XML Aficionado

Altova and NIEM (the National Information Exchange Model)

2010-05-10T14:31:00.001-04:00

In February this year I was invited to give the keynote address at the NIEM Town Hall meeting in Washington, DC, to talk about how Altova tools can support projects that facilitate the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM). In particular, I covered the use of Altova tools in the life cycle of developing the Information Exchange Package Documentation (IEPD). The slides from that speech are now available on slideshare and a recap of the NIEM town hall meeting is also available on the NIEM website.

Altova NIEM keynote

View more presentations from Alexander Falk.

Since then we’ve been working with NIEM to add new features to the Altova product line that further support the NIEM development cycle and in particular our recent release of XMLSpy 2010r3 adds two features that are very important for NIEM:

NIEM defines a set of Naming and Design Rules (NDR) that specify how XML Schemas for a NIEM-conformant information exchange have to be constructed. XMLSpy now includes an extended schema validation function that allows a developer to validate a schema against naming and coding conventions, and in particular XMLSpy ships with a set of extended validation rules that allow validation against the NIEM NDR.
Another important step during the development for an IEPD for a NIEM-conformant information exchange is the production of example XML files that demonstrate the data that can be exchanged. To provide better example files, XMLSpy now lets developers specify user-defined example values for each element, attribute, or type in an XML Schema. During the generation of example XML files XMLSpy then uses these user-defined example values to produce meaningful example documents that are immediately suitable for documentation and testing purposes.

Further details about Altova tools for NIEM can be found in the Solutions Center on the Altova website and also in today’s article Altova adds to NIEM support in v2010r3 on the Altova Blog.

Tablet computers, video, HTML5, and the great Flash debate

2010-04-30T13:05:00.001-04:00

Even if you are not always plugged into tech blogs or the latest social media networks, I have a short reading list for you for this weekend. There’s just a fascinating combination of interesting stories all happening in the same 48h period:

HP drops the Slate project (=tablet PC running Windows 7 that was announced at CES last year by Steve Ballmer)
http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/29/hewlett-packard-to-kill-windows-7-tablet-project/
Microsoft drops the Courier tablet project (=innovative folding screen tablet computer with both hand and pen input)
http://gizmodo.com/5527442/microsoft-cancels-innovative-courier-tablet-project
HP buys Palm and is rumored to be working on a tablet computer running Palm’s WebOS
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2010/100428xa.html
Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs attacks Flash in an open letter on the Apple website and clearly speaks out in support of HTML5 and the H.264 video standard
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/
Adobe’s CEO Shantanu Narayen (who?) responds to the Steve Jobs letter in a TV interview with the Wall Street Journal (and offers very weak responses only – mostly cookie cutter style)
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/04/29/live-blogging-the-journals-interview-with-adobe-ceo/
Microsoft responds to the Apple-Adobe debate on the Internet Explorer Blog and also expresses support for HTML5 and H.264, but – in an attempt to not take sides – also states that “Flash remains an important part of delivering a good consumer experience on today’s web”.
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2010/04/29/html5-video.aspx
Apple starts shipping the 3G version of the iPad in the US today
http://www.apple.com/ipad/

To see all these things unfold in such a short period of time is quite fascinating, and thus far Apple and the iPad are the clear winner here…

Talking of which: according to FedEx my two WiFi+3G iPads are already on the delivery truck today and should arrive at my house before 3pm.

Also, if you are interested in following more of these tech stories unfold in real-time, check out http://techmeme.com/

iPad Review

2010-04-05T14:54:00.001-04:00

With all the hype surrounding the iPad this weekend, I decided to wait a bit and only write about it on Monday. This was also just a picture-perfect weekend with ideal weather in New England and the Red Sox Opening Day on Sunday, so I spent most of my time outdoors rather than playing with or writing about the iPad.

Being a technology geek I had, of course, pre-ordered my iPad a while ago and so it arrived on Saturday via UPS truck as promised. The truck driver jokingly remarked that he had a full truck of just iPads to deliver and he wished he had bought Apple stock a while ago. The first sales data that Apple reported today does indeed sound promising.

But is the iPad really a new “magical” device as Apple likes to describe it? Or is it the beginning of a dystopian future where Apple controls what we are allowed to see, the apps that are approved, and the end of an open Internet (as some pundits claim)?

I won’t bore you with unboxing details that others have reported before, or give you a detailed guide to the best applications you should download to your new iPad.

Instead, I will distill the benefits of the iPad down to the one product image that explains it all:

Yes, the iPad is a primarily a media consumption device. Think of that cozy armchair in your living room, or the sofa, or the couch, or a bench in your backyard. Anywhere you would sit down with a good book to read. Have you tried using a laptop in any of those spots? It doesn’t quite work. Laptops are – despite their name – really only useful when you put them on a hotel room desk or airplane tray table.

By contrast, the iPad is really made for consuming media wherever and whenever you don’t want to sit at a desk! Now, in addition to reading books from the iBooks or Kindle bookstores, you can also read comics by Marvel (see image above), consume newspapers in digital editions, catch up on TV that you missed, watch movies you buy or rent on iTunes or Netflix, and browse the web. And if you are one of those always-connected people (like me) you can even read your e-mail and respond to the occasional important one, or access one of the many social networking sites or apps.

And it does all of that extremely well – to the point where it is indeed a new class of device and since everything just works and is super fast, it really has a certain “magical” feel to it. In fact, when I showed some of these apps to my family this weekend, I immediately got requests for additional iPads that they now want me to buy…

The one iPad app that is of great interest to this XML Aficionado is, of course, the iBooks app, which is both a very pretty e-Book reader and also a bookstore where you can buy these e-Books directly from Apple. The interesting thing about iBooks is that apple decided to support the open ePub file format for e-Books rather than a proprietary format like the Kindle. As you may have guessed already, ePub is XML-based and the content can be provided in either XHTML or DTBook format. The result is that with the launch of the iBooks bookstore there are not only a few publishers who have already signed up, but you also get a ton of works in the public domain, whose copyright has expired, and you can download all of them for free from the iBooks bookstore.

Above and beyond that, the iPad is really a great educational tool. Using WolframAlpha on the iPad is just a joy and there are also new apps, like The Elements: A Visual Exploration that are really beautifully made.

Yes, there are also some business applications, like Keynote for presentation, Pages for word processing, and Numbers for spreadsheet-type work. Those are really very pretty and easy to use and will certainly be useful for some people, but I am guessing these are more attractive for people who don’t have a laptop and, therefore, want to use the iPad for that purpose, too.

Regarding the iPad hardware: the device fits comfortably in your hand and even though it is a bit heavier than the Kindle, it just feels right. The screen is really beautiful and the colors are vibrant. I used the device for several hours on Saturday and Sunday and the battery life was much better than expected. And it is really fast and responsive. I didn’t find any feature or app where I had to “wait for the computer”. Very refreshing, indeed!

