InfoWorld.com articles from April 2008

InfoWorld.com archives from April 2008

You don't know tech: The InfoWorld news quiz; Match your weekly tech news wits against our snarky quiz master.
April 1, 2008... Byline: Dan Tynan We're nothing if not social in this week's quiz. Facebookand friends account for nearly half the questions, though we also manage to find room for Motorola's splitting headache, P2P's big comeback, and Apple's efforts to...

Google buys Facebook; Two Web powerhouses unit in $25 billion deal.
April 1, 2008... Byline: InfoWorld staff In a move that stunned Silicon Valley, Google announced it will purchase popular social network Facebook in a cash and stock deal valued at $25 billion. Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg...

Google to acquire U.S. government: What this means for IT; President Bush and CEO Schmidt outline the benefits of the takeover to citizens and shareholders.
April 1, 2008... Byline: Lisa Schmeiser Google's acquisitive streak blazed a little brighter last weekend when it announced that it will be taking over the U.S. government. Both sides remained mum on the exact value of the deal, but unnamed sources put it...

Hewlett-Packard unveils new green server partnership; Hosted "Windy" servers convert hot air into CPU cycles for small and midsize businesses.
April 1, 2008... Byline: Lisa Schmeiser Corporate IT managers keeping an eye on the bottom line now have a new, environmentally friendly option for the datacenter. The Hewlett-Packard EcoLiant GL Blade Server is the first energy-friendly solution to...

Apple's plans for iPhone Enterprise Server revealed; Bootleg download from anonymous source provides details of centralized management server for the popular Apple handset.
April 1, 2008... Byline: Paul Venezia Recently, I was contacted by a person who must remain nameless. In fact, I still can't be sure who it was. It started with an anonymous IM from "RIMshot1052," saying he had some code I needed to see. Boy, did he ever....

Apple reveals Mac OS XI specs; iTunes-based operating system puts users in control of CPU task playlists.
April 1, 2008... Byline: Jason Snyder Apple CEO Steve Jobs broke his time-honored mold today, quietly announcing the framework for the much-anticipated Mac OS XI, an iTunes-based operating system that, as he said to a small audience of industry pundits,...

Microsoft, Yahoo agree on buyout price; Redmond nabs Yahoo's datacenters, Web properties, and ad platform for $47.2 billion.
April 1, 2008... Byline: Galen Gruman After much internal debate and industry speculation, Yahoo today agreed to be acquired by Microsoft, adding $2.6 billion to Redmond's original offer of $44.6 billion on Jan. 31. The agreement was reached near...

Steve Jobs "miracle" in the valley; Thousands of worshipers flock to view "holy site" of Apple founder in Los Altos garage.
April 1, 2008... Byline: Dan Tynan They came alone or in groups, giddy with excitement or hushed with awe. They brought flowers and ribbons and broken-down PowerBooks. They lined the sidewalks of this quiet suburban neighborhood, patiently waiting to see...

OLPC offshoring trend heats up; Low overhead, fresh outlooks have IT work headed overseas -- and down the height stack.
April 1, 2008... Byline: Jason Snyder If your last customer service call sounded as if it were fielded by an 8-year-old, it probably was. Outfitted with technology donated by the One Laptop Per Child program, overseas firms -- spearheaded by a new breed of...

Product review: Two routers make their mark; Cisco and Black & Decker go head-to-head in the medium-workload space.
April 1, 2008... Byline: Paul Venezia It was with great anticipation that I unboxed two new routers in the lab a few days ago. Both Cisco and Black & Decker had sent me their best entrants in the hotly contested medium-workload router market. Both had...

Security study: You will be owned; Spend all you want securing the enterprise, new research contends you're pretty much screwed.
April 1, 2008... Byline: Matt Hines Enterprises seeking a modicum of certainty in the ever-evolving threat landscape finally have it: No matter how much human, technological, and financial resources you commit to securing your enterprise, you're hosed. ...

Study: Don't Know tops IT's to-do list; Nascent technology poised to take hold of enterprise, as CIOs gear up to champion Don't Know as an agent of change.
April 1, 2008... Byline: Jason Snyder Organizations seeking to leverage cutting-edge technology in service of business goals, look no further: Don't Know is fast shaping up as the long-sought-after paradigm shift to competitive advantage, one that has tech...

