InfoWorld.com articles from October 2007

InfoWorld.com archives from October 2007

Microsoft: We have services, too; Rebranding of enterprise services, new personal collaboration tool signal intention to compete in on-demand service market.
October 1, 2007... Byline: Eric Knorr Microsoft has taken another baby step into on-demand services, with a bundle of small announcements that amount to a little rebranding here, and a couple of new services there. The new offerings are Office Live Workspace...

PCI experts say deadline is just the beginning; The Payment Card Industry Security Standard compliance deadline has passed, but few large firms have completed compliance work.
October 1, 2007... Byline: Matt Hines The deadline for retailers and other companies that handle credit card data to achieve compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard has passed, but experts say that only a few large firms are already...

Common AJAX platform seen for devices, desktops; Industry dignitaries gather to ponder the future of AJAX and concur that a single platform based on open-source browser projects is the likely outcome.
October 1, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill Anticipating one Web emerging for both mobile and desktop access, dignitaries at a mobile AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) workshop last Friday also saw a common AJAX platform emerging across both mediums. ...

EDITOR'S LETTER: Hackers want to hypnotize you; Social engineering tricks of the pros, plus unintentional religion in the workplace.(Editorial)
October 1, 2007... Byline: Steve Fox When I was a kid, I was fascinated by hypnosis. What could be more appealing to a nerdy 13-year-old boy living in Queens than getting others to do whatever he wanted? So I read a how-to book, invited a few friends to...

How to think like an online con man; An enterprise is only as secure as the weakest human link. Here's how to use social engineering to test security defenses.
October 1, 2007... Byline: Andrew Brandt Con job, pretexting, social engineering – the art and science of manipulating human beings for nefarious ends – goes back as far as the origin of the species. The techniques have been practiced and...

Microsoft Silverlight rivals Flash, AJAX; Redmond's new rich Internet application boasts strong development tools, a small browser footprint, and cross-platform support.
October 1, 2007... Byline: Martin Heller Microsoft's much-touted and much-anticipated RIA (rich Internet application) entry, Silverlight, lets Web developers and designers create "rich, engaging user experiences with 2-D graphics, animation, images, media,...

Oracle highlights Enterprise 2.0 efforts; Company cites its WebCenter platform as ideal foundation for bringing Web 2.0-style collaboration to businesses and organizations.
October 2, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill Oracle officials during a Web conference Tuesday cited collaborative benefits of Enterprise 2.0 and cast the company's WebCenter platform as its product offering in this space. Enterprise 2.0 from Oracle's...

BEA tries on new Tuxedo; Mainframe-rehosting, SOA environments eyed for the 24-year-old transaction processing software.
October 2, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill BEA Systems will launch an upgrade to the Tuxedo transaction monitor on Tuesday and bolster Tuxedo in service-based environments. Tuxedo is being used heavily in mainframe re-hosting projects, in which applications...

IBM addressing beginner, advanced SOA needs; Products are tweaked for service environments and Web 2.0 with added middleware for business processes and easier integration of legacy apps.
October 2, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill With an SOA product rollout on Wednesday, IBM is looking to address needs spanning from basic to advanced deployments. Featured are tools and software to get started with SOA, middleware to execute business...

Malware boom puts pressure on second-tier AV labs; Security experts predict only a few of the largest labs will be able to compete in anti-virus research in the long run.(Company overview)
October 3, 2007... Byline: Matt Hines Over the first six months of 2007, anti-virus applications market leader Symantec found a total of 212,101 new malware variants, an astonishing 185 percent increase over the second half of 2006, totaling an average of...

Software AG upgrades registry and repository for SOA; Infravio, webMethods legacies cited in CentraSite Governance Edition 7.1, which is a rebranding of Infravio's X-Registry.
October 3, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill Software AG is offering an updated registry and repository product for SOA, which had its genesis at Infravio and webMethods. The Software AG CentraSite Governance Edition 7.1 is a rebranding and updating of the...

Using virtualization to boost efficiency; Data centers accounted for 1.6 percent of total U.S. energy consumption in the U.S., making efficiency, which can be greatly enhanced with virtualization, a must.
October 3, 2007... Byline: Rich Lechner, Network World The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently proclaimed that data centers consumed 61 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2006. That's roughly 1.6 percent of total U.S. electricity consumption...

