I took the advice of a friend of mine and steered clear of the 'normal' movie theaters and went a little out of the way to go to a DLP movie theater. The experience of comparing a regular movie theater to a DLP movie theater is like comparing standard def analog TV with a 1080i HDTV signal. The movie itself was awesome. I was pleasantly surprised. I expected, wrongly so, another loosely connected chain of high-impact special effects moments like most of the other recent comic book adaptations have been.

There are 8,909 books listed on Amazon.com with the word 'Investing' in the title; there are(!) 27,146 books with the word investment in the title. Without having looked at a representative sample, I can be confident that Sturgeon's Law applies - I suspect if I sampled enough of them I would find that 90% greatly underestimates the amount of junk in this particular area.

This book is an update of an earlier version that was written for SQL Server 2000. It employs the Murach approach of dual pages that repeat and enhance the concepts being presented on each page. If you're new to SQL Server 2005 you'll gain a lot from this book. It has three goals: to teach T-SQL (Transact SQL), introduce you to the new .NET CLR integration, and introduce you to the new graphical user interface called SQL Server Management Studio that replaces the enterprise manager and query analyzer that were part of the SQL Server 2000 package of software tools.

Reviewers overuse the phrase 'required reading,' but no other description fits the new book 'Ajax Security' (2007, Addison Wesley, 470p). This exhaustive tome from Billy Hoffman and Bryan Sullivan places the specific security concerns of the AJAX programming model in historical perspective. It demonstrates not only new security threats that are unique to AJAX, but established threats that have gained new traction in the Web 2.0 era. It then details both the specific technical solutions and - more importantly - the mindset that are necessary to combat such threats. If you call yourself a professional web developer, you need this book.

In my many years of programming, almost 20 years now, I have used countless integrated development environments (IDEs). I have used everything from a simple text editor all the way up to the high-end IDEs that Sybase, IBM, and Oracle use. More recently I have come to embrace the open source movement and development in Web environments. My programming language of choice for these days is PHP, so it stands to reason that I would be looking for an IDE. Like so many other developers I followed the path of looking for the pinnacle of IDEs for PHP. I started with basic text editors, moved into text editors with code colorizations, and then into project-based development environments, and finally to a fully robust IDE. The one that I've been using for a few years now is Zend's Studio Professional.

It's hard to overestimate the importance of having a good logging facility when you develop distributed applications. Did the client's request reached the server-side component? What did the server send back? Add to this inability of using debuggers while processing GUI events like focus change, and you may need to spend hours if not days trying to spot some sophisticated errors. That's why a commercial-grade logger is a must if you work with an application that is spread over the network and is written in different languages such as Adobe Flex and Java.

The Java development platform always provides limited support for application development based on a graphical user interface, an area where more traditional languages and integrated development environments (IDEs) such as Visual Basic or Delphi have based their success.

The folks at Active Endpoints carefully thought through how to support users in their move to WS-BPEL 2.0. This resulted in the ability of BPEL 1.1 and WS-BPEL 2.0 processes to co-exist during design, test, and execution in both the designer and the engine. This lets users migrate their processes at their own pace. I've been burned in the past by products that required a big bang conversion so the ability to support 1.1 and 2.0 processes easily is a huge win.

Service-oriented architecture is an architectural approach to building software applications as a collection of reusable business services. Interest in SOA is growing within the business community. To address the need for an infrastructure to enable the building of service-oriented applications, a new breed of SOA suites is emerging. Vendors such as Oracle, BEA Systems, and IBM now provide platforms specifically focused on SOA applications. In established, complex IT environments with diverse applications - including legacy applications that are tied together with custom adapters, and business scenarios that demand extensive partner interaction - the move to SOA may appear challenging. However, new SOA suites make it easy. We at Sierra Atlantic decided to review one of them - Oracle SOA Suite.

Real-time data validation is one of the advantages of AJAX technology. By applying this technology, the struts validation framework will enrich the struts MVC and move the Web application closer to the desktop application. The validation framework is used to validate fields. There are many ways to do validation on a Web application. It falls into two categories: server-side and client-side. A struts validation framework is one of the best frameworks for a Java-based Web application environment. It can configure the application using server-side validation and employ the error message that renders on the validation process invoked during the request processing time, or it can do client-side validation by using the JavaScript rendered on the requested page.

As the saying goes you never get a second chance at a first impression. In general, that's true, but if you've been thoroughly revitalized, matured, and cosmetically re-engineered, shouldn't you get a second shot at that first impression? I'd argue that's true of Oracle's Java/J2EE Workbench, Oracle JDeveloper.

