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The InformationWeek July 2008 Archive « June 2008 | Main | August 2008 » |
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Alfresco Releases An Open Source SharePoint Compatible Alternative
Alfresco, whose open source enterprise content management (ECM) software has earned it a significant following, is making more waves with the release this week of Alfresco Labs 3, an open source alternative to Microsoft SharePoint.
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VMware Fusion 2 Beta 2
Leopard Server now supported plus better HW utilization and Windows-to-Mac data sharing.
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The iPhone's Push App Service Appears
While iPhone owners may never get true background applications, the seeds are in place for the next best thing. Select developers are saying the 2.1 version of the firmware has an API for Apple's Push Notification Service.
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rBuilder: DIY Open Source Appliances
I blogged earlier about the growth of open source virtual appliances, which now includes outfits like Jumpbox who create value-added appliances for popular open source packages. Now comes rBuilder, for those with a bit more do-it-yourself spirit.
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Beyond Vista: Microsoft's Plans For Windows 7, 8, And 'Midori'
Microsoft's OS developers need to be more sure-handed than ever these days, given the number of balls they've got in the air.
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Alfresco Debuts Beta Of SharePoint Competitor
Today Alfresco takes aim at Microsoft SharePoint, the collaboration juggernaut, with the release of Alfresco Labs 3. Currently available in beta, Alfresco Labs 3 lets companies use SharePoint in an open-source environment.
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Dell's New Entertainment Service: Will It B-Sharp Or B-Flat?
Athletes recovering from a serious injury should take it slow and not overexert themselves. That's a lesson that's apparently being ignored by Dell, which is looking to compete with Apple's champion iTunes while struggling with a lousy rep for customer service.
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Should Microsoft Play To Its Corporate Strengths?
With Apple recently experiencing explosive growth and Microsoft stock in the doldrums for most of the decade, it's time for some action in Redmond. Last time I proposed a "show them how it's done" model, where Microsoft builds complete solutions that include its software. This time it's the "focus on what you do best" approach; for Microsoft that means servers and business infrastructure.
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Windows Mobile: We Have 18,000 Mobile Applications. Beat That, iPhone
This morning I received an email from the Windows Mobile press relations team. According to what I read, the number of Windows Mobile phones out in the world has doubled in the last year, and Microsoft expects its WinMo phones to outsell the iPhone, like, forever.
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Nokia Drops Phone Prices, Puts The Squeeze On Competitors
Nokia has an empowering, vice-like grip on 40% of the world market for mobile phones. Even with its market-leading position, it is stepping up the pressure on its rivals, and recently cut the cost of many of its phones by about 10%. Is this the first sign of a price war?
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Ancient Olympic 'Computer' Calculated Dates Of Games
Researchers announced Wednesday that a geared device dating to the second century BC was used to calculate the dates for the first Olympic games.
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Google Says Privacy Doesn't Exist, Get Used To Everyone Knowing Everything About You
The headline practically says it all. Google is being sued by a Pittsburgh couple for posting images of its house on the Internet in Google's Street Views pages. Google responded, in court no less, that complete privacy simply doesn't exist in today's world and the couple should stop crying about it.
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Nielsen Norman Group Evaluates Intranet Portal Usability
Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, a Web usability-centric column published every two weeks, focused recently on enterprise intranet portals. It's been three years since the Nielsen Norman Group last took a detailed look at the enterprise portal industry, and in its latest report, it notes that while many things have changed, certain key principals -- such as usability, governance and effectively measuring return on investment (ROI) -- are still critical.
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Geeks 1, Rapist 0
It's not often that the geeks get to help put a bad guy in the slammer but as eWeek reports, the geeks at Seagate Recovery Services managed to recover the video of a rapist's confession that was badly burned in the transfer from the original camcorder tape. The poor DA didn't have the original tape and couldn't read the CD. Defense council claims the DVD has exculpatory evidence so the DA has to produce it.
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Google Acquires Omniso
Google, via the YouTube blog, on Wednesday said that it has purchased Omniso, a California-based social video startup.
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Cisco Won't Buy EMC, Will It?
Analyst Kaushik Roy with Choi and Pacific Growth Equities really stoked the fire of a longstanding rumor (repeat rumor) that Cisco would just love to buy storage king EMC. And while this won't happen, there are kernels of truth in there.
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Radware Reveals Critical Vulnerability In Firefox 3
Well, not exactly "critical." But there is a flaw. And there is no patch. And so Radware demonstrates how many security vendors push their gear by spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt on the user community.
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The Instinct Gets A Software Update
Apple's iPhone 3G isn't the only touch-screen device that's selling like hot cakes, as Samsung's Instinct also has been flying off the shelves. While the Instinct was successful, many have reported data-related issues with the phone. Those problems should be fixed with the latest firmware update.
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The Reality Of Private Clouds
In his blog "Clouds Are Only in the Sky" yesterday, Richard Martin suggested that a cloud must be on the public Internet for it to truly be a cloud and that if something resembling a cloud is used internally then it must be utility computing. He makes a very good point; however, I respectfully disagree.
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Google Maps Adds Mass Transit Support For S60 And Windows Mobile Phones
Not too long ago, Google added transit directions to is Maps for Mobile product. Initially, it supported just BlackBerry smartphones. Today, Google added support for Nokia's S60 platform and Microsoft's Windows Mobile platform, as well. I gave the new mapping software a spin.
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Do Most Restores Really Fail?
Every once in a while I see some analyst, usually talking about some backup to disk product, say "X% of all attempts to restore from tape fail" where X is some ridiculous number like 62.7. While I've been involved in my share of restore disasters from OnStream tapes and no OnStream drive to "We found tapes 1-3 and 5-8 do we really need tape 4 of that set" 95% were due to stupidity of some sort. So tell me folks what percentage of your restores fail? Good restore war stories also welcome.
Fighting Siloing In Open Source
Another major theme recurring through the notes I took at OSCON, something echoed by many people there, is "siloing" -- or, rather, how to recognize it and do something about it.
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T-Mobile Takes Customization To A Whole New Level With Latest Sidekick
Last night in New York City, T-Mobile announced its new Sidekick 2008 with a bang. The update to T-Mobile's messaging device for the masses now lets users interchange the exterior shell of the device, making it more personal. It also is slightly more svelte than previous models and includes some other noteworthy tech updates.
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The CIO Was Right: Web 2.0 Is Dangerous
CIOs have gotten a reputation -- rightly or wrongly -- for dragging their feet when it comes to Web 2.0 initiatives like social networks and application mash-ups. The reason: security. Now it appears they may have been justified.
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Looking For Anyone In Particular?
In the current economic climate, hiring new people is something that's put on the back burner at many organizations -- especially if there's any threat that a "reduction in headcount" might be in the cards. But, that doesn't mean no one is hiring IT people. In fact, certain talent is still hard to find and highly sought after at some organizations.
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LG To Add Dolby Mobile Sound To Its High-End Phones
As a certified audiophile, I am always looking for improvements in the quality of music playback in mobile phones. To date, very few have impressed me. Looks like LG could be changing that sad song to a happy one, though, as it announced it will begin putting Dolby Mobile sound into its premier phones later this year.
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Do Your Batteries Look Like Bombs? Do You Even Know What A Bomb Looks Like?
With the exception of a pipe bomb I once saw on the news, I don't think I've ever seen what a regular bomb looks like. Have you? It's an important question because the TSA is apparently willing to confiscate something (in this case, batteries) that it knows isn't a bomb, but that it still considers a threat because it looks like a bomb to other people (other people that don't know what a bomb looks like). Writes Bruce Schneier of the incident...
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IT's Olympic Trials
Even as Olympic teams around the world were holding their final qualifying trials to see who got to go to Beijing, the technology infrastructure behind the Games was going through its own grueling trials.
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Bamboo Solution's Bundles Extend SharePoint Functionality
Bamboo Solutions is probably a familiar name to the IT staffs at enterprises running SharePoint. The company made headlines in couple of months ago when it released information on how to run SharePoint on a Vista box, but it's also one of the best known and most successful vendors of plug-in modules intended to enhance SharePoint's base functionality.
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Google Should Take Privacy Lessons From Cuil
Google can rest easy, at least for the time being. Cuil, the search startup that debuted on Monday, is no Google-killer. Judging by the dismissive comments left by those reading InformationWeek's coverage, Cuil was more of a danger to itself than any other company, thanks to downtime and poor performance on both a technical and functional level.
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Oracle WebLogic Servers Vulnerable To Attacks
When it comes to security vulnerabilities, this flaw is as ugly as it gets -- but, in this case, it's not all because of anything Oracle did wrong.
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Is eBay Getting Into Cloud Computing?
Another of the Web giants, eBay, may be joining the growing and nebulous (pun intended) field of cloud computing, if a new job listing is any indication.
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Clouds Are Only In The Sky
There's a lot of blogosphere chatter these days about "private cloud" computing. Unfortunately, there's no such thing.
Continue reading "Clouds Are Only In The Sky..."
EV Certificates Enhance The Bottom Line, Not Trust
VeriSign has been very active in beating the Extended Validation certificate drum. I just have a real problem with EV certificates being sold as "better" than regular EV certificates. EV certificates don't change the security features of the resulting SSL connection. The green or red address bar doesn't tell us whether a Web site is trustworthy or not. But the green bar adds greenback to your coffers, regardless.
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An Open Letter To Apple And AT&T: Why Did You Brick My First-Generation iPhone?
Anyone who upgraded from a first-generation iPhone to the iPhone 3G had to sync the new hardware with iTunes in order to finalize the activation process. By so doing, you effectively killed the cellular radio in the first-generation iPhone. Sure, the 1G iPhone can play media, browse the Web via Wi-Fi and access the Apps Store, but it can't make phone calls. What gave Apple and AT&T the right to disable my $600 piece of property?
Continue reading "An Open Letter To Apple And AT&T: Why Did You Brick My First-Generation iPhone?..."
Siemens Enterprise Finds A Buyer
Some two years after it was spun off from the Siemens AG parent company, with the intention of being acquired, Siemens Enterprise (SEN)has finally reached that goal with today's announcement that Gores Group, a Los Angeles-based private equity firm, will acquire 51% of SEN, while Siemens AG retains the rest. (For more posts, go to No Jitter.)
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Sony Bundles Spare Backup With New PCs
From the good news/bad news desk Sony has joined Packard-Bell (they still buy them in Europe) to bundle Spare Backup's agent and online backup service with every PC they sell. On the good news front this means more of the fashonistas that buy Sony PCs at retail will backup their data online.
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EMC Drops MozyPro Server Prices
In an e-mail to Mozy resellers, EMC this week announced that it was dropping the price for server backups via MozyPro from the $1.75 per GB per month level they reached in February (see Previous Blog Entry) to 50 cents per GB per month, curiously the same amount it was charging before the price hike earlier this year. Server coverage is still $6.95 a month for each protected server, up from the $3.95 price that covered both servers and workstations in the distant past (2007).
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BlackBerry Users Can Save Gas By Using Local Shopping Application From Slifter
If you're desperately in need of a new pair of shoes and don't know where the closest shoe store is, the location-aware shopping application from Slifter will tell you. It also will tell you exactly where they are in stock, so you don't waste gas driving to three different stores to find the right size.
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Potential Verizon Strike Could Impact Enterprise IT
If Verizon is the "last mile" for your ISP, and you are planning on ordering voice or data service in the near future, you better get your order in now.
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An Open Source Software Police?
I'm still sorting through the last bits of my OSCON trip notes, but one striking conversation I had was with Byrne Reese of SixApart about people who violate the end-user licensing of for-pay editions of OSS apps. Do we sic the open source cops on them? I'd like to think not.
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iPhone 2.0 Outrage Tearing Up Apple Discussion Boards
On the heels of the MobileMe meltdown, it's now appearing that Apple's iPhone 2.0 software update is meeting with, er, more support issues than one would have expected. In fact, the outcry on Apple's own discussion boards has reached a crescendo, with numerous unhappy iPhone customers complaining that they're getting no comfort from Cupertino. Here's what they're saying.
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Apple And Security: Long Road Still Ahead
Apple's trying to pick up its game with iPhone security, recently listing an iPhone Security Engineer position. Assuming the job is really about helping users -- and not just thwarting pesky unlockers -- it's a good move, but some corporate inertia might need to be overcome before security is a true priority. Just take a look at the official iPhone Enterprise Deployment tools.
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Looking At Open Source CMS Market Share
Lots of factors go into choosing an open source content management system: ease-of-use, compatibility with existing systems, support options, user communities, functionality. And while you don't want the selection process to turn into a popularity contest, knowing what systems are building critical mass and increasing (or decreasing) in popularity can be helpful.
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MWg Zinc II Reviewed, Unlocked WM6.1 For $749?
MGw is a brand new device company that first introduced its new handset, the Zinc II, at the Mobius 2008 event a while back. It's a SIM-unlocked Windows Mobile Professional 6.1 device that's now available in the U.S. for a staggering $749.95.
