FlowForce Server Beta 2 is Now Available

FlowForce Server, the new server product from Altova that automates execution of MapForce data transformations, has gained hundreds of enthusiastic followers since the release of FlowForce Server Beta 1 last December. Now we are pleased to announce the release of FlowForce Server Beta 2, offered as a free public beta test to all licensed users of Altova MapForce 2012 Enterprise Edition and MapForce 2012 Professional Edition.

The beta test period for FlowForce Server Beta 2 is extended until September 1, 2012.

FlowForce Server Beta 2 adds robust access control to segregate jobs and related data files, so departments can work independently without seeing or overwriting each other’s data. Access control functionality includes defined Users and Roles, Privileges, and Credentials, all managed by FlowForce Server Administrators.

FlowForce Server Beta 2 also includes Web interface enhancements to provide more status information about job schedules, active triggers, and more.

FlowForce Server Beta 2 is available in a 32-bit version and a 64-bit version. The new 64-bit version allows the MapForce Beta 2 module to process very large data files and provides compatibility with 64-bit database drivers.

Click here to read more about FlowForce Server Beta 2 at the Altova Web site, or visit the FlowForce Server Beta 2 download page to get a copy of the installers for yourself!

Come Visit Altova this Spring at FOSE!

Stop and smell the cherry blossoms, then come visit Altova while we are in Washington D.C.! We will be at FOSE April 3-5 in booth #719 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center showcasing the tools in the Altova MissionKit.

If you are attending FOSE, stop by our booth to see the latest features in the Altova MissionKit 2012r2, which include EPUB editing and validation in XMLSpy, sorting of data mapping results in MapForce, generation of code from UML sequence diagrams in UModel, RichEdit functionality in StyleVision and Authentic and much more.

When you stop by our booth, don’t forget to enter our drawing to win a free Altova MapForce Basic Edition license.

Visit Altova at DevConnections!

Join us in Las Vegas as we kick off the 2012 tradeshow season! The Altova team will be in booth # 215 in Las Vegas on March 26-29 at the MGM Grand for the Spring Microsoft DevConnections event.

We would love to see you there, where we will be showcasing the entire suite of tools found in the Altova MissionKit. Altova MissionKit 2012r2 products provide specialized functionality for Microsoft developers and IT pros, including seamless integration with Visual Studio®, C# and C++ code generation, powerful functionality for SQL Server® database management and reporting, integration with SharePoint® Server, functionality for working with Open XML (OOXML), diff/merge for Word documents, and much more.

Feeling lucky? If you are planning on attending the show, don’t forget to stop by our booth and enter our drawing for a chance to win a free Altova MapForce Basic Edition license.

Building Web Pages – HTML Design with StyleVision

The rapid pace of today’s business environment means that information – along with the format in which it is required – changes often. Although some Web pages contain content that doesn’t often change (e.g., About Us and directions pages), the majority of today’s corporate Websites are continually updated with new data.
For this reason, many organizations choose to store Web content in XML. This allows organizations to develop content in a highly efficient manner because information in the XML file can be used for multiple purposes and in multiple output formats – the XML Schema associated with the XML file describes the content model.
StyleVision is a powerful stylesheet and report designer that can help you leverage XML. StyleVision will allow you to build Web pages with sophisticated formatting in a template-based, drag and drop design window. StyleVision auto-generates XSLT stylesheets so that you can integrate your design into a new or existing site – you can even generate ASPX Web applications right from the File menu.

In this post we’ll design a Web page that will show off some of StyleVision’s HTML formatting capabilities. Although StyleVision’s built in formatting capabilities allow you to create sophisticated designs via simple drag-and-drop, for this example we’ll use CSS3, images, and other standard design elements to create a Web page that doesn’t need to be reformatted when content changes.

The Global Positioning of XML

XML is everywhere. If you don’t believe it, get a USB cable and connect a GPS device to a computer, then browse for any file with the extension .gpx. We quickly found a 2 MB file named Current.gpx on a Garmin GPS. Opening it in XMLSpy reveals XML data and an XML Schema assignment at the top.

Scrolling through the body of the file displays numerous <trkpt> tags that record latitude and longitude along with <ele> and <time> tags reporting the elevation, date and time at that location.

Any place you may go in the world, XML is there to tell you where you are.