- CIO who's not compatible with central office
- InfoWorld Daily Podcast
- The fuss about OSS community roles
- What to know about AMD's SSE5 instruction set
- InfoWorld Daily Podcast
- A magic compiler? No, not just yet
- The darker side of Monster.com
- InfoWorld Daily Podcast
- The last mobile frontier
- What Acer really gets with Gateway
August 31, 2007 | Comments: (0)
CIO who's not compatible with central office
Careers: A chief information officer writes to Bob Lewis because upper management does not like his style and is trying to phase him out. "Either there's an approach to running IT that works for both you and the corporate office, or there isn't," Lewis writes in this Advice Line post. Either way, the ball is in the CIOs court. "It was up to you to work with the C.O. to either figure out how to make things work or to make other arrangements for yourself." But lengthy transitions rarely make sense in the long run.
The news beat: Microsoft pushes back the release date for Longhorn from year's end to the first quarter of 2008. The One Laptop Per Child program faces a parts shortage but insists it's manageable. And Sun says that coders are the key to Solaris' rise.
Notes from the field: It's Friday and that means Cringe has the geek week in review. This time, its the human error that caused a glitch in Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage, reshuffled deck chairs on the ship Yahoo, and the dream that Apple has finally secured the Beatles catalog for iTunes.
Best of the blogs: It's a debate that harks back to middle school typing class for me. "Should everyone in IT take it upon themselves to learn to type?" Sean McCown poses in Don't be such a pecker! "Working on a computer for a living and not learning to type is like becoming a surgeon and refusing to learn to sew people up." There's this guy in his department, you see, who cannot type without looking at the keys.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 31, 2007 09:43 AM
August 31, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Part 2 in our series on IT paranoia, Dell reports strong profits, Microsoft delays Longhorn, IBM upgrades blade servers, and more 
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Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 31, 2007 08:06 AM
August 31, 2007 | Comments: (0)
The fuss about OSS community roles
Best of the blogs: Reacting to Sun's Simon Phipps, who posted about the different roles/stakeholders in an OSS community, Savio Rodrigues wonders if the discussion is even necessary. "Are there really folks at Sun who don't 'get OSS' today? And if there are, shouldn't these folks have been 'educated' prior to Sun open sourcing their software portfolio?" Rodrigues asks in this Open Sources post. Mr. Phipps weighs in here, too, with a bit of explanation.
Green IT: It's Christmas in August! Not really, but Ted Samson has the Green gadget guide for geeks just the same. We're talking bamboo hardware, eco-friendly chargers, power-measuring devices here, folks. This post would do J. Peterman proud, though it's a bit different. "My findings are more of the eco-friendly-tech variety, not exotic birch wood clogs and hand-woven wheatgrass sombreros," Samson writes. "Oh, and my travels tend to be limited to the San Francisco Bay Area, Sacramento, and the Internet, which is arguably environmentally friendlier than flying halfway across the globe to test-drive a camel-skin tote bag." What else is in this one? A jacket replete with solar panels, among other goodies.
Notes from the field: In an apparent attempt to anger both U.S. coasts, Cringe likens Microsoft to Boston's Big Dig. "More and more, new Microsoft operating systems resemble massive public works projects, with endless schedule setbacks, cost overruns, and diminished expectations," he grumbles in Vista SP1: You oughta know beta. It took Microsoft six months to release the schedule of when it will ship that beta, for instance. But, hey, it's all good for a chuckle and Cringe gets his from Microsoft saying that Vista SP1 will not break any applications already running on the OS.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 31, 2007 04:56 AM
August 30, 2007 | Comments: (0)
What to know about AMD's SSE5 instruction set
Best of the blogs: Whereas AMD typically follows Intel's lead when it comes to x86 instructions, the chipmaker has now published its own, known as SSE5. "If you maintain operating systems, drivers, libraries, or compilers that support AMD64 processors, you really should care about this, and start thinking about how you'll integrate this instruction set into your products," Martin Heller explains in SSE5: Should you care? Those who develop applications in a high-level language might not feel as much need to learn the new instruction set. "On the other hand, there's an opportunity here for people who write specific kinds of image- and sound-processing applications to speed up their code. Is it time for more people to get their hands dirty with assembly language?" Related: AMD proposes speedier x86 instructions for multimedia.
Columnist's corner: When instituting changes that will affect users, make sure to let them about it. Sounds obvious enough but all too often, in IT and other areas, it just doesn't happen. "Don't assume people will figure it out ... hit them over the head with it!" David Margulius suggests in Change coming? Say it loud. "For a big process change, you need flashing signs, cars with megaphones on the roof driving back and forth, airplanes pulling banners." Margulius directs this plea toward IT pros and urges them to imagine that users are deaf, dumb and blind. "They aren't, of course."
The news beat: Microsoft buys Parlano and plans to use the acquired enterprise group chat software to bolster Office Communications Server and Office Communicator products. Once again, Yahoo reorganizes, this time creating a new global sales organization. Microsoft blames human error for the Windows Genuine Advantage glitch, which identified legitimate users as pirates. And LG unveils its second iPhone-like handset, now with 3G capabilities.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 30, 2007 10:34 AM
August 30, 2007 | Comments: (0)
The first in a two-part series on IT paranoia. Also, Microsoft gives shipping dates for Vista SP1, says it will buy Parlano, LG unveils its second iPhone-like handset, and more
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Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 30, 2007 08:23 AM
August 30, 2007 | Comments: (0)
A magic compiler? No, not just yet
Best of the blogs: In response to articles about replacing programmers with more automation, Gordon Morrison's new approach being the latest example, Bob Lewis reminds us in Concerned about automating programmer jobs? that such thinking "reappears every so often, sometimes succeeds, doesn't eliminate programmer jobs, and goes away again," he explains. "In an infinite universe, everything must happen somewhere at least once. If I had to play the odds, though, I wouldn't bet that the magic compiler has happened here, on this planet, just yet."
Columnist's corner: It's advice to heed: Never send an HTML hacker to do a developer's job. "Organizations are going ape over the promise of apps that deliver the desktop experience while running entirely on a server, zero client code, completely client-agnostic," Tom Yager reports. Alas, it's never so simple. "Unless the original application was idiot simple, turning it into a Web site is harder than many other types of porting projects," Yager writes.
