• http://www.embarcadero.com/products/beta_programs.php

Come take a look at some of the products under development (under NDA of course).

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As a resident quality champion, of course I want to know too

So I took a quick query into the bug tracking system, and looked at how many reports found earlier then Jan 1, 2009 were fixed this year. A quick, no fuss query though I made sure to only include bug reports (not feature requests) and resolutions related to bug fixing.

The result?

711 Delphi bugs found earlier then Jan 1, 2009 have been fixed so far this year, and the team is in middle of polish phase for the next release "Weaver".

The next question is how many came from customer reports? So I looked at the number coming from Quality Central - 222 of those 711 are Quality Central reports.  Not an insignificant number. A number (about half) of those were released in RAD Studio 2009 Updates 3 and 4 with the remainder going into Weaver. As I mentioned - more is being done as well.

Additional slices:

• 198 of the 711 were reported earlier then 2008
• 116 reported prior to 2007
• 91 reported prior to 2006

That’s good news, and a sign the team looks at older issues as well as new.

With 10 years of reports, there is a mixed bag of about 2000  public reports the team is constantly working on, and our beta feedback helps guide the release to ensure it’s a good one.

As always, we can improve- and need to to stay ahead of the pack.  So let me know if you have a QC report you feel is neglected. I’ll take a look at it.

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There are a lot of prices out there that you can pay, but of all the prices there are, I think we can all agree that Free is the best one.  I know that it is my favorite price, and I pay that price as often as I can. 

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Click here for all of the juicy details!

This special offer ends August 24, 2009.

But wait, there’s MORE! If you want the BEST value anywhere - look no further than All-Access! All-Access beats the value of even this fantastic Buy-One-Get-One-Free offer. For only a fraction more than this awesome offer you get access to everything you need in one value busting package!

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You can also use our product selector guide on the Buy One Get One Free information page to get more familiar with Embarcadero’s tools for Database Management and Monitoring, Application and Database Modeling, Java and Web Development and RAD Development. You can also learn more about which products complement each other, how you can round out your tool portfolio, and maybe even learn about tools you didn’t know were part of the Embarcadero portfolio.

How can you check to see which products are available? You can use our handy Qualifying Product Selector  Web Application to do your own purchasing "what if" analysis. This web application can help you decide which tool you can select for free based on which product you want to purchase.

When you purchase a qualifying Embarcadero product at regular list price, you will get a coupon which entitles you to a second product of equal or lesser value for free. How do you redeem your free product coupon? You can redeem your coupon and select a free application by going to http://www.embarcadero.com/bogo-redeem.

The Buy One, Get One Free promotion is all about extending your application development and database tool portfolio by letting you to choose another* Embarcadero tool you want.  This special offer ends August 24th.  Go to the Buy One Get One Free web page at http://www.embarcadero.com/bogo-info.

Important links to remember:

• Buy One Get One Free - http://www.embarcadero.com/bogo-info/
• Buy One Get One Free FAQ - http://www.embarcadero.com/bogo-info/BOGO_Customer_FAQ.pdf
• Qualifying products selector guide - http://reg.codegear.com/srs6/selection.do?promoCode=BOGO-Promo-2009
• How to Buy - http://www.embarcadero.com/products/how_to_buy.php
• Free Trial downloads - http://www.embarcadero.com/downloads/
• Redeem your free product - http://www.embarcadero.com/bogo-redeem/
• Buy One Get One Free Terms and Conditions - http://www.embarcadero.com/bogo-terms/

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EDN - http://edn.embarcadero.com/rss

DelphiFeeds.com - http://feeds.delphifeeds.com/delphifeeds?format=xml

Dr.Dobb’s - All Articles - http://feeds.pheedo.com/drdobbs_all_articles

DDJ CodeTalk Blog Entries - http://www.dobbscodetalk.com/index.php?option=com_myblog&task=rss

O’Reilly Radar - Insight, analysis, and research about emerging technologies - http://feeds.feedburner.com/oreilly/radar/atom

Slashdot: Developers - http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdotDevelopers

Top Questions - Stack Overflow - http://stackoverflow.com/feeds

Alltop Programming - http://programming.alltop.com/rss/

This is just a small portion of the feed list I use.  What developer and technology feeds do you listen to?

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A new comparison report, entitled Reducing Total Cost of Ownership of Your Application Development and Database Tools”, provides straightforward guidelines for evaluating and comparing costs for database tools.

In this comparison report you’ll learn:

• How “hidden” costs can be four times higher than direct software licensing and maintenance costs
• How near-term and longer-term costs can be reduced with Embarcadero® All-Access™, the new multi-platform tool chest with a dramatically simplified and cost-effective licensing model
• How application virtualization, or "on-demand technology", plays a key roll in reducing costs while making software tools easier to access when and where you need them

Download the free comparison report today!

