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The use of conformity assessment as a means by which buyers and sellers can communicate requirements will increase as information technology systems and applications grow more complex. Models for conformance testing and certification programs are necessary to understand principles and issues that are essential for successful conformity assessment programs. This paper presents one such model by identifying key roles, activities and products involved in any conformance testing and certification program. This model has been successfully used by NIST in helping private-sector organizations establish their certification programs.

Maybe if we focused on what we are trying to accomplish (deliver business results more efficiently) vs the gee whiz of all the tools we would be in better shape.

Windows Azure, previously known as “Red Dog”, is a cloud services operating system that serves as the development, service hosting and service management  environment for the Azure Services Platform. Windows Azure provides developers with on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manage Internet or cloud applications.

Keep in mind that Windows Azure is really a 'cloud layer' over many Windows Servers (hundreds/thousands) situated in Microsoft's data centers, and those servers are really internally running Windows Server 2008 and HyperV. So, Windows Azure is not a new real/classic operating system. It is "Windows in the cloud".

Over the past few months, a small team of developers and testers have been working on implementing a new ECMAScript/JavaScript engine for Opera. When Opera's current ECMAScript engine, called Futhark, was first released in a public version, it was the fastest engine on the market. That engine was developed to minimize code footprint and memory usage, rather than to achieve maximum execution speed. This has traditionally been a correct trade-off on many of the platforms Opera runs on. The Web is a changing environment however, and tomorrow's advanced web applications will require faster ECMAScript execution, so we have now taken on the challenge to once again develop the fastest ECMAScript engine on the market.

So how fast is Carakan? Using a regular cross-platform switch dispatch mechanism (without any generated native code) Carakan is currently about two and a half times faster at the SunSpider benchmark than the ECMAScript engine in Presto 2.2 (Opera 10 Alpha). Since Opera is ported to many different hardware architectures, this cross-platform improvement is on its own very important. The native code generation in Carakan is not yet ready for full-scale testing, but the few individual benchmark tests that it is already compatible with runs between 5 and 50 times faster, so it is looking promising so far.

Alfresco Software Inc., today announced the general availability of Alfresco Labs 3 Final. This is a milestone release for Alfresco Labs and is immediately available for download under the open source GPL license at:       http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Download_Labs "In the current economic environment organizations seek more cost effective and productive methods of managing increased volumes of content and greater levels of compliance. Alfresco delivers an innovative solution for ECM, while dramatically reducing the associated costs," said John Newton, CTO of Alfresco Software. "This release is designed to be the open source content services platform for all Alfresco and non-Alfresco content applications from document management and web content management to wikis. Alfresco has already utilized the emerging CMIS standard to integrate content services to other open source systems like Joomla, as well as offering integrations to MediaWiki, Open Office and WordPress. We strongly recommend that our open source community download this release."

Native SharePoint protocol support: Seamless document editing via SharePoint protocol Flex Document Previewer: Zoom, snap points and full-screen AJAX Calendar: Drag-and-drop event support Links Directory Manager: Share internal and external links Document Management Enhanced SharePoint protocol site and workspace support Email Management Email-In Smart Folders: Email storage with attachment support

CMIS REST and Web Services binding Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) support SharePoint Protocol Support Native SharePoint Protocol support from Microsoft Office and Alfresco Share

Web 2.0 is one of the trendiest ideas in tech, for instance, but there are entire industries where not one company in our survey cites it as a top productivity improver. Meantime, adoption of some more tactical technologies, such as WAN optimization, has exploded in the last year.

critical trends, from Web 2.0 to globalization to virtualization

the momentum is behind wikis, blogs, and social networking, though primarily among co-workers.

Opera Software has led a first-of-its- kind project to create a search engine that tracks how Web pages are structured on the World Wide Web. When released publicly in the coming months, this engine will help browser makers and standards bodies work towards a more standards-driven and compatible Web.Opera today announced results from its MAMA (Metadata Analysis and Mining Application) search engine, a brainchild of Opera engineers that indexes the markup, style, scripting and the technology used while creating Web pages. From the beginning, Opera has been a leading innovator and MAMA is proof of the company’s deep understanding of the Web.The MAMA search engine scours 3.5 million Web pages, and the resulting data can answer questions such as "can I get a sampling of Web pages that have more than 100 hyperlinks?" or "what does an average Web page look like?"—a dream come true for Web developers.