IBM targets Global Services customers with System z; New mainframe product automates accounts payable, invoice fulfillment for Global Services engagements.
April 1, 2008... Byline: Neil McAllister IBM broadened its System z mainframe offerings today with the addition of a new model specifically designed to manage accounts payable and electronic bill fulfillment functions for customers of IBM Global Services....

Dell, Intel to team on low-cost laptops; Companies will build hardware to foster education in the developing world.
April 1, 2008... Byline: Neil McAllister Dell and Intel today announced a new joint effort aimed at producing low-cost, portable computers for educators and students in the developing world. The move represents the companies’ latest attempt to...

Microsoft readies ALM upgrade; Microsoft is considering an ambitious list of improvements for its planned ALM update.
April 1, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Microsoft has an ambitious wish list for a planned upgrade to its application lifecycle management platform, including offering its ALM server via a hosted model. Support for databases such as Oracle and IBM DB2 also...

Curl joins the Eclipse Foundation; Company to base its RIA development tools on Eclipse's open-source framework.
April 1, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Curl has joined the Eclipse Foundation and detailed plans to base its rich Internet application development tools on the Eclipse framework. The company will develop a set of plug-ins for Eclipse that over time will...

Facebook meets .Net; Microsoft-style app development detailed for social networking site.
April 1, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Facebook is a popular social network site and a destination for application developers, but developers need to learn its peculiarities, according to a VSLive conference presentation in San Francisco on Tuesday. ...

Java IDE adds Application Factories for code reuse; CodeGear offers JBuilder 2008, which also features support for Struts, JavaServer Faces, and more.
April 1, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill With a release of the JBuilder 2008 IDE for Java development on Tuesday, CodeGear is adding a capability called Application Factories, which enables code reuse and makes it easier to update applications. Application...

IT heresy revisited: Let users manage their own PCs; Large companies such as BP and Google are rethinking the idea of IT controlling users' computers and sharing their lessons from the frontlines.
April 2, 2008... Byline: Tom Sullivan Users should choose and manage their own PCs. At first blush, that's a radical notion any right-thinking CTO would dismiss out of hand. But not so fast: IT shouldn't dictate what computers and handhelds users get...

Iona linking Microsoft, other environments; Connectivity extended from within Visual Studio to systems from Oracle, IBM, BEA, and others without custom adapters.
April 2, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Iona Technologies is offering technology to link Microsoft applications with systems from Oracle, IBM and others. Key to the arrangement is the launch of Artix Connect for WCF (Windows Communication Foundation). The...

Spring Java developers offer enterprise package; SpringSource boosts Java development with package that includes suite of tools for testing and running Spring apps.
April 2, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill SpringSource, which leads development of Spring Java technologies, on Wednesday announced availability of SpringSource Enterprise, which includes tested and indemnified software along with product and development...

Apps security testing companies ride wave; IBM and HP are working to integrate apps testing into their development platforms, but vendors of stand-alone security solutions still find business booming.
April 3, 2008... Byline: Matt Hines Providers of applications security testing tools say business is taking off, as more customers are building such capabilities into their development lifecycles and large platform providers have picked off some of their...

Exec touts developing iPhone apps without the iPhone SDK; Until Apple opens up the iPhone SDK business, his company will likely use alternate technologies to build apps.(Conference notes)
April 3, 2008... There are more ways to develop applications for the Apple iPhone device than using the company's beta iPhone SDK. Through a combination of Microsoft and other technologies, developers can build a Web application for the iPhone, according to a...

IBM expert: IT risk is opaque; IBM's Steven Adler says that until IT security teams become more progressive in assessing risk, they won't be able to sufficiently secure their assets and data.
April 3, 2008... Byline: Matt Hines Just as many financial services firms failed to predict the meltdown of the sub-prime lending sector and its ripple effect on the overall U.S. economy, IT and data security teams won't be able to sufficiently secure...

IEEE task force approves power boost over Ethernet; Task force draft for 24 watts is given the go-ahead, meaning businesses will be better able to take advantage of the freedom of expansion PoE provides.
April 3, 2008... Byline: Ephraim Schwartz Convergence took on a new meaning last week when the IEEE 802.3at task force approved the third draft of the PoE (Power over Ethernet) Plus specification, which will converge power lines with Ethernet over an...

