Steve Ross-Talbot

What better way to highlight the issues that need to be addressed by wireless information providers (i.e., Reuters, Instinet), wireless software tools vendors (e.g., SpiritSoft), and wireless terminal providers (e.g., Compaq) than by looking at a day in the life of a typical businessperson in the emerging wireless world? When Mr.or Ms. Wireless gets up in the morning, what might he or she need from a support environment? Necessities will include a desk-based computer, access to a server, a notebook, and a PDA (an iPAQ, of course). Ivan Eyepack wakes up and turns off the alarm on his iPAQ. He rises slowly realizing that his baby daughter (2 years old) is jumping up and down on the bed. His wife, having been up during the night servicing the 2-year-old's needs, rolls over to catch a few more minutes of sleep. Ivan takes his iPAQ with him as he goes downstairs to get h... (more)

Java Rules in J2EE

Over the last two decades rules have become an increasingly important part of the information technology landscape. In fact, deductive rules have been applied to databases since the inception of SQL and form the basis of policy management and decision making at most corporations. However, the rules are changing. A newer reactive rules solution based on events, conditions, and action (ECA) has come to the foreground. In addition, the rise of the Java runtime and development environment from a niche solution to prime time is also changing the rules of the information technology la... (more)

Scalable Web Services using JMS & Jcache

To the uninitiated, those unversed in the art of computing, 'building to scale' sounds like something architects do when they take one of those models to a board meeting for approval. It sounds a million miles away from what we understand in computing. Just for the record what do we mean when we talk about "building to scale"? We mean that the computer system (the software and hardware) performs predictably under a documented range of conditions. Oddly enough it isn't any different for the architect with the model or an engineer creating some new valve for a process control plan... (more)