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Memo To Ballmer: Microsoft Doesn't Control Its Own Destiny
Last week, a Steve Ballmer memo leaked out. The main point of the memo was to announce the departure of platforms and services chief Kevin Johnson. However, other points in the memo caught my attention.
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Michael Dell Revives Smartphone Rumor
In a recent interview, Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell alluded that the company is exploring the idea of crafting its own smartphone. While he didn't provide any specific details, the comments revive one of the oldest rumors in the technology blogosphere.
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Cuil Runs Too Hot On Opening Day
The creators of Cuil have garnered a good bit of buzz today with their new search engine that sifts through 120 billion Web pages, reportedly three times the number Google searches. Now if only the Cuil folks can find a way to ensure that their search engine performs while under pressure.
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Modeling IT Attacks
Every day IT managers have to contend with an ever-changing risk environment. That’s where good risk modeling can help.
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Beating Up Storage Vendors
An analyst firm recently published a report suggesting that the No. 1 priority in reducing IT costs was to beat up your storage vendor for lower costs. I would like to give a dissenting opinion.
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OSCON, Pt. 5.0: Sam Ramji's Wonderful, Terrible Job
There's a part of me that thinks Sam Ramji, director of Microsoft's Open Source Lab, has the worst imaginable job at Microsoft. But he doesn't see it that way: Where other people would see such a position as being crushed between two wholly opposed forces (Microsoft and open source), Sam sees it as a way to build a bridge that didn't exist before -- and maybe to transform Microsoft all the more from within.
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BlackBerry Bold Gets A Black Eye, Delayed Again
Research In Motion's next-generation BlackBerry, the Bold, was announced in May and set for a July launch on AT&T's network. Then it was pushed to August. Now it appears that the new smartphone won't be available until September.
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Is Cuil Too Cool For School, Or Does It Still Need To Learn Some Lessons From Google?
This morning a band of ex-Google employees launched a competitive search offering called Cuil (pronounced cool). Cuil has indexed about 120 billion Web pages, which is approximately one-eighth of Google's claimed 1 trillion indexed pages. Just how useful is Cuil?
Continue reading "Is Cuil Too Cool For School, Or Does It Still Need To Learn Some Lessons From Google?..."
Apple Mans Up To MobileMe Mess
Will MobileMe mail users be mollified by Apple's just-updated status page, which gives a progress report on how the Mac maker is recovering from the meltdown? Mmmm. Judging by the comments I received in response to my post last week, What's Behind Apple's MobileMe Meltdown, I wouldn't bet the iPod Touch on it.
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Will IT Win A Medal?
The 2008 Summer Olympics, set to begin in Beijing on Aug. 8, is being billed as the "High-Tech Olympics." That's one of the three main themes set by the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG), along with the "Green Olympics" and the "People's Olympics."
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Mobile Set To Revitalize Local Newspaper Business?
It's no secret the local newspaper industry is failing, with readers dropping print versions for a more digital means of staying up to date with local news. Among efforts to revive the dying industry is an initiative on behalf of Verve Wireless to pump local news through mobile devices to provide a new medium for local outlets to boost their readership and subsequent ad revenue.
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Google Index Reaches 1 Trillion URLs
Three years after Google declared that its index was three times larger than any other search engine and then declined to cite a specific number to support that claim, it was widely believed that Google had tired of index one-upmanship and that it would no longer be measuring its index.
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Open Text Rounds Out Offerings With Strategic Acquisitions, Partnerships
Open Text has had a busy couple of months, with certifications, partnerships, and a couple of acquisitions to round out its already robust enterprise content management (ECM) product offerings. These will serve to extend their reach internationally, as well as bolstering the functionality of its flagship ECM Suite.
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AT&T Paranoid About Xohm/Clearwire Merger, Cries To FCC
It may have been out of the headlines the last few weeks, but out of sight does not mean out of mind for AT&T when it comes to the merger between Sprint's Xohm WiMax service and Clearwire. It recently filed a petition with the FCC trying to block the merger in what would be a serious competitive threat to its own 3G network.
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The View From Google Knol
Google’s answer to the Wikipedia encyclopedia, Google Knol (short for Knowledge), launched earlier this week to some fanfare, at least from cash-strapped authors and other subject-matter experts.
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Windows Memory Has Physical, Design, and Marketing Limitations
Mark Russinovich is one of Microsoft's best technical people, and he shows that every time he makes a blog post. This week he has a great post about the maximum supported memory in different versions of Windows. I thought I knew this story pretty well by now, but learned several new things about the limits--and the interesting reasons behind them.
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OSCON, Pt. 4.2: openSUSE's Eleventh Hour (And Twelfth, And Thirteenth...)
Aside from having one of the niftier names in the industry, Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier has a pretty nifty job, too: He's the openSUSE Community Manager at Novell, where he oversees the folks that help make what will ultimately turn into the next version of SUSE Linux Enterprise. I grabbed a few minutes of his time to follow up on things I'd talked to him about back at the Red Hat Summit.
Continue reading "OSCON, Pt. 4.2: openSUSE's Eleventh Hour (And Twelfth, And Thirteenth...)..."
Memo To Forrester: Vista Is Not The Problem
Everyone's atwitter (not that Twitter) about the new "enterprise trends" report from Forrester Research, which stuck the shiv in Microsoft's virtual back by comparing Vista to "new Coke." Wrong; Vista is actually like Sprite -- it's a decent alternative to Windows XP, though not to everyone's taste.
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OSCON Pt. 4.1: SourceForge's CCA Awards & Ross Turk: Everyone's A Winner
Even if two of my pet projects didn't garner any awards in the SourceForge.Net 2008 Community Choice Awards, it was still a thrill to hang out at Portland, Ore.'s superstylish Jupiter Hotel and see everyone from one of Microsoft's open source guys, Sam Ramji, to SourceForge community manager Ross Turk himself take the stage.
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Gmail Adds Easy Email Encryption
E-mail can be a major security headache. That's why corporations take pains to ensure that their sensitive e-mails are protected. Sometimes that means using encryption. Gmail users always get encryption protection when signing in, but now it's easier to encrypt messages and everything else, too.
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Vibrations Part II
In my last entry we opened up a can of worms around drive vibration, discussing what it is and how it occurs. Vibration exists, but why should you, the IT professional, care? This stuff is all on RAID 5, right? Why do you care if a drive fails?
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Revisiting Click-to-Call
If you sit through enough unified communications marketing presentations, sooner rather than later, you'll hear someone confidently assert that "UC is more than just click to call." But what if click to call is really enough for you?
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Apple Seeds iPhone Firmware 2.1 To Developers, Includes Better GPS Support (And Hopefully Bug Fixes)
It appears that iPhone application developers have been given access to a new version of the firmware for the Apple device. Among the changes readily found in the system software is a new Core location feature, which could power turn-by-turn directions. But what about eradicating all those nasty bugs?
Continue reading "Apple Seeds iPhone Firmware 2.1 To Developers, Includes Better GPS Support (And Hopefully Bug Fixes)..."
iPhone For The Rich, Android For The Rest Of Us?
ReadWriteWeb outlined an interesting interview with Nicolas Gramlich, founder of AndDev.org, an Android development community, who stated a rather controversial sentence: "Android is for the masses, iPhone is for the rich." Whether you believe the validity of Mr. Gramlich's statement or not, it's hard to deny the facts that help support his view.
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Content Migrations: Not For The Faint Of Heart
A number of bloggers in the content management community have been buzzing about why Oracle recently migrated its internal and external blogs to Movable Type instead of one of its own tools. It's a fair question, but the migration is understandable, as Movable Type is a solid platform, and well-suited to the type of work they are doing. But I'm interested in a more pragmatic question: How did Oracle manage to migrate all of that content?
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Disclosure Isn't Working
After a decade of writing about IT security, I don't know how anyone would think this current system of disclose and patch is working. It's not.
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Zune Phone Rumors Heat Up Again
That Zune tattoo guy may want to want to reconsider getting rid of the logo, as, once again, the rumor mills have Microsoft working on a Zune phone.
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Beyond Server Farms In The Sky
In a previous entry, I wrote about how weeks of outages had forced Twitter, the popular microblogging site, to scale back on service features in an effort to keep its servers from going down.
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You Think You Have Problems?
Despite cuts to both capital and operating budgets, the CIO of Oakland County, Mich., is bullish on the prospects of keeping his IT group efficient and serving his customers effectively.
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OSCON Pt. 3.2: OpenOffice.Org's 'Meaningless' Community Manager
Right after my chat with Zack of MySQL, I sat down with Louis Suarez-Potts, the community manager for OpenOffice.org -- a project that's probably every bit as important to Sun as MySQL, if not more so. Our conversation rambled a bit (he's a Philip K. Dick fan, same as me), but I was able to touch on the most important things on my mind -- and the first thing I learned was that Louis's job description is, in his words, "meaningless." Meaningless, but far from pointless!
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Will In-Flight Web Access Save The Airline Industry?
This will almost certainly go down as the worst year in the history of the U.S. airline industry. Buffeted by high fuel costs, the airlines are canceling flights -- and losing money -- in record numbers. But there's a glimmer of hope in providing in-flight Web access to passengers.
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Are Lock-Picking Demos On YouTube A Bad Idea?
Amateur lock hackers who share their techniques may be improving security -- or endangering your life and property.
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Verizon Wireless Kills Off The Palm Treo 755p
Well, that was a short-lived affair. Verizon Wireless has announced it is phasing out the Palm Treo 755p. Verizon only began selling the 755p several months ago, and apparently now favors the younger, hipper Centro to serve as its sole offering running the Palm platform. I can just barely make out "Taps" in the distance.
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Mobile Social Networking A Big Fat Failure So Far?
Despite the online popularity of Web sites such as MySpace and Facebook, a recent study shows that 93% of mobile users fail to access their social networking sites from their mobile phones. I fall into the small percentage of people who use their mobile phones for social networking pretty much every day. Why is such a small minority networking from their phones?
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OSCON, Pt. 3.1: MySQL's Day In The Sun
On Wednesday I sat down at OSCON with a slew of people from Sun Microsystems to talk about key parts of their empire, both new and old. First up was Zack Urlocker of MySQL (whom I'd observed at the Monday Participate 08 panel), one of the newest additions to the Sun galaxy, and an acquisition that's caused a great deal of worry amongst existing MySQL users.
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Google Hosts More Malware Than Anyone Else
Security firm Sophos has been poking around the Internet on the hunt for malware and found out that Google's Blogger service is the world's No. 1 repository for the evil code. Some 2% of all malware can be found on Google's servers. Google, time to clean house.
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Failed Startup Recounts Its Mistakes
Angel investor Roger Ehrenberg has provided a frank assessment of what went wrong at Monitor110, a Web-based information service for hedge fund traders that closed down a few days ago. Many startups fail, but few are this candid about their mistakes.
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3G iPhone Suffering From Network Woes
Apple forums pages are full of complaints from users who are having network problems with their 3G iPhones. They are not alone. My 3G iPhone rarely is able to connect to AT&T's 3G network, and instead of switching back to EDGE, will give me a "No Service" indicator, rendering the phone useless. Apple, AT&T, what's going on here?
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iPhone Sets The Stage For Google's Mobile Ad Business
The iPhone has set the standard for future mobile Web browsing, and it's exactly what Google has been waiting for; an opportunity to extend its lucrative full-Web advertising business into the realm of mobile.
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DAT/DDS The Tape Format That Will Not Die
After an absence of five or six years, and two generations, DDS trademark owner Sony is rejoining HP in supporting the seventh generation of DDS/DAT drives, DAT320, targeted at the SMB market. DAT320, like HP's DAT160s, abandons the Digital Auto Tape cartridge, and its 4-mm-wide tape, using 8-mm tape in a two reel cartridge instead.
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DNS Poisoning Vulnerability: If You Haven't Yet Patched, It May Be Too Late
If you've ignored the urge to patch Dan Kaminsky's DNS cache poisoning flaw, you could be on the verge of big trouble: Exploit code has just been published in a popular penetration testing tool.
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Documentum ECM Suite 6.5 Delivers Solid Web 2.0 Features
It's good news all around from EMC this week, with the one-two punch of strong second quarter earnings and the release of the feature-packed Documentum Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Suite Version 6.5.
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Google + Digg?
Google is about to acquire Digg, or so says Michael Arrington of TechCrunch.
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ZipClip Makes It Easy To Bring Web Content To Phones
Transferring content to your mobile phone can be a pain sometimes, but a new application is hoping to change that. ZipClip is a handy little free app that can get content from the Web to your phone.
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OSCON, Pt. 2.3: Jim Zemlin's Outlook Is Cloudy (In A Good Way)
Wednesday morning at OSCON I sat down with Jim Zemlin of the Linux Foundation, who I'd also checked out at the mobile Linux panel on Monday and had sat down with at the Red Hat Summit earlier this year. He's a terrifically engaging talker, and regaled me with tidbits about his current Linux-oriented fascinations: cloud computing and the mobile Linux market.
