eWeek articles from July 2007

eWeek archives from July 2007

The Story of Sex.com.
July 1, 2007... In 1995, when the Internet was not yet mainstream, Stephen Michael Cohen stole the sex.com domain from Gary Kremen. Unlike more recent stories of domain theft, the theft of sex.com was not so much about technical matters as interpersonal...

Customers Seek Tools to Manage Virtual Machines.
July 2, 2007... With virtualization pushing beyond data center consolidation and moving into other areas such as high availability and disaster recovery, IT managers have to consider a new set of issues: how to manage all those virtual machines. It's a...

NetSuite Announces IPO Filing with the SEC.(initial public offerings)
July 2, 2007... Finally, after months of speculation and rumors, NetSuite Inc. announced July 2 that it has filed a registration statement on Form S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission relating to the proposed initial public offering of its...

Hungry for Virtualization.(Domino's Pizza Inc. adopting virtualization technology within its main data center and remote sites)(Interview)
July 2, 2007... It started with a 5-minute presentation at a long-forgotten conference in 2004. While attending the conference, Lance Shinabarger, who was then working as a network engineer in the corporate IT department of Domino's Pizza, decided he would...

Apple iPhone Doesn't Play Well with Web 2.0.
July 2, 2007... Existing Web 2.0 applications aren't working well with iPhone because of its lack of streaming media, Java, Flash, and even full AJAX support, I found in testing various popular applications over the weekend. Introducing Web 2.0 and Safari...

Websense Makes Push for SMBs.(small and midsize businesses)
July 2, 2007... In an attempt to compete at the midmarket level, Websense has re-engineered its flagship security product with a new interface and simplified installation. The new software, called Websense Express, leverages the company's ThreatSeeker...

Hackers Target Homeland Security.(USA Department of Homeland Security)(Brief article)
July 2, 2007... Untitled PODCASTembedSWF(); Hackers Target Homeland Security In this Wayne's Washington, Wayne Rash talks about the problems that Homeland Security has with hackers, the FTC's worries about Congress and the Internet, and a company that...

Mass. Embraces MS' Open XML Document Format.(Microsoft's Office Open XML format in addition to the OASIS Open Document Format)(Enterprise Technical Reference Model, architectural framework)
July 2, 2007... The commonwealth of Massachusetts has done a 180 degree turn and decided to support Microsoft's Office Open XML format in addition to the OASIS Open Document Format. The commonwealth added Microsoft's format, also known as Ecma-376 or Open...

The Key to Encryption Management.
July 2, 2007... Untitled PODCASTembedSWF(); The Key to Encryption Management In this OnSecurity: How do organizations keep track of all the encryption keys needed to secure digital devices, and how do they manage these devices cheaply, effectively and...

On-Demand Application Development.(Bungee Connect, on-demand web site hosting services)(Brief article)
July 2, 2007... Untitled PODCASTembedSWF(); On-Demand Application Development In this Tech Rising podcast, eWEEK Chief Technology Analyst Jim Rapoza talks to Bungee Lab's Lyle Ball and Brad Hintz about the beta of Bungee Connect, an on-demand service...

KeyScan KS810.(optical scanner with a keyboard)(Product/service evaluation)
July 2, 2007... Some ideas are so intriguing that they refuse to die, even if their early incarnations do. One such concept is combining a scanner with a keyboard. The most recent attempt at this is the KeyScan KS810 ($195 direct). Although veteran users will...

Print Size in Outlook Express.(font size setting)(Brief article)
July 2, 2007... Q: I am running Microsoft Windows XP with Outlook Express as my e-mail client. My font for composing messages is 10-point Arial and my mail-sending format is HTML. When I print an incoming message, it prints in Arial--but in 14-point size. This...

HP Officejet Pro K5400dtn Color Printer.(Product/service evaluation)
July 2, 2007... Back when monochrome laser prices were well into four figures, a lot of people called the ink jet--then a fledgling technology--the poor man's laser. I haven't heard that description in a long time--not since ink jets shoved dot matrix printers...

Microsoft's Ailing MBS Group Gets New Leader.(Microsoft Business Solutions group promoted Kirill Tatarinov)
July 2, 2007... After months of searching, Microsoft announced on June 30 that it has named a new leader for the Microsoft Business Solutions group. Microsoft hopes that filling the position will provide direction for the business applications group, which...