So should you buy an iPad now? That decision is entirely up to you, but this flowchart might help. ☺ All kidding aside, if you are an early adopter, like new technologies, and have the money to spend, I would go for it. Likewise, if you are considering buying a Kindle or a PSP, I would buy an iPad instead. However, if you don’t yet have an iPhone and are trying to decide between iPad and iPhone, I would probably rather go with the iPhone – in my opinion it is the more versatile device.

There is another group of people, for whom the iPad is probably ideal: those of the older generation, who have not yet bought any computer. The iPad is certainly the most gentle way for a senior to get access to e-mail, web browsing, and sharing photos with the younger generations. If you want your parents or grandparents to finally “get connected”, then a broadband Internet connection with wireless router plus an iPad is probably the best solution out there.

Are there any negative things to say about the iPad? I’m afraid not many. There is, of course, the one issue that developers of applications for the iPad are totally dependent upon Apple with respect to whether the apps can be sold through the app store, since Apple has a mandatory approval process and can reject any app for any reason. Tim Bray, co-author and editor of the XML specification, has been very outspoken about that issue and recently said:

“The iPhone vision of the mobile Internet’s future omits controversy, sex, and freedom, but includes strict limits on who can know what and who can say what. It’s a sterile Disney-fied walled garden surrounded by sharp-toothed lawyers. The people who create the apps serve at the landlord’s pleasure and fear his anger.

I hate it.

I hate it even though the iPhone hardware and software are great, because freedom’s not just another word for anything, nor is it an optional ingredient.”

The same is true for the iPad as much as for the iPhone. On the one hand I agree with Tim about freedom not being optional, on the other hand there are very few apps that Apple rejected that I would miss (Google Voice being the only one I can think of right now). The one benefit of Apple’s tight control over the app store is the total lack of viruses and malware on the iPhone/iPad platform. And it adds a layer of QA on top of most applications, so the software you buy in the app store typically works and is useful.

The second issue with the iPad that is worth mentioning is that there are apparently some Wi-Fi issues that people have reported. I haven’t seen any of those problems myself - either at home or in the office - and the iPad has been flawless in its ability to connect to the Internet anywhere I tried.

Finally, for those who are not convinced and would rather want to see the iPad being abused, there are already some interesting videos out there…

Altova unleashes 64-bit power for working with XML

2010-02-16T08:36:00.001-05:00

It’s no secret: XML files are getting bigger every day as people devise more ways to utilize XML for real-world applications that involve large amounts of data. Up until now people were limited in the size of XML files that could be comfortably edited or processed due to the 32-bit nature of Windows and the limitations of memory that was available to applications.

Not anymore! I am very excited to announce that Altova today launched version 2010 release 2 of our entire product line and all our applications are now available in both 32-bit and shiny new 64-bit versions. Obviously, the 64-bit versions of our tools require a 64-bit version of Windows Vista or Windows 7 to be installed on your computer. And once you take the leap to 64-bit you will never want to look back.

I’ve personally been using Windows 7 64-bit since the launch of Windows 7 last fall and my computer now has 20GB (!) of RAM and you just won’t believe how super-fast applications like Adobe Photoshop CS4 (which is available in a 64-bit version!) suddenly are in such a configuration.

And now you can add XMLSpy, MapForce, UModel, StyleVision and all the other MissionKit applications to the list of super-fast and efficient 64-bit applications. Here is an example of the 64-bit version of XMLSpy 2010r2 editing a 2.7GB XML file – in this case a Wikipedia abstract dump (i.e. all abstracts for all Wikipedia articles):

You just can’t do that in any other XML editor today. There may be some competitors who want to make you believe that just by running their Java-based editor on a 64-bit version of the JVM you suddenly have a 64-bit app, but if you read their tech support forums you will quickly find that they cannot actually edit any files larger than 2GB. Hmmm, really?

What it boils down to is this: XMLSpy really is the only 64-bit XML Editor you can use today for working with large files without any limitations, provided you have enough RAM in your computer. And “large files” doesn’t necessarily mean GB-sized! You will notice that working even with 100MB files is significantly faster in the 64-bit version.

To ease the transition period from 32-bit to the new 64-bit world for our customers, we have configured all our tools so that you can install both versions in parallel. This might be necessary especially if you are using database drivers that aren’t available in 64-bit versions yet. Read more about the new 64-bit versions here and learn when you may want to use which version. Also, if you are using a Microsoft Access database you might want to read our new TechNote about Using Access Database in a 64-bit world.

In addition to the new 64-bit versions of our applications, we have also added several significant performance improvements that affect both 32-bit and 64-bit applications, such as optimizations upon opening files that result in files sized 10-100MB opening about 15 times faster than before.

And version 2010 release 2 contains tons of other new features, such as SharePoint support, UML 2.3 support, DiffDog integration for Windows Explorer, external C# and Java calls in MapForce mappings, and many more features.

Google’s new Tower of Babel

2010-02-08T20:31:00.002-05:00

You have to admire the sheer market power and dominance that Google has these days. They announce speech-to-speech machine translation on future Android-powered phones – and the whole tech blogger universe goes ballistic in talking about it and likening it to the famous Babel fish of Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy.

So why does everybody think machine translation should suddenly work? If you happen to be bi-lingual or even just fluent in more than one language, you know very well that tools like Google Translate can only convey the basic and most rudimentary nuances of any document. Now combine that flawed and unreliable piece of technology with something equally unreliable: speech recognition. What do you get when you mix these two and stir well? Possibly the foundation for a new Tower of Babel, but certainly not the famous Babel fish!

But do not take my word for it. Or rather, please do take my word for it exactly as it is being processed by those two technologies. After drafting this little blog entry I decided to put Google to the test. As a Google Voice user I already get access to their famous speech recognition, so I called my own Google Voice number and recorded this script. I then took the transcription that Google provided and fed it through the Google Translate service twice: once translating it into German, and then translating it back to English for your enjoyment.

Do you now see what I mean… this is the stuff that can start wars…

Transcription of the above text recorded with Google Voice:

You have to. My but she in market power dominance that Google has these days. Again that owns speech touch each machine translations in future, and with Pulte Homes and to hold tech blog universe goes the lease taken talking about it and liking it to the famous people cessation of. Douglas Adams the Hitchhiker's Guide. To, galaxy. Why does everybody think machine translation should probably work. If you happen to be bilingual, or you can just fluent in more than one language. You know very well but tools like Google Translate can only come database. He can mostly. Maintree nuances of any documents and I'll come by and that's log on reliable piece of technology was something equally unreliable speech recognition. Both you get when you mix these two Lindstrom well. Possibly the foundation for a new tell label, but certainly not the same Staples which but then I'll take my word for it. Or rather, please do take my word for exactly as it is being processed by those to Technologies at the draft this little blog entry. I decided to put group of the test, google voice use them. I would get access to the famous Peter deficient. So I called my own voice number and records the script. I didn't took the transcription of Google provided and said he'd through google plates of twice, one is translating it into driving and then translating it back to English for your enjoyment. Do you know see what I mean, this is the stuff, but in stock awards.