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How Often Do You Meet With The CEO?
Less often than last year, report many CIOs. Is that a good thing or a bad thing in terms of how seriously IT is taken as a business partner?
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EMC Pursues SharePoint And Web 2.0
The newest Documentum platform emphasizes collaboration, and also offers new tools to help manage information compliance.
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Good, Good, Good…Good Vibrations
Its summertime, time for a little Beach Boys? No, Good Vibrations is the beginning of a series of entries that I will be posting on increasing physical hard drive unit life. In recent briefings, manufacturers like Copan Systems and Xiotech have been raising the issue on the impact of drive vibration. While I was aware of drive vibration, it is not discussed much, so I decided to take a deeper dive.
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At Comic-Con, No Tintin Mania
Today is the first day of Comic-Con, the huge San Diego geekfest that celebrates superheroes, starship troopers, and the fanboys who love them. And while this is not a golden age for comics themselves, never has the comics world had more to celebrate, commercially.
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Early Review Of The Unreleased BlackBerry KickStart Appears
Since the clamshell KickStart from Research In Motion isn't ready for prime time yet, I think it's a bit premature to give it such an extended review, but the addicts at CrackBerry.com disagree. They've given the unreleased phone a thorough look-see. What do the editors over there think?
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Google's Knol Finally Goes Public. A Wikipedia Killer?
Anyone remember this? Google first announced Knol, a user-generated, online encyclopedia, back in December 2007. It's been in hibernation since then, as it spooled up its design, added content, and otherwise coalesced. Well, today it finally went live, albeit with only several hundred articles. Can it really take on Wikipedia?
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Valuable H-1B Workers Alberta-Bound As Congress Fiddles
Lawmakers in the Canadian province of Alberta are cashing in on the United States' failure to enact a rational immigration policy for skilled workers -- they're recruiting H-1B visa holders whose permits are about to expire.
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OSCON, Pt. 2.2: Participate 08 (Sponsored By ... Microsoft?)
Let's rewind a bit. My Monday afternoon at OSCON 2008 was taken up by "Participate 08," a Microsoft-sponsored discussion panel chaired by a whole panoply of folks -- including, yes, an open source liaison from Microsoft. The whole thing was neither a "corporate apologia" (as one wag put it from the audience) nor a pile-on where Microsoft got the worst of it. Their approach was only one of a diversity of perspectives, and sometimes not even the most eyebrow-raising.
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Google Maps Wants To Help You Walk From Point A To Point B
People who are walking around cities often need point-to-point directions just as desperately as those in cars. Google figured this out, and has added walking directions to its Maps service. After a few test runs, I can say with confidence that it does a pretty good job, at least in NYC.
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Lost Your Beloved BlackBerry Or Smartphone? No Worries
So you've lost probably the most important device in your repertoire: your beloved cell phone. What to do now? If you've signed up with YouGetItBack, you're one step closer to making sure your personal information is safe, and if you're really lucky, one step closer to getting it back unharmed.
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What's Behind Apple's MobileMe Meltdown
Whenever I see Apple stumble, which admittedly isn't often, I stop and wonder why. And then I remember it's because the same invariant laws of computing, which apply to us all, also pertain to the Mac maker. With MobileMe, and the severe outage which accompanied its attempted launch last Friday, we see that no company can, er, mess with the cloud. Here's what I think really happened.
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Google's Patents At Risk?
A provocatively titled post at the Patently-O blog, The Death of Google's Patents, by John F. Duffy, suggests that the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office's narrowing view of patentable innovation may invalidate some of Google's patents, not to mention patents held by IBM, Microsoft, and other companies with software patents.
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Virgin Mobile Axes Stripping Campaign
So, the MVNO Virgin Mobile wanted a viral way to promote its phones while also donating clothing to nonprofits that clothe homeless teens. Sounds like a noble goal, and nothing could go wrong, right? Well, it can get sticky if you involve stripping.
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VMware 2Q Numbers
2Q08 VMware numbers announced. The good: international and service revenue are way up. The not as good: The Street is always looking for more.
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Cloud Computing Serves Up Occasional Thunderstorms
Last weekend's Amazon S3 outage shows that cloud computing isn't all upside. In theory, outsourcing services to companies that focus on them should make things more scalable and reliable. In reality, it doesn't always seem to work that way.
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OSCON, Pt. 2.1: A Few Words With Mark Shuttleworth
For many people, Ubuntu is Linux, and Mark Shuttleworth is Ubuntu. It might come as a surprise to learn that the prime mover behind one of the most successful and visible Linux distributions out there isn't entirely comfortable with that. I jumped at the chance to sit down with Mark for an hour on Tuesday morning while at OSCON and ask him about that, and many other, things.
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Building A Case For Document And Content Management
The July/August issue of AIIM E-DOC Magazine features an interesting document and content management case study by John Harney this month titled "Making a Case for Content Management." The return on investment in the case study is stunning -- a government agency was able to save nearly half a million dollars in taxpayer funds a year by going from a manual to an automated system.
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Brocade Buys Foundry For $3B - Let The FCOE Battles Begin
After the close of trading yesterday, Brocade announced that it was going to buy Foundry Networks for $19.75 in cash and stock or a total of $3 billion dollars. This acquisition puts Brocade in a much better position in the coming data center network wars, as just being the dominant Fibre Channel switch vendor isn't worth much as large enterprise data centers move from separate storage and communications networks to a converged Ethernet.
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Slydial Lets You Be A Jerk To Your Coworkers, Friends, And Family
You know you've done it. C'mon, it's OK, you're not alone. G'head and admit it. You've called someone secretly hoping to get their voice mail so you didn't have to talk to them. Feel better now that that's off your chest? The good news for you is, Slydial lets you skip the risk of that person actually answering the phone and instead calls straight into their voice mail. Voila! Confrontation avoided.
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R.I.P. Cisco PIX, I Hardly Knew Ye
I know how this sounds, but I love my Cisco PIX firewalls. Like my 2000 Toyota Camry with 150,000 miles, my PIX firewalls just work day after day, always blinking green, passing packets and making people happy. And now, on July 28, I'm reminded that Cisco is mercilessly assassinating the PIX line of firewalls.
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If You Pay Them, They May Come
Microsoft, long stuck in third place behind Google and Yahoo, seems to have found a strategy able to help it make some headway in the search engine wars with the newly launched Live Search cashback site that gives advertisers and users of its search engine cash-back savings on online purchases.
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SteelEye Replicates Xen Servers
Host-based data replication has long been key to disaster recovery planning in the midmarket. They just couldn't justify building the duplicate SAN at their DR site that array-based replication required. More recently, server virtualization has revolutionized how the midmarket plans and builds disaster recovery sites by letting them replace the DR site with 3 to 5 hot standby servers that they would have needed five years ago with a single virtual server host.
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Opera Mobile Thumbs Nose At Apple, Says It Has More Mobile Web Users Than Anyone Else
Guess what? Big surprise. Opera's Mini browser is apparently pretty popular. In Opera's latest "State of the Mobile Web" report, we learn that most Opera users (worldwide) have a Nokia phone, but nine of the top 10 phones for Opera Mini in the U.S. are BlackBerrys. Opera also pointed out that its users pushed 46.7 million MB of data for operators. That's a lot of mobile data, people.
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On The Internet, There Are No Secrets
One thing is true about the security research community, it is populated by people that don't like to be told what to do or how to act. Halvar Flake thought the way the DNS disclosure was handled was OK, but didn't think the discussion blackout would be useful. So setting off as a DNS novice, he spent a few hours figuring out the problem. He got pretty close, too. So then Matasano Security disclosed and then pulled the details. By then it was too late.
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XyEnterprise Contenta 4.0 Broadens OS And Database Support
With Contenta 4.0, the latest version of its flagship XML Content Management Systems, XyEnterprise is focused mainly on expanding the number of operating systems and databases its systems will run on. Most notable are the edition of support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Windows Vista Service Pack 1, and support for MS SQL Server databases on the back end.
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Nokia's Open Platform Still No Match For The iPhone
While Nokia showed strong 2Q sales of 122 million devices, its days of being the largest mobile device maker might be coming to an end. Given its current 40% market share, it will stay on top for some time to come, but with pressure from other "open" mobile platforms, and the ever-looming iPhone making ripples around the world, it needs to step up its game, and make itself stand out from the crowd once again.
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OSCON, Pt. 1.1: Free-Range Open Source
Yesterday I left behind the muggy July of New York to drink in the relative cool of Portland, Ore. -- and also to drink in a week of the open source world, courtesy of O'Reilly's OSCON.
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Has The Time Arrived For iPhone Antivirus Software?
Apple antivirus and privacy software maker Intego thinks so. The security vendor last week announced its software is the first AV to scan the iPhone and iPod Touch for malware. I wouldn't rush out to install it, just yet.
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Holy Batphone, Nokia!
If you've seen the new Batman movie then you're probably still having nightmares about the Joker. But some eagle-eyed viewers noticed a Nokia-branded touch-screen phone that Morgan Freeman was using. Was this the rumored touchable Nokia Tube?
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2008 NAC Survey Results Webcast
I will be giving an hour-long Webcast Wednesday, July 23, 2008, at 11 a.m. PT / 2 p.m. ET, on InformationWeek's 2008 NAC Survey. We asked information professionals about their plans for NAC; why they were embarking on a NAC project; what they expected to achieve; and what their concerns were. We compared these results to past surveys to see what, if anything, has changed.
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Facebook Facelift Doesn't Answer Social Net's Big Question
Facebook, that personal scrapbook you get to fill out on company time -- I'm joking; it's really a valuable business tool -- just got a facelift. Personally, I was impressed at its cleaner-looking home page, until my teenage daughter took one look at it and said: "Oh, they made it look more like MySpace."
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Motorola's 'Adventure' Is One Tough Mother
If you need a cell phone to withstand high levels of abuse on a daily basis, there are only two words in this entire blog that you need to care about: mil spec. Phones that meet military specifications for high levels of punishment are designed for active duty. That's what makes the V750 Adventure from Motorola so rugged.
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The iPhone Is The New Gaming Platform
In a post on Monday, Om Malik asks, "Is iPhone The New Gaming Platform?" I think the answer is yes. I expect it will run the Nintendo DS out of town.
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What UC Is, And Isn't
Here's a response to my post, "Is Anyone Actually Implementing UC?" The writer, Ken Camp, argues that everyone's implementing UC, because UC encompasses so many things:
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Picture This: The New bMighty Imaging How-To Center
Despite repeated promises that the paperless office is just around the corner, the completely paperless office remains "just around the corner." Nevertheless, bMighty's brand new Imaging How-To Center can show you how to leverage document imaging to save money, improve your company's workflow, and even go a little green.
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Qik Offers Its Mobile Video Sharing Service To The Masses
Ever wanted to stream live video from your phone to a friend or family member somewhere? What about archive video you've shot from your phone directly to the Web? Qik lets you do both. Today, Qik officially entered public beta. As long as you have a smartphone running Windows Mobile or S60 (and a data plan!) you're ready to share whatever your little heart desires.
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Who's The Boss?
If you're in charge of IT, who's in charge of you? It depends a lot upon what industry you're in, according to a new survey by Forrester Research, which queried CIOs about their reporting relationships.
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What's Wrong With Energy-Efficient Notebooks?
PC makers are exhibiting worrisome signs of the same kind of calcified thinking that has brought the U.S. auto industry to its creaking knees.
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Google Updates iPhone Usability Further, Makes It Speedier
Google's latest improvement now allows users to save bookmarks to specific Google services directly on the desktop of their iPhone as icons. Rather than standalone applications, however, these are just links to the Web-based services. Also, ever mindful of how fast its services are, Google has picked up the pace a bit.
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Private Clouds
Last night, Sunday, July 20, Amazon S3 went down for more than two hours. Last weekend, Apple struggled its way through its MobileMe transition and it is still having some issues with its iDisk service. Both of these companies provide a high quality cloud service, but scaling these types of technology for the masses isn't an easy task and as we have seen in the case of Apple, upgrades or transitions in services are rarely smooth. That said, cloud services do offer specific capabilities that appeal to enterprises of all sizes.
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iPhone Is Owned Again; Yawn
A little more than a week after Apple's shiny new iPhone 3G went on sale, a team of programmers say they've, once again, gained control over the highly coveted gadget.
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New Retrospect-Mozy Bundle For Iomega -- Synergy For EMC?
When EMC bought consumer storage vendor Iomega a few months ago, I asked why in this blog. This week, the 800-pound gorilla of the storage industry answered my question, for users at least, by announcing new software bundles for owners of Iomega storage gear. The new bundles, free for new and current Iomega owners by download, include versions of Retrospect and Mozy which came to EMC, like Iomega, through acquisition.
