Dr. Dobb's Journal March 2003
Software Engineering Associates has released Plankton, a PHP-based toolkit for developers. It consists of both a general-purpose class library, which provides the basic building blocks of a PHP web application, and framework-specific classes, which provide a streamlined architecture for PHP web development. Some features in the general-purpose class library include generating HTML, creating and processing XML, DBMS-independent database functionality, creating PDF documents, session management, abstract data types, and network protocols. The framework-specific features include classes that can configure themselves from XML configuration files, advanced form classes, and "MegaWidgets," which are self-contained, miniapplications that can easily be dropped into a web page.
Software Engineering Associates Inc.
P.O. Box 116
Archbald, PA 18403
570-803-0535
http://www.sea-incorporated.com/
Perforce Software has launched Perforce 2002.2, an update to its software configuration management system. Perforce 2002.2 includes Perforce Proxy (P4P), which utilizes a caching technology to facilitate distributed development. P4P gives remote users quick response times when downloading versions of files that have already been requested by other remote users. P4P caches file revisions sent from the central server—subsequent requests for that same revision are delivered from the proxy server, reducing both network traffic across the WAN and CPU load on central servers.
Perforce Software Inc.
2320 Blanding Avenue
Alameda, CA 94501
510-864-7400
http://www.perforce.com/
Polar SpellChecker Component 4.0, a Windows-based tool from Polar Software that performs advanced spellchecking, is now available. Version 4.0 is upgraded with features such as easy integration with RichEdit and Edit text controls, simultaneous use of multiple dictionaries, support for text statistics, as-you-type spellchecking, and new dictionaries based on new and refined word lists for 14 languages.
Polar Software
Put Supavla 1
21000 Split, Croatia
385-21-380-770
http://www.polarsoftware.com/
SoftIntegration has released its SoftIntegration Graphical Library (SIGL) for Mac OS X, a 2D/3D graphical plotting tool within the framework of C/C++. With SIGL, you can design and deploy the graphical application running across different platforms. It contains a plotting class with many member functions for visualization, and allows for the compilation and linking of code with the Graphical Library in the desired C++ compiler. SoftIntegration Graphical Library is available for Windows, Solaris, Linux, HP-UX, and Mac OS X.
SoftIntegration Inc.
216 F Street, #68
Davis, CA 95616
530-297-7398
http://www.softintegration.com/
Data Junction has announced the release of GoPeep!, a freely available data browser that lets you view more than 160 different applications and formats including XML, binary, Cobol, and dBase. GoPeep! lets you search within live data and access "mystery" data that was previously unavailable. With GoPeep! you can browse any relational database without the application being installed on your system, and it provides a range of metadata adapters including XML DTDs, XML schema, and Cobol 01 for viewing unstructured data.
Data Junction Corp.
2201 Northland Drive
Austin, TX 78756-1117
512-452-6105
http://www.gopeep.net/
New from iVoice is the iVoice Speech SDK 3.0, which lets you speech-enable PC or telephony applications. It has been improved to incorporate iVoice's Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) engine enhancements. The SDK lets you write applications that treat the voice as an input device such as a mouse, keyboard, or joystick. Enhancements in Version 3.0 include a COM library that lets you easily create speech applications in both Visual C++ and Visual Basic. The SDK is multithreaded and supports simultaneous input processing by supporting buffering on up to eight speech channels in three different recognition modes.
iVoice Inc.
750 Highway 34
Matawan, NJ 07747
782-441-7700
http://www.ivoice.com/
Software Research has released Version 4.0 of its eValid Website Test Suite, which provides a way to access and expose defects or bottlenecks on web sites. The new release expands eValid's capabilities to provide XML and multiwindow support, introduces thin and limited-fidelity test playback options, and delivers web-site testing without the need for plug-ins, JavaScripts, VBScripts, proxies, or wrappers. It supports cookies, Flash objects, and Java Applets in an intuitive way. The new version also introduces new dashboard controls, simplifies user preferences, and automates testing even further.
Software Research Inc.
901 Minnesota Street
San Francisco, CA 94107
415-550-3020
http://www.soft.com/
General Software has released a new version of its Firmbase SDK for embedded x86 firmware applications. The new functionality in Firmbase 1.1 improves upon the fault-tolerant, run-time infrastructure that embedded devices need to run high-availability firmware applications concurrently with the run-time operating system. Firmbase 1.1 offers a system registry, cacheable kernel, polled interrupt model, dispatcher controls for load leveling, an integrated high-availability subsystem, OS system death detection, network boot, Media Access Control drivers, and a Socket library for building network-aware firmware applications. Sample code for drivers and applications is included, allowing OEMs to leverage existing working code in the development of new drivers and applications.
General Software Inc.
11000 NE 33rd Place, Suite 102
Bellevue, WA 98004
425-576-8300
http://www.gensw.com/
DDJ