IBM completes Telelogic buy; $845 million deal puts Big Blue in market to develop apps for devices.
April 3, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill IBM has completed its approximately $845 million tender offer for shares of tools maker Telelogic, IBM said on Thursday. With the acquisition, IBM moves into the fast-growing market of software development for...

Windows XP Home extension could boost developers; Platform sales to continue for ultra-low-cost PCs, giving developers a chance to bring their apps to a broader set of Windows systems.
April 3, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Microsoft's decision to extend availability of its Windows XP Home OS for ULPCs (ultra-low-cost PCs) gives developers a chance to bring applications to a broader set of Windows systems, a Microsoft official said...

Lab test: Packeteer iShaper is the new king of CIFS; Packeteer's combination WAN accelerator and traffic shaper is second to none in speed of CIFS transfers, and among the leaders in overall performance; however, the benefits of shared byte-level caching await the next release.
April 3, 2008... Byline: Keith Schultz Network admins have spent many a late night trying to figure out how to improve application response or file replication across the WAN. Faster performance is all about bigger pipes, right? Not so fast, Mr....

You don't know tech: The InfoWorld news quiz; Match your weekly tech news wits against our snarky quiz master.
April 4, 2008... Byline: Dan Tynan It was a foolish week, which can only mean a foolish quiz. Along the way, we touch on hackable Macs, giddy ex-Googlers, Intel's new chips, and MySpace's new tune. Correct answers are worth 10 points, and there are no...

Eclipse IDE at a crossroads; The app dev environment remains wildly popular, but low ratings indicate change may be needed.
April 4, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill The popular Eclipse IDE could be at a major crossroads in its development. Downloaded about 1 million times each month, the open source IDE has become a major force in software development, battling other giants...

A new day for Macs in the enterprise? iPhone-loving workers disenchanted with corporate IT might love to ditch their PCs for Macs, but are we really on the cusp of greater enterprise adoption of Apple?
April 4, 2008... Byline: C.G. Lynch When Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that the iPhone was ready for enterprise use, the announcement caused a stir that few of the world's iconic businessmen could match. It seemed that everyone from rank-and-file...

SpikeSource offers automated software platform; Solutions Factory aids ISVs by reducing the time and cost required to build software solutions, enabling offerings to be sold at a lower price.
April 4, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill SpikeSource on Friday launched SpikeSource Solutions Factory, which the company describes as an automated platform for assembling, testing, and updating software. Open-source, proprietary, and hybrid solutions are...

Answer key: You don't know tech; The facts behind this week’s top 10 tech questions.
April 4, 2008... Byline: Dan Tynan Now that you know how you scored, you probably want to know why. Check out the answers below for the gory details. And be sure to return next week for another news quiz, ripped straight from the tech headlines. ...

You don't know tech: The InfoWorld news quiz; Match your weekly tech news wits against our snarky quiz master.
April 7, 2008... Byline: Dan Tynan It was a foolish week, which can only mean a foolish quiz. Along the way, we touch on hackable Macs, giddy ex-Googlers, Intel's new chips, and MySpace's new tune. Correct answers are worth 10 points, and there are no...

Borland touts Web 2.0 for lifecycle management; Silk 2008 is intended to break down barriers among business, development, and quality assurance.
April 7, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Borland Software has announced Borland Silk 2008, an application lifecycle management product line featuring capabilities for Web 2.0. It is intended to break down barriers among business, development and quality...

Cloud computing, Web 2.0 trends emphasized; At the Evans Data Developer Relations Conference, Salesforce.com and Cisco officials stressed the importance of game-changing new technology trends.(Conference news)
April 7, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Computing in the cloud and Web 2.0 were cited as today's cutting-edge, game-changing innovations during a developer relations conference Monday that featured presentations by Salesforce.com and Cisco Systems. ...

JRuby upgraded to version 1.1; Java-based version of popular programming language gets performance improvements.
April 7, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill JRuby, which provides a version of the Ruby programming language to run on the Java Virtual Machine, has been upgraded, according to Sun. Unveiled Monday as the second major project release, JRuby 1.1 features...

iPhone is already the top mobile browser; Nokia's Symbian clocks in at No. 2, while Windows Mobile languishes.
April 7, 2008... Byline: Galen Gruman It's been on the market for just six months, and already the iPhone (plus its Wi-Fi-only variant, the iPod Touch) is the most used mobile browser for Internet access in the U.S., according to Irish researcher...

