InfoWorld Daily | Tom Sullivan
May 09, 2008
The sweetest wireless LAN system
If you work at a smaller business, you'll know it hasn't been easy to find a small, secure, managed wireless network that's also easy to deploy and administer. Look no further. The Test Center's Curtis Franklin Jr. reviews Ruckus Wireless' ZoneFlex Smart WLAN System and says flat out: "The product is aimed squarely at SMB wireless LANs, and it's the best I've seen for the small-business market." Franklin found the ZoneFlex Smart WLAN System to be powerful, easy, and yes, smart, making managed wireless networks a no-brainer for small deployments. "If you're an SMB that wants to provide wireless access... more
TAGS: None
May 09, 2008
Daily News beat for May 9, 2008
Installing Windows XP SP3 sends some PCs into an endless series of reboots. A Windows blogger has tentatively identified XP SP3's problem as involving only machines using processors from AMD. Apple is once again being pilloried for its green credentials, taking last place among computer firms rated within a recent ClimateCounts survey on climate friendliness. Windows Vista has experienced 639 unique vulnerabilities over the last six months, slightly more vulnerabilities than Windows 2000. AT&T has offered no explanation for why it scrubbed from its Web site all references to iPhone users receiving free access to AT&T's public wireless hotspots. In... more
TAGS: Platforms
May 09, 2008
InfoWorld Daily Podcast
Microsoft will release four security patches next week, Japan may add a copyright fee to the iPod, Microsoft to increase its focus on mobile phones, MySpace launches a data portability initiative, and more LISTEN!... more
TAGS: Podcast
May 09, 2008
InfoWorld News Quiz: You don't know tech
This week Microsoft called off the Yahoo deal (or maybe not). Grand Theft Auto stole the spotlight (again) with its record-breaking sales. Political candidates are on a mission to save us from the evils of Second Life. Along the way, we dazzle you with numbers involving big settlements for movie piracy, game sales, and Apple's rank in Consumer Reports' recent evaluation of tech support. Think you know tech? Prove it and take the InfoWorld News Quiz.... more
TAGS: News quiz
May 09, 2008
One man's quest to fix the Internet
InfoWorld's Roger Grimes is a man on a mission: He thinks of nothing else but how to secure the Internet. Think that's an exaggeration? How may people do you know who "spent [their] honeymoon thinking and writing about a possible solution"? In today's Security Adviser blog, Grimes gives a summation of two of his biggest ideas that have independently ended up in other group's proposals and standards. He has also released a formal whitepaper entitled Fixing the Internet: A Security Solution that encompasses all his main ideas.... more
TAGS: Security
May 08, 2008
Apple leaves Hawaiian investor in the cold
If anyone could figure out a system to let its investors cast their proxy votes online, you'd think it'd be Apple, right? Not so. Ed Foster tells the tale of a reader who gripes that Apple, who "brought us such breakthroughs as the Macintosh, OS X, the iPod and now the iPhone, seems to be the only company in the U.S. which uses a proxy voting service which can't deliver materials in a timely fashion. ... Even Microsoft, using the Swiss cheese of operating systems, is able to deliver their investor materials on time!" Before you write this off as... more
TAGS: Business
May 08, 2008
Daily News beat for May 8, 2008
Six months after its release, Mac OS X Leopard has gained ground and maturity and grown into a solid computing platform with enough new features to tempt Mac users to upgrade. Reports of the death of the Microsoft-Yahoo deal could be greatly exaggerated as there is still a possibility that both sides will return to the bargaining table. Despite a multitude of scripting languages, Sun officials defend the need for the company's new JavaFX Script platform. Mozilla warns that a language pack for Firefox 2 has been infected with an adware code, affecting everybody who has downloaded the pack since... more
TAGS: Platforms
May 08, 2008
InfoWorld Daily Podcast
Microsoft and Yahoo could end up back at the bargaining table, Sprint and Clearwire team up on mobile WiMax, AMD plans to release processors with 12 cores, a Firefox plugin has been infected with adware code, and more LISTEN!... more
TAGS: Podcast
May 08, 2008
Small businesses' ERP deficit
Small businesses have been left out in the cold when it comes to ERP. SAP has labored for 48 months to get Business ByDesign, its SaaS product for the SMB market, off the ground -- and it's still not ready for prime time; Oracle doesn't even pretend to care about smaller businesses; and Microsoft has a sort of SaaS offering -- but just for CRM. Bill Snyder, writing in Tech's Bottom Line blog, finds that "small businesses' on-demand ERP options are limited to offerings from small providers such as Intacct and RightNow Technologies." Snyder provides a clear-headed look at the... more
TAGS: Applications
May 08, 2008
Who wears the pants in your organization?
