While trying out the Yahoo Mail Beta (in combination with the new Yahoo Mash Beta), I imported my address book from GMail into Yahoo Mail today - and was HORRIFIED when Yahoo proclaimed that it was now going to spam all my contacts and tell them about my 'new' Yahoo e-mail address. What on earth do they think they are doing? The system never asked me for permission to notify my contacts!!! And why would it do such a thing in the first place, when all I wanted to do was import my address book?! If you got a message from Yahoo today that asks you to update your address book because I switched e-mail addresses from gmail.com to yahoo.com - please accept my sincerest apologies and ignore that message!

Microsoft and Novell have opened that interoperability lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts promised in their controversial November accord. The location is right under the nose of the disapproving Free Software Foundation. The idea is to build and support technologies that let Windows and SUSE Linux, unlike other strains of Linux, work well together starting with virtualization, then moving on to standards-based systems management, identity federation and document formats. The 2,500-square-foot lab reportedly houses 80 servers of varying architectures and a SAN.

I've been a big proponent of smartphone technology for a long time, and have been chasing the 'perfect smartphone' for a while. Specifically, I've been hooked on using Windows Smartphone devices, because of the seamless integration with Outlook and the resulting automatic synchronization of all my contacts, calendar entries, tasks, notes, and e-mail over the air. And my favorite Smartphone so far was the Cingular/AT&T 8525. To meet a new business partner on the road, enter their contact details into the smartphone, and find the same person automatically in Outlook when you get back to the office is simply great - same goes for calendar entries.

Last week Microsoft failed to win ISO approval for the Office Open XML (OOXML) standard in the 2nd round of the ISO standardization process. While the Wall Street Journal published a critical article about this, this is by no means the end of the road, nor is it even a major setback - the ISO process commonly requires multiple rounds, and the 3rd round (expected for early 2008) will very likely see Office Open XML becoming an ISO standard.

Sony officially announced a new cross-breed between robot and MP3 player (so far in Japan only). The Rolly is a hand-sized device that not only plays your tracks but also dances to the music. In other words, it's a dancing iPod killer-wannabe...

Flex has gotten popular lately because of its rich GUI capabilities. It also comes in handy with HTTPService and Web Service components connecting to back-end servers to fetch and update data. But using this mechanism to talk to the back-end server requires formulating a unique service object from the Flex side, making a request, and getting back data from the back-end either in XML or plain text format. The response data then has to be parsed and fed to the Flex objects to update the UI. For small to medium-size Flex projects it's a viable solution, but for enterprise projects with thousands of external service calls it will get quite repetitive and could result in a lot of unmanageable, buggy code.

The idea then came up again with the push to integrated software in the early 80s. Mitch Kapor and Lotus were selling the idea of an all-in-one package, Symphony, which was a word processor, database, spreadsheet, graphics and communication program, with a macro language tying it all together. Bill Gates proposed a different approach, let each app stand alone and share its data with other apps through a common scripting language. This idea was so good that I started a company in 1988, UserLand Software, to create such a scripting language for the Mac, which then had a rich user interface and a totally underdeveloped scripting interface. Today, the Macintosh has a rich tradition of interapplication communication, made possible by this simple idea that every app should have an API.

'As Web 2.0 technologies for the enterprise emerge, we see the increasing need for the entire application delivery infrastructure to be more XML-fluent,' said Klaus Oestermann, vice president and general manager for application networking at Citrix Systems, Inc, as Citrix announced this week the acquisition of QuickTree's core technology and engineering talent.

Paul Lipton, a Senior Architect in the CA Intellectual Property and Standards Group, likes to remind audiences wherever he speaks that popular assumptions can often be dangerous: the many unique and highly-regarded architectural characteristics of SOA, for example (such as loose-coupling) can actually be a two-edged sword.

SYS-CON Events announced today that 'AJAXWorld Conference & Expo 2007 West' main sponsorship opportunities are now sold-out! Limited number of expo and event sponsorship opportunities that are still available are expected to be completely sold before the end of the month. The new sponsors who joined the conference this week, and are not yet listed on the conference Website, will also be announced later in the week.