Taking the Google Voice transcription and translating it into German produces:

You have to. Meine aber sie der Marktmacht Dominanz, dass Google in diesen Tagen. Auch besitzt die Rede berühren sich maschinelle Übersetzungen in Zukunft und mit Pulte Homes und Tech-Blog-Universum zu halten geht den Mietvertrag aufgenommen, darüber zu sprechen und Zuneigung es zu den berühmten Einstellung der Menschen. Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide. So, Galaxie. Warum alle denken, die maschinelle Übersetzung, sollten Sie vielleicht zu arbeiten. Wenn Sie gerade sind zweisprachig, oder Sie können einfach fließend in mehr als einer Sprache. Sie wissen sehr gut, aber Tools wie Google Translate kann nur Datenbank kommen. Er kann vor allem. Maintree Nuancen von Unterlagen und ich komme vorbei und das ist log auf zuverlässige Teil der Technologie war etwas ebenso unzuverlässig Spracherkennung.Beide erhalten Sie, wenn Sie Mischung dieser beiden Lindstrom gut. Möglicherweise die Grundlage für ein neues Label zu sagen, aber sicherlich nicht die gleiche Staples, die dann aber ich werde mein Wort zu nehmen. Oder besser gesagt, bitte nehmen Sie mich beim Wort genau so, wie es von jenen, die Technologien auf den Entwurf verarbeitet diese kleine Blog-Eintrag. Ich beschloss, Gruppe die Probe gestellt, Google Voice verwenden. Ich möchte Zugang zu dem berühmten Peter mangelhaft. Also rief ich meine eigene Stimme Anzahl und zeichnet das Skript. Ich habe nicht nahm die Transkription von Google zur Verfügung gestellt und sagte, er würde durch google Platten zweimal, ist eine Übersetzung in die Lenk-und übersetzt sie dann wieder auf Englisch für Ihren Genuss. Weißt du was ich meine, das ist der Stoff, sondern in Wertpapieren.

Taking the German translation and translating it back to English yields:

You have to. My but they dominate the market power that Google in those days. The question has come in contact with machine translation in the future, and Pulte Homes, and Tech Blog Universe to hold the lease is taken to talk about it and love it to famous people's attitudes.Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide. Thus, galaxy. Why do all the thinking, machine translation, you might want to work. If you are not bilingual, or you can just fluent in more than one language. You know very well, but tools like Google Translate can only database. He is above all. Maintree nuances of documents and I come by and this is log on reliable piece of technology was something as unreliable speech recognition. Both of you get when you mix these two well Lindstrom. Perhaps to say the basis for a new label, but certainly not the same Staples, which then I shall take my word. Or rather, please take my word for it just like it from those technologies are processed in the draft this little blog entry. I decided to put the sample group to use Google Voice. I want access to the famous Peter deficient. So I called my own voice number and characterized the script. I did not take the transcript made available by Google and said he would be counted twice by google tiles is a translation into driving and then translated back to English for your enjoyment. You know what I mean, this is the substance, but in securities.

But this isn’t limited to just English>German>English translations. You can have as much fun going via a detour into Japanese. Taking the Google Voice transcription in translating it into Japanese results in:

あなたがしなければならない。私が、彼女は市場の力を支配するには、Google、これらの日があります。もう一度、音声将来的に各マシンの翻訳を触れると、所有しているとPulteホームズとハイテクのブログ宇宙保持するためには、リースはそれについての有名な人が停止することand liking話して撮影だ。ダグラスアダムズヒッチハイクガイド』。、銀河する。なぜ誰もが機械翻訳はおそらく動作するはずだと思う。もしあなたがバイリンガルにするか、またはだけで、複数の言語に堪能することができます。 You know非常によくしかし、ツールGoogle翻訳のような専用のデータベース来ることができます。彼がほとんど。任意のドキュメントのMaintreeニュアンスと私が来るから、技術の信頼性の高い作品には、そのログ何か同じように信頼性の音声認識された。 Both youするときにも、これらの2つのリンドストロムミックスを取得します。新しいが、確かに同じステープルズは、しかし、私はそれを私の言葉を取るよていないラベルを伝えるためのおそらく基盤。というか、してください正確には、ドラフト、この小さなブログのエントリでこれらのtoTechnologiesによって処理されている私の言葉を取るか。私は、テストのグループに配置することを決定、Googleの音声を使用します。私は、有名なピーター欠乏へのアクセスになるだろう。だから、私は自分の声を数と呼ばれるスクリプトを記録します。私は提供される転写of Googleしたことはなく、彼を2回、1つして運転英語を楽しむために戻すの翻訳には翻訳さのプレートのGoogleのだという。私の言いたいことを知って、このものですが、在庫あり賞を受賞した。

Last, but not least, taking the Japanese translation and translating it back to English yields:

You have to do. I, her ability to dominate the market, Google, these days there. Again, and touch each machine in the future translation of speech, and owns space to hold Pulte Holmes and tech blogs, the lease is known to stop people talking about it, shooting it and liking. Dagurasuadamuzuhitchihaikugaido 』. To galaxy. Why Machine Translation I think everyone should probably work. If you or a bilingual, or just can be fluent in several languages. You know But very often, you can get Google tools such as a dedicated database of translations. Most of him. Any documents and I'll come Maintree nuances, reliable technology work is recognized as a reliable voice something that log. Both you even when these two get one Rindosutoromumikkusu. The new Staples is certainly the same, but I was probably based on a label to tell I do not take my word for it. I mean, exactly please the draft, those in this little blog entry to Technologies take my word for it or being handled by. I decided to put to the test group, Google will use the voice. I would want access to the famous Peter. So, I called the script logs the number of your voice. Of Google I never provided a transcript, he twice returned for one to enjoy the English translation of the two drivers is that Google's translation of the plate. You know what I mean, that is, the award-winning stock.

Now imagine any of the above translations being read back to you with text-to-speech synthesis...

And that is why I’m very skeptical about such announcements of speech-to-speech machine translation – even when they come from Google.

Hubble photo showing Klingon Bird of Prey?