When it comes to the thorny problem of Web designer vs developer, it turns out that your choice of platform often reveals where the power lies. In "Developers vs. designers: Who wins?" Neil McAllister writes: "Particularly for RIAs (rich Internet applications), where form and function share equal billing, team dynamics can make or break a project. Little wonder, then, that Adobe, Microsoft, and Sun are all racing to market with new tools and platforms aimed at helping developers and designers meet each other halfway." Unfortunately, what McAllister finds upon examining those solutions is that "though well intentioned, these wonder products... more
TAGS: Applications
May 07, 2008
Microsoft EPM: Not just for the enterprise?
Does choosing the right software to keep track of a project sometimes seem like an overwhelming task in itself? Microsoft last year ripped Project Server in two, creating Project Server 2007 and Project Portfolio Server 2007, which are part of what Redmond calls the Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management (EPM) solution. J. Peter Bruzzese takes readers through the capabilities of each in today's Enterprise Windows blog, and then asks "How can Microsoft respond in the mini-market of project management when its offerings ... all seem so gi-normous to the average user?" In Microsoft's favor, "the high-end features of an EPM... more
TAGS: Applications
May 07, 2008
Daily News beat for May 7, 2008
Bill Gates says Microsoft is focused on its independent strategy and won't be pursuing tie-ups or takeovers to replace its failed Yahoo bid. A beta of OpenOffice 3.0 is released that supports the forthcoming ODF 1.2 standard and can open files created with Microsoft Office 2007 or Office 2008 for Mac. At its JavaOne conference, Sun details upcoming versions of Java, that emphasize flexibility, modularity, and OSGi support. Sprint Nextel and Clearwire will form a joint venture worth $14.5 billion to deploy the first nationwide mobile WiMax network. Adware pushers have found a new way to trick you into downloading... more
TAGS: Business
May 07, 2008
InfoWorld Daily Podcast
Sprint and Clearwire sign a $14.5 billion WiMax deal, Panasonic will offer in-flight Internet service, Google reinstates its open-source project, Microsoft revamps its Download Center using Silverlight, and more LISTEN!... more
TAGS: Podcast
May 07, 2008
A timely proposal for IT energy conservation
InfoWorld's Tom Yager has long been outspoken on matters of green computing, and in today's blog proposes an idea for energy conservation that he calls "green delay." "When a Web site takes more than 7 seconds to be ready for interaction, it's said that a great many users will go elsewhere rather than wait the few additional seconds it might take to put up clickable buttons. Sure, time is money, but when did we start calculating the value of our time in increments of seconds or even milliseconds? "I think it's time to consider the flip side of the time/money... more
TAGS: Green IT
May 07, 2008
'Fat' Vista has beefy client hardware needs
Cross-tabular analysis -- "one of those 'nerdy' sounding terms that statisticians like to use when expounding upon their latest data-mining gems" -- is the lifeblood of InfoWorld's Windows Sentinel project. Using tidbit pulled from Windows Sentinel's cross-tabular analysis, Randall C. Kennedy exposes in his blog, how "not only is Vista 'fatter' than XP, it's also more demanding at a very fundamental level. Hence the need for beefier client hardware with lots of cores." Kennedy also outlines how "Vista-based PCs are experiencing roughly 30% higher memory pressure, across the board, than their XP brethren. "But you don't need lots of fancy... more
TAGS: Platforms
May 06, 2008
Riding the autorenewal express
With credit card companies coming under increased scrutiny for unfair and deceptive practices, it seems a good time for Ed Foster to turn the Gripe Line's eye on the role they play in autorenewal situations. In his blog Foster writes: "As autorenewals by security software vendors and others become increasingly common, we need to know whose side our financial institutions are on. "Do credit card companies protect their customers from online services that automatically renew annual subscriptions without clear notice, or do they collude with vendors to keep the transaction fees flowing?" One reader was told by an American Express... more
TAGS: Business
May 06, 2008
InfoWorld News beat for May 6, 2008
A general class-action lawsuit accuses Yahoo of failing to act in the best interest of shareholders in rejecting Microsoft's takeover bid. HTC announces the Touch Diamond Microsoft-based smartphone, which beats rival Apple's iPhone to the punch with 3G capabilities. Intel, Samsung, and TSMC will collaborate on 450mm silicon wafers. Once the chip companies have made the move, users should start to see higher-performing chips at lower prices NBC strikes deal to sell television programs on Microsoft's Zune online store after a pricing spat with Apple led it to pull its content from iTunes. Yahoo searches could turn up fewer hits... more
TAGS: Business
May 06, 2008
InfoWorld Daily Podcast
Yahoo faces a class-action lawsuit, NBC strikes a deal with Microsoft's Zune, Yahoo's stock takes a hit, Chipmakers team up on larger silicon wafers, and more LISTEN!... more
TAGS: Podcast
May 06, 2008
Unix servers made simple and affordable
