New Stuff
Resources for Your Developer Toolbox
Theresa W. Carey
Contents
Generate Testing Scripts from Real-world Behavior
Installations for Smart Devices
Compression and Communications Components for .NET
Multiple OS Test Platform
Visual FoxPro Macro System
Embed Screen Captures in Windows-based Apps
It's About Time
Pinpoint Hyper-Threading Bugs
The Bookshelf
Generate Testing Scripts from Real-world Behavior
TeaLeaf Technology has announced the availability of TeaLeaf IntegriTea with Session to Script. This new feature allows scripts for testing products, such as the Microsoft® Web Application Stress tool, to be automatically generated directly from the Web sessions of real users. Web applications are constantly updated with new functionality or fixes, yet the scope and thoroughness of validation conducted prior to deployment has decreased to the point of ineffectiveness. This is because up until now you couldn't create and maintain test scripts that validate realistic usage. Applications are deployed to production having passed tests based on expected behavior only to find that real users are working with the application in unique and unintended ways. As a result, production problems are occurring that should have been caught prior to deployment.
Session to Script eliminates this problem by enabling test scripts to be automatically created based on real user behaviors, loads, and inputs, thus allowing potential production issues to be caught before the application is deployed to production.
Installations for Smart Devices
InstallShield Software Corporation has announced smart device support via Service Pack 1 (SP1) for InstallShield Developer 8, adding support for the Microsoft .NET Compact Framework, Visual Studio® .NET 2003 Smart Device Projects, and additional features that enable installations for smart devices. The InstallShield Developer Smart Device supports integration and distribution of the .NET Compact Framework and the ability to target supported platforms. Smart Device support allows developers targeting the .NET Compact Framework to create their setups inside the Visual Studio .NET IDE and automatically update their setups when they rebuild applications in Visual Studio .NET.
Compression and Communications Components for .NET
/n software inc. has released new editions of IP*Works! and IP*Works! Zip for developers using the Microsoft .NET Compact Framework. These products provide you with more than 35 fully managed components for the .NET Compact Framework, facilitating the integration of Internet communications and file compression in applications targeting the .NET Compact Framework. IP*Works! contains royalty-free components that implement every major Internet protocol.
IP*Works! Zip is a suite of development components for adding compression and decompression functionality to Web and desktop applications using popular file and data compression standards. IP*Works! Zip allows you to integrate compression and decompression into applications using the Zip, Tar, Gzip, or Jar standards for compression. The components also feature password support and streaming compression and decompression.
Multiple OS Test Platform
VMware has released Workstation 4, which lets you run multiple versions of operating systems, including Windows® and Linux, on a single physical system in secure, portable virtual machines. Workstation 4 features improved support for debugging, allowing you to debug and test software within virtual machines. Workstation 4 supports user-level and kernel-level debuggers, including features such as data breakpoints (watchpoints) and I/O breakpoints. In essence, Workstation 4 provides the functionality of native debugging support in the CPU (for example, debug registers, single-step traps, and resume flag).
VMware's snapshot feature allows users to take a snapshot of their virtual machine to capture a running virtual computer's disk and RAM at any moment and save it to disk. Users can revert back to that snapshot at any time, enabling the virtual machine to go back in time to erase coding mistakes.
Also new in this version are Drag and Drop and Shared Folders, allowing users to share files between host and guest virtual machines via a shared folder, or drag and drop file icons between systems. With Tabbing, users can switch between virtual machines.
Users can listen to high-fidelity music with support for SoundBlaster, and stream video via the upgraded high-performance graphics.
Workstation 4 supports a number of operating systems as host and/or guest including Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003 and Red Hat Linux 8.0.
Visual FoxPro Macro System
FoxMasters recently announced the release of +Macros 2.0, an automation tool for developers who work in Visual FoxPro® 6.0 or 7.0 and use FoxScript procedural macros. Developers can customize Visual FoxPro by creating their own macros using the FoxScript language. FoxScript supports all Visual FoxPro features except for classes and function definitions. FoxScript also provides an additional means to manipulate the Visual FoxPro environment.
