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GIS the facts, ma'am

If your applications deal with geographical data, you'll appreciate the release of GeoRoute v. 1.0 from Blue Marble Geographics. GeoRoute lets you easily add routing features to your applications using existing mapping data in MapInfo MIF or ESRI Shape files, which means you don't need to develop custom routing databases. Routing can be optimized based on distance or time and can be between any two points with optional intermediate stops.

If your mapping data doesn't contain attributes like speed, GeoRoute lets you specify defaults. GeoRoute saves driving directions to an Xbase file you can manipulate in your application to graphically display the route, provide textual driving directions, and so forth.

GeoRoute is a DLL that's compatible with Visual Basic, C++, Delphi, PowerBuilder, C++Builder, and other Windows development tools. Web servers like Microsoft's IIS that support calling DLLs from server-side objects can also take advantage of GeoRoute, so you can also build Internet and intranet applications that provide routing and driving directions.

Fawcette acquires Visual C++ magazine and conference

Fawcette Technical Publications, publishers of Visual Basic Programmer's Journal, Java Pro, and Enterprise Development, among other magazines, announced that it has acquired Visual C++ Developers Journal and the Visual C++ Developers Conference from TPD Publishing. The Visual C++ Developers Journal Web site will be integrated into Fawcette's The Development Exchange.

Visual C++ Developers Conference joins Fawcette's Visual Basic Insiders Technical Summit (VBITS) conference. The next Visual C++ Developers Conference takes place in Anaheim, November 1-3.

Red Hat loses millions, is worth billions; go figure

Red Hat, "a leading provider and developer of open source software, services and information," has reported its second fiscal quarter results. In the first six months of its current fiscal year, Red Hat reported a loss of US$5.2 million. At the close of Thursday's market, Red Hat's stock price of US$101 gave it a market capitalization of US$6.75 billion.

I can't really top that kind of news, can I?

JTable got you down?

If you're looking for a powerful spreadsheet for your Java applications or applets, check out Tidestone Technologies's Formula One, recently released in version 7.0. Formula One is a JavaBean that provides your users with a Microsoft Excel-compatible spreadsheet, featuring support for 325 of Excel's 329 worksheet functions and reading and writing of Excel files, including those of Excel 2000.

Formula One supports JDBC connections to a wide variety of databases to act as a database reporting tool. Formula One can be used as a server-side component, providing Excel file compatibility and Formula One's powerful spreadsheet calculation engine for server-side scripts. Used server-side, Formula One can write a spreadsheet as an HTML table, which is useful on devices that don't support Java.

New to Formula One v. 7.0 are two-dimensional charting compatible with Excel's charts; undo and redo; Java 2 v. 1.2.2, Swing, and Java2D support; and support for JavaSoft's InfoBus specification.