Microsoft, Newspeak and Open XML.
July 2, 2007... One of the most chilling concepts of George Orwell's novel "1984" is "Newspeak." In Newspeak, the language is constantly being cropped of words that might lead to "thoughtcrimes." If you control the language, the logic goes, you control what...

Curious Gadget Fans Smash, Dissect iPhones.
July 2, 2007... SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters)--It took Apple Inc. more than six months to build the iPhone but curious gadget fanatics needed only minutes to tear one apart. Within hours of the first iPhones going on sale on Friday, enthusiasts scrambled to be...

iPhone Coughs Up First Bugs.
July 2, 2007... Even as the iPhone drew its first breath, security researchers were squeezing it to make it cough up its first bugs. In a nutshell, the security quibbles, theoretical or otherwise, are that at least one Safari browser bug that was known...

Report: Apple Sold 525,000 iPhones Since Launch.(Brief article)
July 2, 2007... NEW YORK (Reuters)--Apple sold about 525,000 iPhones at Apple and AT&T Inc. stores in the first weekend since its June 29 launch, the Los Angeles Times reported on Monday, citing an analyst. Half of the Apple stores on the U.S. West Coast...

AT&T Says iPhone Activation Problems Largely Solved.(Brief article)
July 2, 2007... NEW YORK (Reuters)--AT&T Inc. said on Monday delays in activating service for customers of Apple Inc.'s iPhone had been mostly resolved after the wireless company worked out the problems on a case-by-case basis. About 2 percent of people...

SAP Prepares Response to Oracle Lawsuit.(corporate theft case)
July 2, 2007... SAP is getting ready to fire back at rival Oracle, the last salvo in a bitter competition that was most recently fueled when Oracle filed a lawsuit. SAP officials said in a statement that they will respond to Oracle's lawsuit through two...

Analysts Predict Future of TippingPoint.(TippingPoint Technologies's plans to filed for initial public offering)
July 2, 2007... 3Com officials are getting ready to file an IPO by the end of the year for TippingPoint Technologies, which 3Com bought in 2005. But just what will happen if TippingPoint steps out on its own in the crowded market for intrusion prevention...

Yahoo Beefs Up Target Advertising Tools.(Yahoo SmartAds)
July 2, 2007... NEW YORK--Internet media company Yahoo Inc. will offer its marketing clients tools to create more personalized advertisements to Web users as it strives to build its share of graphical display advertising. Yahoo is due to unveil on Monday...

Women in Technology: At Lunch with the Sisterhood.
July 2, 2007... A new area of interest for me is that of women in computing. Indeed, among the stock questions I now often ask "leaders" in the industry is: "What can be done to get more women interested in technology?" With that in mind, I went to the...

SAP Admits Wrongdoing in Oracle Document Theft Case.
July 3, 2007... There is an updated version of this story available. For the most recent version, click here [link omitted]. FRANKFURT--Software maker SAP AG admitted a subsidiary had carried out "inappropriate downloads" of documents belonging to...

Cluster Storage Is Now the Norm.
July 3, 2007... Cluster storage is now the norm for high performance computing systems. Six years ago, as cluster storage was just beginning to ramp up in production use, conventional, nonlinked storage systems constituted about 80 percent of the HPC market....

HPC's New Storage Rock Star.(International Business Machines Corp. developing Roadrunner supercomputer for Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory)
July 3, 2007... Supercomputing's newest baby on the way is a $35 million system named after a cartoon character and a muscle car: Roadrunner. Currently being built by IBM for the Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory, in Los Alamos, N.M.,...

BitLeap's LeapServ Catches Data.(Danlee Medical Products)
July 3, 2007... Using tape backup and recovery had proved unreliable for years at Danlee Medical Products. The last straw came in 2005 when the company realized its tape backup system hadn't worked for a month straight. So Danlee turned to Computer Related...

Fiorano, GT Software Team for SOA-Mainframe Support.(service oriented architecture)
July 3, 2007... Fiorano Software is teaming up with GT Software to help allow easier integration of SOA products with mainframe systems. The July 3 agreement means that GT Software engineers will now begin working to help integrate mainframe assets for...

