Dr. Dobb's Journal June 2001
ParaSoft has released Insure++ 6.0, a run-time error detection tool for C/C++ development. Insure++ for Windows now includes the Chaperon mode to check noninstrumented executables. Without requiring any recompiling or relinking, Chaperon provides a quick check of all data-memory references made by a process and detects and reports reads of uninitialized memory, reads/writes that are not within the bounds of allocated blocks, and allocation errors such as memory leaks. A Source Code Instrumentation mode is also included for a more detailed check. Add-on modules are available to graphically monitor a program's memory allocation and aid with memory optimization, and to show which files, functions, and statements have been executed, and which have not. The 6.0 edition of Insure++ is available for Windows 2000/NT; UNIX versions are supposedly forthcoming.
ParaSoft Corp.
2031 S. Myrtle Avenue
Monrovia, CA 91016
626-256-3680
http://www.parasoft.com/
The TowerJ Java deployment platform is now available for Intel Itanium servers. The TowerJ virtual machine uses ahead-of-time compilation to convert standard Java bytecode into optimized, self-contained executables, and mixed-mode deployment allows dynamic update. Also available is an SDK for Itanium servers. The deployment platform is now available on Red Hat Linux, TurboLinux, and Suse Linux, and a version is planned for Windows 2000.
Tower Technology
Centennial Towers
505 East Huntland Drive, Suite 530
Austin, TX 78752
512-452-9455
http://www.towerj.com/
Covalent Technologies has introduced several new server products for Apache that can be purchased as integrated bundles or on a modular basis. The Covalent Secure Server offers 128-bit SSL encryption, intrusion detection, virus scanning, and graphical interface. The Covalent Commerce Server provides a generic API for most credit-card clearinghouses and commercial-grade SSL support. The Covalent Managed Server offers a uniform environment to install and support PHP, Perl, Java, DAV, or SSL, and also features SNMP instrumentation for monitoring and configuration through precertified management frameworks.
Covalent Technologies
706 Mission Street, 2nd Floor
San Francisco, CA 94103
415-536-5200
http://www.covalent.com/
NuSphere has contributed a transactional storage engine to MySQL, allowing the open-source database to support row-level locking. Other new features of MySQL resulting from this contribution include ACID transactions suitable for financial applications; automatic crash recovery; and support for features that build on row-level locking such as a select for update function that selects records and locks them so they can be updated at a later date. A formal release of the alpha version of MySQL 4.0, including the new features from NuSphere, is forthcoming.
NuSphere Corp.
14 Oak Park
Bedford, MA 01730
781-280-4600
http://www.nusphere.com/
Object Design has announced its ObjectStore data management software for Linux systems. The object database management system offers native support for Java and C++ development environments, a full set of development tools, data storage, and standard libraries for managing collections, transactions, query processing, and indexing. It is designed to eliminate the need to write mapping code and to improve run-time performance.
Object Design
25 Mall Road
Burlington, MA 01803
781-674-5000
http://www.objectdesign.com/
Berkeley 3.2, an open-source embedded database, is now available for QNX, as well as UNIX and Linux systems, VxWorks, and Windows. The Berkeley DB access methods include B+tree, extended linear hashing, fixed- and variable-length records, and persistent queues. Berkeley DB provides full transactional support, database recovery, online backups, and separate access to locking, logging, and shared memory caching subsystems. C, C++, Java, Tcl, Perl, and Python APIs are supported.
Sleepycat Software Inc.
1509 McGee Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94703
510-526-3972
http://www.sleepycat.com/
Groove Networks has introduced a development kit for its distributed computing framework. Designed for peer-to-peer collaborative applications, the framework is modular and works with standard programming languages and tools that are COM compliant. The Groove SDK includes components to provide a persistent XML object store, shared space and member management, security and role management, peer and server communications, and transparent peer synchronization. Groove currently requires a Windows environment; a Linux version is in development.
Groove Networks Inc.
100 Cummings Center, Suite 535Q
Beverly, MA 01915
978-720-2000
http://www.groovenetworks.com/
SyWare's mEnable is a new wireless software architecture allowing mobile users to access and modify server data in real time. With mEnable, any application written in C++ or Visual Basic can wirelessly read from or write to any ODBC-enabled data source. The software communicates between the mobile device and the server using TCP/IP through standard network adapter cards that install into mobile devices. mEnable also works with the Bluetooth protocol, enabling users to operate a handheld device while a cell phone provides the long-range connection. Only Windows powered devices are supported.
SyWare Inc.
P.O. Box 425091, Kendall
Cambridge, MA 02142
617-497-8729
http://www.syware.com/
Digital Creations has announced a Content Management Framework (CMF) based on the Zope open-source web application server. CMF is also open source. It uses templates to simplify a web-managed content creation process. Role-based permissions ensure implementation of content publication; workflow and other business rules are customizable, and groups can have different rules; version tracking and rollback capabilities help manage changes. Multiple presentations are supported. Information is added to the site and indexed on a real-time basis. CMF integrates with standard components and protocols including XML, WebDAV, RPC, SOAP, and LDAP, and runs on most versions of Windows and UNIX.
Digital Creations 2 Inc.
607 William Street, Suite 201
Fredericksburg, VA 22401
540-371-6909
http://www.digicool.com/
General Software's Firmbase operating environment runs firmware applications in System Management Mode (SMM), which insulates code from the foreground operating system with dedicated hardware. Firmware applications run even when the foreground operating system crashes. Firmbase simplifies SMM programming by providing a multithreaded API callable from standard Windows programs, so Firmbase applications can be written in high-level languages. Firmbase itself is loaded by Embedded BIOS 2000, which also includes a quick-boot feature.
