The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has published the “Character Model of the World Wide Web: Fundamentals” as a W3C Recommendation. It provides a well-defined and well-understood way for Web applications to transmit and process the characters of the world’s languages. This architectural Recommendation gives authors of specifications, software developers, and content developers a common reference, enabling interoperable text manipulation on the World Wide Web. It builds on the Universal Character Set, defined jointly by the Unicode Standard and ISO/IEC 10646. The goal of the Character Model for the World Wide Web is to facilitate use of the Web by all people, regardless of their language, script, writing system, and cultural conventions. As the number of Web applications increases, the need for a shared character model has become more critical. Unicode is the natural choice as the basis for that shared model, especially as applications developers begin to consolidate their encoding options. However, applying Unicode to the Web requires additional specifications; this is the purpose of the W3C Character Model series. This Recommendation is the first in a set of three documents. In development are “Character Model for the World Wide Web 1.0: Normalization,” specifying early uniform normalization and string identity matching for text manipulation, and “Character Model for the World Wide Web 1.0: Resource Identifiers,” specifying IRI conventions. www.w3.org
Day: February 14, 2005
Topologi announced the availability of a new product line of lightweight, Windows-based tools for processing XML data. The initial products to be released are called Judges, designed to perform a range of validation and data checking, and Detectives, designed to query and analyze XML documents and schemas. These are the first of several applications to be released in the near future. XML Judge lets you validate one or more files using XML Schemas, DTD, RELAX NG and Schematron. Generate usage schemas from a document set to check that new files do not contain valid but previously unused markup. XML Detective reports all the elements, attributes and namespaces: their parents, children, positions, XPaths and in which files these objects do, or do not occur. Topologi Complexity Detective with DTD Trimmer reports the Document Complexity Metric for XML documents, and includes a DTD trimmer that reduces a DTD to a minimal valid structure based on sampling document instances. Topologi Word Detective is a point and click XML indexing tool that reports on all the words found in elements or attributes in individual documents or across entire collections. Topologi Graphics Judge validates JPEG and TIFF files. This utility allows validation of JPEG files against the ISO standard. Good for ensuring that images and image metadata conform to format specifications. The initial products are all priced at US$29. www.topologi.com
IRISCO, a specialist in extraction and processing of PDM metadata, announced the immediate availability of its Elmo Search 2005 software. Elmo Search is an enterprise search product designed to meet the distinct needs of CAD Managers, R&D Managers, IT managers, end-users and senior managers. Elmo Search enables searching within AutoCAD, Autodesk Inventor, Word, Excel, PDF files, emails, and many more document types. It also allows the creation of separate groups of documents, or “collections”, each targeted at specific groups of interests within the enterprise, while complying with existing file security permissions. Elmo Search also constantly monitors document changes in a document collection, automatically indexing new and updated documents on-the-fly within seconds. Easy to use, deploy and manage, it can be installed in “less than 10 minutes”. This software solution ships in two languages (English and French), and is available to qualifying organizations as a free, fully functional, permanent 5,000-document license for download directly from the Elmo Website. The free license can be upgraded to accommodate much larger numbers of documents, at a cost that can be as low as 5 cents per document. Elmo Search 2005 not only addresses the needs of Autodesk users, but also those of all their colleagues, particularly those who share data with them throughout the enterprise. elmo.irisco.com
CM Professionals (CM Pros), a rapidly growing organization with members engaged in a wide spectrum of content management activities, industries, and geographies, today announced its second semiannual member Summit to be held in San Francisco on April 11, 2005. The event will take place at the Palace Hotel in conjunction with the Gilbane Conference on Content Management Technologies.
The one-day Spring Summit will provide an open, interactive format to enable participants to get acquainted and exchange ideas with others working in similar areas of endeavor. Activities being planned for the Spring Summit will build on the tremendous success of the first Summit (the Fall Summit held November 30, 2004, in Boston). Participants in that meeting praised the CM Professionals organization, the meeting format, and the agenda. Participants in the Spring Summit will have an opportunity to get advice and recommendations from experts who are already well established in the field, and to exchange ideas with other professionals working in this dynamic, increasingly important community of practice, which involves creating, managing, and delivering the content that helps to drive the success of 21st century organizations worldwide. Cost of the Spring Summit for CM Professionals members is $120US until March 22 and thereafter $145US. For non-members, the price is $170US (which includes the CM Professionals membership fee of $50US) until March 22 and thereafter $195US. These prices include lunch and a Gilbane conference discount of $150US. www.cmprofessionals.org, https://gilbane.com/conferences/San_Francisco_05.html
Fast Search & Transfer (FAST) announced the launch of its FAST Search Best Practices consulting services (FAST SBP). Designed to help clients maximise the value they extract from their investment in search technology, FAST SBP provides organisations with the framework to fully understand their opportunities, and the tools to optimize their search related results and develop mechanisms to deploy, manage, and continuously improve their enterprise search solution. FAST SBP provides organisations with two engagement options: 1. FAST SBP Focus – a half-day workshop designed to help existing and prospective customers focus on the immediate goals of their search implementation; and 2. FAST SBP Total – a multi-day workshop designed as a deep knowledge transfer, helping organisations to analyse and review complex strategic questions, unique sets of functional requirements, and specific technical questions. www.fastsearch.com
Stellent, Inc. announced that SAP has certified the integration of Stellent Universal Content Management 7.1 with the SAP ArchiveLink 4.5 interface, which connects optical archive and document management systems to the SAP R/3 software solution. Through the certified integration, users can archive business content and documents in the Stellent Imaging and Business Process Management server and link them to an SAP R/3 business object, enabling search and retrieval of documents and content objects that facilitate user processing and decision making in SAP R/3. With the Stellent ERP Integration for SAP, SAP users can integrate content stored in the Stellent system with SAP solution-based forms. www.stellent.com
I have commented here and there on XML-aware hardware. One of the companies that seems to have a lot of the mindshare, Datapower, announced a new round of venture funding today. This amid a strengthening market for venture funding here in New England.