Beta Products Are Unfinished Business.
July 3, 2007... There are many things that are true about businesses, but probably the truest is that businesses love to use things that aren't considered ready for use. For example, companies love to hire people who admit that they aren't ready to do...

Declaration of IT Independence.
July 3, 2007... When in the Course of IT events it becomes necessary for a customer to dissolve the bonds which have connected them with a vendor and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of...

Objectif Lune to Offer Ricoh Variable Data Printing Software.(Brief article)
July 3, 2007... Ricoh Americas announced that Objectif Lune, a supplier of printing and output software, has joined Ricoh's Technology Alliance Program. The partnership gives Ricoh's business customers access to Objectif Lune's variable data printing...

Solution Providers Need to Power Up.
July 3, 2007... With the arrival of the Fourth of July, the dog days of summer will soon be upon us. With them come rising concerns over energy costs, brownouts and rolling blackouts as utility companies struggle to keep up with demand. For a solution...

ShoreTel Intros Tech Partner Program.(Brief article)
July 3, 2007... IP telephone system vendor ShoreTel has introduced a new element to its partner program, providing its VARs with an "ecosystem of technology partners" that can offer more functionality to customers. The solutions include Ingate Systems'...

Security Appliance Vendors Blase About CSRF Flaws.(cross-site request forgery)
July 3, 2007... Security appliance makers are shrugging off CSRF (cross-site request forgery) vulnerabilities in their products--products that sit at the crossroads of enterprise protection. The vulnerable appliances, unified threat management products,...

Red Hat, Microsoft Talk Tux.(patent agreement)(Brief article)
July 3, 2007... We knew that in 2006, Red Hat CEO Matthew Szulik held talks with Microsoft concerning a patent deal. Once Microsoft and Novell signed an agreement, those talks were history. In fact, Red Hat made a point of spitting on the Microsoft-Novell...

Experts: Enterprises Must Focus on VOIP Security.(voice over internet protocol)(Column)
July 3, 2007... As the number of VOIP deployments is expected to continue to increase, IT professionals and researchers are urging enterprises not to forget about security. Voice-over-IP security threats are viewed as more theoretical than actual. But the...

Global Imaging Acquires BVOS.(Global Imaging Systems Inc., Blackstone Valley Office Systems)(Brief article)
July 3, 2007... Xerox announced July 3 that its Global Imaging Systems division, which until May had been an independent print solutions VAR, has acquired another print solutions VAR, Blackstone Valley Office Systems, extending Global Imaging's East Coast...

SAP Admits to Claims in Oracle Lawsuit.
July 3, 2007... In a dramatic turnabout, officials at software giant SAP admitted what bitter rival Oracle had claimed in a lawsuit: that one of SAP's subsidiaries had inappropriately downloaded some Oracle files. SAP CEO Henning Kagermann, in two news...

Red Hat to MS: Let's Talk Interoperability.(licensing agreement with Microsoft Corp.)
July 3, 2007... Even though patent talks between Microsoft and Red Hat broke down last year before Microsoft went on to sign a technical collaboration and patent indemnity deal with Novell, Red Hat is still willing to work with the Redmond software maker on...

Autonomy Acquires Zantaz for $375 Million.(Autonomy Corporation PLC)
July 3, 2007... Enterprise search vendor Autonomy Corp. announced July 3 that it has acquired privately owned e-mail archiving and e-discovery/compliance provider Zantaz of Pleasanton, Calif., for $375 million in cash. Zantaz will operate as a wholly owned...

Simplicity Is Not Always Bliss.
July 3, 2007... Simplicity as a concept is appealing. If life were simple, you would deal with one vendor that could fix your problems, give you undivided attention, and make sure you are at the top of the list for upgrades and new beta products. But...

IT Workers Cast Economic Doubt ... Again.(predicting job market)(Brief article)(Column)
July 3, 2007... Reservations about finances, hiring and job security mounted in June, driving IT worker confidence to its lowest point in four months, according to the latest poll on the subject. Twenty-five percent of IT workers are worried about job...

eCopy Helps Torrance Leave a Paperless Trail.
July 3, 2007... Torrance, Calif., is a bright spot in Los Angeles County's already-sunny South Bay. A short hop from surf-trendy Redondo Beach, the place is famous for many things, not the least of which is the sight of its unique high school facade on TV...

