Software Development Product Reviews


Briefing: Fortify Software

Fortify Software offers a high-end static analysis tool set dedicated to checking security issues.

Review: InstallShield X

The latest round of InstallShield's flagship product rolls in online update management and cross-platform installs, bringing everything that the setup developer needs to a single product.

Review: VisualMake

A visual build tool matched to the Microsoft tool chain, VisualMake offers a good way to automate building your Visual Studio .NET projects.

Product Review: XML in the vortex: A review of VorteXML Designer V3

VorteXML Designer V3 is a capable tool with solid functionality, but it is missing the polish and some features that would make it truly excellent.

A review of SpectrumSCM 2.0 and StateCoder

Mike Gunderloy reviews SpectrumSCM 2.0 and StateCoder

Review: STYLEVISION 2004

Newly overhauled for 2004, this GUI for producing XSLT and XSL-FO stylesheets offers more power an options than ever before.

Review: Text Monkey PRO

Text Monkey PRO is a nice little utility if your job involves cutting and pasting text - it can clean up almost any problem you can think of.

Review: PDFtoolkit Professional

PDFtoolkit offers a COM-based infrastructure for manipulating Adobe Acrobat files.

Briefing: Business Services Network

Grand Central wants to be the switchboard for Service Oriented Architectures - and they just might succeed.

Briefing: LightStreamer

Push technology isn't dead; if you want a way to send content to a browser, take a look at LightStreamer.

Briefing: CMSmx

A content management system for sites written in Flash, that itself works as a Flash application, CMSmx offers a way to open up Flash content to non-developers.

Briefing: XWall 3.0

This Web Services firewall now offers WSDL validation for developers, making it a product that both admins and programmers can love.

Briefing: X-registry

Infravio's X-registry offers a federated Web services registry designed to help you build a marketplace for service providers and consumers.

Review: Reflector 4.0

Reflector is an essential part of the .NET developer's toolbox - and it's even free!

Review: Ektron CMS300

Extron offers a browser-based CMS, complete with an excellent editing control, that should be able to handle most content management tasks.

Underplugged tools

There are plenty of tools - here's my current pick of some that could use a little more publicity, simply because they're useful to have around.

Briefing: InstallShield X

InstallShield adds online update and cross-platform compatability to its all-in-one setup building package.

Review: Newslook

Although it's still in beta, this Outlook-integrated NNTP newsreader is already worth a closer look.

Review: UltraEdit

This shareware editor packs a large number of features into a low-price package. Worth a look for your text editing needs.

Review: SpectrumSCM

SpectrumSCM offers an excellent value in cross-platform source code management