What could inspire Tom Yager to give up his day, (night, and weekend) job at InfoWorld to enter the PC server business? No, that isn't a question in this week's News Quiz, it's from a review of Apple's latest Xserve, the eight-core Harpertown. "While Apple's latest Xserve uses the Intel Harpertown quad-core, Core 2 Xeon CPU, it is in all other regards the glorious antithesis of a PC server.... Xserve is built and supported to run not for one or two years, but three years, five years, and beyond. If you think I'm having you on, try to find a... more
TAGS: Hardware
May 06, 2008
How to make a DBA blush
What happens when a DBA uncovers copious X-rated chat logs of overheated exchanges between employees? In this week's Off the Record we hear from someone who keeps a local IM gateway server running by working with DBAs to insure the database is backed up and regularly purged of old records. On the occasion in question, he was seeing data corruption and in a last ditch effort to restore it, the DBA looked through the export file to see if the data might be salvageable. What he found were "some very raunchy exchanges, despite the notification ... that the system popped... more
TAGS: IM
May 05, 2008
The Empire strikes back
After foreseeing that the acquisition of SoftGrid technology was a clear sign Microsoft was gearing up to deliver a subscriptions-based, hosted model for Office, Randall C. Kennedy is ready with another bold prediction: Microsoft's Streaming Office will clobber Google Apps. In fact, Kennedy's prepared to stick his neck out and say "Streaming Office will ... eventually drive the search giant out of the hosted applications business altogether. "Faced with a decision between a watered-down, limited, web-dependent pseudo-suite and the full power and richness of Microsoft Office, users will flock to the Microsoft camp." Remember where you read it first!... more
TAGS: Hosted applications
May 05, 2008
InfoWorld News beat for May 5, 2008
Microsoft has dropped its three-month-long pursuit of Yahoo after Yahoo refused its revised offer of $33 per share. The failed acquisition attempt takes Microsoft back to square one in its quest to boost its online business to better compete against Google. Related: Microsoft and Yahoo: What now? Tech-savvy delinquents are setting the Net aflame with boneheaded exploits that earn them the wrong kind of fame. Get the details on the latest generation of cyberschnooks in Stupid hacker tricks, part two: The folly of youth. Sun and the OpenSolaris community are launching the official first version of the open-source OpenSolaris operating... more
TAGS: Business
May 05, 2008
InfoWorld Daily Podcast
Microsoft drops its pursuit of Yahoo, One Laptop Per Child Project appoints a new president, Dell stops shipment of two laptop models, a former U.S. military contractor pleads guilty to aggravated identity theft, and more LISTEN!... more
TAGS: Podcast
May 05, 2008
Zoho CRM aims big but hits small
AdventNet's Zoho CRM Enterprise Edition has garnered a lot of attention thanks to its $25 per user per month sticker price -– a rate well below any other hosted application vendor. Still, the folks at Salesforce.com needn't quake in their boots just yet. James R. Borck of the InfoWorld Test Center put Zoho CRM through its paces and found that it "falls short of enterprise requirements in a number of ways. It lacks basic audit logs essential for tracking changes to record. It's missing field format constraints that help ensure data integrity (for example, by ensuring that e-mail addresses are... more
TAGS: CRM
May 05, 2008
Stupid hacker tricks, part two
In this latest installment of "Stupid hacker tricks," Andrew Brandt takes a look at the follies of youth and finds the current generation of cyberschnooks have transformed themselves "from Those Neighborhood Kids Who Set Fires and Torture Small Animals into international menaces who destroy online communities, damage the reputation and utility of online services, and steal anything worth taking from the Net -- all while mangling the English language as thoroughly as possible." Fortunately for the rest of us, "most are as sloppy and egotistical as we've come to expect from the young and delinquent, leaving a bread-crumb trail a... more
TAGS: Security
May 02, 2008
InfoWorld News Quiz: You don't know tech
This week a new U.K. band with an insufferably cute name is featured on the latest Apple iTunes commercial. Grand Theft Auto IV, breakthroughs in computer design, and imaginary iPhones have their moment in the spotlight. Quick, how much will the mythical iPhone 2.0 allegedly cost? Too easy? How about this one: What's the catchy acronym for Microsoft's new cop tool? Think you know tech? Prove it and take the InfoWorld News Quiz.... more
TAGS: News quiz
May 02, 2008
Daily News beat for May 2, 2008
Microsoft reportedly is gearing up for a hostile acquisition of Yahoo, with a formal announcement possible Friday. Yahoo could begin carrying Google ads within a week, making it more difficult for Microsoft to take over Yahoo. IBM outlined plans for an online applications marketplace that will let businesses browse and purchase apps from potentially thousands of ISVs. Researchers have discovered a complex spamming scheme that uses a backdoor called Edunet to hijack users' PCs in order to send junk mail via university and military systems. Sun blames its third-quarter revenue drop on a weak U.S. economy and costs of the... more
TAGS: Business
May 02, 2008
InfoWorld Daily Podcast
Microsoft close to hostile bid for Yahoo, IBM launches online applications marketplace, EMC extends Mozy online backup service, Sun to cut 2,500 jobs, and more LISTEN!... more
TAGS: Podcast
May 02, 2008
BEA employees in mourning