Microsoft opening up .Net Framework libraries; By releasing the libraries under its Reference License and Shared Source Initiative, Microsoft has made the .Net source code viewable but unmodifiable.
October 3, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill Opening up to developers, Microsoft is releasing its .Net Framework libraries under the Microsoft Reference License, which allows viewing of source code but not modification or redistribution, the company said on...

Security vendors bring zombie fighters to life; Botnet-infected 'zombie' computers are an ever-growing risk, and IT security vendors are taking notice and offering more ways to fight back.
October 4, 2007... Byline: Matt Hines Data leakage prevention might currently be the hottest IT security submarket, but vendors are also tuning up their product offerings to help customers ward off the presence of botnet-infected zombie computers. As...

IBM product launch eyes smaller businesses; Development and IT management tools are geared to companies with fewer than 1,000 employees.
October 4, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill IBM is announcing on Friday software and resources for smaller businesses to manage software quality and network infrastructure like their counterparts in large enterprises use. Small and midsized businesses are...

ENTERPRISE INSIGHT: Don't manage IT like the Titanic; Put engineers in the driver's seat, and don't let nontechnical product managers get in the way.
October 4, 2007... Byline: David L. Margulius Ever seen one of those movies, such as "Titanic," where the passengers and officers dance and dine on deck in luxurious comfort while hundreds of sweaty, tough men toil below in the suffocatingly hot engine room?...

Refining the art of enterprise Web apps; JackBe Presto and Nexaweb Enterprise Web 2.0 Suite converge on a powerful and productive model for server-side mashups supporting AJAX clients.
October 4, 2007... Byline: Peter Wayner It is now more than two years since the AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) buzzword swept through the world of client-server applications, up-ending the old architectures and spurring us to rethink how we can make...

SECURITY ADVISER: All about the data; IT security starts with a data-centric worldview.
October 5, 2007... Byline: Roger A. Grimes It's all about the data. Everything we strive to do in computer security is to protect the data. It's the data that has value. So it only makes sense that our computer security defense plan is data-centric. ...

STORAGE INSIDER: Storage arrays are dead; long live the tape library; Sun dishes out a death sentence to self-standing storage.
October 5, 2007... Byline: Mario Apicella I've been watching and waiting for years for a vendor to proclaim the demise of disk storage, and this week it finally happened. The vendor who made the bold statement is Sun, specifically CEO and President Jonathan...

IT trainer offers master's degree for hackers; EC-Council University's security science program aimed at helping qualified IT professionals advance their skills and take on high-level industry jobs.
October 8, 2007... Byline: Matt Hines In an effort to produce the next generation of chief security officers and IT systems defense experts, an online training company is offering a new master's degree program in security science. EC-Council University,...

EDITOR'S LETTER: Finding that dream tech job; Startups are looking to hire, assuming you know what they’re looking for.(Editorial)
October 8, 2007... Byline: Steve Fox Anyone who lived through the dot-bomb implosion in the early Aughties has probably developed a healthy dose of skepticism -- especially about all those caffeine-fueled high-tech jobs that shriveled up when the tech...

Open source CMSes prove well worth the price; We look at five free offerings boasting solid Web publishing features that challenge their commercial competitors.
October 8, 2007... Byline: Mike Heck When last surveying open source Web CMSes (content management systems) I provided some common-sense advice. For example, it's important to look for not just functionality but also frequent updates, a healthy user...

How to get a job at a hot startup; Yes, startups are back, big time. But the rules for finding a position in a dynamic young company have changed. Here’s what you need to know.
October 8, 2007... Byline: Bill Snyder Want a great job at a hot startup? Of course, you do. And there haven’t been this many opportunities since the dot com bubble burst. Just ask Renaud Laplanche, CEO of LendingClub.com in Sunnyvale, Calif.:...

A sampler of fresh startup jobs; Do you have what it takes? These positions are just waiting for skilled applicants to step up to the plate.
October 8, 2007... Byline: Bill Snyder Welcome to the rainbow’s end, a 175,000-squre foot building in Sunnyvale, Calif. The pot of gold at the PlugandPlay Tech Center in Sunnyvale is a great job at one of the 110 startups headquartered here. If...

