A new category of software, known as prototyping, application simulation, or application modeling tools, allow end users to create quick prototypes and workflows that can be handed to developers to do the actual coding.

A while back I recommended taking a look at Axure but recently I’ve seen another one that I like just called Balsamiq Mockups. I still like Axure a bit more because of the artifacts it generates and it’s overall much more sophisticated but Balsamiq also does a great job and has an XML format that developers can use for generating the artifacts themselves.

If you can actually get your end users or business customer helping define your custom projects using a prototyping or simulation tool almost any amount of money is worth the investment if your projects are important.

Red Hat today announced the acquisition of Qumranet, Inc. The acquisition includes Qumranet’s virtualization solutions, including its KVM (Kernel Virtual Machine) platform and SolidICE offering, a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), which together present a comprehensive virtualization platform for enterprise customers. In addition, in connection with the deal, Qumranet’s talented team of professionals that develop, test and support Qumranet solutions, and its leaders of the open source community KVM project, will join Red Hat.

This is very good news for the free (built-in an OS) virtualization market.

But, most interesting to me was that last week they released a free utility that enables Citrix administrators and architects to easily create configuration reports for their Citrix farms.

Unlike the full product Introspect, which is focused on usage data captured in the Resource Manager summary database, the free configuration report generator utilizes the ubiquitous Citrix data store and features the same flexible, easy to use interface that they have always had in Introspect for quickly creating reports exactly the way you need them.

I see it as being useful for the following tasks:

• Documenting implementations and upgrades
• Creating baselines for troubleshooting, audits and disaster recovery
• Identifying incorrect server configurations, either to solve a problem or proactively reduce help desk calls
• Ensuring consistency of hotfixes across a Citrix farm

Additionally, integration with Active Directory can be leveraged for better insight into user and application assignments. Other bells and whistles like automated scheduling, report distribution via email and the ability to customize look and feel of report output can also be found in this robust piece of free code.

Anyone can download the free configuration report generator from the XTS website. It is currently packaged as a fully functional virtual machine and includes a sample Resource Manager summary database so you can try Introspect’s starter templates to evaluate the historical usage reporting and analysis capabilities as well. Please also note that they recently simplified their pricing model and now base it on the number of Resource Manager summary databases, which makes Introspect very affordable in my opinion.

If you are a Citrix administrator or architect I suggest checking out this free utility from XTS which will probably help you save time and possibly some headaches in the future.

If you’ve already downloaded a copy and tried it, drop us a line here and let us know how it’s working out.

What does this mean? For one, don’t just assume Windows is the only game in town. It also means that your customers are going to want more control over their OS decision. My own work in the government consulting arena has shown that non-Windows server are gaining popularity as well (anecdotally).

The best way to “future proof” yourself is to choose an operating system that you can easily deploy as a virtual appliance. I’ve been recommending this to most of my clients for the past few years but it’s even more important now. What this means is that instead of shipping package software with an installer, just ship a completely stripped down virtual appliance running either Linux or or free operating system and include your database, OS, app, and everything together in one “system”. Later, if users want to move to a different database they simply switch configurations.

To help with your virtual appliance building, installation, and maintenance check out rPath. They’ve got some nice solutions when you’re building either physical or virtual appliances.

The efficiency-focused management model has run its course, says strategist Gary Hamel. To see the future of management, look to the Internet, open source, free markets and democratic institutions.

It’s a good article. Some other interesting snippets:

Has management as we know it reached the end of the road? Strategy expert Gary Hamel thinks so. Yes, traditional management approaches have led us to achieve great things. “If you have a couple of cars in the garage, a television in every room and a digital device in every pocket, you can thank the inventors of modern management,” he writes in his upcoming book The Future of Management (Harvard Business School Press, October 2007; $26.95). But our century-old emphasis on planning, organizing and controlling won’t help companies solve their 21st century problems. In an era marked by global competition and commoditization, adaptability, speed and creativity are essential for survival, says Hamel, whose previous books, “Leading the Revolution” and “Competing for the Future” (with C.K. Prahalad), earned him a reputation as one of the great strategic thinkers of our time. “The old management model is simply not good enough.”

