by Peter Van Dijck – XFML is a simple XML format for exchanging metadata in the form of faceted hierarchies, sometimes called taxonomies. Its basic building blocks are topics, also called categories. XFML won’t solve all your metadata needs. It’s focused on interchanging faceted classification and i

By Bill O’Brien – Unable to persuade you to buy new hardware based on its whizbang features alone, hardware vendors are hoping that a new gaseous software format will force you to expand your server farms despite the tight economy.

Regarding "Make Your XML Secure," by Jason Bock [.NET Magazine, November 2002]: Making applications secure is a lot more trouble than learning how to encrypt a section of XML. The XML Signature and XML Encryption standards are useful to be sure, but they beg several troubling issues.

Enterprise Java expert Dennis Sosnoski looks at several XML data binding approaches using code generation from W3C XML Schema or DTD grammars for XML documents. He starts out with the long-awaited JAXB standard now nearing release through the Java Community Process (JCP), then summarizes some of the

by Rich Salz – According to the conventional wisdom, web services will not be successful until they’re “secure.” Without discussing the accuracy of the claim, let’s look at what it means. In the web services context security means that a message recipient will be able to do some or all of the follow

This sample application demonstrates authenticating users via username and password and encrypting SOAP messages using private key (symmetric) encryption built-into the WSE. It includes a sample web.config file with the necessary WSE entries, sample classes that implement the IPasswordProvider and I

Preparing for an interview? Or just want to refresh your XML skills? Here are 100 questions on XML and related technologies. This first part presents 20 questions to assess the basic concepts. Part II would focus on XML implementation questions specific to Microsoft platform, part III on Java XML, p

Although the model of Web service interoperability is straightforward, it introduces new development practices and methodologies that can be difficult to learn. However, it can be a short-lived hurdle if you recognize certain patterns to design issues.

by Daniel F. Savarese – Developer feedback has evolved Java Architecture for XML Binding (JAXB) into a version that better meets your needs. Take a fresh look at JAXB, and see how you can expect to write far less SAX and DOM code.

by Kendall Grant Clark – Whether you think of the Semantic Web as a new and exciting promise or as a fantastic and impractical threat, it will not be a separate web but, rather, overlay the existing one. The Semantic Web isn’t a replacement, it’s a supplement. Both the existing web (the “Human Web”)