Podcasts: Surveys, surveys and yet more surveys. This week's SOA Report addresses the ever-elusive ROI, and the studies that support it. "If you wanna get in the press, go do a study," David Linthicum says. And several folks have done just that. In reality, though, "a lot of people have not had time to figure out what kind of return on investment they can get from the implementation of a service-oriented architecture." It's too early to survey everybody on that. "The value of an SOA is going to be holistic, not about tactical deployments around applications." Tune into SOA Report.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 30, 2007 04:54 AM
August 29, 2007 | Comments: (0)
The darker side of Monster.com
Careers: Sure, it's ostensibly easier to tap a repository for jobs and employees. But not is always as it seems. "I've said it again and again, and I'll say it yet again: Monster.com is bad for you whether you're a job hunter or an employer," Nick Corcodilos explains in Monster racket. The situation is so dire that Corcodilos thinks Congress should get involved. It's not just Monster, but all the huge, unregulated databases of personal information. But when it comes to Monster, he does not mince words. "Recruiters who use it are promoting unsafe practices. Job hunters who post their resumes are danged fools."
Platforms: Often, one question leads to another. Such became the case when Oliver Rist posed Does Vista suck? What ensued, quite naturally, was the some probe into Mac OS X. I know, I know, legions of Apple's devout will be offended at the mere asking and that's alright for those in charge of themselves. Nonetheless, for enterprise-class IT professionals, it's a worthy consideration. Rist was a skeptic, but since January has found that "the Orchard does slowly assimilate you." Bearing that in mind, Mr. Rist grades Mac OS X on the same scale he used for Vista. Does Mac OS X suck? "Apple failed a category where Vista didn't, but that's a fuzzy business/marketing category, not something tangibly technical...From a business buyer's perspective, I've got to give it a C-."
Notes from the field: The sometimes-harbinger of bad news, Cringe returns to that role. "Bad news, Facebook fans. It turns out the Internet is full of spammers, scammers, and naughty naughty men. Who knew?" he jokes in Facebook faces the music. But Facebook is making some changes. "Exactly how the new, slightly less open Facebook will play out remains to be seen."
The news beat: Microsoft says that much-awaited Vista SP1 will become available early next year, and a beta will go out next month. Deutsche Telekom confirms discussions with Apple about becoming an iPhone partner. SAP pushes for settlement talks with Oracle in the case involving its subsidiary TomorrowNow allegedly illegally downloading Oracle information. And Earthlink layoffs signal a change in municipal Wi-Fi, and not for the better.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 29, 2007 11:37 AM
August 29, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Acer CEO bets his job on Gateway deal, video showing software hack for unlocking iPhone hits the Web, U.S. Senator claims Sun overcharged government agencies, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 29, 2007 07:28 AM
August 29, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Best of the blogs: Call it WiTricity, as in the wireless electricity that an MIT-based scientist demonstrated by lighting a light bulb -- sans wires. "The hope is that over time, the antennas will be small enough to fit inside a laptop computer, a cell phone or an iPod so that users could recharge their devices while sitting in a special area in an airport, not unlike the hot spots we have today for Wi-Fi," Ephraim Schwartz explains in this Reality Check post.
Green IT: Whereas the hardware and chipmakers have already drawn energy-efficiency lines in the sand, the OS battle is just starting to brew between Linux and Microsoft. "Linux appears to have an advantage at the moment," Ted Samson reports in Linux, Windows duke it out over energy efficiency. "Microsoft isn't resting on its laurels, either." The Linux Foundation, meanwhile, has detailed the Green Linux Initiative, which aims to improve power management, extend battery life of mobile devices and reduce operating costs in the server room.
Columnist's corner: Whether you know it or not, donuts could get you fired. Well, at least that's almost the experience of this week's Off the Record author, who worked for a management team that "made it resoundingly clear that we would not be copying desktop shortcuts from the old machines to the new ones," he writes. "I advised the team against that course of action, explaining how it would lead to a lot of customer dissatisfaction and help desk calls." Guess what the primary user complaint was once they moved to XP. No, not the lack of donuts.
Careers: One reader writes Bob Lewis for advice about what to do when he is scapegoated. Is there a better way than to cut and run? Lewis writes that there is in What's needed to be effective. Once you've informed your boss and, if need be, your boss's boss, "your responsibility is to continue to do whatever work is assigned to you and to do it well." Barring that, Lewis offers three options.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 29, 2007 04:44 AM
August 28, 2007 | Comments: (0)
What Acer really gets with Gateway
Notes from the field: Robert X. Cringely waves goodbye to Gateway's goofy cow boxes, since Acer acquired the PC maker. On the kinda sorta bright side, the move puts Acer into the third ranking among PC vendors. "Maybe so, but it's one with cow manure beneath. Doing this deal is like going to a really bad salad bar; the lettuce has wilted and the tomatoes look dodgy, but you can eat as much as you want." Acer buys the farm (with cows).
Columnist's corner: In Technology and the Bill of Rights, Ephraim Schwartz asks a simple question: Do 18th century concepts of personal freedom still work in the 21st century? The answer to that, however, is not so easy. "I'm not surprised that AT&T and other telecom companies complied when the government asked [them] to assist in wiretapping their customers," Schwartz explains. "But our legilsators are a different story. We should expect more from them."
The news beat: Traders punished Acer for purchasing Gateway as shares opened today down on the Taiwan Stock Exchange. SAP doubles its customer base in India after last year's announcement that it plans to invest $1 billion in the region by 2010. And folks hacking the iPhone open to unlock it from AT&T service are inviting a lawsuit from the two companies under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 28, 2007 10:48 AM
August 28, 2007 | Comments: (0)
It's Linux vs. Windows in the green OS battle, Chinese premiere says hackers breaking into German PCs is a grave concern, Intel updates vPro, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 28, 2007 08:34 AM
August 28, 2007 | Comments: (0)
iPhone outmatched by several devices in its class
Best of the blogs: Even though the iPhone has been, albeit not easily, unshackled from AT&T Wireless Service, Tom Yager says it's still a waste of money. "Following an exhaustive comparison of alternatives, I have overwhelming backing for my early conclusion that iPhone is vastly outmatched by several devices in its price class," he writes in this Enterprise Mac post. Yager's ultimate advice: Buy a real phone.
From the feature well: Phrases such as "your boss is watching" and "you are your own worst enemy" naturally invoke those internal fear-raddled voices in most of us. "There are plenty of reasons to be, well, a little paranoid about the vulnerability of your data and the potential loss of your privacy," asserts Dan Tynan in 10 reasons to be paranoid. Data privacy, while the latest and not-so-greatest concern these days, is hardly the only one of significance. Related: When it pays to be paranoid.