For more information on Opera’s MAMA project, please visit: dev.opera.com/articles/view/mama/

XHTML Modularization is a decomposition of XHTML 1.0, and by reference HTML 4, into a collection of abstract modules that provide specific types of functionality.

The modularization of XHTML refers to the task of specifying well-defined sets of XHTML elements that can be combined and extended by document authors, document type architects, other XML standards specifications, and application and product designers to make it economically feasible for content developers to deliver content on a greater number and diversity of platforms. Over the last couple of years, many specialized markets have begun looking to HTML as a content language. There is a great movement toward using HTML across increasingly diverse computing platforms. Currently there is activity to move HTML onto mobile devices (hand held computers, portable phones, etc.), television devices (digital televisions, TV-based Web browsers, etc.), and appliances (fixed function devices). Each of these devices has different requirements and constraints.

XHTML Modularization is a decomposition of XHTML 1.0, and by reference HTML 4, into a collection of abstract modules that provide specific types of functionality. These abstract modules are implemented in this specification using the XML Schema and XML Document Type Definition languages. The rules for defining the abstract modules, and for implementing them using XML Schemas and XML DTDs, are also defined in this document. These modules may be combined with each other and with other modules to create XHTML subset and extension document types that qualify as members of the XHTML-family of document types.

Semantic search engine startup Hakia has retooled its Web site, adding tabs for news, images and "credible" site searches as a way to differentiate between its search approach and what it calls the "10 blue links" approach search incumbents Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have used in the first era of search engines. Hakia employs semantic search technologies, leveraging natural language processing to derive broader meaning from search queries.

Hakia began hawking "credible" Web sites, vetted by librarians and informational professionals, in April for health and medical searches drawing from sites examined by the Medical Library Association. These sites have a peer review process or strict editorial controls to ensure the accuracy of the information and zero commercial bias. The idea is to clearly define sites users can trust in an age when do-it-yourself chronicling via Wikipedia and other sites that enable crowdsourcing activities has led to some questionable results.

Microsoft will unveil a new OS by the end of the month, according to CEO Steve Ballmer. Currently dubbed “Windows Cloud” but likely to gain a new moniker by launch, the platform is intended to create a better environment for developing Web-based applications.Ballmer told attendees of a London conference Windows Cloud was intended as an adjunct to the forthcoming Vista replacement Windows 7.

It’s this natural drive to reduce the cost of complements that, more than anything else, explains Google’s strategy. Nearly everything the company does, including building big data centers, buying optical fiber, promoting free Wi-Fi access, fighting copyright restrictions, supporting open source software, launching browsers and satellites, and giving away all sorts of Web services and data, is aimed at reducing the cost and expanding the scope of Internet use. Google wants information to be free because as the cost of information falls it makes more money.

HTML 5 demos from September 2008

The demos and segments of this talk are: <video> (00:35) postMessage() (05:40) localStorage (15:20) sessionStorage (21:00) Drag and Drop API (29:05) onhashchange (37:30) Form Controls (40:50) <canvas> (56:55) Validation (1:07:20) Questions and Answers (1:09:35)

Sun and Microsoft have agreed on a search distribution deal that will offer the MSN Toolbar, powered by Microsoft Live Search, to U.S.-based Internet Explorer users who download the Java Runtime Environment (JRE).

Sun and Microsoft have agreed on a search distribution deal that will offer the MSN Toolbar, powered by Microsoft Live Search, to U.S.-based Internet Explorer users who download the Java Runtime Environment (JRE). This agreement gives Internet Explorer users downloading Sun’s JRE the option to download the MSN Toolbar for one-click access to Live Search features, as well as news, entertainment, sports and more from the MSN network and direct access to Windows Live Hotmail and Windows Live Messenger.