What was loosely termed a "wake" to recognize that BEA no longer exists as an independent company featured a humorous, makeshift casket in the corner of the room. But InfoWorld Editor at Large Paul Krill writes that the event nonetheless seemed to be a cheery gathering. One BEA employee conceded that the merger makes sense, saying "it's actually a very good, powerful synergy between the companies." Another employee observed "Oracle offered a fair price, and the board has a fiduciary responsibility to accept it." Still, the absorption of BEA into Oracle does represent a loss. "What's a shame is that... more
TAGS: Business
May 02, 2008
Small form factor drives mount viable challenge
The 3.5-inch drive has reigned for years in enterprise storage arrays, but a viable challenger has appeared on the scene. In an exclusive review of Infortrend's recently released EonStor B12S storage array, Mario Apicella finds a convincing case for 2.5-inch drives. The end result is "a system that delivers performance and reliability comparable with large arrays -- not to mention a variety of redundancy features -- and all within a smaller footprint and with lower energy consumption. "Notably, Infortrend was the first vendor to market with a storage enclosure based on [small form factor] drives, but Xyratex announced a 2U... more
TAGS: Storage
May 01, 2008
New iPhone spawns rampant rumors
Zack Urlocker isn't apologizing for being a bit iPhone obsessed of late. And as he writes in his blog, there is a lot to get excited about -- in the rumor department, anyway. "Looks like the new iPhone is slated for release in June and will include a new firmware upgrade 2.0 as well as some new capabilities ... including 3G support, the possibility of a 5 megapixel camera, video recording and playback, FM radio, and a capuccino maker. Ok, I'm kidding about the capuccino maker." There is also speculation that "there may be a new formfactor iPhone announced in... more
TAGS: Hardware
May 01, 2008
Daily News beat for May 1, 2008
Microsoft confirmed that it delayed the rollout of Windows XP SP3 because changes to the OS can corrupt data in the company's retail point-of-sale and store management software. Adobe announced a new initiative, called the Open Screen Project, which opens up access to its Flash technology. Researchers at Hewlett-Packard have developed a memory circuit that could ultimately replace RAM and make computers more intelligent by tracking data it has retained. Microsoft's board of directors met to decide how to proceed with the company's bid to acquire Yahoo, although no final decision was reached. Tibco will make a play in the... more
TAGS: Platforms
May 01, 2008
InfoWorld Daily Podcast
Adobe opens access to Flash, Microsoft's board meets over the Yahoo bid, Skype improves the voice quality of its VoIP software, HP is building intelligent memory, and more LISTEN!... more
TAGS: Podcast
May 01, 2008
Does keeping XP hurt Microsoft's bottom line?
InfoWorld has been leading the charge to save Windows XP. And as Bill Snyder writes in today's Tech's Bottom Line blog, "I might well be inclined to tell InfoWorld to stuff it if I really thought there was a compelling business reason to toss XP overboard. ... But a legitimate business case for dropping XP doesn't exist. "Even factoring out the copies preinstalled on consumer PCs (where XP has not been an option for a year), there's real Vista demand out there that will continue to enrich Microsoft, whether XP is supported or not." Besides, Microsoft already has a way... more
TAGS: Platforms
May 01, 2008
Yahoo and the Facebook dilemma
Yahoo is mounting a major push for third-party developers. Yahoo CTO Ari Balogh says its goal is nothing less than to transform Yahoo from a portal into a bona fide social network. But Neil McAllister, writing in Yahoo and the Facebook dilemma, has a few reservations: "I'm all for opening up online services to third party developers. But in any group of third party developers, there will always be a certain number of bad actors. Often, they won't even realize who they are, because let's face it -- Web developers are hackers." Perhaps Yahoo should take a closer look at... more
TAGS: Social networking
April 30, 2008
Backbase delivers comprehensive suite of rich apps
Ajax vendor Backbase recently introduced a new product called Customer Engagement 2.0. As far as Martin Heller can tell, "the 2.0 in the name has nothing to do with the version, as this is a new product; it has everything to do with the product being about Web 2.0." Customer Engagement 2.0 is built on top of Backbase Enterprise Ajax, and according to the company ""delivers a comprehensive Suite of Rich Applications that brings customer facing web applications to the next level. Customer Engagement 2.0 helps companies create, manage, and deliver online applications more effectively, so they can truly interact... more
TAGS: Web 2.0
April 30, 2008
Daily News beat for April 30, 2008
Tibco is putting its support behind Microsoft's new Silverlight browser plug-in technology for rich Internet applications. SAP is putting the brakes on the roll-out of its Business ByDesign ERP offering for small businesses, as it reported first-quarter net income down 22 percent compared to a year earlier. Skype released an upgrade to its VoIP client for Windows PCs that cuts out more background noise and drops fewer calls. The Service Component Architecture, an SOA specification for transforming IT assets into reusable services, is being billed as a way to lower barriers to adoption and link SOA to Web 2.0. Microsoft... more
TAGS: Application Development
April 30, 2008
InfoWorld Daily Podcast
Tibco backs Microsoft's Silverlight, AOL and Yahoo make Voice over IP moves, LinkedIn expands its social-networking site, 3Com looks to China, and more LISTEN!... more
TAGS: Podcast
April 30, 2008
Is the Microsoft Architecture credential worth the cost?