Careers: In the denouement of an ongoing, and somewhat contentious, discussion Bob Lewis offers this last shot at tough CEOs. While readers, CEO-types among them, take issue with Lewis' advice, he maintains that, "any CEO who makes the working environment a grist mill is, to my way of thinking, a poor leader. I also recognize that I have to make room for exceptions," Lewis writes. "The world has a history of characters who are tough to work for but have enough other redeeming characteristics that it comes out okay in the end."
Video: Sony has created a so-called bio-battery that breaks down sugar to generate enough electricity to power a Walkman. "Sugar is naturally occurring so the technology could be the basis for an ecologically friendly energy source," Martyn Williams reports. Watch it here.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 28, 2007 04:49 AM
August 27, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Notes from the field: After spending his last summer before college sculpting the iPhone to be free of an AT&T Wireless contract, George Hotz bartered the thing for a car worth approximately $50,000, and three more iPhones, which he plans to unlock as well, Cringe reports in Hack my iPhone, please. Hotz is not alone, either, as UniquePhone and iPhoneSimFree.com both also boast of modifying the device's SIM card. "The difference is that while Apple wisely has left the Jersey Kid alone (are you paying attention, RIAA?), it's less sanguine about the software hacks." Related: Legal worries delay release of iPhone unlocking software.
Hardware: Acer buys Gateway for $710 million dollars and along with the company gets the first right of refusal should anyone try to purchase Packard Bell's parent company PB Holding -- an option the company already is exercising to block Lenovo's bid for Packard Bell.
From the Test Center: The great Office Server smorgasbord continues. In Part 3, a look at Forms Server 2007. Naturally, this one begins with a discussion of InfoPath, then onto the basic Forms Services within SharePoint before progressing to the complete Forms Server 2007. "If you've got enough forms and the right vision, Forms Server 2007 and SharePoint Server 2007 can pay for themselves," Brian Chee and Oliver Rist explain. Of course, there are downsides. "Both of these are potential resource hogs in a server room. Left unchecked, IT admins in big firms can quickly find their hard disks inundated with usable forms, broken forms, various versions of forms, and similar messes." Read the full review.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 27, 2007 10:43 AM
August 27, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Acer buys Gateway and blocks Lenovo bid for Packard Bell, iPhone unlocking software delayed after threats, Palm denies reports that Foleo will ship late, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 27, 2007 08:23 AM
August 27, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Sweeten that old box into a honeypot
Security: Get ready for some real-life doom and gloom. "All computer security defenses will ultimately fail," Roger Grimes points out in Honeypots sticky as ever. Point being that when such failures occur, an early warning system is key. "Take a box you're getting ready to throw away and make it a honeypot. Stick it somewhere in your environment where it's likely to get noticed by an intruder, and tell it to page your incident response team (or you) if anything unexpected tries to connect to it," Grimes advises. Related: VMware scripting automation API allows local exploitation.
Columnist's corner: Open source is creeping its way into storage and two announcements from Coraid offer more evidence in the ATA over Ethernet realm, aka AoE, the SAN transport protocol that uses MAC addresses to connect servers to their storage. Knocks against AoE include the fact that it doesn't support SCSI or FC drives and it is not routable. "You can have as many arrays and disk drives as needed, but those machines and their application servers must live within broadcast reach," Mario Apicella writes in Open source storage gets a virtual lift. As for Coraid, the company announced two new appliances at LinuxWorld: the 3U, 16-drive SR1661 and the 4U, 24-drive SR2461. The SR stands for SATA plus RAID.
Quoteworthy: I don't understand why Sun would want to market the fact that while they "own" Java, IBM, Oracle, BEA and even JBoss have all built and grown middleware businesses of varying size with Java. Sun on the other hand was never able to gain any traction in the middleware market. Imagine if Sun had to play from a level field. -- Savio Rodrigues. Sun = Java?
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 27, 2007 05:12 AM
August 24, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Following Jobs, now there's a fake Larry Ellison
Best of the blogs: Now that the Fake Steve Jobs has been outed, who steps into the blazed path but a blogger posing as Larry Ellison. "I don't know who is writing this one, but I think it's even funnier than the FSJ blog," opines Zack Urlocker in this Open Sources post. After a glance, I'll second that. The cast of characters includes Jonathan Schwartz, Marten Mickos and, of course, Paris Hilton, Ellison's not-so-trusty sidekick.
Notes from the field: Robert X. Cringely, as he does every Friday, offers the geek week in review. This time it's the especially odd items that roused his curiosity. Like the bullets that sparked an Internet slowdown, spies using Web 2.0 technologies, Femtocells, and the most risque robbery weapon to be used in some time.
The news beat: IBM hints that it might open source parts of Jazz, its framework for collaborative development. Spam fighters strike at criminals' weak spots in attempts to eradicate the Web sites that serve unsolicited e-mail. Via announces a 1-watt processor for mobile devices, which is called Eden ULV and is intended for mobile devices, though it can run Windows or Linux. And, following Cringe's tale of gunshot Internet outages above, Cogent says that cable was attacked by thieves with saws -- and that technicians actually swapped in replacement cable that already had those pesky bullet holes.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 24, 2007 09:49 AM
August 24, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Startups look to hit spammers' weak spots, EU accuses Rambus of violating competition law, IBM might open source Jazz, and more
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Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 24, 2007 07:28 AM
August 24, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Linux use doubles, and then some, on the desktop
Open source: We're always skeptical of vendor-driven or funded surveys and while DesktopLinux.com does not technically sell the OS, this study is to be taken with a grain or two of salt. That said, the organization "found more than a doubling of Linux desktop users in the past year," Paul Krill writes in Survey: Desktop Linux use grows. The top choice is Ubuntu, with Firefox the most popular browser and Thunderbird the reigning e-mail client.
Columnist's corner: With new iterations of Lotus Notes, Domino and Sametime, IBM just might be getting something very few folks would have expected: a second chance at knocking off longtime market leader Microsoft Outlook. "Most industry analysts are now saying that this version of Notes is finally on par and competitive with Outlook 2007," Ephraim Schwartz reports in E-mail's future, pumped look. That does, however, raise the question of where this multi-faceted rivalry will be in 5 years. Schwartz predicts that, "e-mail will never go away, but it may get surrounded by so many other collaborative capabilities it will be unrecognizable from the e-mail clients we use today."
Green IT: Touring Hewlett-Packard's datacenter, Ted Samson gets a taste of Dynamic Smart Cooling (DSC), HP's technology to help customers more efficiently chill their hardware. Actually, it's more of a meal than a taste. "On the tour, I got to see the rows of server racks in HP's datacenter, all busily humming away -- yet the facility itself was surprisingly warm," Samson relates in Chillin' at the HP datacenter. Warm, that is, not hot. Watch the video tour with Samson and HP fellow Chandrakant Patel.
