Next on my TODO list for IT

http://server.dzone.com/articles/infrastructure-tooling-patterns-list

Neo4J and CMDB

Interesting insights on Neo4J but more so regarding what he is trying to accomplish as a CMDB: http://java.dzone.com/articles/why-i%E2%80%99m-pretty-excited-about

IntelliJ 11 and Groovy

Nice poste here on the features included in IntelliJ for Groovy Programmers. IntelliJ is already my go to IDE. It just got more compelling!

Running QUnit JS tests in Maven

If this project is as good as it sounds, we need to get this running in our environment. If its not, we need to give the lead a hand 'cause that is absolutely something missing in our ecosystem.

jHiccup

This tool, jHiccup, seems like a very nice tool to had to the kit. You can read about it here

S#arp

Possibly something to evaluate: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/applications/SharpLiteTheBasics.aspx

Usefull tools

http://java.dzone.com/articles/unit-testing-spring-mockito-0 list a few tools I did not know about but seem worth exploring:

• Maven Enforcer
• Logback
• Mockito
• Powermock

Cloud Automation with Chef

I've stumbled on this Slideshare presentation on using Chef to automate cloud. This presentation is basically a how to guide that should be "required reading" before even considering using Cloud.

You can find it here

Geb: very groovy browser automation… web testing, screen scraping and more

Found this tool that allow for web browser automation via Groovy and WebDriver. It has a very good documentation for such a young project (0.6.1).  Andre Steingress makes as a nice PPT here

Garmr: tool to automate security testing

Garmr is a security testing tool produced by the Mozilla QA Team. Although still at an early stage, the tool seems to be a good base on which to build a security baseline. You can read about it here

Test Scribe for MTM 2010

http://talkabouttests.com/  talks about a power tools called Test Scribe to enhance Microsoft Test Manager 2010. Test Scribe needs to be installed on TFS:

Test Scribe is a documentation power tool designed to construct documents directly from the TFS for test plan and test run artifacts for the purpose of discussion, reporting etc.

Basically, it exports your test plan to Word, which is nice when you want to communicate them to the client or a 3rd party

Google Advanced Search

Highly interesting article on how Google can be a better friend than it already is: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/seo/how-to-become-a-search-ninja-harnessing-the-true-power-of-google-part-1/1881

Release Management

This is a short article that needs to be read: http://searchsoftwarequality.techtarget.com/answer/What-tools-are-required-for-effective-release-management

What, then, are the must-haves in a technology-based, modern release management system?

• Visibility: We need to know real-time, what the status of the releases are. We need a release calendar that lets us see when things are happening so we can balance the release workload. 
• Control: Every stakeholder must be able to give their electronic signature to approve, and it needs to be reportable and auditable. 
• Reporting: We need to track our performance against our KPI’s and SLA’s, and we need early warning when we are out of range on these numbers. 
• Vault: This should contain the master code that is destined for production: no more developers each having their own path to production, no more developers with root access. 
• Deployment automation: We need a repeatable and predictable technology that consistently deploys our code and backs it out automatically if things go wrong.

Continuous Integration -->Continuous Deployment...

 http://searchsoftwarequality.techtarget.com/feature/Continuous-integration-Tools-and-trends

But, according to Paul Duvall, author of Continuous Integration: Improving Software Quality and Reducing Risk,continuous deployment can go a step further. “Simply said, continuous deployment implies that you’re deploying your software to some environment, but it doesn’t mean that you’re delivering software to users,” he explains. “Delivering software to users on a frequent basis is what continuous delivery is all about. Continuous deployment could be continually delivering software to just your testing environments. This is excellent, but you haven’t necessarily gotten it to production yet. Continuous delivery implies continuous deployment, while continuous deployment does not imply continuous delivery.”

RDS launch

Amazon has launched a new service yesterday. Finally, they offer a RDBMS as a service. MySQL 5.1 as it turns out was their choice. I'm good with that.
There are quite a few posts about this: no surprise: Werner Vogels, Amazon's CTO has a post as well as Cloud Ave, RightScale and TechCrunch to cite only the ones on my RSS feed list.

InfoQ new posts

InfoQ is a great, great website. They just posted a couple of noteworthy articles:
- one article on a BE product called Apache Shindig
- one article on the role of the PMO
- one article on story points vs hours (which is curiously a continuous debate in every agile shops it would seem)

Salesforce Winter 2010

I attended a good webinard/sales pitch from Salesforce yesterday. They did not get in much technical details but they did show us very impressive new features coming soon. The following list is in no way exhaustive (for this, go here) but are rather the elements that caught my attention:

• It will now be possible to use batch code for long processes. Obviously, the execution will be asynchronous and will also be possible to manage under a new feature: the scheduler;
• The have enhanced the custom settings;
• They have worked on the data import;
• I beleive using Google doc, they now have content management API;
• Support for OAuth v. 1.0.a;
• email is greatly improved;
• sandbox to production management will be easier;
• integration to Google Analytics in Visualforce;
• https will be available for site;
• a pilot for a new type of user called "High volume portal user" will take place;
• analytics presentation will greatly be improved with:
• chart mixers;
• color picker;
• hover;
• IPhone and Blackberry are now well supported;
• Community-answer pilot will take place, leveraging Twitter and other web 2.0 API;

Bit Torrent for legitimate use

I have been investigating the use of BitTorrent for video conference distribution for a NOG that cannot afford CDN's fees. Very interesting technology, full of possibilities. But then, Techdirt has a great post that sour my interest somewhat. you can find this post here.

RESTful vs SOAP:a business case

Weird that CTO's still think of WS as needing to be SOAP. I though I was missing something, that there might be some virtue to SOAP I was unaware of. Seems I did not miss anything and that soap is not perceived as a waste only by me. You can read an articulated reflexion on this subject here.

DimDim Video Conference

I was looking at open source solutions and found this product from DimDim. I really like to see the OS model successful.