The difference between Adobe Flex Builder and Adobe Flash Builder

Adobe Flex Builder (FB) is the product name for FB product release 1, 2, and 3 of Adobe's Rich Internet Application (RIA) client and Adobe AIR solution development tool. FB 4 is being renamed from Flex Builder to Flash Builder 4 for its initial product release in the first-half of 2010.

The Flex to Flash product name change is to better position the FB development tool product to be better positioned with Adobe's extensive family of Flash development tools and platforms.

Connecting SQL Server 2005 JDBC to JBOSS

We have seen some questions on how to connect a SQL Server in the Windows environment to  jBoss. So I wrote a little how-to that describes just that.
It turns out that it is actually very simple.
Essentially, all that’s involved with installing the driver is:
  1. Download the jdbc driver from here; http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=e22bc83b-32ff-4474-a44a-22b6ae2c4e17&displaylang=en#filelist  (Scroll to the bottom of the screen)
  2. You can either download the Windows or Unix version. It does not really matter which one you use. For this example I use the Windows version.
  3. Run the downloaded exe file; this will create a directory called Microsoft SQL Server 2005 JDBC Driver in the directory you downloaded the file to.
  4. Copy the file Microsoft SQL Server 2005 JDBC Driver\sqljdbc_1.0\enu\sqljdbc.jar to your $JBOSS_HOME/server/default/lib
  5. Set your data source of your application to use the driver;

   
        DATASOURCENAME
        jdbc:sqlserver://DATABASE URL;databaseName=jboss;
        com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerDriver
        DATABASE USERNAME
        DATABASE PASSWORD
  
NOTE: Substitute DATASOURCE NAME, DATABASE-URL, DATABASE USERNAME and DATABASE PASSWORD for your local values.
And that is all there is to it. jBoss now should be able to connect to the SQL Server

H-P, Microsoft To Spend $250M In Effort To Simplify IT Management

Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) unveiled details of a three-year pact to spend $250 million in an effort to help simplify information-technology systems.
The tech titans say they plan to invest an additional $250 million into developing new products around the Microsoft Windows Azure platform, with the companies offering services and Microsoft continuing to invest in H-P hardware for the Azure infrastructure.
The two tech giants said they will collaborate in designing a full "stack" of data center hardware, software management tools and other applications, as well as on Windows Azure, which is Microsoft's operating platform for cloud computing, in which customers can access data center services over the Internet.