The future management model is taking shape, but some aspects are already evident, Hamel told CIO Insight executive editor Allan Alter. Companies will finally begin to be as open and democratic inside their doors as societies are outside those doors. Go/no-go decisions on projects and investments now made by a handful of executives will be made collectively by hundreds of employees.

Talent will matter far more than titles. And one of the most important catalysts and models for 21st century management will be the Internet.

If you’re a manager today, especially an IT manager, it’s a good article to check out.

Check out the Smith project:

Smith is a freeware, cross-platform ColdFusion engine, written entirely in Java. Running on the top of Java Runtime Environment and Java Servlet Container, it can be virtually deployed on any operating system and work with any web server. Smith represents lightweight, yet reliable alternative to the existing ColdFusion servers. It supports most important CF features (see Features) and already drives several large ColdFusion applications.

Deeply integrated in J2EE, Smith works as part of ordinary Java Web application and can easily be used together with servlets and JSPs. The server behaviour is easily configurable through the simple Web interface where database connections, debugging options, server mappings and more can be set.

Smith is freeware software, which means that it comes with permission for anyone to use, copy, and distribute it. It is also being seriously considered to open-source it.

Download and try fully functional version of the Smith engine.

• Make Decisions. This is one of the most important aspects of leadership — just making a decision and not analyzing for weeks or months. No amount of evidence or information will ever “be enough” and at some point you’ll need to make a decision. Your team can see if you are timid or if you take risks. Leadership is about decision making and if your decision making skills or risk taking ability are limited, don’t bother trying to lead. I’ve seen many architects and so-called “team leads” that try to get their bosses to make their decisions for them so they don’t get in trouble for making “the wrong ones”. Big mistake.
• Lead by Example. Leadership is about direction and if you want to lead, you’ll need to make sure you take charge and establish that you know where you want to go. But, be prepared to demonstrate that you do what you ask your team to do. If you ask everyone else to do something but don’t do it yourself, your team will lose respect.
• Be transparent. You work with bright people and although they may not be your equals in experience or knowledge, they will know when you are making decisions based on whim or reason. If you can’t explain your decisions in a way that your team can comprehend then you’re not a good leader.
• Mentor. Good leaders create the next group of leaders, not just bark orders. If you’re not regularly mentoring and training, you’re not doing your job. And, if you mentor well you can let your team make many of the decisions without you and you’ll be able to trust that their decisions will be as good as yours.
• Be inclusive. You’re the leader and can make all the decisions and everyone knows that. But, if you’re not including input from everyone you’re losing valuable data and a chance to build a cohesive team.

Recently they put together a talk on Independent Verification and Validation: The NASA Approach. This presentation described how verification and validation is executed within NASA. It “described what IV&V is and what it is not, the process that NASA uses to determine what projects the IV&V Program will work with, the approach that the IV&V Program takes to planning the tasks to be executed and how those tasks are executed.”

• View the abstract and speaker bio
• Watch the event
• View the PowerPoint presentation

The challenge that early stage firms encounter is that customers don’t usually understand they need to deal differently with a startup than an established technology vendor. Let’s be clear what “early stage” means. A company with 50 employees, a few million in revenue and a version three product is not early stage. A company with a handful of employees and almost no revenue with a version one (or beta) product is most definitely early stage.

…

By working with an early stage vendor, you can gain a competitive advantage on your competitors who aren’t willing to take this risk. You’ll have first access to thought-leaders and an innovative product. This will enable you to build and fine tune processes and best practices to get the most out of the new product. When your competition finally discovers the vendor, you will be light years ahead in getting the most out of this investment.

Read more: The Benefits of Working With Tech Startups

NIST Special Publication 800-95 addresses security needs for networks in which automated Web services are being deployed in service-oriented architectures.  It’s only in draft but it covers the basics fairly well. If you’re doing business with the government and you plan to offer consumable services it’s worth making sure you follow the recommendations since the NIST requirements will start showing up in RFPs soon.

HostedQA is the industry’s first web-based QA solution. With a focus on making automated testing convenient and ensuring that the resulting test scripts are intelligent, HostedQA is generations ahead of the competition. No longer do you have to settle for automating only the playback of your tests. HostedQA automates the entire automated testing cycle. We’ll guide you through everything from setting up your databases and application servers to taking simple-to-understand visual screenshots of each step in the test.

