SOA: Donning sheets and going to a frat house is old hat compared to the new TOGA[F] party that David Linthicum reports about in this post. TOGAF, so you know, is short for The Open Group Architecture Framework. "What you have to remember about things like this is that the real value is the discipline that they outline, but really don't provide. You, the architect, must learn how to leverage this approach, or others, for the problems you're looking to solve. If you don't do that, all the approaches, frameworks, and methodologies won't help you." Of course, Linthicum is referring to service-oriented architectures.

Hardware: Here's an idea whose time has come. The Association Connecting Electronics Industries says that by June 15, '07, it will have a standard for making safer lithium ion batteries. In the meantime, don't use your laptop by a gas pump.

Columnists' corner: This week's Off the Record opens with a spinoff from an old joke: Steal my data, please. Our author finds himself in a situation that was not even a little funny, though. After taking a new assistant IT manager gig, he learns that the organization's most critical database is still running on Windows NT 4, and this after Microsoft ceased support for the platform. But the plot thickens when he figures out that the server is connected directly to the 'Net, sans firewall -- and his boss is too chicken to add one.

Security: That's not to say that firewalls are foolproof, no. Hackers, in fact, have posted code that could effectively disarm the Windows Firewall, even on a fully-patched XP box using Windows Internet Connection Service.

Posted by Tom Sullivan on October 31, 2006 10:53 AM