I will be teaching a one day Bootcamp course on Ajax at the AJAXWorld Conference in Santa Clara, California on September 23, 2007. Details are at http://aja xbootcamp.sys-con.com I will be expanding the Ajax construction tools section from the Ajax Bootcamp I taught in New York at the SOA World conference. I am very impressed with TIBCO GI and Sun jMaki

I wonder what W3C's response will be to AJAX? In my experience there is a whole lot more request/response pattern usage in AJAX apps that are now in production than SOAP. A W3C standard interface definition language for AJAX apps is very much needed!

Architects, developers and IT operations managers working with Web services in production need visibility into the operation and service quality of XML-based services. Managed Methods has developed a Web services monitoring capability that can plug into the network infrastructure without the need to install messaging agents, modify service configurations, or change system architecture.

The inaugural iTVCon - Internet Video Conference & Expo (November 12-13, 2007) is building out its program and the Conference Advisory Board is busy sorting through the hundreds of proposals for technical and strategic sessions that have been coming in. Final deadline for proposals is September 10, 2007.

Bill Gates has reportedly been making phone calls to the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Commerce to push the American National Standards Institute to ignore the votes of its advisory committees and vote 'yes' on ISO standardizing Microsoft's Open Office XML (OOXML) format, the one in competition with the OpenDocument Format (ODF) pushed by IBM and Sun.

Until Friday, August 31, 2007, you can buy a single-user license of Stylus Studio 2007 XML Enterprise Suite, and Stylus Studio will e-mail you a complimentary second license for your friends or co-workers.

This AJAXWorld Conference & Expo 2007 West session is based on Erick Audet's real-life experience using the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) with a persistence layer handled by Sleepycat from Oracle. He will demonstrate how fast the response time can be when no middle tier persistence layer such as Hibernate is used and no SQL is needed. He will also show how easy the source code can be maintained when such a architecture is used. In comparison with Struts, this architecture does not use any configuration files and is platform independent and runs on any Java EE application server. Mixing AJAX and an MVC framework with a real Java object database is a powerful and promising architecture. During his time at Oracle, Erick developed strong skills in the extraction and transformation of unstructured data from multiple sources, and that experience and those skills are leveraged into this presentation.

AJAXWorld Conference & Expo 2007 East sponsors included: Laszlo Systems (Diamond Sponsor), JackBe (Platinum Sponsor), Adobe (Platinum Sponsor), Cynergy (Platinum Sponsor), Backbase (Gold Sponsor) Google (Gold Sponsor), Nexaweb (Gold Sponsor), ICEsoft (Gold Sponsor), Oracle (Gold Sponsor), Helmi Technologies (Gold Sponsor), JetBrains (Gold Sponsor), TIBCO (Gold Sponsor), Kapow Technologies (Gold Sponsor), Sun Microsystems (Silver Sponsor), Parasoft (Silver Sponsor), Servoy (Silver Sponsor), Etelos (Silver Sponsor), Microsoft (Expo Plus Sponsor), Lightstreamer (Exhibitor Plus Sponsor), IT Mill (Exhibitor Plus Sponsor), FrogLogic (Exhibitor Plus Sponsor), ThinWire (Expo Sponsor), Quasar Tecnologies (Expo Sponsor), Zapatec (Exhibitor Plus Sponsor), MB Technologies Bindows (Exhibitor), OpenSpot (Exhibitor), ILOG (Exhibitor), Passport Corporation (Exhibitor), Addison-Wesley (Exhibitor), The Thomson Corporation (Exhibitor), Isomorphic Software-SmartClient (Exhibitor), Universal Mind (Exhibitor), Farata Systems (Exhibitor Plus), Manning Publications (AJAX Book Sponsor), Apress (AJAX Book Sponsor), Conference Guru (Media Sponsor), Flash Goddess (Media Sponsor), AJAXWorld Magazine (Media Sponsor), Web 2.0 Journal (Media Sponsor), SYS-CON.TV (Media Sponsor), IT Mill (Media Sponsor), Methods & Tools (Media Sponsor), Web 2.0 Journal (Media Sponsor), and OASIS (Association Sponsor).