2010-02-02T17:08:00.001-05:00

OK, is it just me, or does the Hubble image that NASA published today reveal a cloaked Klingon Bird of Prey in our asteroid belt? Here is the close-up of what NASA calls a “suspected asteroid collision”:

This is an excerpt from NASA’s press release today:

“NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has observed a mysterious X-shaped debris pattern and trailing streamers of dust that suggest a head-on collision between two asteroids. Astronomers have long thought the asteroid belt is being ground down through collisions, but such a smashup has never been seen before.

Asteroid collisions are energetic, with an average impact speed of more than 11,000 miles per hour, or five times faster than a rifle bullet. The comet-like object imaged by Hubble, called P/2010 A2, was first discovered by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research, or LINEAR, program sky survey on Jan. 6. New Hubble images taken on Jan. 25 and 29 show a complex X-pattern of filamentary structures near the nucleus.

"This is quite different from the smooth dust envelopes of normal comets," said principal investigator David Jewitt of the University of California at Los Angeles. "The filaments are made of dust and gravel, presumably recently thrown out of the nucleus. Some are swept back by radiation pressure from sunlight to create straight dust streaks. Embedded in the filaments are co-moving blobs of dust that likely originated from tiny unseen parent bodies."

Hubble shows the main nucleus of P/2010 A2 lies outside its own halo of dust. This has never been seen before in a comet-like object. The nucleus is estimated to be 460 feet in diameter.”

Sounds plausible, but as a Star Trek fan I still see a Klingon Bird of Prey that is about to decloak. Don’t believe me? Look at the picture again, but this time look more closely:

Live long and prosper… ☺

Taking the leap into the 3D world

2010-01-15T17:39:00.001-05:00

As many other computer geeks, I’ve always been fascinated by 3D technology and admired the big Silicon Graphics 3D workstations of the early days and saw the early 3D movies with red/blue glasses or the next generation based on polarized glasses in the movie theatre.

This past fall I finally made the leap into the 3D world myself and equipped my computer at home with fully immersive stereoscopic 3D capabilities. I already had the benefit of having a PC equipped with an nVidia geForce-based graphic card, so all I had to do is get the goggles and upgrade my monitor to a model that is capable of 100Hz refresh frequency or more.

As you know, a 50Hz or 60Hz refresh frequency is necessary for a smooth monitor picture, and since the 3D goggles are basically shutter-glasses that alternatingly show one frame to the left eye and one frame to the right eye, you need a monitor capable of doing at least twice the 50Hz for a smooth 3D experience. After checking the 3D system requirements, I decided on the ViewSonic VX2265wm 22” monitor.

But I didn’t want to just watch pre-made 3D content – I wanted to create 3D content myself, so I purchased the Fuji FinePix Real 3D W1 camera that can shoot both 3D photos and make 3D videos.

So my complete 3D setup looks like this:

Since I also wanted to show the 3D photos off in our living room, I added the Fuji FinePix Real 3D V1 viewer (a 3D photo frame) and put it on a countertop to run a slide show of the latest 3D images.

So what can you do with such a 3D setup at home? Essentially there are three main uses:

3D Photography: the Fuji 3D camera is as easy to use as any point&shoot digital camera with one exception – you have to constantly watch where you are putting your fingers, because the camera has two lenses in the front and it is very easy to get your finger showing in one of the two photos. The back of the camera has a 3D display so you can immediately correct for parallax problems if they occur (mostly in close-ups). Just like with any other digital camera you can record photos or movies and then transfer them to your computer. Photos are recorded in the MPO format, so for those of us who like to edit their photos in Photoshop this is presently a problem.
3D Games: most of the modern PC-based games have you walk around in a virtual world as you drive fast cars, shoot zombies, or practice magical spells. As such a large majority of them already support 3D and you can just put on your 3D goggles, push a button, and you are suddenly inside the game in a much more immersive experience. I happen to play World of Warcraft myself, and it is just a lot more fun when my mage faces dragons like Onyxia in immersive stereoscopic 3D vision…
3D Movies: Avatar was just the beginning. There is a whole bunch of movies coming out in 3D in 2010, including Alice in Wonderland, How to train your dragon, Toy Story 3, etc. While Sony and many other TV manufacturers are now gearing up for 3D TVs, I think I’d rather watch 3D movies on my PC…

Of course, one of the problems with 3D photography is that you cannot easily share the 3D photos you produce with other people, unless they have their own 3D display setup at home already. However, as an interim solution, there is a website called Start 3D that lets you turn 3D photos into pictures that wobble left/right to create the illusion of a 3D effect – and those can be embedded in websites or shown on web-based galleries.

As an example, here are just two 3D photos that I took recently and converted into the Start 3D format for inclusion in the blog. This is a meeting with my architects and the builder for our house restoration project:

And secondly we have a 3D photo of my son and wife on the balcony of the new carriage house posing for the special 3D effect:

If you’d like to see more 3D images of our construction site as well as some 3D family photos, those can be found on this 3D image gallery…

Altova StyleVision In-Depth Review

2010-01-11T10:18:00.001-05:00

Dave Gash published an in-depth review of Altova StyleVision 2010 on the WritersUA website this past week and says in his introduction:

Altova calls StyleVision a "stylesheet designer," but that technically accurate designation doesn't really do the software justice. They could have called it a "schema-based WYSIWYG drag-and-drop XML / XBRL / database visual page editor and XSLT / XSL-FO / HTML / RTF / PDF / Word / e-forms generator," but I'm guessing that wouldn't have made it past the suits in Marketing.

I like that new product description. It’s a bit of a mouthful, but certainly brings it to the point. Really, we couldn’t have said it any better…

Dave follows this introduction with a detailed review of the design method, user-interface, formatting, and output options and covers all the exciting new capabilities of version 2010, such as the new blueprint capability.

And after going over all the relevant features Dave comes to the following conclusion:

StyleVision is one of the most interesting software applications I've seen in years. Without question, it offers a new and unique approach to XSLT transform authoring, a skill formerly reserved for beanie-wearing, pocket-protector using, syntax-obsessing code jockeys such as your humble reviewer. It allows more of the tech pubs workforce than ever to transform raw data into aesthetic, useful pages.

While some coders might lament the loss of a previously proprietary skill set to non-programmers, the fact is that spreading knowledge around is a good thing. Make no mistake: as more people use a technology, the better that technology becomes, and StyleVision's application of the WYSIWYG concept to XSLT is a shining example.

We are delighted to hear that! Please check out Dave’s review and then download a free 30-day eval version to see for yourself.

Microsoft e-mail to customers about Word XML patent injunction

2010-01-02T09:15:00.001-05:00

I have previously reported on the XML Aficionado blog about Microsoft losing the XML patent appeal in December as well as on the earlier verdict by a Texas court.