I haven’t had a chance to play with it yet, but I’m going to check it out further.

Jeff’s talk on Thursday, which is being held in Reston from 6 to 9p, is called “Profiling the Agile Architect.” Based on years of experience leading development in a prominent all-agile company, Jeff describes “the ideal architect on an agile software development team”. According to Jeff, “in my work leading and coaching agile teams, I have observed that having an effective architect on the project is essential to the overall success of the project and of the system being built.”

Check out the announcement.

Why is getting out important? Because every application becomes “legacy” sooner or later. Every system will be replaced or augmented at some point in time. The cost of acquisition (”barrier to entry”) is well understood now as something we need to calculate. How about the barrier to exit or switching cost? Do we calculate that when we decide what systems to purchase? Why not?

If you can’t answer the “how, in 24 months, will I be able to move on to the next-better technology or system?” question then you’ve not completed your due diligence in the sales cycle.

When preparing an RFI or RFP, ask vendors specific questions about how easy it is to get out of their technology (rather than just how easy to it is to deploy and interoperate). Put in specific test cases and have your folks consider this fact when they are looking at all new purchases. Here are some specific factors to consider:

• Do you own your data or does the vendor?
• Is the database structure and all data easily accessible to you without involving the vendor? If only your vendor can see the data, you’re locked in so be very wary.
• Are the data formats that the system uses to communicate with other vendors open? If not, you don’t own your data.
• How much of the technology stack is based on industry standards? The more proprietary the tech, the more you’re locked in.
• Are all the programming APIs open, documented, and available without paying royalties or license costs? If not, when you try to get out you’ll pay dearly.

If you have other considerations, share them here.

Read the article here.

— We’ve all had days when QA made things difficult. When we take a closer look at what caused it we usually find that there was some miscommunication between QA and the programmers. And this miscommunication was most likely caused by the business having unrealistic expectations of the development team or the business/programmers not understanding the best way to utilize QA. So where does QA fit?

So, the simple advice is to be sure to use network traffic generators and network load simulators when testing your software. A good option is something like Simena. It’s not expensive and works well.

I’ve also been working with commercial firms trying to do similar architecture governance and they’ve faced the same kinds of problems of documenting the strategy.

The OMB’s new FTF is a good source for reviewing how to take enterprise-wide initiatives, document them, share the knowledge, and establish a process by which progress can be tracked.

Definitely worth taking a look.

Some of the case studies were helpful.

Read more about it at JDJ: Business Intelligence and Reporting with BIRT.

Agile Draw is a set of principles and styles for producing diagrams that communicate effectively. These principles can be used with any drawing technique or tools, from whiteboard to pencil and paper to computerized tools. The essence of Agile Draw is to use simple conventional drawing elements such as circles, boxes, connecting lines and text, in conventional ways that give diagrams a sense of life and a consistent way of communicating.

The Agile Draw principles are not new! Agile Draw is a simple summary of things we all know about drawing useful pictures.

The job market is getting pretty tight these days and it’s hard to find good people in a now pretty good economy. Eric’s suggestions are right on target.

If you think the patent process is broken or would like to learn more about it, I just got an email announcement this morning that you would find useful:

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is holding a two-day conference to address the intellectual property needs of small and medium sized businesses, entrepreneurs, and independent inventors interested in manufacturing or selling their products abroad.

March 27 – Presentations to help conference attendees identify intellectual property assets and discuss the steps needed to protect those assets in the United States and abroad. Major presentations will cover patents, trademarks, copyright, and trade secrets.

March 28 – Presentations focusing on enforcement issues that may arise in protecting intellectual property rights in the United States and abroad including: patent, trademark, and copyright infringement; unfair competition; counterfeiting; and piracy.

This conference will also include one-on-one consultations between the USPTO attorneys and conference attendees on Monday and Tuesday afternoons.

This program is part of the Federal Government’s Strategy Targeting Organized Piracy (STOP) and the USPTO’s continuing commitment to increase public awareness of intellectual property rights and the enforcement of those rights in the global marketplace.

There is no charge to attend this event, but seating is limited and registration is required.