With the arrival of Windows Server 2008 comes a whole new lineup of exams from Microsoft and the end of the MCSE certification era. At the top of the heap in the new catalog of Microsoft certification options is the Microsoft Certified Architect (MCA) program, which comes in two flavors: one for technology-based architecture skills, which includes training and certification; and one for broad architecture skills (which entails certification only). The costs for the technology-specific MCA certification run $25,000, paid in full before you begin. While the costs for the MCA: Solutions or Infrastructure certifications are $10,000. As J. Peter... more
TAGS: Platforms
April 30, 2008
The view from Microsoft's Live Mesh and Apple's .Mac
As InfoWorld's Tom Yager writes in today's Ahead of the Curve, "While it makes IT break out in hives, professional users need ... secure shared data and remote desktop access without the hassle of VPN." Apple's $99 per year .Mac service (http://www.mac.com) "has the makings of an interesting solution to the desktops-as-servers conundrum." But the iDisk client, set up as a virtual volume, "shows both its age and its consumer-targeted nature. ...Without changes to iDisk, .Mac falls short of requirements for commercial use." Where Apple's .Mac comes close, Microsoft Live Mesh hopes to take it all the way. "What Live... more
TAGS: Microsoft Live Mesh
April 29, 2008
Tax software tax users' patience
Complaints about the 2007 tax-year software have been flooding in, making it necessary for Ed Foster to file this late return on the state of tax programs in Taxing software experiences. The largest number of gripes this year concerned Intuit's TurboTax, but less well-known tax software vendors came in for questions about their accuracy as well. And H&R Block's TaxCut was the subject of one short piece earlier this year. This Gripe Line account may not "help to weed out the bad apples, because it seemed like just about all of the programs came in for criticism on support, accuracy,... more
TAGS: Applications
April 29, 2008
Daily News beat for April 29, 2008
The world's largest contract laptop maker is warning that a shortage of batteries could hurt smaller PC vendors. AOL and Yahoo will provide fee-based VoIP features in their AIM and Yahoo Messenger IM services, and for the first time AOL has given external developers access to its Call Out feature via APIs. Internet telephony startup Ribbit launched a service today that merges telephony with Salesforce.com's on-demand CRM software. Around 100 laptop designs based on AMD's upcoming Puma platform are being readied ahead of the chips' scheduled launch in June. HP is enhancing SOA quality management capabilities in several products in... more
TAGS: Hardware
April 29, 2008
InfoWorld Daily Podcast
Quanta warns of a laptop battery shortage, a Microsoft tool hunts down botnets, 100 laptop designs are on tap for AMD's Puma chip, Xerox showcases erasable paper, and more LISTEN!... more
TAGS: Podcast
April 29, 2008
Windows XP isn't dead yet
Microsoft has finally released the finished version of Windows XP Service Pack 3 to manufacturing. We've been writing about SP3 for nearly six months and speculating about its impact on Vista sales, but this is the real deal! As Randall C. Kennedy observes in today's Enterprise Desktop, "enterprise IT is fascinated with SP3. ... Microsoft has been putting on the full court press with Vista SP1, yet all they hear from their customers is, 'That’s nice. So when will we see Service Pack 3 for XP?'" The wait is over. SP3's list of features remains unchanged from the myriad pre-releases:... more
TAGS: Platforms
April 29, 2008
VoIP phone systems walk the talk
Smaller businesses no longer have to settle for a second-class phone system when trying to compete with larger enterprises. InfoWorld's Test Center reviews five IP PBX appliances from Allworx, Critical Links, Fonality, Microsoft, and Sutus that all have slick telephony features and affordable price tags, but differ significantly in breadth, depth, and complexity. Contributing editor Mike Heck finds them "reasonably priced and easy to administer and use. Some can be installed without the need for expert help. And their telephony features – typically configured and accessed from a browser or lightweight desktop application – are all remarkably sophisticated."... more
TAGS: VoIP
April 28, 2008
Guerrilla IT sounds a lot like open source
A recent InfoWorld feature set Zack Urlocker to thinking about "how so many good innovations have snuck into IT through the back door, the side door and under the radar of what management officially approved." Indeed, Urlocker is discussing open source but he also points to prior instances -- think PCs in the mid-80's -- in which departments and employees took it upon themselves to bring in the technologies they needed. "I suspect this phenomena is wide spread," Urlocker writes in Guerilla IT? Sounds like open source. "So one good step to encourage Guerrilla IT to be effective is to... more
TAGS: Platforms
April 28, 2008
Daily news beat for April 28, 2008
Yahoo did not accept Microsoft's bid by the Saturday deadline so now it's up to the software giant to decide whether to pursue a hostile takeover or walk away from Yahoo altogether. A security think tank uncovers a vulnerability in Apple's multimedia player that could allow a hacker to take complete control of Windows Vista or XP machines. Security vendors slam the Defcon virus contest that will award hackers for finding ways to beat antivirus software; the vendors claim it will only help the bad guys learn new tricks. Black Duck buys Koders for its code search engine and, in... more