Today I received the following e-mail from Microsoft – apparently this is addressed to us since we are using Microsoft Office 2007 as a customer under the volume licensing program:

Dear Alexander Falk,

On December 22, 2009, a United States court of appeals ruled that Microsoft must stop selling versions of Microsoft Word (including Microsoft Office suites) that contain certain functionality that was ruled to infringe on a United States patent.

This injunction only applies to new Microsoft Word and Microsoft Office licenses purchased from Microsoft on or after January 11, 2010 in or for deployment in the United States or its territories. If you are only using licenses acquired prior to January 11, 2010, you do not need to take any action.

Microsoft has updated Microsoft Word 2007 and Microsoft Office 2007 to remove the disputed functionality, which pertains to custom XML tagging. Microsoft has also created a software update for Word 2003 and Office 2003. In the vast majority of cases this functionality is not in use and requires development knowledge to implement. To learn more about the specific custom XML elements removed from Microsoft Word 2007 please read Microsoft Knowledge Base article 978951 at the following website http://support.microsoft.com/kb/978951.

In accordance with Microsoft Volume License agreement provisions, we hereby notify you that any future deployment of Microsoft Word 2003 and 2007 or Microsoft Office 2003 and 2007 purchased after January 10, 2010 for use in the United States or its territories must use updated software.

If you plan future deployments of Microsoft Word 2003 and 2007 or Microsoft Office 2003 and 2007 based on licenses that you purchase before January 11, 2010, no action is required and you may continue to deploy your existing version of these products. This includes all licenses purchased under any of the Microsoft Volume Licensing programs including all versions of Software Assurance.

Additionally, if you have already deployed licensed copies of these products prior to January 11, 2010, and will be submitting payment later (through the Enterprise Agreement True Up process or the Select process), then you may continue to use those deployed versions. If you are already using copies of these products through a subscription license agreement, then you may continue to use those deployed versions.

Starting January 1, 2010, updated English, Spanish, and French language versions of Microsoft Word 2007 or Microsoft Office 2007 are available for download on the Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center. To update other language versions of this software, or to update copies of Microsoft Word 2003 or Microsoft Office 2003, you will find instructions on how to do so on the Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center download pages for these products at https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/servicecenter/.

If you require physical media, please order through your normal media fulfillment channel. If you are an Open license customer, you may order media directly from the Volume Licensing Service Center.

If you are running Microsoft Word 2010 beta or Microsoft Office 2010 beta or plan to deploy these products once they are released, no action is required with respect to this notification.

If you have any questions about this information, please contact your Microsoft representative or email msftvl@microsoft.com.

Sincerely,

Microsoft Corporation

No big surprises here. As had been previously discussed on techmeme.com, the preparation for removal of the infringing Custom XML feature had been well underway at Microsoft and this is part of their way of complying with the injunction.

Microsoft loses XML patent appeal, Word injunction upheld

2009-12-22T15:44:00.001-05:00

As reported by Bloomberg and Reuters, the US Federal Circuit Court of Appeals today upheld a verdict by a lower Texas court that Microsoft infringed on an i4i patent by embedding “Custom XML” functionality in Word 2003 and 2007. As part of the verdict Microsoft has to pay $290 million and must stop selling infringing products on January 11, 2010.

Here is the full text of the court decision issued by Judge Prost today (PDF), which gives some insight into the matter especially claim construction, what the court considers separate files to be, and what constitutes “independent manipulation”.

Also of great interest is the discussion of the damages calculation starting on 27 of the court decision, which goes into detail of how i4i’s expert came up with a $98 royalty rate multiplied by the copies of Word used in an infringing manner (2.1 million).

This patent isn’t so much about Office Open XML as a file format, as it is about the one feature in Word 2003 and 2007 that allows the use of a custom XML Schema inside a Word document. As Mary-Jo Foley reported in her blog, Microsoft may have the option to simply disable that feature by releasing a new update to Word 2007.

~~Alternative to the removal of that feature, a settlement between Microsoft and i4i seems likely that would allow Microsoft to continue supporting that feature in exchange for paying royalties to i4i~~.

More blog reactions and discussions here…

UPDATE: Microsoft has responded with its own press release and said that it will remove the “little-used” disputed feature from Word 2007 and Office 2007 as well as the beta versions of Word 2010 and Office 2010 and is further considering legal options including a request for a rehearing by the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals en banc or a request for a writ of certiorari from the U.S. Supreme Court.

XBRL Enhancements in XMLSpy 2010

2009-11-13T11:09:00.001-05:00

I have written about XBRL on this blog a lot, and you probably already know that we’ve added support for XBRL across several of our products already in version 2009, when we introduced the XBRL Taxonomy Editor and XBRL validation in XMLSpy, added XBRL data mapping and instance document creation to MapForce, and XBRL rendering, report generation, and presentation to StyleVision.

So what’s new in version 2010? We have enhanced the XBRL support in our award-winning XML Editor based on direct customer feedback and added four frequently requested XBRL features to XMLSpy:

XBRL Taxonomy Wizard

The new XBRL Taxonomy Wizard makes extending an industry-standard XBRL taxonomy, or even creating a new taxonomy a breeze.

You simply use the File/New dialog to begin a new XBRL Taxonomy Schema, and XMLSpy prompts you to select the existing base taxonomy (e.g., US-GAAP, IFRS, etc.) you wish to extend (if any).

Once you enter the company ticker or name, XMLSpy automatically creates and saves all the required taxonomy files, including all the various linkbase documents.

In Step 2 of the wizard you get to pick one or more entry points of the taxonomy you are extending.

Once you click finish, XMLSpy 2010 displays the newly created taxonomy files in XBRL view, where you can continue editing and refining the taxonomy in a graphical manner.

The new XBRL Taxonomy Wizard is an invaluable time-saver when you need to create a new taxonomy for your organization.

XBRL documentation generation

To further facilitate XBRL taxonomy development in its graphical XBRL Taxonomy Editor, XMLSpy 2010 now supports the generation of comprehensive XBRL documentation.

Multiple options for what information to include in documentation (below) are available, and documentation may be generated in HTML, Microsoft® Word, or RTF.

A snippet from generated documentation is shown below. Related components are hyperlinked in the onscreen output, allowing users to easily navigate from component to component.

Generation of XBRL documentation is a must-have feature for anyone creating, editing, or extending an XBRL taxonomy.

Printing graphical XBRL view

This new feature allows you to print the graphical representation of your XBRL taxonomy as it is displayed in the graphical XBRL View. Below is an example of the print-preview of an XBRL taxonomy:

Find in XBRL, XBRL sorting

When working in XBRL View, the new Find in XBRL tab of the XMLSpy 2010 output window (which you can also activate using Ctrl-F) allows you to search an entire XBRL taxonomy or document, with advanced options for narrowing your results. Results are listed in the output window, where multiple tabs let you store numerous queries. Clicking any item in the results window navigates to that specific location in the document.