Wireless: Tom Yager is embarking on a mammoth mobile project that consumed all available space in his hotel room with wireless devices for professionals and the IT staff that support them. That list includes 15 pieces from several vendors spanning the gamut of phones (including the one that starts with a little "i"), handhelds, Bluetooth headsets and routers. "I test technology by living with it, betting my professional life on it, just as you do with the technology you buy. I keep testing devices and software in rotation until they let me down or otherwise lose their status as leaders in their class," Yager explains in 2 mobile 2 move, the first in a multi-piece package.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 24, 2007 05:02 AM
August 23, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Careers: Writing code, one could argue, is an art form. But at least one inventor, Gordon Morrison, wants to change that and actually take the art out of it with a fatal injection of engineering. Morrison, in fact, has created a rules-based software development architecture to eliminate the need for conventional computer languages. "Now, I'm no troglodyte," Nick Corcodilos responds in I, programmer. "I'm all for advancing the state of the art. But I see catastrophe brewing behind the growing attitude that technology can support itself."
Columnist's corner: What with all the anger The Wall Street Journal stirred by printing its now notorious "Ten Things Your IT Department Won't Tell You" article and, subsequently, issuing a latent apology in the form of a follow-up piece titled "Helping the IT Department Help You," David Margulius says its time to put it all behind us. "I think the Journal blew it on this one. Their first article was at least a gutsy, well-researched piece that provided useful, if disconcerting, information to employees as well as IT managers," he asserts in Kiss and make up with IT? Margulius raises the bigger question, though: "Does the mainstream media have an anti-IT bias? It wouldn't surprise me..."
From the Test Center: In this exclusive look at the new Clearswift MIMEsweeper Web Appliance ENW10, a mouthful indeed, James Borck found that the inline filtering device, in tests, "did a reliable job of trapping spyware, viruses, and keywords and phrases thrown at it." That includes viruses nestled inside Microsoft Office attachments, PDFs, compressed archives, and executables, as well as a variety of multimedia files. Indeed, what it aims to achieve, it accomplishes well. "On the downside, unlike competing solutions from Secure Computing and Blue Coat Systems, this unit cannot scan HTTPS content streams. SSL-encrypted content and Web sites will pass through MIMEsweeper unexamined." Read the full review.
The news beat: A Burton group report says that Google Apps are no match for Microsoft Office and goes on to suggest that deploying them could be a career-limiting move. London police arrest a man for stealing Wi-Fi as he sat on a garden fence with laptop open and connected via an unsecure Wi-Fi network. Skype says that paying users will get a free week of service as a goodwill gesture due to last week's outage. And Sony figures out a way to run the Walkman on a bio battery that produces electricity by breaking down sugar.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 23, 2007 11:07 AM
August 23, 2007 | Comments: (0)
IBM gets second shot at knocking out Microsoft Outlook, AMD's sales chief resigns, Microsoft partners with Nokia, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 23, 2007 07:57 AM
August 23, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Best of the blogs: Now that we've been over the five main reasons that SOAs fail, and corresponding causes of success, it's time to look, with a healthy respect, at the question of just how much ROI a service oriented architecture can provide. "Everyone is talking about this study from Nucleus Research stating that SOA is having limited success when considering ROI," David Linthicum reports in this Real World SOA post. He adds that he suspects the respondents were discussing small projects that pretty much counted a bunch of Web services as an SOA. "The larger issue is that SOA, at the end of the day, is a systemic change in the way organizations approach enterprise architecture. Thus, the benefits will only be understood when the architecture has undergone that change."
Columnist's corner: It's a question that was bound to come up sooner rather than later: Does Vista suck? Choosing to stay out of OS holy wars, Oliver Rist elevates the discussion to a more practicable level for systems admins, consultants, integrators, and for that matter, just about anyone. "Does Vista suck enough that businesses of any size should simply throw up their hands and migrate over to something else?" he poses. "All due respect to the Apple orchard and open source, but my answer is 'No.'" Rist goes on to give it passing grades across a range of subjects, including installation, networking, security, application and hardware compatibility -- though a pair of those did fall under the 'pass grudgingly' category. "Are there parts of Vista I really hate? Sure."
Mobility: Not all is perfect on the so-called infinite loop in Cupertino, either. Apple's insistence on keeping the way-over-hyped iPhone closed just so happens to be paving the way for Linux momentum to beget, well, even more momentum as a cell-phone platform. "LinuxWorld Expo 2007 basked in Apple's unwitting generosity, with one booth after another featuring fledgling mobile Linux projects prospecting for funding, direction, and developers. The whole exhibit floor had the feel of a mining town that was just getting its footing," Tom Yager reports in Closed iPhone opens road for Linux. "As I said about iPhone, bragging about running an open OS on your device, when source code for said device is not published, is noise."
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 23, 2007 04:45 AM
August 22, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Move over Google, Vmware's chasing talent anew
Best of the blogs: Fresh from a wildly successful IPO that landed more than $1 billion, virtualization's golden boy VMware is looking to grow. "With such a large infusion of cash on hand, the company is now able to go after the very talent that has been, for the most part, monopolized in the area by Google," David Marshall relates in this Virtualization Report post.
"There are easily some 500+ jobs just waiting to be filled in the Palo Alto area at VMware. And as a throwback to the 90s, these jobs are rumored to be paying a starting salary of $130-160k with stock options at a current strike price of around $66."
The news beat: Turkish police arrest a Ukrainian national allegedly involved in the TKX data theft. Google's Blogger service is struck by an outage and causing problems for users trying to edit, publish or access the blogs. Ingres injects its Icebreaker appliance with JasperSoft's open source BI suite. And France says it is ready to break the European patents obstacle, a move which could reinvigorate efforts to create a single European patent.
Quoteworthy: "If the people who work for you are afraid of you, they'll tell you what they think you want to hear, not what you need to hear. That makes you worse than ignorant -- it makes you misinformed. Leaders who are misinformed make bad decisions for reasons that I trust don't require additional information. As a leader, the definition of your job is to produce results through the efforts of those who work for you. Leaders who yell, throw things, and intimidate end up having second-raters working for them, because first-rate employees have no reason to put up with that sort of treatment. They don't have to." -- Bob Lewis, Defending tough CEOs.
