This weekend I was doing a little housekeeping on some of my domains and hosting accounts and decided to test and see if it was possible to get a website indexed using XML Sitemaps and no external links.

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I got an update on Vitria for the first time in a few years a little while back. Vitria started back in 1994 with Enterprise Application Integration capabilities and has added Business Process Management, Business Activity Monitoring and ultimately Business Event Management/Complex Event Processing functionality over the last few years. They are using “Operational Intelligence” as a label for this collection of functionality and their product is M3O, a strong integration-centric Business Process Management Suite with a broad customer base, multiple awards etc

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Altova has rolled out an integrated suite of XML, database, and UML tools in its Altova MissionKit.

The suite of software tools works with Microsoft Visual Studio; supports the Office Open XML (OOXML) file format in 2007 Microsoft Office documents; and provides functionality for querying, designing, and editing data across the Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Access platforms.

Altova says its MissionKit gives Microsoft .NET Framework-based developers access to a suite of feature -rich software tools.

The MissionKit is available in multiple configurations for XML developers and software architects. The kit includes Altova XMLSpy, MapForce, and StyleVision and options are available to add up to five more XML, database, and UML tools.

“For developers, software architects, and IT pros working with a range of technologies, including XML, databases, and UML, the Altova MissionKit makes it easier and more cost-effective with one integrated tool suite,” said Alexander Falk, President and CEO for Altova.

“The ability to work simultaneously within multiple products allows MissionKit users to take advantage of powerful features and functionality across the Altova product line, and at a significant cost savings. And with support for Microsoft’s SQL Server and Visual Studio, the MissionKit provides added benefits for .NET Framework-based developers.”

The Altova MissionKit includes up to eight products with pricing starting at $899.

When you come across something interesting on the web, but don’t have time to read it at that moment, what do you do?The old way is to add the web page to your browser’s bookmarks or favourites so you can retrieve it when you do have time.

A more recent method is to add that page of interest to a social bookmarking site such as del.icio.us.

This has two additional advantages - you can tag the page with keywords so you can share your bookmarked content with others, and you can access your bookmarked content from any other computer or device with a connection to the internet.

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This could be a milestone in illustrating the benefits of using XBRL for companies filing financial data.Last week, Microsoft submitted a Form 8-K filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) comprising financial data for shareholders, using XBRL.

Why is this significant?

First, it needs a bit of understanding as to what XBRL is. Simple explanation: it’s an emerging XML-based standard to define and exchange business and financial performance information. For more, read the technical description on Wikipedia.

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There are a few ways of persisting XML to a file, each with their pros and cons, that programmers may want to consider.

Brett D. McLaughlin, Sr., of O’Reilly Media, penned a post on XML persistence and ways to accomplish it. “You can do all sorts of interesting things with XML, but if you can’t persist it to a file, it’s all for naught,” he wrote.

Web services and other programming tasks may demand XML store its data someplace. Writing to a file may not be interesting or sexy, but it is necessary. McLaughlin listed three “pretty common mainstream” ways programmers likely accomplish this today:

1. Using the DOM and JDOM APIs and the like directly to write to a file from your XML data structure
2. Using the Transformation API for XML (TrAX) and the identity transformation to persist your XML
3. Using a higher-level API like JAXB to handle persistence (more…)