Topologi announced the availability of the Topologi Difference Detective, a low-cost, lightweight utility for displaying changes between different versions of files, including XML data. The Difference Detective is a utility for anyone involved in document editing or XSLT transformation. The Topologi Difference Detective supports three levels of reporting. For small, dense files such as XSLT scripts or XML Schemas there is a detailed word-by-word comparison showing all additions and deletions. For larger text files up to 100K size, a line-by-line comparison is available and for large and binary files, a byte-by-byte comparison quickly detects where two files are not the same. The Topologi Difference Detective also has a directory comparison mode, to compare files with the same names in two different directories. The Difference Detective is available now from the Topologi Tool Shop, as are a number of other utilities for querying and validating collections of XML data. There are several products due for release in the near future, including tools for helping with whitespace, links and character sets.
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One of the cover stories on the new, April Journal of Accountancy carries the blurb: “Six Reasons to Love XBRL.” The article is actually part of continuing coverage by the American Institute of Public Accountants
(AICPA). The AICPA’s commitment to making CPAs increasingly aware of XBRL
is a good thing if you are interested in seeing more and more ability to do
intelligent processing of financial documents.
One unfortunate thing about the article, though, is that the six reasons to
love XBRL are all focused primarily on its use outside the company–after
you have produced financial statements in XBRL. As I have noted
before, some of the really interesting applications–applications that could
be used as part of an internal control framework–happen only if you begin using
it inside the company and earlier in the process.
I think we’ll get there.
By the way, there is a conference on
XBRL coming up in Boston later this month that you might be interested in if
you are wanting to learn more about XBRL and its applications.
Our survey on enterprise blogs, wiki and RSS use was out of commission for a few days because the vendor of the survey service upgraded their software and broke a few things. The short survey is back online now. We’ll be posting the results next week during our conference in time for our session on the same topic. BTW, we are going to open this session (Wednesday morning 8:30 -10:00am) to anyone who is there, even if their badge is only for the technology demonstrations on Monday and Tuesday. So come by and blog it!
Arbortext announced it has entered into a reseller partnership with Datacopy Publishing Solutions GmbH, a German IT services and solution reseller to resell Arbortext products to businesses in key European industries, including manufacturing, aerospace, life science and financial services. Datacopy Publishing Solutions GmbH has over 23 years experience in providing professional publishing solutions. , http://www.arbortext.com
Nextance Inc. announced working with Oracle to accelerate the industry’s adoption of XML databases as technology for managing the intrinsically complex mix of both structured and unstructured data within contractual agreements. The advantages that XML delivers are pronounced in Enterprise Contract Management solutions, with contracts containing a significant and untapped reservoir of unstructured language such as revenue sharing models, exclusivity rights, intellectual property ownership, fees and penalties which are essential in properly measuring the risk and reward potential of customer, supplier and partner relationships. Nextance supports Oracle XML and is participating in the Database 10g Release 2 Beta Program to prepare for the upcoming new release. http://oraclepartnernetwork.oracle.com,
As part of the conference next week, I will be doing a tutorial on XML and how it is currently used in content management applications. There is plenty to talk about. While there are few “pure” applications of XML content management, XML is used, in varying degrees, to manage and represent the content, the metadata, the supporting data, and the configuration data in many content management applications.
We will spend some time talking generally about how XML is used in content management applications. Much of the focus will be on a series of brief case studies–example applications really–discussing how successful projects use XML today.
Google Inc. announced that the Google Mini has twice the search capacity at a more affordable price. The Google Mini can now search up to 100,000 documents for a lower price of $2,995. The Google Mini is an integrated hardware/software search appliance that indexes all content within a company’s intranet or public website. After an installation process that takes only a matter of hours, users can search for information just as they do with Google.com. The Google Mini comes with one year of support, software updates, and hardware replacement coverage. It can be purchased online. The entry-level Google Search Appliance now offers search of up to 500,000 documents (more than three times the previous search capacity), for $30,000 including hardware, software, and two years of customer support. Other versions of the Search Appliance can index 15 million documents or more in a single collection. The Search Appliance provides enterprise-wide search across corporate web sites, intranets, databases, business applications and content management systems. http://www.google.com/enterprise
Near-Time, Inc. announced the commercial availability of Near-Time Current
for Mac OS X. Current transcends traditional text editors, bookmark managers, Web clipping software, outliners, newsreaders, and blogging software. It combines these functions, leveraging the immediacy of the Internet while offering a rich desktop environment for authoring and publishing. Current’s authoring and publishing capabilities allow you to create documents from many sources simultaneously, merge links and Web page content with your documents, and post the results to Web sites and blogs, with accompanying RSS or Atom news feeds. It works with both desktop and Internet content, and has a built-in Web browser and full text search capabilities. Application files of all types, including QuickTime, photos, html pages, and mp3 files, can be stored and launched within Current. Content from Current can be published to Weblogs via Blogger and MetaWeblog APIs, as RSS feeds and as Web pages to Apple iDisk or Web servers. This gives users one tool for authoring, gathering, organizing, and the publishing of content. Supported standards include XML, HTML, FTP, WebDav, SMTP, iDisk, RSS, and Web logs (via Atom). Near-Time Current is available for download and Near-Time Current licenses are priced at $49.95 per user. http://www.near-time.com
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