > Technology]

 

10:49:28 AM    

 

This is an easy entry if you are not yet a cellphone devotee...watch the smart phone space...A Dizzying Array of Options for Using the Web on Cellphones. The wireless industry is counting on creating and filling a new need: data services that allow phones to receive e-mail, navigate the Web and download games, music and video. By SANDEEP JUNNARKAR.

 

10:48:45 AM