Notes from the field: Never one to be timid, Robert X. Cringely calls Hewlett-Packard's support cross-eyed and brainless after a Kafkaesque experience. "I got transferred 12 times in 90 minutes," Cringe recounts. "Every time the tech figured out I was calling about a UPS and not a computer, I was booted halfway 'round the globe to another support queue. I bounced from desktop support to notebooks to servers to pre-sales and back." Cringe points out, by the by, that he's struggled through his share of support nightmares but a recent call to HP rival Lenovo left him understanding that "it is indeed possible to deliver good service, it you make it a priority."
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 22, 2007 10:46 AM
August 22, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Majority of mobile workers ignore security threats, Apple's notebook business breaks 17 percent market share, Microsoft foreshadows unified communications service, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 22, 2007 07:41 AM
August 22, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Best of the blogs: Following his look at SOA failures, David Linthicum offers reasons why they work. Investment in education, quite naturally, is the first. The same goes for hiring the right people. And the two are hardly one in the same. "Many organizations attempt to leverage their existing staff to work on their SOA, not considering their aptitude for the approach," he writes. "No matter how much training you provide, some just don't get it."
From the feature well: The fact that mobility is still security's weakest link is not even close to secret means that more needs to be done about it. Easier typed than achieved, though, particularly with the proliferation of mobile workers, devices and, at least to some extent, malware. "Just as enterprises replace conventional mobile phones with newer handhelds that offer datacentric tools and access to sensitive information, IT departments are increasingly being forced to retool their data defense requirements to account for smartphone and PDA use," Matt Hines explains. Of course, "security software makers are moving quickly to cash in on the demand for more sophisticated mobile security." Related: Mobile malware to pose significant threat.
Columnist's corner: This week's Off the Record starts with foreshadowing and ominous undertones. "I thought I had found my dream CIO job when I scored an interview at a key firm in the financial services industry," our anonymous author begins Detail-obsessed CEO misses the big picture. You might think you can guess where this one is headed, but even though he didn't get the CIO position, he landed another at the same company. Big Brotherish card swipe rules were vigorously enforced, personal days docked for lateness. The CEO's business continuity plan resembled a telephone book, replete with where to find blankets and flashlights. "I found all of this small-minded attention to cost-saving perplexing until I learned that the CEO had once discovered that the former CIO and the manager of her New Jersey facility had been stealing from the company. As a result of that incident, other employees told me she became a very paranoid person and micro-managed everybody because she trusted no-one."
Careers: Balance in the work environment, as it is everywhere else, is the key to a thriving company. "Fun isn't supposed to be a substitute for the desire to win. It's supposed to augment it by keeping the environment loose and creative instead of tense and fear-driven," Bob Lewis points out in When fun isn't very much fun. That discussion invariably leads to "a question for which I have no easy answer: Whether it's possible to maintain a level of intensity without losing the sense of fun."
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 22, 2007 04:44 AM
August 21, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Best of the blogs: Outages happen to just about every service provider out there from time-to-time. But as is the case with any company facing a crisis, it's the handling of it that ultimately matters most. "The lackadaisical way that Skype has approached correcting the problem has me fuming," Randall Kennedy writes in Burned by Skype!. "The moment they started charging my credit card for things like a Skype-In number and Skype-Credit, the nature of the relationship changed ... nothing about Skype's behavior to date seems to indicate an appreciation of how the user dynamic has evolved."
Columnist's corner: In a similar vein, glad that Netflix has put folks on the phone for a competitive advantage, Ephraim Schwartz bemoans customer service in general -- for those in need as well as the providers. Customer service gets human again. "Netflix's solution runs counter to every high-tech business strategy I have ever heard," Schwartz asserts. What's more, the company decided not to outsource. "Someday technology will evolve to offer reliable customer service, but until then it might not be a bad idea for companies to turn their backs on hype from customer service technology vendors and just follow Netflix's lead."
The news beat: Apple takes a bite out of Dell as sales of its laptops are surging all the way up to 17 percent market share, according to one firm. Business Objects partners with Thomson Financial in a pact that an industry analyst refers to as "the convergence of SaaS solutions along with industry-specific applications." And IBM says it will turn its Sametime enterprise IM software into a family products that fits into the unified communications realm.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 21, 2007 11:16 AM
August 21, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Vendors show off IP telephony advancements at VoiceCon, Skype shares more details about outage, Google offers video service customers a refund, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 21, 2007 09:09 AM
August 21, 2007 | Comments: (0)
The exit interview that came back to haunt
Careers: It can be tempting to practice brutal honesty in an exit interview but the costs almost always exceed the benefits. Take the case of one Advice Line reader who did just that, thinking it moral and reasonable, but then after applying for a position at the same company never got so much as a response. "You criticized the actions of an individual," Bob Lewis writes in Another look at exit interviews from the interviewee side. "No matter what other result came from you're doing so, you probably branded yourself a troublemaker. Now it's coming back to haunt you."
From the feature well: Spanning from application development to virtualization and nearly everything in between, like middleware, our stable of bloggers and columnists, 15 of them, each pick the next big things in IT. "Because the writers are domain experts, their predictions for tomorrow's breakthrough technologies are grounded in what's happening today," explains editor-in-chief Steve Fox. Thus, this is a near-term look, not some futuristic odyssey toward infinite possibility.
Gripe Line: When the FCC auctions off wireless spectrum come January, the question of whether the providers will lock customers into using the service's own proprietary features will be a paramount one. "It's hard to predict, but you might want to look at an interesting pattern of gripes recently being generated by one of the likely bidders for the 700-MHz spectrum -- Verizon Wireless," points out Ed Foster in Verizon locks out a spectrum of features. "To be fair, it doesn't sound like Verizon is the only wireless service locking out the features they're selling." That, of course, makes matters all the worse.
Quoteworthy: My advice to Microsoft is to really continue to be an open platform for at least the AMP part of LAMP and show that developers can use whatever mix of open and closed source that they want. Otherwise, the default assumption is that developers interested in open source should ignore the Windows platform completely, and I think that would be a mistake. -- Zack Urlocker, Input for Microsoft on Mix 2008.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 21, 2007 04:53 AM
August 20, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Best of the blogs: Cutting right to the chase on this one, David Linthicum offers up the primary reasons that SOAs fail when they do so. To begin with, there is a misperception about exactly what SOA is. "You need to determine your requirements first, and then the technology that works to solve the problem," Linthicum writes. Opting for second-tier talent is another.
Security: Honeyd for Windows is back, writes Roger Grimes, referring to "one of the best virtual honeypot software programs in existence." Welcome news, indeed, since the previous iteration did not keep up with Windows XP, thus it was not practicable for Grimes to recommend using it over the last year or so. The update is free.
