Linux Product Insider: California to Star at CeBIT Fair
This week's "Linux Product Insider" features California as CeBIT partner 'country', Sangoma's analog-digital telephony solution, Medsphere's open-source health record system, Super Talent's DDR3 SO-DIMM and Wrox's new book Code Leader.
Here is this week's latest and greatest Linux product news:
California Named Partner 'Country' for CeBIT
You've never seen huge until you've experienced the CeBIT IT exhibition in Hannover, Germany. Spread out over roughly 40 exhibition halls for six days, CeBIT is pure geekvergnuegen, showcasing nearly every business-related IT sector. Thus it is a coup for the State of California to become the first "Partner State" - previously there were only partner countries - at the 2009 CeBIT. As such, California can use the mammoth CeBIT event to showcase key technologies offered by the state including those in entertainment, Internet-based services, TeleHealth, security, consumer electronics, digital content generation and distribution, aerospace, R&D and green IT. CeBIT 2008 attracted 495,000 attendees, 5,800 exhibitors and 7,000 journalists from over 77 countries; next year's event will run March 3-8, 2009.
Sangoma's FlexBRI Card
Sangoma's has a new concept in telephony solutions, namely the FlexBRI Card, which will allow users to combine analog and digital signals on one interface card. First in a a series of forthcoming mixed modular designs, the FlexBRI prototype won VoIP Product of the Year at this year's Asterisk TAG event in Berlin. FlexBRI is for small offices seeking a BRI card that "supports a fax machine or other analog device that will fit on a small, 1U server. Sangoma states that FlexBRI has "none of the signaling issues found on competitive cards and will support synchronous clocking on all channels for 100% guaranteed error-free faxing" and will support up to four ports of BRI and two ports of FXO or FXS Analog. The product will be commercially available in Fall 2008.
Medsphere Systems' Open Vista Clinical Information System 1.0 Beta & OpenVista Server 1.5.86
The healthcare world can also take advantage of open source using Medsphere's newly released Open Vista Clinical Information System 1.0 Beta & OpenVista Server 1.5.86. These applications make up Medsphere's electronic health record system. OpenVista CIS provides a multi-platform (Linux and Windows), user-friendly and intuitive client interface through which clinicians can enter and view patient information. OpenVista Server is a commercialized version of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Vista solution, developed over more than 20 years and instrumental in a well-documented organizational turnaround at the agency. The new releases include over 500 updates and enhancements. Medsphere is also transitioning both applications from the GPL and Medsphere Public License to version 3 of the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) in order to cover the Application Service Provider loophole.
Super Talent's DDR3 SO-DIMM for Next Generation Laptops
The good people at Super Talent say that their new 1GB DDR3-1333 SO-DIMMs for next-gen laptops is the world's fastest of its breed, supporting transfer rates of 10,664 MB/sec. The rate is said to be 66% higher bandwidth than DDR2-800 SO-DIMMs. The DDR3 SO-DIMMs also require only 1.5V, compared to 1.8V for DDR2, resulting in a power savings of up to 20% and less heat output.
Patrick Cauldwell's Code Leader: Using People, Tools, and Processes to Build Successful Software (Wrox)
Writing great code is one thing. Getting a team of developers to work harmoniously together to create a great project on-time and under budget is yet another. Patrick Cauldwell's Code Leader: Using People, Tools, and Processes to Build Successful Software from Wrox is a tool for achieving both. Targeted at experienced developers wanting to transition from software engineer to technical lead, this unique book introduces a set of concrete best practices and construction techniques that can be applied to the development process and to actual code construction. Readers will learn how to: combine different developmental philosophies, processes, and construction techniques into a unified approach; decide which parts of a project to write yourself versus what you can buy or reuse; employ and improve source code quality and maintainability; create an effective testing regime; and handle errors in order to improve debugging and support.
To send feedback on this article, or to send product news, please contact Products Editor, James Gray at jgray@linuxjournal.com.