Recent Reviews of XMLSpy and DatabaseSpy

In the past week I came across two interesting recent reviews of our products in blogs that I wanted to mention briefly:

• Michael Testi wrote Software Review: XMLSpy 2008 From Altova on his All This And Everything Else blog, where he reviews the latest version 2008r2 of XMLSpy.
• Gandalf wrote DatabaseSpy: Project Management: Part 1 Data Sources on his myDezigns blog, where he is looking into the newest features of DatabaseSpy.

As always you can download a free 30-day trial version of any of our products to try it yourself.

WorldWide Telescope - pretty, but not revolutionary

Microsoft Research has launched a public beta of the WorldWide Telescope (WWT) this week, which has generated considerable buzz in the blogosphere - mainly because über-geek blogger Robert Scoble stated that it made him cry when he saw a preview earlier this year.

I just downloaded the beta version myself and it is indeed pretty. Think of Google Earth, but looking outward at the universe rather than at our planet here. You can scroll and zoom and explore and see the night sky in much more detail than most people have ever experienced in a planetarium. It has a detailed database of astronomical objects, including stars, planets, constellations, and galaxies. You can use a search function to find any celestial object, or you can use the locator pane that points out noteworthy objects in your current field of view.

And it comes with great guided tours - slides, pictures from different wavelength images, and narration - that give you expert insights into little corners of the universe you didn't know about. And it allows you to control your actual telescope to zoom in on the same object you are viewing on your computer. And it's free. So it's a nice educational tool, no doubt.

But does it make me cry?

Hardly, if you consider that it has all been done before. For the avid hobby astronomer such features have already been available for quite a while. Starry Night Software does exactly what the WWT does, i.e. it lets you explore the night sky and provides guided tours to various astronomical events, controls your telescope, and it has far more features than the WWT. The only difference is that you have to buy Starry Night on a CD/DVD and install it on your computer, whereas you use WWT like you are using Google Earth: with a thin client viewer and all the data resides on the web.

The one thing I do like about the WWT is that any tours created in the software are, of course, stored in XML format. Microsoft hasn't yet published the specifications or schema for them, but I was able to create a short tour myself and then edited it further with our XMLSpy XML Editor.

So what is so innovative about the WWT that it warrants such a buzz? All it does is apply the thin client viewer plus cloud database approach to an astronomy application. That is certainly not revolutionary - I'd say it's not even original. Why you need a research lab to do it, is beyond me. It sure is a pretty application, but it simply doesn't deserve the hype and attention.

Pheasant Glass

I have previously thrown in a few restaurant reviews in this XML Aficionado blog, but after some careful consideration over a recent vacation trip to the west coast, I came to the conclusion that it makes more sense to collect those in a separate blog and to keep XML Aficionado focused on technology, XML, and the occasional update from the Red Sox.
For those of you interested in restaurant and hotel reviews, please take a look at our new Pheasant Glass blog and read about our recent trip through California with stops in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Luis Obispo, Carmel Valley, and San Francisco.

BlogRush: useful blog syndication or evil pyramid scheme

There's been a lot of talk about BlogRush recently and bloggers seem to be divided into one camp that subscribes to the "useful blog syndication tool" idea vs. another camp that paints BlogRush as an "evil pyramid scheme".

On the surface - if you look at their video - it does indeed appear to be both. There is clearly a benefit to the individual blogger who adds the widget to their site, and there is also clearly a pyramid scheme involved. But in contrast to evil pyramid schemes based on money (Amway, etc.), which can rip apart families and friends because you suddenly trying to sell stuff to them all the time, BlogRush is solely based on trading impressions of syndicated links. I see nothing wrong with that.

So I would term it a "useful blog syndication tool based on a non-evil pyramid scheme".

I do, of course, expect them to eventually open their syndication network to advertisers who can promote their new blog for pay across this network. But there isn't anything wrong with that either...

Conclusion: I'm going to give it a try (see sidebar on the right when you visit my site) or go to the BlogRush website to learn more and/or sign up your blog.