The news beat: Skype says its service outage came after a Windows update triggered million of customers to reboot and, ultimately, try to log in to the system at the same time. A Gartner analyst says that your data is less safe today than it was two years ago and, in fact, such attacks have risen 50 percent since 2003. And IBM joins forces with TDK to make compact MRAM chips that could potentially land in PCs to enable them to be turned on instantly.
Notes from the field: Cringe likens the RIAA to original gangstas in Corporate cartels gone wild. "Now it seems someone's about to bust a cap in their assets," he reports. Tanya Anderson filed a class-action suit against the RIAA, the Big 4 record companies, and Media Sentry, alleging "a range of criminal racketeering charges not seen since the John Gotti trial."
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 20, 2007 10:47 AM
August 20, 2007 | Comments: (0)
SOA not living up to its promise, analyst firm says. Skype claims outage is over, Google unveils click-fraud resource center, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 20, 2007 07:50 AM
August 20, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Storage: Despite an abundance of dark fiber in many metropolitan areas, most companies pay too much for fiber optics connections," Mario Apicella reports. That's where XKL comes into play. The company, founded by Len Bosack, who along with his wife founded Cisco, think it can help companies tap that buried dark fiber treasure to the tune of significant cost savings with its DXM Optical Transport System. Hunting down dark fiber. "A survey of DXM's specs leaves me both intrigued and a little circumspect."
Security: Sometimes even old applications are plagued with new vulnerabilities -- and making sure you have the latest patches is not enough. "You have to check and see if the older, vulnerable versions of the software you patched aren't still installed and available," points out Roger Grimes in this installment of Security Advisor. Part of the problem is that many patch management tools only check the latest installed software versions. It's not just customers that are responsible, either. "Software vendors, if you don't uninstall the previous version, let us know. Better yet, give us the choice during the upgrade to keep or kill the old version. You'll get bonus points if you don't try to sneak unrelated third-party software into your patching process."
Video: IP telephony, chip supergeek events, cult computer games. They're all in The Week Ahead with Gina Smith. And a startup called Workday makes a splash. Watch it here.
From the Test Center: The great Office Server smorgasbord is back. Part 2, MOSSing up Groove Server, stars none other than Office Groove 2007, which becomes more robust when working in conjunction with Office SharePoint Server 2007, write Oliver Rist and Brian Chee. "Enabling MOSS (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server) behind your Groove population allows Groove users to manage Groove spaces by team, as well as make SharePoint's document libraries instantly accessible as Groove data -- with the same security. Try that in a traditional IT environment and you're spending quality time with your IT staff."
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 20, 2007 04:57 AM
August 17, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Best of the blogs: Smart software vendors react directly to their customers, rather than letting feedback fall into the typical quagmire of departmental handoffs that inevitably delays improvements to the software. And no one knows this better than the open source companies. "When you draw from the Open Source community, it's like outsourcing in that you leverage the knowledge, interest and capability of the project team, rather than relying on yourself or your organization as the sole source of these," writes Harper Mann in this IT Troubleshooter post. "This is not the same as dealing with one-off tasks for customers."
Wireless: It's just a phone, for crying out loud, but already there are weird, scary and bizarre iPhone tales. "So prepare to be amazed, ladies and gentlemen! Step right up and take a front-row seat for Steve Jobs' unintended sideshow attractions," Computerworld's Mike Elgan writes. Within you'll find a lobster-thumb boy, the world's fastest iPhone and fattest phone bill, plus Karl Rove, among others.
The news beat: IBM finally issues Lotus Notes and Domino version 8, which ought to please current Notes users, even if it doesn't lure anyone away from Microsoft Outlook. Three Florida men are indicted on software piracy charges alleging that they sold millions of dollars worth of counterfeit software. After it seemed as if they'd been fixed, the latest word out of Skype is that its VoIP problems might continue throughout the day. And in their ongoing legal feud Nokia asks the U.S. ITC to ban Qualcomm imports that it claims infringe on Nokia patents.
Notes from the field: It's Friday and that means Cringe is back with the geek week in review. Appearing in this episode are Sprint's new WiMax service, otherwise known as Xohm, former CA CEO and current jailbird Sanjay Kumar and, believe it or not, Goofy, Daisy Duck and Pinocchio. Oh yes, and lest I forget, those You-Tube debatin' Republicans.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 17, 2007 10:01 AM
August 17, 2007 | Comments: (0)
IBM extends support for Solaris on System x and BladeCenter servers, Skype's outage appears to be over but work remains, Dell will restate earnings after internal audit found manipulations, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 17, 2007 07:27 AM
August 17, 2007 | Comments: (0)
IT not immune to credit meltdown
Columnist's corner: It's a question that many of you are asking: Should IT care about the credit meltdown? "As IT professionals, we'll be the last ones to know where the bad loans are buried. But we can at least be prepared for the likely fallout," advises David Margulius. "I don't want to be Dr. Doom, but it's best to peek under the rug and be proactive." It never hurts to polish the ol' resume, either.
Gripe Line: Government bureaucracies are particularly prone to taking the IE-only approach, Ed Foster suggests in Reader voices: Institutional IE. And it's not just in the U.S. "Of course, there are always ways to get around what the government wants you to do." The Firefox IE Tab extension is one.
Security: The countdown to database timing attacks has begun. Core Security researcher Ariel Waissbein, in fact, has a proof-of-concept exercise that enables an attacker to extract private data from a database by performing mere record insertion operations, Matt Hines reports. The attack takes advantage of the fact that databases typically are designed to make data available to applications in the most efficient manner. "All the entries in a particular column in the database typically have the same values, so they can be unearthed by going after the stored information in the different nodes of a tree."
App dev: Calling backward compatibility with Windows versions from 15 years ago "one of the banes of my existence," Martin Heller shares three tactics he uses for doing just that. The first is pre-emptive, the third a matter of testing. "It's still a pain in the neck, however."
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 17, 2007 04:41 AM
August 16, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Cost of engineering degrees hits home
Careers: Calling the H-1B program, outsourcing, and discouragement of technical degrees "repeated failures of logic and common sense," Nick Corcodilos lashes out at the higher-education monopoly in America for slapping engineering students with a surcharge above what, say, English majors, pay. "The cost of a technical degree goes up; the number of students willing to pay for it will go down; the effective yield of technologists will drop; and companies will need more H-1B visas to make up the difference," he writes in this post titled PAAAYYY!, which takes its name from the board game Monopoly. "There's no logic or common sense in any of this."