This functionality makes finding information in XBRL files, which tend to be rather large and complex, much easier.

The XBRL sorting in XMLSpy 2010 also makes it easier to view and navigate your file in XBRL view, allowing you to sort elements by name, substitution group, or type.

All these enhancements make XMLSpy the ideal XBRL Taxonomy Editor for your next XBRL project. As always, you can download a free 30-day evaluation version from our website to see for yourself…

Electronic Forms design with StyleVision 2010

2009-11-11T18:30:00.001-05:00

With version 2010 we’ve added some very exciting new features to StyleVision, but perhaps the most important one is the new forms-based design paradigm that is based on absolute positioning.

Specifically, StyleVision now gives you the option to create templates within layout containers and even optionally upload a blueprint image. This feature adds a whole new flexibility to the design process, letting you approach StyleVision in the same way that you use other design applications - specifying layout first and adding data connections later.

This new feature turns StyleVision from a pure stylesheet designer into a powerful tool for true electronic forms design.

Layout containers can:

Be inserted within document templates or encompass the entire document.
Inherit the dimensions of the document section or have user-defined dimensions.
Be assigned any number of style properties (borders, background color, font, etc.).
Contain a blueprint image to serve as a reference template for the design.

Layout container characteristics are accessible through the Properties and Styles windows.

In order to accurately produce stunning electronic forms that realistically mirror printed form designs, StyleVision now includes the ability to absolutely position all layout elements, boxes, containers, etc. Instead of having content and layout elements flow on the page automatically like a typical web page layout, you can now specify exact x and y coordinates for each element to absolutely position them on a page.

This feature gives designers and developers more control in their form design in the manner of desktop publishing applications, but also adds the powerful single source publishing capabilities for XML, XBRL, and database data that have always been present in StyleVision.

Read more about What’s New in StyleVision 2010 on our website, or download a free 30-day trial version to see for yourself how important these enhancements are.

Bing to integrate results from WolframAlpha

2009-11-11T18:05:00.001-05:00

Very interesting announcement today by Microsoft that bing.com will now include computational results from WolframAlpha directly within the bing search result:

This has the potential to be really cool and might drive more people to give bing a try over sticking with Google. However, I haven’t been able to actually see this in the live bing search results yet, so we’ll need to wait for a bit before it gets rolled out.

See techmeme.com for more coverage on this…

Altova at DevConnections

2009-11-10T22:18:00.001-05:00

DevConnections in Las Vegas is always a great little conference and trade show. I say little because the show is a bit smaller than PDC or TechEd, but the talks are always excellent and there is a diverse mix of topics and tracks.

When the show floor opened today, the show certainly didn’t feel little at all: there was a huge rush of people coming to our booth, and the traffic remained fairly constant for over an hour and a half.

So if you happen to be in Las Vegas at DevConnections, make sure to stop by our booth and get a demo of the new features in version 2010 of our product line.

Also check out the Twitter stream about DevConnections…

JSON and XML

2009-11-10T17:55:00.001-05:00

Listening to bloggers over the last couple of years and also in talking to several developers in the industry it appeared to me that the JSON vs. XML debate seemed to primarily be a “religious” conflict – much like the “PC vs. Mac” or “Java vs. .NET” are to a large extent. I call it a religious conflict simply because there are fanatics on either side and they try to convert the masses and get them to agree with their point of view. But if you look at both XML and JSON with an unbiased mind and take each approach seriously, you’ll quickly find out that there are tons of applications where XML makes more sense and then there is a ton of other applications where JSON makes more sense. I would argue that XML has the better infra-structure of surrounding standards (like XML Schema, XSLT, XPath, etc.) that makes is a much richer platform and provides more flexibility, but there is something to be said about the elegance, efficiency, and simplicity of JSON, too. Instead of viewing JSON and XML as competing technologies we decided in our v2010 release to support them side-by-side and give our users the choice: XMLSpy 2010 now includes a JSON editor and supports JSON editing in its text and grid views with full syntax coloring, syntax checking, etc. This makes XMLSpy the first and only XML Editor to support JSON:

Just like we find some of our customers using XMLSpy as a plug-in within Eclipse and doing code-generation for Java, whereas other customers are using XMLSpy embedded within Visual Studio and doing primarily code-generation for C#, we expect that some of our customers will user our tools for JSON work, and others won’t. As a standards-focused developer tools vendor we simply want to give them the choice.

So let’s talk a bit more about the JSON vs. XML devate. For some background reading, I’d recommend taking a look at this blog post by Tim Bray and this response by Don Box. You can also do a Google search for “JSON vs XML” and you will find lots more in terms of different opinions.

Here is my take on the matter: XML by itself appears to be similar to JSON only when you ignore all the surrounding XML-related standards. At its core, both JSON and XML are used to capture and describe structured and unstructured data. JSON mainly focuses on storing or transmitting that data efficiently, i.e. with very little overhead, whereas XML focuses on a rich environment that includes entities and a mechanism to support metadata and extensibility. The extensibility is really the huge difference: XML includes concepts on how existing XML data can be augmented, extended and enriched by additional data and metadata from other domains using XML Namespaces. Furthermore, XML data can be processed with XSLT, queried with XQuery, addressed and extracted via XPath, etc. – none of those supporting technologies are really available for JSON in such rich diversity. However, when it comes to just capturing simple structured data and expressing it either in files or in a transmission between client and server, JSON shines with its simplicity and – some argue – better human readability.

So once we made the decision to support JSON in XMLSpy in addition to XML, the next question became obviously how you get data from one format into the other, and so we added a JSON <=> XML conversion option to our Convert menu.

For example, take the following bit of JSON data:

And you can now easily convert that into an equivalent piece of XML data:

Our main logic to include easy one-click conversion was that we figured people would sometimes want to experiment to see what approach works best for their application or their data. As such, they can simply take existing XML data and easily convert it to JSON to test with their new app, or conversely if they run into an issue with a JSON based application and need to convert existing data files to XML because they need the extensibility, meta-data, attributes, or the processing capabilities of XSLT and XQuery, they can easily do that with XMLSpy now.

But make no mistake: we are not saying that JSON is better than XML. On the contrary, I continue to be a huge fan of XML, which is why this blog is called the XML Aficionado, not the JSON Aficionado!

So the fact that there is a conversion function from XML => JSON in XMLSpy now doesn’t mean that people should necessarily convert from one format to the other. Rather, I see people who use either one or both formats wanting to occasionally move data from one world into the other or experiment with the other format and to make that process very convenient we’ve added the ability to convert from one to the other whenever you need to. But mainly we expect people will work either with JSON files or with XML files – depending on what is most suitable for their particular application or use-case.