Here's the proof: Strategic IT enables business success; Four methods applied to a small set of IT processes have a huge effect on the bottom line.
April 7, 2008... Byline: Galen Gruman Any CIO or CTO has heard the lecture from the C-suite, consultants, analysts, and the press: Get strategic about IT as a business value generator. Stop focusing on constantly rebuilding your engine. Now there's proof...

IBM, others bring event-driven tools to SOA; SOA platforms gain the ability to work in transaction-oriented environments.
April 7, 2008... Byline: Galen Gruman At its Impact conference in Las Vegas today, IBM announced an event-driven extension to its WebSphere platform for managing services in an SOA environment. Most SOA platforms have focused on centrally orchestrating...

Nokia readies iPhone response; Company's 'Tube' device would be touch-based and feature Java support.
April 7, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Nokia remains at work on its answer to the Apple iPhone, codenamed "Tube," a company official said on Monday. Shown in a slide at the Evans Data Developer Relations Conference in Redwood City, Calif., Tube looks...

What cloud computing really means; The next big trend sounds nebulous, but it's not so fuzzy when you view the value proposition from the perspective of IT professionals.
April 7, 2008... Byline: Eric Knorr, Galen Gruman Cloud computing is all the rage. "It's become the phrase du jour," says Gartner senior analyst Ben Pring, echoing many of his peers. The problem is that (as with Web 2.0) everyone seems to have a different...

Early experiments in cloud computing; Cloud computing has many faces, some just beginning to take shape. But at the New York Times and Nasdaq, first steps into on-demand infrastructure show promise.
April 7, 2008... Byline: Galen Gruman You know there's substance behind a technology buzzword when companies such as the Nasdaq OMX stock exchange and the New York Times publishing company use it for real production efforts. Cloud computing is the latest...

The debate over the right data loss prevention strategy; Messaging security gateway vendors claim that they can tackle the lion's share of data loss prevention needs, arguing that costly stand-alone tools aren't necessary — but analysts say it's not that simple.
April 8, 2008... Byline: Matt Hines Much of the corporate data that gets exposed goes through messaging systems -- not through insider attacks or external hacks -- when users mistakenly send out confidential information via e-mail, instant messaging, and...

DHS to offer backdoor increase to H-1B visas? Final rules from Homeland Security could be a way around H-1B visa cap.
April 8, 2008... Byline: Ephraim Schwartz In a change to its regulations, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plans to extend F-1 student visas for non-nationals from 12 months to 29 months. The ruling extends the time period for non-immigrant...

Google, IBM, Sun cite developer outreach; But Sun official emphasizes caution in being open.
April 8, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Officials from Google and IBM detailed efforts Tuesday to extend their platforms to developers via APIs and Web 2.0 technologies. But a Sun Microsystems executive cautioned that openness offered via forums such as blogs...

Mainsoft supports Microsoft technology for Java, Linux; Visual C# and Visual Basic developers can use ASP.Net 2.0 components from Microsoft to build Java pages.
April 8, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Mainsoft on Tuesday is launching a product that supports Microsoft's ASP.Net AJAX technology on Java-supported platforms such as Linux. Through Mainsoft for Java EE version 2.2, Visual C# and Visual Basic developers...

Microsoft: Smarter IDs needed for Net gains; Company says it can't solve the electronic world's ills alone and must have broader support from IT and Internet communities to speed up improvements in online security.
April 8, 2008... Byline: Matt Hines Microsoft's chief security strategists are asking for help. The massive software vendor is working harder than ever to do its part to improve online security, but the company cannot solve all the electronic world's...

Microsoft security maturing fast; With release of its Stirling security management platform, company officials and industry watchers say Microsoft is proving itself a force to be reckoned with in the sector.
April 8, 2008... Byline: Matt Hines One year ago, Microsoft was defending the quality of its products, battling with the world's largest security vendors over features in its next-generation platforms, and pitching the company's nascent promise as a...