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Microsoft Is Off My Christmas List...And Cisco, Too
I just wasted away my weekend trying to upgrade to Vista SP1, and I'm angry at Microsoft, and Cisco, too. If you revel in the pain of others, read on.
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Looking For Virt Jobs
Cocktail party. Polite conversation. National IT recruiter. Who has never heard of "virtualization."
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Spyware Can Be Hard To Tell From Typical Windows Behavior
Last week, I got an e-mail from a friend who said she thought her mother's PC might be infected with spyware. Not that general popup-ads kind of spyware, but the kind that targets a particular computer, monitors everything the user does, and sends it back to someone over the Internet. Although I was skeptical at first, her story convinced me otherwise.
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Motorola Sues Ex-Executive For Going To Apple
Motorola filed a lawsuit in Illinois a couple days ago against a former executive who left the company to become the head of Apple's iPhone sales division. This comes in a long line of departures for the flailing device maker, as it's lost several valuable employees to rival companies in recent months.
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Dell's Ubuntu Gets A Hardy Upgrade
Dell's commitment to Ubuntu Linux grows, like Topsy. According to a post on the Direct2Dell blog, Ubuntu 8.04 (the "Hardy Heron" edition) will be coming to the XPS M1330N and Inspiron 1525N notebooks, as well as the Inspiron 530N desktop. Stick the "grandma-approved" label on it, too, as DVDs will play back out of the box (as they did in Dell's 7.10).
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iPhone Free Software: Zenbe Lets You Make Checklists
One of the biggest frustrations of the original iPhone was the lack of a simple utility for making checklists. I want to make a list for a project, tick off each item when completed, and re-use the list when I have to do the same project another day. I don't want to prioritize the items on the list, or color-code them, or categorize them, or tag them, or make origami cranes out of them. I just want to make a checklist.
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Is The Air Leaking From Google’s Bubble?
Earnings season is in full swing and it's a good moment to pause and review three tech giants that reported in the last two days.
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Utilities Ready To Put IT Security Efforts In Place
The North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) announced this week that it's improving its ability to better manage IT security and critical infrastructure protection efforts to North America's bulk power system.
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Movies In The Cloud
The news yesterday that Amazon.com is launching a new streaming video service is sure to get a big thumbs up from tech-savvy film buffs.
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She's Got A Ticket To Ride ... Into Space
A story out of France Wednesday might have been ripped from the pages of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. Only this time the prize is space travel.
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Use Google Mobile To Rate Stuff In Your Neighborhood
I caught an update on Google's Official Mobile Blog a few days ago about how easy it is to review restaurants and other services in your neighborhood right on your phone. I ate at my favorite local diner yesterday and wrote a review on the spot. It was posted to the Internet in moments. Nifty.
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ActiveState Debunks Open Source Myths
There's two major classes of open source myth: the "Open source is evil and strange" myth, and "Open source makes everything perfect forever" myth. It's easy to see how notions so far off-center are far from being universally true, but I'm heartened whenever someone debunks myths on both sides by taking a more moderate stance. Such is the case, intriguingly enough, with a paper entitled "Ten Myths About Running Open Source Software In Your Business," courtesy of ActiveState.
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5 Things AMD Needs To Do To Save Itself
Pity poor AMD. The scrappy semiconductor vendor has cut a particularly impressive product swath since 2003, when it launched its Opteron server processor and followed up with worthy dual- and quad-core architectures. But the financial rewards haven't been commensurate with AMD's technical prowess, and yesterday Dirk Meyer was named CEO. Here's what he needs to do to get AMD back on the beam.
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The Problem With Power-Efficient Drives
Power-efficient drives are drives that slow down and go into a standby or idle mode and do exactly what they say they will do -- they save power. The challenge with these drives is that many manufacturers are putting these drives into standard array shelves, typically with the same power supplies and the same fans. The array shelf still has to be designed to assume that the drives will spin up at full power, because at some point they probably will.
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AT&T Bungles Free Wi-Fi Offering. Again And Again And Again
Several months ago, AT&T teased iPhone owners with on-again / off-again free access to AT&T Wi-Fi hotspots. In the end, the service was canned. This morning, a URL on AT&T's web site once again offered free Wi-Fi to iPhone owners -- and it was yanked, yet again. AT&T, what's the story?
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Business Intelligence Is Not An Oxymoron
Certainly not for this pizza CIO. BI tools let local managers stop e-mailing spreadsheets and concentrate on what they should be doing -- serving guests.
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Want A New iPhone? Be Prepared To Wait
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster is number-crunching for the 3G iPhone again. His latest prognosis? The current supply shortage is going to last well into August. Aren't you kicking yourself for not getting in line last weekend?
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Open-Source Advocates Spread Anti-iPhone FUD
The Free Software Foundation thinks you shouldn't buy the iPhone if you value freedom. They make some valid criticisms of the pocket-sized wonder. But they go too far in trying to make a consumer choice into a political decision. I value free software, but I like my iPhone 3G quite a bit, too, and I don't have to choose between them.
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Cyn.in V2 Offers Solid Features And An On-Site Appliance Option
Cynapse has just released version 2 of its open source cyn.in enterprise collaboration and knowledge management platform, including multiple new features and enhancements. But beyond the feature set is an even more interesting twist -- you can chose to download and run it on your own server, have Cynapse run it for you in a fully hosted software as a service model, or buy it as an all-in-one server appliance.
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Symbian And Android To Team For Mobile OS Powerhouse?
Since Nokia recently acquired 100% ownership of Symbian and announced plans to turn it over to a new Symbian Foundation as part of a move to create an open source operating system for handsets, there's been speculation as to what the next move will be. The OS will be offered free to foundation members, probably sometime in the first half of 2009, but should it be a direct competitor to Android or should it join forces?
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Sprint And TechWeb: Up In Smoke
Shooting video sounds so glamorous. Just saying you're on your way home from shooting a documentary feels a little Hollywood, especially if you throw on a pair of shades inside Dulles airport and your destination is actually LAX. Getting out the camera for security screening, taking the upgrade earned from untold miles in the air, putting on the Bose headphones over the baseball cap and tossing the flip flops under the seat; noticing halfway through the flight you're sitting next to Cheech Marin, watching him order the ice cream sundae while his svelte, attractive companion gets the cheese plate. And I'm thinking about seeing if he's carrying a little something from the old days just for fun.
Here’s the truth: It might just be the most fun I’ve ever had working, but it’s not all glamour.
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SharePoint Infrastructure Updates Aim To Improve Search
Microsoft this week announced the release of a number of search-centric enhancements for SharePoint, as well as enhancements and bug fixes for content deployment. These fixes, along with some patches for MS Office Project 2007 and MS Office Project Server 2007, are being collectively packaged together as the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 Infrastructure Update.
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Google Sued For Domain Parking (Again)
Google has been sued for the second time in less than a week for selling low-quality ads on parked domains.
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Another Database Startup Defies Conventional Wisdom
As a former database reporter, I take notice when a startup comes out with a new database platform. The 30-year-old database market is dominated by software behemoths like Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft with entrenched customer bases. Is there room for another player? TrackVia, which just closed Series A funding, believes so.
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Twitter Buys Summize Search Engine
Twitter's business plan may actually start bringing in some revenue with the news that Twitter has acquired the leading Twitter search engine Summize for an undisclosed sum.
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In The Cloud, Where Do Borders Fall?
I just read that the U.S. State Department now has an embassy in Second Life. That's an inflection point if I ever saw one.
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Google Gmail And Calendar Will Soon Run Offline
Within six weeks, Google Gmail and Google Calendar will be Google Gears-enabled, meaning that they'll run offline.
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Nokia Plans Touch Device For This Year, Sells 1.34 Million Phones Per Day During 2Q
Nokia announced its second quarter financial results today. Some interesting things came to light with the reports. First, the head of Nokia's mobile devices unit said the company will be bringing a touch screen device to the market later this year. Second, Nokia's 1.34 million-per-day handset sales put another device's sales into perspective.
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Microsoft Testing Windows 7 Server
Though there's been plenty of news and innuendo filtering out about Windows 7, we haven't heard much about the next version of Windows Server. Well, it seems Microsoft's begun testing it.
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Are You Going To Comic-Con?
Comic-Con is more than just a comic-book convention. It's like Cannes for the geeky arts. It showcases comics, cult and science fiction movies and TV shows, and nerdy crafts. I'm sure there'll be at least a hundred different varieties of light sabers on sale in the dealer room. It even showcases books, for those of us who are still quaint enough to read print books anymore.
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Opera Launches Latest Mobile Browser In Limited Beta
Today marked the official launch of the Opera Mobile 9.5 beta browser. I have been waiting for this beta program for a long time now, and as soon as the beta became available, I rushed to the Opera web site to download the browser. Much to my disappointment, I discovered that it doesn't support non-touchscreen Windows Mobile devices.
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Repetitive Strain Injury -- What Do You Do?
How are you coping with BlackBerry thumb, keyboard-induced carpal tunnel syndrome, and Guitar Hero aches?
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Controversy Dogs TWA 800 On 12th Anniversary
It was 12 years ago tonight that a 747 loaded with 230 people took off from JFK in New York, gently tilted itself over the Atlantic toward Paris, and exploded. Amid the many memorials flooding the Web today, almost none are focusing on the still-lingering controversy over the official cause of the disaster.
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Why You Can't Be Half-Open
Back when I was at the Red Hat Summit in Boston a few weeks ago, one of the panelists commented that the open source community takes a very exacting view of openness. You can't be half-pregnant, he quipped -- and you can't be half-open, either. Google's recent gaffe with the Android SDK (pending a more benign explanation of events) stands out as an example.
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Google, What Has Happened To Your Spam Filters?
A casual glance at my spam folder today shows nearly 850 bulk messages sitting there. Thanks, Gmail, for catching those and preventing them from reaching my in-box. Now, about the spam e-mails that have been reaching my in-box, such as the one I received this morning that is written in German, what gives? Oh, and the Nigerians have found me again.
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TrueCrypt: No Cloaking Crypto For You
Researchers say the steganography feature, also known as the Deniable File System (DFS), in TrueCrypt may not provide the "security by obscurity" users hoped for.
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Is Anyone Actually Implementing UC?
A debate has been going on over at No Jitter about whether enterprises are actually adopting Unified Communications (see here, here, here, here, and here). I tend toward the skeptical end of any conversation about how widely a hot new technology is actually being adopted, but I do see a few signs that enterprises are at least paying attention and, where possible, looking for an opportunity to get their feet wet.
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DIY Enterprise, MobileMe, Or Hosted Exchange?
The one feature I was most anticipating on the iPhone 3G was Exchange support. I'm part of the group that doesn't access corporate e-mail via Exchange, but rather a smaller hosted solution that still gives me the benefits of Exchange, without the headaches and cost of running my own server. When MobileMe was introduced, I was faced with the decision I think others found themselves in, which is: Do I switch to MobileMe, or keep my hosted Exchange service?
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Mollom Adds WordPress And Joomla Support To Their Anti-Spam Solution
Mollom, a content management system plug-in designed to block comment spam and junk user accounts, has had a good few weeks. It just announced the release of a WordPress plug-in, following closely on the heels of Joomla support earlier this month.
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SW Licensing Woes In VMland
I interviewed a VM-friendly CTO last week. His biggest issue? Not management, virt sprawl, or security concerns. His challenge is staying in compliance with OS and application licenses in a complex VMotion shop. Anyone else?
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iPhone Free Software: UrbanSpoon Is A Fun Way To Find Local Restaurants
UrbanSpoon will put a smile on your face and food in your belly. It uses the iPhone's location services to find restaurants near you. But it's the user interface that's the fun part -- it's the bastard child of a slot machine, Magic 8 Ball, and martini shaker.
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Microsoft Needs Its Mojo Back
Somewhere in the Silicon Valley, there's a Doctor Evil holding a test tube full of Microsoft Mojo. Unlike the golden age of the 1990s, Microsoft isn't generating excitement anymore. Sure, people still care what Microsoft does, but lately it's more like the industry knows the company is headed for a fall and is just rubbernecking to see the inevitable result.
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iPhone Free Software: Google Mobile App Streamlines Search
Google Mobile App boosts the already powerful partnership of Google and the iPhone, making searches even faster and more efficient. The app searches Google of course, and it uses your iPhone's built-in location awareness to perform local searches. It also searches your contacts. You can do these things from your iPhone without Google Mobile, but the app provides a slicker and more streamlined interface.
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Tech Companies Join To Fight Information Overload
The companies that created the information revolution appear to be having second thoughts.
Xerox on Tuesday said it has joined with Google, Microsoft, Intel, IBM, and other tech companies to fight information overload.
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I Stink At Recycling Old Cell Phones. Do You?