Green IT: The network is becoming a beneficiary of the greening effect in enterprise IT infrastructure. Hardware such as servers, routers, and switches are becoming more efficient. "On a broader level, there's potential for the network to be a vehicle of energy efficiency effort," Ted Samson writes in The network grows greener. "And the brewing IEEE 802.3az standard, more elegantly known as the Energy Efficient Ethernet, could have a profound impact on reducing power consumption, too."
Security: TJX just reported second quarter earnings and, despite the massive data breach earlier this year, the company's core business remains hugely profitable. That means customers are not simply shopping elsewhere, as some experts predicted they would. What we're not learning from TJX. "The implicit lesson has to be that consumers are either oblivious to the whole cycle of news reports and research being produced about the nature of corporate information leakage and its relation to identity theft, or that they simply feel there's nothing they can do about it, so why change their lifestyles to deal with the issue," Matt Hines explains.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 16, 2007 10:36 AM
August 16, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Citrix buys XenSource, NSA spying program argued in court, MS and Xandros expand licensing pact, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 16, 2007 08:19 AM
August 16, 2007 | Comments: (0)
VoIP: So many, so mad and not even at Microsoft
Notes from the field: The horror, the horror of VoIP. "It's not just TeleBlend. Packet8, Allo.com, and Comcast also get dinged by customers who can't get them to provide decent VoIP or customer service," Cringe reports in Eat packets, VoIP boy. Sure, it can save customers a few bucks, but VoIP is turning out to be the mainfestation of lousy communications. "I've never seen so many Cringesters so p**sed off at a company whose name isn't Microsoft."
Columnist's corner: Exchange 2007 Service Pack 1, in the words of Olvier Rist, "adds a bunch of new goodies to your Exchange setup." Such as security and Outlook Web Access enhancements. Then there's the new fail-over options, and tighter control over mobile devices. "Microsoft has taken yet more steps to make OWA as Outlook-like as possible," Rist writes. Related review: The Great Office Server Smorgasbord: SharePoint 2007.
Careers: Don't stop moonlighting. That's Nick Corcodilos' advice to one reader wondering how to go about telling prospective employers that he not only has an ancillary e-commerce business but also intends to keep it alive after accepting a new gig. "I don't think all employers will look askance at your side business. If you think that’s happening, why not just confront it head on?" Corcodilos writes. "I say, better you find out now whether they can live with it. Freedom's just another word, until you stand up for it with action."
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 16, 2007 04:40 AM
August 15, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Best of the blogs: Here's one technology professionals don't see so often: IT serving as a profit center and, mind you, not merely an expense unit. "It looks great in the PowerPoint, and it generally works the way so many PowerPoint concepts work -- perfectly, except for the unintended but easily predicted consequences," Lewis writes. Transfer that to the real world of back offices and datacenters, though, and it's not quite that easy. "It isn't all that different from trying to cure a disease by feeding poison to the patient."
Hardware: Call it a "mainframe on-a-rack." Tom Yager does just that in reference to IBM's Power6 processor. "Power6 eclipses Power5's performance and power efficiency," Yager writes in this week's installment of Ahead of the curve. But the potential exists for Big Blue to catch some heat about the chip's clock speed since it favored RAS over what Yager calls multicore mania. "I think that IBM made precisely the right decision. In fact, I'd like to see Intel and AMD back away from 'core wars' and start devoting on-CPU real estate to RAS."
The news beat: Just one day after VMware's indisputably successful IPO, Citrix buys XenSource for its desktop and server virtualization wares. Forrester Research issues a report suggesting that businesses are still saying no to Windows Vista, thanks in large part to software incompatibilities and the need for hardware upgrades. A newly-found security vulnerability within Yahoo Messenger could allow malware to run on a PC. And in response to kernel hacks pestering 64-bit Windows Vista, Microsoft updates Vista's PatchGuard, all the while denying that it is a security fix.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 15, 2007 11:25 AM
August 15, 2007 | Comments: (0)
MS issues super bundle of security patches, VMware shares soar at IPO, Nokia offers to replace 46 million batteries, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 15, 2007 08:27 AM
August 15, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Podcast: It's a fundamental IT question that David Linthicum asks. Is SOA working? "Most of the projects out there that are calling themselves service-oriented architecture are largely just a bunch of Web services that ultimately produce no value," he asserts. "You don't see too many SOAs that are actually service-oriented architectures unless you are able to take the project to a complete solution-oriented conclusion." There are some companies moving to a full-blown SOA, however, but it takes time. Tune into Real World SOA.
Gripe Line: Vista is not without dysfunctional aspects. "Nothing better epitomizes these problems -- and indeed the inherent shortcomings of the way Microsoft distributes and supports Windows -- than the experience of one reader with getting to Vista to work on his Averatec notebook computer," Ed Foster kicks off An aversion to supporting Windows. For starters, the Vista Express Upgrade took what felt like forever to arrive: three and a half months after Vista's retail release. Now, our reader's experience gets even more ludicrous. Averatec was rather adept at the tech-support two-step, and dodged the reader even after he contacted the California Attorney General. Twice. "You have to wonder if Averatec will even be capable of helping if it ever decides it should," Foster writes.
The news beat: The Linux Foundation takes the wraps off what it calls the Linux Weather Forecast, a Web site to keep interested parties updated on the status of Linux kernel projects. Microsoft releases a bundle of security patches, nine sets in all, that fix a total of 14 bugs in its software. And VMware, with its IPO, provides a bright spot on an otherwise dreary day on Wall Street.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 15, 2007 05:48 AM
August 14, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Notes from the field: Cringely points out that Karl Rove and SCO have something in common. (Though I imagine neither would appreciate the comparison in the slightest.) "As for the company itself, SCO ain't dead yet, but it's on a respirator, and the Penguinistas are jumping up and down on the air hose," Cringe reports. SCO: going, going, gone? "SCO fans had better hope the company's move into the mobile space pays off, because it sure looks like the legal strategy won't." The bigger question, of course, is where have all the SCO fans gone?
Columnist's corner: The cast of characters in this week's Off the Record includes the author, Boss, Doom and the secondary Prez. It's a classic game with no winner. To set the scene, author hires Doom to help with growing company that wants to keep IT staff small, thus Boss and Prez happy. The two get on great at first. Work hard, play hard. Until a backstabbing occurs, that is, leaving no mystery about whodunit in this one, folks.
Applications: While Google's announcement that it will bundle Sun's StarOffice into Google Pack has Eric Knorr saying that the free suite means "Microsoft may be in a tougher spot than it's ever been," Ephraim Schwartz maintains that "there is an almost imperceptible undercurrent that could spell trouble for the search giant's future." In The demise of Google, Schwartz is referring not to office suites but, instead, to the crop of "niche, vertical, boutique -- call them what you will -- search engines."
