2008 is going to be an important year for Rich Internet Applications. Most organizations are delivering or planning to deliver Rich Internet Applications; however, at the same time, most IT managers are facing a dilemma: which Rich Internet Application technology and platform to use? The number of different frameworks and libraries is too vast to even consider evaluating a fraction of them.

JReport and Composite Software announced the companies have partnered to offer a new joint solution: JReport OnDemand Integration. The companies will co-market and co-sell the new reporting solution with out-of-the-box information integration capabilities.

One of the things that kept me and my team busy over the past couple of years was starting to support J2EE 1.4 in OptimalJ - a goal that we accomplished with the release of OptimalJ 4.2. Now that this job is complete, it's interesting to look back and ponder the experience and learn from it.

OpenMobile IS has won the Gold Award in the 'Company Management' category of the Free Software Awards 2006. OpenMobileIS is a Java Framework conceived to integrate mobile application developement business. Open Mobile IS Java framework aims to provide all the functionalities and components needed for the development of enterprise mobile applications. Open mobile IS is an open source project (GNU LGPL license) that aims to provide all the necessary tools, API and documents enabling effective nomad applications development.

GigaSpaces Technologies has integrated McObject's Perst open source, object-oriented all-Java embedded database for real-time data management in its massively scaleable distributed application technology. GigaSpaces embeds Perst in version 5.1 of its software, where Perst provides persistence for applications that are deployed and optimized using GigaSpaces' highly scalable, self-managing distributed solution.

Sun Microsystems, challenged leaders to rethink traditional education models. On the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) campus at a forum titled 'Open For Education,' introduced by Sun's Chairman of the Board of Directors Scott McNealy, the participants discussed how the rise of the global network has lowered barriers to access so that educators and students alike should contribute to and share better educational tools.

Ajax(Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) means many things to many people. However, one thing is certain: To users it implies a higher level of functionality and an improved experience. To the developer, another certainty follows: More work. The only question is how much work and to what end.

Mentality of programmers depends on a programming language or tool they use. Should they even try to learn what's under the hood in a particular framework?

Sun Microsystems, Inc., maker of NetBeans Mobility Pack, announced the availability of the NetBeans Mobility Pack 5.0 for Connected Device Configuration. The Mobility Pack for CDC was designed to bring the many advantages of the Java platform to a broad range of network-connected consumer and embedded devices, including smart communicators, high-end PDAs, and set-top boxes.

SlickEdit Inc. announced the release of SlickEdit v11 for Windows, Linux, UNIX, and Mac OS X platforms. SlickEdit v11 introduces new core editing features that allow power programmers to be more productive by reducing busy-work and repetitive tasks.

Ping Identity announced the expansion of its PingFederate Integration Kit family to include both Windows Kerberos and Oracle/Oblix COREid. These new Integration Kits join Ping's existing family of adapters for Windows Login, Java and .NET applications, CA eTrust SiteMinder and Salesforce.com in providing turnkey first and last mile integration when configuring PingFederate to deliver Web SSO using SAML 1.x, SAML 2.0 and WS-Federation.

Xenos Group announced today the release of Xenos d2e Vision version 2.2 for transforming documents into electronic formats. Designed for rapid and seamless integration with other e-Business applications, this version includes enhancements in its handling of images, color and support for additional input and output print streams and formats.

Elastic Path Software announced today the successful launch of CoutureCandy, online retailer of designer apparel. CoutureCandy was developed to fill a growing demand for the freshest designer apparel online, without sacrificing the allure, character and personal service distinctive of offline boutiques. They have successfully accomplished this mission through an innovative community based fashion website built around the Elastic Path ecommerce software platform.

Elastic Path Software announced today the general availability of Elastic Path 4.1, an update of its Java-based ecommerce software, enabling marketers to engage in advanced search engine optimization (SEO) campaigns.

Quest Software announced today version 1.0 of Quest Spotlight on Oracle RAC, the newest extension of Quest Software's patented Spotlight product family. Spotlight on Oracle RAC is the first product available to provide a graphical view on the internal performance of Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC). Presenting diagnostic data from all perspectives of a multi-level RAC environment node, cluster, interconnect and shared disks the new product enables database administrators to proactively pinpoint and resolve potential cluster database performance problems before they impact end users.

MetaMatrix announced today a new product, MetaMatrix Query, built for Java application developers. MetaMatrix Query is an embeddable Java distributed query component that streamlines development and maintenance of Java applications that use data from two or more relational databases. When embedded in an application, the MetaMatrix Query data service operates as a single JDBC driver that facilitates access to data from multiple, distributed relational databases, federating data from these sources and optimizing distributed queries. By using MetaMatrix Query, Java developers can reduce development and maintenance time and improve the performance of their applications.

In the second of a new series, Yakov Fain takes a look at the basics of object orientation and method overloading in Java.

Yakov Fain's popular online tutorial series continues. This lesson he discusses the basics of threads, including how to create them, how to get them to step aside, and how to stop them.

Yakov Fain, in Lesson 9 of his immensely popular online 'Java Basics' series for JDJ Industry Newsletter, talks about using threads for creating more advanced programs than those already discussed in Lesson 8. He analyzes the role they play in major Internet portals like Yahoo, CNN, or your bank's Web site. These portals usually display different types of information like News, Weather, Stock Market quotes, etc. Each of these info pieces appears on the screen instantaneously even though it's coming to the portal from different servers.

We'll build a servlet that will demo some new Java 5.0 features and do some basic tasks like creating a session to track user visits to multiple Web pages. This code can easily be extended to store a user ID in the session that will travel with her as the site is navigated. The value of the visit counter is stored in the session so multiple visits to the page will be counted (this includes the page refreshes after pressing the browser's 'Reload' button). If the counter goes over five, the counter gets cleared.