TAGS: Platforms
April 28, 2008
Top 3 gotchas of server virtualization
Despite the well-known benefits, server virtualization has its share of potential missteps and shocking realizations. "Many pitfalls await server virtualization adopters, and a stumble can ruin all your virtual dreams," site editor Tom Kaneshige writes. To that end, Kaneshige shares the Top 3 gotcha's of server virtualization that IT ought to steer clear of. "Knowing how to identify and avoid those can make the journey more pleasant and the reward that much sweeter."... more
TAGS: Virtualization
April 28, 2008
InfoWorld Daily Podcast
Yahoo does not accepts Microsoft's bid, China calls itself world's largest Internet market, spammers create bogus Google Blogger pages, and more LISTEN!... more
TAGS: Podcast
April 28, 2008
Two months to go, so save XP today
Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer late last week said the company might consider keeping Windows XP available beyond June 30 if customers call for it. "With just two months to go before XP goes off the market, it's time to turn up the volume and get everyone you know to sign the petition," editor in chief Eric Knorr writes in Steve Ballmer wants your feedback -- let's give it to him. "Experience dictates that it's going to take everything we've got to get the message to Microsoft." Save Windows XP.... more
TAGS: Platforms
April 25, 2008
Looking for the worst EULA
Nonsensical EULAs sometimes show up in the unlikeliest of places. This time it's on Dilbert.com, as one Gripe Line reader reports, and the Terms of Service state that one must be 13 to use the site and anyone under 18 needs their parents to complete the registration and supervise. "Well, maybe it makes sense if you're 13 and living where the age of majority is 12. Otherwise your parents would have to help you, and they would need to be 13 as well, I guess, which seems a little improbable," Ed Foster writes in Terms of ridicule. And that's just... more
TAGS: Platforms
April 25, 2008
Daily news beat for April 25, 2008
This weekend marks the deadline Microsoft set for its proposed acquisition of Yahoo, after which the company plans to take its fight directly to Yahoo shareholders. But only late this week did Microsoft begin hinting that, even without Yahoo, it might move forward in the online ad market. Microsoft considers life without Yahoo. Sun Microsystems buys processor startup Montalvo, which is believed to be working on a chip that uses asynchronous cores of varying power degrees to improve performance while keeping power consumption low. Researcher David Litchfield finds a new way to hack the Oracle database. Known as a SQL... more
TAGS: Platforms
April 25, 2008
InfoWorld News Quiz: You don't know tech
This week Microsoft gets applauded for promising not to do something. Yahoo, OLPC, iPhone and the Ramomes all cameo. Quick: How much profit did Yahoo rake in last quarter? Ah, that was an easy one. Here's another: Apple just bought P.A. Semi for $278 million. What, pray tell, is P.A. Semi? Think you know tech? Prove it and take the InfoWorld News Quiz.... more
TAGS: Platforms
April 25, 2008
InfoWorld Daily Podcast
Dell to keep XP alive via 'downgrade' licensing option, Apple will detail 3G iPhone on June 9, Sun buys chip startup Montalvo, and more LISTEN!... more
TAGS: Podcast
April 25, 2008
Be careful of transitive trust
Nowadays, even well-known, seemingly legitimate Web sites are prone to inadvertently hosting code that redirects visitors to a malicious site. "Gone are the days when you could tell your end-users not to visit 'untrusted' Web sites to minimize their exposure to malware," Roger Grimes writes in Be careful with transitive trust. Several recent studies have revealed that outsourcing development to third parties is responsible for the majority of Web site vulnerabilities of this sort, Grimes adds. "We've always known that contractors don't have the same intense commitment to a company as the company's own employees, and now we are seeing... more
TAGS: Security
April 25, 2008
Test Center review: Adobe Flex Builder 3.0
Adobe Flex Builder 3.0 offers a relatively inexpensive means of jumping into RIA with only a modest learning curve. The highlights, according to tester James R. Borck, include "better visual layout tools and more control over CSS, new wizards for WSDL introspection and back-end data connectivity, and plug-ins that augment workflow between developers and design teams running Adobe Creative Suite 3 applications." Borck's wish list consists of a service monitor framework for both Flex and AIR applications, and time-based effects and other component behaviors accessible via the Design view. And while "some of the implementation here feels clumsy -- especially... more
TAGS: Application Development
April 24, 2008
Web 2.0 moves beyond SaaS and social networking
Web 2.0 is no longer about social networking, SaaS, Web communities, or rich Internet applications. At least that's what David Linthicum has found at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco this week. "It's about moving as many of the core business processes as you can to the platform of the Web. Or, perhaps better put: Web-enabled process outsourcing," Linthicum explains in Web 2.0 ... it's about process outsourcing. After witnessing a flurry of new and existing products on display at the conference, Linthicum concludes that, "now you can design, build, deploy, and test applications completely using on-demand platforms delivered... more
TAGS: Applications
April 24, 2008
Daily news beat for April 24, 2008