+Macros 2.0 includes many standard macros plus additional code management utilities such as auto-completing Visual FoxPro keywords; creating Visual FoxPro classes, methods, and functions from templates; inserting the current date and user name; creating comment and uncomment text blocks of any size; moving blocks of code left or right; changing the case of letters to uppercase or lowercase; and adjusting comments and assignments to make source code more readable.
+Macros supports running any of the user's own macros or standard macros with a keyboard or mouse. You can either use hot keys or select a macro from the +Macros menu, which extends the main menu of Visual FoxPro.
+Macros is a macro management system in which developers can create, modify, and delete macros, assign hot keys for quick access, organize hierarchical macro menus using drag and drop, create macros from templates, and export and import macros.
Embed Screen Captures in Windows-based Apps
TechSmith Corporation has announced the availability of SnagIt 6.2, with features that simplify screen capturing, allowing users to embed capture capabilities into Web browsers and Windows-based applications. Users now have the option to place a SnagIt add-in on the toolbars of Microsoft Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer, and Microsoft Office applications. These add-ins enable you to capture and manipulate content for Internet broadcasts, Web sites, training materials, and business presentations.
The SnagIt add-ins can be configured with preset input and output options. The SnagIt add-ins for Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer allow users to take screen captures of an entire scrolling window, Web page, region, object, or text that can be edited. The screen captures can be sent to files, clipboards, printers, or e-mail.
In addition, corporate developers can use SnagIt's new COM Server interface to integrate SnagIt's functionality into enterprise applications. Among the most common uses for SnagIt are documentation, employee and customer training, technical support, classroom teaching and distance learning, Web development, publishing, software design, and the creation of sales and marketing materials.
SnagIt 6.2 supports all versions of Windows from Windows 95 through Windows XP.
It's About Time
Mabry Software has announced two new controls for the Microsoft .NET Framework: Time/NET and WhoIs/NET. Time/NET is a time retrieval and synchronization client component. The Time/NET control implements SNTP versions 3 and 4, retrieving the current time from Internet public time servers. Time/NET also retrieves error correction data, information about the time server and server stratum, and other data specified and supported by the SNTP protocol.
The WhoIs/NET control implements the WHOIS protocol, enabling the user to query WHOIS servers for information about domains and the people who run them. WhoIs/NET has simplified data retrieval to the point where it takes only one method with one parameter to search a WHOIS database and follow any references to other WHOIS databases. Or, with a few more parameters, you can specify exactly how WhoIs/NET should behave (timeout period, whether or not to refer to alternate databases, the database to search, and what to search for).
Both controls are 100 percent C# managed code and can operate in either synchronous (blocking) or asynchronous (non-blocking) mode.
Pinpoint Hyper-Threading Bugs
Intel Corporation has announced Intel Thread Checker 1.0, a new tool to help developers locate hard-to-find bugs in applications designed for Intel Pentium 4 and Intel Xeon processor-based systems that include Hyper-Threading Technology.
Intel Thread Checker uses an advanced error detection engine that monitors program execution and pinpoints the location of threading bugs. Traditional tools require a developer to guess where to place traps in source code. Intel Thread Checker eliminates this guesswork and locates the exact lines of code that are causing threading errors.
The tool classifies issues into categories ranging from errors to warnings, and shows variable, source line, and call stack information for easy developer analysis. The tool is available for Intel Pentium 4 and Intel Xeon processor-based systems running Windows XP Professional and Windows 2000.
https://www.intel.com/software/products
The Bookshelf
The Web Programming CD Bookshelf, Version 1.0, published by O'Reilly, combines six books for Web programmers into one CD. Formatted in HTML, it can be read by any Web browser. The CD-ROM contains more than 4,600 searchable and cross-referenced pages, so programmers can search either the individual index for each book or the master index for the entire collection. Included are the complete, unabridged versions of these titles: Dynamic HTML: The Definitive Reference, 2nd Edition; JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, 4th Edition; Programming PHP; Web Database Applications with PHP & MySQL; PHP Cookbook, and Webmaster in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition. As a bonus, the new paperback version of Webmaster in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition is also included.
https://cdbookshelves.oreilly.com
Send your New Stuff to Theresa at newstuff@microsoft.com.
Theresa W. Carey is a freelance writer who lives in California. Her byline has appeared in Barron's and PC World.