Will the iPhone Be an iNightmare?(demand for smart phone)(Column)
July 3, 2007... There are very few things I'd be willing to stand in line for (especially if it involved camping out on the street): world peace, a cure for cancer, a guarantee that my kids will be happy or tickets to see U2 at Fenway Park, sure. But an...

Fidelity National Reports Big Data Breach, Axes Worker.(Fidelity National Information Services Inc.)
July 4, 2007... NEW YORK--Fidelity National Information Services Inc., an electronic payment processor, said on Tuesday a database administrator stole and sold customer data, exposing as many as 2.3 million bank and credit card records, and that the worker has...

PDF2Office: Sweet Relief for the Office Dweller.(file format conversion software)(Product/service evaluation)
July 5, 2007... PDF's been around for almost a decade and a half. It's a secure environment for electronic documentation. In theory, it's harder to update, edit and republish content in a PDF, and that's why it's so popular. So simple, and it works great: Take...

Dell to Sell PCs at Asian Retail Chains.
July 5, 2007... SINGAPORE--Dell Inc., the world's second-largest computer maker, said on Thursday it will soon start selling its laptops and desktops at Asian retail chains and stores. The company broke from its 23-year-old practice of direct sales to...

Data Deposit Box Stores Data Safely Off-Site.(data storage device from Acpana Business Systems)(Product/service evaluation)
July 5, 2007... When it comes to backing up your data--be it of a business or personal nature--you can't be too thorough. Backup options such as CDs or DVDs, external hard drives, NAS appliances, or USB sticks offer a partial solution, but these local storage...

Report: Gadget Boom to Drive Up Energy Demand.(Brief article)
July 5, 2007... LONDON--Flat-screen televisions, computers and other hi-tech gadgets will use nearly half of a typical British household's total electricity by 2020, an energy conservation body said in a report on July 4. Britain's Energy Saving Trust...

New Generation of Lighter Displays to Challenge LCDs.(liquid crystal displays)
July 5, 2007... TAIPEI/SEOUL - A new generation of super-thin, power-sipping displays is making its way to the market, stretching battery lives to new limits and perhaps one day posing a challenge to heavier, energy-gobbling LCDs. New screens that glow on...

Microsoft Says It Is Not Bound by GPLv3.(General Public License version 3)
July 5, 2007... Microsoft cleared the air July 5 on its obligations to GNU General Public License Version 3 support, declaring it will not provide support or updates for GPLv3 under the deal it penned in November with Novell to administer certificates for the...

Linux Robots Descend on Atlanta.(Robocup)(Brief article)
July 5, 2007... Linux-powered robots are flocking to Atlanta this week to compete in the Robocup scientific competition. The eleventh annual event has attracted at least two Linux-based designs aiming to replace Sony's AIBO as the de facto hardware platform...

IBM and AGS Release New Management Tools for IDS 11.(Informix Dynamic Server, AGS Server Studio and Sentinel R. 6.1 )
July 5, 2007... IBM and AGS have teamed up to offer security and management tools for the newest installment of IDS (Informix Dynamic Server). AGS' Server Studio and Sentinel R. 6.1 are aimed at forming an infrastructure of multi-platform tools to help...

Dell Delays Another Financial Filing.(with Securities and Exchange Commission)
July 5, 2007... Dell is holding back filing another financial document with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Dell filed paperwork with the SEC earlier this week, claiming that it could not file its 11-K report, which concerns the company's...

HP, Tabblo Release Web-to-Print Toolkit.(Brief article)
July 5, 2007... As part of its Print 2.0 initiative to make printing from the Web more convenient, Hewlett-Packard announced the availability of a beta version of its Tabblo Print Toolkit, to help developers design sites with print in mind. The Tabblo...

Google's Distribution Play: That's It!?(Ingram Micro Inc.)
July 5, 2007... When I lived in Plymouth, Mass., I used to react with perverse amusement when I saw tourists with license plates from as far as Montana and Florida visit the famed Plymouth Rock. A first-time visitor's reaction inevitably went something...

