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Make the CASE

Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) automates the software creation process from front to back. The Unified Modeling Language (UML) provides the interoperability that enables the benefits of CASE. ArgoUML is a UML CASE tool for analyzing and designing object-oriented software. Apart from being open source freeware, it has many unique aspects that set it apart from commercial tools, including its use of psychological research to design an environment that increases productivity by supporting programmers' cognitive requirements and its pure Java nature, which allows for widespread compatibility and access.

ArgoUML's installer lets you include the Java Runtime Environment, if your … Read more

IE9 beta takes a bow

  Links from Thursday's episode of Loaded: Microsoft releases beta version of Internet Explorer 9 Craigslists rules out reopening adult services Facebook competitor Diaspora releases source code Apple iOS 4.2 brings the iPad up to par Playstation 3 firmware update includes 3D Blu-ray support

'Anti-Facebook' project releases first batch of code

The open-source Diaspora project released on Wednesday the first iteration of its so-called anti-Facebook social-networking application.

According to a blog post, the development team aims to work with the community to enhance and extend the software in order to create a better project. Hardly an original idea in the open-source world, but certainly a logical ideal in light of the fact that social-networking applications require a good bit of insight from users and developers--something we've seen Facebook embrace, occasionally forcibly by its own community.

There are a number of capabilities in the current release that start to outline how … Read more

Xeround scales MySQL for the cloud

Today, Xeround officially announced the release of the private beta of its "MySQL for the Cloud" service--an elastic, linearly scalable, relational database designed to run applications in cloud environments.

Xeround is based on an in-memory database and has been tested in a number of telco production environments, according to CEO Razi Sharir. The software utilizes virtual partitions where data partitions are decoupled--or abstracted--from physical resources. These virtual partitions hold copies of both the data and the indexes, in order to ensure high availability and performance.

Despite the ubiquity of open-source MySQL, the database has in the past suffered … Read more

French start-up bringing open-source BPM to U.S.

A relatively new French open-source start-up is set to soon make landfall in the U.S.--BonitaSoft, a maker of open-source business process management (BPM) software. BonitaSoft aims to provide an open-source alternative to proprietary suites from the likes of IBM, Oracle, and SAP that dominate the BPM market. (Other French open-source start-ups in the U.S. market include Talend and eXo.)

The company is built around the open-source Bonita project, first developed in 2001 at the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control (INRIA). The development team was then hired by French software giant Bull … Read more

How GE uses Hadoop to analyze big data

One of the most talked about open-source projects is having its second annual Hadoop World Conference next month in New York. On the heels of a successful inaugural event , 2010 promises more than 25 presentations from the likes of Bank of America, eBay, HP, Orbitz, Twitter, Facebook, and Yahoo (full agenda here). Also, for the second year running, here is a code for my readers to get a 20 percent registration discount: CNETHW2010.

To provide a small taste of what the event will offer, I corresponded with Hadoop World speaker Linden Hillenbrand, product manager of Hadoop Technologies at General Electric, … Read more

Washington Post writer learns Twitter lesson

The good people at Twitter should send a bottle of champagne to Mike Wise.

Wise is the freshly chastised sportswriter from The Washington Post who was suspended last week for taking his company's reputation too lightly when he intentionally used Twitter to post false information on the Web. When Wise keyed in a phony scoop about Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger--using a Twitter account that identified Wise as a Washington Post reporter--he was trying to show how some journalists and bloggers will republish unfounded rumors without doing any fact checking. He intended to illustrate the weakness of blogs and … Read more

Dell checks for open-source licensing misstep

Dell is responding to concerns in the open-source community that it didn't comply with the rules governing Android software used in its Streak tablet.

The Streak was released in the U.K. in June, and in the U.S. in July. Recently, a group of developers started a mini-protest online after they found, they said, that Dell failed to release some source code components for the Streak as required by anyone using software governed by the GNU General Public License.

The GPL requires those who use software governed by the license to make available any changes they made to … Read more

Red Hat adds to its cloud appeal

Red Hat made several announcements Wednesday related to the development of public and private clouds, including updates to its Cloud Foundation portfolio, the effort to make its Deltacloud a standard API, a flagship cloud customer, and a new platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offering.

The company is working to create a comprehensive cloud offering--at least in theory--with new products that address the various layers of what can be considered cloud infrastructure.

This is all interesting, especially because Red Hat CTO Brian Stevens recently stated that cloud services are at least a decade away. Apparently, the company is taking the long-term view that the … Read more