How to avoid jobs ripe for outsourcing; Some jobs will stay an integral part of your company over the long haul; some are headed elsewhere. Here’s a rough guide to telling the difference.
October 8, 2007... Byline: Bill Snyder It’s not enough to be a hot code jockey anymore. There are thousands in India and China -- not to mention U.S.-based outsourcers -- just waiting to take your job. [ See related stories: How to get a job at a...

Google unveils Gen 5 of Enterprise Search Appliance; Engine now links to content management systems and allows for simultaneous keyword searches across Documentum, FileNet, Livelink, and SharePoint.
October 9, 2007... Byline: Ephraim Schwartz Google, the newly-christened $600-per-share company, unveiled on Tuesday evening the fifth generation of its Google Enterprise Search Appliance. A combination of hardware preloaded with software, the latest...

PHP dominance cited at Zend event; Company executives highlight usage of scripting language and map out future.(Conference news)
October 9, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill The PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) server-side scripting language is at the heart of a major change in the software industry, with applications reconfigured for Web enablement and users become more involved, Harold...

Zend sets stage for PHP; New products and alliances with Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle to be featured at Zend/Con.
October 9, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill The popular PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) dynamic language continues to attract software heavyweights Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM. Their latest alliances with PHP tools maker Zend Technologies will be highlighted Tuesday...

Indian outsourcers' U.S. shopping spree; Are recent acquisitions of U.S. companies a sign that big Indian firms are snagging a bigger piece of domestic IT? Or is globalization simply rising to the next level?
October 9, 2007... Byline: Ephraim Schwartz The headlines below the fold on the business page may not have captured everyone's attention, but astute observers may have noticed a trend among the major Indian outsourcing companies: "Wipro buys Infocrossing for...

Agile, PHP called good match; Developing in short iterations works well with scripting language's object orientation, Zend exec says.
October 10, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill Agile software development methods go well with PHP (PHP Hypertext Preprocessor), a Zend Technologies official said when interviewed at the ZendCon conference in Burlingame, Calif. on Wednesday. Scheduled to speak on...

Update: PHP security issues being addressed, overseer says; Many users run older versions of the platform.
October 10, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill Overseers of PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) are conscious of security concerns with the language and are working to address any problems, one of the developers of PHP said on Tuesday afternoon. Security is a tough...

Analysis: IBM to integrate UC into Symphony; Unified communications threatens to gobble up desktop productivity apps as companies look to weaken Microsoft Office's dominance.
October 11, 2007... Byline: Ephraim Schwartz Given a level playing field, can anyone unseat Microsoft as the king of productivity applications? This is just one of many questions numerous companies, from Google to IBM to Sun, are trying to answer as they cram...

Mobile systems management maturing fast; IT workers have long been frustrated by the restrictions of having to be on call 24/7, but new mobile systems management technology is breaking those tethers.
October 11, 2007... Byline: Matt Hines One of the most frustrating aspects of being an IT professional who is required to be on call to respond to emerging support issues has long been the lack of flexibility available to these employees when trying to...

Blogger preaches Internet download freedoms; BoingBoing blogger Cory Doctrow assailed DRM and called copyrighting 'technology regulation' at the ZendCon conference.(Conference news)
October 11, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill Efforts to fight copying on the Internet were criticized in a presentation Thursday by blogger and author Cory Doctorow, a frequent critic of copyright regulations. Speaking at the ZendCon conference in Burlingame,...

ENTERPRISE INSIGHT: When humans meet data management; Hard data is more than 0s and 1s; real people, with their real-world behavior, are behind those numbers.
October 11, 2007... Byline: David L. Margulius I recently attended a discussion on enterprise data management strategies with an elite group of IT execs and academics. One of the more humorous stories told involved a visit to a supermarket, part of a...

A time machine for your network; Network Instruments' GigaStor appliance combines complete traffic capture, deep analysis, and even session playback, making an effective if expensive tool for solving network performance and security problems.
October 11, 2007... Byline: Curtis Franklin Jr. When it comes time to dissect a network problem, whether the problem is related to security or performance, a deep look into all the network activity surrounding the incident can be critical to resolving the...

