Linux News: Tools & Processes

Plan Your Project's Testing - or Plan to Fail
May 26, 2009

Does testing require a plan? That may sound like a silly question, but many organizations leave the testing to the end of the project, and whatever time is left is the time that will be spent on testing. Testing, like any other part of a project, must be carefully planned in order to accomplish the objectives.

Getting IT on the C-Suite's Radar
May 21, 2009

Aberdeen's research shows a 16 percent increase in the number of organizations that are satisfied with the performance of business-critical applications since March. However, the disparity among respondents is profound. Ninety-three percent of Best-in-Class organizations are satisfied with their application performance, and only 48 percent of Industry Average and Laggard organizations show the same level.

The Crucial Role of Application Testing in Software Development
May 13, 2009

During the software development life cycle, time and resources need to be committed to application testing. This is the testing that is done by the testing group, or black box testers. The allocation of time and resources is always a problem, as some organizations aren't quite sure how much should be assigned.

Planning a Migration Route From Visual Basic 6 to .Net
May 07, 2009

Given the unpredictable nature of today's market climate, many software-oriented companies are scrambling to cut costs and streamline their application development processes. For organizations utilizing Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 as their primary development environment, the difficulty of achieving this agility was magnified by the April 8, 2008, termination of all support for VB6.

Citrix Cuts Ribbon on Self-Service App Store
May 06, 2009

Virtualization and cloud computing specialist Citrix wants to do for its IT customers what Apple does for users of its App Store. Instead of selling programs like games or restaurant finders for the iPhone, however, Citrix's new Dazzle service will provide on-demand business applications.

The Tower of Techno-Babel: What Languages Do Devs Love Now?
April 28, 2009

IT developers are moving toward higher-level languages that make their work simpler in order to keep up with business needs. That simplicity is found in lingos such as Java, C Sharp, Visual Basic and .Net. However, even those languages are sometimes not simple enough for the Web 2.0 world, spurring developers to also turn to dynamic languages such as PHP and Ruby, which can provide a faster return on development efforts.

A Strong, Agile IT Architecture
April 13, 2009

By examining the experiences and approaches of Workday, a human capital management SaaS provider, we can better understand the benefits of modern IT architecture and gaining new levels of business intelligence, innovative search capabilities, and the ability to extend business processes out to mobile devices.

Enterprise Mobility: An Investment That Works Harder, Smarter
April 09, 2009

The enterprise demand for mobility has remained steady and even increased, despite budgets for mobility initiatives being cut during the current global economic downturn, according to a new Aberdeen Group study "More Mobility -- Less Budget: Enterprise Strategies in the Current Economic Downturn."

The Developer's Cloud Conundrum
April 06, 2009

Does cloud computing cause a dilemma for application developers? Does it present problems that devs would not face in building software for earth-bound applications? Developers face common problems regardless of where their program's data is stored. However, the cloud environment presents a set of drawbacks that cloud application developers sometimes ignore to the detriment of users.

3rd Rebirth of Computing: The End of PCs and Game Consoles
April 06, 2009

The gaming market has been broken for a long time, and the PC concept is also becoming unmanageable. Developers want one platform to develop to; they don't want three consoles, two portable gaming systems, lots of phones and a PC. Users want something vastly less complex and really would like to go back to a time when they only worried about the price and where the on switch was.

Cloud Computing: Not Always the Best Solution
March 09, 2009

A panel of experts was assembled at The Open Group's Enterprise Cloud Computing Conference in San Diego to examine how cloud computing aligns with enterprise architecture. The discussion raised the question: What will real enterprises need to do to gain savings and productivity in the coming years to exploit cloud computing resources and methods.

Getting Lucene Down to Business With Lucid Imagination
February 20, 2009

On Jan. 26, Lucid Imagination opened for business as the commercial entity for the Apache Lucene-Solr ecosystem. The new company hopes to unite both the Lucene and the open source developer communities under its wing by offering product support, training, consulting services and value-added software for enterprises using Lucene- and Solr-based search solutions.

Sun Brews New Java Platform to Go
February 12, 2009

Apple's iPhone App Store can seem just as crowded as the real-world Apple Stores can get during the holiday shopping season at your nearest mall. Developers are racing to provide applications that bring more multimedia and data to your phone of choice, and it's that kind of growth that is prompting Sun Microsystems to introduce a new mobile version of its trailblazing Java programming language.

Green IT, Part 1: Withering on the Vine?
February 10, 2009

Green's got the blues. "Dark Days for Green Energy," declared a headline in the Feb. 4 issue of The New York Times. "Because of the credit crisis and the broader economic downturn ... installation of wind and solar power is plummeting," reported the Times. Green energy's melancholia extends to cousin "green IT."

Upcoming Snow Leopard May Put Macs on the Map
February 06, 2009

While Apple has said that the next version of its Mac OS X operating system, dubbed "Snow Leopard," will be more of a performance-based release rather than a cornucopia of new features, the latest builds of the OS that Apple has released to developers indicate it may include new location-based tools that can determine a Mac's location, as well as new multi-touch capabilities.

Going Mobile: A Whole New World of Web
January 26, 2009

The mobile Internet is fast becoming mainstream. One reason is clearly the growing prevalence of high-end handsets that are less telephones than they are entertainment centers, fashion statements, and content-consumption vehicles. And every bit as important as the devices are the all-you-can-eat data plans that come with them.