Tech Earns Interest at Wachovia.(Susan Certoma talks about her management initiatives)(Interview)
July 5, 2007... Wachovia's roots are in the southeastern United States, but it is branching out across the globe. Wachovia, based in Charlotte, N.C., has $706.4 billion in assets and $408.1 billion in total deposits, with a presence extending to the West Coast...

Microsoft Plans Over $1B Charge for Xbox Repairs.
July 5, 2007... LOS ANGELES (Reuters)--Microsoft Corp. said on Thursday said it would take a more than $1 billion charge to fix "an unacceptable number of repairs" to its Xbox 360 video game consoles and had missed shipment targets for the end of June. ...

Offshoring 2.0: The Post-India Market.
July 5, 2007... What will be the next big offshoring frontier? While the experts don't all have the same locations in mind, they all agree that it will no longer be in India. Salary inflation is largely to blame for the change in course. When the...

iPhone Offers a Mixed Experience.(Apple Inc.'s smart phone)(Product/service evaluation)
July 5, 2007... The iPhone is finally here, complete with a fantastic industrial design that stands up well to the considerable hype that's been swirling for months around Apple's first smart phone device. However, for all the iPhone's groundbreaking design...

Zink to Step-Up Production of Inkless Printing Paper.(ZINK Imaging acquiring Konica Minolta Holdings Inc.'s North Carolina facility)(Brief article)
July 5, 2007... Inkless printing company ZINK Imaging completed its purchase of Konica Minolta's manufacturing facility in North Carolina on July 5, enabling ZINK to step-up production of paper for its its Zero-Ink print process. The special photo paper,...

On the Scene: iPhone Launch.(by Apple Inc.)(Podcast)(Brief article)
July 5, 2007... Untitled PODCASTembedSWF(); On the Scene: iPhone Launch In this Microsoft Watch podcast, Joe Wilcox hangs with the iPhone fanatics outside the Apple store at the Montgomery Mall in Bethesda, Md., June 29 to hear what they had to say while...

What the iPhone, Xbox and Las Vegas Can Teach You About Corporate Computing.(Column)
July 6, 2007... Sometimes it seems like a stretch to connect the business-to-business world of corporate computing to the high-buzz-factor world of consumer electronics. At other times, like right now, it is amazing how much a corporate IT exec can learn from...

The Data Security Weak Link.(Fidelity National Information Services lost the customer's information accidentally)
July 6, 2007... When Fidelity National Information Services this week announced that about 2.3 million customer records had been illegally sold to a group of direct marketers, most media overlooked the most interesting part: The story behind Fidelity's weakest...

Linux Developers Considering Move to Eclipse.
July 6, 2007... When you're talking Linux development tools, chances are you're talking about decades-old programming editors like vi and EMACS. These are fine for an older generation of programmers, but today's developers, weaned on Microsoft Visual Studio,...

Norwegian Hacker Says He Can Bypass AT&T on iPhone.(Jon Johansen)
July 6, 2007... MENLO PARK, California (Reuters)--A well-known hacker claims to have overcome restrictions on Apple Inc.'s iPhone, allowing highly technical users to bypass AT&T Inc.'s network to use the phone's Internet and music features. In a post...

Microsoft Tries to Spit Out the GPLv3 Hook.(general public license version 3 for linux)
July 6, 2007... Microsoft wants everyone to understand that GPLv3 has nothing to do with the company, its Linux partnerships or anything else Redmond-based. In other words, Microsoft is doing its best not be caught on the hook of GPLv3. Ah, Microsoft you'd...

Microsoft Expands in Canada Amid U.S. Visa Crunch.
July 6, 2007... BOSTON/VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters)--Microsoft Corp. said on Thursday it will open a software development center in Vancouver, giving it a place to employ skilled workers snagged by U.S. immigration quotas. It may signal the start...

Printer Security Advances.(Column)
July 6, 2007... If you're in IT in a big company and you're concerned about printer security, good for you. I think caring enough to work on it is the biggest part of the solution. After my first story on the subject of printer hacking I got a lot of...

Apple Up on iPhone Sale Expectations.
July 6, 2007... NEW YORK (Reuters)--Shares of Apple Inc. rose more than 3 percent on Thursday as investors bet on strong demand for its media-playing iPhone, almost a week after its U.S. launch, and speculation mounted over plans to sell the device in Europe....