New data compiled by Nokia suggests that merely 3% of old cell phones are recycled. The bulk end up in a drawer somewhere. That got me thinking, and sent me searching around my house for all my old cell phones. I am ashamed to admit that I found 10. Eek. It's time we all got with the program.
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Gen Y Voters Best Reached Online, Expect Next President To Communicate Via Web
More than 42 million members of Generation Y could vote in the upcoming presidential election and the best way to reach them is online. That's according to MeriTalk, a site devoted to technology and public policy.
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Tomorrow's CIO: Biz Cred Counts
With today’s economic convolutions, it goes without saying that CIOs and tech leaders need a firm grounding in business and finance, and that will only increase in importance in the future. How firm a grounding? Here's a hint: Look around for a business unit that needs management help.
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Google, Yahoo, And 'The International Scientology Crime Syndicate'
What do Google, Yahoo, and The Church of Scientology have in question? They're among the dozens named as defendants in a lawsuit filed on Tuesday in a Florida federal court.
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Power Rationing--Green Gets Serious
As part of my normal routine I try to speak with as many data center managers as possible. A trend has appeared lately that I believe we are on the front end of. I am calling the trend power rationing. We have been told several times now over the past few weeks that data center managers are being given a hard limit as to how much power they can use. This is a shift from the more common "Reduce power consumption by x%" to "You can use X watts of power."
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Microsoft's Outrage Over Google/Yahoo: Hypocrisy?
You don't have to be Jewish to have heard of the word 'Hutzpah.' The simple definition for it is 'unmitigated gall or nerve.' For example, it takes real Hutzpah (or chutzpah) to accuse someone of doing something you might have done yourself. Not unlike Microsoft getting all huffy about Yahoo's intent to outsource search advertising to Google.
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Steve Jobs Decision Behind iPhone Apps' Achilles' Heel
Steve Jobs is ruining the new iPhone apps! OK, I guess should explain. Take a perfectly good Apps Store entry, such as the AIM client. It won't work unless it's front-and-center on your phone. That is, AIM won't run in the background on your iPhone, meaning you can't launch it and then go over and check your e-mail, browse the Web, or listen to music.
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iPhone Free Software: Twitterific Puts Twitter In Your Pocket
Twitterific was the very first app that I downloaded when I got my new iPhone 3G. It's a great toolset for keeping up with your Twitter friends when you're away from your computer and out and about in the world.
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3G iPhone Round Up: Firmware 2.0.1, 24 States Sold Out
Anyone using a 3G iPhone, or a first-generation iPhone that was updated to firmware version 2.0, is likely familiar by now with its inherent bugginess. Apple already is working on a fix, according to reports. Also, if you didn't brave the lines to get a 3G iPhone over the weekend, you probably won't get one any time soon.
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CA Launches New Records Management Software
Yesterday CA launched Records Manager R12. The latest version of the software meets the Department of Defense 5015.2 standard, which defines the requirements for any record-keeping application used by the DoD and other government agencies.
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The Rise Of Enterprise-Class Cloud Computing
With its new Cloud Server, Elastra joins a growing list of vendors offering products and services for enterprise-class cloud computing. The year-old startup is betting -- rightly so, in my opinion -- that businesses are ready and willing to move workloads to the cloud, but only if they have IT tools that are sophisticated enough to manage the process.
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Many Eyes, But How Many Brains?
I've written before about how the "many eyes" philosophy of open source security is only a starting point. Now a post at InfoWorld's Open Sources blog asks a parallel question, in the wake of two security holes being unveiled in the Spring Framework. If anything, this reinforces my opinion from before: Open is not automatically a synonym for safe.
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Google: Some Android Developers Are More Equal Than Other Android Developers
Apparently open doesn't really mean open and equal access means nothing. Despite promises that Android would be an equal opportunity platform for all developers, some are receiving special treatment -- "Animal Farm" style. Android Developer Challenge finalists have been given access to an unreleased version of the SDK that isn't available to all the other developers.
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Loopt Trips Over Privacy
The location-based social networking service Loopt is trying to recover from a privacy fumble, as users accuse it of spewing text-message spam and disclosing user cell phone numbers and whereabouts without permission. The controversy is sure to be a forerunner of privacy battles to come, as GPS-enabled cell phones like the iPhone enable businesses to track -- and disclose -- where people are at any given moment.
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Windows Mobile Still Set To Dominate iPhone?
With all the iPhone talk recently, it's easy to forget about the tried-and-true nature of mobile operating systems like Microsoft's Windows Mobile. The fact that it's meant to be used across several devices and manufacturers still makes more sense than limiting itself to one device like Apple's iPhone OS. With an Android-like distribution method, they're still in the best position to dominate the space.
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WordPress 2.6 Promises Content Creation Improvements
WordPress, the popular blogging and content management software, released version 2.6 today. The release includes new features for content creation, as well as a number of incremental improvements and nearly 200 bug fixes.
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Tuning In For VMware’s 2Q '08 Report?
I'm not usually one to make public service announcements, but I can't wait to be a fly on the wall for this call...
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Target's Swipe At Privacy, An Update
A representative from retailing company Target explained why they're scanning customers' driver's licenses, and exactly what information they are collecting.
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If Tape Is Dead, Why Did IBM And Sun Put 1 TB On A Cartridge?
Every once in awhile a vendor, or a fellow member of the brotherhood of storage industry bloggers, pundits, and blowhards, pronounces that disk-to-disk backup, data deduplication, the virtual tape library, or some other disk-based technology spells the death knell for tape in the data center. While I wouldn't go so far as Adam Osborne and claim that the tape-less data center is as likely as the paperless bathroom, I don't see tape disappearing altogether for a good little while. Apparently, Sun and IBM agree with me, as both announced new versions of their high-end tape drives that can store 1 TB of uncompressed data on a single cartridge.
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Ads Come To Boarding Passes
There are many ways air travel could be improved. Putting ads on passengers' boarding passes isn't one of the ways that comes to mind.
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The BlackBerry Bold Impresses
While the iPhone 3G launch is capturing headlines and media coverage, Research in Motion is readying its BlackBerry Bold. The Boy Genius has been playing with it for a month, and he wrote up a very lengthy review. The verdict? BlackBerry lovers will be quite satisfied.
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Fighting Back Against Hotel Internet Access Fees
I'm a cranky traveler at the best of times, and when I get charged outrageous fees for Internet access by supposedly fine hotels I get really aggravated.
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Does Your IT Wallet Feel Half Empty Or Half Full?
Budget time is approaching at many companies. Perhaps it's already there at your company. How is the economy affecting IT spending plans at your organization?
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IT Is A Recession-Proof Profession
A new survey puts more tech jobs in a list of top 20 recession-proof professions than any other single category. Does IT feel recession-proof to you?
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Microsoft To Show Off Spherical Multitouch Computer
Later this month, Microsoft Research will demonstrate a spherical display that can be interacted with through touch. What it could eventually be used for is anyone's guess: it's apparently been paired with a globe application, but is a study in user interfaces as much as anything else.
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3G iPhone Unlocked And Pwned
Well, that didn't take long. The blogosphere long ago reported that iPhone firmware 2.0 had been cracked, but that was an earlier build of the firmware. Today, a Brazilian company claimed it has unlocked the 3G iPhone and its 2.0 firmware. The iPhone Dev Team says it has undone Apple's ties, too. Let the fun begin.
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First Cities In 3-D Arise In Google Earth
Today Google announced the names of the first few municipalities across the United States that have taken advantage of its 3-D tools to create 3-D models of their own cities within Google Earth. This means if you use Google Earth, you can view a 3-D version of these towns, complete with buildings.
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When Is A Phone Not A Phone?
When it's the OpenMoko, that's when. In fact, its own creators are hesitant to call it a phone, but that's been one of the easiest ways to get it into the public eye. Their plan isn't to compete with juggernauts like the iPhone, but to take a much earlier cue from Apple's playbook: the Apple I.
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An Invitation To Boston-Area Startups
InformationWeek's Startup City TV crew will be in Boston on July 22 for our next round of videotaped interviews with local tech startups. The schedule still has a few openings, so if your new company has 15 minutes and a compelling story to tell, apply now.
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iPhone 3G Teardown Revealed On Video
If you're interested in looking beneath the iPhone's pretty case and seeing what makes it tick, the folks at TechOnline have posted a couple of "Teardown TV" videos, which pry the 3G model apart and reveal the chips inside.
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Did Apple Really 'Sell' 1 Million iPhones To End Users? Nope.
That nice, shiny press release that Apple issued yesterday failed to point out one important fact. Apple counts "sales" as any device it has sold to wireless network operators such as AT&T. The network operators then re-sell the devices to actual end users. According to analysts, only 425,000 end users bought iPhones over the weekend.
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MySpace And Facebook Missing The Point Of Mobile?
There was an interesting take on whether large social networking companies are taking advantage of mobile devices the way they should be. According to experts, they're not. With the emergence of new mobile technology like more accurate GPS, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi, we may find that niche startup companies do a better job at bringing social networking mobile than the big guys.
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Ready, Set, Patch Your Oracle Software
On Tuesday, Oracle is set to release a bevy of patches for Oracle Database and a handful of other Oracle software.
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Voting Begins For The 2008 Open Source Content Management System Award
The voting for the 2008 Open Source CMS Award opens today, with Drupal certainly looking to repeat its victory for the content management system of the year from last year. The awards, now in their third year, are sponsored by Packt Publishing, and are designed to "encourage, support, recognize, and reward" popularity and quality in the many open source content management systems available.
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Google Gets Together With Radiohead
Google and Radiohead have joined together to release a new music video for "House of Cards," a song from Radiohead's recent album, In Rainbows.
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Microsoft's PDC Looks To Be Big
During the last few months, with the prospect of significant news about the futures of Windows, Office, and online services, there's been a familiar refrain coming from Microsoft camps, both clearly and implied: wait until PDC.
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iPhone 3G: Still Not A BlackBerry Killer
Ars Technica has a wonderful and comprehensive review of the iPhone 3G, with many tasty details and measurements and geeky photo close-ups of the object of adoration. Some of the most interesting points come at the end, when the Ars team evaluates the device for the enterprise and finds that it still comes up short, despite the new Exchange support.
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Did Anyone Hear The Newest Google GPhone Rumor?
Despite evidence pretty much proving its falsehood, this is one rumor that Just. Refuses. To. Die. Depending on which tech blog you choose to believe, the GPhone does exist or doesn't exist. No one seems to be listening to what Google has to say on the matter.
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Block-Level Tiered Storage
Tiered storage no longer has the hype surrounding it that it did a few years ago. The concept was simple -- move data from expensive Fibre drives to inexpensive SATA drives. SATA drive technology was just coming into its own and the price and modest capacity made it a good fit for the concept. As a result, every storage manufacturer on the planet was proposing a tiered storage strategy. There were seminars, Webinars, white papers (guilty as charged, I wrote more than a few of them), yet only a fraction of accounts ever implemented the strategy.
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Pictures Of BlackBerry Thunder Found
RIM's fabled touch screen device just became a bit more real. Pictures of the BlackBerry Thunder have been sighted on the Internet, and they look pretty good.
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JumpBox: Instant Open Source, Just Add Virtualization
I love how open source projects are inherently malleable things. Easiest example: the plethora of Linux distributions and hardware ports. Beyond that there's the endless ways open source applications can be repackaged and delivered -- in Linux distro repositories, as a BitNami stack or some other standalone unit ... and now, JumpBox.
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Apple Sells 1 Million 3G iPhones In 3 Days
Despite the activation process debacle experienced by many, people lined up in droves for the device. Apple sold one million 3G iPhones around the world over the weekend. Apple CEO Steve Jobs said: "iPhone 3G had a stunning opening weekend. It took 74 days to sell the first one million original iPhones, so the new iPhone 3G is clearly off to a great start around the world." I wouldn't say a "great" start, Steve-o.
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The Role Of Presence In UC
What makes Unified Communications unique, something other than just a bunch of applications running on an IP infrastructure? How does UC fundamentally change the communications architecture? There's a growing consensus that the answer is: Presence.
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The iPhone iFiasco
Customer satisfaction is the foundation of Apple's recent success. Many companies treat their customers like cattle, but that's not how Apple rolls. Apple's customers love their products. And that's why Friday's fiasco at stores selling the iPhone 3G is a real crisis.
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Securing Your Wireless Internet Connection (You Know You Should)
Well, it's not really breaking news, security firm Kaspersky Lab is pointing out the obvious: that most home and small business wireless networks run at a low, or no, level of security. Kaspersky Lab also listed a handful of steps that could be taken to enhance your wireless security. And while it’s all good advice, it left out one of the most important.
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Extending Battery Life On The iPhone 3G
Battery life is the iPhone 3G's Achilles' heel. The original iPhone's battery life was marginal -- able to get through a full day of moderate usage, but only barely. The iPhone 3G's battery is worse, because of the energy-sucking needs of the 3G chipset.