General Software Inc.
11000 NE 33rd Place, Suite 102
Bellevue, WA 98004
425-576-8300
http://www.gensw.com/
LinkScan 8.0 from Electronic Software Publishing (Elsop) delivers test automation and web-site management capabilities. New features include enhancements to the Windows GUI; a direct interface to the OpenSSL package on UNIX systems, and native support for SSL on Windows; an audit trail of cookie transactions processed during a scan; and an Excel spreadsheet including some macros, which lets portions of the LinkScan database be exported to Excel. LinkScan operates on Windows and all flavors of UNIX.
Electronic Software Publishing Corp.
1361 Shelby Creek Court
San Jose, CA 95120
408-323-3030
http://www.elsop.com/
Crystal Decisions (formerly Seagate Software) has released Crystal Reports 8.5, a reporting tool for Web publishing. Crystal Reports includes tools for building interactive reports from within an application: You can integrate content into ActiveX, Java, HTML, or DHTML applications. Documents can be published to DHTML, RTF, Excel, PDF, or XML formats, and most XML, OLAP or relational data sources are supported.
Crystal Decisions Inc.
895 Emerson Street
Palo Alto, CA 94301-2413
604-681-3435
http://www.crystaldecisions.net/
B3 Cyber Dialogs from Buckland, Buchman & Backlund is a graphical authoring tool for the creation of DHTML dialogs for Windows applications. The tool lets you replace the dialogs of an application with web pages acting as ordinary dialogs, since DHTML often allows more freedom in dialogs than the Win32 resource script language: DHTML dialogs are resizable and can use scripts within the dialog itself. A syntax-coloring JavaScript editor is included, as are custom dialogs to assist in designing scripts. The tool requires a Windows platform and Internet Explorer 5.5.
Buckland, Buchman & Backlund
Helgevagen 7, SE-182 54
Djursholm, Sweden
46-8-753-01-08
http://www.htmldialogs.com/
CRiSP 7.1 from Vital is a visual text editor designed to streamline program editing. New features include an FTP capability allowing Windows users to edit files on UNIX systems; support for XML tagging; tagging and colonizer support for JSP and C#; and new printer and keyboard options. Standard features include dynamic tagging, source-code browsing, search and replace, cut and paste, syntax highlighting and coloring, dynamic spell checking, code folding, columnar editing, and keyboard emulation for Brief, vi, emacs, cua, edt, and Wordstar. CRiSP is available on all Windows and UNIX systems.
Vital Inc.
5136 Village Creek Drive
Plano, TX 55093
972-818-2424
http://www.vital.com/
The Free Standards Group has announced the first major update to the Linux Development Platform Specification, LDPS 1.1. The LDPS allows portability in application development to all generally available Linux distributions. Changes in the specification include new POSIX threads information; a specification for printing documents in portable applications; an expanded "Frequently Asked Questions" section; a replacement ncurses specification; additional information on RPM; and notes on securing applications.
Free Standards Group
3940 Freedom Circle
Santa Clara, CA 95129
http://www.freestandards.org/ldps
MigraTEC is distributing the Solaris-to-Linux DART, a free software utility designed to obtain baseline metrics for C/C++ software migration projects. DART, short for "Downloadable Assessment Reporting Tool," is intended to give you an estimate of the issues they might encounter during their migration projects. The DART analyzes the number of lines of code per file involved in the migration; the number of files involved; and an estimated total of the issues found. This is MigraTEC's second DART: Future utilities will perform 64-bit and cross-platform migration assessment, and reporting on applications running on the AIX 5L platform.
MigraTEC Inc.
11494 Luna Road, Suite 100
Dallas, TX 75234
972-969-0385
http://www.migratec.com/
Innomation Systems has introduced OmniBasic Version 2.1, a Basic compiler written in Basic. The new version features a graphical development environment that allows simultaneous development for both Windows and UNIX platforms. The 2.1 release continues to support console applications as well as Windows and X-Windows applications; it is available for Windows, Linux, and BSD.
Innomation Systems Inc.
105 Industrial Drive
Hermann, MO 65041
573-486-3025
http://www.innomationsystems.com/
Time-to-Market Software has released CTF, the Component Testing Facility. CTF is an application toolsuite designed to automate COM/DCOM component testing. A Windows interface specifies which components to exercise, and which properties and methods to invoke. CTF supports any complex data type, including XML and user-defined types and objects, via an expandable plug-in architecture. Any Windows-based scripting language can be integrated.
Time-to-Market Software
1031 Sterling Road, Suite 201
Herndon, VA 20170
703-733-0345
http://www.timetomarketsoftware.com/
Catalyst Systems has announced Openmake 5.12, a build process automation tool for Java developers. Openmake automates identical build processes across all platforms regardless of compiler, IDE, or operating system. Openmake's dynamic compile-time dependency checking lets you avoid complete system builds every time a single component changes. The dependency checking facility detects class constructs such as import, extend, throw, and new. Using Openmake, you can deploy a single Jar file including your source code plus EJB and other third-party classes, and multiple manifest files can be consolidated into one in the Jar.
Catalyst Systems Corp.
P.O. Box 556
Glencoe, IL 60022
847-835-6106
http://www.openmake.com/
DDJ