So go ahead, use the comment section and let me know how you feel about the JSON vs XML debate and what you think of our approach to support both…

P.S. My thanks go to Peter Zschunke, because a lot of material for this blog post came from a discussion and e-mail interview we recently conducted for his German blog XML-Ecke.

Database Schema Comparison

2009-11-02T07:00:00.000-05:00

In our announcement of version 2010 last week I mentioned over 70 new features that we have added based on customer feedback. As I was talking with journalists through the course of the week, I came to quickly realize that people automatically assume that if it is 70 features in one release then those must be fairly small features. But in each case my conversation partner got more and more excited, as they realized that we are really talking about over 70 substantial new features.

So let me begin this series of individual feature articles by talking about database schema comparison, which we’ve added to both DatabaseSpy and DiffDog in version 2010.

We had originally introduced database comparison or differencing in version 2009 of our product line, but originally thought that users would primarily want to compare the actual data being stored in two separate databases. And people did indeed like that new feature and used it to synchronize data between production and development servers or between different types of database servers, and they were very excited that we allowed them to match columns with a drag&drop mapping interface in those cases where the tables were not entirely identical. One of the most frequent requests, however, that quickly emerged was to add the ability to also compare different database structures or schemas themselves.

This led to the new Database Schema Comparison feature of version 2010. Just like before the first step for a database schema comparison is to connect to two databases and select the tables that you want to compare:

We do, of course, automatically map any columns that have matching names, but you can also change the mapping and designate that columns are equivalent even if their names differ or follow other naming conventions e.g. due to a server migration.

Once you have connected the right columns and are ready to start the comparison process, click the compare button in the toolbar. The results will be displayed right away, and in this example DatabaseSpy is highlighting the differences with respect to data types as well as columns that are missing:

In addition to visually displaying the differences between the database schemas, DatabaseSpy also allows you to generate a merge script that will synchronize the schemas between the different databases, and you can choose if you want to merge the changes from left to right or vice versa.

Once you have selected one of the options, a new script window opens and shows you the SQL statements needed to make the changes, and you can execute them directly from within DatabaseSpy.

The same process can also be used to compare databases running on different database servers, which is ideal when you want to migrate from one database backend server platform to another.

And this is just one of the over 70 exciting new features in our version 2010 product line…

MOST WANTED: over 70 new features in 2010 Altova product lineup

2009-10-28T11:30:00.006-04:00

I'm very excited that Altova has announced version 2010 of our entire product line today. This new release of our most popular XML, Database, UML, and Web Services tools includes over 70 new features that our customers have asked for.
Instead of pushing some proprietary platform or other hidden agenda, we at Altova believe in delivering exactly those features that our users need the most. We’ve listened to your feedback via our discussion forums, support requests, and social networking sites and put together a list of the MOST WANTED features that will help you stay at the cutting edge of technology and deliver the best results.
Several key feature areas are: a totally new design paradigm in StyleVision that makes stylesheet design more productive and enables a whole new generation of electronic forms based on Authentic; WSDL 2.0 support; substantial XBRL enhancements; schema comparison/differencing for XML and databases; SysML support in UModel; JSON support in XMLSpy; and much, much more.
I will be writing more about individual features in the future, but for now I suggest you go to the Altova Blog and read the announcement and also check out the press release.

Get Twitter and Facebook results (and much more) in your search

2009-10-22T14:47:00.001-04:00

OK, so the news are abuzz in recent days about Google adding real-time Twitter data to their search results and there is also a lot of blogging going on about Microsoft adding Twitter search to Bing. But the real news has been totally overlooked by the majority of tech blogs and news media until now: earlier this week kikin announced the start of their public beta on their blog by posting “we are live!”

I’ve long been following kikin and was lucky enough to be one of their early testers, so I’ve been using the service for several months now – and I wouldn’t know what to do without it anymore. Kikin does one thing that neither a Google nor a Bing native Twitter or Facebook search can do: it gives me personalized and relevant search results from my feeds and my favorite websites right within the standard Google or Bing results and it lets me customize and select those personalized results in a very intuitive manner.

For example, since I shop on Amazon a lot, when I search for “Marblehead” on Bing, kikin will display personalized search results above the normal bing results that are relevant for me – in this case I find a great book by Ulrike Welsch that captures Marblehead in awesome photos:

As you can see, kikin has added these results above the normal search results, so you don’t have to change your browsing or surfing behavior or use a different search engine. There are several tabs that let you pick from which source you want to see relevant results, for example if I do the same search in Google and click on the Facebook tab in kikin, I see results directly from my Facebook news feed (i.e. only results posted by my friends on Facebook):

And obviously, if I click on Twitter, I can see relevant results only from people whom I follow, or I can even go a step further and only see relevant results that are directly addressed to me on Twitter:

By default, kikin only takes up very little space, so you still see your natural search results below, but if you want to focus on more results from one of your sources, you can expand the kikin box by clicking on the green plus sign in the lower right corner:

The truly remarkable thing about kikin is that it is non-invasive. If there are no relevant results in any of your feeds or favorite websites, then it won’t interfere and will just display the natural search result. Even if that is the case, kikin still adds tremendous value to that result, because it has a built-in video player enhancement that lets you watch every video you find within the natural search result directly within your result page rather than having to click through to the site:

So how does kikin do all of that? Kikin is a free browser plug-in that is currently available for Safari (on the Macintosh), Internet Explorer and FireFox (on WIndows). You can directly download and install the kikin plug-in from their website. Once you’ve installed the plug-in, you can use the Settings page to connect to your Facebook and Twitter accounts:

In all my recent testing I’ve found kikin to be invaluable in unearthing highly relevant content that is otherwise hidden in my social stream: by augmenting every Google or Bing search with results from my social media interactions, I find valuable information that would otherwise remain hidden, or would only be accessible if I repeated my search in three places.

And it is this deeply personalized addition to the search results that makes kikin so valuable. All those newly announced Search partnerships between Twitter and Bing or Google may be great, if you want to search the entire public stream for information (e.g. ski conditions in Colorado), but the results are not going to be as important to you, as results specifically from your actual friends on Facebook or information from people you follow on Twitter or from other websites you frequently visit. That is the true power of kikin: to augment search results with highly relevant and deeply personalized content.

So is kikin perfect? Of course not, it is just the first public beta version and I’m sure that they’ll iron out some minor issues over the next several months as they get reported by users. My only two complaints about kikin at this point in time are (a) that is doesn’t work with Chrome yet (but they’ve already announced that Chrome support will be coming) and (b) that if you use multiple browsers or multiple computers you have to connect your Facebook and Twitter accounts separately for each installation. I would probably have preferred to create one account on the kikin website, connect with my other social media accounts, and then just provided that one account login for each installation.