Web users in malware crosshairs; As online malware grows in sophistication, it is being run more like an industry -- an increase in efficiency that means more malware is produced now than legitimate code.
April 8, 2008... Byline: Matt Hines Online malware attacks are becoming more pervasive, targeted, and refined as the underground threat economy continues to evolve and take on the characteristics of an organized industry. The latest iteration of...

Eclipse promotes innovation networks; Partners, customers, competitors would work together as a research and development team, official says.
April 8, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Formation of innovation networks, in which partners, customers, and even competitors are included as part of an extended research and development team, was promoted by an Eclipse Foundation official Tuesday at the Evans...

Developers ponder Web 2.0 app dev needs; A panel at the Evans Data Developer Relations conference also considered other trends in software development, such as standardization and Web-based software access.(Conference news)
April 9, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Software developers serving on a panel at the Evans Data Developer Relations conference in Redwood City, Calif. Tuesday had different perspectives on transitioning to Web 2.0-style development involving Web applications...

Feds tout slow cyber-security gains; Congress, White House eliminate some barriers, but several issues remain unaddressed.
April 9, 2008... Byline: Matt Hines Washington politicians are frequently pilloried for moving too slowly to respond to emerging problems, and while the adage has proven true regarding the federal sector's response to cyber-security thus far, the U.S....

Microsoft makes C++, Visual Basic 6.0 moves; C++ feature pack offered, but Visual Basic 6.0 IDE extended support has been discontinued.
April 9, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill In separate moves, Microsoft has released its Visual C++ 2008 Feature Pack but discontinued extended support for the Visual Basic 6.0 IDE. The feature pack had been available in a beta release since January, said S....

Sun to tout hosting platform; Project Caroline among research efforts featured on Open House agenda.
April 9, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Sun will discuss on Thursday a research and development project intended to provide a hosting platform for delivering Internet-based services. Called Project Caroline, the technology is on the agenda of a Sun Labs...

Lab test: Barracuda Spam Firewall; Barracuda combines solid features and great configurability at a low price, but filtering accuracy lags the field.
April 9, 2008... Byline: Logan G. Harbaugh The Barracuda Spam Firewall blocked more spam before filtering than any other appliance, using IP address reputation. As a result, spam as a percentage of total messages received was the lowest in the test....

Lab test: BorderWare Security Platform; BorderWare boasts high accuracy and excellent content management features, but is plagued by false positives and difficult LDAP configuration.
April 9, 2008... Byline: Logan G. Harbaugh The BorderWare Security Platform (v7.1), running on the SP-800 appliance, had the worst false positive performance of any product tested, and by a large margin: nine critical false positives and 171 bulk false...

Lab test: Cisco IronPort; Cisco IronPort combines excellent features, easy setup, and high accuracy, with the lowest false positives in our test, but the price is high compared to other top performers.
April 9, 2008... Byline: Logan G. Harbaugh I tested the Cisco IronPort C100 (v5.5.1) without the optional Symantec “Brightmail” engine, and it excelled nevertheless. Although the filtering rate was second lowest in the group at 93 percent,...

Lab test: Secure Computing IronMail E-Mail Gateway; Secure Computing’s IronMail comes with an excellent spam catch rate, a broad set of strong security features, and a pricing structure favorable to large organizations.
April 9, 2008... Byline: Logan G. Harbaugh The Secure Computing IronMail E-Mail Gateway E2000 (v6.5.2) came in second in filtering performance, with 98 percent of spam stopped, but placed eighth in false positives. The E2000 offers excellent capabilities...

Lab test: Mirapoint RazorGate; The RazorGate combines useful filtering accuracy and excellent features at an attractive price, with good tools for compliance, quarantine control, and reporting.
April 9, 2008... Byline: Logan G. Harbaugh The Mirapoint RazorGate 160 (v3.8.4-GA) did reasonably well in anti-spam performance, placing fourth in filtering accuracy and seventh in false positives. That’s well within useful performance, though admins...

Lab test: Proofpoint Messaging Security Gateway; Proofpoint offers a high spam catch rate and a plethora of options for protecting corporate data and ensuring regulatory compliance, at a premium price.
April 9, 2008... Byline: Logan G. Harbaugh The Proofpoint Messaging Security Gateway P840 (v5.0) had excellent overall anti-spam performance, third in filtering and fifth in false positives, with a fair number of bulk false positives, but more than 97...