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is having a busy week. Thursday, he told reporters in Belgium that the company might rethink its plan to stop selling Windows XP as of June 30, saying "if customer feedback varies, we can always wake up smarter." At a conference in Milan yesterday, Ballmer said that Microsoft could walk away from the Yahoo deal, maintaining that it is the best way to take on Google but insisting that if the proposed acquisition doesn’t go through, Microsoft will move forward alone. The desktop Linux community may feel betrayed by OLPC switching to Windows XP, but executive... more
TAGS: Platforms
April 24, 2008
Laying a green IT foundation for your users
Your users may actually want to make greener decisions, even if they don't know the best ways to do so. "A surprising assortment of factors will influence their decision, and many of them may be based on groundwork you've laid for them," Ted Samson explains. It's more than just technology solutions, which can only do so much. And small acts can reap big rewards. Samson breaks it down: Let's say a non-green choice costs 50 cents, be it in paper, ink, watts, gasoline, whatever. If you have 500 employees, and each makes just one non-green choice per day, you're looking... more
TAGS: Green IT
April 24, 2008
InfoWorld Daily Podcast
CEO Steve Ballmer says Microsoft could walk away from Yahoo deal, Apple reports booming Mac sales, Google becomes latest to deliver mobile banner ads, and more LISTEN!... more
TAGS: Podcast
April 24, 2008
IT not fast to follow mashup trend
Enterprise mashups, thus far, as not as prominent in practice as they are in hype. "There are four good reasons: First and foremost it's an immature marketplace, and we're still in the early adopter phase," Bill Snyder reports in this week's Tech's bottom line post. That said, there are enterprises drinking the mashup Kool-Aid, you just have to look hard to find them. "Dig below the hype and there are indeed interesting technologies and business opportunities to explore."... more
TAGS: Application Development
April 24, 2008
Google goes from product to platform
Neil McAllister wonders how to explain Microsoft’s obsession with Google, one that runs so deep and dark it would plunk down $44.6 billion to acquire Yahoo. The clue, perhaps, is Google Apps. "Microsoft has been waiting for the other shoe to drop ever since Google unveiled Google Docs two years ago, and with the debut of Google App Engine last week, it landed with a thud," McAllister writes in the new Fatal Exception blog. While Docs cannot really compete with Microsoft Office in most enterprises, there is another area where it can. "Ah, the developers -- those developers, developers, developers.... more
TAGS: Platforms
April 23, 2008
Green IT, cheap and easy
Reading the InfoWorld Green 15 awards that we unveiled yesterday brought Bob Lewis back to the 1980s. Indeed, that was before the words Green and IT went together as they do today. "My old friend Fitz should be on the list, but won't because his innovation took place too many years ago," Lewis explains in Go green the cheap and easy way. Fitz, you see, tapped the cold Minnesota winter to cool his datacenter by asking not the CIO, but the company's construction department, to install a vent. "It's nearly free, pretty much foolproof, saves electricity, and will make you... more
TAGS: Green IT
April 23, 2008
Daily news beat for April 23, 2008
While Microsoft and its rivals are introducing more and more cloud computing options, such offerings also usher in an entirely new set of risks for customers. The platform lock-in game, in fact, moves to the cloud. But there's a right and a wrong way to anticipate such lock-in. Related tech analysis: Microsoft reaches for the cloud. IBM, meanwhile, unwraps the iDataPlex for customers running heavily trafficked Web 2.0 sites, just not before rotating the rack-mounted server 90 degrees to better fit datacenter racks. Sun looks to free up the rest of Java. Stepping up efforts to boost Java usage on... more
TAGS: Cloud computing
April 23, 2008
InfoWorld Daily Podcast
Sun looks to complete open sourcing of Java, cyberattack on CNN gains steam, Dell previews small, eco-friendlier PC and more LISTEN!... more
TAGS: Podcast
April 23, 2008
No easy answers to power efficiency
Power management is only 5 percent process, but it's 110 percent policy -- and because of that Tom Yager asserts that the book on fairness policy for power benchmarking will never be quite closed. "Don't expect easy answers to power efficiency. InfoWorld's Test Center is taking on power testing and considering SPECpower as part of that plan," Yager writes in For server power management, there's only one shortcut. "Count the number of active server power supplies in your shop and commit to reducing that."... more
TAGS: Green IT
April 23, 2008
Test Center Guide: RIA tools
The frameworks available for Rich Internet applications, or RIAs for short, span a range of types and technologies, can be heavyweight or lightweight, open or closed, and just about anything in between. "The lightweight end of the spectrum has seen most of the attention in recent months, with Microsoft's Silverlight and Adobe's AIR the new kids in town. But AJAX is still where most of the lightweight action resides," Martin Heller explains. "And despite the recent focus on lightweight app dev, significant developer focus remains on the heavyweight tools in the Microsoft .Net and Sun Java worlds." We look at... more
TAGS: Application Development
April 23, 2008
Test Center Guide: RIA tools