“This agreement with Sun Microsystems is another important milestone in our strategy to secure broad-scale distribution for our search offering, enabling millions more people to experience the benefits of Live Search,” said Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of the Online Audience Business at Microsoft. “With the vast array of Java software-based Web applications that are downloaded every month, this deal will expose Live Search to millions more Internet users and drive increased volume for our search advertisers.”

A survey by Gartner found that the number of enterprises planning SOA adoption this year dropped by more than half, to 25 percent from 53 percent in 2007. The number of companies with no plans to adopt SOA jumped to 16 percent from 7 percent.

Today, in an effort to bring more of the Web to mobile devices, Adobe and microchip maker ARM, which powers 90 percent of mobile phones worldwide, have announced a collaboration to ensure that Adobe's software runs well on future ARM devices. Specifically, the companies say that Adobe's Flash Player 10 and AIR (a platform for building complex Web applications) will be compatible and optimized for the ARM chips available in 2009. While ARM is used in a huge number of mobile phones, the announcement has broader implications: the chips are also used in set-top boxes, mobile Internet devices, personal media players, and automotive platforms.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Working Group has published the "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0" as a Proposed Recommendation, and published updated Working Drafts of "Understanding WCAG 2.0," "Techniques for WCAG 2.0," and How to Meet WCAG 2.0. WCAG defines how to make Web sites, Web applications, and other Web content accessible to people with disabilities. Comments are welcome through 2 December 2008. Read the announcement, Overview of WCAG 2.0 Documents, and about the Web Accessibility Initiative. http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/PR-WCAG20-20081103/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/CR-UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20-20081103/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/CR-WCAG20-TECHS-20081103/ http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/quickref/ http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/2008OctDec/0091 http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag20.php http://www.w3.org/WAI/

Some things are clearer with hindsight of several years. It is necessary to evolve HTML incrementally. The attempt to get the world to switch to XML, including quotes around attribute values and slashes in empty tags and namespaces all at once didn't work. The large HTML-generating public did not move, largely because the browsers didn't complain. Some large communities did shift and are enjoying the fruits of well-formed systems, but not all. It is important to maintain HTML incrementally, as well as continuing a transition to well-formed world, and developing more power in that world.

The plan is, informed by Webforms, to extend HTML forms. At the same time, there is a work item to look at how HTML forms (existing and extended) can be thought of as XForm equivalents, to allow an easy escalation path. A goal would be to have an HTML forms language which is a superset of the existing HTML language, and a subset of a XForms language wit added HTML compatibility.

Abstract Bigtable is a distributed storage system for managing structured data that is designed to scale to a very large size: petabytes of data across thousands of commodity servers. Many projects at Google store data in Bigtable, including web indexing, Google Earth, and Google Finance. These applications place very different demands on Bigtable, both in terms of data size (from URLs to web pages to satellite imagery) and latency requirements (from backend bulk processing to real-time data serving). Despite these varied demands, Bigtable has successfully provided a flexible, high-performance solution for all of these Google products. In this paper we describe the simple data model provided by Bigtable, which gives clients dynamic control over data layout and format, and we describe the design and implementation of Bigtable.

Develop new gadgets with support from Google. Google Gadget Ventures is a new Google pilot program dedicated to helping developers create richer, more useful gadgets. Inspired by the success of iGoogle, which has been driven by the creation by 3rd-party developers of a broad range of gadgets, Gadget Ventures provides two types of funding: Grants of $5,000 to those who’ve built gadgets we’d like to see developed further. You’re eligible to apply for a grant if you’ve developed a gadget that’s in our gadgets directory and gets at least 250,000 weekly page views. To apply, you must submit a one-page proposal detailing how you’d use the grant to improve your gadget. Seed investments of $100,000 to developers who’d like to build a business around the gadgets platform. Only Google Gadget Venture grant recipients are eligible for this type of funding. Submitting a business plan detailing how you plan to build a viable business around the gadgets platform is a required part of the seed investment application process. It’s our hope that Google Gadget Ventures will give developers the opportunity to create a new generation of gadgets to benefit users. How to apply This program is restricted to people who have developed a Google gadget in our gadgets directory that generates at least 250,000 weekly page views. If you’re eligible and interested in this program, please email us your one-page proposal. Recipients of these grants are then eligible to apply for a seed investment.