The single thing that Adam Kolawa in 2004 (prophetically) said he'd like to change about Java's history is its separation from Microsoft. 'I think it is a shame that the technologies from both sides cannot be used together,' he says, in an exclusive interview with JDJ. 'Java seemed to be the perfect technology to bring Microsoft into the world of coexistence, and I think this opportunity got lost.'

Developers using Java on clients or in small projects may not believe that there is a fundamental problem with Java's robustness. People working with huge applications and application servers written in Java know about the problem but may doubt that it's possible to build something like an unbreakable Java architecture.

For various reasons, an application may install a security manager. Usually it does so to guard against malicious third-party code either installed or dynamically downloaded at runtime. If the application uses RMI APIs, it's even required by a Java specification that a security manager be installed, otherwise the classloader will not download any classes from remote locations.

In the five years that I have worked in Web solutions practices, a typical business problem has changed from 'we need a new Web site' to 'we need to regain control over our existing sites.' It's not uncommon for large corporations to have hundreds or even thousands of different Web sites spread over various service lines, geographies, and organizational boundaries. This presents challenges ranging from logistical and technical, to creative, business, and legal. This article focuses on solving the problem of ubiquitous navigation across diverse Webscapes.

Language tools such as compilers, interpreters, and code generators are a critical part of the software development landscape. Any software project will include several procured tools and very likely several in-house tools. Experience shows that the only guarantee with such tools is change: the underlying language may change due to improvements or extensions and the functionality provided by the tool expands, driven by user-requested features and the need to stay in front of the competition. The specific changes that will be made are rarely known at the outset, but change is coming.

Application architects have heard about the increased importance of security, but in many cases they really don't know how to approach this issue. In this article, I'll share my experience and define a few basic steps and checkpoints for building application architecture with security in mind.

I'm really jazzed about Java 5.0! We've been treated over the years to incremental improvements in JVM performance. JDK 1.2 brought us the collections framework as well as Swing, the thread context class loader, and improvements in RMI. JDK 1.3 and 1.4 continued in the same vain with logical improvements to libraries, JVM enhancements, and performance upgrades. Although this article doesn't intend to take trip down memory lane, it's important to understand that Java 5.0 brings a truly remarkable and rich set of new tools to our programming landscape as compared to other JDK releases.

Pattern matching using 'regular expressions' can help automate a number of text-processing operations like search and replace, input validation, text conversion, and filters. What otherwise requires significant amounts of code can be done in just a few lines with regular expressions because of the powerful underlying regular expressions processing engine.

Are your Java programs littered with a multitude of randomly placed System.out.println statements and stack traces? When you add debugging messages to a class in a project, are the outputs of your messages interleaved among dozens of messages from other developers, making your messages difficult to read? Do you use a simple, hand-rolled logging API, and fear that it may not provide the flexibility and power that you need once your applications are in production?

This article describes how to host an ActiveX/.NET control in a Java application that is targeted for the Microsoft Windows Platform. I'll assume you know the fundamentals of Java, C++, JNI (Java Native Interface), Win32, COM (Component Object Model), and ATL (Active Template Library).

'Ease of Development' is one of the main focuses in J2SE 5. Accordingly, J2SE 5 introduces several new features designed to simplify the developer's life. If you use these new constructs, your code will become more compact and expressive, hence easier to understand and debug. This article explains how you can use the new features to prevent some silly mistakes, as well as some that are not so silly.

Enterprises for the first time have the ability to deploy wired and wireless security access on a per user basis, with Aruba Wireless Networks' grid security controllers.

Java's implementation of Remote Method Invocation (RMI) is easy to use and powerful. Java makes setting up an RMI server an almost trivial task because the JVM handles complex tasks such as networking and object serialization. Once running, connecting client applications to the RMI server is also a breeze.

You know how to write good Java code and deployment to a server is no mystery either. But have you ever had to work in large development teams, maybe geographically dispersed (off-shoring...)? Ever had to address the pain of application software updates?

Have you looked at the certificate that your neighbor has so proudly displayed in his or her office? Have you ever wondered if getting certified in Java is worth the time and effort?

These days Calvin Austin is one of the busiest people in the Java world: J2SE 5.0, that was also known as the 'Tiger' project, is being officially released today! JDJ's Yakov Fain was able to catch Austin, spec lead for Java 5.0, right before the plane from San Francisco to New York where he'll today be presenting the new features of the Java language to the New York Java Users Group.

Those familiar with the java.util.Comparator interface of the Java API realize its capabilities for sorting a collection of objects based on an attribute of the objects in the collection. This works well when there is only a single field in which sorting is required. When more complex sorting is necessary, the limitations of sorting on a single field become obvious.

Though most Java developers think of the Java Native Interface (JNI) as a framework for developing native libraries that can be called from Java, relatively few know that JNI also supports communication in the reverse direction: it provides native programs written in C with the ability to call Java objects. However, the coding is thorny; logic that can be coded readily in a few lines of Java requires several times more lines of C, thanks to JNI's granular programming model and peculiar approaches to exception handling and garbage collection.

In the late 1990s, a GUI design pattern emerged for choosing multiple objects from long lists. In GUI Design Essentials, Susan Weinschenk, Pamela Jamar, and Sarah Yeo called this the Selection Summary pattern. In 'A Dual Listbox Selection Manager' by Steve Aube, it's also known as the Dual Listbox Selection interface. In The Java Look and Feel Guidelines, Advanced Topics, it is called the Add-and-Remove idiom.

Modern GUI programs enable you to easily access status information and functionalities through various menus, toolbars, and information panels. However, as a program becomes more complex or when users have the possibility of configuring and extending these components, they tend to get overfilled. This leads to scrambled or even truncated components.