Ruby on Gears is a content plus framework built in 100% Ruby on top of the popular Ruby on Rails. Ruby on Gears provides a turn-key user & administration environment suitable for CRM, Project Management, Document Management, Corporate Intranets, Expert Systems, Vertical Search Engines, Social Information Networks, Corporate Blogging, Public websites and as core code for custom development projects. More info

SYS-CON Events (www.events.sys-con.com)announced today that the first 'Real-World Ruby on Rails' One-Day Seminar(www.rubyonrailsseminar.com) will take place on October 3, 2006, at theSanta Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, California. More info

Something should happen with a programming language to bring it to life. For example, Jesse James Garrett came out with an acronym AJAX, and JavaScript became popular. David Heinemeier Hansson created Ruby on Rails and Ruby became a household name. (On a side note...I'm wondering, should I also increase the length of my name to come up with something valuable? Something like Yakov Edson Arantes Do Nascimento Fain? Hmm... not too bad). More info

Adobe is open sourcing the remoting and messaging technologies in its commercial LiveCycle Data Services ES - Adobe's route to the Internet - as a new product called BlazeDS. The widgetry, along with the Action Message Format (AMF) protocol specification, is being sent into the wild under the Lesser General Public License (LGPL v3), making Adobe the first major company to use the little-used new license. Public betas are out at labs.adobe.com. More info

FiveRuns Corporation, a pioneer of monitoring products for Ruby on Rails, described by some as the new Java, has gotten $6.2 million in funding from Austin Ventures. The money is earmarked for acceleration product development, sales and marketing and the company's partnership efforts. Since it kicked off a year ago August, FiveRuns has secured $9.2 million in funding. It claims a customer base of 65 organizations or so that it says are monitoring hundreds of servers, with 'hundreds' in evaluation. More info

As the web continues to gain a well-deserved recognition for being the most prudent choice for a de facto computing platform, the issue of its API is becoming very critical. In this presentation, Alex Bunardzic will argue that Ruby on Rails might be the most optimal API for programming the web. He bases his convictions on the fact that Rails is built upon the Resource-Oriented Architecture (ROA) which has REST as its underpinning. Not only has that architecture emerged as a publicly vetted standard, it's also notable for its radical simplicity (introducing the unbelievably simple inventory of only four verbs!) Compared to the astronomically complex inventory of countless verbs that Service=Oriented Architecture (SOA) demands, ROA is proving to be much easier to program, especially when using Rails. More info

The two person programmer team behind the Unobtrusive JavaScript plugin for Ruby on Rails announced a new version of their product. The plugin is intended to help web developers using Ruby on Rails to create JavaScript and AJAX applications more easily. This includes the ability to define page bahavior with CSS and Ruby, to use built-in JavaScript and AJAX helpers, and to apply unobtrusively script.aculo.us effects. More info

The Ruby programming language climbed up to the 13th place in the Tiobe index, it deserves to be taken seriously. Bruce Tate is a well know proponent of Ruby. While some people are quick to blame any Java developer who is looking into other languages,in my opinion it's an attitude of weak people. If we want Java keep evolving, we need to look around. I've asked Bruce several questions about this programming language. More info

Open sourcing Java won't matter - it's a non-event. Ruby and Ruby on Rails won't make it in 2007 either. I still do not see a compelling reason to switch. AJAX hype is stronger than I thought mainly because of the life support offered by frameworks like GWT. But still, I'm not going to recommend enterprise IT shops make any serious investments in AJAX. More info

According to its founding light David Heinemeier Hansson, Ruby on Rails (RoR) is about 'taking the pain away and making you happy.' Hansson says he knowingly advises people, before they try Rails, to cut their teeth in web-development on the mainstream offerings first. 'Once you've tried developing a substantial application in Java or PHP or C# or whatever,' he says, 'the difference in Rails will be readily apparent. You gotta feel the hurt before you can appreciate the cure.' More info