Archive for April, 2010

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Vector Software Announces Test Driven Development and Continuous Integration Support

April 30th, 2010
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Vector Software, the leading provider of software test tools for embedded systems, today announced support for the Agile methodology’s Test Driven Development (TDD) and Continuous Integration (CI). This new functionality available in VectorCAST v5.1 extends the traditional unit and integration test capabilities currently used in Waterfall or V-Model software development methodologies.

To date, the VectorCAST tool suite has been used by embedded developers to test individual C/C++ modules (unit testing) or groups of modules that make up a functional area of the application (integration testing). This pure unit testing approach allows the developer to ensure that the low-level requirements attributed to a unit are implemented correctly, while at the same time verifying the completeness of the testing via code coverage analysis. Since the code has already been written at this point, one concern is that the unit tests will simply test what the code was written to do, rather than what the code is required to do.

TDD aims to solve this problem by moving test case development earlier in the process to a point after the initial design is completed, but before the code is written. “This ‘test first’ approach is becoming very popular for the development of embedded and non-embedded applications” said Bill McCaffrey, Director of Marketing at Vector Software.

Unlike most of the available unit testing framework tools used in TDD (Wikipedia lists 38 of them) which require the unit tests and the associated test harness to be constructed manually, VectorCAST/C++ creates the test harness automatically and provides a simple to use GUI to define input data and expected results for a particular test. With v5.1, VectorCAST/C++ has been extended to build the test harness before the application source code is written. This automation lends itself not only to a test first approach, but also to a continuous integration approach with the automated regression test tool VectorCAST/Manage. Manage allows development teams to integrate and test their work automatically and re-execute entire test suites, on-target, on a daily basis, and/or multiple times per day.

About Vector Software:
Vector Software, Inc. is the leading independent provider of automated software testing tools for developers of safety-critical embedded applications. Vector Software’s VectorCAST line of products, automate and manage the complex tasks associated with unit, integration, and system level testing. The VectorCAST tools support the C, C++, and Ada programming languages.

Source:http://www.theopenpress.com/index.php?a=press&id=72834

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4-year-old genealogy software is better

April 30th, 2010
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Many people have been doing genealogy research for years, and the advent of the personal computer and the Internet has made this pursuit even more available to the average consumer.

One of the most popular software packages used to assist in the development of the family tree has been Family Tree Maker, which unfortunately has been bounced around from owner to owner for several years.

The most popular version, 2006, has been the gold standard for years after the company running things made some rather bone-headed moves with the interface.

This year I thought I would upgrade my own version, partially because I was curious and partially because I got a new computer and could not readily lay my hands on the Family Tree Maker 2006 CD to reinstall it on my new hard drive.

So I backed up my family data file, which has about 7,000 people in it, and installed Family Tree Maker 2010 Deluxe on my computer, which is running Windows 7 64-bit edition. Despite some reviews to the contrary, the program ran flawlessly following an immediate patch provided by the company automatically at first launch.

The Deluxe version is the middle ground in the software suite. There is an Essentials version, which offers full program functionality and less online content access, and a Platinum version, which offers longer-term access to online resources and some off-line resources as well.

After installation, I took the copy of my family file and imported it, leaving my original intact. (There is no going back to the older version if you don’t make a copy, so make sure you do this step.)

I was then met with a completely new interface, which has raised the ire of many a genealogy fan. I think if you had never used the program before you would find the interface lovely and easy to use; it is only those who have used the old one for years that are sort of missing the old look and feel.

Entering information is easy; you simply start with yourself and enter the information you know to be true and the source. You may not have to find your own birth certificate, but then for your parents and everyone after you should enter the information you know for sure, and the citation. With every kit you get a trial membership to Ancestry.com, the paid service that gathers all kinds of information, including user-submitted trees.

In my case, I used the online access to Ellis Island information, Census data, the Social Security Death Index and loads of other resources to either find or verify my ancestors.

It’s a great resource … the only downside is the cheesy way they make you sign up for the “free” trial period by making you use a credit card with automatic renewal unless you remember to call them to cancel.

The Essentials version costs about $30; the Deluxe version costs about $60 and the Premium version costs about $100, but pricing varies considerably online. I’d go for the Deluxe version, which includes three months of access to the online resources, which gives you plenty of time to get a taste.

Source:http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100430/FEATURES/4300354/-1/NEWSMAP

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Asia business intelligence software market should grow 20.5%: IDC

April 30th, 2010
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Asia’s business intelligence software market excluding Japan should grow an annual 20.5 percent this year as economies rebound from last year’s downturn, a report said Thursday. Revenues from business intelligence software in the region had expanded by only 3.0 percent in 2009 from 2008 due to the global economic slump, industry consultants IDC said. “Business intelligence software adoption surged in the second half of 2009 as decision makers’ confidence on the global economic recovery strengthened, and demand for greater visibility into operations grew,” said Sharon Tan, a research manager at IDC.