Exclusive: Siemens to launch UC solution for SMBs; UC platform offers VoIP and presence across all communications modes.
October 12, 2007... Byline: Ephraim Schwartz On Monday October 22, Siemens Communications will unveil its UC (unified communications) solution for SMBs. Dubbed HiPath OpenOffice ME it is a UC solution in a box or appliance that will offer much but not all...

Update: Symantec to buy DLP specialist Vontu; Symantec's buyout could happen as early as next week as the security giant tries to gain a foothold in the red-hot data leakage prevention market.
October 12, 2007... Byline: Matt Hines Security software giant Symantec is preparing to announce an acquisition of Vontu, one the largest remaining independent providers of data leakage prevention software, which is used to control the flow of sensitive...

BEA, Oracle product overlaps pondered; Both companies are in the same technology spaces, but Oracle would get BEA's customer base if the buyout happens.
October 12, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill Early reaction to Oracle's proposal to buy BEA Systems has observers acknowledging Oracle would have to deal with product overlap in the application server and middleware spaces. The two companies have been fierce...

Update: BEA calls Oracle acquisition offer too low; The company's board of directors is considering the proposal but has concerns about the price and divulging certain information.
October 12, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill BEA has responded to Oracle's offer this week to buy the company for $17 per share in cash, calling the offer too low. The company has forwarded a letter to Oracle President Charles Phillips to this effect: "Our...

SECURITY ADVISER: When good recommendations go bad; Just because a recommendation is in a "best practices" document doesn’t mean it's right for your network.
October 12, 2007... Byline: Roger A. Grimes Let me ask a question: Does your job include implementing official security guidelines that tell you step-by-step which security features to enable? And let me ask a telling follow-up question: If you followed all...

STORAGE INSIDER: Parity pioneer combats data corruption; Panasas unveils tiered parity to prevent data corruption in the inevitable event of drive failure.
October 12, 2007... Byline: Mario Apicella Two of the latest arrivals to my lab -- a couple of 1TB Barracuda ES2 (Enterprise SATA 2) drives from Seagate -- got me to thinking about a growing problem in the enterprise, namely, that our voracity for capacity...

Workstream sets sights on single data model; Talent management company Workstream revamps all of its SaaS applications for a single user layer.
October 15, 2007... Byline: Ephraim Schwartz The announcement late last week at the HR Technology conference in Chicago that talent management vendor Workstream will offer a set of integrated applications in a SaaS architecture under the name TalentCenter 7.0...

Sun offers potpourri of open-source plans; Updates on OpenSolaris, Java, and GlassFish app server given at summit event.(Conference news)
October 15, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill Sun offered informational updates Monday on several ongoing efforts in the open-source arena, including product plans for the OpenSolaris version of the Solaris OS, Java, and the GlassFish application server. Cited...

EDITOR'S LETTER: All abuzz over Oracle’s BEA bid; Plus: New weekly tech news quiz tests your geek credentials.(Editorial)
October 15, 2007... Byline: Steve Fox As soon as news of Oracle’s $6.7 billion bid for BEA hit the wires last Friday morning, InfoWorld’s editors shifted into high gear. Financial blogger Bill Snyder got in first, posting a market perspective....

Smart security testing on the cheap; A pragmatic open source testing methodology, and an abundance of excellent free tools, help you plug security holes without busting the budget.
October 15, 2007... Byline: Tom Bowers You don't need to be paranoid to be a chief information security officer, but it helps. Whether certifiably paranoid or, as the Woody Allen joke goes, just keenly observant, the chief security officer must tune into...

Core, Qualys to enter Web apps scanning market; Core Security and Qualys say their entrance into the Web apps vulnerability testing market is a natural evolution of their products, expertise.
October 16, 2007... Byline: Matt Hines The Web applications vulnerability testing market is about to get a little more crowded, as both Core Security and Qualys are entering the space with strategies to integrate the tools into their existing products and...

Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 packs plenty; With goodies for end-users as well as admins, including a new clusterless fail-over option, the imminent SP1 is one to watch.
October 16, 2007... Byline: Brian Chee, Oliver Rist Rumor has it that Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 will arrive by late October or early November. Fortunately, if you’ve got an Exchange test server running, SP1 is available in a public beta that...