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Waiting For An iPhone 3G In Style
I was messaging with some friends about my grueling iPhone 3G buying experience, and I said it could have been pleasant if I'd just brought a few magazines and a camp chair. My friend the Black Eagle suggested a more complete shopping list.
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Video: iTrip To iPhone 3G Store
I had a great time videotaping the launch of the iPhone 3G on Friday at Apple's big "glass house" store on 59th Street in New York City. The fanfolk were friendly, famed CBS news analyst Jeff Greenfield was gracious, and the Apple public relations woman was, er, just as peachy nice as one would expect (watch the end of my three-minute video to see).
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Take Your Choice: "Secure" System Or Stable System
Last week, Microsoft put out an update that closed a DNS hole. Just one tiny problem with this update: it wipes out Internet access for users of ZoneAlarm. This is just one of the reasons why I don't run any third-party security software.
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Confessions Of A Guy Who Stood In Line 7 Hours To Buy An iPhone
I used to wonder what kind of person stood in line for the better part of the day to buy a product when it first became available. Now I don't have to wonder -- I am one. I spent most of Friday on line at the Apple Store in Fashion Valley Mall in San Diego. What kind of person does something like that? A really tired, bad-tempered person with aching feet.
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Wi-Fi Mapping And Mobile Social Networking From WeFi
In my quest to find any other news today besides the launch and subsequent activation failure of the iPhone 3G, I came across a press release for a company called WeFi. It offers an interesting take on global Wi-Fi access point mapping as a community and the combined social networking that can be utilized from it.
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Schoolwires Offers Educators Enhanced Community Building Tools
Schoolwires, one of the leading vendors in the education space, debuted Centricity, its newest offering, at the National Educational Computing Conference a couple of weeks ago. Centricity brings together a suite of new and existing tools and capabilities, ranging from content management and communication features to new features centered around community-building tools.
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San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom Celebrates Google
On Thursday evening, Google threw open the doors of its San Francisco office to members of the media and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. Though Google's San Francisco office has been open for months, the dust has cleared and Google wanted to celebrate.
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And Now, In Other Cell Phone News
All the iPhone 3G madness has garnered much of the attention today with the release, and subsequent activation nightmare. But there was other smartphone news today, including some announcements from Palm, and new pictures of a BlackBerry device.
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Apple's iTunes Server = FAIL
Talk about an absolute, total, and epic failure on Apple's part -- today's 3G iPhone activation issues are inexcusable.
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First Steps Into The Cloud
Storage will be one of the first steps many will make in using cloud services. In fact, many users have already taken that first step without even knowing it. They are using services like online storage, backup, and archive. Online backup is there, because of block-level incremental and data deduplication technologies; sending backup data over a network connection is not the impossibility that it was even a few years ago. Also, these companies have been in existence for quite some time, so there's comfort in using them.
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Live Report Part 3: I Have The 3G iBrick, Er, iPhone
After four and a half hours, I walked away from the Apple store only partly victorious. I was able to buy a 3G iPhone, but it couldn't connect to the iTunes server to activate, and is thus a brick at the moment.
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Shuttleworth's Ubuntu Ambitions: Challenge The Mac
So what's Mark Shuttleworth's real plan for Ubuntu Linux? Giving Windows a run for its money was part of the game from the beginning, but in a recent article in Datamation he discussed his real ambitions: to compete with or beat the Macintosh at its own game.
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Live Report! AT&T Activation Woes Continue To Dampen 3G iPhone Joy
I've been in line for a 3G iPhone for three and a half hours now. The line I am in hasn't moved in over an hour, and we were told that the activation servers are down. Apple and AT&T, you should have seen this coming.
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Startup Develops Single, Simple Interface To Cloud Services
Kaavo, a startup founded by a former IT professional, has developed a browser interface for managing resources from multiple cloud computing providers. Not yet a year old, Kaavo is moving quickly to address what’s likely to be a growing need as more companies plug into not just one, but a variety of cloud services.
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Apple Overwhelmed By iPhone 2.0 Update
Apple knew its iPhone 2.0 software would be popular. Nonetheless, iPhone users trying to install the update have overwhelmed Apple's servers, leaving lots of unhappy iPhone users.
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Live Report! 3G iPhone Activation Process Takes Forever
Live report from the field! I am waiting in line for the 3G iPhone at the local Apple Store. There are about 30 people ahead of me. The line hasn't budged one foot since 8 AM.
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First Pictures From iPhone Store
I'm at the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, where customers are lining up to buy the iPhone 3G. Check out my photos.
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Low Energy Bluetooth Powering Mobile Health Care
Health care has needed to go mobile for a long time, and a few companies have made huge strides in terms of incorporating mobile technologies like patient monitoring and medical history distribution via mobile communication into the health care industry.
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EMP Risk Follow-Up: Blather O'Plenty, No Action
As we discussed yesterday, it's been four years since Congress was fully briefed on our nation's vulnerability to an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, and the debilitating impact it would have on our electro-dependent society.
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Drupal Addresses Security In 6.3, Usability in 7
Earlier this week, Drupal 6.3 and 5.8 were released to fix multiple bugs and patch some recently discovered security issues in the popular open-source content management system. These fixes, which are detailed in the release notes, don't add any new functionality, because all enhancements are being saved for the release of Drupal 7.
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Death Of The Desktop?
A year ago my inbox vendor-clutter was all server, all the time, Now I get thirty new emails a week proclaiming some variation on the end of fat client computing. Should we all dump our MSFT shares and plan to run VMs on our iPhones in two years?
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(No Lie) Guy Kawasaki Sells Truemors To NowPublic
It's a mashup of two Web 2.0 companies with similar goals (user-generated content), so how will they complement each other? That depends on how you use it.
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Where The Heck Are All The Google Apps For The iPhone?
Sure, Google may have offered up a neat little search app for the iPhone in the App Store today, but what about applications for its vast number of services other than search? I am seriously disappointed.
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Google Mobile Search App Debuts At iPhone App Store
Google is among the many developers introducing iPhone applications through Apple's iTunes App Store. On Thursday, the search company introduced Google Mobile App, a free dedicated search application for the iPhone.
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Let's Go Buy The iPhone 3G Together -- On Twitter
I'll be first in line tomorrow morning to pick up an iPhone 3G, and you can come with me -- if not in person, then on Twitter. Follow me here for the event, which is sure to stretch my physical and mental limits to the maximum. Fortunately, I've been on a rigorous training program for the past six months, and I believe my body and mind have the reserves to stand up to the strain.
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Congressmen Battle Over How To Share Video Online
Leave it to members of Congress to turn posting online videos into a partisan issue. Several members of the House of Representatives are engaged in a written and verbal slugfest over how they and their colleagues should be able to post video on outside Web sites.
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Can't Wait For The iPhone 3G? Torment Yourself By Watching These Videos
To whet your appetite for the second coming of the Jesusphone, check out videos from The New York Times's David Pogue, who provides a cheesetastic and informative review of the iPhone 3G; online video tutorial service MonkeySee, showing you how to import your SIM card, contacts, and other information from another phone; and a meaty overview and how-to of iPhone 3G features and capabilities from Apple itself.
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How Much Linux Can You Get For $20?
Most of us reading this are probably accustomed to the idea of getting Linux for the cost of an opinion about the weather -- in other words, nothing. But now Ubuntu, arguably the most visible of Linux distributions, is hitting store shelves at Best Buy for the practically impulse-buy cost of $20.
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iPhone Apps Store Is Up And Running. Easiest Way To Get Cell Phone Content Ever
Leave it to Apple. After installing iPhone firmware version 2.0 this morning, an icon for the Apps Store appeared on my phone. I opened it up right away. In less than 5 minutes I had downloaded several applications. Apple makes it too easy.
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iPhone Firmware 2.0 Is Available
Yep, you read that correctly. It isn't officially available through iTunes yet, but the file is out there and can be downloaded and installed on your iPhone. I am updating the firmware to 2.0 on my iPhone this very moment. There's a link to the file inside this post.
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Toyota Hybrid Engineer's Death Pinned On Overwork
Add hybrid car engineer to the list of jobs that can kill. Japanese authorities have ruled that the death of a 45-year-old top engineer on Toyota's Hybrid Camry line was caused by working too many hours.
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Current iPhone Owners Should Think Twice Before Upgrading To The iPhone 3G
Early reviews on the iPhone 3G are trickling in, and it looks sweet. It's a little bit faster and a little bit better than the first-generation iPhone. But it's not a breakthrough device. If you already have an iPhone in your pocket, you'll want to think hard about whether to shell out to upgrade.
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It's Time To Defend The U.S. Against The Ultimate Denial Of Service (DOS) Attack
Thursday, Congress will be hearing testimony on a potential attack that could shut down most every electronic device, everywhere, and render the entire U.S. power grid dysfunctional for months, if not for more than a year.
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Is It Too Late For Vista's Redemption?
Eighteen months after Vista shipped, Microsoft finally fesses up to what everyone already knew: Vista has problems. More accurately, Microsoft is willing to admit that Vista had problems shortly after its release but--naturally--they've been fixed. So it's safe to make the Vista switch now.
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Gartner Gives Strong Positive Ratings To Interwoven, Ektron
Gartner’s MarketScope for Web Content Management 2008 was published late last month, and it's filled with valuable information and guidance on the industry in general, as well as what vendors to seek out (and which to avoid.)
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The Open Source Mobile OS Battle Continues
With Google opening the open-source flood-gates with the Android OS, it was only a matter of time until others followed suit. With Linux Mobile (LiMo) and the possibility of a new open-source Symbian OS, it should be interesting to see which one comes out on top with both users and developers.
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Breaking: Apple To Launch iPhone Apps Store Thursday, July 10
Kudos to Forbes for the scoop. It is reporting that Apple will open the iPhone Apps Store at 9AM Pacific / 12PM Eastern to coincide with the 3G iPhone's availability in Australia. Get your apps on!
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BlackBerry Thunder Leads To A Nerd Fight
If you're a smartphone fiend, then you should be familiar with the BlackBerry Thunder and the recent reports that its virtual keyboard will either be the bee's knees or an epic fail. But, it looks like RIM's device has been the source of a little Internet feuding. That's right, it's a full-blown nerd fight.
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Stop Arguing And Patch Your DNS
Since the CERT announcement yesterday about the new vulnerabilities in DNS, there has been a lot of speculation that what Dan Kaminsky found is old news. Thoman Ptacek from Matasano, in an interview with Nathan McFeters at ZDNet, pretty much dismisses the vulnerability as old news and therefor unimportant. That sentiment is echoed on mailing lists and message boards. But in an e-mail today, Kaminsky confirmed that what he found is something very new. I believe him. Forget the arguments. Go patch your DNS servers. Now.
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8 Worthy Alternatives To Microsoft Office
Microsoft's Office suite of productivity applications has long been the gold standard for everyday computer programs -- and they've been priced that way, too. Sure, some users need that kind of power, but for thems that don't, bMighty.com's latest slideshow lays out eight cheap -- or even free! -- alternatives.
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Video: Zude Mashes Up MySpace-Like Social Networking
The latest installment in my whirlwind social-networking world tour is a video look at Zude, the hottest mashup-your-own-Web-page-until-you-drop -- that's the most succinct definition I could come up with -- platform out there. (Part one of the "tour" was this look at SocialText.)
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'Old' iPhones In Brisk Demand By Jailbreakers
I'd almost given up trying to find a fresh angle on the 3G iPhone -- Pogue and Mossberg have weighed in, so what could possibly left for us wretched B-listers? Then I found this post, on an Apple forum: "I was thinking of selling my old iPhone for the new 3G. I was flooded with emails with people wanting to buy it ASAP for almost the full price. Am I missing something?"
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BlackBerry Thunder Touch Phone = FAIL?
Some people have gotten their hands on the forthcoming BlackBerry Thunder, the supposed touch-screen, uber-smartphone for the business user. The complaints are fairly harsh, with words like "annoying", "bonkers", and "a joke" being used to describe it. I say ignore the din.
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VMware's Woes Are Just Beginning
The other week when I talked to Xen's chief architect Ian Pratt, he was quite firmly of the opinion that VMware's days were numbered. Then came VMware's shuffling of CEOs (and convulsing stock prices), and what seemed like doomsaying now seems like a grimly realistic prediction. And there's plenty of signs open source is the reason why, but it's also part of a larger picture.
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Software As A Service With A Personal Touch
Landslide Technologies is pushing its way into the crowded field of Web-based salesforce automation and CRM applications. It's doing so by offering not just software as a service, but also personal assistance for busy sales professionals.
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What Should VMware Do Now?
VMware had its first bad day yesterday and in what amounted to piling on, by the time you got through all the blogs and articles, you would think they were folding up the VMware tent.
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GM Does Solar Power, Too
Despite General Motors vice chairman Robert Lutz having colorfully called global warming a "total crock of s***" earlier this year, the company has made itself a world leader in solar energy generation.
