Hello and welcome!  We have been insanely busy for the last two weeks and managed to miss an editorial publication.  :-(   We will endeavor to be better about our scheduling.

Big changes to our various web properties have been made recently - specifically related to jboss.com and jboss.org - JBoss.com has been folded into redhat.com and hopefully all your previously bookmarked URLs are being redirected properly.  Leave us a comment if you feel there is something we missed.  In the case of jboss.org - it has been relaunched with a new, more engaging front page - where we are making it much more obvious how to get started with building applications using various JBoss technologies. 

jboss.org has historically been much more of a community OSS site where contributors, both internal and external to the organization, have been able to collaboratively work on some amazing technologies over the last several years.   However, we realize that we had an under-served userbase - developers whose primary focus was to build business applications on middleware, not necessarily build middleware itself.   For that group, we have developed and launched a new microsite of www.jboss.org/developer.  Our initial efforts have been around getting you started with HTML5 and mobile web application development and easy deployment to Openshift.  And that leads me to another major delivery.

This week we gave birth to JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 6 Beta - based on jboss.org's application server v7.1 and we also shipped JBoss Developer Studio 5 Beta 1 to support this new Java EE 6 offering.   The bottom line is, keep you eyes on www.jboss.org/developer - more tutorials, more videos and more examples will be coming soon.

• JBoss visits Transylvania - Kabir "Van Helsing" Khan not only has a cool name but he has had some interesting travels.  He visited the Transylvania Users Group to deliver a presentation on JBoss AS7, Java EE6 and JAX-RS.   The Transylvanian Duke reminds of one of our newest projects - Immutant

• JBoss in Egypt - Lukas Fryc, a member of our rocking RichFaces team, made a trip to Cairo for the 2012 Java Developer Conference.  Lukas was brilliantly able to cover Aerogear, RichFaces and Arquillian and he kindly posted his slides for review.  In addition, our very own Koen Aers presented and even had the time for an interview! Check out the video on his blog titled "Code like an Egyptian".  Koen has been bringing Forge to life inside of JBoss Tools.   We will definitely have to update some videos around Forge & Tools soon.  

• Eric Schabell have also been out and about, delivering presentations on jBPM and Cloud/OpenShift - he also has some video of a jBPM presentation.  Speaking of jBPM, that team continues to bring the power of Open Source to the otherwise arcane (ok, just really expensive) world of BPM.   Tiho Surdilovic cranked out a great blog showing off the jBPM Web Designer - that is right, design those business processes via your browser.  In addition, Kris Verlaenen, produced some jBPM demo videos showing off the power of jBPM in action.  It is very fun watching the power of the open source community and open standards (BPMN2) transform a previously unassailable industry.  And I will let you in on a little secret, great community contributors are normally the next Red Hat employees - Welcome Maciej
  
  
• The Teiid team is bringing back Dynamic VDBs - Dynamic VDBs using DDL with out Teiid Designer - Your virtual databases can now be defined, on-the-fly, aggregating schema & data from multiple external databases (and files).   If you love data - this is the project for you to check out.   Personally, I think the DDL definition for a VDB is awesome.  Now you can get your vi/emacs on with Teiid.  :-)
  
  
• Manik Surtani runs from the USA to Poland but still has found the time to backport Java 8's ConcurrentHashMaps to Infinispan. Memory reduction means better performance.
  
  
• Get the 411 on Hibernate - that is 4.1.1, we now refer to Hibernate "core" as ORM as it releases at different times from Search, Tools, Validator, OGM, Metamodel, etc.
  
  
• Hardy Ferentschik publishes a blog on the Hibernate Validator project roadmap - BeanValidation is part of EE6 and the OSS project that moves it forward continues to innovate.
  
  
• And a moving Hibernate Validator is an indicator that JBoss' Emmanuel Bernard is cranking up BeanValidation 1.1 for Java EE7.
  
  
• Does "NoSQL" = "No Transactions" - "I don't think" so says Mark Little in this recent blog post.  :-) OK, I am paraphrasing but it is good to see that the NoSQL movement is also interested in aspects of data integrity even if they are non-relational.  
  
  
• Team Errai continues to innovate (and blog) with numerous enhancements that extend the power of Java EE 6 to the browser with Google Web Toolkit (GWT).  Christian Sadilek provides code for a MVP (model view presenter) example and a fantastic blog post explaining it.  Mike Brock goes deep with Marshalling in Errai 2.0.
  
  
• Thomas Diesler and the JBoss OSGi team released 1.1.0-Final with over 80 fixes and many enhancements - not too mention a nice user guide.
  
  
• Geoffrey De Smet produces yet another great video showing off Drools Planner - have you ever had to write code to properly load a warehouse so that the most popular inventory is in the most accessible bins? Or have you had to pack and route a truck for the most efficient delivery order?  Geoffrey must have worked in some warehouses as a young lad. :-)  Check out his vehicle routing video and this blog on chained execution means OSS will soon solve the world's energy challenges.  That's right open source software saves you gas - Go green.
  
  
• GateIn (eXo + JBoss) brings us Java EE 6 Portal with 3.2.0.Final - plus the GateIn project opens the proverbial kimono all the way - check out their specifications page.  In addition, they have produced some nice screencasts by Nick Scavelli, I am a sucker for video - I guess because I was born during the rise of MTV (which used to actually show videos - I know hard to imagine).
  
  
• The Mazz (John Mazzitelli) provides us with some great insight into RHQ - monitoring custom data from DB queries - Make data a monitorable metric - I wonder if we can combine that with Drools Planner? When inventory levels drop below a certain point, kick of a Planner job to determine the best place to replenish from based on price and time.  
  
  
• There is good in this world according to Anil Saldhana (and Samwise Gamgee) and it is Open Source and what that means to the world of information security.  I have to agree OSS has made the world a better place and a more secure one as well.
  
  
• Google Summer of Code 2012 - Dan Allen posts about our recent submissions for the GSoC - students from around the globe will have the opportunity to participate in the open source movement.  This is a wonderful program that incourages the next generation - to work in the open, collaboratively, for the greater good - and it looks great on a resume!

Well that is all I have for now - JBoss has been extraordinarily active already in 2012 and the pace is quickening - more innovations, more presentations and more community. 

If you are one of the lucky few who managed to score a ticket to DevNexus 2012 in Atlanta, please find me and say hello.

Burr