Microsoft's marriage of easy communications; The combination of Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 brings voicemail to the in-box, and speed and flexibility to how Windows workers communicate.
October 16, 2007... Byline: Brian Chee, Oliver Rist We've been watching the romance develop between OCS (Office Communications Server 2007) and Exchange Server 2007 since OCS became available in beta earlier this year. When OCS finally came of age last month,...

Users: Integration key to real world DLP; In order to get the most out of DLP tools, they need to be tightly linked with other security systems.
October 17, 2007... Byline: Matt Hines If security industry sources prove correct and Symantec is busy putting the finishing touches on a deal to acquire data leakage prevention specialist Vontu, the acquisition will undoubtedly lead to further integration of...

Developers get remote access to Apple iPhone; Mobile Complete's DeviceAnywhere, a hosted platform for building and testing apps, adds support for popular device.
October 17, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill Mobile Complete is looking to make it easier to test applications and Web sites built for the Apple iPhone. The company is adding the iPhone to the list of about 750 handsets supported by DeviceAnywhere, an Internet...

Facebook site grows businesses; Companies cite the benefits of the popular social networking platform and even use it to bolster their own businesses.
October 18, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill Facebook has become such a popular social networking site that some companies are betting their businesses on it. Participants in a panel at the Web 2.0 Summit conference in San Francisco Thursday cited the impact of...

Analysis: Tata wins high ratings and $1.2 billion from Nielsen; Ten-year agreement will help Nielsen consolidate services, while raising Tata's profile among consulting services companies.
October 18, 2007... Byline: Ephraim Schwartz Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and the Nielsen Company jointly announced an outsourcing deal today in which Nielsen will hand over most of its IT and operations functions worldwide to TCS. The deal is valued...

Viacom exec not satisfied with Google plan; Lawsuit lingers over alleged content infringement on YouTube as Viacom CEO Phillipe Dauman says Google's YouTube content database is not enough.
October 18, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill The chief executive of media giant Viacom expressed reservations Thursday about Google's plan to enter YouTube content into a database and give owners the chance to take down the material. Viacom is suing Google for...

BEA, Oracle maintain their silence on takeover offer; At least publicly, the two companies have been in a holding pattern about Oracle's unsolicited proposal to buy BEA.
October 18, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill Given the silence from the BEA Systems and Oracle camps early this week about Oracle's unsolicited proposal to buy its middleware rival, the community at large can only sit back and guess what might be the next scene in...

IT security and management on collision course; As security companies push into systems management, and vendors in the management space push back, convergence of the two is ongoing and largely unavoidable.
October 18, 2007... Byline: Matt Hines According to some industry analysts, as many as 90 percent of all enterprise businesses currently assign oversight of anti-virus technologies to their desktop management teams, rather than ceding the work to security...

Sun reworking Java plug-in technology in Java SE 6; Sun is pursuing the consumer, enterprise markets by extending Java and rich experiences to various devices.
October 18, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill With an eye toward both consumer and enterprise needs, Sun Microsystems is reworking the plug-in architecture of Java in an upcoming update to Java Platform Standard Edition (SE) 6, company officials said Wednesday...

ENTERPRISE INSIGHT: BEA vs. Peoplesoft: Top 10 reasons it's different this time.
October 18, 2007... Byline: David L. Margulius On paper, Oracle's recent $6.7 billion offer for BEA Systems looks a lot like the hostile bid for PeopleSoft four years ago – a bad-for-competition, bad-for-employees, bad-for-customers deal designed with...

Apricorn Aegis Bio drive puts data security at your fingertips; USB drive line combines encryption and smooth fingerprint authentication in an affordable bundle.
October 18, 2007... Byline: Mario Apicella If budget constraints prevent you from getting a new laptop with full drive encryption, you can still add a strong protection layer to your data when traveling or when at your desk. Enter Aegis Bio, (Aegis, I am...

CBS, Comcast officials stress embrace of Internet; Executives of these companies as well as Joost and Current all cite business efforts linking the two forms of media.
October 19, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill Representatives of older and new media companies detailed their embraces of the Internet Friday at the Web 2.0 Summit conference in San Francisco, with supposed old-line companies emphasizing opportunities and dismissing...