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Early Reviews Of The 3G iPhone Say 'Meh'
The usual crowd has had a chance to review the 3G iPhone before anyone else (Baig, Mossberg and Pogue). The reviews heap praise on the 3G iPhone's Web-browsing speeds and improved audio quality, but battery life is a serious issue, with the device going dead before the end of one business day (at least once) for both Baig and Mossberg. In all, they say it is better than the original.
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Boing Boing Fends Off Censorship Charges
The three things that Americans love the most are sex, the Internet, and flamewars. That's why Boing Boing's decision to remove posts about sexblogger Violet Blue was such a juicy opportunity for the people who hang around and post pissy comments on Internet discussion boards.
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T-Mobile's HTC Dream, The First Android Phone?
Rumors are already churning about the potential launch of the first Android-based handset later this fall by T-Mobile USA. Along with others, the HTC Dream is rumored to debut with T-Mobile's 3G launch sometime after October. That is if you believe the hype circulating the blogosphere lately.
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New York Times Online Stays On The Cutting Edge
From a site visitor's perspective, good content management should be transparent. As the volume of content on a site increases, the challenge of managing it while maintaining a good user experience jumps exponentially. Few sites maintain that balance while consistently innovating like the New York Times Online.
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Hands-On Help With Servers
Large enterprises with plentiful IT staffers can usually count on having at least one expert in each critical area. Small and midsize firms often aren't so lucky, and have to scramble to make do with a patchwork of skills and expertise. To help out, bMighty.com has just launched a brand-new Server How-To Center packed with tips, tricks, and hints for everyone from beginners to experts.
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Palm's Not Dead Yet
The world got a tantalizing peak at a highly-anticipated touchscreen smartphone that's supposed to come out this weekend. That's right folks, it looks like the Treo 800w was showing its bad self all over the Internet today.
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Time To Patch DNS Servers And Clients
CERT has issued an advisory, short on details about the exact nature of the problem, about a fundamental flaw in the DNS protocol which allows an attacker to poison a DNS cache. Working with the person who found the flaw, Dan Kaminsky, CERT notified vendors of the problem and is coordinating a publication of the patch. If you run a DNS server, check with your vendor to see if a patch is available.
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New Data Integration Option For Amazon’s EC2 Service
Open source software company SnapLogic has introduced a version of its data integration framework that’s tuned for Amazon.com’s Elastic Compute Cloud, or EC2, Web service. It gives developers and IT departments the option of doing their data integration work in Amazon’s cloud rather than on their own servers.
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When Is More Open Source Too Much?
It seems like once every few months there's another round of muttering about whether or not the open source world is just too diverse for its own good. Matt Asay at CNet called it the "too many scratches for too few itches" problem. And my own colleague Alex Wolfe so memorably described the world of Linux distributions as "a forking mess" a while back. So, is more really too much, especially now that Linux is edging into the mainstream?
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Is Your Company Still Hiring IT Workers?
According to Bureau Of Labor Statistics, IT jobs are a glimmer of light in a darkening employment picture. Good news but surprising, given an anticipated retrenchment in IT spending. Will that bullish employment outlook last?
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82% Of Phone Users Don't Send Text Messages At All
Looks like it is time to roll out the conflicting studies. Last week, we saw that three-quarters of phone shoppers list SMS capabilities as the number one must-have feature. This week, however, we learn that fully 82% of U.S. mobile phone users don't send text messages at all!!! Is just 18% of the population really accounting for all those billions and billions of messages each month?
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Atempo Archives To The Cloud With Nirvanix
Backup software vendor Atempo, now run out of the U.S. by CEO Neal Ater, formerly of Veritas but maintaining a bit of a French accent, entered the archiving market in February by acquiring Lighthouse Global Technologies. It has since released new versions of both the e-mail and file archiving solutions. Now, at the beginning of what I hope is a major trend, it has added the ability to use Nirvanix cloud storage SDN service as an archive repository for files with storage costs of just two bits per gigabyte a month.
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New York May Pay IBM To Not Fire Workers
IBM, which made more than $10 billion in profits last year, reportedly wants state aid from the Paterson administration in exchange for expanding its facilities in upstate New York and a no-layoff pledge.
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Hacking The Hypervisor
Security researchers from Invisible Things Lab will be demonstrating (they say) just how easy it is to hack the hypervisor. More specifically, they'll be discussing the (in)security of the Xen hypervisor, such as how to plant rootkits, how to bypass various hypervisor anti-subverting techniques, as well as how "Bluepills" can be used in bare-metal hypervisor compromises. They plan on releasing proof-of-concept code. This could get interesting.
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Buying Cisco? Beware Of Counterfeit Gear
Call me a little slow on the uptake, but I had no idea about how bad the counterfeit network hardware issue was until I became a victim myself. According to KPMG, almost 10% of gear out there is suspected to be counterfeit. That amounts to billions of dollars per year in bogus equipment floating around out there. Fake gear could be running in your data center now -- it was in mine.
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Microsoft Gets Off The Pot (Finally!)
Microsoft has finally stopped dragging its heels on its vague "software + services" strategy and announced today some concrete details on upcoming products and pricing. Here are my initial observations.
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Google's Precipitate Rains Your Docs Down From The Cloud
Have a mish-mash of files spread between your PC and the cloud? Searching both for a document because you can't remember where you stored it costs time ... unless you use Google's new search tool called Precipitate. Precipitate is a desktop-based search client that scans your local machine and the cloud for your stuff so you only have to search once.
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Under Pressure: Citi's New CIO As Change Agent
The CIO shuffle continues in the financial services industry, with struggling Citigroup looking to its new tech chief to help orchestrate "one of the great turnarounds in U.S. corporate history."
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Solar-Powered Toyota Prius Coming?
Reports are burning up the enviroblogs that the 2010 Toyota Prius will boast optional solar panels on the roof. A solar array on a Prius would be like those flower vases in VW Bugs: cute design feature, but not a feat of engineering.
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3G iPhone Tidbits: Availability, Limits, And Rogers' Big Fat Mistake
Here's a round-up of some 3G iPhone news blurbs. Apple has confirmed that the iPhone will go on sale at 8 AM Friday morning at Apple stores, the same time it will be available at AT&T stores. AT&T appears to be limiting purchases to one new iPhone per person. Lastly, Canada's Rogers Wireless looks to be suffering the wrath of Apple in response to its unfriendly data pricing plans.
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Content Management Tools Push To Integrate With Google Website Optimizer
Website optimization has long been a bit of tricky topic. Just about everyone has opinions on how a site should look and work, and in the past, optimizing the landing page had been more art than science: mock up some pages, put them in front of a focus group, and listen to what everyone has to say.
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Microsoft Minds Your Digital Manners
Several blogs took note of a patent that Microsoft filed a while back for a concept called "digital manners." The idea is that a venue such as a movie theater could broadcast a signal to portable devices such as cell phones to let them know what the expected polite behavior should be while in the area.
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Identity Management As A Service
Just before the long July 4 holiday weekend, I had a chance to speak with on-demand identity management start-up Symplified. This vendor is well capitalized and has veteran IdM leadership at its helm. It also wants to "revolutionize" the identity and assessment management (IdM) market. And it just might do so.
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Samsung's Wii-Like Phone And BlackBerry's Touch Screen
If you're looking for non-iPhone 3G cell phones news, you're in luck, as there were leaks galore today. Not only did spies get a taste of Samsung's upcoming motion-controlled gaming phone, the much-anticipated BlackBerry Thunder's media player gets unmasked and it looks great.
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When Is It Unethical To Consider A Job Offer From A Vendor?
A scandal is brewing in Massachusetts about whether an executive at a vendor violated state conflict of interest rules by allegedly offering a state official--in this case a department CIO-- a job. What sort of rules do you or your company have about job offers from vendors?
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3G, 4G, WiMax . . . Let's Not Forget About Wi-Fi
There was an interesting article written today on "Telecommunications Online" that discussed Wi-Fi and its place in mobile. While new technologies like 3G and even 4G WiMax get all the media coverage, it's easy to forget that Wi-Fi provides, and has been providing, the fastest means for data communications for mobile devices for a long time.
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Windows Mobile Finally Gets Facebook App
Facebookers using BlackBerrys, the iPhone, and some other platforms have had access to a mobile version of Facebook suited to their devices. Up until now, Windows Mobile had been left in the cold. FriendMobilizer decided it was time the WinMo crowd joins in the mobile Facebook fun, and crafted its own application.
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SourceForge 2008 Community Choice Awards: Stand Up And Be Counted!
Open source lovers, it's time to make your voice heard! Vote in the SourceForce.net 2008 Community Choice Awards for your favorite open source projects -- and not just on SourceForge.net, either. The products in the running this year are some of the best and brightest of open source's luminaries, but there's a great many unexpected treasures in there, too. For perspective and insight, I chatted up SourceForge.net's community manager, Ross Turk.
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Microsoft To Make A SaaS Announcement Tuesday
Starting today, thousands will be convening for Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference, which is sure to be a steamy event (Houston in July, anyone?). I'm particularly curious about a Microsoft news announcement Tuesday coming from its online services group.
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Google Creates Street Views Of Tour De France Circuit
I am a big fan of bicycle racing. Ever since Greg LeMond won his first Tour de France in 1986, I've followed the sport closely. Though the race has been tarnished with doping scandals, those who are fans of the race now have another tool with which to enjoy it. Google used its Street Views technology to map out the entire race course so you can get a ground's-eye view of what the racers see as they battle for the yellow jersey.
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iPhone iPhanatics Line Up A Week Early For 3G Release
Only in New York City... Last Friday, on July 4th, no less, about 10 people decided to get in line at the 5th Avenue Apple store for the 3G iPhone -- a full week before its release. Heavy rains dampened their spirits and some called it quits after just one night, but others were there for a cause and stuck it out over the weekend. They only have four days to wait.
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Behind The Storage Cloud
Last week we had an entry introducing everyone to cloud computing and cloud storage. As promised, it was and will be the first of many entries on the topic. In this entry we're going to start looking at some of the plumbing that will sustain the cloud. The look won't be exhaustive, and my intent is not to mention everyone that may have a role to play. I may simply not know them all yet or be unaware of the role they think they play in cloud storage.
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New Firefox Versions In The Works
Firefox 3 has only been out the door for a couple of weeks, but Mozilla.org, which develops the browser, is already looking ahead to the next versions. I talked with Mozilla.org about what users can expect in future 'foxes, and when we can expect them. Bad news for you haters of the smart location bar: It's not going away, Mozilla is committed to it, although they're thinking of ways to modify it to make it more palatable.
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Google Gets Hammered On Day-Care Cost Surge, Sergey Brin Insensitivity
You know you've got a public-relations crisis on your hands when Valleywag ditches its preferred format of gossipy innuendo in favor of serious journalism. But that's how it's playing out, now that New York Times business columnist Joe Nocera has picked up the news that Googly folk will see their on-site child day-care bills rise by up to $1,000 a month.
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300 Year Archival Life, 9 Bits/Pit, And Other Strange Optical Disk News
For some reason my desk today seems to be covered with press releases announcing cool breakthroughs in optical disk technology. In reality, it's covered with 4 disk drives, empty Chinese food containers, my daughter's sick laptop, beer bottles, cigar stubs, and the TARDIS USB hub, but I did see a bunch of optical disk news that ranged from "cool" to "and why would I buy that" to just unbelievable.
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Apache Announces Sling, And Day Software Wants You To Use It
Apache recently formally announced the first release of Sling, its new Web framework that uses a Java Content Repository (JCR) to store and manage content. This is sure to be interesting news to enterprise Java developers with content management needs, as Sling is intended to simplify the development of basic applications while providing a framework for more complicated content-centric applications.
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Pigs Fly: Google Adds Privacy Link To Home Page
Last month, a handful of privacy groups urged Google to add a link to its privacy policy on its home page, in accordance with California law.
Google said it interpreted the law differently.
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Emoze Offering Free Mobile Push E-Mail And Calendar
Emoze has offered a free alternative to enterprise-level push mail and calendaring for some time now. Though the software runs on Symbian, Windows Mobile, and Windows Smartphone, it's been previously unavailable to Java-based mobile users. That's changed with the updated version, which includes support for the latest Java technology and thus expands the service to another 800-plus devices.
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Microsoft Readies Most Secure IE To Date
Next month, should Microsoft make good on its promises, Internet Explorer 8 will pack some considerable security enhancements. Could Microsoft deliver not only the most widely used Web browser, but also the most secure?
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M.I.T.-Developed Technology IDs Top Campaign Issues
Earlier this week, I mentioned how the technology used to gauge interest in and market peanut butter and Gatorade found that Americans in both political parties agree on a few matters heavier than snack choices.