Adobe's LifeCycle Data Services ES offers developers powerful capabilities. Some of this software's capabilities, specifically server push, can be developed with relative ease using a utility class that has been around in the Flash APIs for a great while, and without having to pay licensing fees for LifeCycle Data Services ES. The utility class spotlighted in this article is flash.net.XMLSocket, and it provides all the client-side plumbing required for implementing server push.

With an XML-capable service, developers don't have to make alterations to enterprise applications, nor do they need to create a completely separate application to map from one system to the other. The faxes are transmitted to and received from the Internet fax service as XML documents, greatly simplifying handling on both ends.

AJAXWorld 2007 West will take place on September 23-26, 2007, at the Santa Clara Convention Center, in Santa Clara, California, and will offer a new dedicated 'iPhone Track.' Another dedicated track will offer a comparative education opportunity for conference delegates on emerging RIA tools, including a Diamond track on OpenLaszlo and sessions on Microsoft's Silverlight, Adobe's AIR and Sun's JavaFX.

A seasoned Java professional has to know more than just the syntax of the Java language. Java EE offers a set of standardized technologies for enterprise development. A number of open-source frameworks such as Spring or Hibernate are widely used in a variety of Java applications. Familiarity with new 'beyond-Java' languages and technologies will widen your horizons and make you a more valuable Java professional. Real-World Java Seminar is sponsored by CodeGear, Red Hat, Nexaweb, Farata Systems, and PushToTest.

.NET lets us easily serialize an object into XML and deserialize XML into its corresponding object. This functionality has been available since .NET 1.0. The introduction of new data type called XML in SQL Server 2005 gives us even more advantages that come in handy with Stored Procedures that attempt to insert/update records in multiple but related tables.

Instantiations announced the release of GWT Designer 1.5. The definitive development tool for the Google Web Toolkit (GWT), GWT Designer is a comprehensive product for creating AJAX Web applications using the Java programming language. AJAX is shorthand for asynchronous JavaScript and XML, an increasingly popular means for coding rich Internet applications. GWT Designer is built on WindowBuilder Pro(TM), the company's market-leading Eclipse tool for creating Java graphical user-interface (GUIs) applications for Microsoft Windows, Linux, Macintosh and other operating systems.

V1, the subcommittee advising the International Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) on formats, has failed by a tantalizing two votes to endorse Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) format, already standardized by ECMA, as fit for ISO standardardization even though Microsoft reportedly packed V1 with its friends in anticipation of the vote last week. Despite the fact that V1 had only seven voting members a few months ago and 26 last Friday, the 13th, as it happens, no two-thirds consensus was reached and now INCITS' executive board is going to have to sort through the stack of V1's technical comments and come up with an American position through a 30-day letter ballot. There could also be a reconsideration ballot after that.

The single-day, multi-track Real-World Java Seminar will be held at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York on August 13. Produced by SYS-CON Events, this is the largest Java developer event on the East Coast, and features a business track as well as two technical tracks. All attendees will have full access to all sessions at the event, so can either stay with one track or pick and choose specific sessions.

Can afford to take just one day off, get out of your cubicle and see what other people up to these days? Is J2EE still in favor? What's this ESB is about? Have you even heard of using Flex as a Web front end of your Java applications? Do not miss an event in NYC this Monday, that is created for people who think that they are way too busy to take several days off and spend them in the class. Just take one day off and attend the Real-World Java event. The discounted rate for this event is $395. To get this discount, enter the coupon code ?JUGgold' while registering

I will be teaching a one day course on AJAX at the SOA World Conference in New York on June 27, 2007. Details are at http ://ajaxbootcamp.sys-con.c om/. I will also be leading a session on XML and SOA performance optimization using test automation. The session will include a demonstration of the new PushToTest TestMaker Version 5

SYS-CON Events has created a hands-on, immersive learning experience for all Web developers who want to know the how, what, and why of the tools and concepts behind AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), the popular user-interface approach to creating Rich Internet Applications. AJAXWorld University AJAX Bootcamp is a compelling, intensive, one-day, hands-on training program that will teach Web developers, Web designers, and other Web professionals how to build high-quality AJAX applications from beginning to end.