Read what people are saying about All-Access.

Download a free 30-day evaluation copy of the All-Access Client and experience Embarcadero All-Access in your own environment. Gain access to all of the tools in the All-Access tool chest – with industry-leading tools like ER/Studio®, DBArtisan®, Rapid SQL® and more so you can design, build, and run your databases and applications with less time and effort.

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Eclipse Galileo Web Site

Eclipse downloads

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Nach dem Download der ca 59 MByte großen Client-Installation stehen einem alle Embarcadero Produkte als Testversion über einen komfortablen Client zur Vefügung. Dieser installiert sich (es ist auch eine Version ohne Installation verfügbar) und erzeugt dadurch Programmicons im Start-Menü von Windows (für den  Zugriff aus dem Startmenü).

Startet man den Client, zeigt sich folgendes Bild (nach zwei Lizenzbildschirmen, die "abzunicken" sind):

Als erstes sollte man hier "links unten" (unter "Testversionslizenzen abrufen") seine Testlizenz von Embarcadero abrufen. Dazu reicht es, den Developer Network Account samt Password anzugeben:

Nach kurzer Wartezeit zeigt sich dann der freigeschaltete All Access Client:

Fertig eingerichtet… zurück zum Hauptbildschirm…

Hier kann dann nun direkt die Produkte starten (InstantOn: Wird von der Webseite embarcadero.com geladen und *sofort* ausgeführt, das heißt: Es ist keine Installation notwendig!)

Hier ein Beispiel für den Ladevorgang von RapidSQL

Je nach Internet-Downloadgeschwindigkeit dauert das einen "kleinen" Augenblick. Aber keine Angst: Beim nächsten Aufruf werden diese aus dem Cache geladen (dieses und weitere Einstellungen kann man im All Access Client unter dem Link "Einstellungen" vornehmen: Standardmäßig werden die zwischengespeicherten Versionen im Verzeichnis <UserHome>\Embarcadero\All-Access\Products gespeichert):

Weitere Informationen findet man im Installationsverzeichnis in einer kleinen, wichtigen PDF-Datei.

Ist das Laden eines Instant On Produktes fertig bekommt man folgenden Screen:

Funktioniert gut…. und was mir wirklich wichtig ist: Diese Testversion zeigt sehr gut, wie man mit der Instant On Technologie den Installationsaufwand praktisch auf NULL reduziert.

Instant On virtualisiert die Produkte und hinterlässt keine Spuren in der Windows-Registry, der Windows DLL-"Sammlung" oder macht Veränderungen im \Windows-Verzeichnis.

In einer "vollwertigen" All Access Umgebung lädt sich ein All Access Server *einmalig* alle Produkte zum cachen herunter und stellt diese mit der passenden Lizenz automatisch und direkt allen angeschlossenen (und authorisierten) All Access Nutzern zur Verfügung…. dieser hier beschriebene Client stellt also "nur" einen Bruchteil der Funktionalitäten dar… aber einen Eindruck bekommt man

Ihr

Matthias Eißing

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If you want to give a try to all Embarcadero products, then this is probably the easiest way. Just download the client, log into the EDN and request trial licenses straight from the All-Access client.

…. And do not forget to "charge" your client! When you buy a new mobile, you typically leave it over night to charge batteries. A similar thing you need to do with your All-Access client, but this time you have to charge it with tools.

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Embarcadero® Change Manager™ helps database administrators and developers simplify and automate database change management to streamline development and ensure availability, performance and compliance.

This latest release offers full Unicode support, data masking features, auto-synchronization, cross-DBMS schema compare and more. Change Manager 5.1 is available worldwide beginning June 24^th, 2009. Read the Press Release

Watch the Change Manager 5.1 video (on YouTube) by Greg Nerpouni, Embarcadero Product Manager: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21TyyVi_Bkk

Read the White Paper. Faster Application Development via Improved Database Change Management: Integrating Database Change Management with Software Development to Reduce Errors, Re-Work, and Testing Efforts http://tinyurl.com/ms87st

Try Change Manager 5.1 for free at http://downloads.embarcadero.com/free/change_manager

Additional information is available on the Change Manager product page.

Change Manager is also a part of Embarcadero All-Access, the cost effective, multi-platform toolchest for database professionals and application developers. Try the All-Access Client today at http://downloads.embarcadero.com/free/aa_client. Read How All-Access can help enterprises Reduce Total Cost of Ownership cross Application Development and Database Tools by up to 46%.

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"From: Jacques (in Australia) - Hi David, I have installed the Optimization tools. I cannot add a datasource. I am using DBArtisan and i never had any problem creating or connecting to datasource. Is there anything i need to do to see or create a datasource I am trying to connect to MS SQL … server."