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Nokia's Files On Ovi Lets You Access Files On Your PC From Your Mobile Phone
It probably happens to everyone. You dash out of the office at the end of the day, only to find out later that you left a vital file on your work computer. Rather than smack your forehead and say, "D'oh!" you can use Nokia's Files on Ovi to retrieve the files using your mobile phone.
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Microsoft Equipt: A Great Price For Office Plus Security
On Wednesday, Microsoft announced Equipt, one of its first consumer subscription offerings. Equipt combines Windows Live OneCare, Microsoft Office Home and Student Edition (HSE), and several other already-free services such as Office Live Workspace. The price? An affordable $70 a year.
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Xandros and Linspire: The Real Value Of The Deal
The Linux world's been abuzz the last couple of days with the news that Xandros has acquired Linspire, with future plans for the latter still rather sketchy. One particular technology stands out in Linspire's portfolio, though: CNR, a "one-click delivery system" for software.
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Blackberry Curve Quibbles And One Big Gripe
It's been a month since I ditched by Moto dumbphone for a BlackBerry Curve 8330. Overall, I'm delighted with my decision, despite having uncovered a couple of minor annoyances and one serious flaw, which caused me to call the cops.
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Parallels Partners With HP, Goes To The Superdome
Parallels' other server virt solution, Virtuozzo Containers, has been vetted on HP Integrity servers all the way up to the monster 64-processor Superdome, leveraging 128 Itanium cores, 2 TB of memory, and 192 slots of I/O goodness. Parallels' viewpoint? Virtualization solutions can't be a one-size-fits-all approach. That's why the company offers Virtuozzo and the hypervisor-based Parallels Server.
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OMG! Law Enforcement Turns To SMS To Fight Crime
More and more communities across the U.S. are instituting SMS-based tip lines so citizens can text in messages about crimes. Some police departments hope the idea will catch hold with teens and those in their 20s. I can see the messages flooding in now: Help, bank being robbed! Send cops!
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Google Gets Chatty, Creates New iPhone Instant Messaging Program
Users of Google's Talk instant messaging program can now access it through the iPhone's Safari browser. It also will work with the iPod Touch. There are some minor differences when compared with the desktop version, but otherwise Google kept it as similar as possible.
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No-Budget Webhosting
Webhosting is one of the most critical choices you can make when it comes to the decision of how to build and run a site. For most organizations, this isn't a place you want to cut corners -- responsive customer service and respectable uptime can come at a premium, but are usually worth it in the long run. That said, sometimes having a free Webhost for testing things out or to use as a sandbox is just what you need.
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Any Certified Virtual Security Professionals Out There?
Try Googling Virtual Security Professional. You’ll pull up one guy. One. Guess where he works? VirtSec vendor (and VMSafe partner) Catbird recognized the knowledge/skills gap and stepped up to the plate. They’ve minted a VSP cert and created a Virtual Security Professional program to spread the love through your local training vendor.
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Packard Bell Makes Backup Standard
I never thought I would be supporting a PC vendor for including more software on consumer PCs. For years, most retail computers have come with so much crapware pre-installed that geeks like me who support their friends and families have been reinstalling Windows fresh rather than trying to uninstall the WonderCalc-LE and Whahoo-Photo. Packard Bell -- yes, Packard Bell, which used to have real talent for making the worst computer using any given model processor you could find on the shelf -- is now shipping all the machines it sells in Europe with Carbonite pre-installed and a four-month subscription to the online service. Maybe Dell, HP, and the rest will get smart and follow suit on this side of the pond.
Powerset Grab Shows Microsoft's Commitment To Search
After Microsoft's on-again-off-again-maybe-not-done-yet bid for Yahoo or some part thereof, its acquisition of Powerset shows that it want to be a serious player in search. Better search results might drive users to Live Search, or at least keep them from leaving when the results aren't so hot. Yet there's still a lot more Microsoft needs to do.
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An iPhone With A Slide-Out QWERTY?
In any argument between a BlackBerry user and an iPhone aficionado, it's inevitable that you'll hear, "I need a real keyboard." But Apple's smartphone may soon be sporting a slide-out QWERTY keyboard if you believe a report from The Register.
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Chrysler's In-Car Web Access Shifts Mobile Into Gear
Chrysler has announced an initiative to introduce in-car Internet access as an option in all of its 2009 models. While this isn't a new idea, it's the first broad-scale implementation, and should bring to light some innovative new mobile services and applications to people on the go.
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Google Brings Full-Album Downloads To Picasa
Google's photo sharing site, Picasa, is one of the many Google services I take advantage of to share my pictures with friends and family. Often there are times when someone wanted to be able to download an entire album, rather than snag each image one by one. Before today, that was not possible. Now it is.
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Greener Grass In Financial Services
As my colleague Marianne Kolbasuk McGee pointed out in a recent blog, while the financial services industry is under a dark cloud these days there appears to be green grass in some organizations (literally and figuratively), at least in terms of IT positions. Take a look at Fidelity Investments, which just hired two new tech chiefs away from competitors.
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Openmoko In The U.S. -- And Maybe In My Hands, Too
Looks like Openmoko's open source phone, the Neo FreeRunner, will be available in the United States as well as India and Europe. I can't wait to snap one up, but I might have to.
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Are You An 'Emotionally Intelligent' Leader Or A Dimwit?
Recession or no recession, dot-com boom or bust, bull or bear market, it doesn't seem to matter. For as long as I've been covering tech career trends (about 15 years,) employers have complained about shortages of IT professionals who have the right balance of "people skills" and tech-skills du jour. However, now there's a new skill shortage developing--a scarcity of "emotionally intelligent" IT leaders. Have you tapped into your emotional intelligence today?
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Study: Text Messaging Number One Feature For Cell Phone Shoppers
A new survey says that the majority of people, nearly three-quarters, seeking a new cell phone list SMS capabilities as the No. 1 must-have feature. The Internet and mobile e-mail aren't far behind. My favorite part of the study is that only 0.5% listed battery life -- without which cell phones are merely blocks of plastic and metal -- as the most important feature.
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Firefox 3 Video Tour: Faster Bookmarks
In Firefox 3, developers completely revised the way bookmarks and history were handled, making them much more useful to contemporary Web users. You can use tags to organize your bookmarks more flexibly, and save searches to help you find groups of bookmarks again and again. This video walks you through what's new in bookmarks and history.
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TV Jumps Shark For Generation Net
It can't really come as a surprise, the item the other day in Variety, reporting that the median age of viewers of broadcast-network television is 50. Here's the question, though: Have the young'uns deserted TV because the Internet is so much more compelling or because the former is even more unwatchable than episodes of Tila Tequila?
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The GPLv3, One Year On
It's been a year since the GPLv3 was introduced to the open source world -- so how's it doing? That's the subject of two surveys currently being conducted to track open source license usage and conversion.
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Why Are So Many People Freaking Out About The Unlocked iPhone's $700 Price Tag?
Yesterday, AT&T announced pricing for the iPhone. The most important nugget buried in the news release was that an unlocked and contract-free version will become available at some point in the future. People who want an unlocked iPhone will have to pay the full retail price of $700. Guess what? That's what cell phones actually cost.
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Out Of Band Data Movers
Another form of data mover is the out-of-band data mover. Unlike Global Namespaces or agent-based data movers, these data movers crawl selected servers when doing their analysis. As they access each file, they analyze it to see if meets any criteria that you might have set for data movement. Since this crawl is merely a scan of the file system, as long as the out-of-band data mover supports the type of network file system that your servers use, then it will work. Not surprisingly, most of the players in the space support both NFS (for Unix systems) and CIFS (for Windows systems). Companies that offer this type of solution include Enigma Data Solutions with its Smartmove product and Arkivio's Autostor (recently acquired by Rocket Software).
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Vint Cerf Says Government Needs To Encourage Internet Competition
Vint Cerf said this week that he never intended to seriously propose that the U.S. government should nationalize the Internet. But he does think the Internet is seriously broken, with an economic system that discourages competition and innovation and encourages harmful monopolistic practices. He argued that the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which governs Internet service providers, is obsolete and needs to be revised.
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Bitrix Site Manager 7.0 Delivers Bang For The Buck
Bitrix Software has historically made a name for itself by providing a feature-rich content management system at a low price point. This approach has won it a substantial customer base, both in the U.S. and abroad. With Site Manager 7.0, the newest incarnation of their flagship CMS, it looks poised to make even further inroads; it includes strong support for multiple languages as well as a solid set of new features.
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Hey You. Yeah, You: Patch Your Web Browser
Roughly 59% of Internet users use the latest, more secure Web browsers, according to an examination of what version Web browser, down to the patch level, people are using. That means about 576 million Web surfers leave themselves vulnerable to attack. You might just (not) be surprised by who doesn't patch.
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Hands-Free Laws Don't Solve The Real Issue
In case you've been under a rock, California and Washington now have laws that make it illegal to talk on a cell phone while driving unless you use a hands-free device. Obviously, the sentiment behind the laws is good -- I mean, everyone but me is a crazy driver -- but it seems like yet another toothless, unnecessary law.
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Google Drops the Ball on Data Portability
Google is all for data portability, unless it threatens the company's dominance of online advertising.
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Risk Assessments In Information Security
When I read a book like Against The Gods: The Remarkable Story Of Risk, my wife sees it as proof of just how hopelessly boring I am. But it's actually a lively book, exploring how the understanding and quantifying of risk became a foundation for decision making in business and other disciplines. Which makes it's a good read for anyone responsible for information security strategy or implementation.
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Google Makes Tweaks To Blogger
I have to admit that it has been about a month since I've updated my own personal blog, which I publish using Google's Blogger. Since the last time I checked, Google has added a number of nifty updates to its set of blogging tools, including the ability to add lists of other blogs into your own.
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Tech Careers Looking Shiny In The World Of Money
The beleaguered financial services industry can be a bleak place to work these days. But not to Denis Stypulkoski, the new CIO of start-up firm Tygris Commerical Finance Group, where he says optimism and opportunity abound.
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Study: GPS Could Save Trucking Industry $53 Billion
GPS technology undoubtedly is an effective tool for providing real-time mapping and location-based services. Aside from helping businesses move their assets from point A to point B without getting lost, they also can help save gas money, to the tune of $53 billion for the trucking industry alone.
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Gates On Windows: What He Actually Said
Having been called "a lowlife piece of garbage," among other things, for my post yesterday about a Seattle radio jock's reading of a 2003 e-mail from Bill Gates, I figured some amplification is in order.
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Skyhook Seeds Location-Based Services With Hybrid GPS
Location-based services aren't just GPS-based anymore. Take Skyhook Wireless, which has launched version 2.0 of its XPS Hybrid Positioning. The system is "hybrid" in that it uses signals from Wi-Fi access points, GPS satellites, and cell towers to collectively find the quickest, most precise, and most consistent overall location data to send to users' handsets.
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AMD's Quad Opteron Firing On All Cores
Reports from the field indicate that AMD's quad-core Opteron processor has rebounded big time from problems surrounding its launch late last year. Several resellers tell me that customers have been snapping up significant numbers of quad-core Opteron systems, including high-end, four-socket servers with 16 cores In all. Meanwhile, AMD has rounded out its Opteron lineup with a host of new parts.
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$10K For Microsoft's Club Dues
After Microsoft went public with its patent licensing specs the other day, I took a closer look at the agreements you have to sign -- and the cash you have to fork over. To license patents from any one Microsoft product, you need to pay $10,000 up front, no questions asked, on top of per-copy-sold duties for your product.
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Why Tech Companies Really Hire H-1B Workers
The H-1B program puts American workers at a competitive disadvantage vis-à-vis the visa holders, but low-ball salaries aren’t the reason. Or, at least, not the biggest reason.
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A Bleak Vision For Orwell's Internet
The new book by Harvard law professor Jonathan Zittrain, a technology thinker and provocateur, lays out a stark, Orwellian vision for the next phase of online development.
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AT&T Tells Us How Much We're Going To Spend On The 3G iPhone
Today AT&T finally provided specific details on who will be eligible for the 3G iPhone, and how much they're going to have to pony up to pay for it and its associated services. The bad news is, existing iPhone users are going to see their prices go up. But AT&T will offer contract-free iPhones at some point for $600 and $700, respectively, for the 8-GB and 16-GB models.
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What's Video Good For?
Videoconferencing is a hot technology, one that's seeing 30%+ annual growth in both revenue and units shipped, according to Wainhouse Research. The assumption is that this growth is being driven, at least in part, by companies' desire to avoid employee travel as fuel prices rise. But people who look at this market closely say travel avoidance is only a small part of video's appeal.
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Didn't Red Hat Used To Love Xen?
KVM, Kernel Virtual Machine, got wrapped into the Linux kernel 2.6.20 back in October 2006. Now Red Hat is promoting KVM in Fedora. Should you care?
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Stop Reading Your Kids' Text Messages
Privacy has been on my mind the last couple of days. The other day, I talked to a woman who told me she reads her kids' text messages. She eyeballs every line of text they receive.
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