An event-driven architecture (EDA) reflects the real world in which businesses operate. The real world is constantly changing, chaotic, and unpredictable. An EDA enables organizations to make sense out of all the events occurring within their business, and to detect anomalous business situations by drawing together a number of indirectly related or independent events. Furthermore, EDA builds decision-making capabilities directly into business processes by using analytical insights to drive decisions. EDA offers organizations the ability to track events in real time, thus gaining an early awareness of issues, improving productivity, and reducing manual intervention and errors.

Berkeley DB XML (BDB XML) is a popular native XML database. It can be accessed through the shell or within another program. This month I will show you how to use BDB XML in Java. BDB XML has similar APIs for all supported languages such as Java and C++, therefore the ideas presented in this article apply to all supported languages. I have been closely following BDB XML from the very first release, and there have been tremendous improvements in this product.

In terms of unit testing and code compliance, Jtest is a real heavyweight in the arena. For those who haven't come across Jtest before, it's an application that will analyze your Java application code for you. At present Jtest has 700 built-in rules and 100 security rules and it will autocorrect 250 of those rules for you. It provides Parasoft SOAtest hooks for testing of SOA/Web services and Web apps. The reporting engine is also built-in so once tests are run, you can view and print results via a Web browser. There are some new features such as improved J2EE testing and the Bug Detective, which I will cover later in this review.

When MailReader - an example application bundled with the Struts Action framework - was created six years ago, most Java developers had yet to discover unit testing. Consequently neither the Struts framework nor the MailReader were created test-first. Since then, we've bolted a few unit tests onto the Action framework, but the MailReader for Struts 1.2 still has no developer tests at all.

By nature Web Services is a distributed technology. With distribution comes great flexibility for architectural topologies. Components can be strategically placed in different physical locations to optimize performance, maintenance and business processes. In large organizations one physical location may handle sales services, while another delivers contract management. As organizations build Service Oriented Architectures that stitch together these physically dispersed services, distributed development becomes an interesting challenge to overcome. Many collaborative technologies exist today to facilitate better communications and information sharing among workers, but it's rare to find a distributed development environment.

I recently had the chance to evaluate the next-generation Fiorano SOA Platform 2006 suite from Fiorano Software, Inc. As an architect and developer who's worked with previous versions of the kit over the last three years in addition to several competitor offerings, I looked forward to sitting down with Fiorano's latest release.

Sharp tools make software development quicker and more productive. They automate manual tasks to speed development. They provide useful information intuitively to enhance productivity. Eclipse, the powerful and well-designed IDE, is such a tool. Few Java developers would want to return to a text editor, command-line compiler, and standalone debugger after experiencing the power of this integrated development environment. In the same way that an intuitive and elegant IDE aids modern software development, a cutting-edge yet robust software configuration management (SCM) tool enables successful team software development.

JasperReports is a valuable and viable reporting solution for Java Web applications. It simplifies report generation through the use of XML report templates that are then compiled using the JasperReports engine for use in reporting modules. These compiled report templates can be filled by data received from a variety of sources including relational databases. JasperReports can be integrated into Web applications and create reports in several file formats including PDF and XLS.

You can create a sophisticated application that implements complex algorithms, but in many cases you sell its GUI part to your users. The presentation layer of plain vanilla HTML/JSP-based Web applications is usually pretty basic unless you use specialized software. Today we are testing the charting engine WebCharts3D 5.0 from GreenPoint.

The hardest single part of building a software system is deciding precisely what to build. No other part of the conceptual work is so difficult as establishing the detailed technical requirements?Therefore the most important function that software builders do for their clients is the iterative extraction and refinement of the product requirements.'

As an independent software developer/consultant starting my career in the early '90s, I was exposed to a large number of different working environments and challenges. My specialty for a while was HP C++ and Motif (often using Interface Architect) on HP-UX, but over the years I migrated towards Sun's C++ and GCC compilers along with X Designer on Solaris.

The latest issue of SYS-CON's quarterly IT Solutions Guide unveiled at JavaOne in San Francisco. The current issue of the ITSG offers IT solutions from the leading i-technology companies, including ClearNova, EV1 Servers, Extentech, GraphOn, Hosting.com, Synaptris, InterSystems, JadeLiquid, MapInfo, Parasoft, PDF Tools AG, Quest Software, Verio, and Visual Paradigm.