Here is the reply I sent and a note about how to set the proper TCP/IP port.

For DB Optimizer, for example, I used the JDBC Driver configuration "SQL Server JDBC Version 1.2 Driver" - this is downloadable from Microsoft. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/aa937724.aspx

Then I pointed the connection to my SQL Server Express database - I used the AdventureWorks database example from Microsoft CodePlex http://www.codeplex.com/MSFTDBProdSamples/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=4004

Connection URL for the driver is jdbc:sqlserver://localhost:1433. Note that you might have to make sure you have the right TCP/IP port set for SQL Server (see notes from support below). The same setup should work for J Optimizer using the same JDBC driver from MS.

Setting the correct TCP/IP port for MS Sql Server to work with the JDBC driver:

1) Open the SQL Server 2005 Configuration Manager by selecting Start->All Programs->Microsoft Server 2005->Configuration Tools->SQL Server Configuration Manager2) Click on the SQL Server Network Configuration node to expand it

3) Click on Protocols for SQLEXPRESS node

4) Right click on the TCP/IP protocol on the right panel and select Enable

5) Right click on the TCP/IP protocol on the right panel and click Properties

6) Click on the IP Address tab

7) On the IPAll section, clear out the TCP Dynamic Ports field and enter 1433 (which is the default port for SQL Server 2005) on the TCP Port field

Then try connecting again

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"A group of researchers from MIT, Stanford, and Syracuse has developed a new program, named ‘Ardilla,’ which can analyze PHP code for cross-site scripting (XSS) and SQL injection attack vulnerabilities. (Here is the paper, in PDF, and a table of results from scanning six PHP applications.) Ardilla uses a modified Zend interpreter to analyze the code, trace the data, and determine whether the threat is real or not, significantly decreasing false positives."

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From my personal view, a well run quality organization achieves three majors goals:

• Visibility
• Control
• Reduces Development Debt incurred by Bugs

By visibility, the more mature the testing organization is, the faster and more effectively problems are found and the impact of problems are understood.

When a bug is reported, a mature organization can analyze the frequency and impact of such an issue, then once it’s analyzed create an effective automated test to ensure that once the issue is fixed, it stays fixed.

Visibility is more then just detecting the bug as well - the requirement for a feature may be ambiguous or incomplete leading to inefficiencies in development. And then other processes such as code reviews, project planning, and release processes could all have areas that if improved, not only ensure a product is shipped of good quality but that the process to do so is lean, mean and very effective - less wast of one of the most precious resources : Time.

Control is achieved by clearly defined milestones and acceptance criteria to validate that milestone. It’s easy to say you have your first Beta build with no qualifications, however if you state the beta build needs to have certain functionality and bug thresholds, then you can ensure the team aims for those goals and can keep a project ‘health’ in good shape.  You can also ensure that when you release a product to market, you clearly understand it’s state and can more confidently predict revenue.  Also, public beta’s advertise how your organization cares about a product, and customers can feel part of the development process - as well as help other customers learn and use the product.

QA in itself does not fix a product - however QA ENABLES the R&D team to fix a product and better meet a customer’s needs. And with highly visible test systems that run frequently, this adds huge value to R&D - the sooner a bug is detected the easier it is to fix. 

Now, the first two factors are hard to measure. Development Debt can be measured on the time it takes for developers to work on bug fixing during a product cycle. This work can be measured against customer satisfaction to understand the development cost of bugs to achieve certain satisfaction levels. A well run development process with mature quality organization can be truly agile and spend more time on features, and less on bug fixing since the cost of fixing a bug found quickly after introduced is hugely less then found later.

Take the simple scenario - an engineer modifies a feature and a manual tester looks at it, and certifies it’s ok. However a bug now occurs in another feature that depended on a property that was modified and this other feature wasn’t tested. Worst case, the customer finds the issue weeks or months later after many other code changes - the time to investigate, and the dependencies of OTHER code on this initial change would typically cause a lot of work and headches for both R&D and QA, ultimately making it hard to fix the issue without causing OTHER side-effects.

Now, if automated testing, or even a manual test that takes the depencies into account, finds the problem the next day - the fix is trivial.

Ultimately, R&D ‘feels’ less work was done, however if the issue was caught and fixed, the Development Debt is less for the next release, meaning more exciting features . It’s clear how this is a huge benefit of a well run QA organization.

This article generally supports these thoughts: http://searchsoftwarequality.techtarget.com/news/column/0,294698,sid92_gci1318196,00.html#

There are other advantages too - once you have visibility you can find opportunities for new features and understand what the customer is really asking for, not what you are assuming they are asking for. You may find that you thought customers always use your product in one way, or one feature that is really important to them. You may also find areas in the development process that if you improve, dramatically improve overall team productivity.

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