Lab test: Sendio I.C.E. Box; Sendio's challenge/response mechanism is extremely effective against spam, but not so effective in handling bulk mail users want to receive.
April 9, 2008... Byline: Logan G. Harbaugh Many products claim to filter out 99.9 percent of spam, but the Sendio I.C.E. Box 3.0 is the first I've tested that actually did so. Sendio claims zero false positives as well, but that isn't accurate. Because...

Lab test: Symantec Mail Security; Symantec scores big with first-rate filtering, superior ease, good enterprise-class features, and a low price compared to top rivals.
April 9, 2008... Byline: Logan G. Harbaugh For the third year in a row, Symantec Mail Security (v7.5) is the best overall performer in my tests. It didn't have the best score in false positives (it came in a close second), and it was fourth in catch rate,...

Lab test: Tumbleweed MailGate; Tumbleweed's unique admin features, strong filtering, and good value make it worth a close look.
April 9, 2008... Byline: Logan G. Harbaugh The Tumbleweed MailGate 5650 (v3.1.2-4366-HF1) offers a broad set of features at a reasonable price, along with good anti-spam capabilities. Tumbleweed took third place in false positives and seventh in filtering,...

Test Center guide: Mail security appliances; Mail security solutions differ in anti-spam techniques, accuracy, false positive rates, and ease of setup and administration. We compare Barracuda, BorderWare, Cisco IronPort, Mirapoint, Proofpoint, Secure Computing IronMail, Sendio, Symantec, and Tumbleweed.
April 9, 2008... Byline: Logan G. Harbaugh E-mail security continues to be a hot-button issue for IT administrators, who now find more moving parts in mail security solutions than they did just a couple of short years ago. Fighting viruses and spam were...

Acceptance growing for PCI security standard; PCI chief says the PCI DSS security requirements have gained considerable momentum in the U.S. and globally.
April 10, 2008... Byline: Matt Hines The leading man for the payment card industry's data security standard claims that most companies affected by the mandate have begun to embrace the regulation, rather than debate or deny its merits. In the last year,...

DLP experts preach taking the long term view; Benefits of DLP cannot be achieved overnight, but by selecting the proper technologies the process can be made more effective, experts say.
April 10, 2008... Byline: Matt Hines Data leakage prevention has become one of the hottest subsets of the IT security market, but organizations hoping to utilize the tools must retain realistic goals and find the right technologies to meet their individual...

Sun eyes energy-efficient servers; Improvements planned for power management; datacenter suggestions also aired.
April 10, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill With energy efficiency and environmental issues of growing concern, Sun is preparing to tune its servers to be more environmentally friendly by introducing power management capabilities. Speaking about the future of...

Sun's Project Caroline proposed for Internet services; Effort involves platform-as-a-service concept and provides a hosted platform, a computing grid, and virtualization.
April 10, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Sun officials preached on Thursday the benefits and nuances of Project Caroline, a research project pertaining to running Internet services. Based on a platform-as-a-service model, Project Caroline presents a hosted...

Preview: VMware Workstation 6.5 beta surges ahead; Seamless windowing, easy Windows VM creation, accelerated 3-D video, and integrated ACE support headline a must-have upgrade.
April 10, 2008... Byline: Randall C. Kennedy They say market leadership has its privileges. When you're way out in front and the competition is just a distant blip in your rearview horizon, you get to take a breather. Coast a bit. Maybe focus on the big...

You don't know tech: The InfoWorld news quiz; Match your weekly tech news wits against our snarky quiz master.
April 14, 2008... Byline: Dan Tynan Once again the Microsoft-Yahoo fandango dominates the quiz this week, but we also find time to dwell on the Webby Awards, smelly cell phones, and things Wal-Mart would rather you not know. Correct answers are worth 10...

Guerrilla IT: How to stop worrying and learn to love your superusers; Your organization is filled with IT rogues and tech renegades. Here's how best to embrace them.
April 14, 2008... Byline: Dan Tynan Here's a sobering statistic: Eighty percent of enterprise IT functions are being duplicated by folks outside of the IT department, says Hank Marquis, director of ITSM (IT systems management) consulting at Enterprise...