The news beat: Nokia says that 46 million cell phone batteries are in danger of overheating, though a spokeswoman claims there is no threat of them catching fire. The record-breaking Storm Trojan is linked to a rise in spam. Oracle says it will charge for four add-ons to its 11g database, including some of the most anticipated features. And Scotland hopes to lure Indian outsourcers with the capability of setting up call centers that boast multilingual staff.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 14, 2007 10:20 AM
August 14, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Google guns for MS Office buyers with free StarOffice, VMware sets IPO share price, Oracle says it will detail pricing for Database 11g, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 14, 2007 07:59 AM
August 14, 2007 | Comments: (0)
From the feature well: Think you're IT savvy? How about smart? Then prove it with InfoWorld's Geek IQ test -- and then brag some, if you've earned it. Starting off, it seems easy enough: What is the first universal question of telephone help desk support? Answer that and start the quiz right here.
Test Center review: When it revealed a server component to Office, Microsoft, in the words of Oliver Rist, "wasn't building a lonely heart wallflower." No, instead it was creating "a swinging frat party of servers." SharePoint was among those -- and it's the first such product we review in a four-part series. "It's not only feature-rich, it also acts as the central hub for the others." Read the full article.
Best of the blogs: One reader, frustrated by too few development resources, writes into Bob Lewis in need of advice. She or he is moving from Novell to Active Directory, you see, but has to use an app, with critical data, but has to run it on an insecure desktop. Quite the conundruum. "It's just strange. Or maybe there's a budget problem," Lewis suggests in A developer who can't install or connect. "But I'm not there and it's easy for someone as far away as I am to spout off."
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 14, 2007 04:59 AM
August 13, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Best of the blogs: The response to Sean McCown's post about how Microsoft should just give up on access has been more than he expected. "A lot of you came out against my post, and ended up proving my point for me," he explains in More on Access. The problem, McCown explains, is that "people have been given a pistol without a safety and they insist on looking down the barrel."
The news beat: Toshiba recalls more defective laptop batteries because they pose a fire hazard. XenSource takes on VMware with the new XenEnterprise v4 virtualization software. SCO says it is down but not out in the Linux cases against IBM and Novell, after a judge ruled that Novell holds the patent to Unix and UnixWare. And Oracle debuts Coherence 3.3, its in-memory data grid software, with improved clustering and tighter links to Fusion middleware.
Notes from the field: Robert X. Cringely reports that some readers are singing the TeleBlend and VoIP blues. Some days VoIP has even Cringe pining for the rotary dial and Ma Bell. And he's not alone. "After SunRocket crashed to earth last month, Cringe fan M. K. switched over to TeleBlend. But when TeleBlend's voice service went AWOL for several days last week, he was furious." The plot thickens, and gets nastier, though our author thanks his lucky stars not to have been the recipient of a $218 trillion phone bill, "like that poor sap in Malaysia."
Podcasts: AppStream enhances two flavors of its application deployment and management software, enterprise and SaaS versions. "What impressed me was the number of features added into the product for a dot release," says David Marshall. "They've also added an SDK for both client and server customizations." Tune into Virtualization Report here.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 13, 2007 10:16 AM
August 13, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Novell wins rights to Unix, SCO says fight not over yet. Also, XenSource updates virtualization software, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 13, 2007 08:18 AM
August 13, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Columnist's corner: Apple's legion of devout fans might not want to hear it, but Roger Grimes refers to a self-professed Mac enthusiast and security researcher who said how it simple it was to hack both Leopard and iPhones, even going so far as to suggest Apple was falling down on the job. RFID, by the by, is not so difficult to hack either, Grimes writes in Thoughts on Black Hat.
Storage: As its name suggests, RocketStream fuels faster file transfers. And it could fill a gap "for customers with deep pockets and needs that go beyond simple file transfers," Mario Apicella explains. "Even on my LAN where the latency delay is very low, RocketStream moved files between two Windows XP machines much faster than Windows Explorer -- nearly twice the speed."
Security: Although the little-known Federation for Identity and Cross-Credentialing Systems, aka FiXs, is already in pilot mode at a handful of government agencies, the initiative's head "does not see a national or international identity management implementation as a near-term reality," reports Maggie Biggs in National ID? How about a global ID? At issue is that fact that "policy and implementation agreements would be needed among federal, state, and local government agencies as well as corporate governance boards, civil libertarians, foreign governments, and the population at large."
Green IT: Google says that the energy issue is not black and white and, in response to the search site Blackle, maintains that the white background on its homepage does not consume more energy than a black one would. Others claim black has energy-saving potential.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 13, 2007 04:46 AM
August 10, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Careers: There is a certain allure to working as contractor, despite the downsides. You're still, after all, essentially running your own business. "Don't jump into this unless you know what you're doing," advises Nick Corcodilos in this Ask the Headhunter post. "Being a contractor is a different life." You'll have to run your own marketing, watch out for gotchas, handle insurance and benefits. Oh yes, and don't forget about the ol' IRS.
The news beat: A researcher says that Windows Vista prevents users from playing high-definition video and audio, and harms system performance. Microsoft opens a beta of its Skydrive online storage service to anyone who wants to test it. And PC World's Erik Larkin offers a hands-on with Palm's not-yet-released Foleo, the handheld maker's first Linux-based device.
Notes from the field: Robert X. Cringely, once again, has the geek week in review. This time, it includes the so-called Storm worm, former Brocade CEO Greg Reyes singing the stock backdating blues, a class action suit against Microsoft for defrauding consumers with its Vista-capable marketing campaign, and more.
Gripe Line: "One reader has gotten so frustrated with the inflexible spam-blocking approach of AOL that he's wondering if the company is deliberately using it to promote its guaranteed e-mail delivery service," Ed Foster shares in AOL spam roadblock takes a toll. The volunteer admin of a Web site for car enthusiasts for the past three years has been plagued by AOL's so-called new and improved spam blocking that includes end-user-generated reports. "What do you think?" Foster asks. "Is AOL using its spam-blocking procedures to get business for its paid e-mail?"
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 10, 2007 10:38 AM
August 10, 2007 | Comments: (0)
RSA buys Tablus for data leakage protection software, MySQL makes it harder to use enterprise version of database for free, report suggests ISPs take larger role in security, and more LISTEN!
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 10, 2007 07:57 AM
August 10, 2007 | Comme