Of Interest

Dr. Dobb's Journal November 2002

PatchMeister, from Ecora Software, is a free patch management tool for the Windows environment. It autodiscovers domains, servers, and workstations, and analyzes existing patch configurations for each system. It compares what's installed with the latest available patches for Windows NT4/2000/XP Pro as well as applications such as Internet Explorer, IIS, and SQL Server running on workstations and servers. With PatchMeister, you can view patches by host, product, or by a particular patch. PatchMeister uses both remote registry and file signature checks to validate if patches are installed. The program reports are in HTML and can be exported into a CSV file for manipulation of data.

Ecora Software

500 Spaulding Turnpike, Suite W310

Portsmouth, NH 03801

603-436-1616

http://www.ecora.com/

Hurricane Software has released WinGREP 4.0, a search utility that locates and displays text. Features in this release include an extension of existing software development environments, a real-time search function, customizable previews that allow viewing in context of search results, and regular expression support with quick access menus.

Hurricane Software Inc.

19401 E US Highway 40, Suite 130

Independence, MO 64055

816-795-8955

http://www.hurricanesoft.com/

Salford Software has released Salford FTN95 for Microsoft .NET and Win32, a full Fortran 95 compiler integrated into Visual Studio .NET to provide industry standard code authoring and debugging of .NET and Win32 applications. With FTN95 for .NET, all standard and most vendor-specific legacy language features are supported. Fortran code can be combined in a documented manner with new code written in other .NET languages, such as C# and Visual Basic for .NET. Salford CHECKMATE technology (implemented at the heart of FTN95 for .NET) enables a range of run-time checks for common Fortran usage errors while code is under development.

Salford Software Ltd.

Lancastrian Office Centre

Talbot Road, Old Trafford

Manchester M32 0FP

United Kingdom

44-0-161-906-1002

http://www.salfordsoftware.co.uk/

Flux 3.5, from Sims Computing, is a lightweight software component that provides time-based and event-driven job scheduling. Version 3.5 of the Flux job scheduler introduces file-driven jobs, which provide software applications the necessary infrastructure to react to change and to transport files within the enterprise and between businesses. Using short expressions to describe large sets of files, you can create, delete, copy, move, and rename files and directories on the local file system, on remote FTP servers, or between the two.

Sims Computing

One South Broadway

Billings, MT 59101

406-656-7398

http://www.simscomputing.com/

PKZIP 5.0 is data compression software that uses an extended .ZIP file format to provide both certificate-based and traditional password-based encryption and authentication by incorporating strong encryption algorithms (up to 3 DES 168-bit encryption). PKZIP 5.0 integrates support for standard X.509 v3 digital certificates with Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) to sign and encrypt compressed files, turning traditional .ZIP files into secure .ZIP files for storage or transmission. It offers integration with Microsoft Outlook to provide automatic compression, digital signing, and encryption of files that are attachments to e-mail messages. PKZIP 5.0 is available for Windows 98/Me/NT 4.0/2000/XP, UNIX (Linux, HP-UX, SPARC Solaris, IBM-AIX), Mainframe, AS/400, and DOS.

PKWARE Inc.

9025 N. Deerwood Drive

Brown Deer, WI 53223-2480

414-354-8699

http://www.pkware.com/

Borland Delphi 7 Studio is a cross-platform rapid application development (RAD) environment that integrates modeling, development, and deployment of Windows-based apps that require support for web services, and preview capabilities for the Microsoft .NET Framework. New features include a Model Driven Architecture (MDA) technology, which lets you take an application from design to deployment with less code; the RAD visual web development, which lets you visually build web applications within the Delphi 7 Studio environment; built-in cross-platform support for Linux; enterprise class reporting capabilities; royalty-free DataSnap Multi-tier Application Deployment, which lets you scale single-tier and client/server applications to multitier without additional fees; and Windows XP Theme support.

Borland Software Corp.

100 Enterprise Way

Scotts Valley, CA 95066-3249

831-431-1000

http://www.borland.com/

Recursion Software has announced availability of its C# Rapid DevKit. The kit includes high-performance collections and more than 50 data-processing algorithms designed to reduce .NET development time. The C# Rapid DevKit extends the .NET Framework and is compatible with the ICollection and IEnumerator classes, and also includes 11 optimized data structures.

Recursion Software Inc.

2591 N. Dallas Parkway, Suite 200

Frisco, TX 75034

972-731-8800

http://www.recursionsw.com/

New from Connectix is Virtual PC for Windows 5.0, which enhances OS compatibility, virtual machine performance, and system manageability, letting you consolidate redundant PCs running divergent operating systems. Each virtual machine emulates a complete hardware system, from processor to network card, in a self-contained software environment. New features include: speed and performance improvements, CPU utilization tools that lets you control the CPU capacity allocated to each virtual machine, PC disk image support, increased RAM support allowing up to 1 gigabyte of RAM per virtual machine, and improved support for IBM OS/2.

Connectix Corp.

2955 Campus Drive

San Mateo, CA 94403

650-571-5100

http://www.connectix.com/

DDJ