Guerrilla IT: How to stop worrying and learn to love your superusers; Your organization is filled with IT rogues and tech renegades. Here's how best to embrace them.
April 14, 2008... Byline: Dan Tynan Here's a sobering statistic: Eighty percent of enterprise IT functions are being duplicated by folks outside of the IT department, says Hank Marquis, director of ITSM (IT systems management) consulting at Enterprise...

Fat, fatter, fattest: Microsoft’s kings of bloat; Our tests show that Windows Vista and Office 2007 not only smash Redmond’s previous records for weight gain, but given the same hardware diet, run at less than half the speed of generation XP.
April 14, 2008... Byline: Randall C. Kennedy What Intel giveth, Microsoft taketh away. Such has been the conventional wisdom surrounding the Windows/Intel (aka Wintel) duopoly since the early days of Windows 95. In practical terms, it means that performance...

A new way to monitor your Windows systems' performance; InfoWorld and Devil Mountain team up to provide monitoring agents and a performance-oriented community.
April 15, 2008... Byline: InfoWorld staff They're everywhere in your organization: Windows desktops and Windows servers. Optimizing their performance is a key task for IT administrators, whether they support desktops, e-mail servers, SQL servers, databases,...

Adventures in lightweight Internet app development; Follow InfoWorld's first steps in lightweight app development for emerging mobile devices and desktop widgets.
April 15, 2008... Byline: Galen Gruman I should be clear up front: I am no programmer. I dabble in JavaScript, and I learned Fortran and Basic (not the visual kind) in 1978 and haven't used either since 1986. My programming style (such as it is) is...

Spam wars; Anti-spam vendors can't thwart the spam boom. Is it time for an e-mail tax?
April 16, 2008... Byline: Tom Kaneshige Tech vendors have made headway in the war on spam, yet spammers are returning volley with sheer numbers. Perhaps it's time for more drastic measures? These are the rumblings from InfoWorld Test Center analysts, who...

Product review: WaveMaker’s point-and-click Java; WaveMaker Visual Ajax Studio and Rapid Deployment Framework make a fast and simple facade for Hibernate and Tomcat.
April 17, 2008... Byline: Peter Wayner There was a moment in history when assembly coding and the knowledge of it largely disappeared from the world. Before it, the programmers knew and cared about the binary code the CPU saw, even if they relied upon a...

You don't know tech: The InfoWorld news quiz; Match your weekly tech news wits against our snarky quiz master.
April 18, 2008... Byline: Dan Tynan This week's quiz features a rich milk chocolate coating surrounding a nuggetycluster of curious business deals, Mac clones, tortured corporate mottoes and -- yes -- an actual reason to use Twitter. Correct answers are...

Answer key: You don't know tech; The facts behind this week’s top 10 tech questions.
April 18, 2008... Byline: Dan Tynan Now that you know how you scored, you probably want to know why. Check out the answers below for the gory details. And be sure to return next week for another news quiz, ripped straight from the tech headlines. ...

You don't know tech: The InfoWorld news quiz; Match your weekly tech news wits against our snarky quiz master.
April 21, 2008... Byline: Dan Tynan This week's quiz features a rich milk chocolate coating surrounding a nuggetycluster of curious business deals, Mac clones, tortured corporate mottoes and -- yes -- an actual reason to use Twitter. Correct answers are...

The Mac in business: it's easier than you think; More users are demanding Macs in the enterprise. Thanks to key computing shifts, supporting their appetite for Apple is now a straightforward option for IT.
April 21, 2008... Byline: Galen Gruman Once confined to marketing departments and media companies, the Mac is spilling over into a wider array of business environments, thanks to the confluence of a number of computing trends, not the least among them a...

The iPhone video threat: Can networks keep up? With 9 billion video downloads last year over wireless, business and cell networks are becoming overwhelmed.
April 21, 2008... Byline: Ephraim Schwartz Be careful what you wish for. The iPhone has realized the old promise of the mobile Web. But it's not clear whether the wireless networks can handle the load. With news that Apple's little cell phone now...

Mashups a hot item at Web 2.0 show; Serena, JackBe, Kapow ready mashup products and services, including hosted offering and an online marketplace.(Conference notes)
April 21, 2008... Byline: Paul Krill Mashups, which unite disparate data sources in quickly developed Web applications, are a hot topic at the Web 2.0 Expo conference in San Francisco this week, with companies including Serena Software, JackBe, and Kapow...