Java Technology completed its 10-year anniversary recently. Sun announced that there are over 4 million developers using the Java language, with thousands more joining their ranks. While a small percentage of developers can be called experts or skilled in the complete software development life cycle, a vast majority of them typically try to understand the requirements handed down to them and code to meet such requirements. Most projects (about 60%) go above budget and time, which places additional pressure on the developers trying to deliver an application.

The expression 'Jack of all trades' ends 'and master of none,' but in the case of the dotJ Custom Tag Library produced by dotJ Software, it should end 'master of some.' The dotJ tag library is the Swiss Army knife of tag libraries. It provides tags for many different areas of development, from Model-1 form validation to file uploading and text formatting.

Oracle has impressed most of us with its database products and, in my opinion, they offer an impressive J2EE infrastructure as well. To select the right technology for migrating the popular Alamo Rent A Car Web site from its generation-old Microsoft platform to a state-of-the-art J2EE stack, we took a close look at Oracle's latest product, Oracle Application Server 10g, in conjunction with the well-integrated Oracle JDeveloper Integrated Developer Environment.

There is an old joke in which a man is seen coming from a conservation area with a hefty catch of fish. After noticing the proficiency of the fisherman when others had come back empty-handed, a park ranger decides to tag along with him. When they get to a specific location, the fisherman lights a stick of dynamite and throws it in the water, retrieving a huge quantity of fish.

When vendors start charging more than $10,000 for a single tool, you know that the product category is about to heat up. Since Java IDEs have multiplied, I recently took Oracle JDeveloper 10g for a test drive - perhaps you didn't realize this vendor had a serious Java IDE.

Sometimes as J2EE application developers we feel like we are in a darkened room. We know that something is wrong with our application, but we have no idea where the problem is. Application performance management (APM) tools, such as VERITAS i3 for J2EE, has helped us 'turn on the lights' by enabling us to see exactly where in the application our problem really is.

The value of a single application platform that connects people, information, and systems, both within and across organizational boundaries, is self-evident. The critical component to developing such a powerful enterprise solution is selecting the right business-process automation tools that can deliver on the promise of a connected enterprise.

On Symbian smartphones such as the Nokia 6600, reports Michael Yuan, the Java runtime does not integrate well with the underlying platform. However with the Nokia 6630, the first consumer phone from Nokia that supports JSR 75, things have finally changed, he says.

Anyone who develops production applications eventually spends some time profiling. JFluid is an experimental new technology for profiling Java code. It was developed at Sun Microsystems Laboratories and can be a handy tool in your profiling toolbox.

Just as the Web has revolutionized information distribution and retrieval, instant messaging is revolutionizing communication. Instant messaging is a powerful tool that few enterprises or application developers have fully harnessed. Despite its pervasive use by millions all over the world, few businesses have yet to exploit it.

Remote Swing or server-side Swing - this is the most concise characterization of Canoo's UltraLightClient library (ULC). ULC offers server-side peer classes for Swing. For each Swing widget, there's a peer ULC class with essentially the same API.

It's unnecessary but true: a lot of Java programmers still debug by putting System.out.println() statements in their code to find out what the program is really doing and where the problems are. To overcome this antiquated approach I've tried several debuggers: Sun's JDB is free but cumbersome and hard to work with. Visual SlickEdit, my favorite IDE, has integrated debugger support but is also difficult to run.

The integrated development environment (IDE) is a big part of the toolkit of a modern software developer. Java projects have complex development processes, especially if the project is going to be developed using open source and J2EE technologies. A smart and efficient IDE plays an important role in making developers more efficient and productive in doing their tasks and meeting project deadlines. This review discusses one such smart IDE - IDEA 4.0.

DevPartner Java Edition is a profiling tool from Compuware that helps developers envision the reality of their designs and implementations. It clearly shows the performance, memory, and code coverage of various modules in your project. If you always wondered how your particular implementation would behave and want to buy a tool to show the profiling statistics of your project, this review should interest you.

Tired of using that Web access e-mail client? Going crazy filling out those expense reports using a clunky Web-based system? Missing the superior and responsive desktop application? You're not alone!

In today's society, it's second nature to contact family, friends, and colleagues via e-mail. E-mail has become so integral to our daily ritual that we cannot stay away from it as we make use of personal digital assistants (PDAs) and other pervasive devices to have it readily available.

Javassist is a powerful new library in the field of bytecode engineering. It allows developers to add a new method to a compiled class, modify a method body, and so forth. Unlike other similar libraries, Javassist enables this without knowledge of Java bytecode or the structure of a class file.