Experts say issue of click fraud not improving; Industry watchers at Click Forensics say that companies running major online ad networks haven't lived up to their promises to better police against fraudulent traffic.
October 19, 2007... Byline: Matt Hines Companies like Google and Yahoo that control major online advertising networks have not met their pledge to aggressively ferret-out click fraud among their affiliate partners, driving growth of the problem across the...

SECURITY ADVISER: Vulnerabilities inside and out; Inside threats are, by far, the most dangerous challenges in today's network security.
October 19, 2007... Byline: Roger A. Grimes I've often said in my columns how client-side attacks should be most administrators' No. 1 exploit worry. It's less and less common for attackers to break in through the front door. If I want to steal from a company...

STORAGE INSIDER: Small SNW plays could make big waves; SAS and FCoE announcements at this week's Storage Networking World hint at rich horizons.
October 19, 2007... Byline: Mario Apicella Storage Networking World came and went with me neck-deep in my lab testing products for review. Yet even at a distance, some of what was announced in Dallas this week caught my attention as harbingers of advances to...

Citrix closes deal for XenSource, launches VM solutions; Company claims it is the first to offer app delivery from end to end.
October 22, 2007... Byline: Ephraim Schwartz Citrix Systems made a slew of product announcements on Monday that leverages the 18-year-old application-delivery company's technology to make it a major player in virtualization, unified communications, regulatory...

IBM offers Jazz grants and product to universities; Research proceeds for the application lifecycle management platform, which IBM says will be free to academic institutions.
October 22, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill IBM Rational has given grants to universities to help develop the company’s Jazz platform for application lifecycle management, the company said on Monday. The company also plans to offer the first Jazz product...

Microsoft moves on F# functional language; Product of research project to be integrated with Visual Studio.
October 22, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill Microsoft plans to integrate F#, a functional programming language developed by the Microsoft Research group, into its Visual Studio application development platform, said S. "Soma" Somasegar, corporate vice president of...

EDITOR'S LETTER: Is Desktop Linux for real? A guide for Windows to Linux migration, social media blogging, and a fond farewell.(Editorial)
October 22, 2007... Byline: Steve Fox A year ago, InfoWorld wouldn't have published an article describing how to switch from Windows to desktop Linux like this one by Neil McAllister. The operating system's installation glitches hadn't been smoothed out, app...

Windows to desktop Linux in three easy steps; You like the idea of a free, lightweight OS. But isn’t installing and using Linux on a desktop painful? Not if you use this guide.
October 22, 2007... Byline: Neil McAllister Are you geek enough for Linux? Though it first earned a reputation as a platform for hobbyists and hackers, Linux has come a long way since Linus Torvalds cobbled together the first kernel as a student project....

Which Linux should I choose? We chose Ubuntu, but that doesn’t mean you have to. Here are half a dozen viable alternatives.
October 22, 2007... Byline: Neil McAllister Ubuntu is a popular choice among desktop Linux users, but it isn’t the only one. In fact, you have a dizzying array of worthwhile options. Trying them all would be a time-consuming task, but here are some...

Linux desktop applications; Worried that you won’t have enough applications to choose from when you switch to Linux on the desktop? If all you need are mainstream business apps, don’t sweat it.
October 22, 2007... Byline: Neil McAllister Linux is commonly referred to as an operating system, but in truth a Linux distribution such as Ubuntu is much more. In addition to the basic operating environment, Ubuntu ships with a variety of popular software...

Getting connected with Ubuntu; No useful desktop is an island. With Linux, network communication, file sharing, printing, and so on are easier than you think.
October 22, 2007... Byline: Neil McAllister Getting a PC running with Linux is only half the challenge, because no computer is an island. For most of us, computing in the 21st century also means communicating with the rest of the networked world. Fortunately,...

Making the most of Linux multimedia; No single Linux distribution can compete with Windows’ hardware compatibility. But you’ll find a surprising breadth of support for graphics hardware.
October 22, 2007... Byline: Neil McAllister Early Linux desktops were crude affairs, sharing more in common with scientific workstations than modern consumer PCs. But thanks to the efforts of Linux vendors, video card manufacturers, and open source...