The frameworks available for Rich Internet applications, or RIAs for short, span a range of types and technologies, can be heavyweight or lightweight, open or closed, and just about anything in between. "The lightweight end of the spectrum has seen most of the attention in recent months, with Microsoft's Silverlight and Adobe's AIR the new kids in town. But AJAX is still where most of the lightweight action resides," Martin Heller explains. "And despite the recent focus on lightweight app dev, significant developer focus remains on the heavyweight tools in the Microsoft .Net and Sun Java worlds." We look at... more
TAGS: Application Development
April 22, 2008
Under- standing WOA vs. SOA
Now that the latest X-oriented architecture buzzword has lit upon IT confusion, quite naturally, is brewing about just what WOA, as in Web oriented architecture, is and how it relates to SOA. "The problem with concepts such as WOA, is that they need to come with some education. I mean, SOA was really nothing new, but it provided us with a different way of thinking about things we already understood. Same with WOA," David Linthicum explains. Why WOA/SOA is misunderstood. "I would argue that while many architects are indeed looking at Web-based development, most don't want to go there in... more
TAGS: SOA
April 22, 2008
Daily news beat for April 22, 2008
With new evidence that ISPs are widely throttling legal peer-to-peer file sharing, a U.S. Senate committee is holding a Net neutrality hearing on Tuesday that may signal that lawmakers are ready to debate Internet bills long languishing in Congress. The FCC chairman, in fact, says that Comcast's blocking was widespread, so much so that it happened even when there was no network congestion. Cryptography expert Bruce Schneier says that lots of security software is 'snake oil' and that antivirus products are not sufficient, even though they are necessary, in this Q&A. A patent filing shows that Apple is working on... more
TAGS: Telecom
April 22, 2008
InfoWorld Daily Podcast
6 of the lessons learned from our Green 15 award winners, OLPC loses third exec in as many months, Apple flaw hacked in contest was public for a year, and more LISTEN!... more
TAGS: Podcast
April 22, 2008
What India's tax net could mean to the U.S.
The Indian parliament is deliberating tax code alterations that could impact several other countries. "The proposed changes could cost American businesses with Indian subsidiaries or Indian outsourcing initiatives a significant amount of money," Ephraim Schwartz explains in India to trap outsourcers in tax net. As the Indian government moves to capture move revenue via taxes, it will become increasingly expensive for American companies to conduct business there. Included in the services tax net will be Internet-oriented and telecommunications, Schwartz explains. "Add to this a turnover rate now being pegged at 105 percent, plus the weak dollar, and we can see... more
TAGS: Outsourcing
April 22, 2008
Should IT shops be held to the same standard as external providers?
One way to make users work lives more difficult is by failing integration projects. Making Web savvy engineers revert to an old-fashioned travel agent, or force-fitting employees into less appropriate accounting and timesheet systems, are two of the examples in this week's Off The Record. The integration went so badly, in fact, that had it been provided for a customer, the group would have been fired for good reason. "Why can't our internal IT group be held to the same standard?" our author asks.... more
TAGS: Platforms
April 22, 2008
Lessons the Green 15 can share
Whether for practical business reasons, purely environmental concerns or a combination, Green IT caught on in 2007. With that in mind, and on Earth Day, we reveal The InfoWorld Green 15 awards. Winners run the gamut from tech stalwarts such as BT group and IBM, to paper company gm2Logisitics, to Miami Dad County Public schools -- each has a lesson to offer and we share six that are chief among those.... more
TAGS: Green IT
April 22, 2008
Lessons the Green 15 can share
Whether for practical business reasons, purely environmental concerns or a combination, Green IT caught on in 2007. With that in mind, and on Earth Day, we reveal The InfoWorld Green 15 awards. Winners run the gamut from tech stalwarts such as BT group and IBM, to paper company gm2Logisitics, to Miami Dade County Public schools -- each has a lesson to offer and we share six that are chief among those.... more
TAGS: Green IT
April 21, 2008
Pro software developer: An oxymoron?
Martin Heller asks that question after reading Emergent Design: The Evolutionary Nature of Professional Software Development by Scott Bain. In this Strategic Developer post, Heller explains that Bain says software development is by nature a professional activity, and should be conducted as such but that IT is not currently doing so. "What do you think?" Heller asks. "Is the phrase 'professional software developer' an oxymoron?" Talkback via the comments function below or at the link above.... more
TAGS: Application Development
April 21, 2008
Daily news beat for April 21, 2008
Microsoft bungles antipiracy tool update. History once again resembles itself as the software giant distributes Office Genuine Advantage Notifications too widely and ranks it as "critical," only to catch heat akin to the trouble it found after a similar slip with Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications two years ago. Related Gripe Line: A Genuine Microsoft mistake. Vodafone vows to go green and to cut CO2 50 percent by 2020; the mobile operator also details plans to help customers soften their impact on the environment. Apple files a patent that foreshadows what might be its intentions for a Second Life-like store that...