Goodness, didn't Microsoft just spit in Richard Stallman's eye? The GPL creator's attempts to stop Microsoft from cutting any more of those patent-protection deals like the one it cut with Novell don't quite seem to be working. The last draft of the Microsoft-limiting GPLv3 was barely in circulation when Microsoft announced first thing Monday morning that it had pocketed a five-year deal with the little 80-man Debian commercializer Xandros, the New York outfit that bought Corel's Linux distribution, the code that used to be underneath Linspire (nee Lindows), a company more associated with the desktop than the server.

'The Java backlash,' writes Bruce Eckel, 'has been building up steam, and we're starting to see some fundamental shifts because of it.' Java has been around for 10 years yet applets are not the primary way that we interact with the web. Applets are not ubiquitous, and everyone got excited about AJAX instead.

'For example,' explains Lipton, 'SOA services can be vulnerable to denial-of-service attacks and other problems resulting in costly service level failures. Only the synergy of transaction-oriented operational and security management can achieve visibility into such problems before they grow serious.'

Nexaweb unveiled a new ISV and OEM partner program. Independent Software Vendors (ISV) and Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) are under intense pressure from customers and competitors to give their applications a more 'user-friendly, Web-like' interface and to find new, less-expensive, more aggressive global sales and distribution methods. Customers are looking to improve end-user productivity and reduce the cost of owning software with a self-service solution that doesn't require client-side software. Likewise, overall market demands for 'customized solutions' means ISVs and OEMs need an application framework that enables them to quickly redesign application UIs to support new or enhanced business processes and expand into new markets.

The Real-World Java Seminar is a one-day event that's packed with technical presentations delivered by the Java industry experts. Attending this event will allow you to take a fresh look at the architecture of the projects you're working on now and can serve as a roadmap for your further development as a Java professional. The largest Java developer event on the East Coast, Real-World Java Seminar will offer sponsorship and exhibit opportunities to the leading Java technology companies. Additional information on sponsorship and exhibit opportunities can be obtained by e-mail at events(at) sys-con.com or by phone at 201 802-3021.

According to Microsoft, 'Our customers have told us their data needs can't be addressed by a one-format or one-standard-fits-all approach. Everyone wants to use their data in slightly different ways. That's why we are enabling customers to pick from whatever format they want to use with their Office documents - whether it's ODF, Open XML, PDF or new standards like UOF.' Microsoft also announced the beta release of ODF-OOXML translation tools for XP and Excel and PowerPoint 2003 and 2007 as part of its 10-month-old Open XML Translator project, started after an ODF-embracing Massachusetts and its ilk bent Microsoft's fingers back to its wrist.

A war of words has broken out in the world of Web 2.0 - between the software developer who created or was a lead contributor to several of the most popular XML dialects and APIs related to web publishing (RSS 2.0, XML-RPC, OPML, and the MetaWeblog API), Dave Winer, and the founder of O'Reilly Media - the self-proclaimed 'technology transfer company.'

Nexaweb Technologies, Inc., provider of the leading standards-based platform for building and deploying Enterprise Web 2.0 (EW2.0) applications, and BlueNote Networks, the leading provider of Business Communications Platforms for delivering real-time interactive communications as services in a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) environment, today announced a partnership to market integrated Enterprise Web 2.0 (EW2.0) and IP Telephony functionality.

DataDirect Technologies has released version 3.0 of the DataDirect XQuery product, an XQuery processor that enables software developers to access and query XML, relational data, SOAP messages, EDI messages, legacy data, or a combination of data sources and provides full update support for relational data.

Nexaweb® Technologies, Inc., provider ofthe leading standards-based platform for building and deploying EnterpriseWeb 2.0 (EW2.0) applications, today announced that a new, independentresearch report by ZapThink discusses Nexaweb's Enterprise Web 2.0 Platformand its ability to enable users to seamlessly experience integratedfunctionality from distributed applications in an SOA framework no matterwhere they are located on the network.

Layer 7 Technologies announced the opening of its new U.S. federal office in Washington, DC. The office will support the government's growing need for XML appliances and gateway software for Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Web Oriented Architectures (WOA), including SOAP, POX, AJAX, and REST. To support its federal expansion, Layer 7 Technologies has also selected government contractor and reseller of SOA technologies, Merlin International.