Australia, China and South Korea accounted for 64.3 percent of the market last year, according to IDC. China, India and Vietnam are forecast to have the highest growth potentials, it added.

IDC said Asia’s banking sector remained the largest user of the software to “enable better risk management, fraud management and to support faster and fact-based decision-making for customer-related issues,” among other functions.

Source:http://www.chinapost.com.tw/business/asia/asian-market/2010/04/30/254615/Asia-business.htm

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PR Software Provider iPressroom Expands Sales Team to Meet Growing Demand

April 30th, 2010
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iPressroom, Inc. (http://www.ipressroom.com) is a Los Angeles based PR software as a service firm, specializing in online newsrooms, websites and social media communications for marketing and public relations specialists. The innovative company has added three communications and public relations specialists to its national sales team as regional directors to meet the increasing demand for PR software and online newsroom services.

Jennifer Troncone, Paul Lubanski and James Madden are the latest members of the iPressroom sales team, each with extensive experience serving clients in a variety of public and private sectors.

“Marketing and PR pros are overwhelmed by information and choices in today’s market place,” said Chris Bechtel, President and CEO of iPressroom. “Most organizations understand the importance of continuously improving their online presence, whether in an online newsroom, podcast site or Microsite, and they need clear and straightforward information in the vendor discovery process.”

iPressroom not only offers PR software solutions but online news optimization, microsites, webinars, webcasting, and podcast and vidcast production. Their products are all built to deliver rapid, cost-effective results. iPressroom’s platform speeds website deployments while presenting a high-quality, information rich product that reporters and interested parties can access and utilize.

Troncone, who is based in New Jersey and will represent the Northeast Region, has spent the past two decades working with communications and start-up companies, including more than a decade working for PR Newswire and GlobeNewswire. She attended Rutgers Institute for Management & Executive Development, receiving a Certificate in Marketing and in Budget Accounting Financial Management.

Lubanski, who will be responsible for the company’s Midwest region, brings over a decade of experience working directly with key public relations decision-makers in both the public and private markets. He holds a B.A. in Journalism from Michigan State University and is also a free-lance sports reporter. Located in Farmington Hills, Michigan, Lubanski spent the previous five years in the Corporate Client Group division of New York-based NASDAQ OMX.

Madden, who represents the Southeast region, has enjoyed directing public relations strategy over the past decade while representing a multitude of companies in technology, manufacturing, retail, beverage, marketing, medicine, publishing, hotels, capital funding, and education. Based in Atlanta, Madden is a graduate of the University of Georgia

Source:http://dvdcreation.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=1062479

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MindTree outbids TCS, Wipro, Infy to win UIDAI contract

April 30th, 2010
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Mid-sized software service provider MindTree outbid larger rivals Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, Wipro apart from top multinational firms, to win Rs 30-crore contract from India’s Unique Identification Authority (UIDAI), senior government officials and persons familiar with the project told ET on Thursday.

While the contract is small when compared with several multi-million dollar deals announced by various government departments over past few years, it’s the first in a series of projects worth up to $1 billion to be outsourced by the UIDAI.

When contacted by ET on Thursday, a MindTree spokesman declined to offer any specific comments.

“Many large vendors were disqualified because they could not assure quality permanent staff for the project-something we considered to be crucial,” said a government official. He requested anonymity and also confirmed that the contract has been awarded to MindTree.

The contract involves developing an application, which will capture and manage data from different sources including biometric details. MindTree will help the authority develop this application and also provide maintenance support.

Around 19 bids from companies including IBM, Accenture, TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, Mahindra Satyam were considered by the authority. While IBM emerged as T-1 (number one in technical shortlisting), Accenture and MindTree emerged as number two and number three.

Finally, UIDAI insisted on having permanent staff on the project, which according to another official was something not many could assure. Many companies told UIDAI during the submission that guaranteeing a particular resource is difficult in this environment when poaching by rivals happens on a large scale.

“We can gurantee a person with an equivalent skill set and not the same person. The resource may leave as the project starts in 3-6 months. It’s very difficult to give that kind of commitment,” said another e-governance official, familiar with the bidding process.

Consulting firm Ernst and Young has been appointed for advising the authority on these IT projects.

Source:http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5874991.cms

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Wipro may lose out on criminal tracking project

April 30th, 2010
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The Centre is understood to be doing a re-think on a Ministry of Home Affairs’s tender on developing a criminal tracking system which was expected to be awarded to Wipro Technologies, India’s third-largest IT services firm. The project, in its entirety, is estimated to be around Rs 2,000 crore.

The core technology platform will be laid out by the National Crime Records Bureau and each state will develop its own criminal tracking system since police is a state subject.

‘Wipro, Tech Mahindra eyeing $1 b contract’

The three IT firms competing for the project Wipro, TCS and Accenture – have bid for developing the core application software (CAS) for the Centre’s ambitious Crime and Criminal Tracking Networks and Systems (CCTNS) project which is worth about Rs 30 crore.