Altova at Oracle OpenWorld 2009

2009-10-12T20:05:00.004-04:00

Today was the first big day at Oracle OpenWorld 2009 in San Francisco and Altova is exhibiting at booth# 3750 in the Moscone West hall this year.

We had great traffic at our booth already on the first day and lots of people were interested in how MapForce can help them to move data into and out of the database and how to transform different data formats quickly and efficiently. Especially the new XBRL and HL7 data formats supported by MapForce 2009 appeared to be exactly what people wanted.
There was also a lot of interest in the database differencing features of DiffDog and DatabaseSpy - it appears that a lot of people are in the process of migrating data between systems, and that is exactly where these tools can add tremendous value.
There is a also a lot of talk about MySQL at the show this year - due to Oracle's acquisition of Sun - and I'm happy to report that all our tools do, of course, work great with both Oracle and MySQL as well as all other major databases.
If you are at the show this year, make sure you visit our booth and say hello. I am usually at the booth every morning...

Using the iPhone to pay at Starbucks

2009-10-12T15:17:00.004-04:00

There is no use denying: I've been a big fan of Starbucks' coffees for many years and have had a Starbucks Gold card ever since it came out. But I was intrigued to learn a few weeks ago that Starbucks announced Starbucks Card Mobile - an iPhone app that lets you enter your Starbucks card# on the iPhone and you can then use that app to not only check your card balance, but also to pay at certain select Starbucks locations. These test locations are currently only in the Seattle and Silicon Valley areas, and since I am staying in San Francisco for Oracle World this week and met with some friends in the Valley for brunch yesterday, I headed to a Starbucks in Mountain View before driving back to the city.
The iPhone app has a nicely designed user interface and is extremely easy to use. When you are ready to pay, you start the app, enter a PIN code and hit the "Touch to Pay" button. Then you wave your iPhone in front of the scanner of the register at the checkout while it displays this screen.

Once you are done, you hit the "Touch when done" button and the app returns to the balance screen, where you can immediately see the balance after your payment has been processed.

And you can also get a journal of all recent transactions on your card - both those done via the iPhone app and does that were completed using the regular Gold Card in stores that don't yet accept the iPhone app.

All I can say is that this app makes total sense. No more digging for your wallet and fidgeting with the plastic card. Instead - since I use the iPhone all the time when standing in line - I just open the app and wave my iPhone at the scanner to pay. Very cool. I hope Starbucks rolls this out in stores all across the country soon....

Microsoft Word injunction: court grants motion to stay

2009-09-04T12:19:00.001-04:00

As reported on The Microsoft Blog, the court has granted Microsoft’s motion to stay the injunction in the i4i patent case until the appeal process is complete. Also, Microsoft’s request for an expedited appeal process has been granted already on August 21, so this will continue to be very interesting to watch.

See also my previous coverage on the i4i vs. Microsoft patent case on the XML Aficionado blog:

Learn XML with XMLSpy

2009-08-29T14:43:00.001-04:00

For some of us, who have been working with XML for ten years now, it seems almost inconceivable that there are still people who are learning XML now. But the fact of the matter is that XML is being used in so many different domains now, that every day new people get introduced to XML and have a need for training.

To help them get up to speed quickly, we’ve launched a new free online training class that focuses on learning XML and learning how to use XMLSpy to work with XML more productively. This is a great beginner class and we hope that it will help newcomers to the field of XML:

In this training we cover basic XML principles, how to edit an XML document, and how to create and XML schema. For further information, please see the Altova Blog post on this topic, and the Learn XML page on the Altova website.

Sign of the times: different media used to relay birthday wishes

2009-08-14T13:44:00.001-04:00

It is perhaps a sign of these times that birthday wishes are being relayed through different media than before and social media is clearly the winner in this. I did indeed celebrate my 42^nd birthday yesterday, and just for fun I kept track of how the birthday wishes arrived:

19^th century technology (and earlier)
- Postal mail: 1
- Telephone: 3
20^th century technology
- E-Mail: 14
21^st century technology (mostly social media)
- Facebook: 54
- World of Warcraft: 9
- Twitter: 7
- Xing: 2
- Plaxo: 1

What I find interesting about this is the huge difference between Twitter and Facebook – especially since I have 3,310 followers on Twitter vs. “only” 583 friends on Facebook. So on Twitter a total of 0.2% of my followers sent birthday wishes, whereas 9.3% of my friends on Facebook did. I guess the terms “follower” vs. “friend” are indeed quite accurate in describing the actual relationship on these two sites. Oh, and it does, of course, help that Facebook has this birthday reminder feature built-in…

While Twitter is getting a lot of buzz these days in the media, and while I really like it for news information, rapid dissemination of important links, and other trending topics, there is no doubt that the real winner in terms of where the actual social interactions are happening is Facebook.

In either case, if you are not yet on Twitter or Facebook, I highly recommend that you try and use both. And when you do, feel free to connect with me: afalk on Facebook / @afalk on Twitter.

More on the Microsoft and i4i XML patent issues

2009-08-13T11:40:00.001-04:00

Rick Jelliffe published two great posts on the O’Reilly Blogs yesterday and today that deal with an in-depth technical reading of both the patent that Microsoft received recently and also the i4i patent that it was sued over. Rick’s analysis contradicts some of the perfunctory statements in various news media and other blogs:

I highly recommend reading both…

Injunction to prevent Microsoft from selling Word due to XML

2009-08-12T07:27:00.002-04:00

It appears that there are just a handful of truly ubiquitous PC applications out there that exist on almost every single computer on the planet and Microsoft Word is certainly among that bunch. So it is an interesting twist that a Texas judge ruled yesterday in an injunction that Microsoft can no longer sell Word (version 2003 and 2007) starting in 60 days because they can handle XML data.

In a lawsuit filed in 2007 i4i (based out of Canada) said that Word violated its 1998 patent No. 5,787,449 on a method for reading XML.

If you are like me and prefer to read all the legal details yourself, here are the relevant links (thanks to The Microsoft Blog for the PDFs):

Needless to say, Microsoft will either appeal the injunction, try to invalidate the patent, or – most likely – settle and write a big check to i4i, but this just shows yet another aspect of the broken patent system when it comes to software patents especially in relations to standards such as XML.

It is interesting to note that the patent appears to deal primarily with representing any document in XML, which appears to be slightly ludicrous given the long history of SGML prior to 1998. Also interesting is that the injunction doesn't just talk about XML, but rather specifically mentions .DOCX (i.e. Open Office XML), which is used by Word 2007 as its default storage format.

More coverage on techmeme.com…