Don’t panic! (Seven ways to troubleshoot Ubuntu); Stability is a Linux strong suit. But when things go wrong, here’s how to go about the repair work -- or get the help you need.
October 22, 2007... Byline: Neil McAllister Ubuntu strives to be suitable even for novice Linux users, but as with any operating system, problems will inevitably arise. Resolving issues with an unfamiliar OS can be daunting, but never fear. Plenty of...

Mac or Windows? Why choose? Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion let Mac lovers have their cake and run Windows too. Parallels pleases with richer tools, while Fusion is first for heavy-duty use.
October 22, 2007... Byline: Phillip J. Windley Ever since Apple made the move from PowerPC processors to processors made by Intel, the possibility of running Windows on Mac hardware has loomed large. There is, of course, the dual-boot option using Boot Camp,...

WebEx to become platform for Oracle Siebel On Demand; Channel partner will give WebEx access to 2.3 million users.
October 23, 2007... Byline: Ephraim Schwartz WebEx, a company best known for Web conferencing, announced this week that it will use its WebEx Connect desktop technology to host Oracle's Siebel CRM On Demand. Josh Greenbaum, principal at Enterprise...

City officials detail municipal wireless efforts; Anaheim, San Francisco, and Los Angeles detail their progress and impediments in setting up municipal wireless networks.
October 23, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill IT officials from three California cities detailed their experiences Monday with trying to set up municipal wireless networks, efforts that have yielded varying degrees of success. Speaking during the MuniWireless...

Microsoft gives interoperability progress report; Different organizations are focused on issues in multiple technology areas, including security, systems management, and collaboration.
October 24, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill Microsoft is offering updates Wednesday on the progress of interoperability initiatives, including the Interoperability Executive Customer Council (IEC) and the Interop Vendor Alliance (IVA). The company's...

Wireless program aims to cover Silicon Valley; Ambitious plan to build 1,500-square-mile wireless public broadband network faces many obstacles.
October 24, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill An ambitious plan to equip Silicon Valley with wireless public broadband services is proceeding with great hopes but many challenges. The Wireless Silicon Valley project was the subject of a presentation at the...

Microsoft tackles 'new world of work' at summit; Speakers cite need to change processes and innovation as the definition of 'being at work' evolves.
October 25, 2007... Byline: Paul Krill Microsoft preached its "new world of work" mantra at the company’s Global High Tech Summit 2007 conference in San Jose, Calif. on Thursday. Noting synergy between the disciplines of business and IT, the event...

ENTERPRISE INSIGHT: Total system disruption, part 2; No one anticipated the scale of the disaster wrought by San Diego County wildfires. After Katrina, shouldn’t the technology to sound the alarm have been in place?
October 25, 2007... Byline: David L. Margulius Two years ago, I wrote a column, "Katrina's total system disruption," that highlighted the complete anarchy in the wake of that storm and argued for smarter predictive modeling to better understand not just the...

Sun workstation takes Intel quad-core to the races; The Sun Ultra 24 packs CPU punch and graphics power into a mean little machine at a lean price.
October 25, 2007... Byline: Paul Venezia The workstation market isn’t what it used to be. Back in the day, the term “workstation” denoted a very (and I mean very) high-powered desktop system with a very high-powered video card. In most...

Microsoft extends software support to 10 years; Additional five years of maintenance intended to reassure enterprise software customer base.
October 26, 2007... Byline: Ephraim Schwartz Taking a page from major enterprise software providers like Oracle and SAP, Microsoft announced this week Business Ready Customer Care, an initiative that includes major enhancements to its maintenance and support...

As attacks on data rise, corporate teamwork fails; Data spills might be due to a number of technological failures, but companies are ultimately failing to improve information security and internal collaboration, experts say.
October 26, 2007... Byline: Matt Hines As the TJX Companies data leakage incident seeped its way further toward becoming the Exxon Valdez of corporate information spills this week, researchers reinforced the notion that businesses continue to make a mess of...

SECURITY ADVISER: Stopping malware that mutates on demand; New approaches to recognizing signature-evading, polymorphic viruses, worms, and bots.
October 26, 2007... Byline: Roger A. Grimes Server-side polymorphism is a challenging problem for anti-malware software vendors. Much of today’s malware, such as the Storm worm, creates tens of thousands of variants each month, a development that has...