AMD Invests $7.5 Million in Transmeta.(Advanced Micro Devices Inc.)
July 6, 2007... Advanced Micro Devices is placing a $7.5 million bet on Transmeta. On July 6, AMD, in Sunnyvale, Calif., announced that it is investing $7.5 million in Transmeta in exchange for preferred stock from the Santa Clara, Calif., company. In...

Google's Blogging Chutzpah.(contracts with eBay Inc.)
July 6, 2007... When red-hot startups grow quickly, they tend to grow until they hit their head on the ceiling. This is that awkward stage where the company starts making inexplicable decisions. This isn't Burn Rate, that ability to go through tons of...

Immigration Lawyers Threaten Suit Over Visa Snafu.
July 6, 2007... After getting caught in the crossfire between the two federal bodies that control the immigration system--the State Department and the Citizenship and Immigration Service--the American Immigration Lawyers Association threatened June 5 to bring...

Are Consultants Needed to Clarify Software Licenses?(Miro Consulting )
July 6, 2007... In 2006, Miro Consulting was ranked No. 15 on Doloitte's list of 500 fastest growing tech companies and No. 397 on Inc. Magazine's 500 ranking of the fastest growing privately held companies in the United States. The company has had a...

Getting Inside the Insider Threat.(database administrators and data security risk)(Column)
July 6, 2007... Security vendors have 2.3 million more examples of the need to protect against the so-called "insider threat"--one for each of the consumer records believed to have been stolen and sold by a database administrator at Fidelity National...

Kyocera Calls Foul on HP Color Printer Claims.(Hewlett-Packard Co.)(Brief article)
July 6, 2007... Kyocera has filed a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority in the United Kingdom accusing Hewlett-Packard of falsely advertising its Color LaserJet CP3505. According to Kyocera, HP's ad claims that the only part of the printer...

Inside the Mind of a Hacker.(Jeremy Poteet's techniques for keeping AppDefense safe from hackers)
July 6, 2007... During the 2004 presidential campaign, Jeremy Poteet watched as the candidate's site he had worked to secure went up. Just 16 minutes later, the site was attacked. But this high-profile site deftly deflected these attacks and the others...

KDE Developers Meet, Plan and Program.(K Desktop Environment's Eva Brucherseifer left and replaced by Aaron Seigo)(Brief article)
July 6, 2007... With KDE 4 due out in the fourth quarter of 2007, the KDE developers had their work cut out for themselves when they met in Glasgow, Scotland, for their annual worldwide meeting, aKademy 2007. Besides a lot of brainstorming and coding, KDE...

The Tough World of Enterprise Applications.
July 6, 2007... At an analyst day event in January 2005, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison sent a stern warning to rival SAP. It was just a month after Oracle's controversial takeover of PeopleSoft, a move that kicked off a two-year-plus buying spree that has put...

Is it OK for Google to Own Us?
July 6, 2007... Google is all about information. It's become the No. 1 tool people use to find information on the Internet. More troubling to privacy experts, though, is the amount of information Google has accumulated about us. The Mountain View,...

A Homegrown Defense Team.(Dave Aitel)(Column)
July 6, 2007... Lately Dave Aitel's been thinking: what's the difference between organized online crime groups and commercial companies that do penetration testing? "A company has a rather large budget, dedicated infrastructure and an experienced and...

Deduplication, Thin Provisioning Top Storage Trends.(Column)
July 6, 2007... Halfway through calendar year 2007, trends in the data storage business are becoming more defined. Decision makers at enterprises are now more aware of such topics as carbon footprints, green data centers, pulling less wattage "out of the...

Security Is 'Kid' Stuff.(Column)
July 6, 2007... It takes a thief to catch a thief, or so the adage goes. It's not clear how this plays out in the general crime-fighting world, but it's true when it comes to securing IT assets. Most IT and security staffers won't have the time or skill...

New Microsoft Programs Target Office Solution Partners.(Microsoft Office Live software)
July 10, 2007... DENVER--Microsoft announced a set of new and updated programs and opportunities for partners to deliver Information Worker solutions at its annual Worldwide Developer Conference here. In his keynote July 10 at the Worldwide Developer...