XML EDITOR CHOSEN AS ‘BEST DEVELOPMENT PLATFORM’ FOR ITS STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE TO THE MARKET, COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES, AND VALUE TO ITS CUSTOMERS BEVERLY, Mass., August 4, 2008 – Altova® ( http://www.altova.com ), creator of XMLSpy®, the industry leading XML editor, and other popular XML, data management, UML, and Web services tools, today announced that XMLSpy was named as a gold medal winner of the “2008 Editor’s Best Award” in the Development Platform category by Penton Media’s SQL Server Magazine®. “The 2008 Editor’s Best Awards utilize our editors' product knowledge and subject matter expertise to identify exceptional products that benefit the Windows IT Pro and SQL Server Magazine reader communities,” said Jeff Lewis, group publisher. “Our editors selected winners based on the product's strategic importance to the market, its competitive advantages and its value to the customer.” “Our editors are tough, in-the-trenches critics,” Lewis continued. “They demand solid value and performance from the products they select. Editor’s Best Award winners can feel proud that the products and services they developed have earned the respect and recognition of the Windows IT Pro and SQL Server Magazine editorial staff.” Altova XMLSpy is the industry’s best-selling XML editor and XML development environment for modeling, editing, transforming, and debugging XML-related technologies, including XML, XML Schema, DTD, XSLT, XPath, XQuery, SOAP, WSDL, and more. It offers the top XML editor, schema designer, code generator, converters, debuggers, and profilers. XMLSpy is also used to automatically generate class files from XML Schemas in multiple programming languages (Java, C#, C++), and it provides support for Office Open XML (OOXML) in Microsoft® Office documents. “Altova is thrilled that XMLSpy has been recognized by the editorial team at SQL Server Magazine as the industry leading XML development platform,” said Alexander Falk, President and CEO for Altova. “With each new version of XMLSpy, we are adding features and functionality that help give developers an edge in today’s marketplace, and we’re proud to be recognized for our contributions to the software development industry year after year.” Altova XMLSpy 2008 is currently available with pricing starting at $599 (USD). XMLSpy may be purchased stand-alone or as part of the Altova MissionKit™ 2008 product bundle – both are available directly from the Altova Online Shop at: https://shop.altova.com To download a 30-day free trial of XMLSpy 2008 or the MissionKit 2008, visit: http://www.altova.com/download.html

Web-based expert systems guide users through complex decision-making processes using interactive, intelligent question and answer sessions. They are core software applications that can improve the operational efficiency of your key business processes. Using the Vanguard System™, you can capture business rules and build applications that go beyond the scope of traditional expert systems such as: * Troubleshooting in online help-desks, * Product selection on company Web sites, * Call-scripting for customer service centers, * Ensuring regulatory compliance throughout an organization, * And, many others. Vanguard combines expert system decision-making technology with quantitative methods to create expert system applications that appear to users to be very simple Wizard-like tools. However, they are actually high-end, dynamic, automated decision-support systems with extremely sophisticated analytic capabilities. Capturing an expert's knowledge allows novices to use that expertise to gain expert-quality results without having to understand the underlying decision-making methods being applied. Employees benefit from expert systems that allow them to solve problems and attain actionable results that help them do their jobs more quickly and efficiently. Web site customers get answers to their questions easily as your online system dynamically interacts with them. Automated help desks, diagnostic tools, claims processing applications, and much more can all be built quickly and easily in Vanguard's simple interface. What's more, Vanguard's unique use of expert system technology offers the distinct advantage of quickly removing services as they become obsolete, or easily modifying them as their features change. Expert System Development Without Programming Vanguard enables you to build Web expert systems without programming, in real time, and from multiple locations. The Vanguard Content Management System (CMS) is a Web-based development environment that uses visual editors much like word processing software to build advanced expert systems that are delivered on the Web. Multiple contributors from anywhere in the world can simultaneously develop and maintain a CMS expert system using only their Web browsers. CMS provides the rapid expert systems development and maintenance you need to improve the operational efficiency of your key business processes.

here was a time when only technically-savvy people knew how to create content and publish it to the internet, but the rise of easy-to-use blogging and CMS systems changed that. Today, everyone can be a publisher. Now, Iceberg wants to bring that same democratization to programming. In fact, that's their vision for Web 3.0 - the web where everyone is a programmer. We covered Iceberg last year, when it was still in private beta. Back then, co-founder Wayne Byrne was declaring "war on software," and today, he continues that battle. With Iceberg, any user can create a web application using its simple, DIY tools. And to make sure everyone has a chance to learn how to do so, Iceberg is made available for free. The free version supports up to 5 users, but once you go beyond that, each additional user is $200/each. For non-profits and educational institutions, though, the software remains free. There's even a high school in the U.K. where the teens are being taught to program using Iceberg instead of code. Learning Iceberg is relatively easy - Byrne says "20 minutes and you can be a programmer" - I'd argue it's a bit more than that if you haven't ever been exposed to any programming concepts, but it's far from impossible. To get you started, there's a vast and well-documented training section available from Iceberg's web site, which includes free sample applications, step-by-step guides, screenshots, diagrams, videos, and more.

Extensoft announced today the release of Artisteer, its Web design automation software to create professional blog themes and Website templates, at this week’s BlogWorld Expo show at the Las Vegas Convention Center – South Hall S-3 (booth number 508). The product eliminates the need to learn Photoshop, Dreamweaver, HTML, CSS or other Web technologies to produce original Website designs. The finished designs can be output as a Wordpress Blog Theme, XHTML+CSS driven Web designs and CMS Templates, Web Application Templates, with planned support for Joomla, Drupal, Blogger, and other CMS and blog systems. The design automation, variety of design elements, and precision control features wrapped in an intuitive interface enable technology professionals to the average blogger with little or no technical experience to quickly build professional presence based on validated HTML and the smart use of CSS. “Web designers spend anywhere from a few hours to a few days to create and convert a Photoshop design into a proper Website template in XHTML and CSS format, or even longer to create Wordpress themes," said Leonid Evstafiev, Artisteer product manager. “Artisteer eliminates all these steps and cuts the time to 15 minutes. Start by pressing the 'Suggest Design' button until Artisteer creates a design you like, then adjust a few properties and export your design – it’s really that easy.” Artisteer was built using a thorough standards-based approach with support for tableless layouts in XHTML & CSS output, W3C color contrasting and Section 508 standards. The groundbreaking engineering also minimizes page load times by utilizing CSS image fusion that decreases the number of images used for displaying buttons, rounded corners and various effects. Artisteer also solves many Web browser compatibility and technical problems facing professional Web designers, making it an essential Web design tool for professionals and amateurs alike, no matter how simple or complex the project. Artisteer runs on Windows 2000/XP/Vista, is priced at $49.95 to $149.95 per user, and is available now at www.artisteer.com. BlogWorld & New Media Expo is the first and only industry-wide tradeshow, conference and media event dedicated to promoting the dynamic industry of blogging and new media. BlogWorld features dozens of seminars, panel discussions and keynotes from iconic personalities on the leading-edge of online technology and Internet-savvy business. Designed to give participants the strategies, tools and technologies they need to stake their claim in the blogosphere. About Extensoft Extensoft is a unique consumer software company with the goal of bringing creativity and productivity to computer users worldwide. Extensoft is located in Seattle, Washington and Las Vegas, Nevada.