Despite being the lowest commercial bidder to develop the solutions, Wipro Technologies is in the danger of losing it owing to technical issues pertaining to the tender.

The Bangalore-based company has emerged as L1 bidder (lowest commercial bidder) after the opening of the tender recently.Wipro, which has quoted Rs 29 crore for the tender, is followed by TCS which quoted Rs 33 crore and Accenture (Accenture’s quote not known). However, after the opening of the tender, it was found that an “important pricing component was missing” in the tender papers submitted by Wipro which resulted in the other two companies (TCS and Accenture) pressing for the cancellation of the tender.

Wipro posts 22% jump in net profit

“The tender seem to be in a limbo and no one knows its fate. If things are not sorted out, the government might go in for a re-bid,” highly-placed industry sources privy to the development told Business Standard. On being asked, Wipro’s government vertical head Ranvir Singh wished not to comment saying the bid was “under evaluation”. A TCS spokesperson said the company would not like to comment.

A mission mode project (MMP), CCTNS is a Rs 2,000 crore project which aims to create a technology platform for sharing crime and criminal information (in the form of a web-based criminal record database) across the country. This is expected to streamline investigation and prosecution processes, and strengthen intelligence-gathering machinery. The system will facilitate collection, storage, retrieval, analyses and transfer of data among police stations, district and state headquarters, and the controlling agencies at the central level.

However, since the police is a state subject, a vast majority of this money (Rs 2,000 crore) will be spent by states to implement the project at the state level. The IT firm bagging the contract at the central level will create an architecture using an application programming interface (API) which will allow the systems set up by each states to speak to each other. This will be used as a standard by individual states.

“The winner of the project at the central level will in an advantageous position in terms of clinching deals at the state level owing to its know-how of the technology platform it is creating at the central level,” said industry sources.

Source:http://sify.com/finance/wipro-may-lose-out-on-criminal-tracking-project-news-technology-ke4b4hdbjif.html

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OneVision to exhibit latest software at IPEX 2010

April 30th, 2010
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OneVision, a global provider of prepress and pre-media software solutions to the printing and publishing industries, has announced that it will be presenting its latest software innovations at IPEX 2010, taking place from May 18th to May 25th at the NEC in Birmingham.

Visitors to the OneVision booth #240, Hall 11 will not only be able to learn about OneVision’s well-established solutions Asura and Speedflow for file normalization and correction but will also have the opportunity to review the latest software versions for automated image enhancement, online file delivery & approval, ink saving and ePaper creation.

Among the highlights on display at IPEX 2010 will be the new versions of Voyager and Amendo: Amendo is OneVision’s automated solution for intelligent image enhancement which works on individual parts of the image separately – not simply the image as a whole. Brightness and contrasts, shadows and highlights are enhanced, together with improved sharpness. The software also analyzes colour values of numerous common elements such as vegetation, sky and skin and modifies the colours according to the human viewing patterns. Automatic resizing, colour management and red eye removal are further reducing the time-to-press. In addition to improved job ticket support, the latest version of Amendo has been refined to support various file formats.

Voyager gives end users the ability to easily upload and submit their files 24/7 to publishers and printers. The integrated approval process allows each user to accept or reject the real-time proof online, thus minimizing administrative work for both publishing and printing companies and their customers. The new version of Voyager has seen considerable improvements in terms of usability, user administration and speed: companies producing a broad range of publications will now find additional controls to help manage workflow path access and user permissions. To further enhance automation, Voyager now offers the possibility to set up multiple hot folder configurations, which extend the use of Voyager for automatically submitting and retrieving processed files (round-tripping). In addition, the speed of Voyager has been increased to provide faster throughput in higher volume workflows.

OneVision will also be showcasing its solutions for InkSave and for ePaper creation: Mirado allows to automatically generating online versions – e-papers, e-mags, e-catalogues – from your print files. Being able to add flash animations, web links and more makes Mirado an efficient tool to significantly increase your revenue stream potential.

PlugINKSAVEin reduces the amount of costly CMY ink required in the printing process and maximizes the amount of less expensive black ink – without affecting image quality or appearance. In addition to significant ink cost reduction, users benefit from enhanced printing quality and increased productivity, as set-up times can be reduced and paper breaks can be avoided.

“IPEX 2010 is certainly this year’s exhibition highlight for us and we are looking forward to present our latest software innovations there.”, says Barry Tweddell, National Sales Director for UK at OneVision. “Visitors to our booth will not only have the opportunity to see live demonstrations of the new versions of Voyager and Amendo, but will also be able to view some workflow scenarios successfully implemented by their business peers. This will show them hands-on how dramatically OneVision solutions could also improve their premedia workflow, no matter whether the goal is to reduce spending, increase staff productivity or improve printing quality.”

OneVision’s software is used by many of the world’s leading commercial and digital printers as well as publishing organizations in more than 60 countries.

Source:http://members.whattheythink.com/news/index.cfm?id=43671

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